Data we have, which, again, we dont know if all that data is right, certainly not worldwide but based on the data we have, were experiencing the largest outbreak in the world right now and we just had our worst day yet. Nbc news counting more than 273,000 cases in the United States more than 6900 deaths from the virus. In the hardest hit state, new york, this is the scene in brooklyns largest hospital where 32 coronavirus patients are now being treated in an area that normally only has 17 beds. And the number of coronavirus cases is rising quickly. So were now in the Critical Care area of the emergency department. Everyone thats in here today is here due to breathing problems, almost uniformly from covid. Were seeing such a large increase on a day to day basis on a number of patients presenting in Critical Condition requiring really all the resources that we have to provide in order to help them. Obviously seeing a large number of critically ill patients. More than ive seen in my career. Not only do they have coronavirus but their diabetes is out of control so its particularly hard and were learning how to do it, how to manage. How concerned are you about the days, the weeks, the months ahead . I think were in for a significant period of seeing a lot of very, very ill patients and this is going to put a strain on the system. Weve opened up new icus, intensive care unit, new medical units to accommodate for this increased demand of patients coming in so ill. Virus is spreading across the country and because of this spread to different places, Everyone Needs the same things, right . Personal protective equipment like masks like you saw those Front Line Health Care workers wearing and lifesaving supplies like the ventilators those patients were on. Because the federal government just refuses to take the lead and organize a coordinated federal response, there is this unfolding disaster right now in the accusatircusatiorquisitiorr this is an n 5 mas 95 mask. This is it. I was 70 cents before this started 95 mask. This is it. I was 70 cents before this started95 mask. This is it. I was 70 cents before this started95 mask. This is it. I was 70 cents before this started. Its now as high as 7. Because states across the country need the same stuff, there is an insane battle playing out with states bidding against each other and also sometimes against the federal government and the Trump Administration is only making this worse by distributing many materials not directly to the states, but to the private sector. So this product that were moving is primarily commercial product that would enter the commercial system and be distributed through financial business transactions between hospitals and these distributors. Just to clarify, that explains why states say theyre bidding like theyre on ebay because the supplies are going to the private sector and they have to go there to get supplies. Thats normally how things work, right . So im not here to disrupt a supply chain. Not here to disrupt a supply chain . The supply chain is already very disrupted and because of that, states are being forced to go through all kinds of shady middlemen. Here is the New York Times today. There is bedlam in the mass market as profiteers out hustle Good Samaritans can scams and price gouging in a time people are most at need. Like price gougers after a hurricane charging 10 or 15 a gallon of gas but they tend to get arrested and publicly shamed and the District Attorney does a press conference. Many are just getting rich in this insane market while people are dying. And our federal government is letting it happen. But its worse than that. The Trump Administration is explicitly advocating responsibility there. Yesterday the president s soninlaw not an epidemiologist distributing lifesaving materials from the federal stockpile is not the federal governments job. The notion of the federal stockpile was supposed to be our stockpile, not supposed to be state stockpiles they use. So were encouraging states to make sure they are assessing the needs, getting data from local situations and then trying to fill it with the supplies that weve given them. I would encourage you, when you have go v nvernors saying the federal government hasnt given you what you need, have you looked within your state to be sure you havent been able to find the resources . Oh, have you checked first . Did you hear what he said there . It is our stockpile according to jared kushner, our stockpile. Who is our . Who . Jared and ivanka . Their personal stash . Not the states . The federal government is constituted by the 50 states. In fact, the literal did i haef who the stock belongs to, it was said until yesterday, no longer says it today because amidst the pandemic, the Trump Administration is laser focused on stopping they had time to rewrite the website to retroactively claim the soninlaw was accurate. Were facing an enormous challenge here and what we need is our federal government to lead. Nbc news spoke to a dozen experts who said the trumped administrations lack of a unfied coronavirus strategy is going to cost lives and frankly, it already is. Today, new york used its Emergency Alert system, the ones that push out to your phones to ask Health Care Workers to volunteer to help the fight against the virus. It is that bad. And as new york governor andrew cuomo, the patch work system where everyone is fending for themselves is only making things worse. When florida has a hurricane, what do we do . We get in the trucks, everybody drives down to florida. New york is in crisis. Help new york. And then pick up, decamp and go to the next place as this rolls across the country. Joining me now, someone