good afternoon y'all and thank you for being here today um i'm joined as usual by dr joe cantor with the louisiana department of health and he will be speaking to you in a few minutes i want to start my briefing today not with cobed but with an update on the legislative session and something i believe to be very important and timely and that is sexual small assault domestic violence and harassment on college campuses this morning house bill 409 by representative amy freeman was passed out of the house education committee the bill is part of my legislative package and it creates a framework to make sure that title ix reporting and accountability happens it happens properly it happens timely and with severe repercussions when it doesn't happen absent a compelling reason yesterday senate bill 230 by senator beth meisel but also senate bill 232 by regina barrow senator barrow were passed out of senate education committee i'm supportive of all three of these efforts which uh working in concert to address this problem on our college campuses in louisiana and you've heard me say before that when women succeed louisiana succeeds and it's also true as is being made clear now that when women lead louisiana succeeds the women legislators here have set an example of how to confront an issue listen to powerful but difficult testimony from those most affected and find ways to address weaknesses in the system through the legislation that they consider and pass and so i did want to take just a moment and let the senate select committee on women and children know that i and the state louisiana appreciates their work on this issue and i know that they're going to continue to call people to the table to answer questions and to be accountable and it's essential and i've said this many times that our students feel safe and be safe on our campuses and that the parents of those students know that they will be safe there is not much opportunity to be gained through higher education absent basic safety and well-being so it's incredibly important that that we finish this work that's before us but also make sure that that we always are mindful of how important it is to continue to monitor the situation hold people to account and make sure we know what is going on and then i want to thank the many survivors and college students who have been willing to test about testify about their painful experiences to inform policymakers firsthand of their experiences with sexual assault and domestic violence and sexual harassment and then the the lack of proper handling of these instances in far too many cases by colleges and universities and you know they've been stronger they than they should have to be and i just wanted to express my appreciation and thanks i'm also pleased that the senate education committee approved senate bill 10 by senator cleo fields which makes kindergarten mandatory in louisiana for children who turn five years old this too is a legislative part of my legislative package and in the course that can be accomplished through private school parochial school public school and homeschooling just like first through 12th is now but i think we can all agree that education is the foundation for success and ensuring that all of our children are given the necessary building blocks as early as possible to set them up for success and they can live up to their god-given uh potential and and i think opportunity and prosperity hinge on education so this is very important now transitioning to covet i'll give you the daily report we're reporting today 615 new cases on 22 705 tests unfortunately are also reporting eight new deaths for a total of ten thousand three hundred and twenty four deaths uh since the start of the pandemic due to covid 19. uh 334 individuals are hospitalized across the state of louisiana that's down two from yesterday 41 of those individuals were on mechanical ventilators and that's down one as of today one and a half million louisianans have initiated their vaccines and over 1 million have completed their vaccine series and we've administered right at 2 and a half million doses of vaccine in the aggregate you're going to get more information about the vaccine and so forth from dr canner in just a moment we are starting to see an increase in vaccinations at the new community vaccine vaccine site in baton rouge but i will be the very first to tell you the demand at that site is not what we need it to be not what we hoped it would be and we're working very hard with the city of baton rouge to try to make sure that more louisianans take advantage of this opportunity we estimate that about 25 percent of the residents of east baton rouge have been vaccinated certainly that's progress but we need that number to increase just like we needed to increase all over the state quite frankly and this site is an easy and great opportunity for those who live in and around baton rouge to get vaccinated the community vaccination site at the bone crate business center on florida boulevard is convenient it's open to the public and i encourage everyone to take full opportunity i'm sorry full advantage of this opportunity to receive the vaccine which is pfizer in case there are questions about that we are asking for the media's continued help in reminding people that it's here that it's open the hours of operation are designed intentionally to be convenient whether you work or not and if you work what time of the day you work so the hours of operation are 8 am to 6 pm on tuesdays thursdays and fridays on wednesday and saturday the site is open from 10 a.m to 8 p.m and on sundays it's open from 10 a.m to 6 p.m if transportation is an issue we've got that covered for you too if you need a ride to the location anyone can get a free ride to