Transcripts For MSNBCW Decision 2020 20200317

Roughly 1,000 more than we reported yesterday. The number of deaths rising from 67 to 88. President trump who has been downplaying the pandemic for weeks changed his tone. He offered a much, much different message in the face of these new numbers. You look at whats happening in other countries. Italy is having a very hard time, but i think that what we do ive spoken with my son. He says, how bad is this . Its bad. Its bad. But were going to were going to be hopefully a best case, not a worst case. Thats what were working for. Together, hopefully, to try and avoid a worst case scenario, President Trump recommended pretty serious guidelines. That the country essentially go into lockdown mode. A new set of white house guidelines says, number one, anyone who is sick should stay home. And if anyone tests pos tifrks everyone in their household should also stay home. Everyone should work or take classes from home whenever possible. And avoid being in any group larger than 10 people. Avoid discretionary travel, Shopping Trips or even social visits. Avoid going out to bars or restaurants. And if you are an older person, do not even leave your home. The guidelines are in place for the next 15 days. But the president said we could be dealing with this and the outbreak from it for much longer. Maybe four or five months. If none of this is happening, our top story this morning would surely be the 2020 election and the primaries taking place in several states despite the coronavirus outbreak. Voting will be taking place in arizona, illinois and florida. But in the state of ohio, the primary is now on hold. A decision that didnt become official until late last night. We have got our reporters spread safely across the country. I want to take you there starting in the San Francisco bay area. Officials have gone way beyond what the president is talking about and told all 7 million residents to shelter in place. Nbcs jake ward is stuck in his own house in oakland. He joins us from there. Jake, how is this being enforced . Are people forced to follow it . Are there ramifications if they dont . Were really at the front edge of what i think the whole nation is going to be facing in a moment. And its not clear exactly how this will be enforced or whether it will be enforced, but certainly as of about six hours ago, here in california in the bay area, all the counties around me have been shut down, and the state order essentially says you cannot go out except for essential travel. That means an occasional trip to the Grocery Store, maybe, but otherwise were talking about hospitals, police stations, real emergencies. So here we are. Im in my living room. Were facing what looks like a free week stay at home order for 7 Million People in this area. And we are, you know, just trying to get ready for the idea that we are home schooling our children, working from home and otherwise not going out of doors if we can help it. Jake, not everybody in San Francisco has a living room to sit in. Your city has a very high rate of homelessness. Whats being done about that . You know, this is, obviously, the one of the great challenges of our region and so many regions across america. Were speaking later today to people who are continuing homeless outreach, essential services covers a wide range of things. Homeless outreach is a part of that. There are people who have nowhere to step. The fact ill be stuck in this Beautiful House with a backyard, thats not so bad. For people sleeping right now blocks from me without any place to stay is really unbelievable. Of course, the bay area does have Good Services and that is good, but we have no idea how this could move through that population. Jake, thank you so much. Please, stay safe where you are. New york, new jersey and connecticut banding together, basically putting together their own form of a lockdown. Gabegutierrez is here in nyc. Whats the latest . Here in new york, new jersey, co connecticut, the order not quite as strict as in the bay area. Were noticing less foot traffic in manhattan in times square but, still, there are people going around. But those new restrictions did go into effect last night at 8 00 p. M. Bars and restaurants no longer open to dinein customers. They will only give out delivery and takeout orders. Other places like movie theaters, gyms, casinos also shut down. Weve been speaking with many Small Business owners who say this is just absolutely devastating. As you know and, of course, this is on st. Patricks day which is a huge day for many of the pubs and restaurants in and around new york city. The question right now, what will the federal government do to perhaps provide some assistance to some of these Small Businesses . There was talk of tens of billions of dollars in Small Business loans. The Small Business administration. Its unclear whether that will be enough and also whether the sba can give out those loans in such a small amount of time. The new restrictions went into effect last night at 8 00 p. M. , but again, they do not go as far as San Francisco. There are questions here about whether they might go further in the coming days and weeks, stephanie. Thanks, gabe. Lets head to dallas, texas. Morgan chesky has been cheaping an eye on the new drivethrough testing sites done down there. What can you tell us . Good morning. These drivethrough testing sites will be critical to try to slow the spread of the virus. Were at one of the first ones dallas has seen. Doctors here making plans weeks ago because they knew this was a likely outcome of people needing a place where they could limit exposure to make sure they could get that test and have the peace of mind theyre not positive. I want to just pull out on our shot to give you an idea of the safety that were practicing here in bringing you the story. Were all six feet away from the Trained Medical staff. Im joined by alyssa. We saw 50 patients sunday. About 100 yesterday. Why is it so important to have these drivethrough options to bring this coronavirus to a halt . So its a lot of reasons. Its to bring peace of mind to patients that still need prescription refills so they feel more comfortable coming in. Its to best seclude everyone so that youre in your car, in a safe distance. Staying as far away from you as we can. Youre in the comfort of your own car. Its better for everyone out here in the open air to kind of do that. Before you even administer that covid 19 test, supreme to fail two other tests. Strep and flu. At which point theyre then wheeled around or told to turn the corner. They are given that cdc test. How quick is the turn around right now on those results . Its about 24 to 72 hours right now. At which point those people can then quarantine in their home, stay away from any others and just try to limit the spread . Thats correct, yes. This isnt just beneficial for people thinking they have coronavirus. Youre seeing atrisk population driving through because they may not want to walk into a health care facility. Why is that . Exactly. So like i said, its for everyone involved. For the peace of mind of the patients that need to get their Blood Pressure medication or need to be seen for a cough or hurt finger. They can still come in so we have the more atrisk population outside so they arent exposed to the atrisk people as well. These drivethrough options so crucial in limiting exposure. Alyssa, thank you so much. Well be here throughout the day maintaining a safe distance, but also getting that firsthand look on whats going to be used nationwide to get those positive peace of mind to people that either they need to shelter in place or theyre okay. Steph. Certainty and security paramount. Morg morgan, thank you. We should also give a special thanks to alyssa and all those Health Care Professionals putting their community first. I want to go to ohio where Public Health and primary politics are really colliding. Tremaine lee is there in cleveland. Help us understand whats happened in the last 24 hours. It wasnt until last night that the governor decided to put voting on hold. Do people across the state even know that . Its been a lot of confusion over the last several hours. Im here in cleveland. Behind me is a polling place. Under most years, it would be packed with a line snaking out the door. No such thing is happening. Yesterday there was a confusing back and forth. Governor mike dewine wanted to put Public Health over the actual election today. Didnt want anyone to come out and risk their health for the right to vote. So they but he doesnt have the power to actually postpone the election. So there was a lawsuit filed by two residents who said were elderly. We dont want to risk it. A judge said, mike dewine assumed everything will be fine. The judge would agree. The judge said with 12 hours before the election, im not going to strip power from the state legislature who has the power to postpone the election. Im simply not going to do it. Mike dewine came back and said we will declare a Health Emergency which effectively postponed the election. Theres a big sign behind me that says essentially there will be no election today. But we are hearing reports from across the state, especially in klum, but that folks early this morning, before the sun was up, went to vote and were turned away. Its been a lot of confusion between poll workers and voters. So much to play out in the courts and well see what happens moving forward. Trymaine, thank you. Joining us now, the democratic governor of the state of michigan, gretchen whitmer. Thank you for joining us. Its been an extraordinary few days. Just yesterday, you decided to close restaurants, bars, gyms, coffee houses, clubs and movie theaters. What went into making that decision . What was the Tipping Point . Well, let me just start with this. All of these decisions that you see governors making across the country on both sides of the aisle, frankly, they weigh heavily on us. Knowing that when we close the restaurants to dine in and we close all the bars that it is going to mean that people are going to lose their jobs and a lot of businesses are really going to struggle. We know this. But at the end of the day, we have to make decisions based on the best science, best facts and whats in the best interest of the Public Health. And places of mass congregation are where this virus continues to spread. In order to flatten the curve, we need to be aggressive on the front end. The federal government did not take this seriously early enough and now it is on us to make sure were doing everything we can based on the best facts and science available and that we are always putting the health of our people front and center. It was a tough decision to make but we know the spread of this virus is dependent on close proximity. This is one of many steps were taking in the state of michigan. Whats the next step, to shelter in place, what San Francisco is doing . You know, were not prepared to announce anything like that yet, but i will say this. Yesterday i issued an executive order on extending unemployment so that we can draw down more federal resources to help people who are really going to struggle in this moment. Last week i shut schools very early on in the process and i think a lot of people were wondering if that was the right thing to do. But in the days since, weve seen a lot of School Employees test positive for the coronavirus. Weve had a 5yearold in michigan test positive for the coronavirus. So the fact that anyone thinks theres a segment of our population that is not vulnerable is wrong. Every one of us has to proceed as though we are carrying the virus. And thats why we all need to do our part. Not congregating. Washing our hands. Not greeting one another in the traditional fashion of shaking the hand and keeping that sixfoot social distancing. Its really important for all of us, for our health, but also for our economy. Extending Unemployment Benefits. Will that be available to all of those restaurant and bar workers that were basically put out of work yesterday and will those benefits be 100 . Normally Unemployment Benefits are just a portion. Thats right. In michigan, unfortunately, in recent years, the leaders, my predecessors took Unemployment Benefits back from 26 weeks to 20 weeks. We know nrd to maximize the benefit for michiganders i needed to expand it back to 26 weeks. Thats why i did it Via Executive order. When these dollars become available, were really pulling together to make sure that were helping people who are going to struggle, and were going to continue to move forward on all of those fronts. Are you working with the federal government . Yesterday the New York Times reported that the president told a group of governors, dont wait for the federal government to get respirators and ventilators. Get them for yourself . Whats the reaction to that . Its much different than the federal response during the ebola. This has to be all hands on deck. Cutting red tape, moving as quickly as we possibly can and being aggressive and smart about our reaction. And so to hear the leader of the federal government tell us to work around the federal government because its too slow is just its kind of mindboggling to be honest. We are pulling out all the stops in michigan. Businesses here in michigan that are redoubling their efforts to make sure that were able to access all of the kinds of equipment that we need, but we need the federal government to work. We need respirators and ventilators and personal protection equipment. We need more test kits and the resources to process those test kits in a quick, expedited manner. Can you get them . Can you get them without federal support . No, no, we need federal support. Like i said, were pulling out all the stops and reaching out to our partners in the private sector. Were going to do everything we can to supplement. But its not to the exclusion of federal support. We need the federal government to ramp up and to get this done. Governor, thank you so much. I really appreciate you joining me. Stay healthy. Thank you. You, too. Coming up what can congress do to help these Small Businesses to help these individuals who are being shut down because of coronavirus, who are being sent home to take care of their families. When you get sent home, you often dont get a paycheck. Im going to ask new jerseys congressman next. Plus the market is set to open in 15 minutes after an historically bad day. But could the worst be yet to come, or could we be turning a corner . The president presented a somber tone yesterday. Maybe it was a chance to all get on the same page. A barn. An arena. More fence. And hay. Lots of hay. So you need a tractor built to do it all. And do it right. You need the power to handle anything. You need versatile performance matchedattachments. You need the 1 selling compact tractor for a decade. The kubota l series tractors. You should be mad at tech that makes things worse. 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This matters. The senate could take up the houses multibilliondollar coronavirus emergency bill as early as today. After the house unanimously passed a revised version of the bill last night. Joining me, democratic congresswoman miky cheryl of new jersey, a former Navy Helicopter pilot and former federal prosecutor. Welcome. Next step, this thing has to be passed in the senate. Is it going to happen . I really hope so. This was something that the speaker and secretary mnuchin from the administration hammered out. The president approved it. So it should get passed through the senate. Were already talking with the senate about next steps. Hopefully we can get this step passed and immediately start to get some help and aid to families who are suffering across the country. What are those next steps . What is needed most . So, beyond federal legislation, what is needed most right now is testing and personal protective equipment. And ill tell you, we arent going to know if weve gotten beyond this if were not testing. If we dont have comprehensive tensing were not going to know when the numbers start to fall or go down. Were also going through an alarming rate of personal protective equipment in new jersey because as we are having people come in to medical centers and we dont no if theyll test positive or not, every interaction that a medical person has with them has to be in full protective gear until we know for sure. We need to get more Rapid Testing done and we need to come up with ways of making sure we have a broader swath of the population tested. Your state is urging residents to stay home. Do not go out after 8 00 p. M. Do you agree with mitt romneys plan, that one of the best ways to get feem people to adhere toe is to give them a financial cushion to make sure they make those good choices . Well, i certainly think we need to look at how were helping people make good choices. I dont think its a i dont think 1,000 in everyones pocket is necessarily the way that we ensure that people who are losing their jobs, people who might have to stay at home with Sick Children are protected or taken care of. That is a separate program we have to look carefully at. You and several other members of congress have sent a letter to the president calling for him to use the powers from the defense production act of 1950. What is that . The president can take corporations and incentivize them to produce. To produce personal protective equipment, for example. In new jersey in little falls we have a jewelry container box maker who has said tour ui thini can retool my machines to make n95 masks. The National Stockpile is not going to meet the needs. We need to start producing across the country testing kits, ppe gear, things we need to get on the other side of this virus. Youve served in war zones. You know what its like to prepare for the worst. Help us understand what that looks like. What should we be doing . Stephanie, as ive said from the start, we asked people in the military all the time to do difficult things in dangerous situations. And they have a Comfort Level of doing it because we have a plan. What the American People want right now is to know the plan. And thats what weve been laying out. And the first thing weve got to do is test everyone so we know the breadth of this, where the hot spots are. We need to get production up of all our protective gear. If we call upon our military to handle some of the logistics. We need to keep them safe. I sent a letter with my colleague jason crow, an army ranger, im a former Navy Helicopter pilot so we can make sure were protecting all the military personnel we need to handle this. We have to come up with a National Plan of action so that people in this country know were hand ling this appropriately and were going to get on the other side of this as quickly as possible. How do you convince your constituents, though, that this is a war zone . Yesterday was the first time we truly saw the president and really the media unite in warning the country of how serious this is. How do you get your constituents who are saying, i feel fine or my mother who said, im just going to run out to shop rite to understand how serious this is . I think what we have to do is to not just help them understand how serious it is but help some of the younger people who may be going out thinking, i can get a cold, a flu. Im going to be okay. But older people are connected to their routines. I said, i dont think were coming down for easter because i dont want your four kids. Then she said, if you dont come down, maybe well go to your sisters. Thats not it. Stay in place. Shelter in place here. I think people are sensing that now. I think weve turned a corner on that as all the schools are closed. I have to tell you, as i came here this morning from jersey, the streets are empty, which i took as a very good sign. People are hesing t inheeding. Theyre staying home. The reason thats so critical even if you are young and healthy and dont think this is a problem is because were protecting the community at large. Were coming together as americans to make sure that we are acting in concert to ensure that our Health Care Workers can stay healthy. Our elderly people can stay healthy, that people with secondary problems can stay healthy, that our Grocery Store workers can stay healthy. So those people like myself who can work from home, who can telework, are staying home. And im doing that despite the fact that i also have my four kids at home with me right now because theyre not in school either. Good luck with your home schooling. Before we go, quickly, two months ago, republicans and democrats werent even looking at one another. We were in the throws of the impeachment hearing. Do you believe that what were facing right now, this national, this Global Health crisis, are our lawmakers work, together and reaching across the aisle . That bill we passed in the house last friday at 1 00 in the morning was a bipartisan, a broadly bipartisan bill. I know the speaker worked very hard with mnuchin to get that passed. I know mccarthy was working very hard to talk to his conference about why this was important and we had that passed with broad bipartisan support. This is when americans come together. This is a time we can all come together and handle this crisis. This sour hiis our history. This is what we do very well as americans. Were taking this on, and i think well get on the other side of it quickly. Congresswoman, thank you. Talking about the importance of working together because together we rise. After the break, there is a ton of talk of a recession coming off one of the worst days in history of the dow. As we get ready for the opening bell, well speak about the ideas some say could save the economy. Weve just confirmed that the white house is looking at a massive stimulus package. Well have those details, next. Saturdays happen. Pain happens. Aleve it. Aleve is proven stronger and longer on pain than tylenol. When pain happens, aleve it. All day strong. Sure, principal is a fibut think of us as a protect your family as it grows company. A put enough away for college company. And a take care of your employees company. Were a help you ride the ups and downs of the market company. And when its time to retire, were a weve been guiding you toward this all along company. Think of us as all these companies, and more. Principal. Retirement. Investments. Insurance. The best of pressure cooking and air frying now in one pot, and with tendercrisp technology, you can cook foods that are crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside. The ninja foodi Pressure Cooker, the Pressure Cooker that crisps. Tthe bad news . Our so will this recital. Day. Depend® fitflex underwear offers your best comfort and protection guaranteed. Because, perfect or not, lifes better when youre in it. Be there with depend®. Hyour shoes untied. Ensure hes well taken care of, even as you build your own plans for retirement. See how lincoln can help. Markets opening. The dow up 404 already. Just 35 seconds into trading. We are going for a bounceback after wall street suffered its single worst day since the 1987 market crash. Efforts to combat the coronavirus continuing to cripple global markets. Joining me now to discuss, austin goolsby, former chairman of the counsel of economic advisers during the obama administration. Also a professor at the university of chicago Boothe School of business and chris liu, former deputy labor secretary. Austin, where do you think things are . Yesterday the president changed his tone for the first time and really acknowledging that the cause of the