Service. We remind every governor at every laboratory and hospital in the country that its imperative you continue to report daily to the cdc on resource decisions. We reiterated today to governors in person and also through correspondence the importance of using their National Guard if need be to move medical suppli supplies. Fema is very busy delivering millions of supplies around the country but we are working with every governor to make sure their state and Emergency Management team and maybe use the National Guard to move those supplies from warehouses to hospitals. At the present moment, we distributed more than 11. 695 millio11. 6 million n95 m. Flights have arrived in new york, one arrived in illinois yesterday and a flight will arrive in ohio in the next 24 hours. Fema is working in contracting around the world with more than 51 flights. On the subject of ventilators, fema is currently delivering more than 400 ventilators to michigan, 302 new jersey, 152 louisiana, 50 ventilators to connecticut and in the last week and the week ahead more than 450 ventilators to illinois, this is in addition to more than 440 ventilators the president and fema directed to the state of new york. We want people working on the front lines. The president just spoke about dr. Birx we want you to know, help is on the way. And at the president s direction
we will leave no stone unturned anywhere in america or anywhere in the world to make sure you have the resources and the equipment to do your job. Again, i want to say thank you america, thank you for stepping up, thank you for putting into practice 15 days to slow the spread and thank you for the response of tens of millions have already had for the 30 days to slow the spread. We encourage each one of you as we have governors around the country to spread the word around the guidelines, listen to your state authorities, and we continue to urge people in the areas of new york, new jersey, and connecticut to refrain from travel around the country. People who have traveled from that area, check your temperature and selfquarantine for 14 days. You can see from that chart the unique challenges. The people in the Greater New York city area are facing with the coronavirus and we want to do all that we can to protect
your health, focus resources on community and prevent unnecessary spread. Lastly as the president highlighted, businesses around america are stepping up as never before. Tomorrow, ill travel with sonny perdue to virginia to a Walmart Distribution Centers of the American People can see firsthand how the Food Supplies continuing to roll on 18 wheels and airfreight all over america and we thank again the Grocery Store operators around america, everyone whos working on the highways and byways to keep that food supply rolling and strong. We are going to continue to work our hearts out, to make sure everyone struggling with coronavirus has the health care they need. Seeing this team, the president has assembled in the white house
Coronavirus Task force, confident of the prayers of the American People that well get through this but it will take all of us doing our part and well to get it together. Reporter just to be clear, what is the projected death to toll . I guess we could say, i would like to have dr. Fauci come up and say, i have numbers but id rather have them say the numbers if you dont mind. Its a big question. This is a projection and its a projection based on using very much what has happened in italy and all the models that was our real number, 100,000 to 200,000 and we think of that as the range. We believe and hope every day we can do a lot better than that
because that isnt assuming 100 of every american, everything they are supposed to be doing. But i think thats possible. Reporter over the next two weeks, you said they are going to be very painful. Whats going to happen . You have an up slope so the mortality will increase and then it will come back down and it will come back down slower than the rate at which it went up. So that is really the issue. How much we can push the mortality down . Our hope is to get that down as far as we possibly can, the modeling that dr. Birx showed predicts that number that you saw. We dont accept that number, we are going to be doing everything we can to be getting it significantly below that. I dont want it to be a mixed
message, this is the thing that we need to anticipate, that doesnt mean thats what we are going to accept, we are going to do much, much better than that. Reporter when you look at the curve it goes much further in time. We will have death and cases for much longer. Slide number two what i showed you was a generic picture of what happens in an epidemic when you mitigate. No mitigation, mitigate. This is based on the experience around the globe with this particular virus. It does have a tail, but the peak you can see by this projection is over the next two weeks. This is tracking mortality, the number of fatalities from this
