 And welcome to another talk story with John Whitehead and I want to especially thank those of you who have taken a moment out of your lives to listen to us. I know that these are trying times and people are scattered all over the islands trying to figure out what's the best way to take care of themselves and their families. So I thought it would be really interesting if we would invite back again Lieutenant Governor Josh Green, who is a medical doctor and a coordinator, health coordinator for the state of Hawaii and to force some insight on how we can deal with the current coronavirus crisis happening here in Hawaii. So today's episode is again, what's up, where are we and how can we get through all of this, the best way we know how. So welcome. How are you Lieutenant Governor? I know that usually you and I are buoyant individuals, but these are not the times when we find ourselves with a lot of humor. No thank you Governor. Look I'm honored to be on your program and happy to share everything I possibly know about our current situation with coronavirus. So let me tell you something. I woke up this morning, saw my newspaper and it said lockdown, lockdown and it was wow. So you know maybe we ought to start there, what's up with that? So what is it in fact? So that is a statement that was covering the county, Oahu county's decision to lock us down, to isolate in place and just moments ago at three o'clock in the afternoon today, Hawaii time, the governor followed suit and formalized the isolate in place plan for the entire state. So now Maui and Oahu had already decided that that was the place to go and I know that the governor was leaning that direction so now also Kauai will join them as will Big Island. So effective Wednesday at midnight we will have isolate in place rules which is home quarantine and we will allow for only essential services statewide which are mostly for simplicity, health care related and food related. People can still go out for a jog or a walk but we will not be allowing contact between individuals, people isolate in place. My expectation is it's going to go for two weeks and then probably be extended. So the necessary deal is we have to keep each other from communicating this disease COVID-19 so that dies out as opposed to getting a big surge and having it take off and kill a lot of people. Well, I just don't know where to begin that there was so much information in that. Well, first of all, let's start with how many people, how many cases have been reported here in Hawaii if you know. Yes, 77. So right now we have 77 confirmed cases of COVID-19. We have several thousand tests that are outstanding and the testing has ramped up very significantly with the private labs. So we're now starting to see tests everywhere. So I can go to a hospital, I can go to a private lab, any of the private labs. Yes, and the advice we give people is go if you're symptomatic. If you have fever or cough or shortness of breath, that's the time to get tested. If you don't have any of those symptoms, just let's say you've been in touch with somebody but you have no symptoms, we're not really inclined to test because when you test without symptoms people are negative. But we still want, if you have concerns, for you to isolate at home. Now it's going to be mandatory anyway. People should not be going to work if they have any concern. Now, what if I work in an environment where I am, it's not in my home but it is also isolated. I mean, I'm in an office down the street that no one else is at. Actually, if it's not on the essential services list, you're not to do it. So for the benefit of people, so you're not walking by a lot of people, you're not out there and about for several hours, someone doesn't stop in. We want to avoid all that. Any contact could be dangerous and can spread the disease. So in order to bring the hammer down, we have to not allow any incidental contact. So that means, well, what do people do if they don't have the equipment to work at home? How much preparation was done leading up to any of this stuff? I have to defer somewhat to the mayor and the governor, but the basic premise is, if there's no way for you to do it from home, they do make some special dispensations to do that. And there are several classes of work that are necessary. For instance, some hotel work is necessary, almost all health care work is necessary. Food service is allowed, as long as it's not restaurant direct contact. If it's takeout, it's allowed. So there are several different ways you can be allowed to work still, so we don't completely shut down the economy. But there are going to be some sectors where it's simply not going to be allowed. And that's important, because if we do this for the short term, there won't be spread the COVID-19 crisis. We might not have to go through this for the long term. I was trying to get at whether one of the objectives was that you ought not to be doing any kind of activity where you're actually interacting with groups of people, or with people in general. That's right. So right now, because of the isolate-in-place home quarantine, there should be none of that. You should not have people over until this is finished. You should not go out in groups. If you're going to go out to exercise, you only go with your immediate family, who you're at home with anyway. And if there's transmission, it's going to be directly to one another. The schools are closed. It's unprecedented, no doubt. But the idea is to kind of do a decapitation strike on this problem, this COVID-19 problem. Also, we'll have no tourists coming in at all. Yeah, I saw an earlier report that part of all of this shutdown of Hawaii, lockdown of Hawaii, shutdown sounds a little bit... I don't know which is the better term, frankly. Yes. But part