Economic Impact of coroen awe could be headed toward a recession. You said we should look at this as virus economics. Explain. Yeah, look, two things. I think the president had to come to the view that this is a serious problem both for the economy and for the health of the American People. You cant look at europe where theyve shut down multiple massive economies or in china, korea and other places in asia where they shut down major parts of their cities and economies and not think that thats going to cause a recession in the United States. So i think he had to change his tone. My argument about virus economics is as we step into doing stimulus and trying to get things to come back, the thing to remember about virus economics is that its not like normal economics. The most important thing for the economy, by far, is anything that will slow the rate of spread of the virus. And just like in a financial crisis, you cant really do anything while people are having bank runs. You have to stop that before you can do stimulus or any of the others. So, too, here, you have to address the fear, the thing thats bringing down the economy, is the fear. And until you get a handle on that fear, i dont think stimulus can work. Hold on a second. If you send people checks right now, they wont spend the money. Its not just fear. If you run any consumerfacing business right now, your revenue is about to go unless you have a Grocery Store, your revenue is about to go to zero while your operational costs dont change. So the president is planning to ask congress to approve an 850 billion stimulus package thats really devoted to flooding cash into the economy. Why wouldnt that be a good move . Its not about fear. Bars are not its not about fear. Theyre not making money. Everything you just said is 100 about fear. The reason why people are not going to stores is because theyre afraid that if they bump into other people theyre going to catch the disease. We need to do we need to do it in order. Number one, everything that you can do to slow the virus. So paying people not to come to work if theyre sick, a paid leave program, is destimulus. Paying people not to go to work doesnt increase the gdp, but it is stimulus in a time of a virus because it slows the rate of spread of the disease and hastens when we can go back. Number two, you then need forbearance. So if were extending credit and money to people and to companies so that they dont make a permanent death or permanent problems out of a shortterm drop in demand, which is what were facing, thats important. But only once youve done that will giving people checks and trying to encourage them to go out and spend money. Thats the only time that will work. If you start with a payroll tax cut of 500 billion and you give a bunch of highincome people large tax cuts, theyre not going to go spend the money. So its not going to be stimulus. And thats the key point. Youve got to get a handle on buying ventilators, focusing on testing and social isolation. Give people a sense that its not a catastrophe thats permanent, that this is a thing we can get through and if you lower that fear, the economy can come back. Chris, i want to talk bailouts for a moment because we know the Airline Industry, which many people consider to be an essential industry, is going to be looking for government assistance to the tune of 50 billion. After the 2008 bailout there was public outrage. If the government were to step in and assist and the president yesterday said he would, how do you ensure that that money is used for best purposes. Right . We saw the Airline Industry in the last few years spend over 90 of their Free Cash Flow on stock buybacks, right . That helps executives. That helps shear s shareholders. How do we ensure that money is spent helping their employees . Well, let me echo first what austin said what the immediate relief needs to go to affected workers. Instead of looking at how to bail out the Airline Industry and how to help the executives and shareholders, lets look at the people who are affected. The flight attendants, the pilots but also all of the other ancillary services. Those are people that clean planes, wheelchair attendants at airports. Those workforces are all contracted out. Lets also consider the people that work in the airports and all the concession shops and the food Service Places who are going to be out of a job. But what does that mean . People who have those jobs keep hearing us in the media say lets consider them. What does consider mean . Well, look, i think we need to get money into peoples pockets immediately. This is a case where people need money to pay the groceries, to pay their rent. Payroll tax cut thats going to give you a tiny bit amount over the next year isnt going to do that. Money that goes to airports to airlines or to casinos which is what the president is considering, arent going to do that. Theres this immediate gap. And it might be two weeks, it might be a month, where we need to get money into peoples pockets to pay their bills, keep food on their table. Once businesses start reopening we need to focus on Small Businesses in this country because those are the ones that have the smallest profit margins. The biggest creator of jobs in this country and they need that desperate lifeline. Its the mom and pop deli, the dry cleaner where no one is going in because no one is going to work and doesnt need clothes dry cleaned anymore. Those are the people that need the help in the first run and once we get the economy back up and running, we can see what other Large Companies need assistance. But i wouldnt go to the airlines first. Chris, before we go new reporting that before President Trump took office, his team was briefed by you and yours on a scenario very similar to the one hes in. Can you explain this . Yeah, theres a continuity exercise we did one week before Inauguration Day in 2017. It is similar to the one we did with the outgoing bush people in january of 2009. There are about 30 people from the trump side, probably 30 people from the obama side. We walked through three possible scenarios they might confront. A hurricane, a pandemic and cyberincident and walked through the different scenarios theyd have to walk through and why preparation was so important. All right. Chris, austin, thank you both so much. Stay close. Were going to need both of your advice and expertise a lot over the next few days. Still ahead three states three states are not only dealing with the response to the coronavirus today, they are also open for polling because it is the primaries. 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Even as the cdc and many state and federal officials are advising residents to stay inside and isolate it as much as they can, voters in florida, arizona and illinois are set to head to the polls today. Weve got reporters on the ground in those key states. Garrett haake in chicago, Kerry Sanders in orlando. Garrett, youre in the countrys Third Largest city. Hundreds of thousands of people could show up to the polls today. The city decided a few days ago it was too risky to have a st. Patricks parade but not so risky to send people to what could be very crowded polling stations. I can tell you at least there are not crowds here at this polling station. I was just inside. Were not allowed to go live from inside the polling station here but its been a steady trickle of folks coming here to vote. Officials in illinois made the difficult decision to keep this primary going today in part because of the open acknowledgment they dont know a date at which it would be safe to reschedule it. Unlike in other states like michigan, where i was last week, look at all these signs behind me. There are dozens of offices on the primary. The democratic primary is the whole enchilada. They are struggling to get this off the ground here. Hundreds of election judges across the state have called out. Said theyre not going to show up. This polling place here is one of the more crowded in chicago. They should have 25 15 to 25 judges. Today they have 7. They are making the best due that they don and hoping early vote is whats going to carry this thing through today. Take us to the ground in florida. You have a lot of Senior Citizens in that state. We do. And that is the group that votes the most when you consider who is actually a voter. And the most recent president ial primary, the turnout among older voters was about 65 or older was 82 . Thats a group that is not only active in politics but its a group that is acutely aware of coronavirus. So heres the process. You show up at this location here, one of many that are open across the state for primary voting. The first thing you do is get your i. D. Out and show it to them. You have to hand our i. D. Over and thats the initial contact that people say that they are fearful from. Then you have to sign in. You can bring your own pen to vote but theres a stylus that you sign on. Then you get a paper ballot and from there you go to vote. The voters i spoke to, some of them said they decided they were going to skip the primary today because they did not want to put themselves in any jeopardy, any Health Concerns by getting out and voting. This particular case, this voting location here, stephanie, is unique in that its almost a popup voting location. They had this one at an assisted living facility but because of coronavirus, they couldnt have people going there and voting inside an assisted living facility, so this Fire Department is a fallback position. So for many of the voters, finding out even where to vote today is going to be a little complicated because this is a lastminute location, steph. Kerry, thank you so much. I appreciate your time and our own Garrett Haake. Moving on, the race to the democratic nomination continues. Brian williams and Rachel Maddow will lead our special coverage this evening. Ill be there along with former president ial candidate Michael Bloomberg who will also be joining us to discuss the task force of mayors and Health Experts. He has formed to help combat the coronavirus along with the 50 million bucks he just put up from his primary to address this crisis. Primary coverage starts tonight at 6 00 p. M. Eastern. You do not want to miss it. Like, butter poached, creamy and roasted. Or try lobster sauteed with crab, shrimp and more. So hurry in and lets lobsterfest. Or get it to go at red lobster dot com theres a company thats talked than me jd power. People 448,134 to be exact. 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Now youre in control. Lets talk health and safety. Hospital workers across this country are raising the alarm about significant shortages in specialized equipment. Im talking ventilators, hospital beds, masks and basic staffing levels. In Time Magazine reporting some Health Care Workers are worried they may have to ration health care if our system is stretched too thin. Lets dig in. Joining us now, the president of Massachusetts General Hospital and an Infectious Disease specialist and professor at Johns Hopkins University School of medicine. Peter, you say we should be in warlike preparations. What does that look like . I certainly strongly believe that. Back in world war ii, if it werent for president roosevelt creating the board and activating the industry across this country to make military supplies, we would have lost the war and he was able to convince typewriter manufacturers to produce machine guns, underwear manufacturers to produce parachutes. We need a similar response from industry. Any company that makes personal protective equipment should make more, but other industries, we need them to do so. We dont have months to wait. We have days and weeks. And so this is an urgent issue and i hope President Trump will use his powers under the National Production act to activate industry across this country. Doctor, there are reports that in italy, coronavirus patients over 80 years old may be left to die because their Health System is stretched too thin. Could we be next . Yeah. I think thats really where our message out to the American People is so important. We see, we can learn from whats happening in these other countries and we need to take the time now to really get ahead of that. This is our chance to take a break, step back and practice social distancing, follow these guidelines so our hospitals have the chance to get a handle on personal protective equipment and have ability to take the time for this. To prepare for plan a, b, c, and d. We know personal protective equipment is running low and if industry cant turn around more product quickly, what should doctors and nurses be doing . Well, we need to use the equipment we have and conserve it as much as possible. It is safe to reuse some of this equipment and were doing some of that at mass general hospital. Weve installed ipads in patients rooms. Its safer for our patients and the and our staff, but it conserves personal protective equipment. We need to be as creative as possible conserving what we have on hand. Our government estimates were going to need 3. 5 billion masks and respirators and our stockpile only has 12 million of them. Doctor, yesterday, Anthony Fauci warned us that many people could have it and not realize it yet. For every confirmed case, there are most likely another five to ten people in the community with undetected infections. That being the case, what are the implications . Yeah. This is where, you know, we really need to change our approach. This is wear, again, social distancing is going to come into play. Even if you dont have symptoms, you cannot be out interacting with people. This is a time we need to get a handle on testing, to get a better sense of how what the burden is here and where were going. Until we can do that, we really cant we really cant strate strategize and understand whats going to happen. Is it a different kind of test . Im not sure i fully understand the technical differences. But they were able to ramp up their testing dramatically. I think thats in the process of happening in this country as well. Hospitals are now able to do testing in addition to state governments and the cdc and also commercial labs are getting into the space as well with high throughput testing capabilities. Im hopeful that the testing problem is in the process of taking care of itself. Im much more worried about the protective equipment and the capacity of our hospitals to handle as many patients as we might be seeing in the coming weeks. And your biggest concern right now, dr. Katz . Its the protective equipment. Its making sure that we have a backup. I think whats going to be important here is communicating across the country, making sure that we get the get the equipment to the places that need it most so places, facilities that have extra equipment, share that for the facilities that have shortages. Make sure our Nursing Homes have the protective equipment they need because those are the vulnerable communities. All right. Thank you both so much for joining us. You got us a bit smarter and more prepared. I realize this hour, these days are only making most of us more anxious. Theres so much happening right now and its happening at such a rapid pace we cant keep up. Were going to do something that anyone can do, and i promise it helps. Lets take a pause. Lets take a deep breath together. It costs nothing. It helps. Despite the chaos, despite the unknown and the fear that many of us are feeling right now, i want to share that deep breath, i want to remind you to take r more of them. And i want to share what tom bossart wrote yesterday. If we Work Together, this terrible moment could be our finest hour. I agree with tom bossart, i believe it wholeheartedly. This is a moment to Work Together. Because together we rise. Well be right back. I was cured. I faced reminders of my hep c every day. I worried about my hep c. But in only 8 weeks with mavyret. I was cured. Mavyret is the only 8week cure for all types of hep c. Before starting mavyret your doctor will test. If youve had hepatitis b which may flare up and cause serious liver problems during and after treatment. Tell your doctor if youve had hepatitis b, a liver or kidney transplant,. Other liver problems, hiv1, or other medical conditions,. And all medicines you take. 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I lost almost 12 pounds oh announcer for those also with known Heart Disease, ozempic® lowers the risk of major cardiovascular events such as heart attack, stroke, or death. It lowers the risk. Oh and i only have to take it once a week. Oh oh, oh, oh, ozempic® announcer ozempic® is not for people with type 1 diabetes or diabetic ketoacidosis. Do not share needles or pens. Dont reuse needles. Do not take ozempic® if you have a personal or Family History of medullary thyroid cancer, multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2, or if you are allergic to ozempic®. Stop taking ozempic® and get medical help right away if you get a lump or swelling in your neck, severe stomach pain, itching, rash, or trouble breathing. Serious side effects may include pancreatitis. Tell your doctor if you have Diabetic Retinopathy or vision changes. Taking ozempic® with a sulfonylurea or insulin may increase low blood sugar risk. Common side effects are nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, stomach pain, and constipation. Some side effects can lead to dehydration, which may worsen kidney problems. Onceweekly ozempic® is helping me reach my blood sugar goal. Oh, oh, oh, ozempic® announcer you may pay as little as 25 per prescription. Ask your Health Care Provider today about onceweekly ozempic®. That wraps up this hour. Im stephanie ruhle. Thank you so much for joining us. Stick around because Ayman Mohyeldin is here with a lot more. Hello there, everyone. Im Ayman Mohyeldin. A lot happening this hour. Sweeping new guidelines and restrictions going into effect across the country this morning with a stark warning from your government, this will be the new normal for many months to come. Next hour, at the white house, a new briefing from the Coronavirus Task force, the president addressing growing pressure and taking a new approach, including new confirmation from our sources, this morning on a near trillion dollar plan. Part of an effort to slow down an economic meltdown that were watching happen in realtime. Wall street trying to claw back this morning after the regard decline we saw yesterday. Some economists and even the president using the r word, recession, to describe what is happening. Meantime on capitol hill, the senate coming into session, set to take up the multibillion dollars stimulus package later today. We have new details about an 850 billion stimulus package that is about to be unveiled by the secretary treasury. Were watching to see if Mitch Mcconnell comes to the floor as he normally does at this hour to give us an update. We will keep an eye on that for you. Also, were watching this hour how all of this is impacting election day. Dont forget about that. Ohio canceling its primary that was planned for today in the middle of the night. The man in charge of elections in that state joins us live on this program in just a few minutes. Our nbc news team is here covering every angle of this story from washington to wall street and all across the country. We begin with Kristen Welker who is at the white house, david gura on the Stock Exchange and Garrett Haake is in chicago. Were going to kick it off with Kristen Welker. We saw the press conference yesterday. We were at the white house today. Were about to get another update from the Coronavirus Task force. This obviously comes on a day we saw shifts in the tone of the president that some are saying is more sober, realistic. Were learning about another major stimulus package from the administration. What more is at play this morning . Reporter well, i think youre absolutely right, ayman. You laid it out well. We are keeping our eyes on capitol hill and the fact that Steven Mnuchin is going to unveil that proposal for an 850 billion stimulus package that would help to reboot the economy, fuel the Airline Industry, other Key Industries that might be struggling and suffering at this time. And it does come on the heels of that big package that the house passed over the weekend for about a hundred billion dollar. That would be funds that would go toward trying to stem the tied of the coronavirus. Helping with things like testing for people who need it, making sure that hospitals have the supplies they need. The question becomes what more might the administration do. Thats one of the questions that we are going to have at that briefing that will take place a little bit later on today, one of the top doctors on the task force was pressed on the administrations response and why there hasnt been a broader federal response until yesterday. Take a listen to what she had to say. When the president takes the bold step of putting out national guidelines, you can read those as national rules. Thats what he is saying based on all the Scientific Data that will make a change in how this epidemic is spread. Although it says president ial guidelines for all americans, take that as president ial rules for every american. Reporter now, of course, included in those new guidelines that President Trump announced yesterday, he urged americans not to gather in groups larger than ten and as you pointed out, ayman, his tone was very different yesterday. More somber. And he said that this might last through august. Kristen welker live for us at the white house. Lets go to david gura. In the last couple of minutes weve learned that the new york governor, andrew cuomo, is expected to give a briefing at around 10 15. Well keep an eye on that. A lot of hope this morning that perhaps the stock market was going to rally. When i went on the air it looked like they were going to rally. But it looks like theyre down again. What are the experts saying today and are we near the bottom of all of this . Reporter yeah, yesterday was brutal. Im going to step back here. Down about a half of a percent. Been below 20,000. That was something the president was proud to talk about. You bring up what happened yesterday and the change in tone from the president , that was the press conference that was focused on this, the Public Health crisis and that in itself was different from what we heard from the president over the course of the weekend. We came out on sunday after the fed made that emergency decision and trumpeted what the fed had done. I keep going back to what happened friday versus what happened yesterday. The president talked on friday and the market shot up. He spoke yesterday and it went down. The largest percent decline that weve seen since 1987. So much for investors to listen to today. The president sitting down with executives from restaurant groups, hes going to talk to travel and leisure groups. Yes, theres the coronavirus briefing, but there are also ample opportunities throughout the day, moments that will end the day. And the was it tors are hoping they will get some insight from them about what might come in the days and weeks to come. Were following a lot of different moving pieces here including Senate Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell. Were going to keep our ear open to see if he says anything about the coronavirus package. Well bring that news to you as soon as he does. But on the other side of all of this as weve been hearing from house officials, its about the testing thats taking place across the country. A lot of people critical that the testing is not