Transcripts For MSNBCW The Last Word With Lawrence ODonnell 20200425

Not safe. Just because numbers are going down doesnt mean we can stop efforts. How testing is key to the balance between Economic Health and Public Health. Could this lead to unnecessary deaths . There is a danger of a rebound. The scientific race for answers. A vaccine may be far off but what are we learning today about a cure for covid. People with antibodies can donate blood for the pla sma. The lessons overseas, classes back in session in europe. What does it mean for students here. This is a special edition of the last word life in the time of coronavirus. Welcome to another night of life in the time of coronavirus. We have come to a moment of growing restlessness in the United States as some people begin to protest what they see as oppressive, unnecessary closures of businesses and schools and others are protesting what they see as inaction and a lack of Straight Talk by administration. Doctors, scientists, experts and Public Health, they all say the country cannot return to normal until we have adequate testing for the virus and treatment for the disease. We dont have either one. Nor do we have the ultimate solution, a vaccine. But there are reasons for hope. Tonight, were going to look at one attempt to develop a treatment. Were going to get the latest when and how kids might return to school and talk to microsoft founder bill gates on his efforts to Speed Development of treatments and the all important coronavirus vaccine. With me once again for the hour, dr. Zeke emanuel. Dr. Emanuel is a physician who served as the Health Policy advisor in the obama administration. Hes the vice for global initiatives at the university of pennsylvania. Dr. Emanuel is also an nbc news and msnbc senior medical contributor. Zeke, good to see you again today. Lets start things off with you gives us a sense where we are in this crisis. Your vital signs for this moment in our national life. Nice to be here with you, ali. I have three vital signs that stand out for me tonight. First, were not going to get out of this crisis without testing. And right now were not going nearly enough testing compared to other countries when it comes to how much of our population can get a coronavirus test. You can see in this slide were behind. Second, in places where were able to test a lot like the navys uss Theodore Roosevelt they found 17 of the crew got the virus and an amazing 60 of the positives had no symptoms at all. Well, they are sailors. But if they hadnt been tested, they never would have known that they had the virus, which shows you how important it is that we be able to test people so we can find the virus and stop its spread. And the third vital sign because we dont have nearly enough testing, the only way to contain the virus has been to shut everything down. As a result, 26 million americans in the last four weeks have filed for unemployment. That is a crazy painful number. We dont know that were through with it because last week we had 4. 4 million after more than six million in the previous week. We may be looking at adding millions to that number and i dont want to drag you into politics, zeke but 2020 and everything these days seems to be a little political. I want to get your take as a medical professional on something donald trump said yesterday at the white house. L lets listen together. So supposedly we hit the body with a tremendous whether its ultraviolet or just very powerful light and i think you said that hasnt been checked but youre going to test it and then i said suppose you brought the light inside the body which you can do through the skin or in some other way. And then i see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute, one minute and is there a way we can do Something Like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs so it would be interesting to check that. Youre going to have to use medical doctors but it sounds interesting to me. So zeke, here is the thing. Hes not entirely wrong on both fronts, right . We know these disinfectants kill the germs and uv light from the sun kills the germ but what do you make of how trump put that all together . Well, i react to it as if i were a parent and im a parent. You know, you are in constant dread your kid is going to get into the bleach or the lysol or the fantastic so you lock it under the sink and you make sure that theres a secure lock on that cabinet and you have the poison control number on your refrigerator and you just hope that you never leave the cabinet open and the kid gets into it and now you have the president telling people, well, maybe we should take, you know, bleach or something, those disinfectants to treat this. Everything parents fear is in that statement, its just, you know, blood curdling that someone would advocate this on television where kids could hear it. Now here is the thing, zeke. Im going to talk tomorrow morning to ed who is studying uvc light and these sorts of things. Theres a sense that the president said today was being sarcastic if you watch that video it doesnt seem like s sarcasm. There is a danger about the president of the quite leadiuni leading that charge. Hes not an expert on how we