virus. Thats the part that we think we can still blunt through superb medical care that every client is receiving but also even more stringent people following the guidelines. Reporter are we seeing this until june . This is june, we would still see problems and deaths in june. Its a projection. Getting back to what i said, deaths always lag. You will be seeing deaths at a time when as an epidemic we are doing really well because the deaths will lag. Reporter should americans be prepared for the likelihood that there will be a hundred thousand americans who die of this virus . The answer is yes, we need as sobering a number as that is, we should be prepared for it. Is it going to be that much . I hope not and i think the more we push on the mitigation the less likely to be that number but being realistic we need to prepare ourselves that is a possibility that thats what well see. Reporter can the country handle that in such a short period of time . 8,000 a month. It will be difficult, no one is denying that we are going through a very difficult time right now. We are seeing whats happening in new york, that is really tough. If you extrapolate that to the nation, that will be really tough but thats what it is and we are going to have to be prepared for that. That model is based and heavily laden by the data that its coming in from new york and new jersey and connecticut. That can skew to a higher peak and more significant mortality. If all of the other states and all the other metro areas are able to hold that case number down, then its a very different picture. You have to predict on the data you have which is heavily skewed to new york and new jersey. Thats really unimportant slide that dr. Birx showed. The cluster of other cities that are not new york and not new jersey, if we can suppress that from any kind of a spike, the numbers can be significantly lower than what we talked about. Thats the reason my plea at the end of my remarks, now is the time to put your foot on the accelerator because thats the only thing thats going to stop those cases. President trump some of the cities are doing very well at this early stage but between
hundred and 200,000, maybe slightly more. Do we have the next slide after that . Reporter would you tell cities that are dave been taking charge and all of this, would you urge cities that havent been doing this, mr. President , to get with the program . President trump new york is having a much harder time than other cities, if you look down here, they were early, they were very firm and theyve done an incredible job. This is new jersey and new york. California and Washington State were down here. Reporter we are seeing places in florida not doing what new york and new jersey have been doing, what Washington State has been doing. President trump they are doing very well in comparison. Reporter a question to you and dr. Fauci as well. You told us yesterday that the u. S. Is accomplishing 100,000 tests per day but we are still hearing difficult stories from the front lines, First Responders who pray so appropriately that they cant test all of the people that they need to test, do you have any kind of projection as to when everyone who needs a test will be able to receive it . President trump i can only say we are doing more than anybody in the world by far. We are testing highly accurate tests, many tests are being sent to countries the word is exponential. Every day were getting more and more and more and we have the new test that you saw yesterday, thats going to be rolled out tomorrow and the next day, its going to take a few minutes to see the result and its a highly
accurate result. The tests we are giving out where its a 5050 chance that its wrong, these are highly accurate tests but the new tests coming out are very quick and they were just developed. We are doing more than anybody in the world by far and they are very accurate tests, we are getting a lot of information. The tests the president unveiled yesterday, the Abbott Laboratories tests which is a 15 minute tests, our team is working very closely with fema to make sure those are distributed around the country. Earlier this week Abbott Laboratories is going to be producing 50,000 tests a day and distributing those around america. If theres already machines and some 18,000 different locations
around the country. They told us they have several thousand on the shelf now and what were doing is trying to identify the areas where we may yet have pockets or as dr. Birx often says, where we want to do more immediate testing so we can do whats called surveillance testing to identify where there may be coronavirus cases where theres been very little incident. If i can amplify one other point and that is if you look at this chart go back 15 days and the reality is that this is me speaking as a layperson as ive listened to our experts, new york, the Greater New York city area have unique challenges. Its a city that we really believe may have had exposure to the coronavirus much earlier on than we could have known. New york, connecticut, new jersey are leaning into this effort. When we look at this chart for all the other states including
Washington State and california, it really does give evidence it begins to give evidence that the 15 days to slow the spread is working in the American People are putting these into practice across the country including in new york and new jersey even though they faced a greater magnitude of cases for certain circumstances that are related to International Travel in those communities. What i would suggest to you is the American People can look at these numbers and they can see in the last 15 days, the president s coronavirus guidelines are working, precisely why President Trump is asking every american to continue to putting these guidelines days. Reporter we are at 4,000
deaths in the United States, youre suggesting a spike of 90,000 deaths in the next few weeks, do you have a demographic breakdown of where most of those deaths will occur . Right now in if you ask chris murray, he is using the information coming out of new york and new jersey and apply that to other states have the same outcome. I want to say, this yellow line and this is all corrected for hundred thousand residents. This is normalized so we can compare apples to apples. This is still Washington State, this yellow. So they have been able for a long time of measuring cases not have a spike. Its possible and we are watching very closely to make sure it doesnt have a spike. Thats with the people in Washington State are doing, this