enough. We go to Morgan Chesky. Hes at one of the coronavirus testing locations. Give us the sense of how its working, morgan and how many people youve seen pass through there in the couple hours youve been there. Reporter good morning. We know more testing needs to be done. Thats why these doctors made a special plan weeks ago, anticipating that coronavirus would impact this very community and thats why this clinic here, one of the first ones to open this drivethru testing, they started on sunday. They saw 50 patients then, 100 patients yesterday and cars are lining up today. Just to explain to you how this works, you can see those doctors wearing protective gear from head to toe. As soon as the car pulls up in line, theyre given a secure number to text basic medical info too, their name, Social Security number, et cetera once that is given, they pull up to the doctor and they fill out a sheet detailing their symptoms, important to note that they need to be symptomatic to get that advanced testing. Before theyre tested for covid19, doctors have to make sure that the people fail for flu and for strep. Theyre told to turn the corner and its at that point theyre given a swab of their throat and each side of their nose and that is whats been submitted to the lab. Those results coming back from 24 to 72 hours. The good news to report right now, as of sunday and monday, no positive tests have resulted from this drivethru testing facility for covid19. And they hope it stays that way Going Forward. Ayman . As we mentioned, Mitch Mcconnell speaking on the floor there saying there is no time for politics. This is not the time for politics to be more precise. We understand that Steve Mnuchin is heading up to capitol hill for a meeting with senators later today. We want to cross over to los angeles. Jolene kent is there for us at a Grocery Store where theyre providing special hours for seniors who are among the most vulnerable in all of this. What can you tell us . Good morning. Im here at north gate market and what youre starting to see is this ongoing crush of Grocery Shopping all across the country and those long lines and now what we are starting to see as well are individuals opening up their stores. You have Grocery Stores opening up their stores early, allowing individuals who are pregnant, disabled and the elderly to shop early and get some of the critical supplies. However, a lot of the supplies continue to run out. We do see toilet paper purchases limited to two packages per customer. We got in here before the doors open and the toilet paper was gone. Theres plenty of other supplies. You have tissues and some paper towels here and folks stocking up. I want to bring you throughout this store and show you whats happening. You got north gate market doing this early opening for seniors and disabled and pregnant people, you also have stop and shop, heb. You want to allow the vulnerable populations here and those who may need things to get their stuff. Good morning. I apologize. To be able to get what they need now. As they continue to stock up. The good news is, the supply chain does not have a problem, ayman. We know there arent any supply shortages right now. What we see is a lot of people shopping quickly and frequently. The issue is more about the overnight stocking and the people who are working here being able to get the stock back into the store and the warehouses and the logistics, getting all of the stuff that you want to buy to the stores fast enough to meet this growing demand. And some states where there are overnight curfews, thats going to be a test for them as well. We cross over to the politics of all of this where the primary voting in the state of illinois is Going Forward this morning. Garrett, good to have you with us. Ohios governor shut down polling locations today due to the coronavirus concerns. What are they saying, what are they doing in illinois . Ayman, im at one of the polling places that would typically be one of the busiest polling places. Theres nobody here. Its a trickle. And thats probably a good thing because so many election judges have called out. This polling place should have as many as 25 people working at it, today they have 7. I talked to two folks who were brought over from other polling places to make sure they can keep this open. The governor says if they were to postpone the primary, theyre not sure when they would be able to put it back on. Unlike what we saw in michigan last week, look at the signs behind me, look at the races that are on the ballot today. The democratic primary is the whole race. They felt like they needed to try to get this on and they know they have have huge numbers in early voting even going up to yesterday was breaking records across the state so the hope is, most people have voted early and will not have to come out to polling places like this one where theyre understaffed. And i was just inside, they have one bottle of Hand Sanitizer at the end of the process. They are taking some risks here, certainly, to get this done today. The hope is that the turnout remains low today, high across this whole early voting period. Thats going to lend credibility to the process. Garrett haake in chicago. Thanks for kicking it off for us this hour. With us now is the governor of connecticut. Its great to speak to you. We spoke 24 hours ago exactly just as the news was coming on line that you, new york, new jersey were working together to try and put forward a coordinated response. Im curious right now to speak to you 24 hours after that decision, how is it going . How is everything playing out . Is it going according to plan with the restaurants, the casino, gyms and movie theaters being closed . Good morning, ayman. It is working. Im doing it in coordination with my fellow governors. I got to tell you, its st. Patricks day and its tough to close down the bars on the eve of st. Patricks day, but the bars were filled this past weekend. You know what a contagious effect that can have. We want to make sure that connecticut and the United States is not like italy where they didnt take the social distancing perhaps as seriously as they could. Were taking it seriously here and its working. Okay you give us an update on the number in your states . One of the concerns we have is the increase in across the country almost by 1,000, 20 to 30 is the rate. What is the number in the state of connecticut this morning . Its 41 which is twice as much as a day or two ago. It is accelerating. Its probably not as reasonable looking as just state by state, though, anymore because obviously West Chester County is a hot bed for andrew cuomo, f r Fairfield County is right next door. Thats where three quarters of our infected people are. The question becomes, given the fact that you just said it is accelerating, do you think it is possible even necessary that you may have to take even more drastic steps . Right now people are selfisolating. Right now the bars and restaurants are closed. No parades. No schools. People are taking it seriously. So whatever i can do on a voluntary basis to urge people to take this as seriously as they can, i hope thats all we have to do. Let me get your thoughts quickly on the tone of the White House Task force, the Coronavirus Task force that took place yesterday. Do you believe that it was a change in tone and matched by a change in the attitude in that this administration is either ramping up efforts or taking it more seriously than it was just a couple weeks ago . Absolutely. But we need more than a change in tone. We need direction. We need ventilators. Dont say just get your own. What were doing on a regional basis in terms of restaurants and bars, i would like to see done more broadly across the country. I think the president and the task force should be more direct. Weve come a long way from hoax and business as usual to taking this seriously even at the highest branch of government. You had the president of the United States tweeting out against andrew cuomo. This morning he tweeted out against the governor of michigan saying that the failing michigan governor must work harder and be much more proactive. Were pushing her to get the job done. I stand with michigan. Does that make your job harder when you have a president who is either calling out governors of states who are in the middle of this crisis trying to do their best and are you at all coordinating with the federal government despite that . Well, ill tell you, i think the governors have stepped up in a big way on both sides of the aisle, taking this seriously. Were coordinating as best we can. When i close a school, i have to think about day care, when we close a restaurant, i got to think about how those people get paid for the next three months, six months. If youre a governor, everything on the ground matters and we got to take care of that. And i hope the white house appreciates that now more than ever. Connecticut governor ned lamont, thank you very much for joining us. Thanks. Coronavirus developments are changing by the hour. Lester holt will host a live prime time special, coronavirus pandemic. It will air on nbc, msnbc, and livestream on nbc news now and feature our correspondents and experts giving you crucial realtime information. Tune in on thursday at 10 00 p. M. Eastern. The white house mulling a major stimulus package to respond to the Coronavirus Crisis as we heard there from the connecticut governor. Up next, chaos for ohio voters. This morning after the states governor defines a judges decision not to delay todays primary. The ohio secretary of state joins me live next. Upbeat music transitions light under control. Upbeat music transitions signature gen 8, available now in 4 new style colors. Transitions. The governor of new york is holding a News Conference right now on the coronavirus. Lets take a listen. Its Testing Capacity, were working with the federal government on bringing on automated testing. That is all going very, very well. The numbers are going up. Containment, weve taken a number of measures, significant measures to do containment and that is working very well. On the containment side, we had a tristate strategy which is highly unusual but highly effective. We work with connecticut and new jersey and we announced the same rules, connecticut and new jersey, new york. Why . You dont want people shopping different states because different states have different rules. You dont want people driving to connecticut or new york or new jersey because theres a different set of rules. Uniformity works. Its hard to do. But when you can do it, uniformity works. And we did that yesterday with restaurants, bars, gyms all closing 8 00 last night and staying closed today. With the caveat that they could sell off premises by delivery and the state Liquor Authority changed their rules to make that possible. We closed all schools. All schools are closed for a period of two weeks and the 180day requirement is waived for two weeks. At the end of two weeks, we may renew that period of time. But all schools have the same period. Why . Because, once again, you need uniformity. You dont want a business having some employees in one School District that is open and one School District is closed. So in all this disruption and all this change, try to keep it as uniform as possible and the rules as uniform as possible so to the extent businesses can operate, people can live their lives, keep it uniform. My phone has been ringing off the hook with a number of local officials saying people are very, very upset. Who is upset about the gym being closed, who is upset about their restaurant is closed, who is upset about the bar is closed. Actually, ive had the highest number of calls being complained about bars being closed. I dont know if that is representative of anything, but thats just anecdotal. Some people are upset about schools being closed. I said to the local officials and i want to say to the people of the state of new york, if you are upset by what we have done, be upset at me. County executive did not do this. The village mayor did not do this. The city mayor did not make these decisions. I made these decisions. These were all stateordered rules. Its not your local elected official. I made them because i believe they are in the best interest of the state. I know they cause disruption. I know people are upset. I know businesses will be hurt by this. I dont feel good about that. I feel very bad about that because i know were going to have to deal with that issue as soon as this immediate Public Health issue is over. But my judgment is do whatever is necessary to contain this virus and then we will manage the consequences afterwards. The old expression, the buck stops on my desk, the buck stops on my desk. Your local mayor did not close your restaurants, bars, gyms or schools, i did. I did. I assume full responsibility. Again, these are all statewide rules because we dont want people shopping among different jurisdictions. You close the bars in new york city, but you keep them open in nassau, all you would see is a flood of cars going to the bars in nassau. So the uniformity is important. Its also important that no local government puts any rules in place without first checking with the department of health so the department of health can make sure that they are consistent with all other rules that we are about to put in place. Mitigation is continuing and is ramping up. There are many rumors out there, part of the fear, the anxiety. People spread rumors. Well, maybe youre going to quarantine new york city. We hear new york city is going to quarantine itself. That is not true. That cannot happen. It cannot happen legally. No city in this state can quarantine itself without state approval. And i have no interest whatsoever and no plan whatsoever to quarantine any city. Well, you contained new rochelle. We did a containment zone on new rochelle which was actually misunderstood. Nobody was contained in new rochelle. There was no boundaries around new rochelle. You could come and go in new rochelle as you wanted. The containment referred to the virus. All we did in new rochelle was close the schools and close places of large gatherings. So nobody was contained within new rochelle and nobody is going to be contained in any city in this state. So thats a deep breath moment. And the last part of the strategy is dealing with the Health Care System. And this is where we are now going to shift our emphasis. And i want people to understand what were going to have to do with the Health Care System. Because that is now our top priority. And remember what weve been saying all along, there is a curve, everyone has talked about the curve, everyone as talked about the height and the speed of the curve and flattening the curve. Ive said that curve is going to turn into a wave and the wave is going to crash on the Hospital System. Ive said that from day one because thats what the numbers would dictate. And this is about numbers. And this is about facts. This is not about prophesies or Science Fiction movies. We have months and months of data as to how this virus operates. You can go back to china. Thats now five, six months of experience. So just project from what you know, you dont have to guess. We have 53,000 hospital beds in the state of new york. We have 3,000 icu beds. Right now the hospitalization rate is running between 15 and 19 . Thats from our sample of the tests we take. We have 19. 5 Million People in the state of new york. We have spent much time with many experts projecting what the virus could actually do. Going back, getting the china numbers, the south korea numbers, the italy numbers, looking at our rate of spread because were trying to determine what is the apex of that curve, what is the consequence so we can match it to the capacity of the Health Care System. Match it to the capacity of the Health Care System. Thats the entire exercise. The quote, unquote experts and by the way, there are no phenomenal experts in this area. Theyre all using the same data that the virus has shown over the past few months in other countries. But theyre extrapolating from that data. The expected peak is around 45 days. That can be plus or minus depending on what we do. The they are expecting as many as 55,000 to 110,000 hospital beds will be needed at that point. That, my friends, is the problem that we have been talking about since we began this exercise. You take the 55,000 to 110,000 hospital beds, you compare it to a capacity of 53,000 beds and you understand the challenge. As many as 18,000 to 30,000 37,000 icu beds. Okay . An icu bed is different than a hospital bed. An icu bed has additional equipment. Most notably ventilators and thats why you hear on the news ventilators are very hard to get globally. Why ventilators . Because were all talking about acutely ill, mainly Senior Citizens, who have an underlying illness. Theyre battling cancer, they have Heart Disease and then they get pneumonia on top of that, thats the coronavirus. They need to be intubated. They need an icu bed, and thats the challenge. And that is remains is challenge. And the numbers are daunting. What are we doing . Everything we can. First, flatten the curve. Continue to flatten the curve so you reduce that peak demand. We announced dramatic closings yesterday to reduce the density. Its possible we will be doing more dramatic closings. Not today. But im talking to the other governors in the other states, showing that expected flow into the hospitals, its clear we cant manage that flow. How can you reduce the flow . You reduce the spread. How do you reduce the spread . You close down more interaction among people. How do you close down more interaction . Well yesterday we closed the bars, gyms, et cetera you would continue to close down things such as businesses. Italy got to the point where the only things they left open were Grocery Stores and pharmacies. Those are essential services but they closed down everything else. Were not there yet. But i am telling you, we have to get down that rate of spread because whatever we do on the hospital side we cannot accommodate the numbers that demand on the Hospital System. So, again, we just enacted rules yesterday, were not enacting any other rules today. But it is very possible because the numbers as youll see in a moment are still going up. Whatever rules we come up with will be statewide rules. Hopefully it could be done with our surrounding states because the best way to do this is uniformity, no shopping among states, among cities, among counties. Everybody lives with the same rules so we dont have people on the road going back and forth, trying to game the system. At the same time that youre trying to reduce the numbers coming into the hospitals, youre trying to increase the capacity of the hospitals. How do you do that . The hospital Surge Capacity, what is the Surge Capacity . Getting the existing hospitals to hold more people. Right now there are rules and regulations about how many people can be in a hospital, how many people per room, how many square feet per bed, et cetera thats under normal operating conditions. These are not normal operating conditions. Were examining the entire Hospital System, what is the Maximum Capacity per hospital . If department of health waives their spatial rules, how many people can you get into hospitals . There is a meeting today with all the hospital administrates that have asked to be run by michael dowling. Hes a former health commissioner. He worked for my fathers health commissioner. Ive known him 30 years. Hes extraordinary. Ken raske sitting down with the hospitals saying change your headset. This is not about how you normally do business. Frankly, forget the economics, whats the maximum number of people we can get into your hospital and what do you need to do that and what equipment do you need to do that and what staff do you need to do that . Were going back to retired staff and were asking them to contact us at this website to get former nurses, former doctors to sign up to be on call. Were also going to medical schools, Nursing Schools to try to get additional medical personnel. And then were talking about temporary construction of medical facilities. Obviously when youre talking about 45 days, you have a limited capacity of what you can actually get done. But im working with governments and organizations all across the state right now. How do we set up temporary hospital facilities even if theyre not intensive care units, you can take people who are in the hospital beds, move them into a temporary medical care facility and then back fill the bed. Were also working with fema, the army corps of engineers and the National Guard and the Building Trades unions to help us on this issue. The numbers, total people tested to date, were up to 10,000 people. Which is obviously exponentially higher than it was and its continuing to grow. Positive cases up to 1,300. New positive, 432. Number of counties with cases continues to grow. Clinton county has been added to that. Our cases are, again, number one in the nation. Our number of deaths now up to 12. 