assess whether things work or as you can tell from the clip how we actually get therapeutic idem te items into the body. I dont want to say people should stay in their lane but it doesnt take expertise to deliver it to people and we shouldnt be talking about it casually. Right. The president is also talked about other treatments and one of them is a Combination Treatment that includes hydroxychloroquine. This week there is a panel at the National Institute of health that recommended against having doctors prescribe that combination. Are we any closer this week to having either a scientifically sound treatment that doctors can draw on or some other form of therapeutic . We should be clear about the hydroxychloroquine and why they recommended against it. In studies, weve seen some rare complications heart arrhythmia where the heart electrical system doesnt cause the heart to beat properly and that can be dangerous and fatal. Are we closer to a therapy . Well, a few weeks ago it was rem d rem d remdesivir was ththat was p. It doesnt seem to be a home run. The important thing is to try them in controlled trials. Some people get the treatment and some dont so we can compare them headtohead otherwise we dont get comprehensive data and information that allows us to make a decision. We have a lot of stories and you cant rely on the stories to tell you whether the treatment is working or not. The patient recovered but you dont know was it the treatment or was the patient going to recover anyway . As a cancer weve seen that many, many times and been frustrated by it and you can only prove what works when you do the right trial and get the data. The frustrating thing as oncologists is you see the trials take time and the answer doesnt come quickly as we see it and in the search for coronavirus treatments and a coronavirus vaccine, much of the work is being done by private companies and by foundations with an interest in Public Health and among them is the bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Funding seven different teams all of whom are working toward the production of a possible vaccine. Now, bill gates published a paper yesterday called pandemic one. It is 16 pages long and a good read. It outlines the challenges ahead in terms of testing, treatment and ultimately a vaccine, which is something bill gates knows a thing or two about. He sat down with zeke and me to talk about it and here is the first part of our conversation. Joining us, microsoft cofounder and the cochair of the bill and Melinda Gates foundation. Bill gates, mr. Gates, welcome. Thank you for joining us. Zeke, lets get it kicked off. Thank you, ali. Bill, you and i have known each other for more than a decade now. One of the things in this covid19 pandemic that a lot of people are worried about is that if we discover a vaccine the bottleneck may turn out to be production, distribution and administration of the vaccine. What are you personally prepared to do to accelerate the process of production and distribution . Well, because were in a rush to get the vaccine done, we need to back up to Ten Companies because were not sure which one will work. Its a novel virus. Weve never done a vaccine like this before. There are some things in common like the last stage manufactu manufacturing, if you want to make 7 billion or 14 billion doses, that will be a bottleneck so were funding that will work for all the vaccines and together with the governments, well fund the different manufacturing plants. Unfortunately, theyre not the same because the process of making these things like you makelipids and big 15 liter tanks. These are the balls that we need to save to stop spending trillions in economic relief. So id say between the rich World Governments and the gates foundation, the financing of this should not be a bottleneck. We should be able to allow the most promising efforts to go at full speed. Are you building or going to begin building plans to actually produce vaccines whether its for the rna vaccines or for some of the other big fermenting plants . Yeah, at this point a lot of what were doing is funding the early stage research, you know, so people can get into phase one where you will actually see particularly if you go to the elderly, enough antibody response to understand which are the most promising and compare that antibody response to the natural disease immune system response. So most of the grants weve done so far are not in the manufacturing piece as we get further along, even in the next month, we want to do that, as well. Figuring out this coordination where its across many countries and you have to apply judgment which of these are the ones to go for, theres over 100 different efforts and, you know, some are being championed by the country that theyre in. So were within a few weeks of having a clear construct for prefunding manufacturing plants. Bill gates, youve wrote this great paper thats about 16 pages and a worthwhile read for everybody. You talk about these pcr machines. The machines that would test the swabs and shortage of them and something you wrote caught my attention. You said there will be a temptation for companies to buy testing machines for their employers or customers. A