of it was that if I arrive in Hawaii, I have to go... The person arriving in Hawaii would be put into quarantine for 14 days. Yes. 14 days or as long as they're here, if it's shorter than that. So if someone arrives, they would, unfortunately, I think they would not be able to go out. So everyone is going to cancel their trips, everybody. If anybody does decide to come, they will be isolated in place at their hotel. They won't be allowed. What about residents? Residents will be at their homes. So they will be... Residents would be allowed to go... Residents of Hawaii would be allowed to go to their home. Yes. Yeah, so let's say you right now have had to be on business until this coming Friday. When you return home, you will have to do 14 days of home quarantine, no ifs, ands or buts. That's real quarantine. I mean, no leaving, no... Yes. No leaving at all. Other people have to go grocery shop for you or bring you food or whatever. That's right. And how is all of this going to be enforced? Well, it's pretty tough to enforce it globally, although I think because the risk factor of dying is so significant, especially for our capuna, very few people are messing around with this. And so I expect people to adhere to it. But they did tell us that if people do violate this, it's a misdemeanor punishable by up to a $5,000 fine or a year in prison, up to a year in prison. So I'm not joking because you might not get sick, but you might get the virus and pass it on to a capuna. And if someone's over 80 years old, their mortality risk or their rate of dying is over 14%. So we can't have that. And so this is what had to happen. Yeah, I can see that. And I know the reason why I asked about enforcement is that I know that I read that there were places on the continent where you had bar owners and others just saying, this is unconstitutional. I'm not going to obey any of it. They're going to get fined a lot of money if that happens. So I think it's in everybody's interest now not to go out. Plus the mayors all banded together and closed restaurants and bars down anyway just for delivery. So they'll be able to do a ton of delivery. And some people are actually doing quite well by this new model. But this is a short-term fix. I hope we only go through total, total of April 30th, and then it's done. And then we can start taking the lid off a little bit and going back to normal. You know, I was just today, as a matter of fact, went to Best Buy because I go there from time to time to relax, actually, to play with the toys that I don't understand how to use. And when I got there, the whole operation has changed. I mean, it's like if you want anything, smart thing to do is to go shopping online and then go there and pick it up if they have it. But that whole transition, that's a different way of life, frankly. It is. It's changing everything. And it will return back to normal over time because we're getting a great test of our resiliency. So I hope and expect this will come and go as it often does or always has with coronaviruses like the others, MERS and SARS that happened. But we're in a brave new world where they're going to be infectious diseases which are more impactful than terrorism. So it's a really big change for a lot of people. But with this change also comes new responsibility and people are being very responsible in general. It is quite amazing actually that we only have 77 cases at the moment. Yeah, I think that's pretty good, frankly. And I want to compliment you and all the other people who have been involved who took action for us to achieve that result. Although one of the things that bothers me as an individual is the idea that as an island state, if the virus didn't originate here, it had to have come into our state from outside. And I just boggles my mind to not think that there wasn't a way to just stop it from coming in. Yeah, that was because they came from tourists, right? So 75 out of the 77 cases I believe were all travel related. Two of them have been spread, maybe four of them have been spread from individuals who caught it and then spread it further to their family or friends. But almost all those cases came from people who were flying in from the mainland mostly. And it's just out there. The mainland right now is getting bludgeoned. We have 33,290 cases in the United States now and people travel here. People love it here. So I went on the news this weekend, national news, and did tell people, look, we love Hawaii. You love Hawaii. We love having you here. The 10 million tourists obviously make this something special in their lives. However, this is an international pandemic and we can't afford to overwhelm our hospitals here and kill people. And we wouldn't be able to take care of you if you got sick here because we don't have enough ventilators. So it's important that we adhere to what's been done. Are there any kind of isolation units being built or places where if anyone has the virus they can be put into containment? Yes, a lot of that's going on. Well, right off the bat we have 166 hospital beds that are isolation beds that just give you isolation. Then of course we have the intensive care unit beds that can be private and then we have facilities that we've begun to look at through the Department of Defense and General Horrors Lead that we could use as major quarantine facilities if we needed to. Also for the homeless we've begun to put together some plans and I do appreciate the mayor's team and others that are working hard on this so we can isolate and give people rooms if they're homeless and positive. That was our first discussion six weeks ago actually. I think it was and that was the threat of the virus spreading to people who had no choice but to be up and about. Yeah and so we're now going to have a facility 