Transcripts For CSPAN White House Coronavirus Task Force Briefing 20240713

Pres. Trump thank you very much. I would like to begin by announcing some Important Development in our war against the chinese virus. We will be invoking the defense production act just in case we need it. I think you all know what that is. It can do a lot of good things, if we need it. Completed,e it signing it in just a little while right after we are finished with this conference. It is prepared to go. We will be invoking the defense production act. Last week, i find an Emergency Declaration under the stafford act. We invoked it previously which activated femas National Response. Fema is fully engaged at the highest levels. Inay, fema is activated every region. We are at level one d the highest level. Being the highest level. We have been working with fema. I have done a lot of work with fema, they are incredible. Tennessee and have a large group working in tennessee. Alabama last year also a tornado and obviously the numerous hurricanes in different locations that were very devastating and in every case, fema came through. This is different work for fema, but they will come through as they always do. We have tremendous talent in fema. Request theng upon two hospital ships being prepared. They are massive ships. The big white ships with the red cross on the side. One is called mercy and the other is called comfort. They are in tip top shape. They are getting ready to come up to new york. I spoke with Governor Cuomo about it. He is excited. We have not made the final determinations on where it will go on the west coast. The comfort is located in san diego and we will be picking the destination shortly. Those two ships are being prepared to go and they can be launched over the next week or so, depending on need. Earlier this week, the first Clinical Trial the vaccine candidate for the virus began in Washington State as you probably know. The genetic sequence of the virus was first purposed in january published. Thanks to the partnership between the fda, nih, and the private sector, we have reached human practice of the vaccine. It used to take years to do this and now we did it in a very short while. That is the fastest development in history of what we are doing with regard to the vaccine. Making very big progress. Today i can announce further steps to expand testing capacity. We are working with several groups to determine if the self swap is a much easier process than the current process. It is not very nice to do, i can tell you because i did it. We have a current process that is a little bit difficult. The groups are working on determining if a self slob by an effective. Is as swab. We are going to see if we can do a self swab which would be a lot more popular, i can tell you that. That would be administered by a Health Official but it will be a lot easier to do. Fact is that the health professionals, it would free up a lot. What it is. B is you do it yourself. The other has to be issued by a health professional. It is something that is quite difficult. We think it is working out for the selfswab. If it would test positive, the people would do what they have to do. We think it is probably working out. I have asked the fda to cut through the red tape and reduce regulatory barriers. We are looking at some very exciting things. I will be holding a second News Conference either today, we will talk about the fda and some things that are happening are that are quite exciting. Fairly early tomorrow. We will see what happens. Working veryeen hard on a number of developments that we will be discussing. This afternoon, i will be meeting with nurses on the front lines against the virus in the valley. They are american heroes. They are incredible people. We are going to be meeting with nurses. I look forward to that. They are very brave. They are taking a lot of risk. They are doing an incredible job and they never complain. The department of housing and urban development is providing immediate relief to renters and homeowners by suspending all foreclosures and evictions until the end of april. We are working very closely with ben carson and everyone from hud. Every generation has been called to make sure sacrifices for the good of the nation. Peopled war ii, young volunteered to fight. They wanted to fight so badly because they loved our country. Workers refused to go home and slept on factory floors to keep Assembly Lines running. The numbers of ships that they built during world war ii, to this day nothing like that has ever been equaled. Building ships on a daily basis. Nobody has ever seen anything like it. To this day, nobody has ever seen anything like that, what they were able to do during world war ii. Now is the time to sacrifice together because we are all in this together and we will come through together. It is the invisible enemy. It is always the toughest enemy. But we are going to defeat the invisible enemy. I think we will do it even faster than we thought. It will be a total victory. Conferencee a second having to deal with the fda. I think it is going to be very exciting. We will do it as quickly as we can, whether it is today or tomorrow. With that, ill ask mike pence to say a few words. Thank you, very much. The white pence House Coronavirus Task force met this morning. We have cases in all 50 states. We