is every community. Washington state early about two weeks before new york and new jersey. California a week before new york and new jersey really talked to their communities and decided to mitigate before they started seeing this number of cases. Now we know that makes a big difference. Early as dr. Fauci said if you wait until you see it, its too late. Reporter do you have a demographic breakdown of where these deaths will occur . Does a demographic breakdown that we discussed before related to mortality and its as we are seeing the new york exactly what we saw in italy. Very low mortality not to say that young people under 30 our young people under 40 arent getting ill, they are. But most of them are recovering. The profile looks identical to italy, with increasing mortality with age and preexisting medical conditions. So that is holding in the same way. But what we are hoping is through the work of communities and again, it comes down to communities, this is communities deciding this is important to them do not have the experience of new york and new jersey. We are worried about groups all around the globe. I dont know if you heard the report this morning, theres 8,000 ventilators in the u. K. If you translate that to the United States, that would be like us have been less than 40,000 ventilators. We have five times that amount. These are the things that everybody is having to face and i think the United States has been and an excellent position from our medical care physician but we dont want to have to test that system. We want this to be a much smaller epidemic with much smaller mortality. Testing numbers, a million tests done is a big increase but we were told there would be 27 million tests available by the end of the month. Can you outline where in the supply chain, where in the logistics chain are the other 26 million tests . Just for purposes of clarification, theres a difference between sending a test that can be administered to a test being done. Because a month ago or more, the president brought together the top commercial labs in america and said we need you to partner with us to create a brandnew system that would rapidly process tests. We are now at 1. 1 million tests and we believe its a fair estimate that we are testing about a hundred thousand americans a day. That will continue to grow and continue to accelerate, but i
think the misunderstanding early on was there were many tests being distributed, many tests being sent. Under the antiquated system, those are being processed in state labs or at the cdc or private labs on a very slow, methodical system that could only produce 30 to 50 tests a day but this new partnership we have allows progress that we are making, it means you are going to have devices and tests to people literally able to take at their doctors office, hospital, clinic, nursing home and have results in 15 minutes. Reporter the 26 million tests we were talking about, where those under the antiquated system . So are we still using those
26 million tests or have we completely moved on . The answer is yes, new systems. Even today coming out of laboratories and develops tests and worked on vaccines and gone into the field to combat epidemics, its disappointing that we have 500,000 capacity of tests that are not being utilized. They are not being run. Now we have to figure out how do we create awareness . Sometimes when you put in early platform out like our first platform out was high speed, you get that one out, get dependent on that and you dont see that theres the availability of other tests. Right now theres half a million not being utilized. We are trying to figure out how do we inform states about where these all are, how do we work through every Laboratory Association so they are aware
and how do we raise awareness so people know there is point of care, theres abbott testing and theres roche if you add those together, thats millions of tests a week. Or theyre not not even being used, thats what we are working on. When people get used to a single platform, they keep sending it back to that lab. So rather than being moved to this other lab that may have abbott capacity, they are all in different laboratories. Admiral is figuring it out to create some kind of visual so that every governor and every Health Commissioner can see all of their capacity in their country in their states, county by county so that they know where the tests are. Weve pushed a lot of tests out but they arent all being utilized. President trump its up to the people, they dont send them back. They use them and dont send them back. Dr. Birx explained it very well. Its a logical question when you look at the number, you want to know what the demography is going to be this is a number that we need to anticipate but we dont necessarily have to accept it as being inevitable and thats getting back to what im saying about we can influence this to varying degrees and if we influence it to the maximum, we dont have to accept that. That something we need to anticipate but all of us want to do much better than that. Reporter what are the models suggest on the low end if you have full mitigation . That was full mitigation. President trump it says hundred to 200000, thats a lot of people. You didnt ask the other question, what wouldve happened this is the question
