good afternoon everybody thank you for being here today i am again joined by dr joe cantor with the louisiana department of health he'll have some information for you in just a few moments i want to start off today by acknowledging that this week is the national public health week and i've signed a proclamation recognizing all of louisiana's public health workers who have served so well and so selflessly over this past year plus now i and i would say compassionately and very effectively during this pandemic there are a lot of people who work behind the scenes you you don't see them you don't hear from them they don't get singled out for the recognition that they deserve but they've helped us every step along the way during this pandemic and i want to thank them all today i will tell you that ldh's epidemiological team has worked around the clock to contact trace to set up robust testing sites to collect data that we use to make our decisions the the public health team is integrally involved in our efforts to efficiently and equitably test in a very robust fashion i'm sorry vaccinate in a robust fashion as well so to all of our public health workers around the state louisiana thank you we are grateful for your work today this week every week today we are reporting 442 cases on 20 350 new tests unfortunately we are reporting 15 new deaths for a total of 10 200. and i was so excited when we reported four deaths on monday uh and that was the first report in four days i think because of the long weekend i'm thinking we must be getting really close there to a day when i can announce that we don't have any deaths to report however that has not been the case and again we're reporting 15 new deaths today and just want to continue to remind people those are not numbers those are not statistics those are our brothers and sisters who are no longer here with us there are 301 people across the state with cobit 19 hospitalized that is the same as yesterday 44 of those patients are on mechanical ventilators that's down by two we are eight days into the month of april and we have uh reported just shy of 150 000 tests so the the testing volume is down a little bit from where we saw it in december and january but it's still uh very significant and robust and because we still see steady or slightly declining percent positivity then we have a really good indication of what's actually happening out around the state of louisiana with respect to to covet i we are encouraged by many of the numbers that we are seeing there are reasons to remain cautious um and concerned and and they really haven't changed over the last several weeks you know while the state as a whole is is certainly doing better and the baseline numbers look good and are holding uh there are certain regions of the state still principally southwest louisiana where it remains the case i believe and i think dr cantor will comment on this later that more than half of all the suspected and confirmed cases of the uk variant the b117 variant are coming out of that region and and you don't want to make too much of that because people in all the other eight regions say well we don't have a problem no it's in all eight regions and i believe that dr wolinski the cdc director has stated over the last couple of days that the uk variant now is responsible for most new cases across the country which is causing a lot of concern so dr cantor's going to speak to some of this in just a moment but it remains the case and i and i know that this sounds like a broken record but but until the facts change the message has to stay the same the number one thing we can do right now besides continuing to wear our mask is to get vaccinated and and so we're going to continue to talk about these two things mask and vaccinate that should be our collective effort now and and going forward but this month of april is critically important for our success this is how we protect ourselves our families this is how we bring louisiana back and restore more normalcy today we are excited to announce a new vaccine hotline as part of our bring back louisiana campaign it can be used to schedule a vaccine appointment to find vaccine providers to connect with medical professionals who can answer any questions that you might have about the vaccines the hotline number is 1-855-453-074 uh the hours of operation are eight a.m eight pm monday through saturday and then noon to eight pm on sunday i'm gonna give you the number again it's one eight five five four five three zero seven seven four and at this time i'm going to ask dr cantor to come up um as usual please direct any questions you have to him while he's up here and then i'll return uh once he's done and conclude and take your questions as well good afternoon thank you governor thank you for your leadership and thank you for recognizing the public health workers that have been going non-stop for 13 months now and uh you know particularly the epidemiologists that you mentioned have just been unsung heroes working in the background but have been our eyes and ears guiding us with data showing us which we have to go so let me add my voice to the appreciation of what they've done we um we're in a position as the governor said where there's a lot of encouraging news when you look at coveted in the state louisiana but still a good reason to be to be cautious um i'll get to that just in a moment to talk a little bit about vaccines as the governor said we have two million shots in arms which is an encouraging metric for the state 28.1 percent of the state's population has initiated the vaccine series in 65 years of age and older population that's 71.1 percent 18.7 percent of louisiana has completed uh the vaccine series and the rollout continues to go well the hotline