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  • and joining me now is Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, who himself has tested positive for Corona virus as under containment.

  • Mayor, Thanks so much for being on.

  • How are you feeling?

  • Thank you so much.

  • I'm feeling Ah, shocked.

  • Of course, forgetting this use actually feel well, you know, having some mouth symptoms, but cool like symptoms, but otherwise feeling very well, very healthy.

  • Been working pretty much all day on dhe.

  • Just shocked, obviously.

  • I mean, yesterday I was at a council meeting and I received word that I was in a room with someone who had tested positive.

  • Don't recall interacting with the person, but it could have shaken her hand or spoken to them briefly.

  • The Department of Health asked me to come in and take a test along with some other high ranking elected officials.

  • They tested negative.

  • I tested positive.

  • Eso I've been in quarantine since I got the news.

  • Andi, obviously, now you know, certainly more is a more intense process.

  • And what was that process like of getting tested and getting your results.

  • So the process was you know, soon as I learned that I was in close proximity with someone who was infected.

  • I implemented a self quarantine immediately, along with other elected officials.

  • And then Department of Health called me.

  • I went over to their location.

  • I got swab.

  • It's a swab test, not too dissimilar to a flu test.

  • Um and then that was yesterday.

  • Today I received the news that I was that I tested positive, and that created a whole another set of issues.

  • First, I have to go public with it immediately.

  • Secondly, from our continuing continuity of government perspective, I have to inform all the elected officials.

  • Oh, that.

  • I mean, that I've been in contact with, of course, our city manager, our police chief.

  • They have decided to self quarantine.

  • Some of our council members have decided to self quarantine.

  • And so we're going through that process now.

  • I imagine it's a complicated one.

  • But Mayor, with the chief of police now in self quarantine, I know his results aren't back yet.

  • But are you worried about possible ripple effects that may involve taking officers off the streets?

  • No, not yet.

  • We have ah, continuity of operations plan that actually contemplate up to 40% of our workforce being infected and not being able to work, and that's something that we've been drilling for the last few weeks.

  • We've been preparing for this possibility.

  • What I'm trying to do is is now that I'm sort of, ah, high profile person, that is, in fact, it is.

  • I'm gonna do a diary because I want to do is sort of dispel the rumors.

  • And, you know, on the understandable anxiety that people have about the possibility of getting infected, you know, I feel well, certainly I'm sure I'm gonna feel symptoms.

  • But I want to document them and let the public know so that they can hopefully have a sense of comfort if inevitably more people get infected in our community and mayor, we keep hearing repeated concerns about testing.

  • What have you seen in your city?

  • And how do you feel after hearing the president's announcement this afternoon?

  • What we're asking people to do is if you've come into contact with somebody that you know is infected, for example, anyone who's come into contact with me, we're telling them, is that they have to immediately self quarantine.

  • If within that quarantine period you start to feel symptoms, you immediately have to get tested.

  • The fear off sort of everyone getting tested is that it will create congregations of people, which is something we're actually trying to avoid, or 66 people, maybe commingled with people that are not sick and that are healthy and mayor.

  • What's your advice for residents who might be scared or worried tonight?

  • Certainly do the things that everyone has been saying, you know, wash your hands for at least 20 seconds.

  • Avoid, you know, community association.

  • I was one of the first mayors to cancel large events.

  • I canceled alternate counsel on a street festival altar being 150,000 people a street, about 250,000.

  • And a lot of national leaders followed after that.

  • So we don't want people congregating.

  • We don't want people to panic either.

  • And that's why I'm gonna be doing this diary so that people can see how someone was infected is affected by this virus.

  • And finally, mayor, we know you.

  • You are young, you are healthy.

  • You hopefully will fall into the parameters of people who recover from this just fine.

  • But what are you doing to make sure the most vulnerable people in your community are safe?

  • Well, the most vulnerable in our community are particularly the elder.

  • We are working with the county.

  • The county is actually closing, uh, what they call Albany meal centers, which are congregation of already.

  • We also based on my emergency declaration, have the ability not a procure food, water and ice, which we did on which we have done during hurricanes when there's loss of power.

  • So we have the ability to feed our most vulnerable on.

  • Obviously, you know, we're hoping is that the hospitals have the capacity to do with the most vulnerable because we know that those are the ones the elder, the other ones that have a enhanced risk.

  • Oh, some severe complications.

  • Yeah, we know that capacity question is the chief concern throughout the country.

  • Mayor's faras.

  • We appreciate your time, and we're wishing you a speedy recovery.

  • Thank you so much.

  • Thank you.

  • Hi, everyone.

  • George Stephanopoulos Here.

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and joining me now is Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, who himself has tested positive for Corona virus as under containment.

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