hotel or cruise ship operator would like to test everyone even if they dont have symptoms. They want the pcr machines that give quick results or rapid diagnostic tests and the companies can bid high prices well above what the Public Health system would bit. How do we prevent this from being a bidding war where only those who can afford it get the testing and the rest of the world sits around and wait. The things im most surprised about the federal government response, the unwillingness to get involved in test priorization is the most amazing. You know, other countries who wrote their pandemic plans, the idea of getting the pcr capacity up and making sure its going to the right people with quick results, that was their day one thing. And it shouldnt be that hard. Still to this day we have pcr machines that arent being used that well. Understanding the bottleneck. Our foundation is driven the work to get the front end, the swabbing greatly simplified so you can actually have cheap swabs you can have out everywhere so as soon as you feel symptoms, you can get the swab, take it and then send it in to have the pcr machine test it. Today a lot of the tests you get the results so late or its the wrong person being tested. So our capacity when people look at the numbers, the u. S. Is the worst at tests prioritization and if were not careful, it will get worse because of course, people want to an employer wants to make sure nobody is coming in and infecting people so if we had infinite Testing Capacity, hallelujah, go ahead and test asymptomatic employees every day but that, you know, we have 330 Million People in our Testing Capacity is under 200,000 a day right now, and so, you know, you cant test a meaningful percentage of the population even in, say, a week. You cant even do 1 or about a third below that. So its kind of in the same that were not prioritizing the Testing Capacity even as it grows to go to the right applications. Maybe, bill, i can follow up on that question, which is you in your paper that ali referred to, you are advocating testing symptomatic people. Some of us like myself and others have recommended testing people who are trying to find asymptomatic spreaders who really meet with a lot of other people because we think thats the most serious threat and the most serious way that we might spread the disease. Why do you think testing symptomatic people is should be our top priority . Well, there are asymptomatics who have antibodies. Thats being vastly over stated in most cases because of false positives. All these tests shouldnt be a b value. Pcr gives you the ct value and what you see in asome evymptomas reduced viral load and they show about 6 of the infections coming from asymptomatics. We need to understand the role of asymptomatics in that because the degree to which you can open up is greatly affected by how much of the force of infection comes from people who would never seek out a test, but we dont have unless there is a breakthrough and were working on a pefew, we dont have the ability to test asymptomatic. We need to understand a statistical sense, understand these sources of infection but where thats been done like the singapore study was the best on that, its not a huge percentage in this case of the infections taking place. So i want to switch now to talk about treatment for a second. And in your white paper you released yesterday, you have a sentence that struck me as interesting. You said we need a treatment that is 95 effective in order for people to feel safe in big public gatherings. Im a little curious how you got to the 95 and what do you think is a timeline to get to any kind of treatment that the going to be 95 fe effective to give peop confidence going out in public is a good idea . Well, people have a mental model about, you know, fear of death and what things they particularly worry about. Some that are statistically modest like airplane crashes loom larger, some like car crashes that are greater. You know, in the extreme you could say we dont when we have flu, which is often, say, 40,000 deaths a year, we dont close schools in a typical flu season. We dont empty the football stadiums. And so if you take the extreme case where you really are letting the infection spread throughout the population and yet, you have the therapeutic that greatly reduces the deaths, how much below the seasonal flu level would you have to get before it isnt the dominant thing affecting peoples willingness to travel and do activities . So i dont know what that percentage number is, but there is some level at which people realize okay, even if you let the growth take place, the bound of what is at risk which without the therapeutic 1 death rate would be 3 million in the u. S. Alone, you know, if you got that down to typical flu season levels, you know, would that, you know, encourage the idea that okay, Economic Activity is appropriate. All right. Well have more of our conversation with bill gates coming up this hour including his reaction to states like georgia beginning a partial reopening today and the pressures that President Trump is putting on those states. Well examine the question as well of when the nations children are going to be able