are continuing to move out on the call to bring the full resource of the federal government, the full partnership with every state and territory, the full power of the American Economy to support businesses and families. As a president says to us and every day, we will do whatever it takes. We are all in this together. Yesterday the president met with the Tourism Industry executives and had an engaging discussions with all of the Top Companies in our industrial and medical supply chain. The president , as was announced today, Mutual Consent of the northern border to canada will be close to nonessential travel. This does not include essential travel or the transit of goods. It was through mutual discussion that took place this morning between mr. Trudeau and the department of homeland security. The president spoke with the nations top Business Leaders today to speak about the supply chain in the country. We are going to be conducting a Conference Call later today with state and local Health Officials to renew our ongoing commitment of cooperation and collaboration. As the president said last week in signing the stafford act, he stood up the National Response Coordination Center and at the president s direction, fema has gone to level one. Femas mission is to support disasters that are locally executed and federally supported. Tomorrow the president will be hosting all of the governors from a Video Conference at fema to ensure that they have full connection to all of the activated regions for fema going forward. With regard to testing, i am pleased to report that we are in increasing the number of tests being performed by the thousands every day thanks to the Publicprivate Partnership that President Trump forged with commercial laboratories around the country. Experts tell us that it is important to remember, people without symptoms should not get tested. We want to make sure that the supply of testing is there for inse that need it most or the vulnerable population. Dr. Deborah birx will address the progress we are making on testing, the infection rate, our recommendations to every american as well as some important new findings about the impact on you that we are gaining from data that is coming in from europe that will be important to every american. On the subject of supplies, the president has our task force extremely focused. As the president mentioned, he is invoking the defense production act today. Secretary esper will describe the ongoing efforts that the department of defense is taking to make medical resources available. Wilkie willbert announce the decisions the da has made to expand hospital pacitti within their system. With regard to medical personnel, hhs is issuing a regulation today that will allow doctors and medical professionals to practice across state lines to meet the needs of hospitals that may arise in the adjoining areas. We are again today asking every american and our medical Community Leaders and hospitals to partner with us in delaying elective procedures across the country in our Health Care System to ensure that medical supplies and medical capacity go where they are needed most. Will describe guidance issuing on that front. Everyy, i want to remind american of the 15 day guidance to slow the spread. We are grateful to the media and the public that are adhering to these and sharing them with neighbors and friends. All of our experts continue to believe that if every american will do their part and embrace and put into practice these principles that we can significantly limit the reach of the coronavirus in the weeks and months ahead. Thank you, mr. President. Pres. Trump thank you. Dr. Birx. , mr. Irx thank you president , mr. Vice president. We continue to lead to data every single day. There are concerning reports coming out of france and italy about young people getting seriously ill in the icu. We think part of this may be that people heated in the early data coming out of china and coming out of south korea about the elderly and those with preexisting medical conditions at particular risk. It may have been that the millennial generation, our largest generation, our future generation that will carry us thereh the next decades, may be a disproportionate number of infections among that group. Occurrence,s a rare it may be seen more frequently in that group. We are looking at that information carefully. We have not seen any significant mortality in the children. We are concerned about the early reports coming out of italy and france. Im going to call on that generation that is part of that group that brought us innovation, particularly throughout all of their ability to look around corners and skip through games. I always went level by level. I did not realize that you could go from level three to level seven. That is what they taught us. They look for things that we dont see. We need them to be healthy. Not only calling on you to heed the guidance, but to really ensure that each and every one of you are protecting each other. We cannot have these large gatherings that continue to occur throughout the country for people who are off work to then be socializing in large groups and spreading the virus. You have the potential to spread it to someone that does have a condition that none of us knew about and cause them to have a disastrous outcome. On the testing