, 27, we welcome you to the primetime addition of cspans washington journal. A number of states beginning the process of gradually reopening. Congress set to return with the house and senate back in session one week from today on may 4. As new numbers indicate, about one third of the coronavirus cases in the world are in the u. S. Return with the house and senate back in session one week from today on may 4. As new numbers indicate, about one third of the coronavirus cases in the world are in the u. S. We will get the latest on the research and learn how the pandemic is affecting how you shop for groceries. Join in on the conversation our phone lines are open. Good monday evening, a lot to get to, but we will begin as we always do with the numbers courtesy of Johns Hopkins university. Northern 3 million confirmed cases around the world, 185 countries and regions. 210,000 deaths in the u. S. Deaths. Death toll athe about 55,000. Joining us from philadelphia is the director of the vaccine and Immunotherapy Center on the campus of the university of pennsylvania. Thank you for being with us. Guest my pleasure. Host let me begin with where you are at in terms of the research for vaccine. As i understand, you are among the most aggressive in finding a vaccine. Of a program,part coalition for epidemic preparedness and innovation. They have assembled a coalition of many different parties to ame together to develop vaccine countermeasure for covid19, and our particular focus of this group is to make a dna vaccine, which is a newer type of vaccine. Advantages in speed and deliverability, and has been tested in multiple outbreaks before. Host how does that differ from the more Traditional Research with a vaccine . Guest four traditional vaccines, it is quite different. Traditional vaccines relied on two premises. One, a pathogen that was weakened come and after a lot of testing, it would grow at a weakened rate and produce immunity. Rubellameasles, mumps, type traditional vaccine. Those take a very long time to develop and test enough to know they are safe. Is preparation, where you take a virus, for example, and add formaldehyde and basically destroy activity. Those need significant time to develop and activate, usually. Then we have more modern are different pieces, synthetically made pieces. All of those use the protein and sugars of the virus itself. Case, these modern approaches like dna, those use the information, the code, genetic code itself, and it is an engineered genetic code, a small fragment that when delivered into an animal or person, will instruct the local the arm that person, in for example, to produce a copy of one specific protein or so. Fools the immune system and it can react and produce a vigorous antiviral immunity. Host let me get your reaction, from the new york post, the vaccine entering trial at unprecedented speed. Can you elaborate . Guest our vaccine, we were one three teams funded, and those were announced on january 23 that they would fund three different groups initially. They have since funded more groups. 10 weeks later, we were given the ability to proceed in Clinical Trials. Which was at the beginning of april. That was just 10 weeks from funding, although into Clinical Trials. Trial should be fully recruited this week. Host let me get your reaction to this oped in the wall street journal from the former fda commissioner, saying America Needs to win the Coronavirus Vaccine race. The first nation to develop a vaccine for covid19 could have an economic advantage as well as a tremendous Public Health achievement. Doses will be limited initially as suppliers ramp up and the country will focus on not collating most of its own population first. Even with Extraordinary National collaboration and multiple companies, it could be years before vaccine is produced at a scale sufficient to help the entire world. The first nation to the finish line will be the first to restore its economy and global influence. America risks inc. Second. China is making rapid progress. Guest i think it is very important for us to develop a vaccine and move that vaccine forward as soon as possible. I think we are all in agreement with that. That those are the best approaches. We also need to move probably more than one forward because we want to be sure we have some that hit that mark, which is being safe, being effective, and prevent infection and disease in the population. So i think that is a very important goal, and that is our , toral goal in the program do that as soon as possible. 10 weeks, as i mentioned, is one of the fastest ever to advance. I think that is a really important goal. It will have great benefit. Host what are your markers to determine whether or not you are succeeding . Guest thats an important question, steve. Ist we have been doing, this our fourth pandemic outbreak that we have focused on. We learned a lot from the other outbreaks on how to advance Vaccine Technology rapidly. We did that with making, developing a backup countermeasure for ebola, which was moved to the clinic. And then the mers outbreak, which impacted significantly in korea. We developed a countermeasure that showed good protection in models as well as immunity in humans. Fastest to of the move forward with his ecovaccine. This was even faster. I guess to focus on what our goal is, to create immune responses that gives a virus no quarter. Comexample, we would like we developed assays to help us measure this, develop antibodies , the proteins that are produced and in our blood and secreted aom our tissues that block virus from moving around the body and getting where wants to go. We also would like the antibodies, the hand grenades of the immune system, to complement proteins like that