 afternoon everybody sorry I'm late good to see you thanks everybody for being here I have a couple of a couple of announcements I'd like to make and then I'm happy to take any questions that you may have I also want to thank my colleague Mark Anthony Middleton for being here today my city council colleague first of all I want to say we all take this coronavirus incredibly seriously if you have not had a chance to see the message that I put out yesterday for the residents of Durham please do so it talks about social distancing the importance of social distancing it talks about the measures that we've taken so far as a city and a state to protect Durham and it also lays out particularly what we all have to do to keep ourselves safe individually and makes this most important point each of us must act so all of us are safe that's the most important lesson that we can all learn from this we all have to act individually if we're to keep our community safe one of the things I will say about that is that's an opportunity that's an opportunity because everybody can participate in helping to keep our community safe sometimes people want to know what can I do there is something you can do you can socially distance and that in itself is a significant contribution to keeping our community safe to that end yesterday I let yesterday afternoon at 415 I issued an amendment to my declaration of the state of emergency for the city of Durham and that amendment for the city of did a couple of things the first thing it did was I think they're recording me back there the first thing that it did was that it ordered the that all gyms fitness centers health clubs and theaters will cease operations on their premises effective at five o'clock today I don't think take that step lightly we know that every kind of prohibition whether or not it was what the governor did when he closed down restaurants and bars except for takeout or the decision I made last week to shut down the D pack and other city facilities we know that these things have huge impacts on people so this was not a decision that I took lightly because I know people's livelihoods are at stake but people's lives are also at stake people's lives are at stake and if we don't act now more people's lives will be at stake those those societies that have most successfully fought the coronavirus have acted early what we don't want to have happened is that we will look back two months from now or three months from now when this virus might be ravaging our community and say to ourselves I wish we had done more I wish we had acted earlier I want to note that this order does also provide for the fact that any of these fitness or health and clubs can offer fitness or health instruction and programming through virtual access and streaming services to patrons clients and other members of the public there are there are health clubs that are doing this right now all over the country and we also have the opportunity here in Durham for our health clubs to be able to offer this these virtual these virtual instruction we also provide that gyms fitness centers and health clubs are being used to provide child care services on their premises to aid the city's response to the COVID-19 virus should be authorized to remain open and open for the limited purpose of providing that child care why did I include that provision one of the most crucial things that we are facing right now is is the deep concern nationally but here in Durham also that we are able to support our frontline medical workers and one of the biggest threats to being able to support those frontline medical workers is the fact that our schools are out and many of them have young children and we may need to be providing child care for those children of critical health care workers and other critical workers in the city if we do that we may need to be doing that in cooperation particularly with our local YMCA it is one it would fall under this prohibition except that we have made the special provision in case that we need emergency child care to be taking place there or elsewhere there is another provision that I think has been little noticed in this in this declaration but let me talk about it now we have in Durham companies which are doing work that will contribute to fighting the coronavirus and some of these companies want to expand their work in order to do that they may need to expand their footprint in order to expand their footprint they would usually have to go through a laborious site plan process so what we have done with this declaration is to put in the hands of our planning director pat young the ability to invoke authority that we have in our in our united unified development ordinance that would allow him to waive and suspend or cease enforcement of the UDO related to site plan approvals specifically related to people working on the coronavirus so for example we have companies in Durham that are working on tests that may need to expand and if they do we don't want to delay that by having a laborious site plan process so we have delegated this authority to our planning director not in this order is one other thing that I want to talk about today something else another step that we have taken that I also don't want to that I want to say that we don't take lightly because again this is affecting people's livelihoods and we know how significant that is our the governor determined that farmers markets could be treated like grocery stores but the farmers market here in Durham is the is it Durham Central Park that is a city facility and what we know about that facility what we know about the farmers market is it is specifically designed to have hundreds of people come and congregate at the same place and I love the farmers market I love to go and congregate there I love it but it's to have hundreds of people deliberately come to the same place in a small area and shop so we have made the decision and I am I am absolutely confirmed in my belief that this is the right decision to cancel the farmers market for tomorrow we have told when I will be in our administration is told and I will be in contact personally with the farmers market folks this coming week that if they can design a pickup and delivery system much like our restaurants have where crowds are not gathered but there can be pre-orders and pick up and delivery where people can don't have to get out of their car and can come up and pick up their vegetables I'm certainly open to that so that those farmers can continue to at least make some living during this difficult time and I think that there are a lot of people who would take advantage of that service if we offered it but the congregation of crowds is exactly what we don't need in terms of spreading the coronavirus so those are the decisions that I have made and as I say I don't make them lightly and I would have now offer any of you all the opportunity to ask any questions that you might want to ask. Mayor Josh Chapin here at Channel 11 weird just a weird time we're all sitting apart it is weird I asked this given what Durham went through last year we're almost a year removed from the natural gas explosion downtown and a lot of businesses seemingly are still recovering from that how do you weigh that and given everything that's that you're doing given other businesses are not over what happened there last day yeah thank you Josh if you all don't mind and Tony if it's okay with you I think we'll just ask people to ask their questions without the mic is that all right with everybody that way everybody enough to share a mic yeah thank you Josh great question yes there are businesses in Durham there were you know several businesses in Durham that were badly affected by the gas explosion that we had last April and some of them are still recovering you're absolutely right I've heard from a couple of those businesses you know as the governor said when he made the decision about restaurants this is a decision that we cannot take lightly of course other other mayors that the Mecklenburg Mecklenburg County other mayors around North Carolina are being are making these same decisions about gyms and health and fitness clubs but it's not something that we make take lightly