Missouri Gov. Mike Parson's Tuesday briefing

Missouri Gov.

Mike Parson talks about recent protests, as well as the latest COVID-19 data.

Good afternoon, everyone.Over the weekend thousands ofMissourians turned out for protestsacross the state, and we're verygrateful that these protests werepeaceful and nonviolent.

And I want tothank all the protesters for peacefullypushing for change.We're glad to have our National Guardtroops back home here.

Missouri from D.C.

Also,I also want to thank all the local lawenforcement officers, Sheriff's HighwayPatrol National Guard and everyone whohas been involved in keeping Missouriand safe over the past couple of weeks.As a former law enforcement officer, Iknow how difficult this job can be,especially right now,these are challenging times for stateand our nation.

But I want you to knowthat we support you and appreciate allthat you do for the people of thisstate.

With that, Carlson is here todayto give an update from the HighwayPatrol.

Carlson.Thank you, Governor Parson.

Iappreciate the opportunity to be heretoday.

Incident to protest activity,which on some occasions has resulted incivil unrest in our state.

The patrolhas been providing assistance as neededthroughout Missouri, but primarily inKansas City, Jefferson City and in theST Louis area periodically.

Since May30ththe patrols presence has been one ofsupport and has come at the request oflocal police departments and localelected officials.

We have beenprimarily focused on the interstates,ensuring traffic flow is uninterrupted,as well as policing in and aroundprotest areas at the request of locallaw enforcement.

Additionally, we haveworked closely with the MissouriNational Guard in assigning soldiersand allocating other resource is toassist Missouri communities.We've experienced a wide range ofresponse from citizens, includingdamage to patrol cars, rocks and otherobjects, their own IT troopers and inone instance, a trooper was fired upon.We're fortunate that none of ourtroopers have been seriously injured.We have been and remain available toassist our law enforcement partnersaround Missouri.

As the need occurs,peaceful protests are how voices can beheard, and I encourage every protesterto exercise their constitutional rightspeacefully and lawfully.

I hope each ofyou will watch out for your neighbors,their businesses and the communitycriminals who loot and destroy ourcommunities.

Our cities and our townswill only leave behind a path ofdestruction for all of us to fix andclean up.

Over the past weekend, we'veseen protests move toward a morepeaceful expression.

I'd like to thankthose members of the public to havereached out to our troopers duringthese protests.

They're proud to serveand will protect and will continuedoing so.

Businesses, churches, civicgroups and individuals have deliveredfood and drinks as well as cards andother expressions of thanks to ourofficers and to our troop headquartersas well.

And I appreciate that verymuch, but we're practical, had contactall of the individually to express that.But since it's not, thank you.Every day our troopers carry out ourmission, which is guided by our eightcore values of integrity,responsibility, respect,resourcefulness, compassion, commitment,character and professionalism.

Troopersare here to help ensure a safe andpeaceful environment for protesters,while at the same time helping tosafeguard lives and property.

Thank you.Thank you, Colonel.

And thank you forall the troops from what you've beendoing over the last two weeks and whatyou do every day out there.

Thank youvery much for that.Last week I traveled to different areasof the state to meet with local leaders,the clergy and members of the AfricanAmerican community.

On Thursday, wehave another meeting scheduled withcommunity leaders from Kansas City.

STLouis, Colombia.

Listen to learn andBuner better understand the needs.There is no room for races in Missouriand there are true.

And if we are trulyto make a difference in our society,it's going to take all of us listeningto one another and working together fora greater costin the midst of everything.

We mustalso continue forward on the Cove in 19frontPhase One of our recovery plan expireson Monday, June 15th and we will beaddressing that during Thursday'sbriefing.

Just to recap Phase one ofour Show Me strong recovery plan tookeffect on May the fourth.This was dependent on the four pillarsof our recovery plan testing PPE,hospital capacity and data.We have not only met these pillars butexceeded them, and we continue tomonitor our progress each and every dayduring phase one.

We have especiallyramped up our focus on Cove in 19testing, and as I have said many times,testing will be the key to Missouri'sfull economic recovery.

The moretesting we do, the more knowledge anddata we have and the more confidenceand reassurance weaken give Missouriansthat is okay to move forward.

A coupleof weeks ago, we announced a plan torapidly increase our testing volume inMissouri.

Since that time, we have madeoutstanding progress, well, surpassingour overall goal of 7500 tests per daytoday.

Director Richardson is here togive you an update on the testingstrategy across the state.