264 out of the cases are hospitalized. Thats a hospitalization rate of 19 . Thats higher than the normative hospitalization rate which is at about 15 . But the 19 is higher. Again, keep this all in focus with what we know, the facts we know, of what this disease does and what the impact is which is the Johns Hopkins study which has tracked every case since china. A couple of other points and then well take your questions, we have well open today in Nassau County a drivethru Testing Office. We opened one in new rochelle. It worked very well. Well open nassau today. Were going to open a suffolk drivethru Testing Office and a Staten Island drivethru Testing Office. Were going to send up the paid family leave bill to the legislature today. I believe we have a threeway agreement on that. It will also have a provision to cover all people who are quarantined. We will be doing that also. Well also be opening a rockland drivethru testing facility. Two other points, one, this is an extraordinary time in this nations history. It will go down in the history books as one of those moments of true crisis and confusion and chaos. I lived through 9 11. I remember the fear and the panic that existed in 9 11 where a single moment, your whole concept of life and society can be shaken, where you need to see government perform at its best. You need to see people at their best. Everybody is afraid, everybody is nervous. How you respond, how you act, this is a character test for all of us individually. Its a character test for us collectively as a society. What did you do at that moment when all around you lost their head, right . That is this moment. What does government do in this moment . It steps up, it performs. It does what its supposed to do. It does it better than its ever done it before. What does government not do . It does not engage in politics or partisanship. Even if you are in the midst of an election season, even if you are at a moment in time in history where you have hyperpartisanship, which we now have, the president of the United States, donald trump, it is essential that the federal Government Works with this state and that this state works with the federal government. We can note do this on our own. I built airports, i built bridges. We have made this government do things that its never done before. This government has done somersaults, its performed better than ever before. I am tell you, this government cannot meet this crisis without the resources and capacity of the federal government. I spoke to the president this morning, again. He is ready, willing and able to help. Ive been speaking with members of his staff late last night, early this morning. We need their help, especially on the Hospital Capacity issue. We need fema, fema has tremendous resources. When i was at hud, i worked with fema. I know what they can do. I know what the army corps of engineers can do. They have a capacity that we simply do not have. I said to the president who is a new yorker, who ive known for many, many years. I put my hand out in partnership. I want to Work Together 100 . I need your help. I want your help. And new yorkers will do everything they can to be good partners with the federal government. I think the president was 100 sincere in saying that he wanted to Work Together in partnership, in the spirit of cooperation. I can tell you the actions he has taken evidence that. His team has been on it. I know a team when theyre on it and i know a team when theyre not on it. His team is on it. Theyve been responsive late at night, early in the morning and theyve thus far been doing everything they can do and i want to say thank you and i want to say that i appreciate it. And they will have nothing but coordination and partnership from the state of new york. And were not democrats and were not republicans. We are americans at the end of the day. Thats who we are. And thats who we are when we are at our best. So this hypersensitivity about politics and reading every comment and wanting to pit one against the other, theres no time for this. The president is doing the right thing in offering to step up with new york and i appreciate it. And new york will do the right thing in return. Also on a personal level this is we use the word disruption, its such a clinical word. Its a period of disruption. Life has turned upside down. Its just turned upside down. Remember those snow globes when you were a kid, you shook the globe and the snow went all over and the whole picture changed as soon as you picked up and shook that snow globe. Somebody picked up our country and just shook it and turned it upside down and its all chaotic and things are flying all over and theres new information and theres mixed information and people dont know what to do and businesses are closing and the rules change every minute and can i go out . Can i not go out . How do i get the virus . How do i not get the virus . Now im at home and im stuck at home and the kids are at home and then theres a whole component to this, dont touch anyone. Dont hug. Dont kiss. Were human beings. That interaction is so important to us. That emotional affirmation is so important to us. And now you have all of these weighty decisions, should i go out . Should i not go out . Is this safe for my kids . Is this not safe for my kids . Im stuck in my house. Ive used my experience just as a metaphor to communicate and relate having the kids in the house. It sounds great. Having the kids in the house. Yea, the kids are in the house. I remember when my kids were young. I was divorced. My kids were three girls. They were 6 and 7 and 8 years old. 6 and 7 and 8 years old in a small apartment in manhattan, thats a lot of fun and then that gets old very fast, right . Claustrophobia sets in for the kids, it would set in for me. What i would do then is i would go to my mother and fathers apartment, which was also in manhattan, because it was to get out of my apartment. And i would go to my mother and fathers apartment and they had a little apartment in manhattan. And my mother was magic with the girls and she would play with them and she could play with them all day. My mother is pure sugar. Shes pure love, my mother. But i would be there for a couple of hours and i would be sitting there with my father, we would sit on the couch and watch a ball game. And after a couple of hours the kids are running around and picking up this and that and picking up his picture frame. Hes like, put that down. Dont touch this. After a couple of hours, my father would say, i think you have to go to work now, pal. I would say, no, november to go to work. No, no, i think you have to go to work now, pal. You know, having all the kids in that tight environment, thats very stressful. Thats why yesterday we said all the fees on all the parks are waived. Get out of the house, go to a state park. We have beautiful state parks. Traffic is down. Put the kids in the car, go to a state park, go to a county park. Go to a city park. Shirley Chisholm Park in brooklyn is beautiful. Spend the time with the kids. Theres also tension among families. I mentioned my mother who is a senior citizen, although not in her reality. I wanted her to stay home. I want her to be isolated. Shes my mom. I want her protected. One of my siblings said i want to take mom to my house and were going to have a party at my house and i want her to see the kids, et cetera i said thats a mistake. You shouldnt do that. You should let mom stay home. Im more protective. The sibling, mom wants to get out of the apartment. I said all you need is one kid all day long, all i hear about is somebody coming up to me and saying i didnt know, but my daughter was with this person. So i can see the tensions in the families. And thats real too. People should expect that. And lastly, there is something to this lack of ability to connect. Dont hug. Dont kiss. Stay 6 feet away. We are emotional beings. And it is important for us, especially at times of fear, times of stress, to feel connected to someone, to feel comforted by someone. I mentioned my daughter, i havent seen my daughter in over two weeks. It breaks my heart. Breaks my heart. And then this concept of maybe i cant get next to her because of this virus. Theres a distance between me and my daughter because of this virus. It saddens me to the core and it frightens me to the core. And i had her on the phone this morning and i said it to her, i just i just said it to her. I said, i cant tell you how hard this is for me not to be able to be with you. Not to be able to hold you in my arms. Not to be able to kiss you all over your face which she hates anyway. And that plays out 1,000 different ways. You put all this together, its a hard time. It is a hard time on every level. It is a frightening time on every level. At the same time, it is this much time. It is this much time. Is it three months . Six months . Nine months . I dont know. But its this much time. We will get through this much time. Understand what were dealing with, understand the pressures that were feeling. But we will get through this much time. Be a little bit more sensitive, understand the stress, understand the fear. Be a little bit more loving, a little bit more a little bit more comforting, a little more cooperative and we will get through this time. We will lose people, yes, like we lose people every year with the flu. Were going to be challenged and tested. Theres going to be periods of chaos, yes. Weve been through that before, also. But this is all were talking about and we will learn from it and we will be better prepared the next time because this is not the last time, my friends. This has been a growing rate of these emergencies and Health Situations and storms, but were going to get through it and were going to get through it together. But understand the pressures that everyone is feeling and lets be considerate of those feelings that are now collective and societal. Thats my two cents. Any questions. Speaking in 45 days, i was looking at my calendar, thats right around the president ial primary. Are there thoughts to postponing the primary . I have virtually no political thoughts at this time and no thoughts about postponing the election. [ inaudible question ]. I have not considered it. I havent thought about it. I havent had a discussion with anybody about it. On the issue of mandatory quarantine, San Francisco bay area, six counties there have basically shut down. Some city officials have called for a similar action of sheltering in place in the city. Explain what your thinking on that is, why youre resistant to that and whether that could change . Im resistant to nothing. Whatever we do, well do statewide. Ideally whatever we do, well do regionally with the other states. You take an action in one place, jesse, that you dont take in another place you say to me in Nassau County you have to shelterinplace. I say, fine, ill go stay with my brother in westchester. Thats what i say. You say all of new york must shelterinplace, i say fine, ill go stay with my brother in new jersey. That makes the situation worse, not better. So to the extent you can come up with a policy and enforce it uniformly. What is the policy . Just yesterday we took very, very dramatic steps. The bars, restaurants, schools. The curve is not flattening to a level that we can sustain, which would suggest that youre going to need to take more efforts to slow the curve. Thats what were exploring now. It is likely that we will take more efforts to reduce the spread by reducing the density. What are they . Thats what were considering. But theres a number of ways to do it. The quarantine suggests youre limiting somebodys movement to a geographic area. Unless you were to quarantine all you would do is move people out of one place to another, right . Because there are people who just will panic at the thought of being quarantined. Were going to impose a quarantine in albany city starting tomorrow at 6 00 p. M. You know what that means . Everybody gets out of albany city and gets to another location. Theres many, many steps before you go to limiting an individuals mobility. Its places of density and places that create density like businesses. Thats where you would go. You would reduce businesses, Business Operations beyond essential Business Operations. That would be the initial calibration. But were not there yet either. But these are all the things were talking about. Governor, youve spoken many times about the importance of child care, particularly there are a lot of workers concerned about Day Care Centers and whether those will close. What would you say to them . I would ask mr. Malatras. Thats a technical, smart, hard question. Right now most Day Care Centers are open. Theyre to help limit density in specific rooms as required. The governor, knowing especially First Responders and Health Care Workers remain essential, we have the four downstate plans for School Closures that take care of many of the day care issues, they came in last night. The governor recently directed the health care associations, Greater New York to develop a plan for drapin health care acts to address some of the emerging issues. Ocfs will waive many of the requirements or fastly expediting those issues that stand out immediately. So limit density in many of those areas in day care facilities to smaller groups, ten or fewer, so bringing in more staff. In other cases were standing up day care, expanding day care in areas where we have less need. For instance, many of the suni and cuny campuses have not for profit Day Care Centers. Those falt members or nonessential employees working from home and doing distance. Were working with those day care providers to provide services for our First Responders, so were limiting density across the booard. [ inaudible question ]. Were working on the educational side with the department of health, office of children and families to do it on a casebycase basis. It depends on the size of the day care, if theres any positive cases. All those things come into play. When we work on the School Closure plan, were working hand in glove to make sure we have more availability across the state, open up more opportunities, by limiting the number of children in specific rooms, specific locations to meet those needs for parents all across the state. Also, john, you have to remember, when youre setting these policies, these things are all interconnected. Closing schools. Okay. How do the essentials go to work the next day . Who is going to watch their kids . Whoops, i didnt think about that. Close the Day Care Centers. Okay. How do the people go to work who were leaving their children in day care . Leave the businesses open but close the day care. How do you leave the business open if you close the day care . It all goes like this. There is no such thing as a piecemeal isolated strategy that works. It has to be comprehensive, and it has to be statewide. And the rumors of these things are not productive. Thats why i said to jesse, quarantine in place. No, no place first of all, no state, no locality in this state can take an action without state opinion profl, right . If albany city said quarantine in place, i wouldnt allow it. So whatever we do is going to be statewide, thought through, comprehensi comprehensive. Nobody is going to be quarantined. If there are any additional actions, the likely additional actions would be on the business side first. Before you do anything with day care or anything else, you have to be home, right . So what businesses need to be operational now that are putting people in an Office Setting . The first step would be reduction on the number of businesses. That then leaves parents home. That allows children to be home. That would be the normal calibration. With Public Libraries closed thats also one of the things were thinking about. Is there an estimate of how many ventilators are available and what the projection is for the intubation needs . We know we have around 4,000 ventilators. Part of the team the governor put forward, well discuss that today. 4,000 kent investigators across the state. There are more available than that, but thats the numbers we have right now. We have a stockpile. But were looking at getting more ventilators. Hundreds and hundreds in the stockpile as well. Your care is right, you are in the thousands youre under 10,000, and youre right, the need could be much, much higher, and the complicating factor is you cant find a ventilator for sale. Were looking desperately, but china just bought all the ventilators and then south korea bought all the ventilators, italy bought all the ventilators, germany bought all the ventilators and california is buying all the ventilators. The main repository for ventilators is the federal government. Good day. Im Chris Jansing in new york in for craig melvin. Youve been listening to new yorks governor, andrew cuomo from the state capital in albany. Hes had a lot to say already, talking about the new decisions on restrictions that go into effect today, shutting down schools, restaurants, bars, gyms, movie theaters across the state. Also making a point to bat down rumors that new york city is going into a full quarantine. The governor said he has no interest or desire to quarantine any city in his state, but he does admit more closures are possible. He adds new york state is not at the points of a total shutdown. Lets be clear about that. Lets say, like italy, where they closed everything except for Grocery Stores and pharmacies. He had a lot to stay of the current state of the virus spread. Experts say they expect it to peak in about 45 days. He had this message for trump, i want your help, i need your help. He also said he had spoken to the president and he believes him when he says the federal government is there to help. I want to bring in veer olt and epidemiologist joseph theayer, n msnbc contributor. He talked about july and august. I want to talk about the numbers we just heard from Governor Cuomo. This is only for new york state. But right now new york state has 53,000 hospital beds, he said. In 45 days theyll need 55,000 to 100,000 for coronavirus. That isnt talking about all the people presumably who are already in icu beds for other reasons besides coronavirus. Thats exactly right. Because many of those beds are already filled most of them, right . Yes. 3,000 icu beds. Theyll need 18,000 to 37,000 just in new york state. What theyre talking about is how do they ramp up . Theyll bring medical professionals, doctors, nurses, who may be retired. Theyll have to look at the possibility of building other facilities, using other facilities. What do these numbers mean to you as a ver oolojist. This cant be piecemeal. Half the cities are shutting down, half are not. You still see people on the street. It has to be everywhere or its moot to do it anywhere. We have to do that. Second, we need a full mobilization of our governmental resources as well as our commercial sector. I thought his call for the National Guard was absolutely appropriate. The army corps of engineers, to help build isolation units and build hospitals, nobody is better at logistics than our u. S. Militariment were going to have to have that, including possibly the medical care professionals, everyone from the v. A. To active duty medical officers. Lets pick up on what he said at the end. You cant find a ventilator for sale. A lot of people have read these horrific stories of people in italy, doctors who are faced with a 30yearold and 70yearold patient. They dont have enough ventilators, having to make those lifeordeath choices. Do we have 45 days to figure this out . Absolutely not. The orders for ventilators need to be made now. I know from my own affiliation at texas a m where we focus on pandemic policy, theres a contract in place in an emergency use with Phillips Health care under health and human services. If those orders arent made now, well be even further behind the curve. There are mechanisms in place to do it, but it has to come from the president down to hhs and the or dishave to be made now. To my knowledge, it may have happened already but its not happened yet. If they do that now, were going to be less behind the curve than we already are. Dr. Thayer, youre around all the time. We have a program at 1 00 where you answer our viewers questions. Thank you for that. I want to go to the white house because were keeping a close eye there actually what youre seeing on the other side of your screen is ralph northam, the governor of virginia. Hes updating for the state of virginia. Were listening to that. We have a White House Briefing thats coming up, the Coronavirus Task force about now 25 minutes from now its scheduled. Well of course take that live. Lets go to nbcs hans nichols at the white house. Hans, a lot of people noted a definitive change in tone, definitive change in seriousness with the briefing yesterday, particularly from the president himself and also some new recommendations including that dont be in groups of ten or more. You want to keep that social contact down. What do we know about what we might be expecting today, and will the president be there . We dont know if the president will be there. Were getting a heavy stay tuned. Thats been the message from all white house officials. It seems as though theyve been causing audibles on whether or not the president will decide to come out. We have seen the president three of the last three days, the president has made himself available in some form or another. I suspect, chris, well get an update on testing, on time horizons, how long these protocols will be in place. Yesterday they said 15 days. Well see if they extend that at all. Well see if theres any clarity from the president saying this is going to be with us until july and august, what he means by that. What the task force means by that. Also expect some sort of update on the number of ventilators that theyre potentially thinking about getting and where they are on getting the test results back and what percentage of test results we have. Remember dr. Birx saying 70 , 80 . They want to get to higher so they have a better understanding where this is, where this coronavirus is taking place and what the saturation levels are. I suspect theyll be other questions. As always, stay tuned. We may also get a little bit on stimulus. Yesterdays meeting economic stimulus. Yesterdays meeting was more focused on the Public Health aspect of this, less the economic aspects. Thats clearly on a lot of officials minds. My understanding, correct me if im wrong, the president spoke by phone with restaurant executives. I understand later in the day he has other Business Executives hes going to be talking to. What can you tell us about that part of it and Steve Mnuchin and what steps hes planning to take . Mnuchin is down on the hill. Hell be down there today making his case for an 850 billion stimulus package. This is in addition to the 8 billion signed a couple weeks ago, in addition to what the house passed the other night. That number is about 100 billion. Were quickly getting into the trillion dollar range in terms of spending to try to help the economy. Theres a huge gap and a big difference between where the president is and mnuchin and where Senate Democrats are. Chris, one way they might be able to square that difference, just add it up. It seems like both sides are in a spreading frame of mine. Hans nichols, thank you so much. Well have the press briefing coming your way as soon as it starts. Right now members of the u. S. Senate are scrambling to get the emergency relief bill out the door to help families now. So many people hurting already in the wake of this coronavirus pandemic. The house sent over a plan to make testing free, to boost Unemployment Insurance and give two weeks of paid sick leave, three months of family leave to people affected. Some senators, republicans and democrats alike, dont think it goes far enough quickly enough. Joining me from capitol hill, illinois senator dick durbin, the democratic whip. Senator, it couldnt be more timely to talk to you now. There are people watching who are so worried about what their future holds. You were on the floor yesterday demanding immediate action. Where are we right now, senator . Senator mcconnell came on the floor, the republican leader this morning and noted the fact we have physically received the bill to the house. We didnt have to have it physically under the traditions of the Senate Unanimous consent. Im not going to get lost in the weeds now. We should pass this measure this morning. It was a bipartisan measure. Speaker pelosi and mr. Mnuchin representing the president came together. Lets do this in a bipartisan fashion and get it done. What senator mcconnell said is well move to the next bill, the mnuchin briefing of the republican senators, 850 billion is an indication of where were headed. One of the Big Questions weve been asking our viewers and one of the Big Questions has been what will come out of this, what will i as an individual member of this country who is struggling get from this . What can you tell people that you feel confident right now will be included in this bill that will help them to understand what help is on the way . I can tell you when it comes to testing, once they are available, we still have been waiting for the administration to come forward with the test kits and the process to follow. In illinois, for example, were way behind the governor tells me. Once thats there, its done without a charge to anyone regardless of the theyre insured or not. Secondly, making food available. Think about the kids not going to school right now who relied on the breakfast and lunch. The medical leave and family leave will go into effect for at least a fourth of the employees across the country. I wish it were more. Were also talking about Unemployment Compensation for those who actually lose their jobs so its done more quickly and gives a chance to families to survive this. One of the things i think all of us recognize is that even when this bill passes, its not going to be the end of the need. The president yesterday talking