piece and what we are learning, i know last week in bringing the five it private sector, what has been exciting is to see this administration harness the full capacity of the private sector. Understanding that a lot of the solutions that we needed to confront this virus rely on the private sector. Bringing the private sector commercial labs was critical in this process. We are beginning to see that they have spread out in a prioritized way because we asked them to prioritize the regions that were mostly affected. You still may have difficulty getting tests in areas that do not have significant cases. We have them prioritize the regions where they need diagnosis. I told you south korea was under 4 and 96 of people were negative. The last report we have seen from the laboratories have a 7 plus positivity rate. Are negative but i think that is encouraging to me personally that we are prioritizing appropriately to those areas with the greatest need. Today and yesterday Thermo Fisher pushed out most of their testing capacity. Increase dramatically that platform and the ability to run additional test in addition to roche. I appreciate everybodys attention to these numbers. I am excited that we prioritized where the need was greatest. Please follow the guidance and please make sure in every report that you are putting out that you are talking about the president ial guided he actually stop the spread of this virus. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. I want to provide an update on dod efforts. As we continue to focus on our three parties, protecting personnel and their families, safeguarding our Security Mission capabilities, and supporting the whole of government approach. I want to assure the American People that the United States military remains ready and capable on defending the country and interests abroad. The department is leaning forward in our response to covid19. We have issued travel restrictions to all dod personnel and families that should reduce potential exposure to the virus. Those have been put in place for some time now. Yesterday, the fed will make available up to 5 million respirator masks and other personal protective equipment from our own Strategic Reserves to the department of health and Human Services for distribution. The first one million will be available immediately. We are prepared to distribute up to 3000 ventilators as needed. Yesterday i was in maryland which is the militarys premier Research Institute where i was updated on the work are people are doing as part of the team to work on vaccines. They are making great progress. We announced that we have certified our 68th lap 16th lab to help with processing tests across the country. Directedlly i have that the hospital ships mercy and comfort be prepared to deploy to increase medical capacity and we have alerted a to bey of hospitals prepared to deploy as well as needed based on direction from the commanderinchief. Leadership from the army corps of engineers is in new york meeting with the governor and his team. I spoke with the governor as yesterday and i will be speaking with them more in the coming days to address their needs. In my conversations with governors and members of congress, i made it clear that we will support the american administrations efforts and the country every step of the weight while ensuring security remains the top priority. I want to conclude by thanking all of our Service Members and their families affected by this outbreak. They are great heroes. We will continue to support them throughout this. We are all in this together. Thank you very much. Yesterday, the president made a very important announcement about telehealth. This is allowing 62 million seniors to get medical services from their homes using their whisk and without copays. Eir risk. Risk th the reality is the stakes are preservewe need to personal protective equipment for those on the front lines. We have put out guidelines over the last two weeks to expand the types of masks that can be used and saving those for the most risky situations. Conserving personal protective equipment is essential to combat the virus. Today we will announce detailed recommendations to further promote this needed conservation. Specifically by limiting nonessential elective medical and surgical procedures including dental procedures. We believe that these recommendations will help surgeons, patients, and hospitals prioritize what is essential while leading the ultimate decision leaving the ultimate decision in the hands of officials who have direct responsibility to their patients. We urge providers and clinicians and patients to seriously consider these recommendations. They will not only preserve equipment but allow doctors and nurses to help those that are on the front lines. It will protect patients from unnecessary exposure. We appreciate that this is going to have a major impact on the Health Care System. The shared sacrifice is essential to help those on the front lines. I want to thank the medical society such as the American College of surgeons and the american dental surgeries and american dental association. We have also talked to the American Medical Association and they have indicated their support for this recommendation. We invite the entire Health Care Community to join us in this effort. Thank you. Thank you, mr. President. My instructions from the president were very clear. I was to do everything imaginable, as aggressively as possible to protect the veterans who are part of the department of veterans affairs. 