ive been asking dr. Fauci and dr. Birx for a long time, theyve been working on this for a long time the question is what wouldve happened if we did nothing . There was a group that said lets just write it out, write it out. What wouldve happened . That number comes in at 1. 5 to 1. 6 Million People up to 2. 2, and beyond. At 2. 2 Million People would have died if we did nothing. I dont think that wouldve been possible because he wouldve had people dying all over the place, it would not of been a normal life, you wouldve seen people dying on airplanes, you wouldve seen people dying in hotel lobbies, you wouldve seen death all over. From a practical standpoint, that couldnt of been carried too far. But if you did nothing on the higher side, the number would be 2. 2, maybe even more end on the lower side, 1. 6 Million People. 100,000 is the number with full mitigation . How do you push it lower . Weve been at this a long time you go first. Its a very good question. If this is full mitigation and its hundred thousand, why my standing here saying i want to make it better . Because thats what the model tells you its going to do. What we do is every time we get more data, you feed it back in and we look at the model. Is the model really telling you whats actually going on . Again, i know my modeling colleagues are not going to be happy with me but models are as good as the assumptions you put into them. As we get more data, then you put it in and that might change. Even though it says according to the model which is a good model that we are dealing with, this is full mitigation. As we get more data as the weeks go by, that could be modified. Reporter why it is the top line on the lowball estimate . I think its a 240,000, is that a change . It just has to do with if you had more new yorks and new jerseys. Chicago, detroit, l. A. , dallas, houston, all of our major cities, models like new york, thats what gets us into troub trouble. I am reassured by looking at the seattle line, by looking at the l. A. Line, by looking at what california has been able to do that that is not something that i dont believe thats gonna happen. That is the outside case of having ten, 15 metros like the new york and new jersey metro area. Dont many of those other states if not more of them have even less information, arent they likely to see the same spikes . California and Washington State reacted very early to this Washington State had some of the earliest infections, they have kept it low and steady and for now, a month has been tracking it with a small increase in the number of cases but not this logarithmic form of the virus. Thats the piece we are trying to prevent, we are trying to prevent in new orleans and detroit and chicago and in boston right now. In trying to make sure that each of those cities work more like california that the new york metro area. Reporter i want to get your thoughts on face mask, we asked you about this yesterda yesterday
President Trump i think i can say this because i spoke to dr. Birx before, for whatever reason, new york got off to a very late start. You see what happens when you get off to a late start. New jersey got off and i think both governors are doing an excellent job but they got up to a very late start. When you look at Washington State if you remember, that all started in a very confined in a nursing home have 20 some people dying in one home, that doesnt mean it escaped that home and so they have a very different statistic than other states. I remember very vividly the nursing home in Washington State where you had many people dying every day in the one exact location. They were able to keep it in that one location. Reporter were you surprised when you saw these projections . The numbers are sobering. President trump they are very sobering, when you see 100,000 people thats a minimum number. What we are looking at, whatever we can do under that number and substantially under that number, weve done that through great mitigation, weve done that through a lot of very dedicated American People a hundred thousand is according to modeling a very low number. I asked this a while ago, they said its unlikely you will be able to attain that i think we are doing better than that. We have to see but i think we are doing better than that because as john said, that would be a lot of lives taken over a short period of time. Think about what wouldve happened if we didnt do anything. Ive had many friends, business people, great common sense they said, why dont we write it
out . Dont do anything, just write it out and think of it as the flu, but its not the flu, its vicious. When you send a friend to the hospital and you call up to find out how is he doing its happened to me he goes to the hospital, he says goodbye, hes sort of a tough guy, a little older, a little heavier than hed like to be, frankly and you call up the next day, hows he doing and hes in a coma . This is not the flu. We would have seen things had we done nothing but for a long time people were asking that question, right . A lot of people were saying lets just write it out, this is not to be written out. Potentially 2. 2 Million People or more 2. 2 Million People in a short period of time. If you remember, they were looking at that concept, if you
dont mind death, a lot of death but they were looking at that in the u. K. , remember . They were very much looking at it. All of a sudden they went hard the other way because they started seeing things that werent good. So they put themselves in a little bit of a problem. Now boris tested positive and i hope he is going to be fine but in the u. K. , they were looking they have a name for it but we wont even go by the name but it would have been very catastrophic if that wouldve happened. There was something everybody is talking about just dont do anything. Forget about everything, just ride it out. We would have had a minimum 1. 5, 1. 6 but you would have had perhaps over 2. 2 Million People dying in a very short period of time and that is a number the