about july and august. We heard from Governor Cuomo who doesnt expect this to peak in new york state at least for 45 days. So in the meantime, as the nation increasingly stays home, have there been conversations about the possibility that you folks, as members of congress, who will have to deal with what can be done might have to stay home, can votes be done from home . Tell us whats going on in terms of the ability to keep the federal government functioning. Chris, the basic question is can we bring the United States senate into the 21st century and are we going to find means and methods to use that are constitutionally acceptable, that allow us to do our work without being physically present. Telework. Were telling people across america to consider that possibility. The same thing is true for the senate. Senator klobuchar and the rules committee working with senator blunt, that would be the starting point in the senate, to change the rules, change statutes if necessary so we dont have to have physical presence on the floor of the senator the Committee Rooms to get our work done. I think its time for us to look at that possibility. Today its a public held crisis. Tomorrow it could be a terrorism threat. Were not sure what it might be. Lets be prepared. To be prepared we need to change the rules. Let me ask you finally, because so many people are worried about what their future holds, worried about whether theyll be able to pay their bills, whether or not theyll be able to pay their rent or their mortgage. The president , as we said a brief time ago, was talking to restaurant officials this morning on the phone. Hes going to be talking to business leaders. There are petitions out there from virtually every single group of workers virtually many this country saying help me, i want to make sure im included. Take us inside, if you can, what those conversations are like, how those decisions are going to be made, how people who work in individual sectors that have been directly affected by closedowns might understand that youre deciding who gets what money when. Weve had several stages of conversation and negotiation. The first bill we passed really focused on health care resources. We need to do more, but thats where we started, as we should. The second bill which is now pending in front of the senate when senator mcconnell decides hell call it is one that says well focus on families and employees. The third bill goes to the next level, fill in the gaps of the first two bills but look to the overall economy and state of business starting with Small Businesses. There are lots of good ideas out there. Let me add Hospital Capacity which comes up in your earlier interview and comes up time and again. Staring us right in the face. A million hospital beds in a International Space station of 350 Million People, far fewer icu units available, many of them currently occupied. Thats the thing we need to address immediately. Governor cuomo is right. Others have suggested it. Lets bring our army, corps of engineers in and build the emergency hospitals as quickly as possible so were ready to do. We know how to do it. We counted on the military when it came to ebola. They did it beautifully. Lets fill up the parking lots at some of these hospitals with professional level facilities to treat people as they come in. Senator dick durbin, i know theres a lot going on. We do very much appreciate your time in helping us to understand whats happening. Thank you, sir. Thanks, chris. Our Testing Capacity here in the u. S. Still lags behind other countries. We are starting to see a large increase in the number of tests administered due in part to drivethrough testing. Right now hospitals and clinics around the country are expanding their use of mobile testing measures. Nbcs Morgan Chesky is at a suburb clinic in dallas doing drivethrough testing since last wednesday. Morgan, explain to us what youre seeing on the ground. A lot of people taking advantage of it. How is it working . Reporter good question. This is important to know. A privately run clinic that took the initiative upon their selves to get this testing a week ago and have seen hundreds of patients already. We know 50 came on sunday, 100 yesterday. Thats about as many as they can see each and every day. But here you can already see the line forming just around this building right now. We have Trained Medical staff just to the right of these cars under this tent. Theyre covered head to toe and they know how to administer these tests to remain safe. This is how it works. As people pull up, they text their medical info to a secure number. Theyre given a questionnaire to fill out the symptoms. Do they have the telltale signs of covid19, difficulty breathing, fever, cough. When they pull up to the tent, they can see a doctor. Its important to note they have two specific tests that they have to fail before theyre given that testing for coronavirus, flu and strep throat. If they fail, theyre told to pull around and given that swab test down the throat or in the nose or a test where they can cough up material thats provided to doctors to within 24 to 72 hours get that confirmation if they have corona. Morgan chesky out in the field for us. Coming up, were keeping an eye on the white house. Soon the Coronavirus Task force expected to give a briefing. Well have that for you as soon as it happens. Plus the race for a cure. A possible Coronavirus Vaccine being tested on humans. Ill talk to the First American to receive that test Coronavirus Vaccine. Nbc news will air a live primetime special report called coronavirus pandemic an cord by lester holt thursday, 10 clom p. M. Across nbc, msnbc, and nbc news now. A team of Network Correspondents will provide crucial realtime information about what viewers need to know about the coronavirus along with expert analysis and Health Advice from nbcs Coronavirus Crisis team. Well be right back. My blood sugar and a1c. Because i can still make my own insulin. And trulicity activates my body to release it like its supposed to. Trulicity is for people with type 2 diabetes. Its not insulin. I take it once a week. It starts acting in my body from the first dose. Trulicity isnt for people with type 1 diabetes or diabetic ketoacidosis. Dont take trulicity if youre allergic to it, you or your family have medullary thyroid cancer, or have multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Stop trulicity and call your doctor right away if you have an allergic reaction, a lump or swelling in your neck, or severe stomach pain. Serious side effects may include pancreatitis. Taking trulicity with a sulfonylurea or insulin increases low blood sugar risk. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, belly pain, and decreased appetite, which lead to dehydration and may worsen kidney problems. I have it within me to lower my a1c. Ask your doctor about trulicity. That Liberty Mutual customizes your insurance, i just love hitting the open road and telling people so you only pay for what you need [squawks] only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Doprevagen is the number oneild mempharmacistrecommendeding . Memory support brand. You can find it in the vitamin aisle in stores everywhere. Prevagen. Healthier brain. Better life. Yes. This moving thing never gets any easier. Well, xfinity makes moving super easy. I can transfer my internet and tv service in about a minute. Wow, that is easy. Almost as easy as having those guys help you move. We are those guys. Thats you . The truck adds 10 pounds. In the arms. Ok. Yep. Transfer your Service Online in a few easy steps. Now thats simple, easy, awesome. Xfinity makes moving easy with twohour appointment windows, even on nights and weekends. Go to xfinity. Com moving to get started. We are keeping our eye on the white house. We want you to know as soon as they begin the Coronavirus Task force briefing, you can see everybody getting in place. We will have that for you. In the meantime testing for Coronavirus Vaccine hit a critical stage in record time. A remarkably quick 65 days since the chinese scientist shared the virus genetic sequence. Human trials under way yesterday in seattle. Four Healthy Volunteers got their first doses. One of those volunteers, jennifer holler joins me via skype. Obvious first question, how are you doing . Im feeling great. The experience was very similar to getting a flu shot. My arm is actually lessor than flu shots ive had in the past. Im dealing good. What made you decide to get involved . Why did you decide to volunteer . We all feel so helpless right now. This was an opportunity for me to be able to actual do something that could be really meaningful. I have a lot of privilege in being healthy and having friends and family nearby. I have a salaried job in the Tech Industry that gives me a lot of flexibility in how i work and when i work. Im just so thankful for the opportunity to do something here. I can say, speak for everybody who is watching, we feel thankful that you have volunteered to do this. Im curious what your questions were, what they told you about what to expect that finally made you decide, okay, i can do this. The regular potential complications from a vaccine, soreness at site of injection and body aches and fever and all that. Of course, the huge unknown. This has never been tested in a human before. That was okay with me. I really want to do something and im excited to get this testing started and to get it off the ground. If this isnt the perfect vaccine, if isnt the right one, fine. Were getting closer and closer as we take these steps. Real life question. Were your family and friends as happy as you are to put yourself out there and do something important . Yeah. By far majority super excited for me, super thankful that im willing to do this. Definitely some were concerned as one should be. What really helped my friends and family, when i explained it to them, is this vaccine uses messenger rna. It does not expose me at any time to the actual virus. So that helped the few friends and family who had concerns. Tell us what your future looks like. What are the next steps . What does monitoring look like . Where are you live . Tell us all that stuff. Well, i had the vaccine yesterday at 8 00 a. M. Ill have a couple followup phone calls today and tomorrow. Ill go back in next week for a blood draw and a week after that for another blood draw. Four weeks from yesterday, ill go for the second vaccination and repeat those steps for the next four weeks. And then ill be back in for some blood draws a few times throughout the next 16 months or so. Well, jennifer, i just want to say go ahead. I dont want to interrupt you. I just wanted to say, and no other special instructions. I can live as normally as everybody else can live right now. As normal as we all can live. I know a lot of people are feeling that they want to be able to do something. What youre doing is extraordinary and its brave and we thank you. We wish you well. Certainly we all have our fingers crossed that it is a vaccine that works for everybody, but thank you and keep us posted. Well keep checking in with you. We appreciate it. Back with me is dr. Joseph thayer, epidemiologist. Medical breakthroughs dont happen without people like her. Absolutely not. Thank god shes doing that. Shell get the second injection, well start measuring her immune response and antibody response to the virus. Shell be heavily monitored for adverse effects. First rule of medicine, do no harm. You cant inject someone and then put them to the side. Thats what were doing right. We moved very quickly on this. Lets talk about what we could be doing better. In the break you were very concerned about any delays by congress in getting the bills that are on the table passed both in terms of a health issue and in terms, frankly, of an economic issue. I honestly dont think its being taken seriously enough. This is a post 9 11 mobilization. Pass the bill now. Theres no room for debate. Lets get something out there now. This cant wait until tomorrow. It cant wait until the day after. It cant be partisan. It has to be now. My message is pass the bill now and expect to pass more bills very shortly thereafter. Even money being talked about being approved, were already so far behind the your can f, were going to spend a lot more money. Its better to spend a lot more money than lose a lot more lives. Thank you joseph fair who is going to stay with us. I want to bring in tim ryan, democratic from ohio, congressman. Are you as concerned as dr. Fair is that time could cost not just money but lives . Yeah. I think we already saw that. The government was slow to pick up on this. I dont want to get in a political discussion, but the leader of the country calling it a hoax nor such a long period of time put us behind the eight ball. Here we are today, congress the senate is holding a bill that provides Unemployment Insurance, that allows people to take sick days so they can stay home if theyre sick, family leave, these are essential, food for kids. These are essential things as the doc said. You mentioned, too, chris, this is about Public Health, people being able to stay home. Im in ohio. Its in new york, its everywhere. But people are sick and they go to work like we were taught that you dont stay home. You go to work even if youre sick. Now were trying to cut against the culture. Youre not going to stay home if youre not going to get paid. Thats a Public Health issue that the senate needs to wrap their minds around and get moving. Is that bill we sent them perfe perfect . Absolutely not. Pass it. Move it on. Well come back and talk about cash injections for people and cash injections for businesses and the other things we want to do. Dont sit on your hands and try to let perfect be the enemy of the good here. We heard a short time ago from new york governor andrew cuomo. He said he had a conversation by phone with the president. I want to play what he had to say about that. I said to the president who is a new yorker who ive known for many, many years. I put my hand out in partnership. I want to Work Together 100 . He also said he believed that the president , congressman, meant it when he said were doing everything we can do. Were going to offer you every bit of help we can. Do you see a change a lot of people noted a change in tone and gheen or yesterday at the briefing. Are you sensing a change for conversations you have that things might start to move more quickly . Well, were hoping so. Good on Governor Cuomo for doing it. His leadership in new york i think has been tremendous. I hope that the administration is getting it. Theres no evidence that the president is fully grasping the enormous issues that were dealing with here. We should be mobilizing this country, chris. And i dont mean to overstate it. But we have some shortterm issues we need to deal with immediately. Congressman ro khanna and i have an initiative that puts 5,000, 6,000 in the pockets of working class people, waiters, waitresses, bartenders, people who work in retail. They need cash. Theyre not going to be able to pay their mortgage. Theyre not going to be able to pay their car payment or food. We want to keep them afloat. Theyre literally, the bottom has fallen out for so many families in america. Weve got to get them cash immediately. I dont see the president s urgency with that. We have to get cash to businesses. Those businesses, we dont want them to go under. The Small Businesses, the car wash, bar, restaurant, the person who owns fast food joints or restaurants, they need cash immediately. Were proposing a war bond, a liberty bond where we can get people investing into these bonds and take that money and use it for some of these Small Businesses. Not to drag on, but then we need a medium to longterm plan because were hearing this may come back in the fall. If its anything like the spanish flu, its going to come back a lot worse than it is now. So i think we need to use the next stimulus bill as an opportunity to build publicprivate partnerships with people in the bioTech Industry, instead of relying on dhien nah for 80 of the Component Parts of our medicine, we can start manufacturing this stuff here, ventilators and all these things we no longer produce. How do we fill our empty auto facilities and other facilities that are empty now, get people to work building this medical equipment that were going to need into the future and start reshoring so if it does get worse in the fall, were able to manage this better. All the protective equipment that we cant get down to our local Health Officials on the front lines, Health Professionals on the front lines, we should be making that stuff here. Shortterm, Public Health, cash to businesses, cash to workers, and then a mid to longterm plan to get us prepared if this thing comes roorg back in the fall. Im going to get in trouble because were supposed to go to break. But i think everything you said is important, and we are being inundated with questions about exactly the things that you have just stated, from people who are scared, theyre angry, theyre frustrated. They want to know when their government is going to work. Tell me what youre looking for in this briefing that were waiting for that says to you, congressman, that the white house is indeed moving in the right direction, that pressure can be put to bear on the senate to get this bill done and get it done now. Tell me what the American People, your constituents should be looking for. Well, the president needs to be a calming figure. He doesnt need to be getting in fights with people. He needs to say, look, this is a huge challenge. Ive been a Reality Tv Show president for most of my presidency. This is serious and we need to come together. I extend my hand to Governor Cuomo and other governors around the state and governor inslee in washington, were going to come together, have a shortterm plan. Im calling on the senate to immediately pass the bill that nancy pelosi and the democrats sent to them in the senate. Is it perfect . No. Weve got to get the money out the door. Lets bring in some of the obama folks, robert wolf and Austan Goolsbee and furman and these guys who helped put the recovery act together during the obama aid registration. That would be such a show of support in how can we all come together. A payroll Tax Deduction when people are losing their jobs and not even working . Thats a nonstarter. We have to bring this country together. The president is the person who can do that. I hope he does. Im working closely with governor dewine in ohio, republican governor. Ive been on the phone with him almost every day for a week to ten days, texting, working with his public officials, figuring out how to expand old hospitals. Were working like hand in glove, democrats and republicans in ohio. Thats what we need to do at the national level. That will relieve a lot of peoples anxiety and fear. A tremendous amount of anxiety and fear would go away if they saw what you just said. Thank you for saying it. Congressman tim ryan, good luck. My family is all in ohio. I offer you an extra hug there. Thank you for coming on the program. Take good care of yourself. Up next, any minute now officials on the Coronavirus Task force set to brief the nation. We will have it for you the second they take the stage. It second they take the stage i dont add up the years. And i dont count the wrinkles. But what i do count on is boost high protein. And now, introducing new boost women. With key nutrients to help support thyroid, bone, hair and skin health. 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With safelites exclusive resin, you get a strong repair that you can trust. Plus, with most insurance a safelite repair is no cost to you. Customer really . singers safelite repair, safelite replace. There we are. Live picture at the Briefing Room at the white house, and we are waiting to see if its the president who takes the podium there or the Vice President. But theyre waiting, as we wait for this briefing to begin, i want to go to dr. Joseph fair. Whats at the top of your list . What questions do you want answered here today . First of all, im very happy to see that we finally engaged the commercial sector to get more testing out. That being said, we engaged two companies. There are dozens of companies that can produce commercial diagnostics. I think we need to be engaging every win of them to get them started through that eua process. Here is the president. Lets listen in. Progress being made and i appreciate you all joining us. Last night the fda announced groundbreaking new policies to further increase testing, very substantially so. All states can now authorize tests developed and used within their borders in addition to the fda. So the states are very much involved. They have been involved from the beginning, but were stepping it up as much as we can, and the testing procedures are going well. And within a short period of time, all the private labs will kick in. Its never been done before. Its going to be something very i think its going to be incredible if its done properly. These are great companies, among the greatest companies in the world actually. So the state is going to be dealing through themselves and with local government and local physicians, local everybody. Theyre also dealing with us. We have a tremendous Testing Capacity. Today were also announcing a dramatic expansion of our Telehealth Services. Medicare patients can visit any doctor by phone or Video Conference at no additional cost including using facetime and skype, a historic breakthrough. This has not been done before either. States are to Cover Telehealth Services for their medical patients. By doing this, the patient is not seeing the doctor, per se, but seeing the doctor. So theres no getting close. During this time we will not enforce applicable hipaa penalties so doctors can greatly expand care for their patients using telehealth. The penalties wont be enforced. We encourage everyone to maximize the use of telehealth to limit exposure to the virus. Its been a very successful method of communication, but never used on a scale like were going to use the telehealth. Youll be able to also better maintain Hospital Capacity by doing this. Earlier this morning i spoke with executives from americas fast food industry, wendys, mcdonalds, all of the big ones, burger king, and they were great. Talking about the pickups in light of yesterdays guidance you heard, to avoid eating or drinking at bars, restaurants or public food courts. We discussed the Important Role that the drivethrough pickup and Delivery Service can play in the weeks ahead. Thats happening and they have been fantastic. They have been absolutely fantastic. Theyve been doing it already. Theyre keeping it open. Smaller staffs, very capable people and very capable companies and theyre doing it, pickups. Our guidance yesterday urges americans to take action for 15 days to help stem the outbreak, so its a 15day period. I guess now wed say its a 14day period. 