Yeah, as I reported to you on thursday, no employee will be terminated for not getting vaccinated. I believe the law cited by doug Woodlief of the florida Department of health is arbitrary capricious overbroad and dangerously inhibits local governments from protecting its citizens. I want Orange County residents to know that I will continue to fight to protect them during this pandemic. Just as I have done so To keep people safe for the last 40 years, our legal team headed by Orange County Attorney Jeff Newton is reviewing the letter and will be responding this week. Attorney newness here for this press briefing today. We will be providing copies to you of this letter after the news conference. I know if I provided it now none of you would pay attention to any thing else that we would be saying you'd be reading the letter. But each week as we have now. Hell 159 Press briefings always began the week by telling you what our goals are for the weak will continue to do that. The number one goal that we have is to slow the spread of the dangerous delta variant in our community by taking every precaution possible to make sure our testing sites continue to operate seven days a week. In addition to our one stop vaccination site Number 3 to remind our residents we are starting the flu season and the importance of getting their flu shots. We do have a medically qualified physician here today. The Orange County medical director dr christian view Zuber is here. Who will give a brief update momentarily. And the fourth goal for this week is encouraged residents to participate in the ongoing Orange County redistricting process. So let me give you the numbers, the most recent numbers that have been provided to us by the department of health. There are now 225,988 coronavirus cases reported in Orange County. So nearly 226,000 cases within our county. Along The number of Orange County residents who have died from COVID-19 has reached 1968 which means that we are very quickly approaching 2000 deaths in our county. The number of deaths have increased by 46 46. Since we last reported to you on thursday september 23rd, The 14 day positivity rate is at 9.31 below double digits. This is the first time in a while that we have been below double digits. Again, the goal that we have is to get that number five or less. I believe that with the tremendous efforts that are underway to increase the rate of vaccination in our community and our community has contributed to that decline. The percentage of residents age 12 and older have received who have received at least one dose of the vaccine is 73%. As many of you know last week the C. D. C. Announced the Pfizer booster shot would be available to a number of different groups including those aged 65 older and to those age Ages 50-64 with underlying medical conditions after at least six months from receiving the full vaccine series. Today we can announce the fighter booster shot will be available starting tomorrow at our camping world stadium vaccine site. You can also get you're free first or second dose of either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines at camping world Stadium as well. The vaccine site is available seven days a week between the hours of nine a.m. To five p.m. Over the weekend. At our three testing sites are Orange County health services and ministered. A total of 2665 tests free. Covid 19 testing is available at three locations in the Orange County. They are Burnett Park and the former Clark elementary School which are open which are open between the hours of nine a.m. To five p.m. And the E con soccer complex, which is open between nine and four. As we always tell you, you can get information by going to oc fl dot nets. Last testing for information on testing sites and oh cfl dot net slash vaccines. For details about our vaccine opportunities. Our county employee vaccination numbers will continue to be updated but the late the latest numbers that I have Um as of Friday 85% of all Orange County employees have had one or more shots or were granted accommodations. That includes 94% of non Union employees and 69% of union employees. The I got my shot vaccination trailer is out and about today. This week it will be at the Goodwill locations throughout Orange County. Today until two p.m. It will be at the Goodwill on South Orange Blossom Trail tomorrow morning. It will be at the Goodwill and a popcorn, east semoran boulevard on Wednesday morning. The trailer will be located at the Goodwill on curry ford road. And then on thursday morning the mobile vaccine site will travel to Goodwill on South Golden Rod. The pandemic has impacted many of our residents and the ability and their ability to pay rent. I want to continue to urge residents to apply for the rental assistance. You can go to our website uh to get information there as well. Oh cfl dot net slash rental assistance. And to date more than 1663 families have qualified for the rental assistance and $9.3 million have been approved for distribution And us to talk a little bit more about the redistricting. Our 2nd Orange County redistricting meeting will be held here in the administration building tonight at 6:30 p.m. We encourage our residents to take part in this important process that only takes place every 10 years. There are several ways to stay involved as we go through the process. One is you can attend the meetings in person. You can watch the meetings on Orange Tv and our Orange County social media channels and you can also submit a public comment online through our website at o C fl dot net slash redistrict. The same wealth site has the full schedule of meetings and much more information about this process. We also received some good news from the state this past Friday. We were granted more than $41 million Septic to sewer projects. And two of our districts, the bulk of the award money will go towards the septic to sewer program in the Wekiva Springs area and the rest will go to the Pine Hills area. These funds are part of the wastewater treatment grants that will help improve the water quality across the state. Um before I go to Dr Pena, just wanna also we're opening