likes of which weve never seen. Now when we look at our package that was just approved for 2 trillion, all of a sudden it seems very reasonable, right . When youre talking about 2 million lives, it sounds very reasonable. A lot of people have been saying more advanced numbers, these are more advanced than when he first started we didnt know. This was a different kind of a virus and nobody knew anything about it, even the experts dont really know where its going. And you see what goes on in italy and goes on in spain and you see francis having a hard time and other countries having a hard time. Once they see whats going on, they start making projections. I hope they are going to be high projections based on everything else, that would be the number. Lets see if we could do much better than that. Reporter you didnt answer the question about masks. President trump you can use a scarf a lot of people have scarves and you can use a scarf, a scarf would be very good. My feeling is if people want to do it, theres certainly no harm to it. I would say do it, use a scarf if you want rather than going out and getting a mask, we are making millions and millions of masks but we want them to go to the hospitals. One of the things that dr. Fauci told me as we dont want them competing, everybody competing with the hospitals who really need them. So you can use a scarf, you can use Something Else over your face, it doesnt have to be a mask. Its not a bad idea at least for a period of time. Eventually youre not going to want to do that, youre not going to have to do that, this is going to be gone, hopefully gone for a long time. Reporter the mitigation steps that are on your 30 day plan, is that enough . President trump we hope its enough, we hope we are at a level where we can say lets go because our country wants to get back to work, we really want to get back Everyone Wants to get back to work. I could ask the doctors to answer that question but we discuss it all the time, what do you think . Reporter recommending harsher President Trump weve been harsh, i looked at fifth avenue today on camera and i didnt see anyone walking on the street and im used to watching that street, you cant even see the asphalt, you cant see the concrete and you look at it, theres nobody. There was one car that looked like it mightve been a taxicab and it was a time of the morning were normally there would be a lot of people. I think the mitigation has been strong. Reporter will you confirm your plans to defer tariff payments for 90 days . President trump i didnt do anything about tariff payments, we havent done that, chinas paying us we made a deal with china, under the deal they are paying us 25 on 250 billion and i spoke with president xi the other day we didnt mention it, we had a great conversation, a productive conversation having to do with many things, most of it was on the virus. Who are you with . Reporter wall street journal. There is by wall street journal and bloomberg President Trump there might be but im going to have to approve the plan. One thing i will tell you, i approve everything and they havent presented it to me. Therefore its false reporting, dont do the story. If we are going to be doing something, id be glad to let you know. Well let you know. Reporter i wanted to ask you about individual states issuing stayathome orders, resisted the urge others to issue one of those but he said moments ago you and the rest of the task force recommended one, that would weigh on him heavily. What sort of circumstances need to be in place for you to make that call . President trump different kind of a state come a great governor, knows exactly what hes doing, has a very strong view on it and we have spoken to him. Do you want to tell them a little bit about that . Let me echo appreciation for governor rhond desantis. Let me be clear, the recommendation of our Health Experts was to be taking the 15
days to slow the spread and have the president extend that to 30 days for every american. That being said, we recognize that when youre dealing with a Health Crisis in the country, its locally executed by Health Care Workers but state managed so we continue to flow in the information to state governors, we continue to hear about the data they are analyzing and consult with them. At the president s direction, the White House Coronavirus task force will continue to take the posture to state and local authorities on any measures that they deem appropriate. For the next 30 days, this is what we believe every american in every state should be doing at a minimum to slow the spread to. President trump unless we see something obviously wrong if its obviously wrong, we will stop that. But in the case of governor governor desantis, hes been doing a great job in every respect. We only would exercise if we thought it was obvious. Reporter i have a question to the Vice President but i wanted to ask about your call with president putin, of concern to a lot of people is the state of oil prices im wondering if you raise that with president putin. President trump the call was about that, the oil prices. As you know, russia and saudi arabia are going at it and going at it to the extent they are, the oil has dropped to a point where i look, its the
