Transcripts For MSNBCW The Rachel Maddow Show 20200423

So much worse in new york than it was everywhere else in the country. But now were seeing 2,000 plus american deaths a day. Were seeing record high new death numbers, even day. Thats happening while new yorks daily death toll is falling every day. New yorks death toll is pretty consistently falling every day now. While the overall death toll for the country keeps hitting new highs. Well, why is that . It does not take an epidemiological genius to see why that is. Were starting to see the american body count now, reflect rising death tolls everywhere else. After new york went first. It also does not take an epidemiological genius to see where exactly it is that most americans are now being killed by this thing. It doesnt take any genius at all. It does take an internet connection, and a willingness to subscribe to lots of local newspapers if you want to figure that out, because if you want to figure out where most americans are dying now, as american death tolls hit new highs, it turns out the numbers are things you have to go look for. Those numbers are hidden in the local news, and sometimes now theyre hidden on obscure State Government web sites. But if you go looking, you can find. It if you want to figure out where the most americans are dying, and as a corollary to that, where we should look to try to save the most american lives, you can find those numbers. If you look. You just have to look local. So here for example, is the Arizona Republic, where the reporters have ferreted out by their own reporting that more than half the total deaths in Maricopa County arizona, a majority of the deaths in Maricopa County have been deaths in Nursing Homes and Long Term Care facilities. The state of arizona is not releasing that data. They are weirdly releasing statewide data about covid cases that are broken down by zip code. Thats how they decided to do the data. But the Arizona Republic newspaper, their reporters crunched those numbers and compared the data from the states and the data from the public source, and sure enough if you do that map, zip codes with Nursing Homes in them have a higher number of covid19 cases than zip codes where there arent Nursing Homes. And as i said, a majority of that countys deaths are nursing home deaths. To find similar information, anywhere you look in the country, heres illinois, winnebago county, illinois, a majority of deaths in that county are attributable in that case to one nursing home with multiple deaths so far. Skip over to North Carolina. The state wont do the math for you in North Carolina, but if you crunch the number, theyre now putting out daily, you can figure out that so far, it appears that 45 of the deaths from covid19 in the state of North Carolina have been americans who live in Nursing Homes. And Residential Care facilities. 45 of the statewide death toll. In pennsylvania, where there have been some huge outbreaks in Nursing Homes and where there have been, they started sending in the National Guard, to help out in some Nursing Homes, the State Governments numbers now show that a majority of covid19 deaths in pennsylvania are in Nursing Homes. More than 800 deaths in Nursing Homes out of the roughly 1600 deaths statewide. Weve reported last week on what appeared to be a really large outbreak in believer county, pennsylvania, which is one county out to the ohio state line. Local reporters in believer county now say that they believe that nursing home deaths account for all but five of the known deaths in that whole county. 31 known deaths in that county. Officially 26 of them from Nursing Homes. Virginia is tracking what the state calls outbreaks of covid19 around the state. They have identified tons of individual outbreak, thats how they are tracking whats going on in the state of virginia. The state of virginia now says that a majority of the known outbreaks in that state are in Nursing Homes, and a majority of the new outbreaks in virginia are in Nursing Homes, too. At one virginia facility alone, at the canterbury rehabilitation and Health Care Center outside richmond virginia, 49 americans have died already at that one facility. In connecticut, the hartford current reports today that at the Kimberly Hall north facility in windsor, connecticut, 35 americans have died. The state reported last week that they had nine dead at that facility. Nine last week. This week, its 35. At the Whispering Pines facility in east haven, connecticut, they have had 24 americans lose their lives. The current reports that they have got less than 70 residents there, but 24 residents dead. This weekend, Connecticut Governor ned lamont ordered personnel from the state Health Department to visit every one of the Nursing Homes in connecticut to assess the needs of those facilities and he hopes that mobile testing units can help get residents tested in those facilities, too. Connecticut says so far, they know that 40 of the covid19 deaths in the state of connecticut are in Nursing Homes. If you look anywhere in the country, this is what you will find. In michigan, the city of detroit is trying to get all of its nursing home residents tested by tomorrow. Detroits mayor says there is no point in