that the governor mentioned is a really important addition to the bring back the louisiana campaign i'll say that number one more time it's eight five five 855-453-0074 and it's open until 8 pm 7 days a week this is a number that anyone can call if they want help connecting to where vaccine events are or vaccine availability is around them if they need help to make an appointment if they have questions about the vaccine about the types of vaccines and about what side effects are out there or the safety this hotline can make people appointments and it can connect people to medical professionals to help answer those questions so it's a really really great resource it's a particularly good resource for anyone that has limited access to the internet and we're really really excited about that i can tell you i got word earlier today that as of noon today we had turned this hotline on today as kind of a soft launch before the formal announcement which is right now it was open and as of noon we had 10 people call in and eight people made appointments through it so it's working really really well even before this this formal announcement so i do encourage people if you have questions about the vaccine if you have questions about where you can get the vaccine close to you or if you need any type of help making an appointment to get the vaccine that hotline is the best source to go to and it's eight five five four five three zero seven seven four we review quickly the vaccine that we'll be getting in next week's allocations coming up we will be getting for pfizer a total of sixty four thousand three hundred and fifty doses that's just over 2 000 more than we got this current week the same number of modernist shots which is 47 000 these are all first doses i'm i'm saying and unfortunately the supply of johnson and johnson is going through some variability nationwide and while we got quite a lot of johnson johnson this current week next week we're only going to get 8 000 doses of johnson and johnson the white house informed us on the call this past tuesday to expect some variability in the supply of johnson johnson through the month of april and then it should stabilize and increase in the month of may johnson johnson continues to be a very popular vaccine i think a lot of people like the one and done nature and so we're certainly eager to get as much as possible all that more and more vaccine continues to come to louisiana by way of the federal retail pharmacy program which is a really good program and is growing this current week a total of one hundred and eleven thousand five hundred and forty doses of vaccine came to louisiana in addition to our state allotment through the federal pharmacy retail federal retail pharmacy program taking a step back now we are tracking very closely what we consider to be breakthrough cases so these are very very small numbers of individuals who get fully vaccinated and then do go on to have a positive case of covid you know the the framing of this is that no vaccine for any disease is a hundred percent effective 100 of circumstances and the vaccines that we have now you know in trials were extraordinarily effective you know 95 and up upwards of that but not 100 and that's that's important to recognize so our team's doing a good job of tracking these cases i can tell you as of today there have been 170 breakthrough cases which represents 0.02 percent of everyone in louisiana who has completed and become fully vaccinated and again fully vaccinated means two weeks out 14 days out from either completing the series if it's a two dose series or two weeks out from the johnson and johnson dose of those 170 cases the age range has gone from 23 up to 98 with a median of um 65 of them have been women just over half 53 were symptomatic the balance were asymptomatic um an average of 34 days elapsed from the completion of the vaccine series to when the positive test came in and 11 have been hospitalized that hospital's number represents 0.001 percent of everyone who has been fully vaccinated in the state of louisiana this is in line with what we would expect from the data we saw with the trials it's actually much better than what we would expect in the data we saw at the trials because it's such a small percentage but we'll track this closely and i'll update you regularly on is at 2.3 percent that's the lowest number we've had you know really since since the initial surge um so you know it's a very encouraging mark of of where we are hospitalizations as the governor mentioned are just the tick over 300 which is also a very good number for us so on a whole we are encouraged that we continue to make progress in driving down transmission of cover 19 and this week more than half of the parishes are in the lower two of the four risk categories that we have all of that is very encouraging that said there remains to be good reason to be cautious and i wanted to go through a couple of those reasons now first and foremost are the variants that the governor mentioned and right now particularly the b117 or the uk variant so again with the caveat that we just don't do enough genomic sequencing in this country there are 222 confirmed or suspect cases of the variant in louisiana the majority of those although not all of them are coming from the lake charles area the southwest corner of the state but they really are cornered the coroner in all the state and again it's a tip of the iceberg scenario where when you don't do a whole lot of genomic sequencing more and more is happening but not enough in the grand scheme of things when you have 222 confirmed or presumptive you know you have many many many more that are out there the cdc does random sampling of blood samples that are sent to reference labs like