the site using uber uh and the uber code is one zero mvbrla you know with respect to vaccinations generally speaking we continue to be in a race against time just like the rest of the country just like the rest of the world variants of the virus are highly transmissible they are spreading across the country in the state dr cantor is going to get more into this in just a moment and just when we need it most we are going to start seeing and you are going to start seeing i bring back louisiana campaign ramp up and become even more robust going forward i can tell you that pilots are happening in all nine public health regions starting this weekend this is the schedule of events that i've put up and the information is too much for me to go through but this slide will be available uh to uh you and the press so that we can make sure that individuals are aware of their opportunities over the weekend with respect to these initiatives we are trying very hard to meet people where they are and this is especially important once you get to a point where the demand no longer exceeds supply and that's where we are we want to make it as easy as convenient as it can possibly be for people to be vaccinated and last week community partners and locked on several thousand doors handed out thousands of door hangers and flyers made thousands of phone calls and sent uh texts and and so forth this monday uh there will be about 105 000 pieces of direct mail that gets sent out to make sure that people are aware of the opportunity to be vaccinated and the fact that they should be vaccinated you can follow the campaign on social media the handle is at sleeves up la at sleeves up la we have a covid vaccine hotline you all know that that number is one eight five five four five three seven and we'll give you that number again it's one eight five five four five three zero seven seven four they've already been uh close to two thousand calls uh to the hotline more than 600 appointments for vaccines have been scheduled this line can be used to schedule an appointment but also to be connected to a medical professional who can answer any questions you might have about the vaccines and i'm going to encourage people that when you decide to avail yourself for the vaccines and to be vaccinated to make sure that you are encouraging other members of your family your community your neighbors people you go to church with work with whatever to be vaccinated as well because we don't get through this pandemic until a certain number of people and a certain percentage of folks uh are vaccinated the sooner we get there uh the better and as we transition uh to that point there will be a greater and greater return to normalcy and we will greatly reduce the likelihood of another surge like we had coming out of the christmas break as you all can remember when well over 2 000 people were in our hospital at one time when we had daily death counts it sometimes exceeded a hundred we don't want to go back there and we want to make sure that we are making progress so i encourage everyone to be vaccinated i am also mindful that for people who for whatever reason are hesitant my voice is not necessarily the one that's going to convince them so i encourage them to reach out to their doctor get their questions answered and and develop confidence that i believe you should have in in the vaccine uh and get vaccinated at this time i'm going to ask dr canner to come up and then i'll come back when he's done to wrap up and take your questions as i always do please uh try to address your questions that you have to dr kenner while he's up here and then then i'll come back up in just a minute good afternoon thank you governor thank you for your leadership appreciate everyone being here um as the governor uh alluded to not just us but across the country and across the world there's a particular urgency with the vaccine efforts right now with with the variants and you can look across the country and the northeast and michigan a couple other states are really experiencing that and we should feel it too i think we should feel urgency in availing ourselves of the vaccines particularly because we have decent supply now and that really is a gift um i'm going to come back to that point in a second after i give a couple couple updates um the vaccine rollout continues to go well i can tell you that as of today we have initiated the vaccine and 31.4 percent of all louisianans is about 1.45 million people we've initiated the vaccine in about 41 percent of people 18 years of age and older and about 73 74 of people 65 years of age and older and we've completed the vaccine series in almost 25 almost a quarter of the population of louisiana those are really really encouraging these are really encouraging numbers a lot of hard work went into them but still we have a long way to go and um you know we are um you know it's clear that we're entering another phase of the vaccine rollout and it's not just louisiana really most of the country is in this bucket as well and it's going to be a more challenging phase you know in the beginning right in the beginning the vaccine rollout we were so limited in supply and we were really triaging vaccine to the people who were most at risk of complications or exposure elderly people nursing home residents healthcare workers and so forth we then went into a second phase where eligibility was able to be opened up as more supply came in and there was a rush of people to get vaccinated who were really eager and excited to do so and that was encouraging we're going into another phase now where we need to be targeting louisianans who have been waiting and seeing what's what's going to happen they might have questions they might intend to get vaccinated just don't happen