breaking out which detroit Nursing Homes have covid19 and which dont. The city believes all Nursing Homes in the city have it. So far, the effort at universally testing all nursing home residents in detroit has revealed that approximately 26 of all nursing home residents have it. 26 positive. And of course, once this population is exposed to coronavirus, they are the most likely to die from it. So if more than one in four nursing home residents in detroit already has it, i mean forgive me, but my god, think about that, for a second, if, think about transmission risks in Nursing Homes. And then think about the risk of death for nursing home residents, who get it. If more than one in four Nursing Homes in detroit, one in four nursing home residents in detroit, already have it, my god, forgive me, but as a country, that should be a clanging alarm bell. That should signal us as a country to move heaven and earth, to try to keep those residents alive in detroit Nursing Homes. To try to protect the rest of them who arent yet infected. Who will be at such a high risk of death if they become infected in those facilities. This is not front page news for some reason. But if you look at the numbers, if you think about what we are going to be accountable for, as american citizens, when we look back at this time and when we look at the death toll, the staggering death toll, of tens of thousands of americans dying for this, the number of americans who are dying can be disambiguousated, in a very clear sense, and where americans are dying in largest numbers is in Nursing Homes. So we cant just slough that off and let that happen and say its inevitable. This is where most americans are losing their lives. Shouldnt we therefore use the most resources that we have in those facilities, to try to keep those americans going. To try to keep those americans alive to. Try to keep them uninfected. To provide to those facilities what they need to save the most people. And you know, some states are trying. We have been covering this for a few weeks now. And we are seeing changes. We are seeing some states trying, we are seeing some stice. For example, detroit trying for universal testing of all residents in detroit Nursing Homes, that is very good. They have revealed that one in four residents in their Nursing Homes already has it, that reveals a huge need for resources and helps to keep those americans alive, to protect those who are not infected now but living in congregate, in a population, where one in four is positive. It is one thing to have the data but what the data tells us is now we must act. And we are getting more data. That has changed over the course of these past few week, as we have been cover thchlgt states like new york state. And illinois, are posting cases and deaths for individual Nursing Homes now. If not daily, then every few days. Other states are posting other more random, slightly less useful information. Like ranges of cases and countywide case number, but not individual facilities. Were seeing other states post some stuff. Individual facilities giving us case numbers and that is the most helpful. The federal government has now told Nursing Homes nationwide that they should tell nursing home residents and their families and also the cdc if theyve got a case of coronavirus in a facility. But thats a pretty nonspecific piece of information, and nobody knows what that is going to produce in terms of useful information for the rest of us, knowing what places need attention, and help. Look at whats going on right now in the state of massachusetts. In massachusetts, nursing home deaths are 54 of the states deaths. And so if you die from coronavirus in the state of massachusetts, statistically, you are most likely to have been a nursing home resident when you die. State government in massachusetts said within the last couple of weeks that they would provide free testing for all nursing home residents and all staff, at all Nursing Homes in the state. Well, yesterday, the state Health Director in massachusetts announced that that had gotten a little screwed up. Some facilities did get visited by these mobile testing units where the National Guard comes in and a mobile testing unit, they carry out the testing, that is apparently fine, but for some other facilities in massachusetts, what the state Health Department did is they decided they would just mail test kits, mail coronavirus tests to those facilities, i guess sewage t guess, assuming Nursing Homes would know what to do with those tests. In large part they did not know what to do with those tests. Quote, Long Term Care facilities appeared to be ill equipped to collect the samples properly, officials said. After sending out 14,000 test, the state as only 4,000 tests were returned and many of those were unlabeled or in leaking tubes. Because of that, massachusetts is now, at least for now, going to go back to just sending the mobile testing units to have the National Guard come in and do the testing instead of mailing the facilities stuff and asking them to do it themselves. But i want to highlight that for a second for a few reasons. Number one, credit massachusetts for at least trying to test everyone. Right . That needs to happen