 Okay, we're back. We're live. I'm Jay Fiedel. It's five o'clock today and it's Community Matters with Sharon Moriwaki. May I say Senator Sharon Moriwaki, who is a member of the Hawaii State Senate and a member of the special committee on COVID, who very important, which has been meeting even during this recess on a regular basis and doing a lot of things. And she's here to tell us about what's going on in her committee and in the Senate these days in the crisis of coronavirus. Welcome to the show, Sharon. So nice to see you. Good seeing you, Jay. It's been a while. This pandemic has kept us separated. I haven't seen you. Glad to be here, amidst the COVID and remotely. Yes. Well, since you're at home, I think you're at home. Okay, then, and you're not walking, you're not subject to the rule that requires you to wear a mask. So for the show, maybe you could take the mask off just for a little while. Okay, it's just part of my uniform. But I just want to make it really clear that as of this week, whenever you go into a grocery store or any place, you need to mask up. And if you don't have a mask, you can take a scarf put it around your face, but you really need to mask up. And that's the new requirement from the governor now. The mayor had one for the city, but this is for the state, protect not only yourself, but really your neighbors. It's caring for each other, really big time. Yeah, I know you care about caring for each other. Incidentally, Kurt Clover was on the show just an hour ago, you know, he came down with John Wahey as his guest. I'm hearing from everybody today. First the mayor and now you Sharon Wow, what a day. So, so tell us about you know how, how, how things have gone in the Senate. I mean, the senator is she horror came down with the COVID. She went into recess. It's still in recess. It's possible that the Senate could reconvene, but I don't know what the chances are there. And then your committee was formed somewhere along the line, and your committee has been active. I know this because I get your newsletter. Almost every day I get a newsletter from you about the committee. So talk about the Senate and talk about your committee. The committee was formed over a month ago and actually the actual date like somewhat sometime February 28 or thereabouts. It was the start of the COVID when we heard about it the Senate Ways and Means Committee on which I sit had a meeting a briefing but we wanted to hear from all the departments what are your plans for COVID. We had a budget request for COVID so we would be prepared. And as the directors came in and spoke to us we were really alarmed that there wasn't the sense of urgency they had no plan. So we asked for a plan we gave them a week or so to come up with your emergency response plans, and we still haven't gotten those plans. We got it from some of the departments who are really pushing forward like DHS and the Department of Defense and didn't get it from everybody else and we were very, very concerned. So the chair of Ways and Means, Donovan Della Cruz, went to the Senate president said you know we've got to move this along. There's got to be a better sense of urgency because this is going to really turn into big time because we see it happen elsewhere. And with that the Senate president appointed a committee of six. It's called the special committee on COVID-19. And we've been meeting since ever since it's for the last almost month now and meeting with separate departments. So the focus really is on state government. So how do we have that urgency? How do we have a plan during this time of emergency? So we make sure that government services that should be serving the public like unemployment insurance, like some of the services that the Department of Human Services has, like our Department of Defense that now is into the high EMA, the Emergency Management mode. All of these programs really needing to gear up and make sure that their employees are really well supported in supporting all of us in the community. And so that's kind of the genesis and how we haven't felt that it's been proceeding as fast as we would like. So we're still here. We're still here. And you're going to continue then. You're going to continue these meetings as long as the crisis lasts, I take it. This is an ongoing, indefinite committee. Well, we felt that, you know, it was only during the time when we could get sort of, you know, nudge the administration, they would start doing it on their own. So we had to work really closely with the harbors and work really closely with airports and just only this past week did airports now come through with seeing their role as protecting our borders and actually testing and quarantine and requiring it of everybody who comes through, and not just the visitors, but every single person who wants to come on to our shore needs to be tested. They've now had the thermal test. They have to give us actual phone numbers so we don't have a situation like we did with last week with that woman who got through with a box and making sure that every person has a residence or hotel room to go to and that they can be monitored for 14 days while they stay in their room, self isolate, not going to the beach, staying in their room. So that didn't happen just till this past Friday. Yeah, that's, that's a kind of, you know, a problem in the sense that you say well 14 days you want to stay 14 days in isolation and the kind of a policeman standing outside the door. It's very hard to actually enforce that. And it's an honor system. But you also have to, what do you do you call them and check where they are. Tourism authority has been very good and they've really got it. They have the whole procedure said so three times during this day, they will call at an announce times, and to see the person is in the room. If the person is not in the room, then they'll call the hotel to go up and check. And so up to this point it wasn't so structured that there would be somebody checking on the person in the room if they're not in the room. They get turned over to the county, which is the enforcement agency, HPD will come