to feel that urgency at this moment they need to have conversations and talk to family and friends and and find time to do it that's the target that we need to be reaching out to right now and again it's really a lot of the country it's been noted that this past week vaccinations in the u.s as a whole went down 11 from the week prior so i think a lot of states are entering this this phase now it's going to be a harder phase it's going to be a more challenging phase for us it's going to be more work it's going to be more deliberate but this is what we have to do we need to be reaching individuals to engage in conversation get questions answered and help people get connected to vaccine events that's that's really where the opportunity is right now that is what the bring back louisiana campaign really is all about it's about going to meet people where they are going into neighborhoods brokering the conversations getting people connected with experts information appointments ultimately shots and arms very encouraged that there's going to be vaccine events happening in all nine regions of the state this weekend there's been thousands of doors knocked on in baton rouge already as part of the campaign to promote the site at the bonnecari center and that's going to increase throughout the state that's going to be where the opportunity is going forward is reaching people directly and on behalf of the department of health we are doing everything that we can think to do towards that end and are asking for suggestions to go beyond that really the goal here is to reach people who are going to get vaccinated at some point and that's a wide swath of the population and to encourage them to do so now because as the governor alluded to there is this urgency with the variant so we have an opportunity now to prevent what could be another surge in cases if we increase vaccinations and that's absolutely what we have to do some other encouraging news we make have continued to make good progress addressing racial disparities in vaccine administrations in louisiana this has been the result of really concerted efforts in neighborhood-based outreach i can tell you that as of today um 28 of all the vaccine administered in louisiana has been administered in uh black louisianans black women's dance account somewhere between 32 and 33 percent of the population of louisiana and that number that 28 has been steadily increasing each and every week since we started counting it which is encouraging and really the result of hard work if you look at the national numbers we're actually ahead of the nation right now in terms of addressing this particular disparity getting people vaccinated by a virtue of what percentage that would be predicted and that really is as a result of the hard work we also have some of the best data in the country behind this and when the cdc puts out numbers on racial demographics of vaccine administrations they only have data on 55 of every dose administered in the country in louisiana we have data on 91 of doses administered and that's a direct result of some incredible work done by the office of public health so we have quality near complete data that we're looking at and the progress shows because we've been making improvements and that disparity each and every week and i think we'll continue to do so i also want to mention there's been another study relating to pregnant women and vaccine safety that was released just two days ago that is impactful and adds to the now um really wide body of evidence that supports vaccine safety in in pregnant women and women of childbirth and age this was published in the new england journal of medicine again two days ago it looked at 35 000 pregnant women who received either the pfizer or the madarina vaccine either during or up to 30 days prior to becoming pregnant and showed that there was no difference in side effects from the vaccine or pregnancy-related measures such as miscarriages and other pregnancy complications because of the vaccine really a significant piece of data adding to the evidence that is amassed showing that these vaccines are not only safe in women who are pregnant but highly efficacious and protecting them from the complications of kobe we know that kovid is um can be detrimental to our pregnancy it increases maternal mortality and increases the chance of miscarriage and preterm labor we know that and now there's even more evidence showing that um that the vaccines are safe in this regard i can tell you i'm not i'm not just saying this i've shared before with with with folks that my wife and i are expecting and my wife is now fully vaccinated she got vaccinated during the pregnancy and we're very proud of that and during the state of the state of speech the governor spoke about a physician and obstetrician by the name of dr jane martin who also not only is an expert in maternal fetal medicine but herself got vaccinated during her own pregnancy if you talk to obstetricians and maternal fetal specialists they will tell you that by and large getting vaccinated for women of childbearing age or currently pregnant is the advisable thing to do protects them and we now know it also confers protection to the baby both in utero and via breast milk afterwards so a lot of protection and every day now more data showing that it really is a safe and advisable practice we are seeing some breakthrough cases and again these are cases of diagnose covid an individual who's 14 or more days out from completing their vaccine series nationwide there's about 5 800 or so cases in louisiana we've identified 367 cases and the way to frame this is no vaccine is 100 percent effective 100 of circumstances of course not and even the pfizer and the moderna which are 94 95 efficacious are