lab core and quest and and through that they can estimate percentages of the variance circulating the caveat on this is its data that's a few weeks old because it takes them a few weeks to process this with a few weeks lag time the cdc is now estimating that 13.4 of all the covid in louisiana is the b117 or the uk variant i'm going to compare that to some other numbers 13.4 the u.s number is 27.2 florida is at 34.5 percent texas is at 25.2 we're doing much better both nationally and compared to big players in the region in terms of that variant and i think you can see that show with how well transmission has been reduced but that's not a guarantee that's going to stay that way in fact quite the opposite our numbers are going up because last week we were 3.5 and now we're 13.4 percent and it's going to continue to go up and as the governor mentioned dr wolenski the director of the cdc said that on preliminary data the u.s number is actually now above 50 so this is going to continue to go up and go up and go up there are two things that we can do to protect ourselves from this variant causing another surge listen we already know the variant is more transmissible we know it's more virulent which means it's more likely to put people in the hospital there are two things that we can do to protect ourselves from another surge one is to do more mitigation measures which we've been doing for 13 months and i don't think anyone is keen to do more of to be frank the other is increased vaccinations would much rather do the latter i'm following closely what's happening in the state of michigan right now michigan is going through a very very big very big increase they're about having as many cases day on day as they did in their december surge which is concerning and we're now hearing stories out of michigan that hospitals are getting very close to capacity michigan percentage of the variant is 39 percent and that's a couple weeks old data it's surely higher now what really gives me concern is that michigan actually is doing a little bit more vaccinations than we are in louisiana they have 32 percent of their state's population have initiated the vaccine series so that tells me that well we have a good base of vaccination coverage in louisiana and that that base is not insignificant i mean 28.1 percent initiate is not insignificant it's not herd immunity it's not 100 protective and look what's happening in michigan as evidence of that so we are fortunate now in that louisiana does not have as much of the variant as the u.s does and as some of these other states do even our own region we're fortunate we have to capitalize on that and we have everything going in our direction now transmission has been reduced in louisiana we don't have as much variant as the rest of the country does and the weather's been absolutely gorgeous so we can spend time outside all of those are in our favor and will be for the next few weeks we have to capitalize on that and that means increasing vaccination i'll leave you with this don't wait until you get sick with covet by that point it's too late you've already gotten sick get vaccinated before that take the opportunity get vaccinated if you've already been vaccinated again i'm going to encourage you to reach out to your friends family and co-workers share your experience share facts tell them what it was like and encourage them to get vaccinated too that's going to be the best protection we're going to have to prevent against a possible surge as a number of other states are experiencing them now positively i'd be happy to answer any questions if there are any yes sir talk about how the demand for vaccines compares with the supply we have and i know the department put out a memo a few weeks ago asking providers to notify the state if they had extras doses left over at the end of the week how many doses are you guys seeing moved around and redistributed you know on a weekly basis not not not a ton i don't have the number of my hand but but providers done a really good job of using the vaccine that has been sent to them you know we communicate with providers on both ends of how much they're going to receive in a week and providers will say oh i can use more we'll give try and find more or i have enough i'll take less so that communication has gone well you know look there's no question i i am eager to see more vaccinations there's absolutely we were supply limited you know really up until let's say you know maybe a week or two ago in that what we were getting from the federal government was was very very limited and we're moving it out quite quickly looking forward the amount that we're going to be receiving is going to continue to increase and not only on our state allocation but also what we're getting through these ancillary pathways like the federal retail pharmacy program and also the fqhc program which which i didn't mention we're going to continue to get more more and more doses and we're going to move into a less supply limited situation which just means that we need to be doing more work on ourselves to increase people's comfort with the vaccine reach people where they are create the opportunities for people to have questions and increase access that really is what the bring back louisiana campaign is all about that's why we're putting a hotline out there you know as we go forward it's not going to be an issue of having supply that limits us it's going to be an issue of how well we're reaching people in the state and how comfortable people in the state feel yes with those breakthrough cases the 170 referenced a minute ago are y'all seeing more of those cases with a certain one of the three vaccines or is it kind of spread out evenly or are you tracking which vaccine those cases those