down and actually give you a citation, which will either charge you. I mean, they'll find you $5,000 or a year in prison maximum if you still refuse to comply with our quarantine law. No, that's, that's appropriate. And it's appropriate to enforce it. And it's appropriate to put those penalties on anyone who doesn't. I mean, it's a condition of arriving here. We have to, you know, keep our population safe. And without enforcement on that, it's an open, it's a sieve is the problem. And it's been a real problem. And, and you know, while we've kept the numbers down, there's always this view to the recovery. But you know, if we do this right, and we have procedures set up that work, then think about this that Hawaii would be the only destination in the world that's safe for you to come because we do all this testing before anybody arrives in state. And we've got procedures that will let you enjoy your time while here being healthy with all of us who presumably are healthy. We still have 500 cases and we still have new cases developing. So I wonder, you know, what about testing? Is the committee or is the administration pursuing the possibility of testing. I know that we're getting, we're getting some mixed messages from Donald Trump about this. But do we have sufficient testing to test everybody who comes or to test, you know, everyone who could be carrying the virus? Or, or is, is that an imperfection in our, in our protection? Yes, I think that we don't have systems set up. And we so we don't have apparently we don't have all the supplies, the test kits, the, the antigen or whatever we need. And so there's mixed messages from the Department of Health director saying we don't have enough test kits. On the other hand, we hear the lieutenant governor saying we should test everybody. We hear, and the committee has been really concerned about this because we feel that if you don't test and you don't know the prevalence, then how are you going to set up your protections? How are you going to know you have enough inventory in terms of hospitals, test kits, as well as ventilators, if you need them. And so there really needs to be a sink, sinking of all of that. And we haven't heard that yet. We hope to hear it on Wednesday. We're asking the health director back again. And we also are asking Dr. Hankins, if he can come. He is the health doc on the high email side, the emergency management side, and see what should be the standard. What should we be doing on the one hand, the director of health tells us we don't want to test people are asymptomatic. On the other hand, we hear that asymptomatic people could be carriers. So where is it? Where do you draw the line? How do you get at making sure that the carriers are in our pool if they in fact are? So the important part of what I see that needs to really be beefed up, or at least we need to set up a protocol as we did with the airport and how you quarantine, what's that procedure is a contact tracing. If you have, and we have 584 positive cases, who have these people touched? Now, who do you start use interview everybody that this person has touched, and keep going, you know, spreading out and testing all of them and until 14 days has progressed and that there's nothing there, then move on but keep track of that data, because that data will tell us how pervasive this is, or not. And I think that's where we seem to be. I would say miscommunicating, but it really isn't clear from the health director, what it is, what is surveillance, what is diagnosis, what is, you know, the other side of quarantining and saying this person has recovered or not, you know, and it's not clear. We haven't had clear messages on that. And that's what the Senate has been asking for and I hope we start moving in that direction. I watched the press conference today in the administration with director Anderson, and he now has charts and he shows you where we are and the number of cases tested and so forth. So this is starting to get a little more data driven, which is nice. And hopefully because of that track, we might have some protocols set up that will keep us safe. Well, I'm sure, I'm so glad you're doing this. I'm sure glad your committee is meeting. It performs a very valuable function called an oversight function overstate government. You do, you do carry a big stick, you are the Senate, you are the legislature in the absence of a recess and people will do listen to you, and they will and do come and talk to you and answer your questions. You're in a great spot for that. The other thing is, to me, you're fully aware, fully engaged, and I'm really happy that you're doing this. In a time when information gets confused, in a time when some officials don't want to tell you the whole story, because they don't want to excite people and go into a panic, it's really important that we have you doing this. The other thing is, I'm really glad that you're on the quarantine thing, because as you said, Sharon, this is a really big point. Hawaii could be a safe place. It could rebuild its tourism on the notion that Hawaii is as safe as it gets anywhere. But to do that, we've got to flatten the curve. We've got to get the cases down, and the way to get the cases down is testing. I mean, there's got to be way, you know, maybe Drosh Crane could get out there. Wherever they are, let's find the test kits. Let's find them and buy them, whatever you have to do. Let's test everybody who tries to come in here. And let's do tracking. You know, I'm aware of a couple of tracking possibilities. One, of course, is in Wuhan. The Chinese built a tracking device and they require you to put it on your phone, and it tracks you on GPS. It knows where you are. If you're not in the right place, then things happen. I'm not sure that they're sharing that or whether it's shareable, but they have shown us what kind of functionality would be good on a tracking system. It's where you are and who you've been near. The other one in Israel. Israel has a working model of a tracking system, and it would be easy to find out exactly who there had developed it and how well it works. But