19t month, we established Emergency Operations Centers Across the country. We begin to limit the number of visitors who entered our facilities. We were the first system to begin triaging across the thetry in our 170 hospitals entrance of anyone into our facility without being questioned. We expanded those restrictions to those in our 135 Community Living centers which have about 7800 veterans who are in acute conditions to make sure that they were protected. We also took the next step and make sure that we limited the dental surgeries that were provided. We have cut back by one third the number of appointments we have had. And we have canceled elective surgeries. These were all part of the president s directive to be as aggressive in a Public Health since as we could be. I think we have set the pace for the entire country. I will say that we have often mostthat we work the Global Mission in the federal government. Our veterans have been in the toughest spots in e world. They have been put in conditions that are unimaginable. ,hey have responded clearly they have responded with passion, also the 400,000 members of our department out there on the front lines. The last thing i will say is you have heard a lot about the mission the da has. Arefirst three Missions Health care, benefits, and memorial affairs. Our Fourth Mission is to support the government in times of national disasters. Natural disasters. Tocase fema calls upon us deploy medical professionals across the country to meet crises. We plan for that everyday. Emergencyning preparedness scenarios and we stand ready when the president needs us to expand our mission. Thank you. Pres. Trump thank you all. Thats very nice. Any questions . Secretary isury talking about the potential for what could come. He said that unemployment to could skyrocket to 20 . Pres. Trump i dont agree. That is the worst case scenario. We dont look at that at all. We are nowhere near it. Why do you keep calling this the chinese virus . There are reports of dozens of incidents of bias against chineseamericans in this country. Azar has said not to use this term. Why do you keep using it . Pres. Trump its not racist at all. It comes from china. Thats why. I want to be accurate. I have great love for all the people from our country. Pointtried to say at one that it was caused by american soldiers. That cannot happen. It is not going to happen. Not as long as im president. It comes from china. Two questions. Today. Invoking an act senator schumer said that it urgently needs to be put into action to produce medical supplies. Do you have target that you would like to see immediately . Pres. Trump we have tremendous numbers of ventilators. There has never been an instance like this would not where no matter what you have, it is not enough. It is being signed. We are going to sign it in just a little while. If we need to use it, we will be using it. It was said that it urgently needs to be used. Pres. Trump we have targets for pieces of equipment. The numbers of masks are incredible. We have ordered millions of them. We need more. A thing like this has never been requested. We never had to think in terms of these numbers. We need millions of masks. We need respirators. We need ventilators because it is a complex piece of equipment. We have a lot of ventilators. Bewhat size will the checks that will be sent out . Pres. Trump to be determined. We are working with everybody on capitol hill. Re has been tremendous with some exceptions. They have been getting along very well, republicans and democrats. Very bipartisan, so far. More than 1000 . Pres. Trump we are looking at different numbers. We are looking at timing that would be different. We are looking at a lot of different things. It has not been determined. It will shortly be determined. Everybody seems to want to go big. They want to get to the recovery. The big thing we can do is get horrible i call it the unseen enemy. There are a thousand different terms for us. Snuck up onon us us. It spreads violently. It is very contagious. Do you consider america to be on a wartime footing . Pres. Trump i do look at it that way. Got out of control. The one thing we looked at was an early stoppage of people moving in that could be infected. It was very early. Most people, including a lot of professionals did not want us to do it. It really saved a lot of lives. In a sense of wartime that is what we are fighting. It is a tough situation. You have to do things. You have to close parts of an economy that six weeks ago where the best they have ever been to. Had the best economy we have ever had. And we have to close it down to defeat this enemy. But we are doing it and we are doing it well. The American People have been incredible. You said there are ventilators but for weeks, hospitals have been warning about a shortage that we are not prepared for. Why did it take so long . Pres. Trump hospitals are supposed to have ventilators, too. When we have thousands, it sounds like a lot. This is an unforeseen thing. Nobody ever saw numbers like this. Normally we would not be doing testing and they decided to do it. It is hard to ramp up. We are