Director.Thank you, Governor.

Good afternoon.I'm excited to have the chance to giveyou an update on Missouri's efforts andour progress on Cove in 19 testing, asthe governor mentioned, Testing is thefirst pillar of Missouri Show Me Strongrecovery plan.

It is the key to notonly containing the Corona virus, butto entering a sound and sustainableeconomic recovery.

Since the start ofthe pandemic, that state of Missouri isfocused on expanding our testingcapacity and access to the suppliesnecessary to increase the number oftests performed in this state.

We havesteadily increased our testing capacityin both Missouri based and nationallaboratories, and we have not stoppedpushing to ensure that Missourians haveaccess to Cove in 19 testing whenneeded.

While we have work left to do,we have made tremendous progress.Weekly testing has increased more than220% since April 20th fromapproximately 16,000 tests encountersthat week to more than 53,000encounters the week of May 25th.

Thedepartment, Health and Senior Serviceshas expanded their testing guidance tomedical providers to encourage broadscale testing, including ofasymptomatic people, if their clinicaljudgment indicates a test is warranted.This means that doctors should feelcomfortable ordering Cove in 19 testsand situations like when a patient hashad known exposure to the virus or whenthey might need a test to return towork.

But we did not stop there.

Inorder to ensure that Missouri was usingevery bit of its available testingcapacity and to ensure the safety ofits citizens, Governor Parsonchallenged us not only to increase ourtesting capacity but also to increasethe use of that capacity, setting agoal of 7500 tests per day.

The staterose to that challenge on the 19th ofMay, when Governor Parson issue hischallenge, there were 5555 PCR testsperformed on that day.

One week later,we had more than doubled that number.On May the 26th more than 12,400 PCRtests were received by Missourians.

Andover the last two weeks we haveaveraged more than 10,000 testsconducted per week day.Unprecedented events have createdunprecedented collaboration across ourState Department's cross departmentalteams have been working tirelessly toanswer the governor's call.

The teamsthat have led this effort included theDepartment of Health and SeniorServices, the Office of Administration,the Department of Mental Health, theDepartment of Public Safety, Departmentof Corrections, Missouri VeteransCommission, Department of SocialServices and the Department of EconomicDevelopment.

Each team receivedlogistics planning and staffing supportfrom the guardsmen and women of theMissouri National Guard.

Not only didthese teams reach their goals, theyexceeded them, shattering the recordfor the most test performed in a singleday.

And Governor your target.These efforts are about more than justnumbers.They're focused on increasing testingfor our most vulnerable those in thestates care and to expand testingaccess across our state.The state focused first on working toebox and outbreaks at long term carefacilities, where in other states themortality rates have been shockinglyhigh.

Missouri is supporting testingnow and every of every staff member andof every resident of long term carefacilities that have had a singlerecent positive case.

In the past twoweeks, 108 facilities have performedfacility wide testing totalling over13,000 Test, which identified 79 staffand 180 residents with Cove in 19 whowere previously unidentified.

Thiseffort is saving lives by ensuring thatoutbreaks are being contained, thatappropriate infection control measuresare being used and that positive staffand residents are properly quarantined.Second, the state has provided baselinesentinel testing for residents andstaff and state facilities, and inCongress care settings totaling morethan 12,500 tests.

The department, theDepartment of Mental Health, testedresidents and staff at 14 facilities onidentified 21 positive staff memberswho are now safely self isolating awayfrom vulnerable patients and preventingfurther infection.

Similarly, theMissouri Veterans Commission testedfour veterans homes and identified topositive staff members protecting ouraging veterans who are in the Statescare.

The Department of Corrections hastested staff and inmates at threeprisons, two of which were happy toreport, had zero positive cases.

At thethird, the department identified sixstaff and 15 offenders who testedpositive.

The Department of SocialServices has tested 21 facilities inour Use Services division, identifiedsix posit staff in 18 youth.

Thesebaselines sentinel tests show us thatour infection control measures areworking, but they've also shown thattesting will make those measures evenmore effective.They ensure that those who are in theStates care are safe from catching thevirus and from staff members that comeand go into these facilities, many ofwhom don't even know they could beputting clients at risk.Our third line of effort was communitysampling, where Cove in 19 tests wereprovided in 11 counties totallingnearly 11,000 tests.

Community testingincreases access to testing, whilegiving the public and our local healthdepartments better information aboutthe spread of the virus and the abilityto predict potential hot spots.