with extensive experience coordinating large scale disaster relief, retired Lieutenant General rustle who served as commander as joint task force katrina. Lieutenant, lets start with this big logistics question, something youve had experience with, you had experience with in the aftermath of katrina. What is your reaction to hearing the news we have this market, we have middlemen and the u. S. Government and the u. S. Department of defense facilitating this sort of private market full of middlemen and bidding wars . Always knew that the government would favor certain contractors, but i didnt know it was enabled by them but based on what the admiral said last night, i never knew in my 37 years in uniform that the government, a facility of private companies by bringing stuff, handing it over to them so they can sell it back at a higher up to seven times the price to the states were giving the money to buy, ive never heard of that before and i think mr. Kushner mentioned, i dont believe he know what hes talking about. Hes totally clueless as to when hes talking about. General, it seems to me there are significant logistic l capacities within both the department of defense and the federal government broadly to take more of a leadership role in this very fraught supply chain right now. Is that correct in your estimation . Absolutely. And the president reluctantly signed and executed the defense production act which could have been working now for, what, seven, eight days ago he signed it reluctantly and then did not execute it . And now weve got u. S. Companies who are duriduring that period did not make their product specifically to handle problems in new york, no new orleaew orl washington. Selling it all over market to the highest bidder. We did not execute the defense logistics as it was intended to and as a result of that, you got u. S. Companies, quiunited state companies bargaining for the highest bidder and sometimes out bidding fema or in some cases fema out bidding them. It is like the saturday morning flea market trying to figure out how to get supplies and it would be one thing, chris, if the system was working. It not working. The doctors and nurses across america every morning on the night shows, theyre saying its not working. And to stand up and defend it and say we got it, we got the air bridge, come find out the air bridge is bringing stuff here and giving it to private companies to sell back to the highest bidder. That is a gross injustice for the intent of what the federal government should be doing and im telling you, fema got some good people in it but something politically has happened to pull strings at fema and changed the way their Standard Operating Procedures on the website say they are supposed to be operating. Something is terribly wrong and i hope the president get this fixed because its going to put our nation further and further at risk as this thing get worse before it get better. They need to fix the supply chain and my recommendation to him is give the department of defense a larger role in managing these supplies and getting them where they need to go, have the National Guard put two noncommissioned officers or lieutenants in every hospital. Get the count. Report that to the governor and get how many days of supply in each hospital and get some discipline in the system and every piece of pee ppe or equipment come into the country is them taking control by the government and handing it over to the military for distribution as described by the National Command authority. That is a very, very different picture than what we have here of more similar to what happened when you were in katrina and able to get supplies into that raviged city. Wear your mask. Think about the nurses. Go god bless you. God bless. Joining me now on what more needs to be done, nevada governor. Are you experiencing firsthand this sort of crazy bidding market for these needed supplies . Well, there is clearly a shortage of supplies. Im on regular Conference Calls with the Vice President s task force and the president and couple weeks back, he told us to go out and buy it on your own. They couldnt supply and fill our needs and weve taken that advice seriously. We set up a task force and raised private money and supplementing with state money, 6. 5 million. The private side raised 10 million and they got the charger going and finding ppes around the world to buy and procure for nevada. Your state obviously is a state im sorry. Wait, say that again. You said youre bidding against who . Bidding against other governors and the federal government. There is a limited supply of these materials. Everyone is kind of going to the same suppliers. Some have more and some have different ones. We used to pay 60, 70 cents for is now 6 , 7. You have to get it. Its a priority for me, my front line responders, nurses and doctors have the ppe going into those rooms. I have a private group in a week raised 10 million to buy on the open market ppes that we need and thats the avenue were going and making our own testing kits. I couldnt get testing kits. Were assembling our own in our state lab. What is the status of the outbreak in your state . I know that you recently have a lockdown order and youre a state where a disproportionate part of your economy state is depending on tourism. Depending on large groups of people congregating in buildings and a type of thing we dont know when were going to be able to do again. Yeah, we really issued the stay at home order over two weeks ago. We reiterated in a different way this week and made people notice, maybe. Almost three weeks ago, i closed all the schools in nevada. We turned off all your viewers, we shut