everywhere. And nursing home residents and staff need to be tested. Not just once. But on an ongoing basis. Credit massachusetts, also, for admitting where part of that effort went wrong. So that if other states decide to emulate what they are doing, at least they will know that that part of it didnt work. But also, its worth noticing what happened here in massachusetts, because we should learn from that. One of the lessons here, with what went wrong in massachusetts, with this wellintentioned effort, is that i think its really easy to overestimate the medical capabilities of Nursing Homes and longterm care facilities. Since we have been covering this on this show, we have heard from a lot of them, and this is what we hear over and over again, Nursing Homes and longterm care facilities are the places where in many states most of the koevd deaths are happening. But Nursing Homes and Long Term Care facilities are not hospitals. Many of these places have minimal highly, high level Trained Medical staff. But because thousands of americans are on track to die in these facilities, unless we get them what they need, unless we get them testing, unless we get them help with Infection Control, unless we help them with best practices and equipment, to keep their residents from infecting each other, and to keep the staff from infecting the residents, and viceversa, one of the things thats going to need to be scaled up in these facilities is Trained Medical staff. They need people. And i know a lot of these places are privatelyowned. Right . I know the vast majority of them are privately owned. And the companies who are running these places we would hope would be able to scale up and add people and add more Trained Medical staff to the usual roster that theyve got of people. But if they dont have that, is that reason for us to condemn the people who live in those facilities to death . Nursing homes and longterm care facilities need people right now. They need more people than they would usually have under normal circumstances. These are not normal circumstances. They need extra staff to bolster, for example, normal shifts for when their Staff Members are out sick themselves or when their star members are not coming to work because theyve been exposed and told to quarantine. It is very important that people who work in Nursing Homes dont come to work sick. And that if they are exposed, that they do quarantine. Staff who are out sick or on quarantine should be paid to stay home. They should not fear for losing their jobs. If theyre out sick or they have been told to quarantine. Therefore, we need to support Nursing Homes with additional staff, so that their regular staff can stay out of work, if Public Health demands that they do. We need them not coming in, because of short staffing, because theyre worried about their jobs or because there is no sick pay. And yes, we would want there to be better facility force that. We would want there to be a better way of handling, that and all of these privatelyrun facilities. I get that. Less reform them in the long run. Lets try to keep americans alive who live in those facilities. Its also becoming clearer to me, just in covering this, just by reading local news reports around the country about this every day, that Nursing Homes and longterm care facilities also right now, in the short term, need extra medical staff that they wouldnt normally have on payroll and weve seen this in other countries like ireland where they have prioritized the needs of nurse Nursing Homes and brought in National Health Service Staff to bring in additional medical expertise to these facilities who might not usually have doctors around or at least not enough doctors around. Theyre going to need now, in a way they usually dont need, expert Infection Control measures. Supervision for implementing those. Theyre going to need more trained nurse visits and trained doctor visits, to help the staff put those things in place and keep them going. And yes, i understand that seeing the numbers of deaths in these Nursing Homes, especially the ones where it has been hard to get information about how many people are infected, and how many people have died, its okay to be mad at Nursing Homes, particularly ones that arent well run. Its okay to be mad at them, in the long run. Its okay to be mad at them, that they dont have the kind of resources and payroll, and staffing, and administration that can handle the extraordinary needs of this time, including letting us know what they need. But these are not normal times. They have extraordinary needs right now. And we as a country need to make extraordinary demands of these facilities right now. Because they house the americans who are dying in the greatest numbers from this epidemic. Its no use being mad at Nursing Homes right now, or blaming them. Put that off. Do it later. This is a time to help them keep americans alive. Not to blame them. And were going to have to get over some of our feelings about what they should be doing themselves all day. The public reporting, which is something that has been upped over the past couple of weeks since weve been reporting on this part of the pandemic, intensively, the public reporting is going to make