up in just a few moments our medical director again, Dr christian's Uva is here, we'll be speaking momentarily. We also have our public safety director, Mr Danny Banks, our County Attorney, Jeff Newton. Um we have our Director of health services Dr Yolanda Martinez, our HR director Mr Riccardo Day. And I believe from the school district that Mr bobinsky arrived. Okay. Perhaps she has not arrived yet. And then we're joined by Orange County Commissioners Mira Villagomez cordero and Commissioner Nicole Wilson if there are any questions that need to be translated in spanish. We have my special assistant is leah Torres who will do that for us. And so with that I'm going to open it up now to uh toss it to dr pino Dr pena. Thank you sir. Good morning everyone. So the question is where we are in the pandemic today our county. And we are getting into a very good position and I know some of the data, especially death data doesn't feel that way but this is something that was predictable, respectable and the numbers are within the range that we were expecting at this point. We probably will have Maybe three or 4 more weeks of higher death rate following the wave of delta berry. In that we have 3-4 weeks ago We started but the numbers are definitely Decreasing. Just to give you a quick recap. The measure mentioned to you that we are at 225,988 cases for the pandemic in our county. And a rolling average is at 9.3 past three rate which is the lowest we have in a few few weeks Remember we were in the 20s and that's an indication of where the pandemic is going. Also to that effect are positive are incidence rate. How many cases we have per 100,000 went from 641 per 100,000 that we had at the highest of this wave To right now 157 Cases per 100,000. Also another good indication of the data, all those Sundays are not the best day but still yesterday we only have 249 cases reported to our county. And last week was the weeks was the week with the highest decrease ever. You're this pandemic From one way to the next. So the decrease has been of about 40% in the number of cases from week 37 2 week 38 with regard to the number of deaths dust one data point that continues two. We're still a point in the wrong direction. As the mayor mentioned to you aguas perhaps right now a total of number of death or 405 On September so far 119 which is a large number for september but september is almost and then in this week. Uh huh. So it's gonna end very low respect when you compare to the prior month. So the total number of death is 1968. The range is 29- 107 years old. We need to verify that data from 107. Um We have four additional death reported to you um since we talked to you last 16 female 30 mil 12th Hispanic 34 9. Hispanic 11 black 30 White On five of other We have 23 with known underlying conditions And 23 also that we don't know at this point four of the death are from August I'm 42 are from September of the Of the four death four of the 46 days. I'm sorry. We're in assisted living facilities or at least the resident has an address two in a 60 living facility five or 10 nine. We're fully vaccinated With a median age of 79 for those who were fully vaccinated that die. and two of the 46 4.3 were partially vaccinated with one those of to those series one person was asked to their second toast and one person was now past doing their second for the variants. Delta continue to be the prominent variant and other radio orations of delta variant And for vaccinations. As the mayor mentioned to you, we have reached 73% among all of our presidents who are eligible for the vaccine with at least one ghost And for serious completed is a 63%. Which is also very good. The mayor also mentioned to you that the mobile shot starting this week, starting today is going to be rolling again through our county is quite popular. So we will start coordinating those events and also today we will not be testing in schools. We are going to pass that. The reason to pass that I have several layers. First the number of cases has reduced significantly and the number of people who are showing up to the schools to do testing has reduced significance. Also, the testing in the schools was mainly intended for those who needed to go back after the four days. And that was also eliminated with a new emergency order by the Department of Health so that the parents have the discretion of the quarantine of the child. So that test, that's negative test at the fourth day is not needed anymore. So that's probably part of the decrease in the demand. And for that we are reallocating the resources and moving into vaccination. It is important to get vaccinated for now. Do the end of the year. We have sarah holiness coming and we know what happened with holidays. Although we will not be in that position because our highest percentage of vaccination that we have achieved. But still we need to protect as many people as we can. I'm also very soon as students would be alleged eligible for vaccine junction in 12 and we encourage firing to vaccinate your child As soon as the vaccine becomes available with these, I will transfer the microphone to Dr Super, who is the medical director for the Department of Health Services. Good morning. Thank you. Um, I will just echo briefly the importance to Keep the message for vaccinating for COVID-19 out there in the public. You know, we um we've seen a lot of improvement in our numbers and and let's do a great part to the efforts um to have people vaccinated in our social distancing and masking. But for the first time in probably a couple of years we've been so focused on Covid. I have to remind people about influenza influenza season is upon us now. We have not dealt with. I think as much of a burden of influenza locally over the past couple of years. Um, Covid of course has been our overwhelming focus as well as you know, with the social distancing and the masking. We've seen what appears to be really good decreases in influenza seasonal concerns are that with people using masks less often people gathering more that we are in a position this year to potentially have a problem with influenza and and not, we don't