getting highly sophisticated tests. It is going very well. Nobody has ever heard of testing in these quantities. Why did it take so long . Pres. Trump it depends on how it goes. Worst case, absolutely. Best case, not at all. We will see where it goes. We are ordering thousands and thousands of ventilators. These are complex machines. , how many do we have . Do you know the number . We have a specific number of ventilators in the subtenant down. Of just heard in excess 10,000. Yesterday afternoon speaking with the largest companies. We are hearing a tremendous spirit among Industry Leaders who are ready to step in and add to that volume. The stockpiles dont account all of the ventilators that exist today in the marketplace and Healthcare Facilities around the country. The president has given a directive to make sure our stockpile in working with Industry Leaders and securing the increase in ventilators, care, gloves, protective that is necessary to lean forward. We are confident to be able to a compass that with the cooperation of the supply chain that exists in america today. How many ventilators do we have . Pres. Trump we can give you that number. We are ordering a lot more. Go ahead. One second. What was the Tipping Point . Friday we talked about it. Monday, so we are not concerned and not yet. Pres. Trump i spoke with the Prime Minister. A very Good Relationship between us and our two countries. No Tipping Point. We want to isolate from the standpoint, we dont want people coming into contact. That is the way we are going to win this war. That is so important. It is not affecting trade. It is nonessential. Nonessential crossings. It wont affect trade at all. It was something we thought would be good for both countries. How can you be sure that trade and everything that is being shipped pres. Trump they are doing it in a very careful manner. You can only be vigilant and professional. It is not pertaining at this moment to trade. We are hearing that the stimulus package could look Something Like 50 billion for the airlines, hundred and 50 billion on loan guarantees, payments directly to individuals, another 250 billion directly to individuals. For Small Business loan guarantees. Pres. Trump we are playing with a lot of very big numbers and a lot of small numbers. We have to help everybody. It was nobodies fault. Could say it was somebodys fault, actually. It was nobodies fault and none of these companies that all of a sudden have no passengers and all of the things that have happened. They cannot be blamed for this. We are going to keep those companies vibrant. There will be a comeback very quickly as soon as this is solved and it will be solved. We will win and there will be a comeback and it will take place quickly. Give or take 330 million , per family of four, that would be 3000 on average. Is that where this is headed . Pres. Trump every number that you mentioned, yes, we have talked about those numbers. We are also moving those numbers in both directions. We will let you know. It is moving along fast. A great bipartisan effort going on that i have not seen before to this extent. The fda approved the test . Pres. Trump they are looking at it very seriously. I think it will be a great thing. The others are very inconvenient. You tweeted about your Approval Rating among republicans. You said you give yourself a 10 in terms of handling this crisis. How do you reassure americans at home who dont trust you to handle a crisis of this magnitude . Pres. Trump i think we are doing a good job. We started off with termination of the border. The people coming in from china where it started. I took that very seriously. When i use the word call, it does not mean i am not taking it seriously. We should be calm. We should be extremely calm. Very great we had approval numbers. People like the job we are doing. When you cannot compare this to other epidemics or if you want to use a different term, you can. In this country, you look at what has happened over the years, this has been very professional. We are doing a good job. Nothing has been so contagious, the level of contagion has been incredible. Nobody has seen anything quite like this. Federal officials have shipped millions of tests as you and your colleagues have said, why have only 59,000 tests and processed to this point . We just heard from the atlanta Public Health director saying they had fewer than 50 test kits for more than 900,000 citizens. S. Trump i will let mike that is a very critical question. The test kits that we put out with that meeting that President Trump called less than two weeks ago, that has resolved in bringing the private sector to the table. The tests that were out there could only run between four and 12 tests per platform per day. We have now moved into platforms that can run tens of thousands of tests per day. The reason i am grateful for your question is because it allows me to point out that there were backlogs and individuals who had been tested who had not had their specimen run because of the slow throughput. It is now in a highspeed platform. We will see the number of people diagnosed dramatically increase over the next 45 days. I know some of you four to five days. I know some of you will use that to raise an alarm that we are worth in italy. To every american out there, it will be five to six days worth of