LINCOLN – Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts is getting back on track of holding regularly scheduled press conferences each Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings.
From the Governor’s Hearing room in the Nebraska State Capitol, Governor Ricketts provided updates on the work the State of Nebraska is doing to slow the spread of coronavirus and protect hospitals.
Ricketts is asking Nebraskans to use the tools given to slow the spread of the virus.
“So, that means make sure that you keep that six foot of distance between you and other people when you’re out in public, that you wear a mask when you go to a store, that you wash your hands for 20 seconds at a time and that stay home when you’re sick,” said Ricketts. “Work from home if you can, when you go to the store, go once a week; go by yourself. These are all things we can do to be able to slow the spread of the virus.”
The three C’s are crowded places, close contacts and confined spaces which is another tool provided by the state.
Nebraska hospital capacity numbers were provided Monday morning being 32% of hospital beds available, 27% of ICU beds and 68% of ventilators are available. As of the press briefing Monday, Ricketts reported there were 896 COVID-19 hospitalizations in Nebraska which hit a record-high 987 on November 20.
Ricketts added Test Nebraska is out there and available at Testnebraska.com, or use TestNebraska/es for Spanish, to schedule an appointment.
“We’ve delivered 473,000 test results back,” Ricketts added. “Nearly 550,000 Nebraskans have signed up and done an assessment through Test Nebraska. So, overall, we’ve had over 1.5 million assessments done through Test Nebraska.”
Upcoming press briefings are Wednesday, December 2 and Friday, December 4 at 10 a.m. These news conferences are streamed live at www.NETNebraska.org/capitol/.