people with cases got it's fair it's fairly across the board and you know presumably there are people that are asymptomatic and and would be a breakthrough case that we don't know about some of the asymptomatics were identified through routine screening like in a concrete facility or so but it's pretty spread across the board on that yeah okay yep and i'm sorry i haven't been here for several weeks so maybe you've answered this dr karen but what what is the department of health looking at to see what hesitancy there is in terms of getting the vaccine so like are you guys doing your own poll are you looking at an outside poll are you talking to providers like can you how are you guys gauging that through a number of avenues and it's been a lot of good work on it there's a good partnership with the louisiana public health institute they ran focus groups and did some specific investigations and and polling on this and we certainly pay attention to the other polls that are out there which which i'm sure you've seen when we talk to people consistently i'll tell you what we don't hear is people saying i don't want it never you know we we don't see people let's say refusing it what we see is people with a lot of questions understandable questions and let's face it some parts of covet have been very confusing people with a lot of understandable questions that really tells us that there's an opportunity to create conversations in there what we have found is when people learn that for example why did the vaccines get developed so quickly when they learned that it's really not because any corners were cut but because red tape and bureaucracy was cut with the approval process we find that that builds confidence when people hear from friends and family who have gotten the vaccine and hear their experience we find that that builds confidence and most of all when people hear from their own medical provider that builds confidence as well to that end we're really working hard now to let smaller and smaller medical practices receive vaccine and stock it people's own medical providers continue to be a really really trusted source and that's going to be an effort going forward thank you thank you dr cantor and appreciate your work and i know the hours that you put in in addition to the other job that you have as an emergency room physician and the people of louisiana have been extraordinarily well served by your efforts and i and i appreciate it um before i take your questions whether they relate to cobit or something else we want to spend just a minute on the legislative session that's going to start uh 2021 i'm sorry next week for the 2021 session i know that you've already seen the executive budget proposal that we put forward it's a obviously a balanced budget that focuses on education primarily i continue to believe education is a great equalizer and it is what affords more and more louisianans opportunities for success and it's what's going to transform families and communities and trying to make sure that that we have stable funding there and and pay our teachers better and and so forth incredibly important trying to make sure that we appropriately spend the funds that we're going to receive for the from the american rescue plan focus that one-time money on one-time expenditures such as infrastructure debt relief replenishing the unemployment insurance trust fund and so forth and it's a fiscal session and so tax reform is being discussed and it should be and i'm certainly in favor of things that constitute real reform i have previously supported 15 out of 16 recommendations that came from the task force created by the legislature continue to support the ideas that were put forth there i would just caution everyone that the package as a whole needs to be revenue neutral for several reasons one of which is we already have one of the five lowest combined state and local tax burdens in the country secondly we know that in 2025 we're scheduled to lose the 0.45 cents of sales tax that's 500 million dollars a year in general fund that will be gone and what we can't do right now is create another a structural budget deficit a fiscal cliff if you will much like was done previously and that's the situation that we inherited in 2016 with a 2 billion budget deficit and on top of that the american rescue plan has provision in it that says you can't use those dollars to make up for revenue that you lost because you decided to cut taxes and so for for all of those reasons we we need to be revenue neutral i'm heartened by the fact that legislative leadership and and for the most part the authors of the various bills are also talking about revenue uh neutrality um and you know i think it would be tempting to say well we've got this money coming from the american rescue plan so we can afford to do some other things and destabilize our budget well that wouldn't make any sense because as i mentioned before one-time money needs to go to one-time expenditures secondly that's exactly what happened after katrina during the katrina recovery and we should never make the same mistake especially one that we're just now starting to overcome so we've got a lot of moving parts in this session that are coming up as it relates to the budget the the rescue plan dollars and and as of yet by the way we don't have any final numbers on exactly how much the state's getting how much each local political subdivision what the rules are going to be around the expenditure of those funds and the funds are supposed to be available 60 days after the act was signed into law we're about halfway along and so those those rules and numbers could come any day now certainly we want to make sure that we're preparing so that we can take care of this business during this