15 days from yesterday. Were asking everyone to work at home if possible, postpone unnecessary travel and limit social gatherings to no more than ten people. By making shared sacrifices and temporary changes we can protect the health of our people and we can protect our economy because i think our economy will come back very rapidly. So its 15 days from yesterday. Well see what happens after that. If we do this right, our country and the world, frankly, but our country can be rolling again pretty quickly, pretty quickly. We have to fight that invisible enemy. I guess unknown, but were getting to know it a lot better. Today the senate is taking up coronavirus legislation that includes free testing for those who need it as well as paid sick leave and family medical leave for workers affected by the virus. Were also committed to getting Small Businesses the support they need. One of the things we talked about with the fast food operations, we spoke to the chairman and ceos of all of the companies, but one of the things we discussed is exactly that, getting Small Businesses support and flexibility they need for themselves and for their workers. Thats being worked on right now. At my direction, secretary mnuchin is meeting today with senators on additional relief packages. He was meeting with them late into the night last night and for a big part of the day yesterday. Tremendous things are happening. Theres great spirit, tremendous spirit. I can say that for republicans and democrats. I can say that with respect to Governor Cuomo, we had a great talk this morning. Were both doing a really good job and were coordinating it. We agreed different states need different things, and we agree on that 100 . We had a very good talk. I think were right down the same track and its going to be very successful. New york has a pretty big problem, i guess the number one hot spot. No fault of anybody. Its just the way it is. Were working very closely together, also getting fema very much involved. Theyve been involved, but now were getting them to a different level and well have everyone ready. Were dealing with the army corps of engineers, should that be necessary. We have them working in some cases, on standby in other cases. My conversation with Governor Cuomo was a productive one. I appreciate that. Giving relief to industries and Small Businesses and ensuring that were merge from this challenge with a prosperous economy. Thats whats going to happen. Its going to pop. One day well be standing up here and say, well, we won. Were going to say that. Sure as youre sitting there, were going to say that. Were going to win and i think were going to win faster than people think, i hope. Later today ill meet with the leaders from the Tourism Industry as well as Industrial Supply retailers and wholesalers to discuss their critical roles. I met with the Department Store people, all the retailers, the big ones including walmart and others. It was great meeting. Theyre stocking up their stores like theyve never stocked them before. Trying to get people to actually buy less if thats possible. Buy less. Dont take everything. Buy what you need for a while. Theyre going to stay open all hours of the day. Theyve been fantastic. Were taking aggressive action now as one nation and one family so that america can rebound stronger. Frankly, stronger than ever before, and we recognize while Many American workers can work from home, many others cannot. Many of our Health Care Providers, First Responders and men and women in food service and manufacturing are showing theyre showing up and standing up to provide us with the goods and services we need. We want people to stay home where they can, but many cases when you talk about food service and manufacturing, certain items in particular, they are going in and theyre practicing all the safety rules and regulations that we talk about. So with that id like to introduce our great Vice President mike pence. Hell say a few words and then ill make some other introductions. Thank you very much. Thank you mr. President. Good morning. It should be very clear to the American People that President Trump has initiated not whole a whole of government approach but a whole of america approach. The president s interaction even today and through the course of this day with leaders and industry around the country reflects that were not only bringing the full weight of the federal government to bear, but the full weight of the american economy. I know i speak on behalf of the president when i say how inspired we are at the way the American People have stepped up and the way that American Businesses, large and small, have stepped up. Its truly been inspiring. Our task force met this morning. We continue to focus on President Trumps priorities of testing, prevention and supplies. In that category, im pleased to report that, while testing is available in all 50 states as the president just indicated through the swift action of the fda at the encouragement of governors around the country, now state Health Authorities can authorize labs in their state and expand existing testing capabilities. But also in connection with the fdas action which youll hear more about in a moment, we now have continued to expand the public and private partnership that the president forged with vast commercial laboratories around the country, increasing access to the high volume, high throughput coronavirus testing that is greatly expanding access even as we speak. Also, our task force received a report this morning on the progress that the u. S. Public Health Service and fema are making, working closely with state governments and also partners in the private sector like cvs, target, walgreens and walmart to expand remote testing sites around the country. Well have a full report later this week as those come online. Its important the American People understand that testing is happening all over the country. But all of our Health Experts wanted me to tell the American People, you dont need the results of testing to know what you should do. President trumps 15day coronavirus guidelines are advice for every american in every community. Theyre the result of the best guidance of cdc and our Health Experts. As the president said, we continue to urge every american over the next 15 days to put into practice the principles in the president s coronavirus guidelines. By every american practicing these principles, we believe that we can slow the spread of the coronavirus. In fact, our experts have told our task force that, if every american acts on the president s coronavirus guidelines, we could see a substantial reduction in the spread of the coronavirus. As the president said, it will take allsaid, it will take all of us to do it. If you feel sick, stay home. If someone in your house tests positive, keep the entire household home. Especially if youre a person with an Underlying Health condition, we urge you to stay home and practice social distancing from people. No social gatherings of more than ten people. Use drivethru as the president discussed with leaders in the industry today and every americ american, especially practicing common sense and good hygiene. The American People as a whole, the risk of serious illness remains low but were asking every american to partner with us in this effort to slow the spread of the virus and especially to be mindful of seniors or others with serious Underlying Health conditions for whom the threat of the coronavirus can be very significant and very real. As i said, the president continued to push our task force to bring a whole of government and whole of america approach. We continue to be inspired the way our nations governors, our nations businesses are responding. We spoke just yesterday with the leaders of every broadcast network in america that will soon be unveiling a Public Service campaign using cdc guidelines and specifically as we work on the issue of supplies, meetings yesterday with department of defense officials about excess supplies, the president and i will be meeting today to speak about the supply chain for hospitals. We would make one specific request, and that is we would urge Construction Companies to donate their inventory of n95 masks to your local hospital and forego additional orders of those industrial masks. Because of what the president asked to be included in legislation moving through the congress today, those industrial masks that they use on construction sites are perfectly acceptable for Health Care Workers to be protected from a respiratory disease. But were asking Construction Companies that our president knows very well from his background, were asking them to donate their n95 masks to local hospitals and forego making additional orders. At the president s direction, we will continue to do whatever it takes. We will continue to marshal the best of the American People, the best of all of the people behind me, the people behind them, our state and local officials and we will get through this and we will get through this together. Thank you. Mr. President . I want to thank chad wulff of Homeland Security the job they did at the airports was incredible. They screened thousands and thousands of people. Ohare got backed up a little bit. They got them out. But everybody was screened and screened very carefully. They didnt want to rush it. I think it was 13 airports and it was an incredible thing. Then they had a big surge also from the uk and ireland. And that went very smoothly. But they did a fantastic job. They worked long hours and they did a fantastic job. I would like to introduce Steve Mnuchin and then ask steve to leave. Hes going to the hill. Hes working hard with the senate and house on a very, very big, bold package. Its going to be big and its going to be bold. The level of enthusiasm to get something done, i dont think i have ever seen anything quite like it. Steve mnuchin, please. Thank you, mr. President. I would like to announce very significant actions the president approved today. The first i would say is earlier today i sent a letter to fed chairman powell approving his request to use 13. 3 and what that will do is the fed will be setting up a special Purpose Vehicle in which the treasury will invest 10 billion in from one of our funds. That will enable the fed to guarantee the purchase of a1p1 commercial paper Going Forward. And that is a 1 trillion market and is critical to american workers. Its critical to American Business and its critical to american savers, who have a lot of that money in money market funds. We heard loud and clear there were liquidity issues. This is very significant and will create i dont think we will need to use it all but we will have the ability to have the fed purchase up to 1 trillion of commercial paper as needed. That has already created significant stability in the market today. The second thing i would say is, you know, we previously talked about deferring irs payments. The president earlier this morning authorized me to announce this program. I have previously announced we would defer 200 billion. The president requested we increase that to 300 billion, which we will be doing. Let me be clear on specifics. We urge americans who can file their taxes to continue to file taxes on april 15th. For Many Americans, will you get tax refunds and we dont want you to lose out on those tax refunds. We want to make sure you get them. Many people do this electronically, which is easy for them and easy for the irs. If you owe a payment to the irs, you can defer up to a Million Dollars as an individual, and the reason why were doing a Million Dollars is that covers a lot of passthroughs in Small Businesses and 10 million to corporations interest free and penalty free for 90 days. All you have to do is file your taxes. You will automatically not get charged interest and penalties. Of course, any american has the right to extend their taxes or not take that but the president has asked us to go up to 300 billion. Thats also an enormous amount of liquidity in the system. The third thing is the president and i worked on a very significant economic stimulus plan. Thank you for being available last night and throughout this morning. And i will be presenting that to the republicans in the senate this morning, and also discussing that with the house. We look forward to having bipartisan support. Were now working with the senate to pass this legislation very quickly. And these will be payments to Small Businesses. Weve talked about loan guarantees to Critical Industries such as airlines and hotels, and we have also talked about a stimulus package to the american worker. You can think of this as Something Like Business Interruption payments for the american workers. Thank you. Do you have any questions for the secretary of the treasury . When you say a stimulus package for the american workers, do you mean direct payments to americans, or are you talking about a payroll tax . Although the president likes the idea of the payroll tax holiday, ill tell you what we heard from many people and the president has said we can consider this, the payroll tax holiday would get people money over the next six to eight months. Were looking at sending checks to americans immediately. And what weve heard from hardworking americans, Many Companies have now shut down, whether its bars or restaurants, americans need cash now and the president wants to get cash now. I mean now, in the next two weeks. How much . I will be previewing that with the republicans. There are some numbers out there. They may be a little bigger than whats in the price. Please, wait. Secretary, what help are you going to give to airlines specifically . Ive had discussions with all of the airline ceos this week. The airline ceos have had conversations with the senate and the house. As the president said, i was up with the subset of the republican senators last night. I have discussed that with them. I think as you know, this is worse than 9 11. For the Airline Industry, this is they are almost ground to a halt. The president wants to make sure although we dont want people to travel unless its critical, we want to maintain for critical travel the right to have domestic travel. 300 billion i will not comment on the specifics. Ill tell you were very focused. Theres a lot of workers. This is strategically important for us and we will be working with congress. The Airline Industry will be in good shape. Go ahead, please. Theres been talk about 1,000 checks to every american, increasing support of republicans and some democrats for that. Would you support that going to everyone or would you support some sort of income restriction on who gets a check . I think its clear. We dont need to send people who make a Million Dollars a year checks, okay. Thats one of the ideas we like. I think were going to do something that gets money to them as quickly as possible. That may not be an accurate way of doing it. Some people obviously shouldnt be getting a check for 1,000 but well have an idea at the end of the day what we will be doing. Can you tell us, how would the mechanics of this work . Weve been talking about a payroll tax holiday, some 500 billion worth, how would this idea of sending people a check work . With that be an advance . Again, we want to make sure americans get money in their pockets quickly. We want to make sure Small Business owners have access to funds. We want to make sure that hotels, airlines, we have an entire package. We will be laying out those details later today. I will say this, there are four different ways you can do it. You can hear me well enough, i imagine. Sorry. People at home, youre right. Those are very important people. Come to think of it. The real people. We have four, five ways to do it, four ways in particular. I think theres a fifth possibility. But there are very good ways of getting the money out and getting it out quickly. Payroll tax is one way but it does come over a period of months, many months. And we want to do something much faster than that. So i think we have ways of getting money out pretty quickly and very accurately. Mr. President , can you talk about the timeline, how quickly you think you can get this done . The president has instructed me we have to do this now. So this is now. By the end of the week . We will work with the senate, whos in session right now actively. We will continue to have conversations with the house. I have already spoken to Speaker Pelosi once today. This is stuff that needs to be done now. The president has instructed me that this is no fault to american workers. For medical reasons were shutting down parts of this economy and were going to use all of the tools we have, as i have said, and what tools we dont have, were going back to congress. I have to go back youre giving 50 billion to those who might be concern its too expensive . We dont want to talk about it. There are expression we are going big. We can keep going back every day or every week, and were going big. Mitch mcconnell, thats the way he wants to go, i want to go. I think we want to get it done and have a big infusion as opposed to going to little meetings every couple of days. We dont want to do it that way. We want to go big, go solid. The country is strong. Weve never been so strong. Thats what were going to be doing. With this invisible enemy, we dont want airlines going out of business and pell losing their jobs and not having money to live when they were doing very well just four weeks ago. So were going big and thats the way it will be and thats the way everybody seems to like it on the hill. Any other questions . In addition to airlines and hotels, you had a call with restaurants today. Was any type of emergency basis discussed, restaurants have to close, even if they are doing delivery, they wont make as much money as they would with a full house . Let me make two comments on the restaurants and the president understands this. This was emphasized this morning. First of all we want to make sure the states allow the drivethru portion of these fast foods to stay open. Particularly in a time period were telling people dont go to restaurants, these companies feed a big part of america, and i expect they are going to feed a bigger part of america. The second thing they asked me to emphasize, i wasnt going to do it now but as long as you asked, many of these companies have asked, you can order ahead of time. That way when you get there, its as simple as theyll have it packed. They can give it to you at social distancing, and it will be very fast. We expect that they will be able to feed a large part of the population. And in regards to support, i will say a lot of these businesses are Small Businesses, are companies, franchisees, 500 or less and we have a specific program we will be unveiling that helps all businesses, small and mediumsize businesses of 500 and less. Regarding Marriott Corporation announced it is furloughing thousands of individuals because of the impacts of the coronavirus. Will your legislation help those individuals . I hope so. Thats one of the reasons why we have to act very quickly, because we understand whether its the airlines, hotels, for good reasons to protect the United States on medical issues, these businesses are shut down and the president wants to make sure, as i have said, we will use all of the powers we have. You saw this today. Trillion dollars of potential liquidity into the market and powers we dont have, were going to congress and i will say theres a lot of bipartisan support for these issues. So im going to apologize because i have to go deal with some other things, if thats okay, mr. President . Thank you. I dont want to comment on this. Where we absolutely believe in keeping the markets open. Americans need to know they have access to their money. After september 11 the only reason the markets were closed is because the technology was disrupted. I have been on the phone with the major banks, new york Stock Exchange. Everyone wants to keep it open. We may get to the point where we shorten the hours if thats something we need to do, but americans should know were going to do everything to make sure they have access to their money at their banks, to the money in their 401 k s and to money in stocks. I want to be very clear, we intend to keep the markets open. And the banks are recordsetting strong, so we have that, which is a much Different Event than what we had not so long ago. Mr. President , you mentioned the army corps of engineers and you had a conversation with Governor Cuomo. The belief is new york will run out of hospital beds. Are you going to increase capacity . Yes, were starting the process. Its a process that we hope is not necessary but could be necessary. The state is working on it very hard themselves but we will probably supplement what theyve been doing. Giving many of the precursors of pharmaceuticals come from china and theres been supply disruptions, that supply chain has been broken to some degree, do you expect we can run into a shortage of prescription drugs . No, i dont see that at all. I think china has every incentive to make sure that things work well. China wants to make sure that things work wevillvery well. They have every incentive to do so. Mr. President , the governor of ohio called off the election that was supposed to happen today, primary election. Do you agree with that decision . And what steps are you taking to make sure Going Forward if this pandemic continues elections will be able to happen, including, of course, the big one in the fall . The governor is doing a great job. He called that off. We will see what happens. Its a court case and it hasnt been fully determined yet. But if he called it off, i could understand that because hes definitely somebody that knows what hes doing. We will be seeing very soon. Theyre going by the rule of 10 as opposed to 50 and thats pretty tough. I would say probably you could violate that if you wanted to for an election. I think an election is avery special thing. He chose a different date, i think some time in june. But that would be a decision made by him if he felt it was necessary. The courts are somebody is challenging so the courts will have their say. What do we do to ensure elections if were still in this situation a month or two months from now . What im doing, john, is very simple. Were getting rid of this virus. Thats the best thing we can do. For the markets, very simple solution. We want to get rid of it. We want to have as few deaths as possible. This is a horrible thing. You look at whats going on with italy, we dont want to be in a position like that. But were much larger because were a much larger country. We dont want to be there. I think were doing really well. I think the states have done well. Were all working together. The best thing we can do is get rid of the virus. Once thats gone, it will pop back like nobodys ever seen before. Thats just my opinion. But i think it will pop back like nobody has ever seen. Just one question, specifically how many hospitals where the army corps of engineers build . And what are you doing to increase ventilators . We ordered a massive number of ventilators. We have by any standards, we have tremendous amounts of ventilators, respirators, tremendous amounts of equipment. But talking about here, this has never been done before. Yesterday i gave the governors the right to order it directly if they want, if they feel they can do it faster than going throughout the federal government. We knocked out the bureaucracy but its always faster to get them directly. That was totally misquoted by the New York Times on purpose, unf unfortunately. If i can amplify. Theres two ways dod can be helpful in terms of expanding medical capacity. The governor of new york has asked us to look at the army corps of engineers, which could perhaps renovate existing buildings. But the president also has us inventorying what you all would understand has field hospitals or m. A. S. H. Hospitals that could be deployed quickly. We spoke with governor inslee yesterday in washington state. We have resources in that part of the country we can move, and as governors make these requests, we will process them and bring them to