those are incredible numbers but not 100 and this is what we see with vaccinations this is why herd immunity getting everyone else vaccinated is so important because it just reduces the transmission and reduces the risk of those 367 cases 65 percent in louisiana are women 50 percent are individuals who are symptomatic with kobe the balance being individuals who were asymptomatic the coven and of those 367 which which i'll say represent 0.03 of everyone fully vaccinated in louisiana of those 367 21 have been hospitalized which represents 0.002 percent of everyone in louisiana who has been fully vaccinated so i think those numbers are to be expected but they are important to track and again as the governor has said getting vaccinated yourself is not enough we really need you to become an ambassador and and get those around you get those in your life vaccinated as well and tracking these breakthrough cases i think illustrates that let me talk a little bit about what the virus is doing and we do have some concerns now and i'll i'll share some data that reflects um the beginnings of potential rebound of of cases throughout the state percent positivity as of yesterday is now 3.5 percent in the state that's up from 2.5 or 2.6 we now have increases in incidence which is the number of new cases diagnosed as on the state as a whole and also in seven of nine regions and percent positivity has increased in eight of nine regions we now have exactly half of the parishes in louisiana are in the top two risk categories for community transmission the highest and the high category exactly half the parishes are there and that's up from the week prior so this is likely due to the variant i can tell you right now of all the covid circulating in louisiana 33.3 percent is the uk or the b117 variant while that is less than the u.s average of 44.1 percent and also less of some of our larger neighbors for example texas is at 44.7 percent and florida is at 54.6 percent it still is significant and it's driving transmission so people have every reason number one to be careful and vigilant and number two if they have not done so yet to get vaccinated getting vaccinated is the single best way to protect against this variant and to protect the state against another surge the single best thing to do is to get vaccinated we do not yet have any identified cases of the south african or the b-1357 variant in the u.s 0.7 percent of all covid is attributed to it all states in our region do have that particular variant except for us in arkansas we likewise do not have any identified cases of the p1 or brazilian variant in the u.s this variant is accounting for 1.5 percent of all covert being transmitted and it also is in every state in our region except for us and alabama we track these closely i will let you know if any of that changes if we identify those those type of variants in louisiana taking a step back um really you it's it's um it is concerning to see the beginnings of rebound in covid but what is reassuring is is we have a tool that we did not have the last time we had this conversation and and that is the vaccine it truly is a gift we have thankfully enough supply for anyone that wants it in louisiana right now it's our opportunity and our responsibility to use that and i'll remind folks that it's it's not just about protecting yourself although it certainly does that and the more that we learn about long-term complications of covid long haulers for example it's a poorly understood area now but there's more and more accounts coming of what the long-term effects of kobe can be i encourage people to recognize that even if they think they themselves are low risk for serious outcomes of code if they're on the younger side if they're relatively healthy they're still at risk for these more indolent long-term symptoms that are being described down that's one half of it the other half of it is your family your friends and your co-workers and the best thing that you can do to protect them to make a safer environment for your family for your co-workers for your business is to encourage everyone around you to get vaccinated again it's our opportunity and i think it's our responsibility and that's going to be continues to be where we're going to put concerted effort going forward is reaching people as the governor said where they're at and encouraging vaccinations in any and all settings possible i'll be happy to answer any questions through our name melinda um can you talk a little bit about the johnson and johnson vaccine and whether the temporary pause on that vaccine has somehow contributed to vaccine hesitancy or just the fact of not having a single dose vaccine has made it harder to get to some communities i think the latter is is more accurate the the question is um what the effect of johnson johnson is vaccine confidence versus just the logistics of not having the one one and done vaccine available it was a very popular vaccine in fact much more popular than i think some people worried it might have been because the men the data on the trials was a little bit more nuanced but it's a highly efficacious very safe vaccine and i think that's what's going to be confirmed at the advisory committee on the immunization practices meeting tomorrow the cdc committee is meeting tomorrow they're widely expected to render a decision on what they think is the best course forward we don't believe that there's been a significant increase in reports of what's called is vaccine-induced thrombocytic thrombosis or these accounts of these serious blood clots in the setting of low platelets which is a very rare thing we have had none reported in louisiana we got word that there are a handful additional reports across the country but not not a ton and i think the