26 beds on Kahahi Street down in Ivalet that will be surrounded by healthcare services and support in case we get any individuals that are positive. I also have begun to look at the possibility of getting some support over at Blaisdale and we're going to ask some questions to see if that's possible at the garage there. Well I'll tell you what Mr. President Governor we're going to take a short break now and when I come back I not only want to talk about what's happening in Hawaii but also on the national level. Hi I'm Rusty Kamori host of Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. I was the head coach for the Punahou Boys varsity tennis team for 22 years and we were fortunate to win 22 consecutive state championships. My show is based on my book also titled Beyond the Lines and it's about leadership creating a superior culture of excellence and finding greatness. I feature a wide range of amazing guests who share valuable insights about how going Beyond the Lines leads to success in everything you do in life. I'm looking forward to you joining me every Monday at 11 a.m. Aloha. Welcome back to the second half of our conversation with Lieutenant Governor Josh Green one of the most knowledgeable people involved in this effort to help us all get past the coronavirus threat. Now one of the things Lieutenant Governor I know that as a physician and as a humanitarian most of your thoughts and focus have been on the on the health and safety of our of our citizenry. Now but there also has been all of this effort as well as the virus itself is going to have an economic impact yes on the state of Hawaii. You know I don't know a single time in the history of Hawaii except for maybe 1893 when people from Hawaii was saying like don't come ashore you know yes I'm there that's a joke in there for somebody I'm trying to keep this a little bit but anyway Lieutenant Governor what was really interesting to me and is this the national debate about all of well first of all let me ask you a question I need to lay some foundation. Sure. How bad is the coronavirus problem on the continent versus what we are facing here in the islands. Well that's actually a brilliant insightful question Governor because I did an assessment this morning right now there's 33,290 cases confirmed on the mainland and based on the algorithms I always use based on resources and need we should have at least twice the number of cases than we have right now which is good news for us because we've done a fair amount especially in the last 24 hours to curtail the potential for spread and so if we keep doing that we may come out of this much better and with a slower curve than most places. I could tell you this New York is hurting they're seeing an explosion of the disease they have over 9,000 people just in New York City alone and we have 77 in our whole state so if we do successfully and we are locking it down I mean there's not going to be almost any flights coming in here and I am very very in a heartfelt way sympathetic to the airlines industry we're going to have to support them after this and we will but we are doing a pretty good job and if we continue to really self quarantine and isolate in place we will not be hit as hard as Seattle or New York or wherever else and so we're better off than many although we have very very serious limitations I have some data here for you I talked with you about it some of this last time I can I wanted to update you I told you last show we have about 3,030 or 3,060 beds licensed healthcare beds in our whole state right I can now share with you that our total occupancy right now and this is good news is that 65 percent that means 65 percent or just under two-thirds of all of our hospital beds are occupied and because of the ingenuity of the hospital teams and systems healthcare association queens HPH they can surge our capacity by about 15 percent another 450 or so beds which means that we have capacity of that 35 percent plus another 15 percent which is 50 percent capacity of our whole healthcare system in case there's a surge of COVID-19 and we can use the ventilators to keep people alive so the key now is just to keep a lid on it and not let it explode like it's doing in other places well you know that's good news and I guess that's the silver lining in an otherwise really dark cloud yes but we have never gone through a period of time when our entire tourist industry for example or our export industry or anything else is just completely shut down yes and I one of your one of your objectives I'm sure is that when this is all over and believe me doc I I believe I believe that it'll be over yes I mean and it looks like from the statistics that you just gave us that there is room for optimism in an otherwise dismal situation right but when it gets over we are going to have to face up to the cost yes of all of this now how and the reason why I bring this up was I was watching the debate in the United States Senate last night on what they're calling I guess the third something stimulus three bill yes and the emphasis that was being placed on the economic redevelopment of the country was was the most important element in the conversation frankly that's right and and I thought and then I read some documents today that said that they are people and I don't who I don't agree with and then who there are people I guess you would call them political pundits of some sort who are on the television and other medium saying things like look the cure is worse than the disease that the cost of you know maybe we should let a few people and I'm summarized yeah but I actually said this way why I could let me do a the back of a napkin math for you okay so if we just let the disease roll over the United States completely roll over us if that were to