greatest text that we have ever given if you look at it that way because people are going to be paying 0. 99 per gallon of gasoline. Its incredible in a lot of ways, its gonna help the airlines. Its not even feasible whats going on. I spoke to president putin about that, i spoke to the crown prince about that, they are going to get together and we dont want to lose in industry. Thousands of jobs. I dont know if you know, theres oil all over the oceans right now, the boats are all filled, they are renting ships, ships that were diane, that werent doing well, thats what they are storing oil. They are sent out to sea and they sit there for long periods of time. In some parts of the world, we never seen anything like it. The two countries are discussing it and i am joining at the appropriate time if need be. We had a great talk with president putin, a great talk with the crown prince, we also discussed more so with president putin in this case the virus because russia is being hit pretty hard. We discussed many things, trade, we discussed the oil and the oil prices. Its 22 but its much cheaper than that if you want to negotiate nobody has seen that. Thats like from the 1950s, it really is. 50, 60, 70, 80, if you put a good bid in at nine you could probably get what you want. Reporter you tweeted earlier today that now would be a good time to start looking for if there is a light at the end of the tunnel and work on an infrastructure bill. You suggested it should be 2 trillion which is twice with the last one was. Are you anticipating like after the economic crisis of 2008, 2009, america would need to have shovelready jobs ready to go . President trump the problem with that one is they had may be shovelready jobs, maybe not but they never used it for the purpose of infrastructure. No one has been able to find money on infrastructure and one of the reasons im suggesting it is we are paying zero interest, the United States is paying zero interest. The Federal Reserve lowered the fed rate and that and a combination of the fact that everybody wants to be in the United States, we have a dollar thats very strong and i know that sounds good but it does make it hard to manufacture and
sell outside because other currencies are falling in our currency is very strong. Proportionately, its through the roof. We have a strong dollar, people want to invest in the United States especially nowadays where they are looking at safety. They have all of the problems plus the virus at 151 countries, they all want to come into the United States so we have a zero Interest Rate essentially and i said wouldnt this be a great time to borrow money at zero Interest Rate and really build our infrastructure like we can do it . So the plan was, the republicans had a plan of about 750, i would say they were at 75, the democrats were a little less than a trillion dollars, the republicans were a little bit less than that and im suggesting 2 trillion, we redo our roads, highways, bridges, we fix up our tunnels, many of them in bad shape like coming into new york as you know, really bad shape and we really do a job on our infrastructure and that
doesnt mean we are going to do the Green New Deal because i wont do it, we arent going to do the Green New Deal and spend 40 of the money on things that people just have fun with, we are going to borrow the money at 0 interest, so our Interest Payments would be almost zero and we can borrow long term. People want to be in the United States, they want to be invested in the United States. Reporter you were saying at the beginning of the press conference youre looking at holding back a 10,000 ventilators, is that because you need to pick and choose where these ventilators are going to have to go because of the nature of the pandemic . And i want to ask dr. Fauci and dr. Birx if its possible after you finish, is that part of the reason why you are projecting 100,000 to 200,000 deaths, theyre going to be some people who arent going to be able to get ventilators. President trump its the opposite, we have almost 10,000,
we are going to need them over the next couple of weeks, we havent hit the top yet. If we have to be able to move them immediately and we cant take them because its going to be very hard to do them, we cant take them to places that are needing them. We have requests for ventilators in hospitals and in states and cities that dont need him in our opinion, the wont need them at the top. We are holding them back for flexibility, we just took 600 and sent them to different locations today. We have close to 10,000 and we are all set to march, we have the National Guard and we have fema, we are all set to move them to the places. As for your second question, what we are going to do is save lives because of it because otherwise we would not be able to we dont know what the hottest spot. Reporter are we on a ventilator shortage right now . In some areas we might but we
have 11 Companies Making ventilators, they will be starting to arrive in the next week but we have also grabbed a lot of them, some hospitals have more of them than they were saying which is a good thing, not a bad thing but we want to be able to have flexibility so that if the search turns out to be much stronger in louisiana which it could, we can immediately bring a thousand or 2,000 to louisiana, otherwise we wouldnt be able to get them. If governor cuomo, we want to take ventilators away from new york and they would say we cant do that, it would be a disaster. We have great flexibility. Now, when the surge occurs if it occurs fairly evenly we will be able to distribute them quickly before we need them but we want to have a reserve right now. Its like having oil reserves except more valuable. We have a reserve right now and we also have a great team of
people ready to deliver, they can move them fast. When we see them going up in a certain state, michigan can be another with detroit because detroit is having a lot of hard time right now. Detroit came out of nowhere and thats what happens with this, it comes out of nowhere. We are ready depending on what happens and we have a stockpile, thats why its called a stockpile. A lot of the ventilators and the other equipment, rather than sending it to the stockpile, we had it sent directly to a hospital, to a location, to a place so we didnt have the cumbersome nature of having it come in on boxed and delivered. Which they have never done before, generally speaking they dont do that. Weve had tremendous success at doing that, thats for other items including ventilators where its brought to the site that needs it. We have a good supply of ventilators and we are ready to go, we have trucks ready,