the president. But there are two different lanes that dod can provide. In addition to many medical supplies to augment our national reserves. The trpresident tasked us to evaluate, make available for every governor to field hospitals, expanding cities or army corps of engineers, which could retrofit existing buildings. The army corps is prepared to do what we say and were looking at where its going. They do call them m. A. S. H. Hospitals but field hospitals go up quickly. We have them and have all of this equipment in stock. Were looking at different sites at a few different locations. Were not going to need them in West Virginia, where so far i guess they have none. Still none . Still none. The governor must be doing a good job. Thats what is reported. Is that a reporting issue or they have no cases . I just see West Virginia is the only one who has no cases. So obviously thats being treated differently than a new york or california, different parts of california. I do say this though, the army corps of engineers is ready, willing and able, we have to give them the go ahead. If we find its going to be necessary, we think we could have quite a few units up very rapidly. Im going to work with Governor Cuomo. Im going to work with a number of the governors. Governor newsom has been very generous in his words and im being generous to him too. Because were all working together very well. I think a lot of very positive things have taken place. Were talking to california about different sites but we can have a lot of units up quickly if we think we need them. I think what i will do is i might ask cisema to say a few words on the telehealth. We can get back to this. Thank you, mr. President. As the president announced earlier, we are doing a dramatic expansion of whats known as telehealth for our 62 Million Medicare beneficiaries who are amongst most vulnerable to the coronavirus. We are working with the bill signed march 6th as well as Emergency Declaration last week. This is part of the broader effort to ensure government rights and regulations do not get in the way of patient care during an emergency. Todays announcement builds on the significant progress of the president who already made over the last three years around Telehealth Services. While we allowed for virtual checkins, full telehealth benefits have been restrigtedcto rural areas, established patient s and brief visits. But no longer. Americans no matter would they live will be able to receive wide range of telehealth without ever leaving home. These services can also be provided in a variety of settings including Nursing Homes, and more. And thanks to this we will temporarily relax certain hipaa requirements so doctors can use their own phones and use enforcement to collect copays so cost is not a barrier. This is a part of our larger efforts around mitigation. As we are encouraging americans to stay home whenever possible, we dont want our medicare policies getting in the way. Consider the implications of this. Perhaps an elderly patient with diabetes needs a routine checkup. This has nothing 20 do with the coronavirus. With our new telehealth benefits, this person whos not really who is at risk for the coronavirus doesnt have to venture outside their home. They can talk to their doctor via skype and they dont have to risk exposure to the virus and they have receive that care from the safety of their own home. It could be another medicare recipient whos experiencing mild flulike symptoms. Instead of leaving the house and sitting in a waiting room full of other vulnerable people, they can also receive a device from their doctor from their home. And this shift is very important for clinicians and providers who over the coming weeks will face considerable strain on their time and resources. Now medicare patients who dont actually need to come in to an office wont have to. This allows the Health Care System to prioritize care for those that are more that have more needs or dire need and preserves protective equipment as well. On state medicare agencies, they can also provide Telehealth Services without federal approval. Were asking all states to make this available as well. We also asked private Insurance Companies to expand their telehealth benefits and make it clear to their providers and their members what they cover. As our nation seeks to balance the true imperatives to get americans the care they need during this outbreak and limiting the spread of the virus, the impact of this historic action simply cannot be overstated. In an emergency, those on the front lines shouldnt have to worry about federal rules and red tape. Hamstringing them when they need flexibility above all else. Were doing everything in our power to make sure that doesnt happen. I also want to briefly mention because of the president s Emergency Declaration, we do have the ability to provide a lot of medicaid waivers and florida was the first state to be approved. We were able to do that in a matter of days. Thank you. Any questions . Where do Senior Citizens go for instructions on how to do the telehealth . They should call their Doctors Office and their Doctors Office will tell them how to do that. Also, there may be medicare members who do not have access for equipment so were asking family members to help with them but also respect requirements around social distancing or if family members have symptoms, to stay away. Will we also be posting numbers . Yes. That might be the easiest way to do it, post numbers. And call the 1800medicare number. They can also get information. Thank you. Admiral, if you can speak and then i will ask dr. Birx to say a couple words. Thank you very much. As we talked about very much this week, the commercial system is rapidly advancing in the testing capabilities. As of today our Public Health laboratories, meaning cdc and Public Health labs, have report reported out almost 32,000 test. The Clinical Laboratories, association of Clinical Laboratories have reported out about 27,000 tests. And most importantly of those 27,000 during the cumulative period of time, 8,200 were yesterday. This is showing the dramatic ramp as high throughput comes in. We dont have the original numbers from all of the hospital laboratories. We will have that in the next day or so and ambassador birx will have this whole process fixed with the legislation that everything is roll up into a common reporting, probably by the end of next week. In terms of our drivethru laboratories, again, these are blossoming all over the country by individual states. The ones that we are heavily involved in and really pushing equipment to, we expect over the next few days to begin setting up 47 of these in approximately 12 states. The material is already palettized and being shipped to specific locations. Most have specific locations. Some do not and still going to central receiving. But we will be deploying at least 400 corps officers b. Half of the sites, about 104 officers will be going and we with expect that to go up. This is going on the way we expected. We did a trial site yesterday with a full mobile unit for drivethru with full ppe. We had a lot of kinks in the system, as you would expect. Thats why we do a test before we go out in the field. Dont expect these to be 100 perfect the moment they come. They will be adapted to the state and local situation but were very confident these will add testing to the already very robust Health Care System and commercial system. Thank you, mr. President. And this has never been done before. It sets a great roadmap for the future. Should we have Something Like this in the future, i hope we dont, but its never been done before. Theyve done an incredible job. Again, were, working with the states and relying on the states. We have to. Its point of sale, point of site. I think in just about every instance were getting along really well with the states. If i could, dr. Birx, if you could say a couple words, please. Thank you. Thank you, mr. President. I think what youve been hearing from us is to find solutions that are high quality and sustainable based on the frontline workers and governors requests. Those come in on the governors call. We have been immediately responsive to those. Thats the level of red tape and bureaucracy that we have removed. I think the point about sustainabili sustainability in quality is very important. As the president said, were creating a roadmap for a different level of functionality for future pandemics. Our flu pandemic Preparedness Plan was a plan. Now were seeing where we have to revise, where we have to create new avenues of research, new avenues of work to really ensure that the need of the American People could be reached. We were adamant about having a highquality test based on our commercial vendors. Over the next few months you will see tests utilized around the world were not of the same quality, resulting in false positives and eventually false negatives. These tests were studied by the fda to ensure theyre that level of quality. Weve given the states permission to ensure that same level of in quality. I want to say one thing on testing. Testing should not be useds as an assessment of your risk. Were asking everyone single american, no matter what your generation, from z up to x and millennials in between, to really ensure that youre following these guidelines. We hear every night of people who are not in work moving that time into bars and other areas of large gatherings. If we continue with that process, we will fail in containing this virus. So every single generation has a role to play. Were asking our older generation to stay in their homes. And were asking the younger generations to support them in social contacting through videos and other skypetype functions. Or just a simple telephone. Were asking the younger generations to stop going out in public places, to bars and restaurants, and spreading asymptomatic virus on to countertops and knobs and Grocery Stores and grocery carts. I heard an innovation last night and this morning again on the news, i really want to applaud the private sector who are now creating senioronly shopping times. I think thats extraordinary. I think that shows what america brings. I think other countries will learn from us about how to protect seniors in this type of way. Im hoping that carry through until next year when we have our flu pandemic, where we can have a different profile of the amount of mortality we have ordinary flu we never talk about, anywhere from 15,000 to 45,000 individuals are lost every year. Le if we learn how to do this well and sustain core changes, we can change not only the virus for this but the future for americans. Thats a big thing. A question on the clip cal data. We have had now roughly 5,000 people test positive. We had 90 deaths or so. When are we going to know the data of who those people are . Whos been affected . What the ages are, preconditions are, how serious it was . Both for those who tested positive but also those who have died . You are singing my sheet of music. Im very data oriented. So thank you for bringing up this issue of data. I want to applaud hhs. We had a discussion about this several days ago. They made calls into seattle and california to really understand that. And also importantly to understand how many of their patients need ventilators . How many needed oxygen support. How many of them needed and what they needed. Could we predict early someone who was going to have a more difficult course . These are all of the questions were asking right and answering right now. We did get an earlier report back from santa clara and seattle. Were digesting it and looking carefully because we think that roadmap is very important to other communities. We have not discussed this with new york yet. We know from other countries, and that all is Available Online that profile. You can see mortality under 30 is extraordinarily low. The mortality across the board outside of wuhan is now settling somewhere around. 7. But that should not be reassuring because its much higher in people with preexisting medical conditions, even if young, and people that are older with preexisting medical conditions. So we still want every american focused on doing what they can do today to change the course of this pandemic. Are you convinced to making that data public so we will although . Were committed to not only making it public but to have a website that everyone can see in realtime. Dr. Birx, if i can just followup, please. You are signaling a much more aggressive posture towards containment and mitigation now. Many states have been very aggressive. But there are a small number of states that have not issued public guidance to their residence. Is it important for the success of the effort that 100 of the states be forward leaning on this and if so, mr. President , what would be your message to those states that have not . Thats why the Vice President and the president yesterday issued those critical guidelines. As i said this morning on fox friends, you can look at them as guidelines or look at them as requirements or look at them as the president asking every american in every state to follow those. Thats why we put them out at the federal level. We wanted to make sure every american knew what they could do today to change the course of this epidemic. I think its empowering. I think it says all of us have a social responsibility to each other and thats why we believe that every mayor and every governor should be instituting these guidelines that came from the white house and the president of the United States. And weve been very tough on those states. I know exactly who youre talking about. Weve been very tough on them. Thank you. You have been telling us for days millions of tests have been sent out. Why have fewer than 60,000 people been tested . I think you will hear different numbers this week. All of the highspeed tests were approved last friday night and last thursday night. If i could talk to termia fisher and other groups that have these platforms out there, do not rely on a pull technology to push out those tests. We can only make them available. Groups have to order them. Weve been talking to therma fisher, one of the key platforms to push out tests based on need and not wait for orders. That would be a human thing to test out or is getting the test conducted . Thats a great question. I know part of it is getting the test out right now. I think the admiral and others are working on the issues related to getting the test conducted. Obviously, that does take time. Hes working on Innovative Solutions that are creative and sustainable that will be a gamechanger inest itting but we dont have the data yet. This is a critical comparer. Can you do it yourself. Can you sample yourself . These are the kinds of things were working on and hes getting the data for it. The states are actually doing a lot of it. The states and governors are doing a lot of it, with even our tests. Can you give us a sense of how long these tough restrictions will need to be in place until we start to see the rate of the virus going down . Can you speak to the study as many as 2. 2 Million People of the United States could die if there werent this type of action by the government taken . I think models are models and theyre based on input and based on infectiousness without any controls. I can tell you weve never seen that level of infections that modeled up to 2. 2 million in mortality. So were looking at that. Were having a particularly model meeting tomorrow. I think thats going to be important. I dealt with a lot of modelers in my time. Theyre wonderful people but they all have their favorite inputs and they all have their favorite integration functions. So were evaluating all of those so we can integrate and create the best model for the United States based on the best data. That first set of recommendations you saw were based on what we could do today to prevent anything that looks like that. If i could just say one other thing to hospitals and dentists out there, things that dont need to be done over the next two weeks, dont get it done. If youre an person with an elective surgery, you dont want to go into a hospital right now. Theres a lot of distraction. Theres a lot of people doing a lot of other things to save peoples lives. Lets all be responsible and cancel things we can cancel to free up hospital beds and space, and then lets do everything that we can to ensure that we dont need the ventilators because we protected the people who would have needed to use them. Are you looking at the possibility of more actions like, for example, limiting travel within the United States . Are you looking its possible. Its possible. We will see how it goes. Theres been a lot of cooperation with local governments and states. Its going pretty well. Can i follow up quickly. Do you need to invoke the defense production to get more medical supplies . Were able to do that and right now we havent had to but its ready. If i want it, we can do it quickly. Weve studied it closely over two weeks ago actually. We will make that decision quickly if we need it. Its a big step. Wouldnt there be more help if the federal government in particular three states need some help. Some states have two people, three people, no people in the case, be again, of West Virginia. Were looking at it very closely. Weve taken it apart 15 different ways. Its a very thing to do. Its a very big step. If we need that step, we will take it. Followup to the first question. A lot of people will travel to places not considered hotspots, caribbean, mexico, over the next couple weeks. Do you recommend they follow through with those plans . I. Would just say enjoy your home. Stay. I would say right now, we have to get this problem fixed and then well get back into business real quick. Well open up our country and open up our society. The world will hopefully open up. We see areas of the world that havent done well and we see ai areas doing very well. I would put us in the category of doing very well for a country so big. I would think, i would recommend they enjoy their living room. Go ahead, please. What do you say to people who are not heeding these guide llis from the white house . I also have a question of asymptomatic people. Aim not happy about those people. But those people are being shouted down boyer people, its like selfpolicing. There are a couple instances, probably more than a couple, people are not happy when they see others doing what theyre not supposed to be doing. We have to get rid of this and win this war and ideally quickly, quickly. The longer it takes, its not a good situation. Im not even talking about the economy. Im talking about the lives of a lot of people. Yes, please. Did you have one . Will the white house put any restrictions on corporate bills for companies that do get billed by airlines . Mike, answer that question, please. I think its all a work in progress. What President Trump has made clear to industries around the country is that theyre going to do whatever it takes. We understand its an extraordinary moment in the life of our nation. Its the reason why the president brought in leaders of the financial sector, Airline Industry, he will meet with Industry Leaders in tourism and hospitality. He has tasked the secretary of the treasury to work with members of congress in both parties to make sure we construct the kind of economic support that will allow those industries to weather the period of the coronavirus and then come back stronger than ever before. Weve had such incredible i dont know, its almost the word spirit is the best word, sort of a spirit. The banks have come in. The banks are doing things they never would have done. Theyre working on extensions and lots of things they wouldnt have done. Copays with regard to the Insurance Companies, for them to be doing what theyre doing with the copays, they would have never done that. They went in their office and i would say the 11 biggest in this country i guess probably the 11 big ones in the world, all of the big ones, they did things on copay nobody would be doing that they wouldnt have done in a million years but theyre doing it. Theres a great spirit going on in the country. Dr. Fauci, you said you like being accused of overreact aing because that is an indication we may be doing things necessary to beat this, and the curve. How long do you think it will take for you to be confident that, yes, were bending the curve, or no, were not . You know, i cant give you a firm number on that because of the dynamics of outbreaks in some respects are predictable historically. They do this and that. We dont know because this is really unprecedented. Of all of the outbreaks i have been involved in, in the last 36 years and going historically back, we never had a situation where the mobilization, all of the different components, travel restrictions, internal containment, mitigation, Financial Assistance, Public Health assistance, testing. So we dont really know. But the one thing i do know, i do know if you look at models who go by their models, when you have input into the kinds of mitigation and things that were doing, were going to see a hump instead of a peak. I would be really surprised if all of the things that were doing and this is really a comprehensive approach. I was struck as i was listening everyone make their presentations. Im a scientist. Im a healthy person and im a physician that sees patients. So i look at it from one particular standpoint. But what im being impressed by this is really a comprehensive thing that has multiple components to it. All of them got to succeed if were going to get to the end point ive described multiple times from this post yum. So podium. I hope if everyone does their job, we will be able to give you a number and say weve seen that inflection and were coming down. I would hesitate to do it now, to be honest with you. It might be misleading. And i dont want to be misleading. I just want to say one other thing because i heard dr. Birx say it and i think we need to say it over and over again. When i was young a long time ago, i felt like i was invulnerable, the way many of us feel were invulnerable, and were asking the young people to help us with this Mitigation Strategy by staying out of the bars, staying out of the restaurants. Really trying to distance yourself. Dont get the attitude im young, im invulnerable. You are relatively compared to what i am but you might inadvertently, and i know you dont want to, put your loved ones at risk, particularly the elderly and ones with compromised conditions. We cant do this without the young people cooperating. Please cooperate with us. This you. Dr. Fauci, theres a new study in china found a vast majority of cases, 86 , were in untested patients with mild to know symptoms . What does that mean about the impact of testing and should it go beyond contamination . That question keeps coming up and im not going to evade the question but i want to make a point. We tend to think were not going to be able to mitigate or contain without testing. They complement each other in some respects but theres separate channels. Even if we had no testing, we should be doing what were doing now. The question youre asking, and i will say specifically, what is being important outside of a doctor and patient coming in together in knowing whats out there, might be under the radar screen . The answer to your question is yes. Let me tell you what the cdc is doing right now. Theyre going out there and part of their program is to get a feel for what is there that wasnt initially thought to be