down the las vegas strip. Its something i never contemplated. Put over 200,000 people out of work. We instituted different procedures. We banned groups of ten or mor , gathering together and social distancing. I called up the National Guard to help us in the facilitating of these regulations and well continue to do more and more and more to get people to stay in their homes and to practice responsible protocols and stop this disease from spreading. A lot of governors ive talked to have talked about the test kits you have to assemble yourself and the sort of very inconsistent supply of testing across this country. Do you feel like you have an adequate sense and the Public Health officials that are advising you of eyes on the virus . That you have a sense of how big the outbreak is and where it is and where you are in the epidemic curve . Well, i think we have a sense of where were at but its not any consistency in supplies with test kits. Ive had known. It been consistent at zero along the way. I have had local businesses that have businesses in china that donated 2,000 test kits he flew over here. We bought them on the open market and are assembling some of our own fda approved to continue testing. One of the reasons our moore bitbi morbidity rate is higher, we cant do the testing. We can only do the worst of the worst. We havent reached anywhere near our apex. Were weeks out from that. We need to do more to lower the curve. We need to get people to practice responsible distancing and staying at home and that works. Its proven to work. And were going to continue to do that. Governor Steve Sisolak of nevada. You fanaticize about Different Things that happen when were through this, one is going out to dinner, one is it will be nice to go to vegas when were through this. Im looking forward to that day. Let me tell ya something. Were recommending every Single Person in the United States to come to vegas when this is done. Were going to need your help. Let me tell ya. Im sure you are. I didnt want to make the decision to put 200,000 hospitality workers out of work at the flip of a switch. Well come out of this together. This virus cannot spread on it own. We can only spread if we allow it to by having social interaction and thats where we need to stop and get everybody to take it more seriously and well be in much better shape. Thank you for this opportunity and god bless the First Responders and folks on the front line. Amen. Be well, governor. Good luck. Next, were learning more about the many failures of the Trump Administration in the led up to the pandemic including shuttering a pandemic Detection Program two months before the pandemic and that reporting with the reporter that broke it right after this. Ing with the reporter that broke it right after this Colonial Penn can help. Hi, im jonathan, a manager here at Colonial PennLife Insurance company. And with Coverage Options starting at just 9. 95 a month, you can get a whole Life Insurance plan to help close that gap with a benefit check paid directly to your beneficiary. Its cash they can use right away, and generally, its free from federal income tax. If youre between age 50 and 85, Coverage Options start at just 9. 95 a month. And the rate is locked in, so it can never go up. There are no medical questions. 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Something that they can use wherever they are. We care about keeping you safe. At verizon, we are here, and we are ready. We are open 24 7 online, so you can keep managing all you need from home and through the verizon apps and verizon. Com. Almost a year ago, the president s health and Human Services secretary alex aczar said quote, people ask what keeps you most up at night in the bio defense world . Pandemic flu of course. That is part of what is so maddening about the situation we now fanld oind ourselves in. What is playing out right now is almost precisely the scenario, down to a coronavirus from china leading to mask and ventilator sho shortages that has been predicted by expert after expert after expert for years inside and outside the government. Today the Washington Post is reporting back in september of 2018, the Trump Administration received detailed plans for new machines designed to, guess what . Turn out millions of protective masks at high speeds during a pandemic because everyone knew during a pandemic there would be a shortage. The Trump Administration decided not to proceed with making the machine. Trump administration has either ignored warnings, failed to prepare or gutted the institutions doing the predicting. Here is the latest example of that. L. A. Times reporting two months before this Novel Coronavirus began in china, the Trump Administration ended a 200 million pandemic Early Warning programg th called predict. The program trained and supported staff in 60 labs including a lab in wuhan china that detected coronavirus. Im joined by the author, medical reporter for the los angeles times. What can you tell us about this program . How did it work . So this is a program that focus on the intersection between animals and humans. Its an unusual type of program focused on research. Scientists would go out into the field, do nitty gridty work to examine animal specimen, examine feces from animals, basically look to try to find out what viruses are arising in animals and what is the likelihood they will actually jump into the human population and therefore, start something of an outbreak. And we know thats what has happen in a variety of cases whether sars or swine flu or we think now in this case, some sort of pspes se species jump i precedes a pandemic like this. Yes, in many cases youll see the jump