tests being run in 24 to 48 hours. Our curve will not be stable until sometime next week. The reason i talked about Thermo Fisher yesterday is because their platform is in 2000 laboratories. They are putting out the million tests this week that will solve the issue that atlanta and others have brought up. I wanted to be clear. We prioritize the areas, we do county by county analyses. What counties and had more than 50 cases, we prioritize the test kits that we put out to 400,000. That is why we are seeing 7 less positivity rate. We will be able to expand that platform and reprioritize based on the accessibility of the other tests. How are nonsystematic professional athletes nonsymptomatic professional athletes get tested . Perhaps that is the story of life. That does happen on occasion. I noticed where some people are being tested quickly. Excuse me. We inherited an absolute system. This was a system that was out of date, obsolete, or it was never meant to take care of the quantity of the people that we are talking about. Millions and millions of people. If you go back recently with the flu, nobody had test before. They did not test the entire nation. They got the flu, they got better, hopefully they got better, that was it. Now all of a sudden, they do complex testing. We have broken up the system. It was obsolete or it was a system that was not meant to handle the kind of volume that you are talking about. System rebuilt it into a. This was never done before. I would imagine it will be done in the future, but we have built it into a very good system by using great private companies. Che has been doing a very good job. This was an obsolete system. It was not meant to do anything like this. A major coalition is calling on you to suspend tariffs with other countries as part of the response to the coronavirus. Pres. Trump who heads the group . Those countries . China is paying billions of dollars in tariffs. They have not spoken to me about that. China has not asked me to do that. We are getting billions of dollars per year from tariffs from china. I cannot imagine americans asking for that. It could be that china will ask for an suspension. China is having a very rough time. They have their worst year in 76 years. On top of it, this happened with the virus. We are taking in billions of dollars per year in tariffs. This was caused by something unrelated to tariffs. Asylumseekers and people on the southern border, are you act thatto invoke an would allow you to prohibit entry of certain people and good will that happen . Pres. Trump very soon. What do you define as essential travel when it comes to the u. S. Canadian border . Pres. Trump essential is medical. You have military working together. We had industry working together. It is not affecting trade. Just leisurely, lets go to a restaurant and have dinner, which a lot of people do. They go in both directions. We have ended it on a temporary basis. To close it but we are invoking certain provision that will allow us great latitude as to what we do. No ahead. Ahead. One week ago, you were telling us that unless you had sustained contact with somebody who is symptomatic, you did not need to worry. Hands withnt shook someone who had just, took a photograph, you did not need to worry. We are in a situation where people are told to not leave your houses. There are curfews and you cannot be out at night after a certain time. Can you walk us through a very dramatic disconnect from what we are doing now . We look at data all the time. When you look at china and south korea data and you look at what they did, you can see that their are outside of wuhan and blunted. If you look at their curves today, they are already on the far end of their epidemic curve. None others countries are fully thoseo work none of countries are fully back to work. None of us really understood the level of surface peace. We are looking at how much of it is by human transmissiond and surface. Dont expose yourself to services outside of the home. Dont expose yourself to access number of persons who could be asymptomatic and infected. And do not expose yourself to surfaces that could have had the virus on it. Not shown inces, fabric as much or cardboard, but hard surface transmission. These are issues that we have not had to deal with with the level of respiratory infections. That is why we have this concerned and that is why the president put out the guidelines. It is to cover both of those pieces. It is all new science, all new models. Many of you have the imperial study available and look at the impact of those. It is the first time they have been modeled as a comprehensive approach to mitigating an epidemic. The wall street journal is that the administration is looking at an executive order that would expand investigational about the virus. I have not seen that article. We are making a lot of progress therapeutically. I have not seen that article. Mr. President , we have shut down nonessential travel to canada. Are you considering shutting down all travel . , howother industries exactly is the administration going to determine which industries and businesses pres. Trump the airlines would be number one if you look at what is going on. We went from having the best year they have ever had to having no passengers because of what we have had to do in order to win this war. It is a war. Basically, what many of the industries are, what we want to do is make sure they all Stay Together so that after the war is won, we can go back to where we were. I think we are going to go beyond where we were. A lot of people are saying that. We are poised to do that. We have to win the war first. 