to go back to school and zeke is going to explain one of the coronavirus treatments that are under development that is offering some promise, life in the times of coronavirus. Well be right back. S of coronas well be right back. I just love hitting the open road and telling people that Liberty Mutual customizes your insurance, so you only pay for what you need [squawks] only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Does that mean they have to grow apart from their friends, or from the things they love to do . With right at home, it doesnt. Right at homes professional team thoughtfully selects caregivers to help with personal care, housekeeping, meals and most of all, staying engaged in life. Oh, thank you, thank you. Youre welcome. Are you ready to go . Oh, i sure am. We can provide the right care, right at home. Welcome back to life in the time of coronavirus. Im here with dr. Zeke emanuel. We heard from bill gates about the hunt for a treatment that would work for 95 of the population. Now zeke, there is one idea of a treatment that comes from the blood of people whove had the virus and recovered. Its called convalescent plasma and ill show you how it works with some of our images from our good friends at bio digital. Lets remember how the virus works. Using the spike protein on the outer shell of the svirus, the coronavirus enters a healthy cell in your lungs through a receptor and it then hijacks its machinery to replicate. From there your experience depends on part in your immune reaction and any under lying conditions you may have. Though we just passed 50,000 deaths in the United States, the vast majority of poi shaenatien the disease will recover. When they do, we hope they will to ses antibodies and other key immune molecules and cells that are specifically built to fight the coronavirus. These antibodies can be safely donated and potentially used to help other patients with coronavirus. For that, we extract the convalescent plasma from the patients. The process is like giving blood but with a twist. Whole blood which contains red blood cells, white blood cells, antibodies and molecules is drawn from your arm and immediately put into a center. The spinning causes various cells and molecules to separate. Everything but the plasma is sent right back into the body of the person who donates. The plasma eventually goes to a patient sick with covid19. Now different anti bodies are targeted at different proteins. But the ones for the coronavirus know their mission. They attach to the spike protein on the outside and that prevents the virus from binding to the receipt tors on your healthy lung cells. So the antibody may tag the virus for targeting by the big guns that are killer cells from your immune system. So thats how convalesce se so where are we in that process . Is it in play where people had coronavirus and recovered are able to do this . Yes. There are loats of places aroun the country coal legislatllecyd other institutions around the country. So this is a very promising treatment, but like everything else, we need to subject it to rigorous scientific evaluation giving the plasma to some patients and not to others who look identical. Let me ask you this because you and i talked to bill gates about this. Anything we do, whether its a treatment, a therapeutic or vaccine requires replication at scale. We got to be able to do this for a lot of people. Is convalescent plasma the kind of thing we can scale or does it depend on donors giving specific plasma that gets given to patients who need it to recover . Well, youre absolutely right. You have to collect it from patients who have recovered and then reinfuse it. Its clearly a process that can be done at hospitals and its not a process that can scale to hundreds of thousands or even millions of patients but it is a process that can be used for thousands of patients who are particularly sick if it works effectively. Well take whatever hope we can get right now. In the second part of beer view wi interview with gibill gates he said what its important to Contract Trace as a way to reopen the economy and what changes in our behavior will last beyond this period of stayathome orders. Here is a little more from our interview. We happen to be sitting in that place are this debate is raging across this country with some governors wanting to open up more quickly. The governor of georgia talking about the need to open up bowling alleys and tattoo parlors, which i would have thought would be at the far end of the scale when you reopen but im not sure this is the conversation rooted in science and fact and Infectious Disease study as it should be. Whats the way in which you think we should be govr earniere decisions to reopen society as opposed to it being the political decision . Were serious about this when we prioritize the testing and we do serious contact tracing. You know, without that, opening up is dangerous because youre blind. Youll only see it with a 20day leg as you start to see hospitals fill up and the deaths and by then, youre up at meaningful percentages of the population and thats absolutely horrific. We dont want to get back to those to this first peak type situation which in many locations