from animals to humans. This is a concern so much so that the deep program was arranged not only to send u. S. Experts into the field but the other branch of the program was to train up scientists in other countries to be able to do this work for themselves. They did al lot of work to equi laboratories and talk to veterinarians, agriculture workers to understand where are the biggest interactions between humans and wildlife in their countries and what viruses do they need to be looking for at that intersection to make sure that nothing that begins as a small outbreak erupts into something larger. So this was i think a 200 Million Program through us and in concert with a few other government agencies. Why was it ended . So its really important to note here this was a grant cycle project. This particular project within usa d got two separate funding cycles, both were five years long. It got ten full years it got a ten full year run. I want to point that out because i want to make sure its very clear, the Trump Administration did not move to eliminate a permanent program. They did not gut the funding on a permanent program. Instead, they just chose not to renew this particular program that had already received two funding cycles. Right. So this was not an affirmative, in the case of an affirmative move to change the chart. This is a program that had run two cycles in a row under two different administrations, if im not mistaken or conceived in the preobama and they decided not to fund it this time around. That ts correct. They are working on a program that will begin this august. Thats what usid has told me. The concern is this program has been given an extension after the outbreak began in wuhan. There is concern this program would have been beneficial to have continuing right now. Many people are saying that. And so i think the continuation were seeing from march of this year until september of this year, its about 2 million, a little more than 2 million, very small amount of money. It essentially going to be used to send scientific experts from usa d and their partners to the laboratories to continue to help them zoom in on some of the hosts that are a problem here and to try to squash this outbreak but this money isnt going to be used for it original purpose to prevent the next pandemic, to basically do the hard science out in the field. Hopefully well get back to that after this one is done. Emily, thank you so much. Two years ago when administration disbanded the National Security counsels director for bio defense, a team focused on preparedness, two members of congress sent a letter to john bolton asking him to reverse the decision. Quote, that letter here. Saving lives for the next Global Pandemic starts with investing in preparedness before it strikes. We fear the decisions will leave the United States vulnerable to pandemics and commit us to a strategy of triage, should one occur. They sent that letter back in may of 2018. And look at where we are now. Im joined by one of the congressman who sent that letter democrat barra spent 20 years of practicing internal medicine before becoming a congressman. Why were you focused on this issue in may of 2018 . We learned a lot in the 2014 ebola outbreak. Administration got alight right but had missteps. They course corrected. One of the course corrections is creating this pandemic preparedness position in the National Security counsel. Someone whose focus was to watch what is going on around the world and be an Early Warning signal to allow the nsc and president to know there is something to worry about. We saw that work fairly well with the zika outbreak and it wasnt nearly as bad as it could have been. When they eliminated, we knew it was putting us at risk. We knew it was only a matter of time before we would see another viral outbreak. Had that position been in place, they would have been sounding the fire alarm in the end of december when we first started getting inklings at this. Did you get a response to that letter . We never did. John bolton never responded to us and weve repeatedly, both congressman connolly and myself have repeatedly raised this issue that you really need someone who is in command and control january 23rd first briefed on this Novel Coronavirus, the first recommendation we made and i made it directly to the administration that was there was you got to fill this position with the nonpolitical person with someone who has access directly to the president and who can work across all the agencies. We lost time by not doing that. Youre a doctor yourself and youre in a state that started very early with early outbreaks and has actually again, we dont know if the data is good because there is a lot of pending testings. It seems like it is not on the trajectory new york is on right now. How do you feel with how things are where you live . You know, i think governor newsom, local leaders acting early with the stay at home orders may have helped us flatten the curve somewhat. Looking at our modelling here locally, we suspect we may see the beginning of our waves here in california toward the end of next week and into the third and fourth weeks of april and may continue into may. So were planning for the worst, hoping for the best. Going back to that Early Warning system, you know, we sounded the fire alarms and many folks did as early as first week of february. We lost those six weeks, switch we switch weeven weeks to do eg were doing now. All we can do is follow the stay at home orders. All right. Congressman amlbera, thank you for making time tonight. Bengie on the rapid spread and what happened when his own father tested positive in one such facility. Hes going to join me next. Ilit. Hes going to join me next i switched to miralax for my constipation. Stimulant laxatives forcefully stimulate the nerves in your colon. 