150e treasury proposed billion for those industries. But it does not detail which industries would get that money. Aside from the airlines, what about the Cruise Industries and hotels . Pres. Trump i have not detailed it yet. We have been talking about it and we are coming up with numbers. We have not gotten there yet. Industry, the cruise ship industry, the airlines, those are prime candidates. The northern border, when you say temporary, does that mean 30 days . Pres. Trump i would say 30 days. Hopefully at the end of 30 days, we will be in great shape. Dr. Birx said about millennials and others not taking these warnings seriously. Some of those people seem to be your supporters and conservatives who may be quoting what you said at the beginning of this, comparing it to the flu. Tot is your message to them really follow what you have been saying and are you concerned that they are listening to some of your earlier comments about it than more recent ones . Pres. Trump i think my earlier comments are to be calm. I want people to be calm. It is a question of time. I want it to go quickly. Based on the fact that i want it to go quickly, i hope they have listened to what we have been saying. We dont want them gathering, and i see them gather on beaches and restaurants, young people. They dont realize, they are feeling invincible. I dont know if you felt invincible when you were very young. Realize that they can be carrying lots of bad things home to grandmother and grandfather and even their parents. We want them to heed the advice. We mean the advice. I do believe it is getting through. Heed the advice. Thank you. In talking about china, you have been clear about who you think is to blame. Pres. Trump i dont think, i know where it came from. Certainly, we did not get an early run on it. It would have been helpful if we knew about it earlier. It comes from china. There is no question about that. Nobody is questioning that. And sayingre calling that they should be punished in so many words for inflicting this on the American People. You feel that way . Pres. Trump i have a lot of respect for tom cotton and i know and i know excel you what has been saying he has been saying exactly. You have been waiting a long time. It is your time. We have seen the Chinese Government kick out reporters from the wall street journal and washington post. What is your message to the chinese and it comes to transparency . Pres. Trump i am not happy to see it. I have my own disputes with all three of those media groups. I think you know that very well. I dont like seeing that at all. I am not happy about that at all. Believe that china is inflicting this upon our country . Pres. Trump i dont believe they are inflicting it. I do believe they could have given us earlier notice, absolutely. Your credibility ratings are very low. Pres. Trump who are you asking that question question . Because i see that they are very high. We just had a pull down by a very reputable group poll done by a very reputable group. I dont really know who you are talking about. About your conversation with the airline executive, did you explain what is coming . Iceland, fools , full, as i explained planes. We have to get through this or we will have a level of death why people have not seen before. They have been fantastic. They went from being extremely happy to being people that are Running Companies that are going to need some help. We will help them. Could you give us an update on how that is going . Counties have been having difficulty pres. Trump there is a lot of influx to those loans. We will be increasing funding a lot and they are prepared to do what they have to do. They are doing a fantastic job. Good job,ng a grid the administrator. Birx, researchers have had some luck in shortening the duration of the disease. Is that something in the arsenal of therapeutics in the United States . Dr. Birx i think we are exploring those issues. The president asked for a critical briefing on that today. He opened that. There are other drugs. That. Opened with there are things that look really good in cell cultures against the virus and look good in small animals and dont have an impact against humans. There are always anecdotal tal reports anddo how many of those equal scientific breakthrough. Are you confident in the seasonality of the coronavirus look atmark dr. Birx the curves in china and the curves in south korea. Those were accomplished in the winter season. We are trying to understand what those relationships are. We are interested in the curves in italy because they are a different approach and we are following every single country. All we can do is look at prior coronavirus and prior respiratory infection rna viruses. When you look at blue in the northern history, northern hemisphere. When you look at some of the other called viruses and if you look at sars, that is the way you normally occur. April. In november to we all started later. You are asking me to project based on a later start and that is what we are trying to look at china and