happen 200 million people at least would become sick and if we allowed 3% of the people to die times 200 million that would be 6 million U.S. deaths yeah so if if we just let it roll over us completely like a like a crushing rock machine we'd have 6 million dead now I don't think anybody's willing to sacrifice 6 million people most of them are going to be our our kupuna right our elderly for those who are watching from the mainland you just can't do that and the cost is going to be well Hawaii's not going to do that no no and I gotta thank you for your insistence yeah we'll never let you brought about the changes that we are now having well so here's the trade the real trade is the world is going to shut down for 10 weeks and in exchange for shutting down the world for 10 weeks instead of losing 3% of our global population we're going to lose only 10 a couple 10,000 people we're probably going to have 50,000 or 75,000 deaths instead of tens of millions like we saw in the Spanish flu pandemic or you know like you were saying when it was not actually an inaccurate description at all if we had stopped the landing of Captain Cook and he brought smallpox to the islands that knocked out a million Hawaii residents a million Hawaiians so you just can't do that and also we better get ready anyway because this is not going to be the last pandemic we're going to see these every say 8 to 12 years we're going to see a pandemic of some sort next time we will have a mechanism in place to hit a pause button globally stop the markets from crashing we will know what the buyout cost is more or less know how much we have to have people immediately immediately isolate in place and we will have a much softer experience so humans can learn I certainly can learn some of the people that I work with are learning very quickly and this is an important test of humanity well I tell you you know and I have tried very hard to avoid at least when we discuss this particular subject to avoid coloring it with my any kind of political bias but I read an article today and listened to a few of the press conference where the President of the United States is suggesting that listening to people who are suggesting to him and he apparently is starting to respond that maybe we ought to back off of all of this social distancing and all of this stuff because of the cost to the economy well I can tell you this I mean I'm interested in politics almost as much as you Governor almost okay if the President backed off on social distancing and let this run its course and didn't do economic support it's and I don't get into too much global politics national policy he would absolutely with a hundred percent certainty lose reelection because the stock market would continue to collapse until it reached a fundamental way lower than it is now the number of deaths and inability to be outside for the next several months would be so ugly the number of body bags would be everywhere there's no way on earth that could be done so if that happened I don't know that the elections mean nothing to me compared to the loss of a few lives frankly so that would be like allowing a theater nuclear warhead to go off in several regions of our country you can't do that well I agree with you I agree with you and and I guess you know initially there were a bunch of people who were constantly sort of poo-hooing the whole idea of a pandemic and all of this stuff and that have changed yeah I mean I Chuck Tucker Coulson that his name he was one of the both Fox yeah yeah Fox commentators and he there was a 180 degree turn I mean you should have seen him today you know this is serious business we've got to take care of it and yet just a week or two ago you know this was a conspiracy probably launched by the North Koreans or some weird type of conspiracy theory well you know gov I know we're getting close to the end but it doesn't this is the doctor in me talking okay it doesn't take a lot of fear to change people's opinions and when people start hearing that there is a high probability that someone that they love or that they know is going to die if we don't act then people's political rhetoric changes quite quickly so this is the kind of thing that actually could pull people together I expect that they I hope so yeah the bailout package will probably be voted forward almost unanimously we will stop the virus in the course of the next eight to ten weeks statewide and nationally and then we'll emerge for quite a summer and people will return to Hawaii with hopefully very minimal loss of life well I tell you what it would be nice to see our Congress acting like the Congress of the old of a time when you and I remember when we actually got things done we only got about a minute left Lieutenant Governor tell us you know in a as short a checklist as you have available what does the average person have to look out for what should we do one more time sure so the recommendation is start to finish starting this moment that you see the show isolate in place do not go out unless you have to get food or medical care that's it isolate in place and if you have a fever cough or shortness of breath those are signs of COVID-19 call your healthcare provider and we'll get you checked what about do you need all three any one of them would cause you to be concerned yeah any one is concerned if you got all three you're very likely have COVID-19 these are similar symptoms to the flu but let me and the other medical community give you good guidance on whether or not to get tested if it's just feeling a little bit bad don't worry about it and stay at home don't be in touch with anybody isolate in place you're going to be okay all right thank you very much Lieutenant Governor Josh Green once again enlightening the people of Hawaii Aloha