find ourselves in the position of fighting a duel pandemic where we're still fighting the covid pandemic and then we have to really get behind and and fight influenza. influenza is still a really serious illness worldwide. It often affects folks at both the younger and the older spectrums of our population and with that as the primer. I just really want to reinforce the importance of vaccine. The flu vaccine is available. It's effective and I would encourage everyone who is eligible to really to look towards the flu vaccine. You can be co vaccinated. It's important to be vaccinated for both. Covid as well as influenza and now is the time to really start looking at increasing our focus on influenza as well. So we can hopefully as we get into the holidays when we have gatherings and congregating with our family and friends that we don't have that added burden of influenza. So please, um, so decisions physicians offices, pharmacies, your healthcare providers. Please please please consider um, your influenza vaccine this year. It's really important because of all the serious concerns with influenza and commonly with Covid. The other benefit of that. It will also help decrease the burden on our emergency departments and our health care system with patients presenting with both symptoms that look very similar between covid and influenza and vaccination is probably our best opportunity to prevent ourselves from getting into a situation like we were in, uh, previously this summer where we had a big rise in Covid and we will expect numbers to fluctuate. So please encourage influenza vaccine for all if everyone out there who's eligible and with that, I'll turn it back to the mayor. All right, thank you Doctors over at this time we're opening up for any questions that you may have and as we customarily do, there will be a microphone that will be moving around so we will have order look process Mayor Demings Lawrence of Honest with News six. What are the fines associated um, as stated in the letter and how does the county come into compliance if people have already gotten the vaccine because of the mandatory requirement. Uh, You know, under the presumed law, the fine would be $5,000 per incident. So the letter did not establish what the fines will be. They requested some information from the county and at some point we will provide information, but there's no doubt we're going to end up in litigation regarding this. Um, that's, I think that's to be determined. That's something that will be determined through the process. That's something that will ultimately be determined through the courts. I believe. Uh, Mayor Greg Fox West TV. Uh do you believe that since your decision, Thursday was followed less than 24 hours later with this letter, do you believe that the governor himself directed to the Department of Health to send that as a punitive action, since they could no longer punish you for firing somebody. I think that it would be mere conjecture on my part. But clearly, um, this has some political overtones. And if I were a resident of Orange County would be really concerned that somehow the state, the governor would try to punish Orange County in any way. After all, the fines will be paid by the county taxpayer dollars that wouldn't be paid by me. So this isn't about me necessarily. But as the mayor of the county, the ceo of the county, you know, I'm responsible for all county operations. And while we're fighting through this pandemic, my goal is to keep our citizens safe. When we look at historically, Better than 10% of our county employees over time have tested positive for the coronavirus. The overwhelming majority of our employees who have tested positive are, I'm going to say those who in public safety, our fire fighters and our corrections officers represent the greatest number of our employees who have tested positive. And Director Banks can probably give you the numbers historically, but I believe we've had some 391 of our firefighters who have tested positive over time. If you look just within the fire service, the certified firefighters that represents nearly a third of all of our firefighters have tested positive when we look at corrections. Uh, I believe the numbers 4 38 uh, that's probably A 4th of our correction officers and within corrections, sadly I have reported to you over time that we've had three corrections officers who have died, covid 19. So in a community where we're approaching 226,000 individuals who have tested positive. My job is to try to look broadly and put policies and procedures in place that will not only protect our citizens but protect our employees. And so I believe that we on solid ground to make the decisions that we have made since the mandate has put in has been put in place, We've seen a significant increase in the number of our employees who at this point have attested that they have uh, completed the vaccine series are are received at least one does of the vaccine. So in my mind, the mandate is one of the precipitating reasons why we have seen an increase in those numbers. Uh Director banks. If if I didn't get those numbers quite right. You know, uh he may have him. Did I get the numbers? Okay, so that's where we are. So hopefully that makes sense to you, what I just said to you, why we have taken decisive action in this county to protect our employees who have to go out and serve in this community. And you've heard me say that with our firefighters, these are mm every firefighter we have uh is an emergency medical technician. Many of them are also paramedics. That means that they are directly involved in the delivery of health related services here within Orange County. And I think that as an employer, we would be derelict in our duties if our firefighters as they respond to take care of. The citizens are also infecting the citizens because of their refusal to get vaccinated or what have you take appropriate precautions every day in the american society. The government has certain mandates that it puts in place to keep all of us safe. Every one of us uh mandated if you're an automobile and you're driving an automobile to to do what to wear