a difference. Commitments like massachusetts and detroit have made, to prioritize testing for everybody who works and lives in these place, whether or not theyve got symptoms, and yes, do that, that is going to produce important data, but the data is literally step one. Once weve got that data, and as we are getting in that data, and even in the absence of that data, the right response to recognizing the size of the problem in these facilities, is to then help them. Theyre going to need help keeping their patients from being killed in huge numbers. They are going to need help keeping their residents from being killed in huge numbers, and that is an american priority right now. They cannot be left to do it alone. And helping those facilities keep their residents alive, should be a priority of the federal government. And it should take action by the federal government, but honestly, they are really not doing anything, and again, be mad at them, hold them to account for that. Please, please. But in the short run, try to keep americans alive. In the absence of federal action, to keep the most vulnerable americans who are dieing in the largest numbers alive, it is going to take action by the states, which means it is going to be 50 different solutions, but hope that your state is doing it right, and try to make them do it right if theyre not. Beyond that, honestly, its probably going to take action by regular people. I mean do you know how many Nursing Homes are in your neighborhood if you live in a city or if you live in a suburb or a more spreadout rural area, do you know how many Nursing Homes and longterm care facilities there are in your county . A lot of communities, we have seen these heartwarming story, weve seen so many thank yous from doctors and nurses working in hospitals, about communes breaking their backs trying to get ppe and homemade masks and face shields and things, to hospitals, for Frontline Health workers who are working in hospitals. Well, in many communities, its now becoming clear, we probably need to get that stuff to Nursing Homes and longterm care facilities, too. Because they are just as much the front line. Since weve been covering the nursing home lacuna in our National Response here on this show, we heard from a whole bunch of different people from all around the country who have offered to donate and organize supplies for Nursing Homes and longterm care facilities near where they live. We havent heard once about a nursing home saying no, we dont need your help, no, we dont need your donations of hand sanitizer. No, we dont need your homemade masks. We havent heard of anybody saying no. But we have heard a lot about Nursing Homes responding by saying hey, nobody else has offered us anything. So i mean how do we do this . It may be churches, synagogues, mosques, alumni groups, you know, student groups, book clubs, sports clubs, individual group, the chapter of league of women voters, young republicans, rotary club, knights of columbus, whatever you have in your town, that is in your life, that is geographically specific, for a specific geographic area, at this point at the community level, it may be adopt your local nursing home time, to find out what they need, and then advocate and organize to get it to them. And i cant believe im saying this. I mean i cant believe that has to be the way we respond as a country to the part of this crisis in which the most americans are dying. But the daily news on the death toll in these facilities is not getting any better. The more reporting there is, the more deaths we are finding. The more testing were doing, the more outrageously high prevalence we are finding which are deaths waiting to happen. The daily news on this part of the epidemic, shows that just waiting for the government to get it together, in terms of protecting these americans who are most likely to die, it is not working. At least it is not working fast enough. And so it may come down to communities organizing to support the longterm care facilities and Nursing Homes in your town, which is astonishing to me. But i dont know a better way. And im not seeing a better way. Were going to be talking with one particular congresswoman later on this hour who has been leading the charge in congress to try to get the federal government to do something about Nursing Homes, to finally act to try to save american lives here. Illinois congresswoman jean shakowski spearheading that in the house. She will join us from the u. S. Capitol in a couple of minutes. She is at the capitol tonight and able to join us from the camera there because there is going to be a vote tomorrow on the next relief bill for the crisis. House speaker nancy pelosi, and the democratic leadership in the house had planned to allow for what would basically amount to remote voting by members of congress tomorrow, for that bill, so they didnt all have to get together in that same place, to pass the bill. Republicans objected though. And so members of congress will all once again have to travel from all over the country to get together in congregate at the capitol to pass that bill, and the bill, i think, inevitably will pass, but they will all have to take the physical risk to be there