and further directly destroy and be landmines for the virus. We would like those antibodies virus so they prevented from even being able to get into human cells with any good efficiency, and attached to their receptor, which is in our lungs and other tissue. Induce theso like to killer t cells, so that the immune response will be able to more rapidly clear infection and wipe out virus through the antibody defense that tries to hide in ourselves host hide in ourselves. China is leading the u. S. , and Great Britain in terms of local trials. Guest these entities know each other pretty well. We have collaborators from many different organizations. Several groups are funded by fundedogram, which is initially by the bill and Melinda Gates foundation. Of information, sharing a lot of discussion at higher levels, and a lot of groups have been brought in as well. In addition, the reports from these different groups as we submit publication like we have done, on the kind of immune response we are seeing, the quality of the vaccines, they are deposited in an open database so people can look at them almost in real time, which is completely different than before this outbreak. Host important to point out, the Institute Dates back to the 1950s with polio, correct . Guest yes, you are exactly right. 1950s, a scientist at the university of pennsylvania started testing type one polio, one of the first rains of polio vaccine to be tested as a live vaccine. That strain is now in our. Odernday vaccines host lets get to our viewer and listener calls. Deborah is from illinois. Good evening. Caller good evening and thank you for taking my call. I have to say, i was a polio baby back in the 1950s. Here is my question. I watch cspan and everything else, and i have a question. We know there is no cure for the corona yet. Season a couple of months away, we know what coronan heavy, if the decides to come back at the same medical geniuses of the world handle this and help all of us . I have not been sick but i know people who have survived it and it, but i knowh a lot of people because i live in a county that is very high, who have not. It breaks my heart. My brother was one of them. I am asking, are you as a professional in your field, can you help us so we do not have this major flood all over again in the fall, or late summer and fall . Professor, can you ask lane . Can you explain . Guest thank you for the question. We are all concerned about a second wave. That is from a modeling, it suggests we dont have protection enough in the herdnity, we dont have immunity it is called, when you get enough people infected that it makes the pathogen goal to come back difficult to come back. This pathogen has a heavy penalty, not just the mortality rate, that is concerning. More than 50,000 u. S. Casualties. In addition, the morbidity, how many people end up in a very sick condition, in the icu, etc. , that is a very worrisome condition. E do need countermeasures vaccines or a therapeutic that would slow the progression or eliminate the progression. This is what people are working on around the globe. In the United States, is a fullblown effort by many different researchers collaborating with academic institutions and companies to try and test and develop things rapidly and onthefly. A professor at the university of Pennsylvania School of edison and director of the center for vaccine and pennotherapy at the campus. Our color is from birmingham, alabama. Good evening viewed good evening. Is, i thinkuestion in september that i had this. Virusctor said i had a and he did not know what it was that i was very ill and had the same symptoms. And i have been in the hospital. I had a blood transfusion and bone marrow transfusion. I had all of these things. I have a daughter who is a veteran. On saturday, they gave toldnumber to call, and i saidady the symptoms, she she has the symptoms but doesnt have a fever. What am i supposed to do . I am her being very active. Now she goes from her room to the bathroom. What am i to do when i cant even get her tested to find out what is going on . The v. A. Is just sending her pills through the mail, they are not saying get her in here and get her tested. I am afraid. I dont have an immune system. Host how old is your daughter . Caller 35. Host how old are you . Caller 68. Host thank you for the call and good luck to you. I hope you stay healthy. Guest thank you for the question. We are very concerned about being infected, we are all very concerned, and very concerned when we have symptoms. Is way currently management is that a person presents with early symptoms. Most of those people, especially younger people, most people, 80 will recover on their own. They are not encouraged, therefore right now, for the most part, to come into the hospital. They are usually monitored by calling their primary care physician and discussing the situation as it goes along, and keeping tabs. And hopefully most of those people will get better. The vast majority will get better. Some will eventually need to go to the hospital. At that point, they would be treated in the hospital. Right now, it sounds like that is what your position your physician recommended. Throughyour daughter go your taking care of her. Seeing how she gets better over and and sort of watching taking good care of her and seeing how she progresses. Host can you explain how the testing for vaccine works and how you make sure it is safe for those your testing . You are testing . Guest that is an important question. Safety is at the top of everyones list. Part of the platform that we have developed, have been developing, and part of the way chosen,the groups were based on technology that is awer in some ways that have conceptual