two-month session it absolutely should not be necessary to have a special session in order to deal with this i am committed to more pay for k-12 teachers and support staff that's that's in the budget proposal that i have put forward i'm also committed to the first faculty pay raise that's been in the executive budget proposal in 15 years i think that that's that's very important to fully fund the tops program and then to also better fund go grants need based aid for higher education is also important and then just generally stabilizing budgets for higher education institutions rec will likely meet again before the appropriations committee in the house or the finance committee in the senate takes up the appropriations bill i think there's a chance they will recognize more general fund revenue and if so i want to make sure that we use as much of that as we can to increase teacher pay even further within reason and then look at additional investments in early childhood education i've been meeting with legislators earlier this morning we released the legislative agenda that you probably have had a chance to to look at i believe that that uh that we ought to pursue bipartisanship to the maximum extent possible we ought to be seeking fairness and opportunity for everybody in louisiana which means that i'm going to support bills to help fix louisiana's gender pay gap which remains among the very worst in the country i want to support efforts to end discrimination and setting of auto insurance rates where premiums are based on things having nothing to do with an individual's driving record i support mandatory reporting for title ix violations related to sexual assault and sexual harassment by higher education mandatory reporters i support legislation by senator cleo fields on mandatory kindergarten a bill by ted james in the house of representatives on reforming how law enforcement officers are disciplined and also things like creating a statewide coordinator for the americans with disabilities act to make sure that disabled louisianans can visit but also work in state government and in local government as well um creating the office of human trafficking prevention and putting that in the governor's office to better focus our efforts on that which continues to be a serious issue here and around the country and indeed around the world so so the the theme here is fire fair access to opportunity in louisiana and that certainly includes increasing the minimum wage seven dollars in the quarter it has been since 2009 um unlike previous years i'm not going to lend my support to a single bill i support all of them whichever one the legislature wants to embrace and pass to increase the minimum wage i'm for it put it on my desk i'll sign it into law it is we are way overdue and by the way the overwhelming majority of people in louisiana support this and the idea that someone would work full time for a wage that doesn't meet their most essential needs is just so backwards and it's something that can be so easily addressed and we really shouldn't wait on congress to do it one more thing before i go into questions um i don't have to tell you all and people across the state that covet has made things different for the last 13 months this is going to continue for some period of time although we are experiencing more normalcy over time this month is going to be a critical in our overall efforts to get to a place where we're not going to be subject to a surge causing an awful lot of people to to be sick enough to go to the hospital and to die and and so forth but there were some things that won't be fully back to normal the legislative session will start on monday but i will not be addressing a joint session in the house chamber because that would violate the cdc rules on gatherings and putting that many people in such a tight spot so we're not going to do that instead i've consulted with president cortez of the senate and speaker sex schneider of the house and i'm going to give my speech monday evening right around 6 pm at aw mumford stadium on the campus of southern university here in baton rouge we will be inviting legislators other special guests and media partners and so forth this way everybody can be safe while we give the state of the state address should it rain we do have a backed up site there on southern's campus i'm actually excited to get back to southern's campus and they've been working very hard on cobia testing but also now on vaccines as well and they make their campus available for vaccination efforts for the entire community and i appreciate that i also look forward to being back in in the stadium when it's full of fans cheering on the jaguars for a football game and then maybe in 2022 we'll get back to a fully normal legislative session but until then we have to focus on getting past this pandemic and so i encourage people to keep wearing your mask distance and of course get your vaccination as soon as you can in case i forget in addition to the state of the state on monday evening our next press conference is scheduled for a week from today so with that i'll be happy to take some questions seeing none i'll go home yes sir governor in light of what's happening at lsu right now the committee on women and children met this morning some of the lawmakers on the committee some of the lsu students both expressed frustration there were no firings or terminations after what happened do you think there should have been well i think there should have been um but if you look at the report the hush blackwell report i don't think there's any doubt the most egregious behavior were by those who are no longer at lsu and haven't been in some years and so you know in terms of whether i believe that people who are currently