anyway. Meanwhile, in the executive branch, there continues to be just absolute chaos at the top. One of the top officials working to develop a Coronavirus Vaccine has now filed a whistleblower complaint, saying he was removed from that job and demoted as punishment because he spoke out internally against the president continually hyping an unproven drug as a surefire cure for coronavirus. Now that multiple trials have shown serious cardiac complications and increased risk of death, for people taking that, apparently we need to shut up that anybody was criticizing the president s and the fox news channel, hyping it for weeks. Because now, its apparently cost the top vaccine guy in the government his job. Well have more on that later. But its just a mess. This of course is also the week when multiple red skate governors are starting to end efforts to suppress the spread of the virus in their states. Opening stuff back up. And that honestly, if were honest about it, that is because the president has egged them on to do so. Even though none of the states opening back up already states like georgia, florida, south carolina, mississippi, none of them has met any of even the white house guidelines for what youre supposed to have in place before you start to reopen. Think about that for a second. These are the white houses guidelines. These are states that have not met any of the thresholds called for in the guidelines in terms of opening back up. But those states nevertheless are opening back up anyway, and the white house has been encouraging it. But why did you put up those guidelines then . People who dont meet the guidelines are doing it anyway. What was the point of the guidelines . I mean this is exactly the kind of chaos this president has brought to bear on the crisis from the very beginning. Now that weve got over 46,000 americans dead because of it, the chaos at the top appears to be getting more chaotic, not less. Tomorrow as members of congress convene in washington to pass that bill, protesters are going to run a motorcade between the white house and the trump hotel in downtown washington, where they say they plan to dump body bags at the threshold of the hotel. Seems about right. Well be right back. There will be parties again soon, and family gatherings. 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When i spoke with sheriff thompson on monday night, Black Hawk County had 356 confirmed coronavirus cases. As of today, their he up a to 511 cases. Thats the most of any county in iowa. At least 40 of those cases are tied directly to that tyson foods plant. Were starting to see obituaries for people who worked at that plant in the local paper. Well, today, after days and days of local officials putting pressure on the company, and on iowas republican governor, tyson finally today announced it was closing that plant in waterloo, iowa, indefinitely. Waterloos mayor had been calling for that, alongside the sheriff. He told cnn today that he welcomed the decision but he believes it may have come too late to stop the widespread spreading of that virus in his town. Black hawk county sheriff, Tony Thompson told us this about the plant finally closed, while we are pleased with this development, we recognize how late it is for many. Now our task is to react to the damage done and to get back on top of monitoring and testing without overrunning our Health Care System. So thats the update on the situation in rural Blackhawk County iowa tonight. Sort of a better late than never from the officials who had been calling for that plant to shut down. Hundreds of cases there. At least that one coronavirus locus, that one plant, is closed today but i have to tell you in neighbors nebraska, its a different story, at least eight Meat Processing plants in nebraska have confirmed coronavirus cases including one, really, really big outbreak, at least 237 cases of coronavirus now tied to one beef plant in grand island, nebraska. Grand island is the Third Largest city in nebraska. The cases tied to that one beef plant in grand island account for more than 40 of all of the cases in that area. But neither that plant in grand island, nor any of the other nebraska meat packing plants with cases has been closed. And nebraska remains one of the few states in the country without any kooit kind of stayathome order. In recent days the rate of coronavirus cases around grand island nebraska has been higher than some of the hardest hit states in the country, higher than michigan, closer to louisiana, there are more than 600 confirmed cases and 18 deaths in the grand island nebraska area. Including four deaths reported just in the past day. Grand islands mayor, and the local Health Director, have been asking nebraskas governor, Pete Ricketts for a stayathome order, but he has refused. The local Health Director has warned that the Health Care System around grand island is very close to being swamped. She said two days ago, quote, we are going into a rather dark couple of weeks. Joining us now is that Health Director, teresa anderson, is the Health Department director for nebraskas Central District, the Central District is right in the middle of that state, about a two hour drive away from omaha, ms. Anderson, thank