safety advantage. That is, they dont, they are not live, the dna is not live, it is not spreading. It cannot change something inside of you permanently, it doesnt integrate. It is a transient piece of information that then tells the body to make this artificial protein that itself has eliminated quickly. These kind of concepts give us some basic level of understanding. Then you have a comfort in that these might be safer results than in several thousand people who have received dna approaches. As i mentioned, there are rigorous Animal Studies and data and different models as well as which are filed to the fda. Now there is a whole host of questions and studies that are part of the overall study. It follows volunteers through the process so we get the best and most robust information back on safety. Host just a underscore, you are using a synthetic dna, correct . Guest correct. We are using a synthetic dna, which is a piece of dna designed on a computer in the lab, and it will instruct the cells of the arm in this case to create this artificial antigen in modelvirus, and studies, it will fold into the correct shape so that it lets the immune system see the enemy before it encounters it. That stimulates the immune response and is produced in the cells itself, so it can give rise to antibody responses as well as t cell responses to help clear infection. Host our guest is joining us from his home in philadelphia. Richard is next from new york. Good evening. Caller thank you for taking my question. Assuming your efforts are successful, how long do you expect the term of immunity to be and are you concerned that the spike protein could mutate in the interim so that whatever vaccine is developed would be less effective should the mutation occur . Those are my questions. Host thank you. Richard, what is your background . Caller i am a physician. Host thank you for joining the conversation guest . Conversation. Guest how long do we expect immunity to last . That we are looking at the study to see. In some of the other trials with our platform with the dnabased approach, for example mers, another coronavirus, which we for,oped a countermeasure they were studied out 50 weeks and still present at significant levels in the vaccinated people. There is similar data from the bolo vaccine study the ebola vaccine study as well. The second question was . Host in terms of the length, if you can determine how long the patient would be immune from the virus. Guest the patient will be immune as long as they have a measurable immune response, sometimes longer because of memory immune responses. If it is likely other vaccines weve developed, it would be 60 weeks or longer. Those would be followed in Clinical Trials to get a measure of that. Measuring the immune response to , but youf the presence would need an expanded trial to get more data along those lines. The second part of the question chaink was would the change . Rnabased virus. Based a fairly large rna virus. This type of virus, we associate them with viruses that change frequently such as hiv or oretitive see hepatitis c influenza. It changes quite a bit. Coronavirus, the coronavirus, it has a proofreading enzyme that maintains the correctness of the nucleotide sequence of this long piece. Aat likely attenuates to significant extent the ability of the virus to rapidly change, such as we see with hiv or other viruses. They do have some change, and those changes have to be watched closely. There are reports of some of those changes. For the most part, it remains at 99. 9 identical to the first identified. Be athange appears to least slow. That favors, at least in the short run, being able to make a vaccine against one particular type, essentially, the current, major form around. Host under the most optimistic of circumstances and scenarios, when do you think the vaccine will be available to the public . Guest the question of when a vaccine will be available has several answers. I guess you have heard dr. Fauci say, for example, that it is likely to take a year and a half to two years to have a license vaccine. I think that is an important statement. We will leave that statement where it is. In this case, if you ask when we might first see that a vaccine might have an effect, a positive effect, to impact infection, i have a feeling that will be sooner. When we are talking about a licensed vaccine, that is usually after phase two, which is the next phase after the phase we are in now, in which we expand testing and test the ability of the virus in the field and a limited way to prevent people from getting infected. Those trials are the ones that lead to the larger scale licensure trials. Those, it is likely this vaccine, it could be safe and showing good immune responses. Discussingnsidering fda trials in the summer. I think the group in england also was talking about their vaccine moving forward toward fall in those type of studies. I think we will start to see people pushing along those lines. As long as i have safety and immune responses that are consistent with preventing what the virus wants to accomplish, i. E. Infect ourselves and cause havoc. Depending on the number of cases and design, those trials might start telling us something toward the end of the year. They have been involved in polio, hiv and z go work. Zika work. Good evening from virginia. Caller thank you for taking my call. [indiscernible] on mers and ebola. How will you get the vaccine to the market and what is the expected average cost . Host thank you. Guest thank you for that question about the cost. I think we dont know what the final cost will be right now. I think the goal of the program is to be able to make a vaccine with this kind of platform that can be widely