Governor Urges Californians to Prepare for Upcoming Flu Season

GOVERNOR SCHWARZENEGGER: Good afternoon, good to see you all. Well, first I want to say thank you very much to my tour guide for guiding me through the lab here, I really appreciate it. I want to say thank you very much to Kim Belshé, our Secretary of Health and Human Services and Dr. Mark Horton, the Director of the Department of Public Health and Dr. Howard Backer, the Associate Secretary for Emergency Preparedness and then Dr. Carol Glaser from the Department of Public Health. This was an interesting tour, I want to thank them for taking me through it.

Today we deal a lot with how to protect people, if it is through the fires—I just came from San Bernardino—or if it is through public health and through protecting the people from the H1N1 virus and so on. So we want to put the spotlight on that issue and that's why I came here to the lab. And I just walked through this wonderful lab, which is a state-of-the-art kind of a complex here in Richmond and it's the cornerstone of California's Public Health Laboratory system. They are doing here really terrific work.

As a matter of fact, I have just watched them testing for the H1N1 virus. I think the state of California is, of course, taking that virus very seriously and I urge everyone in California to take this very seriously. The flu season is approaching and we are expecting infection rates to be much higher than the regular flu season. As many as one in four Californians could get the H1N1 virus. That means nine million people, so think about that number. That means that the virus could take thousands and thousands of lives here in California and that includes of course young people, people that are healthy, people that have had no medical history at all, that usually are not affected by the flu, they can get affected by this.

I don't want to alarm people, of course but I do want everyone to understand that the H1N1 is not like a typical flu. It is very unpredictable and it has the potential to mutate and spread very quickly. That is why the state has been working around the clock to prepare for it. In fact, we just asked the legislature to immediately release $46 million of federal funds for this lab and for other flu preparations.

When we first saw the H1N1 last spring, California had all the essential building blocks already in place and we were ready for the action here. We had already invested $172 million to improve our readiness for a flu pandemic. Because of that, we were the first state to identify the H1N1. We were also one of the first states to do the testing in our own lab, which is the lab right here. Our state lab has since increased its capacity and is prepared to test more than 20,000 specimens in the coming flu season.

We expect vaccines to be available in mid-October and a mass vaccination program will follow. The state has been working with health care providers, schools and others to prepare for the vaccination program. It's expected to be the largest since the polio vaccination in the ‘50s, so today we are launching a website to register doctors, clinicians, nurses, anyone who will provide vaccinations.

But this isn't all about government, of course, it's about the individuals out there. Each of the people out there has a responsibility to do everything that they can to stay healthy. And there are a few things that you can do, like wash your hands regularly, make sure to cover your cough and your sneeze and also make sure that if you get sick, stay home. I think this is extremely important. It sounds simple but stay home. Some people try to be heroic and go to work even though they have the flu but this doesn't work here. I think you should stay home. And I think it's important for people to recognize that their kids, some schools will close down so their kids will be at home, so prepare for home schooling. Also for businesses, it's important to prepare, that there will be a lot of workers that will be not coming to work because they're sick and because of this flu.

We are working closely with our partners at the federal level and also the local level. We'll do everything possible to protect the health of every Californian, because public safety is our number one priority.

So thank you very much. And now I would like to bring up Secretary Belshé, who is really the expert in this.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

GOVERNOR SCHWARZENEGGER:

Thank you very much. Any questions about this?

QUESTION/ANSWER

QUESTION: Governor, you mentioned that you've asked the legislature to release $46 million. Can this lab not operate to its full capacity without that funding?

GOVERNOR: I think this is maybe a question that you can answer. All I know is that when we asked for this money—we are absolutely convinced that we are going to do everything we can to get that money. Because I think that the legislature knows they can play politics all year-round but when it comes to public safety, which is our number one priority, when it comes to fires or when it comes to this kind of issue, they've got to follow through. So this is why this is very important. But if you—

DIRECTOR HORTON: I think that what we demonstrated in the springtime, with a very, very
successful effort, using this laboratory and our partners at the local
community, we were able to test over 10,000 samples in a very short
period of time, within a period of six to eight weeks. That's five to 10
times as many samples as we usually process during an entire flu season.
So we can operate at full capacity for a period of time. The resources that
are going to be made available to us will help increase that capacity but
we are fully prepared right now to deal with this virus as it comes forward.

QUESTION: Governor, it sounds like the vaccine won't be readily available until October. There could be many people sick by then. Are you concerned it might come too late? And are you prepared for what might happen if people begin to get panicky?

GOVERNOR: Well, we cannot speed up that process. I mean, it will become available from the federal government in October and then we want to make sure that we do everything that we can that, as soon as it becomes available, that it gets distributed the fastest way possible. That's why we are working with different health clinics, with schools and with everyone together, to form those partnerships so we get it out as quickly as possible.

May I remind you also, I think that there are some people that are announcing that the children will get this for free. We don't even have to make this announcement, because in California it's a given that if you get for free the vaccine from the federal government that we, of course, through our Public Health Clinics, will also give away this vaccine to children for free, except if they go then to their own doctor, then it changes.

