Transcripts For MSNBCW Weekends With Alex Witt 20200426

New information about where the country stands right now in the fight against covid19. Coming out of quarantine, some states taking the first steps. This hour, reaction from across the country. The president has been irresponsible. We have insisted on the truth. I believe the quarantine should reply to sick, elderly, those at risk. No one wants a second wave. It would devastating. Were not going to do anything thats going to put anybody in more danger. How do you run a business if you infect the customers you depend on . A new worry for doctors. Its quarantine fatigue. The president s comments about disinfectants, several governo s governors shedding light on how many took it seriously. We are waiting for andrew cuomo to start his daling brie briefings. We will take you there. More than 53,000 people have died. Several state president pair to reopen their doors this week. Local leaders are talking about next steps and the risk of lifting regulations too soon. Were all worried about a potential for a second spike, whether in the fall, along with flu season in september or october, whether its july. Its why we have really been laser focused as an administration on figuring how we can endure and sustain these social distancing measures. New reaction this morning from two governors who are seeing a rise in calls to emergency hotlines after the president s comments about injecting disinfectants. When misinformation comes out or you Say Something that pops in your head, it does send a wrong message. We had hundreds of calls come into our emergency hotline and our Health Department asking if it was if it was right to ingest chl alcohol cleaning vi. We had to put out that warning to make sure people were not doing Something Like that, which would kill people. When the person with the most powerful position on the planet is encouraging people to think about disinfectants, whether it was serious or not, people listen. We have seen an increase in numbers of people calling poison control. Its important that every one of us with a platform disseminate medically Accurate Information. I want to say, unequivocally, no one should be using disinfect t disinfectants. Insight by one of the top doctors at Johns Hopkins on where we fall on the curve. We have reached a plateau nationally at this point. Trends can change over time. At this point, we have a plateau in new cases per day. Unfortunately, its a very high plateau. We still are seeing about 30,000 new cases of covid19 every day in the United States. Still are seeing something on the order of 2,000 deaths per day. We are not out of the woods by any means in terms of this pandemic. But at least we reached a stable number of new infections and the number of people who are dieing from this illness. Tomorrow, Small Business administration will resume taking applications for the Paycheck Protection Program. This comes as Congress Approved 310 billion to help keep Small Businesses afloat after the program ran out of money earlier this month. New reaction from the White House White house coordinator, dr. Birx, to the question the president raised when he wondered whether people might be able to inject disinfectant. Monica alba is at the white house with more on this. Hello to you. What more is dr. Birx saying . Reporter she had to engage in a delicate dance, not just this week over the president s comments about disinfectants but really throughout her time as the response coordinator for the Coronavirus Task force. So often the president is talking about certain medical and scientific facts as he presents. I understand Governor Cuomo is speaking. I will as it it back to you. Everyone, lets take you to Governor Cuomo of new york. Before we started this, you only had a couple of hundred cases. When do we get back to a couple hundred new cases going in . The overall hospitalization rate is down. The number of intubations is down. Even the number of new covid cases is down. Still not good. Still 1,000 new covid cases yesterday to put it in focus. That would normally be terrible news. Its only not terrible news compared to where we were. This is just terrible news. 367 deaths. Which is horrific and there is no relative context to death. Death is death, 367 people passed, 367 families. What ive been working from day one is to make sure that people understand the facts of what were dealing with, because this is a unique situation. Government really cant act unless the people fully support the action. What we have done here government couldnt do. It was a pure function of what people did. So my plan all along has been, give people the facts. And if they have the facts, they will act responsibly. But they have to have the facts. They have to buy into the plan. And it really is an individual decision. Right . Who is taking care of your health . You are. Were mutually dependent in that what i do can affect your health. But it really comes down to giving everybody the information so people can make their own decisi decision. The great achievement in this period has been that when people get the facts, and they trust the facts, and they understand the facts, they do the right thing. And that is a lesson that i hope people remember after this is all over. But we still have to remember the facts. We talk about reopening, we talk about reimagining. Lets start to put some meat on the bones of what were talking about so people understand. The federal guidance from the cdc is that before you start reopening the state and the regional hospitalization must be in decline for 14 days. Okay . Thats the cdcs guidance. The federal government leaves it up to the states. Its up to the governors. But they also give guidance. And in this case, i think the cdc guidance is right. So were monitoring the hospitalization rate. Were monitoring the regional hospitalization rates. We said in this state its a very diverse state. Upstate regions are like states in the midwest, even out west. We have different hospitalization rates. We look at the rates across the state as well as as across the region. We will reopen in phases, a regional a naturnalysis on what call our economic regions that we have been working with the states on. Those regions have been working together on economic policy. So to analyze the regions which are existing coalitions, actually works. Look at theanalysis. Make a determination. Then monitor whatever you do. Phase one of reopening will involve construction and manufacturing activities. And within construction and manufacturing, those businesses that have a low risk. Right . Theres a range of construction activities. Theres a range of