available. Tend todna products have a simple manufacturing process which keeps the cost down. The other thing about this type of approach is it is temperature stable. It doesnt require very expensive formulations to maintain that temperature stability. That can also have an impact on cost and distribution, etc. I think also it depend on how long the immune response lasts. We dont know the answers to those questions, but really there is such a great need and the cost of a vaccine tends to be one of the Cheapest Health things we do that provides enormous benefit for the population. I think in this environment where it is a very costly impact on our population, both ,sychologically and financially as a vaccines are developed, it will be extremely costeffective by that measure. Host debbie is next from maryland. Thank you for waiting. Caller good evening, how are you doing . Host we are well, thank you for your question. Caller from what ive been told, some people who have gone the virus, they say normally you army you are immune after that, but they got it again. I thought that would not happen. Host professor, can you explain . Guest thank you for the question, that is a very important observation. Questionr to that ,bout what is the protection that people who were infected if they are protected when they recover is essential. In the case of mers, when we developed that vaccine, one of the things we included an publication, involving collaboration with a larger group. We compared samples with the patient who had recovered from mers infection in korea. What we observed is the antibodies produced by our vaccine were relatively similar to those and the t cells were stronger even than induced by the natural infection recovery. In this case, the question is, it is not that i would expect and i think this is where we will get into a little bit of the weeds. If 98 of people do not get reinfected, that is a very important thing to know. But if a few get reinfected in a global population, that would not cause me great concern. I think we need to know, are these anecdotal cases . What percentage do they represent . The pcr asking for the testing, there was some variability or something. This is any central question for all of us. I think we are going to be following this question closely. It is really a population level question and not an individual question. On a population, we might expect to see many different numbers of things, but we have to try to focus and hopefully learn whether it is the majority that would be protected. I thank you for that question. Arthur nextgo to joining us from the villages in florida. Caller thank you for taking my question. I understand the advantages of a dna approach for the delivery mechanism of a vaccine for the speed and the efficacy. My concern with covid19 is any of the patients that are currently being treated when they are given a particular drug or treatment, it hyper extends the immune system these patients already have. A lot of patients wind up dying from that or that has to be controlled. Is there an advantage to the dna approach over a regular approach to eliminate that dangerous aspect to a patient . The second question would be, if a vaccine is found in your opinion, what is the best way to habit distributed widely to the public and how long do you think that might take . Host and arthur, what is your background . Caller i am a paramedic with a firstline response to a lot of the situations we are dealing with today. Host and you are calling with the villages in florida, so you see a lot hourly patients i assume. Caller yes, there are. Host thank you for calling. Guest thank you for that question. Arthurs question is one of the essential ones that have emerged among people who are focused on vaccine development. That is that, is the immune response helping or is it hurting . Out of those questions came sars vaccineen the was studied in mouse models. It was determined to be particular vaccines in those models. It was during the safety phase of the study. They were enacted viruses that were treated in certain way that had some ability to drive inflammation. There was a lot of work in this model system. In mers when we tested our that,e, we looked for describing vaccination in animals and not information but protection from infection. The vaccines would normally be given we are talking about before the people are infected. And so, i think there is a supportive study that just came vaccinating of primates with a virus prep that is developed in china and showing they did not have enhanced disease. They actually prevented disease and infection in some animals. That study is supportive of the vaccine approach. I think you will see more of he next fewin t months. That is one way we will start to get that information. The other way we might be getting that information about antibodies is a lot of studies are delivering plasma to help sick patients try to recover, in fate trying to transfer immune responses. Though studies are going to be informative about, what is the best way to utilize immunity to try to treat this infection and prevention of and mitigate severe disease. That is just a few of the ways people are going to approach this. Ande is also antibodies inflammatory protease inflammatory proteins, which are being tested. People will be following it up. I think we will hear a lot about that area. Host in our remaining half a minute left, what is the biggest question with any vaccine you have to answer . Vaccines come out of a Public Health background. The number one question we try to answer his safety and on top of safety, efficacy. On toper is safety and of safety, efficacy. So i think those are the important things. We went to we