everything ready because as we are saying, this could be a of a bad two weeks. A very bad two, maybe three weeks, this is going to be three weeks like we havent seen before. Reporter should the hospital to be prepared for that . If they are facing what looks at the medical war zone. President trump they are going to be facing a war zone, thats what it is. Some paramedics and doctors have been in war zones, theyve never seen anything like this. We look at queens, its a hospital that is near where i grew up and it is a war zone. Reporter on ventilators we are hearing governors say they been fighting amongst themselves goat President Trump if thats happening, they should be calling us. We distributed thousands of ventilators but they shouldnt
be doing that and if they need them that badly, we know. We have pretty good ideas of where they are going to need them. Some people think they need them and they dont need them. I dont want to mention names but theres some people that want them and its really not the right thing. If you have some people that hoard a little bit, they want to have more than they think they. Its hard to make, it takes a long time to make it, its complex some of them are like the dashboard of an airplane. A very complicated and very expensive machines, some of them are much simpler. We are ready to go depending on what happens. We have some hospitals in some states that think they need ventilators and we dont think they do. If they do need them we will have them there. Reporter what about hydroxychloroquine, early data
on the trials . President trump nothing that ive heard of. We have 1,100 in new york and we have other locations where people are taking them. The good news is its only three days, its like a seven or eight day treatment and we havent heard anything bad. There has been no catastrophic event but its a little bit too soon to talk about it. It would be a total game changer if that happened. We include that in all cases, the cpac. We are going to see what happens with the hydroxychloroquine. Reporter other other antiviral drugs that have some promise . President trump we are looking at a lot of them, some show promise, i think the doctor might want to speak about the
vaccines, Johnson Johnson is very advanced, one thing with the vaccines is it doesnt help this group because you need to test the vaccine. If one thing with the drug you just mentioned, its a malaria drug and also in arthritis drug, its been out there for a long time. So its tested in the sense that you know it doesnt kill you, you may want to discuss the vaccines for a second. Thank you, mr. President to answer your question, there are a number of candidates the drugs that are now being looked at in various ways, nickel trials, drugs that already exist for other things, as a whole menu of drugs and interventions that are now going into Clinical Trials that are not approved for anything yet. Things like convalescent plasma or antibodies, a variety of other things. Theres a lot of activity going on behind the scenes in the design of the trials that will give us an answer. If it doesnt work you want to get it off the table and go to the next one, there are a lot of things. Reporter weeks, months . At least months, thats the reason why you are seeing a lot of activity with drugs that already exist for other purposes. The drug that you want to show in a good, randomized Clinical Trial come at very best they are going to take. We hope that as we get into the summer, if, in fact, there are other cases out there in a phase two or phase three trial, we might get an early efficacy
single. Even though you havent definitively proven how the vaccine works, you get enough information that if it were an emergency, you might have the information. President trump i have to say this, hydroxychloroquine i think some medical workers are using it or getting it prescribed for another use. The word is some r and some arent, i think its not a bad idea to do but its up to the doctors. There is a theory going around in our country and some other countries, people are working with patients because there is some evidence and again its going to have to be proven, its very early. This was supposed to take a long time, and i prevailed along the fda to get it approved immediately that it was already on the market for a lot of years. So well and see what happens, theres a theory out there for the medical worker it may work. If you take it, its been out there for a long time. Reporter i want to go back to jims question about the national stockpile. The strategic stockpile. The governor of connecticut said he was concerned to learn the stockpile is now empty and he said President Trump if not empty, what we are doing and i thought i said it accurately rather than having it brought into the stockpile where appropriate, other than certain things like we have quite a few of the ventilators which is not a lot when you look at the whole country, it sounds like a lot,