manufacturing activities. But those businesses that pose a low risk within them. Phase two would then be more a business by business a naturnal using the matrix we discussed, how essential a service does that business provide and how risky is that business. If you reopen that business, how much risk are you possibly incurring. How worn is important is it tha business reopen . That matrix will guide us through faphase two. In phase two, we need businesses to do that analysis. They have to think about how theyre going to reopen with this quote, unquote, new normal. What precautions are they going to take in the workplace . What safeguards are they going to put in place . Its very much going to be up to businesses. Then were going to leave two weeks between phases so we can monitor the effect of what we just did. Right . Take an action. Monitor. Two weeks, thats according to the experts the incubation period of the virus. So you can actually see if you had an affect where you increased the rate of infection. Which you would then see in hospitalizations, testing. So everyone understands the overall risk that you start to increase activity, the infection rate goes up, two weeks to actually do that monitoring. Thats the broad outlines of the reopening plan. Then you get into caveats. One caveat is, you cant do anything in any region that would increase the number of visitors to that region. You have a whole multistate region in lockdown here. Its possible that you open something in syracuse or you open something in the North Country where you now see license plates coming in from connecticut, new jersey, people from down state, all coming to that area because they have been locked down and they are looking for an activity. So thats something that we have to Pay Attention to. All of this is done in a multistate context with our neighboring states. Most relevant, especially down state. Down state is obviously the most complicated situation. Thats new york city, thats westchester, the surrounding suburbs. Multistate coordination is vital there because the new jersey, connecticut, new york city area is basically very intermixed. They live in one place. They work in the other place. So that coordination is important. You get upstate, coordination with massachusetts is more important. Some parts of the state, pennsylvania coordination is more important. Coordinating with those states that are neighbors to that region. Downstate, we have said we have to coordinate the maniin activities. There are gears that intermesh. You cant turn one without turning the other gears. Thats how you strip gears. Keep trying to explain to my daughters. Transportation, parks, schools, beaches, these are all coordinated activities. Right . You turn one, they all have to turn. Thats true for new york city, nassau, sufficieolk, westcheste. On the phased reopening, does my business reopen . What is your business . How would you do your business . In this new normal. You normally have people in a conference room. Are you going do that . You normally have people in work stations that are right next to each other. Do you plan on reopening that way . This is not a one sided equation here. Businesses, you develop a plan on how you would reopen given everything we now know. If you have a plan i will show you in a moment that takes into consideration these new circumstances, more essential, lower risk. The way a business opens will determine the risk. They cant really determine how essential their service is but they can determine how risky opening them up opening their business would be. Also, we need them to be creative and think outside of the box. We have been speaking with Business Leaders across the state. But some people even need a new economic model. We want to bring sports back. Right . So this is an activity so people can watch on tv. What sports can you do without an audience . What sports can you make work economically where you dont have to set a seat in the stadium or in the arena . How do you do driveins, different businesses that could actually work in this environment . Again, they have to be creative and they have to think about it. Downstate, which does have particular needs, we need some activities in downstate new york. You cant tell people in a dense, urban environment through the summer months, we dont have anything for you to do, stay in your apartment with the three kids. That doesnt work. Theres a sanity equation here also that we have to take into consideration. Special attention for Public Housing residents. Special attention for lowincome communities. That number one paid a higher price for this disease than anyone else. We talk about the racial disparity, africanamericans and latinos. Were increasing testing. Were going to have more to say on that this week. Lowerincome communities need more assistance through this. I also need to focus we need to focus on the basics. We need more food banks, more food assistance. There are people who literally are struggling for food and for childcare. We have to make that more available. I want to bring in in a coordinated way the fill on philanthropy. I want to make them part of this in a partnership. Were doing that. Working through this with partners in the Business Community and health care community. We have an economic strategy. And we have a Public Health strategy. It has to work with businesses, more creative and more thoughtful. And Health Care Professionals who just learned a very important lesson with what we went through. And i dont want to lose that lesson. In terms of businesses, thinking about the new normal, think about it in terms of people. How are you going to protect your people . What are you going to be doing differently with your employees . Your actual physical space. What does the physical space look like when you reopen in this new normal . What are you doing about ppe equipment . How are you cleaning . Whats the hygiene . Whats the access . Whats the screening . How do you move people . Whats the travel and transportation . Then what processes can you put in place to make your business less risky . Right . How can you train people . How you can communicate about this about. Can you do testing in your workplace . These are all factors for businesses to consider that want to reopen quickly. Again, its between the two its governmental decisions in partnership with business decisions. Because i think every Business Leader gets, you cant go back to where you were. We have to go back in light of the circumstances that have developed. In the midst of all this, monitor the Public Health impact. All that progress we made by flattening that curve, we could lose that in a matter