want to show they are safe. They produce an immune response. They might give us comfort into moving into efficacy trials. Epic he itself. Efficacy itself. We do follow vaccines longterm to ensure they are safe for a period. G that is one of the important things about developing vaccines, that we test our posty on the way up and life insurers as well. The fda does the best. Weiner is director of vaccine and Immunotherapy Center at the Wistar Institute in philadelphia. We are going to continue our conversation. If you go to the Grocery Store, you know what it is like. It is the situation with the food supply what is the situation with the food supply. Andthose in the mountain pacific time zones, will be talking to the president of the grotius association. First, deborah birx earlier today on the procedures in place as the country gradually begins to reopen. Lays out the blueprint the responsibilities to enhance our partnership between the private sector and the public sector, bringing together state and local governments with the federal government to ensure we can accomplish and achieve our Core Principles and objectives. The core elements of the testing threeude both elements. Robust diagnostic testing plans developed in partnership with state. I want to thank the governors and Health Officials at the state and local levels who have been working with us to work through these issues and also the Laboratory Directors in many of the states as well as the American Society for microbiology who have been working with us to ensure the plans are efficient and effective. Within the robust diagnostic testing plans, it is unlocking the full capacity of the state, increasing the number of testing platforms we have. Multiple tests for different platforms. Increasing the ability to collect samples. Increasing testing and Laboratory Supplies and ensuring we Work Together to ensure every client receives the test they need. This is added with timely monitoring systems. Systems where we bring together the ability to not only diagnose the symptomatically but proactively and interactively work with individuals we know are at higher risk. We have worked with states to see where the outbreaks have occurred. It occurs very often in places of close settings among our native americans and among our longterm care facilities. An active Monitoring Program that is active, integrated and innovated. Combining this with the third element, which is the Rapid Response program. Relying on the cdc to work with state and local governments to ensure every case is quickly tracked and traced to ensure we cannot only control the epidemic but predict outbreaks before they expand. Includesthe plan approach of using science and technology to develop even newer platforms, more efficient testing, ensuring the antibody tests that are utilized and recommended by fda and cdc have high quality in predicting both exposure to the virus and antibody development. Finally, being on innovative tests that can be through pointofcare, and antigenbased test or a pointofcare nucleic acid test. Host that from dr. Deborah birx. All of the briefings are available on our website at cspan. Org. We went to introduce you to the president of the National GrocersAssociation Come a representing 1500 independent closures with 9000 Stores Across the country. Thank you for being with us. Guest it is great to be with you this evening. Host we have all gone to the Grocery Stores. For the operators of the independent groceries, what are the Biggest Challenges . Guest we experienced in the middle of march something we have never experienced before. The sales volume that our stores saw come through. It was something that happened on a national scale. We have had National Disasters before and there have and there has been significant demand. To habit to have it happen nationwide put a strain on the supermarkets. Our stories responded amazingly. Customers, we appreciate their patients. Those who work in the stores did an amazing job. The supply chain did catch up. We are in much better shape. We are still experiencing Sales Volumes anywhere from 15 to 40 in some areas above what we experienced the same time last year. Host it was not a shortage of toilet paper or medicine or other products. It was the supply chain. Guest there was enormous demand on some of those products like toilet paper. For an item like that, it was not that there is a massive warehouse someplace and we cannot get it to the stores. That impacted the supply. When it came to food, there was no shortage of food. Wendy of supply in the supply chain of food. It just takes time. It takes time to get the products into a distribution center. Theyre only so many products that can fit on an 18 wheeler. When you have customers ready to grab every can of soup or beans as soon as it hits the shelf, it takes time to restock the supply chain. The supply chain is catching up and is doing much better. Host you saw this headline earlier today. This is one of the number from the detroit news indicating we could be weeks away from meat shortages. On that front, what do you know . Guest we will have to see what really happens with the supply chain in meat. If you go back to the middle of march when we had this enormous demand, customers at times had a hard time finding certain cuts of meat. Ground meat became popular. Stores had a hard time keeping it on shelves. Within a couple days, you would have product back in the store. It would often get sold quickly. It came back. Throughans are going some situations where they have had a large number of workers who have come down with covid kade most important thing to do is take care of those workers. Thosere shutting down plants temporarily i understand