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Even in the midst of these incredible failures of leadership, every day were seeing profound and brave actions of people we havent even heard of, essential workers from far work m workers picking who dont get a stimulus check because they are undocumented to mail carriers, keeping parts of life going and risking their lives every day to do it. Jason hargrove, a bus driver in detroit noted this in a video rerhe recorded after picking up a coughing passenger. This coronavirus [ bleep ] is for real. And we out here as Public Workers doing our job trying to make an honest living to take care of our families but for you to get on a bus and stand on the bus and cough several times without covering up your mouth and you know that we in the middle of a pandemic, that lets me know some folks dont care. Yo, i got to get out of here, man. I got to get out of here. I got to make this run. Whats up, everybody . Ill holler at yall, man. Yall be safe. Sadly, Jason Hargrove was infected with the coronavirus. He got sick and he died wednesday night. Less than two weeks after posting that video. He was 50 years old. He leaves behind a wife. Jason hargrove quite literally put his life on the line for the city of detroit, for the mobility of the people that live there. Here you have an entire air krafrt c craft carrier of u. S. Navy seals. The uss Theodore Roosevelt where there are 100 cases and their captain put his career on the line to blow the whistle they had a growing outbreak. Captain Brett Crozier wrote a letter to superiors pleading for help saying quote, were not at war, sailors do not need to die. The letter worked. The ship is docked in guam. They are working to remove thousands of sailors off the ship but captain crozire was relieved for insay bored nation and embarrassing the president of the quite. His entire ship full of people who believed he may have saved their lives through actual leadership, made their support for the captain very clear. [ cheers ] [ applause ] captain crozier captain crozier captain crozier the kinds of times when you find out what people are made of. The president has shown what hes made of and so has captain crozier. Thats how you send off one of the greatest captains you had, the goat, the man for the people. Had, the goat, the man for the people rakuten is free to sign up and its in over 3,000 stores. I use it to buy makeup. Travel. Clothes, electronics. To me, rakuten is a great way to get cash back on anything you buy. Sign up today and rack it up with rakuten. Amake it feelh impossible to breathe. Get relief behind the counter with claritind. Claritind improves nasal airflow 2x more than the leading allergy spray at hour 1. Claritind. Get more airflow. New fixodent ultra dual power provides you with an unbeatable hold and strong seal against food infiltrations. Fixodent. And forget it. Apps except work. Rywhere. Why is that . Is it because people love filling out forms . Maybe they like checking with their supervisor to see how much Vacation Time they have. Or sending corporate their expense reports. Ill let you in on a little secret. They dont. By empowering employees to manage their own tasks, paycom frees you to focus on the business of business. To learn more, visit paycom. Com i received an email on wednesday saying that there had been one confirmed case of the covid19 at lambath house and they were having no visitors at that time. There is a lot of risk involved in that whole community. We have all those elderly People Living in a tight, tight knit community and close area. Yeah, im worried. Her mother barbara lives in a nursing home there in new orleans where so far 13 of the its residents have died of coronavirus. Nursing homes and longterm care facilities, of course, are some of the most vulnerable places in america when it comes to covid19. More than 400 of them across the country have residents who have already been infected. Thats a 172 increase from last week according to the cdc. These places dont have the testing of personal protective equipment to protect their own residents who very often cant be taken out. Creating a horrific dilemma for everyone involved including staff and family members. One of the people going through that is nbc news bengie whose father contracted the virus in a nursing hope here in new york and whose wife coauthored a fantastic piece on the increase in cases on Nursing Homes for nbcnews. Com. Benny jogie joins me now. Tell me about how you found out about there being coronavirus in the facility your dad was in. Well, chris, the thing that was so shocking i think for all of us weve seen this around the country was how quick it is. The first case of confirmed Community Transmission in the qui United States was at the end of februa february. March 12th they shut off visitors which is difficult. My dad is disabled from a stroke. Its very difficult to have people checking in on him. A week later, we get an email that okay, weve now had at least one confirmed case of covid there. Within a week of that, a few days after that i call up to check in with the administration there and what they tell me is basically they have an uncontrolled outbreak and not even the basics of protective gear to prevent it from spreading among staff, residents, and that my dad was showing symptoms. In fact, had been tested. Which they also dont have enough tests. And from there we had considered the possibility that we might have to in an extreme situation try to get them out and days of