including new york has been absolutely awful. So that whole opening up discussion should be conditioned on a serious testing priori prioritization system and serious Contract Tracing system and asking scientists which activities as we look back through the singapore records, south korea records, which activities are creating the highest risk . You know, are young people involved in the chain of infection . Why are places like boats and meat packing plants so extreme . Do we have much outdoor infection at all and what does that say in terms of things that could be done in that format . Theres a lot of insight in this but, you know, it Needs Analysis and we need to get that to the political leaders and, you know, looks like well have to get it to every state governor some of whom will Pay Attention to it and some of whom wont. Traditionally, this is a cdc function but, you know, it sort of moved up to the white house where, you know, to sort of nonscientific level and so each governor is going to have to figure it out. So bill, one of the things i noticed that wasnt in the white paper was mention of sweden and discussion of opening up the way sweden tried it, which is let the virus go i wont say wild but let it percolate. Their supposed to get close to herd immunity in the country in 40 days or something. You dont youre not a big fan of that i take by implication. Why not . Well, sweden you have to understand the activity levels are not just determined by the government mandates, you know. Even if the government is allowing things to happen, people change their behavior. And so if you look at the google mobility data or facebook mobility out of sweden, their behavior is nothing like it was before the epidemic hit. Nothing at all. We have to be careful not to equate government policy with Human Behavior even as you go into opening up because youll have such wide spread of things. The sbe sweden is not getting an infection level that will sweep through the population in 40 days. They backed off enough on their activities so they will probably stay at a reproductive rate above one and experience more deaths. You know, i think i doubt their policies are the right ones but if they go down that path, we should observe what is going on and have that as a piece of understanding. To be frank, if you said to me a year ago, hey, as soon as this Infectious Disease comes out, you know, which i saw has a very serious risk, everybody is going to shut down, i would have said wow, really . It has to do with the human how were affected by, you know, we read about these deaths. We dont want our parents to die. And so even if it not very numeric, there is a much stronger response to not, you know, have even the 1 death rate, which, you know, that would be 3 million for the u. S. , not to have that take place and you know, you cant control Human Behavior just when somebody wants to keep the gdp high. One of the things that zeke and i found interesting in your paper is the reference you made to the fact this is going tore era defining in a way not like the recession, not everyone like 9 11, not even like vietnam. Youre talking about world war ii level redefining how we think and how we behave and obviously, some of that is yet to be seen, right, when these stayathome orders get lifted, who actually rushes out because they have been craving it and who doesnt believe its safe to do so. In what ways do you think we will fund mentally change once this is behind snus. I definitely think well take the risk of a second pandemic seriously and make some of the foundational investments and many of those will create medical tools that will be beneficial for diseases in both Infectious Diseases and cancer that, you know, it great to make progress on those things. I do think using digital approaches and maybe not traveling quite as much that even after you get rid of this threat, that people will have been so emersed in it and the tools and techniques will have improved enough that well take what would have been ten to 15 years of Digital Adoption and cram it into a short period like wise behavior around shopping or how people get in touch with each other. And so a lot of it is an acceleration of like a move to Online Shopping that were already there. You know, thank goodness the internet has enough capacity that its ability to let us connect, share information is very strong. Ten years ago, that would not have been the case and so, you know, weve jumped on that and its helped some. Particularly for white collar jobs, its surprising to me the productivity levels for some activities, you know, are not greatly reduced and i wouldnt have expected that to go as well. You know, sadly, for lower income people who do physical service type jobs, there is no digital substitute. And thats a key point for many of us were able to be as productive as we otherwise are working from hope. Some people arguably are even more productive working from home than they were otherwise but for some people that choice simply doesnt exist. Either because they cant afford to do it or work in places or industries in which they cant make that choice. Coming up, children are back in school in denmark and denmark is the first country in europe to reopen Elementary Schools since the pandemic started but it does not look like the school of two months ago. How are kids doing in this new normal in the close room and is it a preview of what school life will be like in the u. S. When schools are able to reopen . Were going to have that report when we come back. E going to ha when we come back. I have always wanted to be a teacher. With everything going on, weve had to alter our classroom settings. We have to transition into Virtual Learning to make sure that the education is continuing. vo verizon and the New York Times are offering 14 Million Students free Digital Access to times journalism. 