and new equipment to make it safer for those employees. Putting in place the best practices. Others are coming back online. I do think we will potentially see an impact in the supply chain, but i think it will be temporary. We will continue to get caught up. It is a big country with a lot of producers and suppliers. We will do our best to sort everything we need. Host lets bring in our viewers and listeners. Bill in washington, d. C. Caller good evening. I hope youre feeling well and wearing your mask. Thatld like to point out there is this thing called snap, supplementary nutritional assistance programs, which is what the new name is for food stamps. Are okow, your suppliers , but if you watch the news, you can see Dairy Farmers are pouring thousands of gallons of milk away. A lot of farmers are destroying their crops and burying them. They are going bankrupt in the process. The grocery industry one thing is like other industries. One thing they need is certainty. If things keep on going like this, you will not have a certain supply chain. I think it would be in your own self interest to go and talk to your republican colleagues throughout the United States and tell them, stop blocking increases to snap. Snap, former secretary of agricultural of agriculture stated on a program recently that one of the things that could stabilize the food chain is if they increased the amount of food being pledged to snap. Right now, snap feeds about 43 million people. Host we will leave it there. Lets get a response. Guest great question. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is one of the most important food safety net programs our country has. The United States is unique in that we have programs like snap to burchett families and the elderly and those who have fallen on hard times. It is a program we are proud to partner on the u. S. To it with the usda on and support our communities. I agree with the callers concerns in the Agricultural Supply chain and what has happened with the disruption. A lot of that was driven by supply and demand elated to restaurants and food service as covid came into effect in the United States. We have seen a lot of Grocery Stores, our members in particular have stepped up. They are providing deliveries to food banks. They are doing food drives in their story. They are doing everything they can they can to support the food banks, which they do 365 days a year without a lot of fanfare. They are part of the community. They live in the community. That includes every person who needs to stop to shop in the store. It is an important program. When we are pleased to see the congress and usda has been focused on, ensuring those people who need access to snap get those benefits during this time. Our members are pleased to be an outlet to serve those customers. Host we will go to mitchell next in illinois. Good evening. Caller good evening. Traverse through the Grocery Stores and bigbox stores, i wonder about the safety of people when people the wareso try to get they desire to get. The safety of the facility is something i wonder about. Is there a plan to change the standard for like airflow in those buildings to maybe single pass and to upgrade the disinfection of the facilities at some frequency throughout the day to try to mitigate some of the spread of viruses of those that are affected . Host what are you seeing in your stores and with your members . Guest great question. We are doing a lot. It includes everything from wiping down freezer and dairy door handles on a continual basis with disinfectant, wiping down check counters continuously, is infecting shopping carts. Any of our members are going to great expense and bringing in additional professional cleaning services in the evening when the stores are closed including fogging systems, wiping down high touch points and shelves. They are doing that throughout the day. One is a very fluid issue, we are having to pivot sometimes on a weekly basis based upon cdc and other health recommendations. But i have seen for members is they are going above and beyond making sure the stores are clean and safe for their customers and employees. Host do you recommend bringing children to the Grocery Store if youre shopping, which has been a tradition for many years, but under this circumstance should they go . Not. no, they should here is what we wo to the store one person. If you need to bring another person, that is fine. But those trips to once or twice father who has to bring their children, we understand that, we would not recommend it. When you go to the stores, please wear a face covering. It does not have to be a mask. Wash your hands before you go to the store. Wash your hands when you get back home. Practice social distancing in the stores. We have had a challenge in some areas. We have gotten reports of customers not really respecting the six foot rule. It takes a conscious effort to do that. We ask people to be conscious, respect the six foot rule in the store. Don tof stores have oneway aisles. Make your selection have gone to oneway aisles. Make your selection and head home. Caller thank you for taking the call. A neighborhood where im has predominantly either independent Grocery Stores i am has predominantly either independent Grocery Stores and Grocery Stores that may be coops or small change with three or four locations. Theyll have similar product lines. I noticed recently there has been tremendous variability in the sense that you would go to one store and you are completely out of pasta and you go to a different store and they are completely out of beans and things like that. I am curious, is this a function that the wholesalers are rationing or allocating things between their retail customers