you so much for making home for us tonight, i know you have a lot to deal with, and it is a very busy time. Thank you, rachel, for having me. First, let me just ask first, if i characterized things accurately as far as you know and if there is any other important developments that we should know about in terms of this, what appears to be a pretty sizable outbreak in and around grand island. The grout break is associated in some degree to the pate packing industry but there are a lot of factors that go into determining how severe the outbreak is. Were getting a sort of echo effect on your audio. Im not sure if there is anything we can do to adjust that. I know its technically, this is always, this is always a challenge to do these things. I can hear you though. Let me just ask you, it seems like that might be better. Okay. Good. Great, all right. Let me just ask you, it has been unusual, i think, i expected watching this from afar, that some of the facilities where theres been a large number of cases associated with an individual workplace, that those might have been closed, but as far as i understand it, no meat packing plants in nebraska have been closed, including this one in grand island where there are a large number of cases. So the way that its been evolving, is that our plant here in grand island has been, im going to say ahead of the game, at least timewise, in the number of cases, and ill give you an example, last week, we had 360 cases, in our three county area, and this week, we have 630, a week later. So the spread is within the community, and we have known for a while that its been communitywide. What happens in the meat packing industry, and you well know this, that there are close quarter, people are working elbow to elbow, theyre changing out into their work gear, in the same locker room, and so there are lots of opportunity force the spread of virus. Certainly, that was the case a few weeks ago. The industry has been taking some measures to improve the distancing, and the potential for the spread of virus. All across the state. And most recently, the hhs has had some teams out looking at and advising the different plants and what they might do to better reduce the spread or the potential for the spread. I was watching what you were saying a few minutes ago, and in our instance, it may be that the cats out of the bag, so to speak. Weve got wide spread virus, and at this point, closing the plant may be helpful to us, i certainly think it wouldnt hurt but weve got spread everywhere, literally when we do our contact tracing, we know that while many of them are related to jds in some fashion, whether the person worked there or their spouse worked there, they were wlz experiencing other types of outbreaks especially along our longterm care facilities, which of course is very concerning to us. In terms of that spread being everywhere, including, as you said longterm care facilities, where its so dangerous, now that youre seeing the numbers that you are, and youve got the amount of community transmission, it seems that you have, im worried about your hospital capacity. Can you tell us anything about the number of facilities who are able to treat people who are very ill, with covid19 symptoms, and tell us if youre worried about intensive care capacity, and even potentially ventilators. Right. So what happens when you get out into the rural part of the country, is you will find that some of the rural hospitals are critical access hospital, and therefore, they have no reverse airflow rooms. And they have no ability to care for Covid Patients while protecting staff. So in our particular district, we have two of those Community Access hospitals and we also have one hospital that a larger hospital that has capacity right now with 17 ventilators. So what happens, with this rural part of the state, again, is that we have a limited number of staff, so even when were able to bring in ventilators, from neighboring, or from some distance, to facilitate the process, the staff isnt there, and i am an old icu nurse from the old days and i realize how technical the care is for a patient on a ventilator. And those, the folks that need to be brought in are going to be highly skilled individuals so we have the challenge of bringing in folks into an area that is fairly active with covid, and then asking them to work in our facility knowing that in our community, theres widespread. Teresa anderson, nebraskas Central District Health Department director who has a bear of an epidemic there to be dealing with in that rural part of nebraska, thank you for talking publicly the way that you have, to explain to people the seriousness of what youre facing in grand island, thanks for helping us understand it on a national level, and please keep us apprised of this going ahead, i am worried that you are in for a few weeks of very dark days and anything that we can do nationally, to get you any help that we can, please let us know. Thank you, rachel. All right, much more ahead tonight, stay with us. announcer in this world where people are staying at home, many of lifes moments are being put on hold. 