Thegood news is that out of that 11,000tests conducted Onley 107 of ourcitizens tested positive and they'renow sell flee safe quarantining.

Thatmeans the total test positivity ratewas approximately 1% across all those11 jurisdictions.

All of these lines oftesting provide both criticalinformation that will inevitably savelives, especially amongst our mostvulnerable citizens.

But thisinformation should also give us a greatdeal of encouragement because theoverall cases were lower than weexpected in many instances, and wherewe're containing outbreaks where theymight otherwise have been much moresevere.

And we should also beencouraged because more Missouriansthan ever have access to testing whenthey need it.

As our capacity continuesto grow, we will work to continue toincrease that testing volume to protectour most vulnerable and to create asustained economic recovery.Thank you.

Ever.Thank thank you, Todd.Let me also say today just ah, kind offinishing up here a little bit.

There'sbeen a lot of discussion over theweekend about De funding the policedepartments about how to move forwardand across the country and even in thisstate A lot of things have been saidabout this.What happened in Minnesota was atragedy, and the officer was chargedwith murder, which he very well shouldhave been for what it what he did.Every day, though, police officers goout there in the large, large majorityof a 99% plus do the job that should bedoing day in and day out.No more than a little over a year ago.Two years ago, when I become governor,people were asking me for more policeofficers.ST Louis, Kansas City, for some of thehighest crime rates were were asking meto send the Highway Patrol in.

Theywanted more officers on the ground.Homicide rates were extremely high inthe state of Missouri,and today we're continuing to gethigher.

While we're here talking of allthese things,doing away with police officers, lawenforcement officers is not an answerfor anything.You want to change the way we dobusiness.You want to make things better.

We canall do better.

I can do better.

Isgovernor Law enforcement never hurts tolearn conduce better?

Also all of uscan,but the reality of it is every day,whether it's the tornadoes thathappened early on when I was governorwas the drowning incidents in Branson.Were people drowned?

Law enforcementwent in there and recover those bodies.Whether it was tornadoes when tornadoeshit the state, it was law enforcementthat were the first ones on the streetsprotecting people.And I could go on and on down that list.It's law enforcement's gonna come whensomebody calls 911 nobody else is gonnacome.Those are the things that we need toremember sometimes about what it iswhen we talk about law enforcement.

38law enforcement officers in the last 50weeks have been killed.

Milan a dutyhave been shot and died.I don't think there's anybody in thisroom could tell you what the color oftheir skin waas when I asked thatquestion of 38 people.

What I can tellyou.

Those 38 officers lost their lives.There were public servants, and theydid it for somebody else.And it goes all the way from amotorists assistto domestic violence to a bad drug dealall across the country.They gave the ultimate sacrificeto try to blame all law enforcement forsome bad actors in law enforcement isnot the answer.

It's not the answer.

Toget rid of the bad operators is theanswerto figure out how we can do better.We need to have that discussion, and weneed to have that discussion on theground level where it's really affectthe people that live in thoseenvironments that we're all talkingabout.But I'll also tell you thisfor the discussions I will have withpeople.

It will include education foryoung people.

It will include how youget him in education.

How do you givethem the ability to get a job?

Not morefree stuff, not more governmentprograms. How do you really changesociety?

And for us to do that, that'swhat it will take.

It'll take governorsitting down with people andcommunities that maybe we don't alwayssit down with enough and try to figureout how do you do real changes?

That'swhat will be important for all of us.But Pitt society against one another isnot the answer.

We all have a purposefor being here,and we all need to figure out what thatpurpose is from time to time and sitback and think about the things we dohave.A lot of people worry about all thethings they I don't have, and sometimeswe need to be appreciative the thingsthat we do have and we need to figureout solutions.

And I'm firmly believedby us working together, really tryingto make a difference.

We can makechanges,but we all have to work together to dothat and try to keep one another safe.I will be attending the visitationof a retired police officer, David Dorn,tonight and the funeral of the CobbCounty Sheriff, Andy Clarke, tomorrow,who both sacrificedtheir lives for other people for otherpeople.

Both of them did.And no matter where there's retired,whether it wasn't he spent his timebeing a public servant.I'll be back on Thursday.

We'll talkmore about phase one order that expireson Monday.

Prediction will be here witheconomic development.

He'll give someinsight into how we're going to helpwith that on the recovery of that.In the meantime,I encourage everybody in this stateto be safe,to use common sense,to be proactiveand to think about each other.Thank you and God bless