or is this a function that there are different wholesalers who serve Different Stores and different wholesalers are able to get different supplies from the manufacturers . Host thank you, charles. Guest great question. Probably a little bit of both. Some high velocity items, items that have been hard to find have been put on what we would call allocation often from the manufacturer. Fivetypically buy truckloads of an item, it may say can only buy one until we can catch up. Those allocations would trickle down to the Retail Stores as well. Most of those are run a temporary basis. Seen. E those improved on some of these items that have been hard to find, you can still see allocations. You do have different suppliers for different products. That could be an example of what you are seeing in your neighborhood. We saw a lot of these are entrepreneurs. These are people who know how to think outside the box. When it was hard to find certain items from their main suppliers, they went to other suppliers. An early example was a lot of Grocery Stores worked with a Restaurant Supply companies who all of a sudden found they had a ton of product, perishable product and no one to sell it to. They worked with Grocery Stores to be able to have the Stores Source product from them. They helped stores to get some of the items in stock. Helped support their customers. I saw pictures of cisco bleach on display in some Grocery Stores around the country. It was because those stores figured out a way to source the product. It was probably a little bit of everything. We hope to see the supply start leveling out as the demand continues to moderate. Host what about disinfectants and cleaning products . That seems to be the biggest shortage right now. Guest we are hearing from suppliers we could continue to see a lot of pressure on their supply chain into the summertime. There are a number of reasons for that. Some of the chemicals that go into some of those products are sourced outside of the United States. Health care has been prioritized as it should for some of those products. They are in high demand. They are going to continue to be in high demand. One of our members in louisiana had gotten jumbo cans of lysol spray. Had 100 cans on a shelf. In an hour or two they were gone. There continues to be high demand. We are going to likely continue to see challenges with some of those types of products. Stock seeing better in levels of those items than we did see a few weeks ago. Host greg ferrero, he is the president of the National Groceries association. We thank you for being with us. Guest it is a pleasure being here. Thank you. Host host we will introduce you to a member of congress and how he is dealing with his constituents in arkansas. As states beginning the process of as states begin the process of reopening, 10 states do that this week. An announcement from ohio with Governor Mike Dewine. Balance. Are a to throw the doors open on may 1 and say, get rid of the stayathome order. Get rid of everything. It would be totally responsible. I have an obligation as governor of the state to do two things right now. And work every day. Get people back to work and keep them safe. That would not be consistent with people with keeping people safe. There is nothing that has changed other than ohioans have been no up jobjet if ohioans go a bank up jobjet info highlands go back to business as usual, this thing is going to stray backup. The curve is going to strip is going to go stray backup. I am not going to do that. Harmrying to balance the from the economy, understanding to comet for business back, people have to feel safe. And so, ohioans have to feel safe. That means employees have to feel safe. That means customers have to feel safe. The way we are doing this today is the best guarantee that we can have that ohioans will feel safe, that they can start back retail, go into the stores, that there are protections in place for them and that they can go back to work and that their employer has got rules, regulations, standards that have been put forward by the business community. The best practices we know of so they can go back to work. That is how we get ohioans back to work. Host that announcement from Governor Mike Dewine of ohio is that state begins the process starting this friday of beginning to reopen its economy. Joining us from arkansas as congressman french hill. He recommends he represents the second congressional district. Thank you for being with us. Guest glad to be with you, steve. Host was the last month been like for you and your constituents . Scary,it has been busy, disruptive. It has been concerning. Covid the above as the virus has taken over our lives and taking our kids away from their friends at school, taking us out of our offices. It has been challenging. Host this is been a new norm. Or members of congress how are you communicating with them for members of congress. How are you communicating with them . Guest i am an expert with Conference Calls and zoom. I think i am a test case for the latest video technology. It has been very productive. I have reached leaders in all of my counties, constituents and many Different Industries and listened to their views. What is happening in their kitchen tables and businesses. It has been a great way to communicate and get a daily update. Host what restrictions have been emplaced or have not been in place in arkansas in terms of people staying at home, schools, businesses, and restaurants . Hutchinson, who is our governor, has taken a middle course on closing. Thanks that could encourage the spread of the virus, he has closed. Large gatherings, conventions, church, bars, things of that nature. He has allowed a lot of manufacturing and traditional businesses to continue. I believe this careful approach will allow him to have an easier job as he goes about reopening the economy in arkansas during the course of may. We have about 3000 cases. Today, our 50th arkansan which we lament. Host tell us about your district and how it has been impacted. Guest i represent little rock, arkansas and all of the surrounding counties. It is a metropolitan district with the suburbs and some rural parts as well. As the state capital, it is also the health care capital. I have spent a lot of my time working with my Hospital Executives listening to their needs and what would happen in the case of a surge for our medical community. Do we have enough personnel . Do we have enough ppe . Those have all been hot topics for the last five weeks. Host there is a debate in washington in terms of cares 2. 