QUESTION: Governor, public safety, all this news has come out about Phil Garrido, who was on GPS monitoring while he was on parole. Is it time to rethink how effectively inmates on parole can be monitored with GPS devices? It's part of what's going on in the legislature right now.

GOVERNOR: Well, I think that the first thing is that, whenever you have a situation like that, that you go and evaluate and see if we can do better. I think that we have to always do that. This is like you do that with every fire that you have, with every situation. You always try to figure out, is there something that you could have done, that you could have done a better job, or can do a better job in the future?

But I think that one of the things that we have been fighting for is parole reform. It is very clear that our parole system is outdated and it is failing us sometimes, because there are too many parolees for one parole agent; it's a 70-to-1 ratio. And what we want to do is cut it down to a 45-to-1 ratio so that you get rid of those that are not dangerous people out there, because not everyone has to be on parole. Other states don't do that; only California does that. So you have this huge overload of people that they have to watch.

And I think it's better to just have them watch those that are really serious criminals or sex offenders and that's where it slips right now. And that's why need it, the reform. And I think that that's the only way we can make those kind of changes in the future, if we reform the system, the prison system.

QUESTION: Governor, you recently made budget cuts to the Healthy Families Program and many other health and human services programs. Are you at all concerned that that will make people more vulnerable in California? Parents might postpone taking their children in if they get ill. Some children just won't even have health coverage or access to medical care. Does that make us more vulnerable?

GOVERNOR: I would say that whenever we make cuts like that it is terrible. You know, this is by no means something where we had a choice. It's not like you sit there and you say, Oh, I have enough money, so let's keep money in this program or in this program. All of a sudden you have $23 billion less than you anticipated and so now you start taking, you know, kind of money away from various different programs, or not funding as much as you anticipated.

And that is the case also with the Healthy Family Program. We are debating right now how do we restore that as quickly as possible, because I think that the most vulnerable citizens are the ones that we have to take care of first. And I think are children are very vulnerable citizens and all the people are vulnerable citizens, so we always have to focus on that first.

And so as soon as our revenues come back—that's why we are trying to do everything that we can to make sure that we stimulate the economy, create more jobs, get the economy going again and create again the revenues, so we can fund those programs.

QUESTION: Are you in support of the legislation that would tax health care plans, or health insurers and then get matching federal dollars—it's a little complicated but to get money for Healthy Families?

GOVERNOR: I'm interested in any idea that anyone can come up with that we fund Healthy Families and those kinds of programs as quickly as possible. There are many ideas floating around in Sacramento but unless I see it in front of me I cannot really comment on it. But I'm looking forward to seeing all of this. And the legislators have a few more days to go before the legislative session ends on September 11th and hopefully with the special session we can continue with some of the work and with some of the reforms.

But I hope that—the key thing for us is now to bring the economy back and the other key thing is for us all to be prepared. And this is why I have been driving everyone here and calling them regularly, getting together, having the meetings, because preparation is everything. You've got to be prepared if it's an earthquake, you've got to be prepared when there is a fire and all this. And so I think we have done a good job, because we have so many emergencies, with being prepared. And also I'm really proud, in California there is one thing that everyone coordinates very well. Everyone works together very well.

And we don't want to wait for the crisis. We want to go and be prepared now for the crisis, because we know it's going to happen. Thousands of people are going to die because of this H1N1 virus. And so we want to limit the amount, because every life is important to us, so we want to limit the amount by being ready and getting this vaccine out as quickly as possible.

Yes?

QUESTION: Governor, you're encouraging people to stay home, you're encouraging them to get vaccinated. But are there any mandatory steps that you can see the state government might take down the road if this is as serious as it appears?

GOVERNOR: Well, right now we are in the stage where we just want to let people know all the information. And there are some times—and I notice for myself, when you're sick, that you say, It's nothing, I'm going to go to work. That works with the normal flu but it doesn't work with this, because you immediately then go and spread it every time you sneeze or cough or anything like this.

So that's why I urge people that if you're that type of a person, that kind of a personality that always wants to prove that they can do it, in this case it doesn't work. So stay home, rest, take your medication and do all that but don't harm other people.

And so the same is with kids. As soon as kids have any symptoms, get tested and find out and then stay at home. Don't infect other kids. Because that's why they say the fall is so dangerous, because now—I know my kids started school today, so they all go to school and that's where all of this stuff happens.

OK? Thank you very much, all of you, for being here today. Thank you.

QUESTION: Could you give us a quick evaluation of the fires, the fire situation in Southern California?

GOVERNOR: Yeah. Well, we have been down there in San Bernardino County. We declared a state of emergency for San Bernardino County; this is now in four places, five places altogether, we have declared the state of emergency.

And I think the key thing for us is to have all of the money available and to make sure that people understand that, even though we have a budget crisis and an economic crisis, we will never pull back when it comes to helping and funding the fire engines, helicopters, fixed-wing aircraft, manpower, all of this. We go all out in order to protect people's property, people's lives and people's memories. That's the bottom line. And so public safety is our number one priority. Thank you very much. Thank you.

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