I saw a piece on my reading yesterday to suggest that it was as good as anything in the world, and it was voluntary as opposed to China, which is not voluntary. You know, in the US, you have to be voluntary. And the third possibility is a week ago or so, there was a number of articles about Google and Apple, who are collaborating to build a voluntary tracking system in this country. It's based on, you know, who has reported to have the virus positive and who has been near anybody who's been positive. And the thing uses a kind of GPS and a Bluetooth combination to identify anybody near you who's been positive. And then it warns you, or it warns someone else like the health department about this. And so you can, you know, get a data system like that, and you can track everybody about everything. The more tracking and GPS, the more identification and enforcement of quarantine, the better we're going to be, the flatter the curve is going to be, and the better Hawaii is going to look as an advanced technological society, which is a safe place for tourists to come. This is so important. I'm so glad you're thinking about that. You've got to keep on doing it, Sharon. I agree with you, Jamie, and this is what we're trying to see whether we can do it or not. You know, there are always these privacy concerns and so the attorneys get involved. So to the degree that we can show that it's the police part of the state, which for the protection of our health and safety, perhaps we can get over that hurdle but right now I think it's that's why it's still voluntary and not require a requirement of being able to come into state. And, you know, a lot of the cases, positive cases have not been all visitors. It's returning residents, you know, gone to Las Vegas, gone to China, gone, you know, to various places where there were hotspots and they're coming back bringing that and infecting their whole family, you know, larger households more and then they go shopping and, you know, on and on. So I think it's really important for us to, we're always talking about this new normal, normalcy is to be much more mindful about what we do, who we actually are our neighbors and what we can do to care for everybody because we all matter and not be so flippant about, you know, oh, you know, I'm healthy, it's okay, you know. Yeah, no that's that's inconsiderate, because you could you could be completely asymptomatic in infecting everybody in the room. And it goes to your slogan that I know you have believed deeply in that is that we should all care for each other. So this is very important in a larger context. But then that takes me to the question about, you know, coming back and trying to resurrect the economy. You know, Donald Trump has made statements that have created all kind of consternation about, you know, coming back and and liberating some states as against the advice of their own officials, which is really the country is very confused about it. Where are we in Hawaii about coming back I saw something about how the governor did not anticipate taking the lockdown off by April 30, he was going to extend that but where is the committee whereas it's thinking about coming back and trying to open things up and rebuild the economy. Is it now is it later. How much later. Well it is the governor's call but the CDC I think I think the White House now has agreed that you're coming out of the woods if you've had 14 days of a downward trajectory of your positive cases. So you've got to be going down so so that and it's and it's, and it's, it's 14 days it's not just oh today we're down okay let's open up. And so I think that's an important standard to look at. And the more that we social distance and use our masks and be really clear about washing our hands and all of the, all of the, you know, you've got you've got the drill. That we keep away from each other as much as we love to have to guess and to be very mindful that that you're infecting other people. I think at one point, the health director said, you know, think as if you have the virus. So whatever you do should be with that in mind so that we really do stop the contagion. So, so if you use that two week period we are not quite out of the woods. And so I don't think that that April 30 day will hold it probably will be extended. I don't know for how long whether it's a month or two more weeks or what but the proclamations are all in place till April 30. And we're not, we're not going to do it within 14 days. We still have cases. So where is it all going I'm sure you must think about this and we all think about it we all think about it at three in the morning. You know it's just this kind of a sunrise sunset one day blends into the other staying at home, trying to engage your mind and keep healthy and all that and being completely, you know unsure about the future. You're in a position where you know you are looking at the future and we need you to do that but what what is the future. How do you see this unfolding. It's not easy. And at the end, we're going to have the cold shock of finding out that what we what we thought was the, you know, the old way isn't available anymore. And we're going to have to be flexible enough to adapt to a new normal and build affirmatively work at building a new normal. This is all pretty scary stuff. How do you see it unfolding especially in Hawaii. Well, you know me I'm the forever optimist. I do know that. So I, you know, the way I look at this is that we've been on this treadmill, you know bigger better bigger bigger bigger, you know, and I think that the silver lining in this is that we gives us time to take pause, not by our own voluntary means because we wouldn't do it. But from above is that we should take advantage to me you should take advantage of this time, be more mindful about what is important. You know, I just got an email email message from one of my constituents and said, you know, really sad because my, my parent was in in a facility, and they locked down the facility because they wanted to protect everybody. So yesterday the parent died, and he never got to see his parents. So it gives