0, adding another stimulus plan. What is your view and what is the debate going to be like when you return next week . Guest i think that is an important question because we have appropriated 3 trillion. It is 2. 7 trillion dollars. That is more than 60 of what we spend in a year in washington on all federal programs from National Parks to social security. When you add the leverage the Federal Reserve is working on with the treasury, it is over 7 trillion. That is 35 of the total gross output of the United States in one year. From my point of view, i would like to make sure we assess what programs we have put in place, what money we have already appropriated and make sure it is doing its job for we jumbo and do even more appropriation. I have a cautious approach. Immediately considering in another spending bill. Host we learned today from the House Democratic leader will have your first votes a week from today beginning at 6 30 eastern time. What is the floor of the house going to look like . What is the house of representatives going to look like in the hearings that are about to begin in a week . Guest i appreciate the leader giving us that much notice. The plan is for the plan is for committees to meet in staggered terms and bigger rooms. Some of our committees have 60 useers so theyre going to bigger rooms and spread the members of congress out so they can continue Committee Oversight stagger members on the floors to vote. Last week when we voted on the most recent cares 2. 0, we had through the House Chamber and vote quickly on present and not stay but we were divided into alphabetical groups where no 80 members would be near the House Chamber at one time. Your routineas been like over the last month or so, you personally . Guest personally, my routine has been turned into i feel robotic because of the number of Conference Calls and videoconferences. Getting up very early, earlier than normal, say, 5 30, and looking at the news and contacting people who have the hour time difference. Were on central time here. Calling washington and working on projects there and staying on Conference Calls and day longerences all until probably 9 00 p. M. Or so every day. Routine for the last five or six weeks. Question, final congressman hill, because by all accounts this pandemic is going us, may dissipate somewhat in the summer but without a vaccine, we could be to this in the fall and winter. Remotehave a view on voting or proxy voting in times of emergency . Our workprefer we do in the chamber and use c. D. C. Standards for social distancing that way because years ofer 00 200 tradition. Im not really a fan of remote voting. How that can be done effectively and i guess the next best alternative might be even haveng but i concerns about that so i hope that were able to do our work in washington effectively following the c. D. C. Standard if we have another major outbreak this year. Steve congressman french hill secondnts arkansas congressional district. Thank you for letting us check in with you. A look at the numbers in the last hour courtesy of johns university. New worldwide infections, 2,593. Of those, just over 2,000, here in the united and worldwide deaths, 38, 20 in the United States. Coverage is available on our website at cspan. Org and besser will rich join us, former acting director c. D. C. And michael strain from the American Enterprise institute to about the Economic Impact this is having on americans. Evening. Morrow cspan. Org coronavirus is the website for coverage, daily briefings, this program. Were back tomorrow morning at 7 00 a. M. Senior eastern time with another edition of washington journal. Thanks for joining us on this monday. Keep healthy. Enjoy the rest of your liveashington journal every day with news and policy issues that impact you. We will discuss how Contact Tracing can combat the covid19 pandemic with a Senior Research associate at Johns Hopkins. Also, a discussion of georgia reopening parts of its economy amid the coronavirus pandemic. First with the republican congressman jody heise. And then with congressman sanford bishop. Live at 7 00 eastern this morning. Eastern for at 9 00 a look back at the antiwar student protest at kent state that erupted into a deadly confrontation between students and the Ohio National guard. Join the discussion. At a rose garden news conference, President Trump and members of the White House Coronavirus task force announced new plans for a nationwide coronavirus testing strategy. The president confirmed that over 5 million tests have been conducted so far. He also took questions on comments made by attorney general william barr on how states are reopening handling reopening, on the state of the economy, and on the health of north Korean Leader kim jongun. Pres. Trump thank you very much. Thank you. Today i would like to provide you with an update in our war against the coronavirus