North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum Highlights Positive Developments in COVID-19 Battle

BISMARCK, ND (trfnews.i234.me) North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum says the State is making progress in the fight against COVID-19.
by and large today we’ve got a lot of really good news and this is good news that is should be celebrated by all north dakotans uh because it’s the work that you’ve been doing the individual responsibility you’ve shown the actions you’ve taken to slow the spread that are showing up in our in our numbers and uh giving us encouragement i think winston churchill famously said one time when he was talking about world war ii that you know this wasn’t the it wasn’t the end but it was the beginning of the end and i think when you hear the positive news that we have today across multiple areas uh then you’re going to understand that we can see a light at the end of the tunnel in terms of the end of the pandemic and part of that is because of great work that all of you are doing but it’s also because we’ve got new tools in our toolkit and today we’re going to talk about those three powerful new tools that we didn’t have nine months ago we didn’t even have them really two months ago but we have them today and and those three things of course we’re going to talk about the vaccine and how that’s going to be a super powerful tool in helping us end that the second one is in an effort to reduce the mortality and save lives a a more a broader and more proactive use of the therapeutic solutions that are now available to help us save lives of those people that do become infected and then the last thing uh to help us uh break the transmission chain is the t to more broadly use uh the the binex now or the rapid testing in a way uh to not only help us get through the the holiday season but to help us get our kids back in school and keep our businesses uh open and running and so we’ve got some very positive things happening uh the the for us to kick off this morning i want to talk start talking about some of the uh broadly some of these things that we’re seeing and of course one of them which you’ve received news this week was the a lot of attention as it should because it was a historic week uh where the with the newly arrived covid 19 vaccine from pfizer being the first and uh moderna uh on its way uh expected to be here shortly as a second vaccine uh but as you’ve read uh here that care workers from sanford and chi were among the first to receive the vaccine in bismarck today we’ve got two individuals are going to be ready to receive their first doses of a two dose vaccine and molly hall will provide an update on vaccine distribution prioritization and supply and when we talk about the expanded use of the low-cost rapid uh and highly effective at identifying people who are infectious uh the binex now tests uh these are great because they they they give you a positive when someone’s got a high viral load uh we can identify people who are asymptomatic and pull them out of the transmission chain and this is a way low cost highly effective quick way to break that transmission chain and we have uh dr josh wynn will be giving the update on that and then the third is this uh the all of the exciting new therapeutics which truly can be not only life-saving but they have the are demonstrating to have the potential to significantly reduce the need for hospitalization so if you can reduce hospitalizations that’s great news for anyone who does not have covid but might be needing uh the highest level of medical care for for stroke or heart attack or cancer or trauma uh because again we’re managing our health care capacity for all all disease tracts not just for covid but dr joan connell will talk about that and again none of these tools which are all all three of these tools are super exciting but it does not reduce the need for us to continue to be vigilant in terms of physically distancing wearing masks washing our hands avoiding large gatherings particularly as the holidays coming up because transmission can occur in your home in around the dining room table with the with family members as easily as it can uh at some other place like or work or in public but there’s two things that we know now uh that the virus doesn’t like the virus does not like ventilation uh and we know from all the studies that there’s less transmission when people are doing the same thing say dining outside versus dining inside but we’re in a position in north dakota where some of our outdoor activities are perhaps more limited uh but still encourage people to think about avoiding places with poor ventilation uh and doing whatever you can to increase the ventilation uh where where you are the second thing the virus uh cannot cannot survive in in places where there’s distance between humans so it doesn’t like distance so again as you head into the holidays be be aware and be alert that at places that have got large crowds of people unmasked in poorly ventilated locations that should set an alarm for you that that’s a an area where there’s much more likely to be transmission uh and if you’re in some place where you’ve got great ventilation and distance you’re likely quite safe so this is uh the safety factors vary but you as an individual can make the choices of how you want to spend your holidays to make sure that you’re protecting yourself your family your your family members those that are vulnerable are healthcare workers and others in the community