here's what I would say to the businesses that I think is really important the longer we wait the greater our chances are that the virus will have wide community spread the more people who are here who will get sick and die and the longer the disruption their business to the reddit disruption to their business will be our ability to keep the disruption to their business less depends on us acting early there no question that that is the experience that we've heard from around the country and around the world those societies that haven't acted quickly and effectively haven't been able to do that Bill sure I will yeah yes I can Tony we're not going to use a mic okay yeah so the question was have I considered shelter in place and the the the answer is that I don't know anybody who's grappling with this situation a serious way who has who is in a leadership position in a city or a county who is not actively thinking about shelter in place you see it beginning to sweep the country in the in the areas where the virus is growing and so have I thought about it absolutely one of the difficulties about shelter in place is it's very hard to do that on a local basis if you live in a region that is as interlaced and interlocked as we are it's hard to imagine a shelter in place order and Durham that would work only here and not because people are driving in from Raleigh every day they're driving from Chatham County Roxburgh and Chapel Hill our folks are going there I think that we will need either a regional or a state approach to that but I'm certainly open to thinking about the local a local decision if that needs to be made and I've talked this morning with members of the governor's office about what they're thinking about that is so ongoing conversation and one of the things I can say about this is anything that anybody says yesterday is different today and will be different tomorrow so yeah I think that I'll I'll I'm still evaluating that I think that I'm listening to the public health authorities and I'm evaluating that I do think that we are if we're not there now we will be getting there that's my opinion and exactly when that takes place you know we have the first transmissions in the state that are community spread and I think that we're heading in that direction so the first question is should the governor be considering a shelter in place statewide and my answer is yes he should be considering it and I've spoken to his office today and previously about that I know that the governor is thinking about these things very carefully I think he's done a great job so far and made some tough calls but there were the right calls and so I'm looking forward in the next continuing that discussion with the governor's office I spoke to the governor yesterday himself about it and the second part of your question Sarah was are there other yes are there other actions that we could take yes there are other actions and I expect that we will be taking other actions the there are other counties in North Carolina that have been that have been restricting other activities especially where people are in very close proximity and I'll be considering those very carefully as I'm sure our county health department and director will as well we would like to work in concert with our county health department and director it's important anybody else yeah sure I don't know that any citations have been issued I certainly haven't heard that but that doesn't mean it hasn't happened I have not heard of any but my understanding first of all many of the bars and restaurants by the time that the governor issued his order had already made the decision to go to take out only or to close down that had already happened as far as I know we've had voluntary compliance with almost in almost every other situation I know there have been a few times where our police officers are the sheriff's department has felt like they needed to say to folks especially some people were serving outside but people were still congregating I've said to say you can't do that but in my understanding his enforcement has not been a problem yeah yeah yeah Josh has asked about the mcdougal terrace residents there are still mcdougal terrace residents in hotels they have been going back some have been going back every week and but there's still a significant number of hotels I don't want to give an exact number but and that is I know that our housing authority Anthony Scott who I spoke to about this yesterday anticipates that in the next week about 70 more families will be going home so we're getting to where they're fewer and fewer who are still in hotels that's a big concern especially with school out and so that continues to be a major concern for our community the coronavirus only heightens that concern and so yes that's very important other concerns related to that the Durham Housing Authority has several senior facilities price steel placed JJ Henderson Oldham Towers and we're of course very concerned that as because seniors are especially vulnerable to the coronavirus and and there are many people in these facilities who have other health problems that would increase their risk we're very concerned that the that the housing authority get the support that it needs in order to keep these folks safe and they have been in contact with the health department and so forth but it is a major concern anytime you have a congregation of older folks in one place it's a concern now I'll just mention one other concern a related concern that we have is that with our homeless population when you think about this so if you were if you are a person who has symptoms and you go to the hospital and you are tested you then need to go home and quarantine until the results of that test are in but there is no home for a homeless person to go to they can't go back to urban ministries for example where we have congregate living and they would not be able to socially distance at all and if you're a homeless person who has presented has been tested and you've been found positive you've tested positive and and after you have tested positive you need to be quarantined if you know if you don't need to be in the hospital but you've tested positive you still need to be quarantined so there are two groups of people amongst our homeless population who will be needing will be needing not may be needing will be needing quarantine facilities and that's something that we as a community have got to figure out other other and this means individual rooms where people can be fed food can be delivered to them and they will be able to be provided with medical checkups there are a lot of good people working on this problem right now representative price congressman price has a very important role in in building the the legislation that's coming out now in Congress one of the next one of the big three bills for the the Congress is is is going to pass in this next week one I'm already passed and one of them is going to contain the housing funding and one of the big aspects of this housing funding according to representative price and he and I again I spoke to him this morning is that we will be we are hopeful that we will be receiving federal assistance to help us provide this quarantine because it will be expensive and that is going to be in the bill I feel certain because congressman price has such an important role in the writing of this bill any more questions so I will say that a lot has been done I'm not sure about the detail and I think that question is probably better directed to the sheriff but what I will say is that the jail population has been reduced and but you you're raising a very good point people who are in our jails are at high risk of coronavirus and when they get out of our jails then they're at high risk of spreading coronavirus they're to other people and so it's very important that we minimize that exposure and part of what that means is having only people in the jail who need to absolutely be in the jail because they're violent and can't be anywhere else but I know that the sheriff has taken good steps in that regard and but I think your questions best address to him any more questions thank you all for coming I appreciate it very much hey bill