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. 9. 95 . No way. . 9. 95 . Thats impossible. Hi, im jonathan, a manager here at Colonial Penn Life Insurance company, to tell you it is possible. If youre age 50 to 85, you can get Life Insurance with options starting at just 9. 95 a month. 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Back to school in denmark its the first country in europe to reopen eloqueementary school since the start of the coronavirus pandemic and its a bold move. It is a realtime experiment whether Elementary Schools can reopen while containing the virus. Denmark tested over 2 of its population. This week it expanded testing to anyone who has symptoms but denmark was one of the first countries in europe to lockdown and it has a low mortality rate from coronavirus. Lets go to the danish capital ko copehagen where molly hunter reports why and how danish schools reopened. Denmark has become a laboratory a possible template for the rest of the world, classes in the time of contagion. Today marks a week since schools reopened for students under the age of 112 after a month of lockdown but looks different and so far its working. Outside here in a tent sitting two meters apart. We have to do as much outside teaching as possible so you have to do anything in a new way. Kids seem really happy to be back. They are really happy. First day of school, yeah finally no more home schools. Exactly. The teachers are just trying to make it feel the same. We try to keep up all these small Little Things that we did before corona and we try to do it in a different way. In her first year of teaching worried less about the missed school work and more about the missed socializing. Its a really good thing because we talked to the children about this and they say that seeing their friends facetoface not only talking to them on the phone was a really good think. Have you ever seen kids this excited to come to school . Not really. Hey, guys. Hi. So are you happy to be back . Are you excited . Yes. What did you miss the most . Do you miss your friends . My friends. My friends. Your friends . Else . Teacher. Teacher. Oh. In a matter of days, schools here built outdoor tents and started mandating hand washing five times a day. But not everyone was comfortable. Some parents including kim kept her kids home for the first day to see how it played out. What was the conversation between parents . The balance of we have to do our work, they are really boare, some of the smaller kids need to be stimulated. But kim like other parents questioned why the youngest return first. Denmark locked down on march 11th when the only other country in europe doing so was italy with its hundreds of deaths in more than 12,000 infections. At the time, denmark had around 500 known cases and no deaths. Around the same time new york state later that week on march 15th also closed schools with 729 known cases and five deaths. Now six weeks later, denmark has just over 8,000 known cases and about 400 deaths. Copehagen feels and looks fairly relaxed with bars, restaurants but people are outside hanging out, eating ice cream, eating drinking, hair salons opened because denmark locked do down early. The curve flattened out and its possible to reopen because of that and that is very positive. But its still too early to tell if this was the right move. A warning for the rest of the world. Molly hunter, nbc news, co copehag copehagen. All right. Here in the United States three quarters of states have now officially closed their schools for the rest of the Academic Year and in our conversation with bill gates, we asked him how he envisions u. S. Elementary schools returning to in person school, when he envisionins tha and could denmark be an example to follow. I wanted to ask you about schooling and not college but primary schooling and what you think of opening that up given the fact that children dont seem to be affected or if infected, have no symptoms and hardly ever die. Denmark seems to be going ahead. I just got off the phone this morning with norway and theyre thinking of doing a big randomized trial, randomizing half the municipalities to open school and half not. How do you think about Opening School and should we think about it in september . Well, i think for the younger ages, the fact some European Countries including parts of germany and the countries you mentioned are going to try that out. If you have a testing frame work and as youre doing those tests, again, you got to go quantity. You cant just be because that tells you not