UPDATE: 5,156 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 48,287 total tested and 176 reported deaths with 144 deaths confirmed as COVID-19 and 699 people in hospital statewide.
MONTGOMERY-On Tuesday, April 21 Governor Kay Ivey held a joint news conference with State Health Officer Dr. Scott Harris and Alabama Department of Labor Secretary Fitzgerald Washington to discuss updates and ongoing plans for Alabama to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ivey said Alabama should be careful and cautious and reopen Alabama in a smart way. In saying that the governor said Alabama would stay the course and will not reopen until the April 30 for the time being. Ivey said we need to keep the COVID-19 numbers down at least 10-14 days before businesses could start to reopen. The governor emphasized the health and well being of Alabama citizens is the number one priority for reopening the state.
Governor Ivey said the Coronavirus Task Force is going through the many recommendations to reopen Alabama and as of now their recommendation is there should be no changes to the Alabama stay at home order.
Ivey said she knows that thousands of Alabamians are hurting. She also said about 28,00 small business claims have been made through the federal loan program and to date this program has run out of money.
According to the Governor testing is the number one issues to reopening Alabama and a committee is meeting in Birmingham today to discuss reopening. Governor Ivey said until we get enough testing in Alabama, which as of today is 1% of the population the state does not have enough to get back up to speed and on to reopening Alabama.
State Health Officer Dr. Scott Harris said he thinks some day in the future he’d like COVID-19 testing to be readily available for everyone, but we’re not there yet. He did say we need tobe at the point where tests can be made as quickly as possible in the area of outbreaks of COVID-19.
Dr.Harris said he wants everyone to remember we’re trying to protect the people who are most vulnerable in Alabama. He hopes people can just hang in there a bit longer.
Labor Secretary Washington said he understands the frustration with the program to file for unemployment but he wants to let the public know they are doing all they can to expedite the process.
Alabama Unemployment Claim Tracker