coronavirus. That was thought to be something else. When you do that, you also are going to get a feel of what the pent trance is in society. Weve been heading with the high throughput things you have been hearing about to get an answer to your question. Doctor, Governor Cuomo said this morning he believes we will see a peak in terms of infection in 45 days. Do you concur with that . Its possible. The governor has been really i believe doing a really good job of trying to stay ahead of this. 45 days is not unreasonable. You have to be careful when you get a number, you own the number and then if the number doesnt kol out, youre in trouble. Thats the reason why from our standpoint, if the federal government, were talking about a range. So within that range, it isnt like you want to be correct for the sake of being correct, but you dont want to be wed to something and then have to back off. When is the soonest we will know these new guidelines have been in the curve or are actually working . And is there a point in time in the next couple of weeks where you will be able to tell the president more draconian measures are needed . Whats happening, if you look as a metaphor, its kind of like a race against a virus if left to its own devices will do this. And us trying to somehow blunt that. You can see the virus going up and up and your effect, your work youre trying to do may actually be having an effect but you may not see it because it will still be going up. As youre trying to implement your interference with the virus, you may not realize you are actually interfering and say wait a minute, its still going up. Youve done nothing. But you dont know whether it would do this versus that. So the answer to your question, it probably would be several weeks and maybe longer before we know whether were having an effect. It may be at the end of the day we see a curve that would be way, way up. But i wouldnt like put us to task every few days. Wait a minute, its going up. Is it working or not . That would be really misleading if we do that. Dr. Fauci, i wanted ask about the guidelines announced yesterday. One of those guidelines is a recommendation against gatherings of ten or more people. And today the governor of alabama issued her own guidelines and it was a recommendation of gatherings of 25 or more people. What is your recommendation for people of alabama, people across all of the country as far as the guidelines that were announced yesterday by the federal government . Okay. So one thing we dont want to do is get hung up on the difference between 10 and 25. I think you might agree with that. When we give guidelines, they are only guidelines. We sit down, we look at the data as dr. Birx said, were data driven, and we say on different models, ten looks good. If someone wants to do 25, were not going to fault them. But if someone wants to come to us and ask us what we think the best is, we stand by the numbers. It isnt perfect. It isnt precise math. Its assumptions and data that will get you the decision. Would it be more effective if every state and city in the country were playing by the same rules . Yes, of course. But this is the United States of america. Theres a lot of Free Enterprise there. People do their own thing. Frankly, i dont think theres a big deal difference between 10 and 25. We have many, many more important things to worry about than that difference. What about the supply chains and talking about preparedness for the future. Yesterday larry kudlow said there was an idea floating around the administration to cut taxes for companies that would be bringing their supply chains back to the United States. He specifically likes media 100 writeoffs for structures, equipment, but you havent endorsed that yet. Would you endorse an idea like that . Were looking at many ideas, thats one of them. Were looking at creative incentives for companies, not only that type of company but other companies. Were also looking into helping the Airline Industry within the Airline Industry. We will be doing that. This is not their fault. And theyve been very understanding actually and we will be helping them. We will have a very powerful Airline Industry and it will start up as soon as this is over. We will have those planes ready to go. We have to help them during the short term with very important yes, please. Mr. President , i wanted to know, if you taken a look at some of the models such as Imperial College london model that poses a very difficult choice, whether its shutting down society or overwhelming the Health Care System . We look at every model. We rely on the talented people and theres no better team than the people behind me. I will say all of the people who have done those models are all in con and stat touch with dr. Birx and tony and everybody that you have been hearing so much from over the last couple of weeks. Weve looked at many different models. The model we have is we want to save a lot of lives. We want to save a lot of lives. If we get too steep in that curve, were going to lose a lot of lives, perhaps unnecessarily. Then we will find out. Everything has a risk. You will see. But if people do what were telling them to do and asking them to do, you will see the saving of a lot of lies. Boris in the uk yesterday, you saw what happened. It looked like they were going a different way but then he went a way of similar i guess similar, i dont know exactly but i would say we had a conversation yesterday similar to what were doing. So a lot of people seem to think this is going to be were looking to save the maximum number of lives. Everything else is going to come back. A life is not going to come back. Everything else, our economy will come roaring back. Youre going to were all going to know that day. Somebody was asking about the day when will you know, when will you know . Were going to know. Were going to say all of a sudden thats looking good, thats looking good, thats looking good and we will be on the other side of the curve. Thats a day we look forward to. Sir, was there something you saw this week that made you decide, yes, now is the time to implement these much more stringent social distancing measures . No, i dont think so. This is where we were going, i think, from the beginning. This is where we were going. This is what we had in mind. We were just going step by step. That was the next step, next logical step. As dr. Fauci said, and i think very importantly, one of the most important things when you write the history of this was the fact we closed it down to china and europe, but in particular china. We closed it down to china, the source, very, very early. Very, very early. Far earlier than even the great professionals wanted to do. And i think in the end thats going to be that will have saved a tremendous number of lives. And a followup, one on the question and the other on the broader picture heefr. But just to followup on my colleague, some people did note your tone seemed more somber yesterday. You talked about that august timeline. Did you see a projection some people thought perhaps 2 million potentially that could die maybe prompted part of that . Was there a shift in tone . I didnt think i have seen that where people actually liked it. But i didnt feel different. I have always known this is a real this is a pandemic. I felt it was a pandemic long before it was a pandemic. All you had to do is look at other countries. I think now its in almost 120 countries around the world. I viewed it as no difference yesterday from yesterday to the day before. I feel the tone is similar but some said it wasnt. Your economic adviser said almost 100 chance of recession. Do you see it that way . I dont think in terms of recession. I think in terms of getting it out because when were finished with the virus, we will win. We will win. When that victory takes place, our economy will go through the roof. It is so pentup and so built up, it is so ready to go in an upward direction, but we have to knock out this enemy. This is a really tough enemy but we have to knock it out. All of us. Not recession, its words. We have to knock out this and we will have an economy i think we will have an economy like we never had before. Its all pent up. Do you have something to add . I think the question about the actions that the president s authorized beginning in january, when he took the unprecedented step of suspending all travel from china, and the efforts to issue travel advisories for portions of italy and south korea and then begin screening all of the passengers, the efforts regarding suspending travel from europe and what went into effect midnight last night, adding the uk and ireland into that, have all been informed by the experts surrounding us. What the president s asked us to do from the very gypping as dr. Birx and dr. Fauci of on say, lets follow the data. Bring the president the best options in response to what is actually happening on the ground. But with regard to yesterday, 15day, slowthespread plan, our team unanimously brought to the president these very strong recommendations for every american, because we truly believe were at a point in this pandemic in our country when we can reduce the number of people who actually are exposed to or contract the coronavirus. But question will continue to bring the best data, the best evidence and the best recommendations, frankly, of the best Health Experts in the world and the president will continue to make decisions that put the health of america first. Mr. President in other words, reduce the number of people that die. Thats what were trying to do. When you do the steep curve, a lot of people are going to die. A lot of people. You know, the worst ever they say 1918, and dont have to go into the numbers, but there were unbelievable numbers. Had they known and had they done what we had now, it would have been a much different story. It would still be tragic but very much different. That was the one that people write about that was an incredible that was an incredible pandemic like we havent seen. But we have done something that hopefully we will all have made the right moves. Were all in this together, including you, and we want to see fair press. And i will tell you what, its been generally speaking, i think its been a great thing to see. Its been very, very the getting along with democrats, getting along with republicans, the democrats themselves, theres been a lot of spirit. Theres a lot of things happening in what i have not seen in the first almost 3 1 2 years. Its been very nice to see. One of the good things. We have to knock it out and we have to win. We want to keep that slope as low as possible. Theres a lot of lives in there. Lets go back here, please. Mr. President , this has had a huge impact on chinas economy as well. Have you received any indication from officials there theyre going to have trouble meeting the Purchase Agreement part of the phase one deal, particularly agricultural wise . They need our product very badly. No, i havent received in Good Relationship with china. I have not received anything to that. They have a signed agreement. They have been and will be buying a lot of product. Earlier today dr. Birx is talking about the possibility of our Hospital System being overburdened, overtaxed and she talked about certain options that are available to the United States if that happens, including the va hospitals, department of defense medical Treatment Facilities and even hospitals. At what point do you tap in to those options . Ill know the point. By speaking with Governor Cuomo and other governors, we will know the points will be different for new york than its going to be from iowa or idaho or from West Virginia, frankly, or anyone. Its different. New york has got a big problem. State of washington has a big problem. California has some big problems. And everyone is doing a good job but were going to know what it will be. I believe it will be more spot its not going to be the whole thing. Its going to be spots. There are hot spots that are in trouble, big trouble. And other areas in no trouble at all. They watch it on television. Its just not affecting them and theyre lucky. Theyre lucky. But there are areas of the country who dont have much of a problem and some who dont have any problem. Theyre not going to have a problem with hospitals. But some areas like new york, california, state of washington. Theyre going to have some difficulty. When we see that coming, were going to be in there. Were already making preparation for it. Mr. President , senator mark meadow of florida and your trade adviser Peter Navarro have been recommending a executive order that would ensure pharmaceuticals and medical devices are manufactured here in the United States. We were getting some indications last week you were close to signing this executive order. Can you tell us were looking at different things, john. I dont want to say exactly. Right now china is sending us everything we need. But were looking at alternatives, yes. We are looking for alternatives. We have other places. Ireland does a lot of work for us, you know that, in the pharma world. Very tremendous producer. And we are to bring a lot more back home. Excuse me. Youve known me a long time. Ive been talking about this for many years, long before i decided to run for president , ive been talking about this. We have to be able to take care of our country and that was one of the many things on the list so well be talking about it, but we are discussing it and marco is very much involved and peter is very much involved. A lot of people are involved and a lot of people feel that way. Well be discussing. Please. Canada has closed its border to noncitizens. Are you considering not to the United States. Not to the United States, of course. Are you considering closing the land borders in the United States and also canada has not closed it to the United States so were working closely with canada but they have not closed it. They have closed it to the world but not to the United States. Are you considering closing the u. S. Land borders . Were discussing things with canada and with mexico quite honestly. And, again, the relationship is outstanding with both. Outstanding. Just signed our deal. Uscma and the relationship is very strong. Go ahead, please. Others have criticized you for using the phrase chinese virus. How do you feel about that . Are you going to continue using that phrase . Well, china was putting out information which was false that our military gave this to them. That was false. And rather than having an argument, i said i have to call it where it came from. It did come from china. So i think its a very accurate term but, no, i didnt appreciate that china was saying our military gave it to them. Our military did not give it to anybody. Critics say using that phrase creates a stigma. No, i dont think so. I think saying that our military gave it to them creates a stigma. Mr. President please. When you speak to travel and tourism executives today, what specific help are you going to offer to them if at all, or is it still were going to help they need help. Lets face it. They go from having recordbreaking years. This is the third year of recordbreaking years in travel and tourism, airlines, everything. They were doing record numbers. Ordering new planes, including new hotels. Everything was really hunkydory and then one day, we hear about this rumor in china and then find out its much more than a rumor. And then all of a sudden, we make a great decision to close it up early. It would be a whole different world. A whole different world but we make a decision to close it up to china and all of a sudden, tourism and then we close it up to europe which people never heard of this before. Im not sure that thats ever been done. I know when i made the decision to close it to china, people told me thats never been done before, but it was a great decision. We make good decisions. So ill tell you, my best decision, the people behind me are total pros. All over the world, they are respected. Dr. Birx, anthony who has become, what is it, hes become a Major Television star for all the right reasons. Hes just so professional, so good that people that we have working here have been incredible. And theyre totally respected. The admiral has been incredible having to do with the testing. Incredible. Hes viewing this as testing for the future. Were building a platform. When we took over this platform, first thing the admiral said was, this was not designed for what were talking about, millions of people. It wasnt. And its nobodys fault. Who could have ever predicted a thing like this. But we broke it down and its really going to be incredible system, and it is now a great system. I just want to say, these are incredible people standing behind me. The most respected in the world. Every country that youve mentioned today so far has called them and they call them all the time for advice. Theres nobody better than what we have. Mr. President why havent we seen dr. Redfield the last couple of days . I dont know. Hes in atlanta running the cdc. Hes doing a good job. Were very happy with him. Mr. President please, you havent. Mr. President , yesterday we were being told the payroll tax was going to comprise the lions share of fiscal stimulus. We also had the markets fall quite dramatically yesterday. Did that inform it wasnt about the payroll tax. Did that inform your decision . What made you make that change and when did you make that change . I didnt make a change. Were look at payroll tax and other forms of getting money to people and the payroll text is something that ive always liked. The problem is it does take a period of time. Months before they really see something. And we dont really have months in terms of people living. A lot of these you have people that work on tips. You have people in our its a large number of people. Its a tremendous who would think this. And they do nicely. They work very hard but they work on tips. We have to take care of our people. We dont want to have people suffering during this period. It wasnt their fault that this thing all of a sudden was upon us. So were looking at various were also looking at payroll tax. Its also possible well do a percentage of payroll tax and then other things. But wed like to be able to get money to people, you know, were very lucky. Our country is doing so well. We can do this, and we can do it easily, but we have to do it. And Mitch Mcconnell, if you look at mitch and kevin and a whole group. Its been incredible how they are reacting. How congress is reacting. How whether its the house or senate, how theyre moving. Im talking about democrats and republicans. But weve had tremendous leadership meetings, and they want to see it done right. And they do want to go big. I think going big is important. I dont think we want to go up there every day with a different idea, different concept. Oh, gee lets worry about the airlines. You have a big problem with the cruise ship industry. An industry that was setting all sorts of records and then all of a sudden, theres nobody on the ships, okay . So we have to help these. These are great these are going to be taking care of people and passengers and, for years to come, and paying tremendous taxes. Tremendous taxes for years to come. So we have to make sure that this is done. Yes, john . Mr. President , i want to bring a point what you referred to just a short while ago about politics. In your address to the nation you said zee to put politics aside, stop the partisanship and unify together. This morning you criticized the democratic governor of michigan. Yesterday the democratic governor of new york. Youve attacked obama. Youve attacked bien. In fact, every day except one since that draerks youve lashed out at a democratic leader. Are you going to set the example . I only do that when i have to respond. I watched her on television. She said something that was false and so, therefore, i did that. And i will continue to do that. If theyre not going to play fair because they have the media on their side. I dont. I just have me. If theyll not play fair, im going to do that. If they are going to play fair, theres going to be theres going to be nobody better than donald trump in terms of bipartisanship. But if they are going to say things that are false, like the story that was written yesterday. A lot of people i dont know, somebody, i think i know who, but they taped the Conference Call that i had with the governors. It was fine. I assume somebodys going to tape it. They handed it to various people. One of whom was the New York Times, and the New York Times chose to write totally inaccurately about it. It was a disgraceful thing. Bad journalism. But they do a lot of bad journalism. But we respond to that. And actually people get it. People get it. No, i wanted to be bipartisan and nobody is going to be better than me, but when they attack me or the people, these incredible people behind me, im not going to let them get away with it. Cant do that. How about one or two more questions. Follow up on the next natural step. Is the next natural step after that a National Lockdown similar to what San Francisco is doing . You can do a National Lockdown. Hopefully were not going to need that. We think of everything. We have every idea youve mentioned weve thought of and its a very big step. Thats a step that, i mean, in one sense would work. Thats a very big step. Its something we talked about but havent decided to do that. Mr. President , what would be the determining factors for you to take that action . It would have to get to a level i just dont think its going to be an action that were going to take. But anthony, all of the people standing behind me would get together in a room, plus some additionals and we would make a decision. But i dont think thats a step were going to take. One more question. You didnt have one, did you . Come on. Will the u. S. Government provide Financial Assistance to boeing and airplane suppliers like ge . Were looking at that. Were certainly looking at boeing. Boeing got hit hard in many ways. Boeing never had a problem for years. They were an incredible it was unthinkable what happened with respect to boeing. Unthinkable. Probably, i would consider it the greatest company in the world prior to a year ago. Now they get hit in 15 different ways. And they have different management. Ive met the new people running boeing. I think its going to be outstanding. But, yeah, we have to protect boeing. We have to absolutely help boeing. They were doing a job they were getting, it was coming along well, and then all of a sudden, this hits. So, obviously, when the airlines arent doing well, boeing is not going to be doing well. So well be helping boeing, yeah. Can you respond to something, mr. President , before you leave owhat john was saying. You called for people to leave politics out of this. Joe biden said the World Health Organization offered testing kits that they had available to the United States and to give it to us now, we refused it. We didnt want to buy them. Polit fact said the w. H. O. Never made that offer. Thats what i heard. Im going to let tony answer that question or whoever is best at answering that. I have to say, when you talk about politics, i watched the debate. Not too exciting. But what they said about me and weve done a great job, when you talk about not being bipartisan, what they said about me. And if you look at swine flu, the whole thing and i guess it was 2009, and what they did and the mistakes they made, they were terrible. They were horrific mistakes. 17,000 people died. And ill be st