almost 10,000. We are trying to have supplies sent directly to the states because we save we dont want medical supplies coming in to warehouses all over the place and then we take them from there and bring them to another warehouse. Ideally from the manufacturer directly to the hospital where its going. We are trying to keep it that way as much as possible. We also took over a virtually empty and i say it again, just like we had no ammunition in the military and we had virtually no ammunition, we had very little in medical supplies too in our stockpile. For the most part we are trying very hard to have a deliver to the site where they need it. Reporter here in the United States, we can practice social distancing with some of our sailors specifically on the
uss theodore roosevelt, they are not able to. What are your thoughts on that . Should they be offloaded . President trump im going to let the military make that decision. Reporter are you concerned about military readiness during this pandemic . What would happen if china were to increase patrols in the South China Sea . President trump well see all about that, dont worry about our military. Use of the military put up a hospital in three and a half days with 2,900 beds, with a lot of beds no ones ever seen anything like it. That wasnt the only one, it wasnt just the javits center, it was at other locations now its louisiana, new jersey, other places. One thing i think is indisputable is i watched the army corps of engineers and fema working with them but i watch them throw up these hospitals and they are complex, incredible buildings essentially. They did it in such a quick, short period of time. Our military is ready like you havent seen. The best guests on the different shows, the best guests ive seen in a long time are military people and they have never not before. I watched general seminite, youve got to give us two new hospitals in louisiana and he says yes, sir. I guess im tired of the other guests in all fairness. Reporter this may be an uncomfortable question but what would the models have looked like if dr. Birx and dr. Fauci showed if we started the social distancing guidelines and sooner in february, january 1 china and south korea were doing this in terms of information we are
getting from them, if we start of the practices sooner . President trump im going to say it, you know who says it better than anybody . Its a dr. Fauci. I had a decision to make him a it was my biggest decision. China was heavily infected and thousands and thousands of people were coming from china to the United States. Against the wishes, not even the wishes but they disagreed with the decision, i made a decision to stop china from coming. I took a lot of heat, even from china, they werent exactly happy, i just made a trade deal. 250 billion trade deal and shortly thereafter im saying you cant come into our country that was a big decision, that was earlier than the dates youre talking about. Not because i did it, that was the biggest decision we made so far. If you look at the one graph, new york started late, the other
one didnt start so late in new york is more complicated for obvious reasons. They got a late start, do you want to answer . I dont know if you can go back to slide two because i wanted to explain two things, we had a lot of questions about mortality and what it meant. You see those confidence intervals . Here is the lien. This is the confidence interval. This is where we have the ability to push it down. You have a large confidence interval around the lien. So we are trying to move that grayed down tighter and below the dotted line. I think that is important. Then you can go to the next slide. We cant answer your question until we can get Antibody Testing out there. Because what we cant tell you,
we can always do this. Theres always samples in hospitals and other things, the way we defined the hiv epidemic in the United States, we were able to go back to blood samples and find out where it was and what was going on. We need to look here. And see was there virus significantly circulating in early march and late february and what did it look like and where was it . And was at all in the metro areas . Thats what dr. Fauci and i were focused on was getting testing out there to really figure out when it came and have those samples to be able to do that. Reporter do understand the painful part of my question we dont me to put you on the spot. If we started this sooner, we might not have 100,000 to
200,000 americans die. That makes an assumption that there was a lot back here that we didnt see and until we had the tests, i cant really answer that. Just to underscore what dr. Birx was saying, if there is no virus in the background come of, theres nothing to mitigate. The answer to your question is probably yes. The only trouble with that is whenever you come out and Say Something like that, it always becomes a sound bite that gets taken out of context. I think its very important what dr. Birx has said. If there were covert infections that we didnt know about and didnt mitigate, it wouldve made a difference. If there was virtually nothing there, that then theres nothing to mitigate. Reporter we were watching south korea, china, and italy, and we werent taking action when those countries were spiking. In a perfect world, it wouldve been nice to know what was going on there. I believe we acted very early in that. Reporter with adequate testing, would we have known . President trump we inherited obsolete tests. Can i speak to that as well . The president made reference to the fact january 31st he suspended all travel from china. Shortly there after we strong travel advisories for italy and sections of south korea and we reached agreements with those countries to screen all passengers from all airports coming into the United States of the president s initial efforts were designed at preventing the coronavirus from coming into the United States and what our experts have told us again and cut again at the Coronavirus Task force is that those