south korea to inform that. How many veterans of those that need to be tested have been tested . We believe we have caught most of them. Right now we have 44 veterans have tested positive. Sadly, one has passed in portland. We are working with state labs and private companies to make sure that testing is available. Because the president had us out early, we have been in a better place than most Health Care Systems in the country. Our equipment is stable a mess because of the instructions the president gave us. We tested several hundred. We tested several hundred, yes. I dont know exactly but i know have the virus. Most of those are quarantined at home. A question for dr. Burgess. Im trying to understand about the mortality rate. Yesterday, we underline the fact that we had reached 100 deaths. This morning, we are at 110. Within 12 hours, we climbed by 10 so should we expect this from now on . By every 12ncrease hours . If you look at all the countries to date, the mortality is higher at the beginning because you are diagnosing the sickest, the ones who came in quite ill. I want to remind the American Public that the majority, the risk for serious illness and the majority of americans are low. But that does not mean you cannot transmit it to one of those higher risk groups. Thats why we are asking for all americans to take responsibility. Mortality org deaths today from infections that occurred 23 weeks ago in general. The other thing you are seeing is the dramatic and very difficult impact of this virus. Thats why very early on, the president and Vice President had come out and cms put strict rules in place and everyone thought we were being too strict keeping loved ones away from their families and nursing homes. If we have to solve this with a lower death rate, we have to protect the elderly because their percentage is higher in mortality than any other age group. Go ahead, please. There is a report that the federal government has a plan that shows the coronavirus outbreak could last as long as 18 months. Are seeing are you those numbers . We are not seeing those numbers. One white house official use the term kung flu. Is that an acceptable term . Do you know who said that . Im not sure of the persons name. Say the term again. A person at the white house use the term kung flu. You think using the term chinese virus put Asian Americans at risk . Not at all, i think they probably would agree with it 100 . It comes from china. How about the last question . Switching gears to a larger question we have seen that before the pandemic, there were Many Americans already alienated. We saw death and despair increasing through suicide and other things. Country,parts of the they are self isolating so whats your message to those individuals and what you hope individuals will do . My messages to all americans but to those americans going through a lot, we love them, where with them and we will not let them down. Thank you all very much. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] is it ok to say this is a chinese virus . If you missed this briefing with the president and Vice President and medical professionals, you have several chances to see it on the cspan networks and online on our website, www. Cspan. Org. An update from capitol hill the senate has been working on the Coronavirus Relief bill, currently senators are debating and voting on three amendments to the bill. They defeated, Kentucky Republican senator rand pauls amendment which insisted on those receiving government relief checks to have us or Social Security number and call to terminate United States military operations and reconstruction activities in afghanistan. The vote on that was three in favor, 95 against. Another amendment vote going on schedule for 2 p. M. Eastern and following this, the chamber will take a final vote on the measure, although some debts in the senate or proceeding under this particular protocol. The time to vote has been extended to half an hour. Senators are being asked to come one or two at a time to facilitate social distancing and avoid larger gatherings and protect senators and staff. You can watch the senate live right now on our companion network, cspan2. We should let you know that senators marco rubio and Susan Collins will be updating reporters about the effect of the coronavirus pandemic on businesses. That is set for 3 p. M. Eastern and we will have that life are you here on cspan. Its easy to follow the federal response to the coronavirus outbreak at www. Cspan. Org coronavirus. There are interactive maps and charts and watch briefings and hearings with Public Health specialists any time, unfiltered at www. Cspan. Org coronavirus. Your unfiltered view of government. Created by cable in 1979 and brought to you today by your television provider. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and President Trump announced this morning that the u. S. Canada border would be closed to all nonessential travel in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Prime Minster Trudeau announced an 82 billion economic aid package to support families and businesses during the pandemic. The Prime Minister addressed the nation from his home in ottawa as he completes his 14 day self isolation after news that his wife tested positive for the virus. After his remarks, he took questions from reporters