you pause to what's important in life. And looking at where the new normal will be, we will probably be transformed because now we know we can do a lot of things remotely so we don't have to have the traffic congestion. We know that that there's a lot more that we can do that's innovative using technology or using a lot more of our interconnection, not necessarily at the pace that we want, but looking at things that count. I think those are really important because as we move to that place. For example, I heard Alan Oshima and HMSA CEO Mugita talk about we've got to look at, okay when we look at our travel industry, we look at people coming in and we look at anybody. How do we test, you know, other other countries that have been able that been through SARS like South Korea and Singapore, Hong Kong, you know, thermal tests, they wear masks, they do things differently because of such a mass contagion that killed so many that, you know, we need to be much more mindful. So, you know, not knowing where it's going, but I think the economy can be stronger and better if we look at it as a new way of how we make money, how we take care of our employees and how we become a stronger state because of that. Yeah, we had Jane Sawyer from the SBA on earlier today and she said, well, if you're, if you're a manager and you find yourself at home, then think of how you can manage better after the deluge here. Think, you know, write papers to yourself, attack problems that you haven't really been able to solve before, use the time to think into a better future. And I sure agree with that. I also think I want to add. Let me give you one example. Unemployment insurance. It's been really the bane of our whole, you know, this whole response period. And I feel for the Labor Director, when he came to us before WAM, he said, we asked, okay, how many people do you need? He's always going to be really great. It's going to be really big problems. So I need, I need staff to help me. How many do you need? 21 staff. Okay. I mean, that's how the problem was seen as, you know, handleable. 230,000 claims later, what we're sending 200 people over there. And that was with a lot of pushing and tugging and all of that. But the one thing that that's the new normal. When we asked him, okay, how many can you take at a time 20 at a time because he said, I can't get my staff off the line in order to train people and I can only train 20 at a time. Well, with the technology PowerPoint. HRD staff going over there, reengineering or engineering and just see the process. What is it and what can be streamlined. That's a new normal. It's a new normal. What things don't you need. I mean, you need to just take out because it's not really helping the process. And that's that that's the kind of thing that we can do now, as we go forward, whether it's contact tracing, whether it's testing, whether it's how we tested the borders, you know, the ships coming in the planes coming in, how we deal with everything that state government does is pretty bureaucratic and like a lot of red tape. Those are things that we could reengineer now today before we get to the to the other side of this pandemic. That's kind of future that that's ahead if people start looking at it in a way of, as you say, James, so you're saying, let's look at how a manager can manage better what they are in charge of. No boundaries on that, you know, it reminds me of the whole affair with some state agencies are paying their their staffers to stay at home and not work. And then I think it was the governor wanted them to take jobs, do work for other agencies where it was needed. He said, no, we won't do that. The he said, no, we don't want to do that. And if they do that they have to get this kind of kicker on top their salary for 25%. This is not sustainable. I don't know how it's going to work out. I didn't was to talk about reducing the salaries across the board. I don't know how it's going to work out, but I'll tell you one thing. At the end of the day, it's going to be different. At the end of the day, state workers are going to have to be more flexible. They're going to pitch in and volunteer for other agencies. The end of the day, nobody's going to tolerate this kind of thing about no, I have to stay home and not work and get paid anyway. That's not, you know, the employees who are volunteering less their soul, but they, they are showing what what work is I mean we do the work that has to be done to serve the people the state and I think they're happy doing that with some other skill, you know, people are 200 people coming from agencies, you know, strikes me that government is going to be in, especially in Hawaii, especially with a committee like yours to, you know, to participate in the conversation at least government is going to be remade and and in that regard I want to close by saying this I believe that this is going to teach state government especially in Hawaii where we all know what you know what goes on. It's going to it's going to it's going to improve state government because we're going to get new leaders emerging, you know, people who can handle things going forward to change things going forward to to focus on these kinds of things you've been talking about on a long term basis, and I mean new leaders are emerging right now I frankly I want to say this in public, I consider you one of those new leaders Sharon, what you're doing and how you're rolling up his sleeves on this I think it's fabulous that you're doing this. It's my colleagues, it's my colleagues as well so give them credit I mean of course, you know, on a sixth on the Senate committee and there are others in the House committee so you know, all of us pitching in together. Okay, we tell them we want them on the show. Sharon Moriwaki, State Senator. My favorite State Senator. Thank you so much for joining us today Sharon. Great to talk to you. I want to catch up with you again as we go down down the trail here. Take care, stay healthy, wear your mask. Okay, and wash your hands. Wash your hands. They don't think you're neurotic just wash your hands. Thank you, Sharon.