only do they just have the virus but are they likely to be a source of infection so go to the households that those kids are participating in. We need to learn that because schooling has a huge benefit and the younger you get, the least less capable online is to substitute for what youre able to do facetoface there. So, you know, for a country like germany thats really been exem exem exempt in having clarity from their federal level, the idea they are opening up younger aged schools i think thats not, you know, crazy and we should all learn from that. I didnt know norway was doing that in a randomized way. That will be very, very helpful because, you know, id like to see schools reopened in september and of all the things right on the line will it be wise and not be wise, thats the one that i hope we figure out how to make it work. All right. When we come back, what the pandemic crisis is doing to the conversation about access to health care in the United States. Were going to hear from senator Bernie Sanders but introduce you to here roes on the front lines medical professionals stepping out of their expertise to do everything they can to help every covid patient. Ive recently made the switch in the covid world dealing with adult icu. My days have gone from helping bring life into the world to helping many of my patients battle for theirs. Im learning a tremendous amount but im also balancing learning and caring for these extremely sick patients. Prior to the covid19 pandemic, i helped to staff a weekly clinic at a homeless shelter. We opened the doors to the medical shelter. The shelter searches those who are covid positive and experiencing homelessness. I was able to learn how to swab, never swabbed before. I was able to use some of the technology that they use on a day in and day out basis, taking vitals and stuff like that that ive not been exposed to. Got to the point i couldnt ignore the call for medical professionals to come out of retirement. I played football and after that i was a soldier and i thought i was safe coming into medicine and all of a sudden, im learning there is battle scars with that, as well. Weve had to do a lot of family meetings over zoom or over the phone really challenging discussions that i would normally do in person where i can look a person in the eye or touch their hand. This is something that we arent really trained to do in emergency medicine. Our goal is to save lives at all cost, not sit by and watch them pass. So this is really new and tough and hard for us, but in many respects, this is one of the most helpful and important things we can be doing. Theyre training us to be warriors ourselves to fight this pandemic and it, you know, were really excited to really lend a hand in any way we can. D a hand in any way we can i just love hitting the open road and telling people that Liberty Mutual customizes your insurance, so you only pay for what you need [squawks] only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Since suspending his president ial campaign, for months senator Bernie Sanders has returned to capitol hill where hes working to find a solution to Health Care Problems in america that have been exacerbated by covid19 and record unemployment. In a New York Times oped this week, sanders made his case for why guaranteed universal health care is needed now more than ever. I spoke to Bernie Sanders earlier today. If theres anything that the American People are now learning, its how absurd, how irrational it is to have your health care tied to your job because when you lose your job, you lose your health care. Thats why we have got to fight, in my view, for a medicare for all singlepayer system. It will cost the average american substantially less than they are paying today and cover all of us in a comprehensive manner with freedom of choice for the doctor or the hospital you want to go to. Given that you are not the candidate right now, i know youre staying in the race. But given that youre not likely to be the democratic nominee and given that joe biden hasnt fully endorsed this idea and given that donald trump and republican senators arent endorsing the idea, whats your best outcome right now in your mission to try to get people to embrace this . Well, my best outcome is to go forward in the direction of medicare for all but not do it perhaps as quickly as i would want. For example, in my view, if joe biden said tomorrow that every american 55 years of age or older would be eligible for medicare, i think that would be enormously popular and an enormously effective policy program. At least what we should do is lower the eligibility age for medicare from 65 to 55 and cover all of the children in this country. And then we can figure out ways that we can expand and improve the aca. Those are some of the things that joe biden can do without embracing a full medicare for all concept. Okay. Youre starting to see outlines of what might be a compromise between Bernie Sanders and joe biden. You can see more of my interview with senator Bernie Sanders tomorrow morning on velshi at 8 00 a. M. Zeke, he knows hes not getting medicare for all. He knows joe biden wont embrace it, but hes talking about lowering the age for medicare