at lsu need to be fired based on the information that's been made available in that report i accepted the um measures that were dispensed by the lsu president as being within the reasonable range and um you know so i'm going to leave it there obviously if new information is developed and determined to be true that casts current employees of lsu in a bad light to the point that they should be terminated then that's that's subject to change but but i don't think there's any doubt people involved and everything that's been reported at lsu needed to be fired but that should have happened going back to 2013 and 14 and 15 and so forth uh and and i accept is reasonable what lsu has done with respect to those people who are still at lsu based on that report uh hush black will report yes sir governor questions for you obviously lawmakers were downstairs today with another hearing obviously lsu officials a slew of them were asked to testify that did not show up do you believe lawmakers need to hear and then deserve to hear from lsu officials like kocho and scott woodward who ultimately did not show up at some point that's my first question on title ix and then kind of going off of that first question obviously in that hush blackwell report the two people that were punished virg osberry and miriam seeger were suspended but in that report osberry is painted as being told directly about drake davis um i guess engaging in domestic violence and and not reporting it as he should do you believe ver josberry should still be employed at lsu do you believe he's a good representative for the state's flagship university yeah and so i'm gonna i'm gonna refer you to the answer i gave in the previous question because i think it addresses your question um and and i think it's it's the case because in light of the institutional failures and the failures of leadership above mr alsberry for example and and i think i accept that he didn't properly report but there's reason to believe he reported the way he was told to by his supervisor by by the person that he worked for um and so in that light in the grand scheme of things do you terminate mr osbery and the president of lsu indicated to me that he didn't think that that was warranted um in light of the hush blackwell report i accept that um and then you know as a lawyer you i would have objected to your compound question because now i'm going to have to try to remember what that what that question was yeah i think it would be very helpful and instructive to hear from them um for example though i want to say that that the athletic director was there at a previous hearing up until about seven o'clock at night they didn't get to him and what happened is i understand it between then and now is a lawsuit has been filed and that does change whether lsu and institution ought to be offering people up to give testimony on the record in light of the litigation that is now pending so i don't i don't believe it's fair to say that people at lsu were unwilling to come forward and to speak but this intervening act with this with this litigation being filed i do think changes some things and i'm just i haven't had the benefit of being able to watch those hearings because i've been doing other things or to have a conversation with the folks at lsu about this but i do know from my memory the athletic director was whether it was last week or the week before i really don't remember there to testify up until about seven o'clock at night and was not called to testify before the meeting adjourned but but i want members of the legislature and i want members of the public to have as much information as possible directly from those who are involved and but but whether that's even now possible with the pending litigation i'm just not sure yes sir can you help us understand what you're playing as the governor to help right the ship at lsu amid this scandal yeah well i was able to receive the hush blackwell report i think a day or two in advance of when it was made public i was able to read it meet with the president and the the chairman of the board and just tell them that it was absolutely essential that that port report be made public as soon as it possibly could it was told them it's absolutely essential that every single recommendation hush blackwell made and i think it was 17 or 18 of them be fully embraced and implemented by lsu just as soon as possible and that too is going to happen i tell them to make sure that there is no way and this is this is the message i hope people will get both in louisiana and around the country the days of protecting an institution are gone there is no protecting institution of higher education at the expense of those that you're supposed to be educating so the safety and well-being of students and student athletes and the knowledge that they have that they're going to be safe and that their parents have that they're going to be safe is critically important and you there is no advancing an institutional agenda that that in any way compromises that so full transparency taking uh the appropriate action with whatever information comes forward is absolutely important and and that should be what lsu is is about um and and so that's that's the role that i have played thus far that's the standard that that i will hold lsu too and and by the way you know we're talking about lsu and we should because that's the report and that's what the committee is focusing on right now but i've also met with every system president of all of our higher education systems to make sure that they are taking advantage of this opportunity to see what those recommendations were with respect to lsu and how it strengthens its leadership and the reporting requirements and the policies and making sure they're