even being cut off from the nursing home and desperate rush to find a way to get them out which is extremely difficult. Hes a 64 man that cant walk and doesnt have mobility on his left side and requires specialized care. Has various Health Complications and while we were struggling to find someway to pull this off, he started developing breathing problems, was taken to the hospital and was tested again where the previous test was negative, im pretty sure it was a false negative was confirmed positive. So hes in a hospital now receiving treatment. It was a mad rush from them closing the doors to visitors was march 12th. How just how is he doing right now . Well, chris, hes doing okay. I talked to him a few hours ago. Hes in good spirits. He just wanted to stress how compassionate and kind the staff at his longterm care home have been to him and he says they have always been meticulous october t about trying to be clean and about trying to keep people from getting infections. Its always a concern in Nursing Homes but they have having a situation now where the company requested 28,000 face shields and 28,000 gowns and they got 1,000 from the city. So they are in a situation where they are having to wear the same gown, same mask per shift. There is no way to isolate the sick patients, there is too many and going from one room to the next and no way to prevent the spread. These are people risking their lives every day. They are not quarantined at home. Getting on Public Transportation every day going to look after my dad and other patients there, many frail with dementia who cant follow orders like cough into your elbow. You cant say that to a 100yearold dementia patient. They deserve to much better and to hear every day how supply problems are exaggerated or states have to make due or it their own fault. If we cant protect a nursing home, dont know what we are protecting right now. They deserve so much better than this. You talk about i think your wife in the article, that when you talk to them, you thought they would want to keep this under wraps but instead, they wanted to send like we they wanted to send an sos to the world we are desperate for this equipment because we had these staff, this committed staff as you said are risking their lives to care for the patients that cannot get the equipment they need to do it safely. Yeah, i mean, this is a situation where we were im not trying to use my reporter extra terrib credentials to get treatment. Were not trying to spook people off. Were sharing everyones personal off the record and stunnedadministration are saying hey, we know you want to talk personally but we want to go on the record. Were terrified. We dont know what to do. It gets worse and force and nobody seems to be listening it not just them. There is outbreaks in over 400 Nursing Homes around the country right now. This is very much the front lines of this fight with coronavirus. You know, weve seen the horrible situations in hospitals but Nursing Homes are one step removed. They have the most vulnerable population and stuff travels so fast you look at states from connecticut to pennsylvania to louisiana to tennessee to my own home state here in maryland, they all have these terrible nursing home outbreaks and you can just count the number of paragraphs in your story before people complain they do not have protective gears. They dont have masks. They dont have gowns. They dont have face shields. Its a nationwide problem. Assuming were not actually near the peak of this, i cant imagine what this is going to look like in a week, two weeks if something just does not change on a fund mental level and how we produce and distribute supplies. Bengie sarlin, wishing your dad all the best and thank you so much for making time tonight and sharing that story. Really appreciate it. Ex chris, thank and chris, t me here. Up next, what is happening with the Financial Relief for Small Business owners. Day bun aone and the program seo have significant issues. What were hearing about their first day experience after this. R first day experience after this. Customers can do what they need to do, whenever they need to do it online. Because it gives customers the ability to not come in to the store, they can simply tap and swipe. Something that they can use wherever they are. We care about keeping you safe. At verizon, we are here, and we are ready. We are open 24 7 online, so you can keep managing all you need from home and through the verizon apps and verizon. Com. 9. 95 . No way. . 9. 95 . Thats impossible. Hi, im jonathan, a manager here at Colonial PennLife Insurance company, to tell you it is possible. If youre age 50 to 85, you can get Life Insurance with options starting at just 9. 95 a month. Okay, jonathan, im listening. Tell me more. 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Together we can help save the restaurants we love. When things that previously have been done in the dark are forced into the light, that makes stuff happen. You start asking questions, stuff happens, right . Theres something about the effect of sunlight. T the effect of sunlight its disheartening, you see a store literally built brick by brick, the generation before us. Weve never been shut down for more than a day in our 42year history. Christy says at one minute after midnight, shell be signing up for that emergency help through the paycheck protection program. That was last night on nbc nightly news. Today is day one of the 350 Small Business loan program that was part of the big coronavirus rescue package. Now, on the plus side, according to government figures, 2 billion in loan applications have apparently been processed. On the other side, well, there