to 55 and covering all the children. So hes trying to broaden the base of people covered by health care in the United States. Yeah. You know, i agree with lots of stuff that bernie said. We do need universal coverage, and covid19 has made it clear we need universal coverage. Second, its also made clear we probably shouldnt tie Health Care Insurance to employment, which a lot of economists, mainstream economists, have said for years. But that doesnt get you to we need universal coverage. I mean that doesnt get you to we need medicare for all. It gets you to we need a plan for universal coverage, and there are many, many different ways we can get there. One way, as Bernie Sanders said, is we can expand medicare down. We can guarantee all children have health care. We still have about 4 million children in this country, 4 million to 5 million children in this country who dont have Health Insurance. That is a travesty if you ask me. We still have 28 million americans who also dont have coverage. Thats also a big problem. We need to get coverage for everyone in the country, and i agree with him. That is going to be one of the legacies of the covid19 situation. The American Public is not going to put up with a system that doesnt guarantee them Health Insurance and then asks them to go to the doctor or asks them to stay off of work. I think hes absolutely right. Right. There are people in america who may have symptoms or may think theyve got coronavirus and theyre not going to the doctor because they cant get the verdict that theyre sick because they cant leave work. So, you know, its not familiar to a lot of americans, but every other developed country in the world has figured out some way to cover everyone. Zeke, we are at the end of a week in which some states are opening up and a number of other states are seriously mulling opening up again for business. Talk to me about what your closing thoughts are, your final thoughts this week. You know, we wont know exactly how Many Americans have lost jobs, freelance gigs, and businesses for a long time, if ever. It now appears that one in five workers are out of a job. Over 33 Million People involuntarily idled. Thats horrible, and its heartbreaking. No empathetic person can endure seeing the anxiety, the anguish of americans who never imagined waiting in a food pantry line to feed their kids. Its no wonder theres pressure to relax the physical distancing measures and reopen the economy. But the closing of nonessential businesses isnt what pulled the plug on the economy. Fear did. Right now if we relax the Public Health measures and rush to open restaurants and gyms, bowling alleys, beauty salons and tattoo parlors, few people are likely to show up. Well have the worst of both worlds, little Economic Activity but lots of covid spread. I ask myself what would convince me to dine out and shop and travel. I need confidence that ill not die or suffer irreversible harm from the virus. Personally, i wont go back to normal until we have a vaccine or a reliable treatment. I think im in the majority on that. Despite the economic pain, four out of fire americans say they endorse the restrictions. Were seeing solidarity even on voluntary terms. Trains and airports are empty even though no law forbids people from buying a ticket. What we have here is a Public Health crisis first and foremost, the economic crisis that goes along with it can be abated only if the virus is finally defeated. Our first responsibility is to honor the lifesaving physical distancing efforts that americans have already undertaken, not squander them by opening up too soon. Philanthropists like bill gates can pay for labs and research, but the rest of us can help to buy time for them to find a way out of it. Our ordinary part in this is heroic. It comes with real sacrifices that a single 1,200 check from washington cannot erase. We need more longterm income support. We need expansion of food stamps for all needy americans. The sooner we make it economically feasible for americans to stay at home regardless of whether theyre able to work from home, the sooner we can bring the infection down to a safe level and create a livable environment for us to return to. Well said, zeke. Pleasure having you on. Lets do this again next week. Many thanks. The 11th hour with Brian Williams is up next. [squawks] only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Yoat natures way, that startsn with quality ingredients. Like our sambucus made from elderberries grown and picked at their prime. Choose the way to quality immune support, choose natures way sambucus. To get back to normal again. For hospitals and at ctca, we arent waiting either. Were still focused on providing worldclass cancer care. Because cancer isnt just what we do, its all we do. Call now. The Empire State Building towering over a grateful city of new york tonight, displaying the colors of the fdny and new york city ems. Good evening on this day 1,191 of the trump administration. 193 days remaining until our president ial election. The president started todays White House Briefing touting his administrations success in the fight against the coronavirus. One of the first things he said was the whole world is