a seat belt because that protects the greater good of all of us in the process. And I can tell you that when I look at our fire servers and firefighters, law enforcement officers, I've spent a full career uh nearly four decades as a first responder. And there were times that and my career I responded to the clarion call to assist someone who wanted to end their own life. They were trying to commit suicide. But we intervened in the process and to protect them because that's what we're supposed to do. Because they have made poor decisions. I can tell you that firefighters every day and this nation respond to calls for service where individuals again threatened to commit suicide, they make a poor decision. But as they respond to treat that patient and they transport that patient, they try to save the patient's life. Every doctor, every nurse, uh does that when someone who has tried to kill themselves ends up in the E. R. Room, um these medical professionals try to save their lives. So it's no different in this pandemic. As the death toll continues to rise, the rate of transmission continues, you ought to understand that that is the fundamental role of government sometimes to intervene. Even when individuals may not deem that that's the appropriate thing in the best interests of their life. But what we've tried to do here is the firefighters, for example, said they wanted a choice. Uh we've given them a choice at this point. You can your job isn't in jeopardy. But if you don't do it, you're going to get a written reprimand. We've given them that choice uh where they don't have to get vaccinated, but we're going to subject them to every time they report to a shift, they're going to be tested again. Why are we doing that to protect the public to make certain that we are not inadvertently uh further endangering our community for the remainder of this health care crisis that we're all living through so long way to answer your question. But I believe with full transparency and clarity and you know, I wanted to no the members of our public to hear the rationale why I have made certain decisions in this case. Okay, other questions. Uh dr pino, Asher Wildman channel 13. We've been trying to get this data for a few days now from department health Orange County. When governor to say it just said that roughly 98% of students that are sent home to quarantine do not test positive for covid. Are you guys tracking? It's two part one. How many students are being sent home to quarantine? How many of those students are testing positive? And to our we reflecting the 98% that Governor de Santis says are going home healthy. Well, I'm pretty sure the governor was talking about the state data in general. I don't have access to that in our case. I don't know the stop number but to support what the governor is saying. Very few of the students that we have sent to quarantine convert that is true. I don't know what that percentage will be, but it can be calculated. So we will try to calculate it. Um, he's probably high meaning the non conversion is probably over 90% for sure. I don't know if for us would go as high as 98. Now that's irrelevant. Um, from now on, in the sense that we will not be placing People in Quarantine anymore for COVID-19, the students, what we will do is we will notify the parents that we are doing, we are notifying the parents often exposure and then the parent decide if they want to keep the child at home or if they want to send it back to school. If the child of course is a symptomatic, any six kids should stay at home, not only for COVID-19, but any other sickness that they may present steve. Vladeck from the Orlando sentinel. This is for mayor Demings. Mr Mayor mm The written reprimand, How does that work? And how is it? How does it actually, I guess punished the person who didn't do it. Maybe punishment isn't what you're you're striving for. But how does it discipline them? And what repercussions do they actually face? It's almost like being on double secret probation, which I'm always on. Yeah, well, our goal here is not to penalize our employees. We have not put processes in place to penalize them, but to incentivize them. We have had incentives that we have put in place to encourage our employees to get vaccinated. Uh However, if they fail to comply with a lawful order that they have been given, that has to be consequences for that. We have a well established disciplinary process and that it tends to be progressive. And so because um this clearly was a lawful order and that was given to them in spite of the noise to that has been created, I think by the governor, inserting himself into this process. There's clear federal law and again, you heard me um opining on what I thought were the fallacies of the current state law, we'll work all of that out in the in the courts or through other processes as we move forward. Um but hopefully uh the way this will work is when that deadline hits, uh if they have failed to get at least the first shot, you know, by the end of the month or the second shot by the end of next month, then they're gonna find themselves in violation of the directive that has been put in place and they're gonna end up with a written reprimand and their files that if they have other unrelated uh disciplinary actions, uh it will be progressive. Um So I hope that we have the kind of employees that are continuously getting in trouble because those are the model employees that we have, I will tell you that the overwhelming majority of our employees come to work every day. They do a great job. In fact, I've indicated to you today that the overwhelming majority of employees have complied with the directive at this point and that's what we wanted to see in order to protect our citizens and to protect our employees. All right, well, fewer questions today than normal, but thank you all the next press briefing. Well, come on thursday and it is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. So this coming thursday september 30th at 4 30 PM. We don't talk to you before then. We'll see you then. Thank you all for being okay. Is uh Hey kelly. He's a hard copy. Yeah.