the committee is likely to to to render a decision that paints a pathway forward for johnston johnson in my mind this process that this two week it would have been two week pause essentially of the johnson johnson was unfortunate because a lot of people wanted that vaccine here but ultimately reassuring if anyone has harbors questions about transparency of the fda and the cdc how serious these federal agencies take safety the evidence is right here it only took six cases to to to cause a pause you know to say put positiveness and furthermore the the fact that the fda and the cdc were able to recognize six cases of this incredibly rare disease and act so quickly is incredible it's it would not have been possible 20 years ago it really gives a lot of confidence in the process the process is working for the public the way that it should so i think that's going to be recognized whenever johnson johnson gets put back into circulation i do think there's going to continue to be a lot of demand for it and i think it's going to be useful because the logistics of it having a single dose that does not require arduous cold chain storage is going to make it easier to get people in various locations so i'm looking forward to that i am i neglected to mention earlier in my in my comments how much vaccine we're going to get next week so i do want to mention that our allocations on the state allocations are exactly flat from this current week so we'll be receiving sixty nine thousand thirty doses of pfizer fifty thousand seven hundred doses of moderna for a total of a hundred nineteen thousand seven hundred and thirty doses an additional sixty 000 doses will be made available through the federal retail pharmacy program coming in those are those are those are first doses they're followed by second doses those are all first doses yes sir when um last restrictions were loosened um do you think it's fair to say that those loosening of restrictions didn't have a significant impact on infections or is it still too early to say or what do you what impact do you think that had i think that's that's that's fair to say i think i think increases now really um are likely attributable to to the varian i think that's fair yes sir we're seeing now things like shots for shots happening here in baton rouge for like to target that younger demographic to get vaccinated how much of an emphasis is the department of health along with the governor putting on to get younger folks vaccinated here now yeah that's a great point a lot a lot of emphasis and more emphasis going forward again part of this bring back louisiana campaign is is doing smaller and smaller events more targeted more grassroots and i think that's where the gains are going to be made a lot i mean i think um you know in this in this new phase where we're really targeting people that um have questions or or um want to get vaccinated just don't feel that urgency right now that's exactly where we have an opportunity to do so there's the event in new orleans i think was highly successful i think there'll be more and more creative events and you know i'll just put the call out there now that we have a lot of supply anyone in the state that has an idea or wants to do a vaccine event that they think is novel that they think is going to get interest or be exciting and be able to reach people that haven't been reached we would love to hear that and we would love to partner with that yep is there any concern about now that we're moving to the point of having a supply of vaccine that we're hanging on to is there any concern about storing it and having enough capacity to to hang on to it for longer periods of time not particularly i mean we we keep track on on those type of things typically this vaccine when it remains in cold storage can can last for for for a decent amount of time and you know we not obligated to draw down vaccine um until we think we have a need to do so have stopped drawing down supplies of vaccine have we gotten to that point we have we we've the past week we did not draw down every dose that was immediately available to us it's going to stay available to us it's just going to remain in storage centrally with the feds and we'll draw that down when we need to particularly for that issue so that we don't run into issues with expiration date yep last question you're saying you could have gotten more than those doses but those are the differences that you're getting so the the doses that i said are are at max and we're drawing down doses as we need yeah okay thank you thank you dr kenner and and um that's a lot of information and you know there's more that we could uh share probably um there's always a lot going on and we learn every time we have our tuesday morning call with the white house you have different uh calls throughout the week with folks with the cdc and fda and operation warp speed dr palchi and there there's an awful lot going on what i want to try to reassure people is that we're doing every thing that we can to make sure that you know that this vaccine is safe and it's effective whether it's modern or pfizer there's a decent chance that in the near future johnson johnson is going to come back online if so i will tell you i believe that it is safe as well and somewhere around 15 or fewer incidents have been reported on almost 7 million vaccinations there are lots of pharmaceuticals that remain authorized and in use every day in our country and around the world that has a much higher rate of significant complication than that but we hopefully and we will know i think as early as tomorrow when the asip meets about restarting johnson johnson and that being available to individuals as well and then i want to point out that the same surveillance system employed to