are widespread reports, some of them directly from you folks, my viewers, emailing me of confusing directions, website errors, banks turning people down. The question is like is this Program Going to work. For more on whats happening of the first day of the Small Business rescue effort, amanda ballantyne. Shes executive director of the mean street alliance, a network of 30,000 Small Businesses. Amanda, i know youre in touch with a lot of Small Business owners. I imagine a lot were trying to get this loan today. What have you been hearing . Well, weve been hearing it was a very rocky start for the loan program. I think for the first you know, for the past week weve been feeling hundreds and hundreds of questions from our members about whether they would be eligible for the loans, the terms of the loans, should they take out the loans, where would they be able to get the loans. I think that information has been not clear both to the Small Business community and also not clear to many, many of the lending institutions. So the experience that our members are having is that they are concerned theres not enough money in the loan program itself to serve the needs of the Small Business community. Its a very complex program. Its difficult for them for a number of reasons to figure out if its the right program for them, but they also feel an urgent need to get in line to get the money before its all gone. Right. Because i mean, the are treasury secretary said first come, first serve. One of the things that mess this complicated and messy is that the banks are the front end for it. I think the thinking behind that wasnt crazy. Sba, Small Business administration doesnt have a staff to see a loan portfolio, 350 billion and think, well, businesses have a relation with banks. What i heard, unless you have debt with a bank already, they dont want to talk to you about this program. Is that right . Some banks did tell their customers that and loan applicants that today. Were hearing that they have in some ways walked that back a little bit. I think its confusing, some of the banks concerned they wouldnt be able to verify payroll, which is required for loan forgiveness under the program if they didnt already have a lending relationship with the business owner. So again, thats just a very confusing piece. The banks are confused. Loan applicants are also confused about it. So the core concept here, its called payroll protection program. The core concept is the following. Small businesses rather than firing their workers, if you owned a neighborhood bar and you had 10 employees, im thinking about my neighborhood barry love and i miss and i cant wait to go back to. Youve got 10 or 12 employees. Rather than firing them, keep them, keep paying them some 70 of what you would normally pay them and the bank would loan you money back to the federal government to keep them on payroll and get them through this whole period. What ive heard from folks is people have already let people do because they couldnt afford to keep them on and now were confused about whether they can get on the program. Right. So there are provisions that should allow businesses to call back workers who have already been laid off because of the dating system. I think the real challenge for Business Owners and the risk that it proposes is that the loan only covers a couple months of operating expenses. And for Business Owners particularly in the retail, hospitality, restaurant, tourism industries, theres just not clarity for anyone on what the economy is going to look like in six months. So will they be able to actually keep their employees on payroll, will they be able to open up and use those employees. Those are the types of questions that will make Business Owners very confused and feeling like they dont have the information they need to know if this loan is the right product for them. Many of our Business Owners, we work with Small Business owners around the country, who care deeply about their employees an its heartbreaking to listen to them, successful people. I employed 150 saying i employed 150 employees a month ago and now i have six employees. I wish i could call my workers back, but i just dont know what the economy will be like, how can i pivot to a different retail, food service to grocery, if i have to maintain the same staff and need different expertise. There are a lot of big questions. Thats interesting. One thing im hearing from you is that like this model of paying businesses to keep their payroll which others built successfully based on the certainty at the core of it. This kind of promise that say keep people on payroll, we will keep back stopping you. Right now the uncertainty it sounds like from what im hearing from you is lacking the certainty is lacking so people dont know if thats going to happen, so we end up in this situation. Were going to keep monitoring this. Amanda, thank you so much for being here tonight. Thank you. That does it for all in for this evening. The Rachel Maddow show starts right now. Good evening, rachel. Good evening, chris, have a great weekend, my friend. Thank you. Thanks at home joining us this hour. Happy to have you with us this friday night. The United States has more than 273,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus. Be mindful, that is with millions of americans who would like to be tested, who have reason to be tested, but are still unable to access testing. Still, though, with millions of measures unable to access testing weve got 273,000 cases. Thais the largest in the world by far. The second largest number of cases in the world is in italy, but they are way behind us. Were 273,000, they are at basically