complying with the law and with title nine and and make sure that they are advancing all of those recommendations if in fact they don't have them in place already too because as governor i i don't want to focus on lsu to the point where we're not looking at any other institutions and i don't have any information to tell you that there are cases at these other institutions but but they're going to be just as unacceptable there as they have been at lsu as well yes sir uh for the mandatory kindergarten bill um just looked up the fiscal note 2 million to 12 million is the projected cost is that is there enough revenue in the current projection to pay for that or is that something else where you would need to yeah it's a great question and so right now most people think elementary secondary education you say k through 12 and you just kind of assume k is mandatory well it's not but we believe it's only about 2 000 kids who are not in kindergarten and the bill is going to allow them to satisfy this by enrolling either in public school private school or parochial or home school so not all of these kids not all of the 2000 or so are going to end up enrolling in a public school and requiring mfp dollars if all 2000 or however many are out there do we will be able to absorb that and the truth is when you look at the mfp it always fluctuates and and we count in september we count again in february i believe there are always fluctuations that are greater than the amount of kids that we're talking about so so and then what's the cost of not having kids in kindergarten that that has to be looked at too so we're we're committed to it it's the right policy um and will it cost a little bit more in the mfp yeah but it's an investment that's well worth it and and easy to absorb in a system as large as we have uh in k through 12 education in louisiana yes ma'am so i think back to lsu some of the women makers today many of them said that they did want someone fired um and i'm curious about why you think you are not necessarily on the same page with them i would be interested to know who they want fired and for what reason and whether it's something that was in the blackwell report or something that may be circulating in the news media i mean i don't know how to answer the question based on the way you presented the question i'm sorry have you heard from anyone at lsu that they may be considering firing anyone based on new information that's come out this week or new allegations have i heard from anyone at lsu yeah has anyone told you that they might be thinking i have new information that comes out has to be verified to some degree it has to be investigated corroborated or whatever and and quite frankly if something comes out in the newspaper this week or maybe even in the um in the lawsuit i wouldn't expect lsu to be in a position right away to know whether they accept it is true or not and and have changed their their decision-making yes sir on that note today we heard criticism of the hush black wall report that it only delved into issues that had previously been reported or at the time of the report and the investigation had only been reported in the media to that point since then we've seen new information emerge through committee testimony and additional media reports about incidents that occurred with many of the current players and and coaches at lsu does there need to be additional investigation and furthermore there have been some calls to involve the legislative auditor does there need to be further investigation and what role would the state if any play in that investigation i'm not sure that and it may be fair i'm not sure that it's fair to say that the only thing dealt with in the hush blackwell report were things that had previously been in the media because towards the end of the report if memory serves me at least i read about some things that i don't remember ever seeing in the media whether all of the hearings and the information that's coming forth whether it's in litigation or whether it's with with individuals testifying or in media if that sheds light on things that that weren't previously known or taken up by that report then it then it certainly may uh warrant a new investigation whether it's by a firm like hush blackwell or some other uh firm i'm not sure i mean that that that may be warranted i don't know right now based on on the information that i have whether it is but this is what i i can tell you my expectation is that the folks at lsu if in fact that's the case that they will be commissioning whatever investigation is warranted again i don't think that anything other than full transparency solves the the problems that are going on and gets us past them and and the student safety is number one priority that i have and i have been assured by the folks at lsu that also is theirs and they want those students and those students parents to be absolutely confident of that um and and there's no doubt that all of the things that that were contained in the report the things that are being discussed in committee none of those things can make you feel really good about the way things have been going on at lsu going back to i think it's back to 2013 or among the earliest uh dates there the question now is what what do they do now um and and that's i think the most important thing um and and full transparency and making sure that they understand uh that nobody is beyond reach we don't have people anywhere in louisiana who are irreplaceable nobody is untouchable so wherever the facts lead that's that's where they need to go look thank you all very much again we'll see you monday night hopefully and then this next press conference will be on thursday of next week back here in the press room thank you all