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You may have taken it before traveling overseas if you were trying not to get malaria, but most likely you never heard of this drug until last month when the prime time fox news hosts and then the president started incessantly promoting it on a daily, sometimes hourly basis, as what they were quite sure was a miracle cure for coronavirus. Theres no big deal, this coronavirus thing, weve got a cure already. They promoted it to despite zero Clinical Trials and next to no evidence of its effectiveness. But boy were they insistent. What if there is already a cheap and widely available medication that is on the market to treat the virus . Chloroquine, a cheap antimalaria drug, may be effective in treating coronavirus. Chloroquine. Hydroxychloroquine. Based on what i see, it could be a game changer. Hydroxychloroquine. It could showed very encouraging early results. Really encouraging. Early signs for me, reading medical research, i was impressed. Its very effective. Its a strong drug. I feel good about it. Its all it is, just a feeling. Showing surprising promise for treatment of coronavirus. Hydroxychloroquine. Ive been telling you for a week about chloroquine. Hydroxychloroquine. We talk about hydroxychloroquine. It is clean. It is considered safe. In so in a lot of ways hydroxychloroquine is the ideal medicine. Hydroxychloroquine is a very powerful drug. Would you try hydroxychloroquine. After all ive read, i would. I got the very early approval from the fda. We never heard of hydroxychloroquine before we mentioned it. Hydroxychloroquine, i dont know, its looking like it is having some good results. Drum roll, please. Hydroxychloroquine. What do you have to lose . Take it. Theres sign that it works on this. Very strong signs. Theres mounting evidence tonight that hydroxychloroquine may work. Hydroxychloroquine is now looking more and more like an important tool in treating this virus. Our National Stockpile is now equipped with nearly 30 million hydroxychloroquine pills. Hydroxychloroquine is credited with saving lives. A friend of mine tells me he got better because of the use of that drug. Hydroxychloroquine seems to be working. I dont know medicine from cosmology, all right, but the fact of the matter, it is working. I havent had a bad story. Beginning in middle of march, hydroxychloroquine was mentioned hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times on the fox news channel, particularly by its prime time hosts, and by the president , from the white house podium. Until about a week ago, when those mentioned by fox news and the president just dropped off a cliff. They just stopped bringing it up. And we dont know why it is. But yesterday, we did get the as a results of a new study which is yet to be peer recovered but it is the largest to date involving the use of hydroxychloroquine among 368 veterans in veterans hospitals across the u. S. , in that trial, the drug was found to have no benefit, and there were actually more deaths reported among those who were given that death than those who were given standard care. The authors of the study write quote, these findings highlight the importance of awaiting the results of ongoing prospective, randomized, controlled studies, before Widespread Adoption of these drugs. Yeah, you think . The president was asked about that study last night. He said, quote, i dont know of the report. Obviously, there have been some very good reports. And perhaps this one is not a good report. The National Institutes of health panel has now weighed in on hydroxychloroquine saying quote, there was insufficient Clinical Data to recommend either for or against it. Then late today, the New York Times was first to report that a highranking doctor, who led the hhs efforts to try to develop a Coronavirus Vaccine, he was transferred out of that position this week, and demoted, after he internally questioned the president s advocacy of that drug. Dr. Rick bright tells the times quote, i believe this transfer was in response to my insistence that the government invest the billions of dollars allocated by congress into safe and scientifically vetted solutions and no in drugs that lack scientific merit. He continued quote, specifically, and contrary to misguided directives i limited the broad use of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine promoted by the administration as a panacea but which clearly lacks scientific merit. Now, that doctor is now no longer in charge of the search for a vaccine to save us from the deadly coronavirus. Because he says he was demoted when he got in the way of the president continuing to hype an unproven cure that he heard about on the fox news channel. It is one thing to not have leadership at the frazzle level in response to this crisis. It is actually a whole nother thing to have the president putting american lives at risk every time he blurts something made up or that he thought he understood from tv into the microphone at the White House Briefing room. And that really is happening every day. I mean as a, i dont have an opinion one way or the other about this president and how he should be treated. I didnt say that right here. I will tell you, i wont tell you my opinion about the president and how he should be treated but as a general matter i think we should all agree that perhaps there should be a more concerted effort to stop the misinformation about this disease, particularly if it is potentially deadly misinformation. If somebody is repeatedly misinforming the american public, about important things having to do with this disease, dont broadcast that. Dont listen to people who are lying to you about this disease. Dont broadcast their comments, certainly dont keep doing it day after day, when theyve proven themselves to be lying day after day. And honestly, it doesnt matter who it is, show some responsibility, honestly. 