detect those six cases of johnson and johnson it is also out there on moderna and pfizer and it is not revealing anything that is really troublesome about uh side effects and complications related to moderna and visor and so that should further amplify the confidence that people have in those vaccines and we haven't talked about this as much lately but remember there are certain members of society certain individuals who are more vulnerable to the disease than others by virtue of their age or their health condition whether it's heart disease kidney disease obesity hypertension whatever diabetes and and it's really important that everybody get vaccinated it is especially important that those individuals be vaccinated and if you live with those individuals or you're you're coming in close contact with them and and and i guess what i'm saying is because if you do the numbers that's all of us it is really important that we do this not just for ourselves but but for our neighbors as well before i take questions i want to give a short weather update i had a unified command group meeting this morning and unfortunately there is another threat for severe weather going into the weekend at least a minimal threat for each region of the state starting friday and extending into and through saturday the issues are similar to recent weather events with a chance of flooding severe thunderstorms hail and wind damage and as we've seen this year it's very difficult to determine exactly where the most dangerous weather conditions are going to occur and so everyone should be ready we're also just a little over a month before the start of the next hurricane season so i'm going to start now reminding people to make sure you're prepared get a game plan and go to get a gameplan.org if you've not already done so and then monitor local weather stay apprised of any warnings or directions that come from local officials as well i'll go ahead and tell you that in this the next press conference will be tuesday because the current proclamation expires on wednesday and so we'll be back here on tuesday to make announcements about what comes next and i hope that will preempt any questions out there that are going to try to get that out of me today i have not yet received the briefing on the gating criteria and i've not yet received recommendations uh from my public health officials and so i'm just letting you know not going there today but i'll be happy to answer any other question that you have yes sir i still might go there governor is there any possibility that next week that you would you could see of you lifting the mass mandate or is that sort of off the table well nothing's off the table until after i receive a briefing and get recommendations and make a decision and you'll learn that on wednesday what what we do and that's the way we've we've handled this from the beginning yes sir so for tax bills in this year's session you've kind of set the guard rail of revenue neutrality um just wanted a lot of bills flying around in session obviously any take you can offer in terms of maybe bills you like those you don't like overall yeah well first of all i've always supported tax reform you may remember that in the first term even as we dealt with the huge two billion dollar budget deficit and trying to achieve stability that we've been able to achieve we were entertaining tax reform and that is lowering the rates broadening the base simplifying our system and making it become more transparent the legislature created a task force to study our tax system both what we have and then in comparison to other states make recommendations about tax reform measures that would improve our tax structure and make it easier to administer and so forth i embraced all but one of those 16 or 17 recommendations i continue to embrace those and those measures that do those things i'm in support of um and so if you see a bill that would in a revenue-neutral fashion lower individual income tax rates or corporate income tax rates in exchange for getting rid of the deduction of federal income taxes paid so that it operates in a revenue neutral fashion that's something that i can support and and you you do see those bills it's just important that we pass a package at once uh so that it all stays in balance and that we can know that we have revenue neutrality and why is that important well first of all people should be mindful that we already have one of the five lowest combined state and local tax burdens in the country secondly we know that in 2025.45 cents of the sales tax is scheduled to go away that's half a billion dollar state general fund and i refuse to open up a structural budget deficit and leave my successor in the same condition that i was in when i took office thirdly the american rescue plan was passed there's over five billion dollars coming to louisiana 3.2 to the state uh 2 billion to the locals and it says you cannot lower your revenue by reducing taxes and then use that money to try to make that up so for all of those reasons tax neutrality i should say revenue neutrality is incredibly important and that's the main guard rail that i have the second is that it really does need to be tax reform it needs to be an improvement not every change is an improvement but if it lowers rates broadens the base in exchange for uh reduced tax expenditures then then you know it does look like reform and and we can support it and so my position hasn't changed from what it was three four uh even five years ago yes ma'am that same question is there a favorite approach of in the lowering of the rate and broadening of the base do you prefer a flat tax or brackets i would be much more open to a flat tax as it relates to the corporate structure but not to the individual structure i just don't believe that it is the fairest system that we can have we have multiple brackets now and i think we should keep those and all of them should be lowered in exchange for getting rid of the fit and by the way this is ultimately going to be a decision for the people of louisiana directly because none of these changes on corporate or individual income tax will happen if they don't vote for a constitutional amendment because currently the fit deduction is in the constitution so they will decide whether they want to lower uh their rates or not but i would i would prefer that we not have a single bracket or i should say a single rate for individual income taxes because i don't think the poorest person in our state should pay the same thing on the first taxable dollar as the richest person pays on the last taxable dollar yes the goal is to have a somewhat normal 4th of july 19. do you see the state on that same track and do you think the hesitancy that's happening right now is going to slow that down pretty significantly well the hesitancy is certainly an issue here and elsewhere because the longer it takes to get to that number that percentage of people to be vaccinated we know the longer it's going to take to get back to normal the way that we all want to and quite frankly we don't end up the pandemic and i think everybody should understand this too the pandemic is a global pandemic and so we can we can make improvements here but ultimately and i'm not trying to say this so that everybody loses hope what happens in argentina uh and in spain and in israel and in india and everywhere else is important ultimately as to what happens here in the united states and in louisiana but we're responsible primarily for ourselves right now and if if we're slow to get the uptake that we need on the vaccination the longer it takes to get back to normal um but can we be there more or less by july the 4th uh i hope so especially since on july the 4th you're typically talking about celebrations that occur outside they're always safer than uh celebrations that you do inside and and so forth i hope we can get there and and of course that's going to be borne out by the numbers not just on the uptake in vaccinations but what's happened in percent positivity what's happened in new cases and hospitalizations and deaths and and you know dr cantor just mentioned over the last week we've seen some trends that are not favorable but overall the baseline numbers remain low and relatively steady especially if you compare them to coming out of christmas and and over that next several weeks but i i'm optimistic that we're going to get there i've sort of promised my mama that we're going to have a big fourth of july something or other uh but i happen to know she's vaccinated too and and that that we will make sure that we're doing everything as safe as we can yes sir real quick our investigators at wnb were wondering if you didn't have a chance to see that body cam footage from that police officer in port allen of him tasing a guy we were wondering if you had any comment on that if you saw it i have not and thus i do not yes ma'am questions about legislative bills that are moving through the process do you support representative mcgee has a bill to expand the medical marijuana program to use the smokable form of marijuana support that and then also senator jay morris's bill to allow people to have concealed carry without a permit yeah um compound question okay withdrawal objection but okay um i will always reserve the right to see a bill as it reaches my desk because they typically never get there in the same shape as they're introduced and committees do their work as you know i support medical marijuana and and if a bill gets to my desk that expands the availability of medical marijuana and potentially expands the forms of marijuana that can be used for medicinal purposes my inclination is to support it i haven't heard anything from anyone yet that would cause me not to follow my inclination but i'm not going to give you 100 percent yes or no answer on that and then the second question i'm doing away with the requirement that you have to have a permit for concealed carry so i have a history as a legislator voting against bills that would do away with the permit that is now necessary in order to have a concealed weapon i'm not going to change my position on that either i think it strikes the right balance to make sure that individuals go through that background check that they have training on safety and on marksmanship and they know how it is that they're expected and by the way obligated if you have the permit to interact with law enforcement when in fact they have a concealed weapon on their person all of that it seems to me is proper that's the right balance to strike and and i'm i feel very strongly about that i also feel very strongly that a considerable majority of the people of louisiana support the system we currently have and don't want to to do away with the permit as a requirement for concealed carry yes on the use of the american rescue plan funds for example if you have a specific ask for how much you want to put in the unemployment trust fund and what is the process for that going forward yeah well it is a great question and i'm going to give you the best answer i can but i want you to understand we believe we're going to find out on may the 10th exactly how much we get as a state and each local subdivision of government that's going to receive funding we believe our total will be in the neighborhood of 3.2 billion dollars we think the locals collectively will get about 2 billion dollars we don't yet know how that's going to be apportioned in terms of overtime are we limited to half of that in the first year for