1,100 dealers are working to keep you working. Call or email your kubota dealer about 0 financing. No payments for 90 days offer expires 5 31. Together we do more. Its my own thing that i can do for me. Since i dont have time to read, i mean i might as well listen. If i want to catch up on the news, or history, or learn whats going on in the world, i can download a book and listen to it. I listen to spanish lessons sometimes to and from work. Yea, it makes me want to be better. Audible reintroduced this whole world to me. It changes your perspective. It makes you a different person. See what listening to audible can do for you. Open. Remember having that feeling for the first time . The first day you opened. The first day you had a customer, the first day you taught a class, had a client, a patient, a session. Open. Remember the night before you opened . Who could ever sleep . Open. But theres a different question we are being asked now. Are you going to remain open . Even when your doors are closed . Open. Thats how we show who we are. And theres another way to be open, to pull together or push, depending on the door. And we are making it work and we will continue to make it work together. Because open we stand. Lets be honest. Quitting smoking is hard. Like, quitting every monday hard. Quitting feels so big. So try making it smaller, and youll be surprised at how easily starting small can lead to something big. Start stopping with nicorette. Joining us now live is congre congresswoman of illinois. Thank you so much for making time for us tonight. Great to see you. Thank you so much, rachel for focussing on this issue of Nursing Homes. Appreciate it. I wanted to talk to you about it because youve really led the charge on this in the house. This letter that you sent to the Trump Administration demanding they immediately collect and report facility level data on Nursing Homes. They say they want to collect that information. Are they collecting the right information . Do you have faith they will carry this out the way it needs to be done . I have concerns. Number one, they arent going to be reporting fatalities, only the cases. We need to know about the fatalities. In my district i have a nursing home that has 42 cases and 13 people have died and we have many Nursing Homes where more than 20 have died. We need to know this information. Beyond that, theyre doing it by rule making, rachel, which takes a long time. They can order it right now but that is not happening so i dont know even when that Data Collection is going to come about. So there are a number of problems with the and i believe that it is in response to 78 of us. I had a letter to hhs and cms to saying you need to tell us, not just the families, not just the residents, but also the public what is going on in Nursing Homes. You know, we dont know the scope of the problem and we need to have a picture of it. The relief bill that the house is going to vote on tomorrow, the reason youre in washington to vote on the bill, as far as i understand it, im not totally clear on it but i think there is about 25 billioner mabillion er marked for testing. Is any of that for Nursing Homes. None of it is officially designate for the Nursing Homes. It supposed to be for the high risk areas and i hope that will happen and i want to communicate with the powers that be that that be one of the areas with 1. 3 million Nursing Homes in this country, there are chronic problems but right now we really need to focus on the Nursing Homes and make sure were testing. Testing, testing, testing. Encourage my colleagues to say Nursing Homes need to be at the top of the list. Were going to stay on nursing home issues as long as it continues to be a problem here. Because you have taken the lead on this in the house, id ask you to please keep us apprised and come back and visit with us as rule making and policy making proceeds on this. I feel like the hole in the federal response here is incredibly fatal and id love to stay in touch with you on an on going basis with you on this. Id be honored to do that. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Weve got much more to come tonight. Stay with us. Congresswoman mary tweeted this photo of the committee meeting. Remarkable photo. Jim mcgovern chairing that meeting wearing a face mask. If today seemed weird, wait until tomorrow when they come back to pass the latest relief bill and you cant vote by proxy. Put on your mask and take your chances. That will do it for us tonight. Time for the last word with lawrence odonnell. Good evening, lawrence. Good evening, rachel. I dont think all of them have to come back. They will be a