example how much in year two or year three we've got to make sure we know by when the the money has to be spent we don't know that uh for sure yet um and then the purposes for which it can be spent we we know the legislation says co-vita related expenditures you can use it to make up for revenue that you've lost you can spend it on broadband water and sewer projects so there are five enumerated things but how do you compute your lost revenue and in the first year of receiving the money are you limited to only the revenue you lost between 19 and 20 and do you have to use actuals or can you use projections and and when can you use the revenue losses that you have in 21 we don't know the answer to those questions yet what i can tell you is i favor using the first raw on the funds and whether we do it in one or two years i'm open because it depends on how much we get in the first instance the first allocation is to replenish the ui trust fund and to make it solvent we have a solvency threshold that's at 750 million dollars and if rec recognizes a fund balance in the ui trust fund that is less than 750 million dollars at a september meeting a tax increase happens by operation of law i want to avoid that tax increase i want to get at least a 750 don't necessarily have to do all of that this year we can we can do so i would my initial thought is to do 400 million dollars this year into the trust fund but also pay off the the loan that we've taken in order to currently pay benefits because you remember the current ui trust fund balance is zero it was 1.1 billion dollars at the start of the pandemic it's zero today and we've had to borrow interest free uh in order to pay benefits we need to pay that loan back uh that's going to be about 200 million dollars more so so for me the the right number is somewhere around 600 million dollars for the unemployment insurance trust fund and paying the loan back in year one but making sure we have a fund balance of at least 750 million dollars after year two and then then you you get into a lot of other things where that i think are really important and i think there's going to be agreement uh we've got to restart tourism in louisiana and we have convention and visitor bureaus around the state that have lost revenue and they don't have the ability to do the advertising and the outreach they need to to get our numbers back up we have tourism related venues with similar issues cultural race recreation and tourism need some funding to to advertise for louisiana there is the first installment on the hurricane risk reduction system the non-federal match is due in september that's 400 million dollars we could we could use potentially depending on the rules we could use this money to pay that first installment and and make sure that that's a debt we don't have to bond out or we could choose to put more money towards traditional infrastructure projects uh so there are some decisions that have to be made i want you to know that that i have been in discussions for weeks now with the secretary i'm sorry with the speaker of the house and the president of the senate so that we can start to look at all these things because ultimately we won't know until may the 10th what we can do and we believe it's may the 10th but that doesn't give us a lot of time to get it done and so we're going to start working on the plan now and and i've just sort of laid out what my priorities are hopefully the legislature's priorities are very similar but what i can tell you is we know that this funding is one-time money so we can't use it to create programs that require ongoing expenditures over a period of time so water sewer broadband all one-time expenditures paying down debt is one-time expenditures uh and and other infrastructure projects and and the ui press fund all one time and then i think that's the right thing to do and that's that's the best thing we can do for our state uh i will tell you that the emphasis that congress and the president put on water and sewer projects is very valid especially here in louisiana and so we know we have hundreds of millions of dollars worth of needs out there in communities large and small and through a combination of our traditional capital outlay program and dollars that are made available through the american rescue plan we need to take advantage of this once in a lifetime opportunity to really make gains on on having better water systems and sewer systems which are incredibly important and extremely expensive to repair and to modernize and so we need to take advantage of that opportunity thank you all for continuing to cover the pandemic and all the news related to our state a reminder we will have our next press conference on tuesday and we anticipate that we will be announcing the decisions we've made as with respect to the proclamation that that ends on wednesday uh and and the new one that we'll have going forward so thank you all i continue to appreciate the people of louisiana and and i want to finish the press conference by once again appealing to everyone to make sure that you're vaccinated as soon as possible that you encourage other people to be vaccinated as soon as possible and that we are careful in the meantime to abide by all the mitigation measures in place so that we're not spreading the virus unnecessarily as we ramp up the number of people who are vaccinated and and uh you know and as always i want to ask the people of louisiana to pray for our state pray for leaders pray for our people and then let's lift up in prayers the victims and the families of the c corps vessel that was overturned last week and and that has also been just a terribly traumatic and tragic incident for all of those individuals and their families thank you all and god bless you