of days if were not careful. Its important that people understand what that actually means. This gets technical, but its worth understanding. If i can understand it, anybody can understand it. They talk about the rate of increase of the spread of the infection. Right . But its basically straightforward. If one person infects less than one person, thats the first category. One person infects less than one person. The next step up is one person infects one person who then infects another person. One to one to one to one. The worst situation is one person infects two people and then those two people go out and infect two people. Thats fire through dry grass. You are in bad shape. Thats where we were when this started. We were actually there before we even knew we were there. This is now the insight that the disease came from europe to new york because it was already out of china by the time we realized it. Went through europe, went to italy, came on a plane and was here and spreti ispreading. We have to be down to the one person infects one other person. You cant go beyond that margin. Right now, were at. 8. One person infects. 8 . One person is infecting less than one person. Thats good news. At that rate, you see the virus declining. Upstate, interestingly, its. 9. Statistically, very close. Upstate, the infection rate is one person infects. 9 . Downstate, one person is infecting. 75. Okay . So thats where we are across the state. If we keep the infection rate below one person infecting one person, that is where the infection rate continues to drop. Thats where you will see the curve dropping. So we have to stay there. How do you monitor it . You have three basic dials. Number of hospitalizations, which you see every day. Which i show you every day. The number of hospitalizations. You can see that by region. The number of positive Antibody Tests. This is why testing is so important. Were doing Antibody Testing around the state in regions. Antibody testing tells you how many people have been infected. A little bit of a lag because you only have the antibodies after you have had the virus. But it tells you on a lag basis how many people have been infected. The third dial is the diagnostic tests, which are just positive or negative. They tell you on an absolute basis what your infection rate is. Those are the three dials that you are watching. Take these activities, watch those three dials. You have your hand on the valve, the activity valve. So you open the valve a little bit. Phase one. Watch those dials like a hawk. Then you adjust. Thats called the rt factor, rate of transmission factor. What is the rate of transmission of the virus . Were now at. 8. You cannot go above 1. 2. 1. 2, you see that number go right back up again. We will be sitting here talking about showing you a chart that showed up, down, and then up again. Thats what happens if the rate of transmission gets to 1. 2. So this is the balance that we collectively need to strike. I i want to get back to work. My kids want out of the house. I need to do something. I understand. We have to do it intelligently. And thats this is the definition of intelligence in this context. Also, i dont want to just reopen. We learned a lot of lessons here. Painfully. But we learned a lot of lessons. And thats what reimagine means to me. How do we take the lessons we learned, take this pause in life and say, when we reopen, were going to be better for it and were going to reimagine what our life is and were going to improve for this pause . Look, even on an individual level, you had time to decompress a little bit. I think everybody went through a period where they analyzed their life and what they were doing and when somebody pulls the rug out from under you and you wind up in a different place, you know, you just see life differently. I think thats true for most people. Okay. After that reflection, how do you what have we learned . How do we improve . How do we build back better . Its not about return to yesterday. Theres no return to yesterday in life. Its about moving forward. Its about taking your experience and what you learned and bringing it to a positive affect. With that, im going to end on just sharin a stoing a story tht me a lot. People in new york city know the l tunnel. Its a tunnel that connects manhattan and brooklyn. 400,000 people use this train and this tunnel. 400,000 people is a larger group than many cities in this country have. Okay . So they had to close down the tunnel because the tunnel was old and the tunnel had problems and everybody looked at it and they said, we have to close down the tunnel. 400,000 people couldnt get to work without that train. They had all these complicated plans on how they were going to mitigate the transportation problem and different buses and cars and bikes and horses, the whole alternative transportation. This went on for years. Everyone said, you had to close the tunnel and it was going to be closed 15 to 18 months. When government says its going to be closed 15 to 18 months, i hear 24 months to the rest of your life. Thats my governmental cynicism. But that was the plan. Were going to close it down, rebuild the tunnel, 15 months to 18 months, the mta. This was going to be a massive disruption. I heard a lot of complaints. I get a few smart people, cornell engineers, columbia engineers, we go down into the tunnel. We look at it. The engineers say, you know what . Theres a different way to do this. They talk about techniques that they use in europe. They say not only could we bring these techniques here, we wouldnt have to shut down the tunnel at all. Period. We could just stop usage at night and on weekends and we can make all of the repairs. We can do it with a partial closure for 15 months. The opposition to this new idea was an explosion. I was a meddler. I didnt have an engineering degree. They were outside experts. How dare you question the bureaucracy . The bureaucracy knows better. It was a thunderstorm of opposition. But we did it anyway. We went ahead with it. We rebuilt the tunnel. The tunnel is now done, better than before, with all these new techniques. It opens today. It opens today. The proof is in the pudding. Right . We went through this period of, i dont believe it, this is interfering, it opened today. It opens today not in 15 months, but actually in only 12 months of a partial shutdown. So its ahead of schedule. Its under budget. And it was never shut down. I relay this story because you can question and you should question why we do what we do. Why do we do it that way . I know thats how we have always done it. But why do we do it that way . Why cant we do it a different way . Why not try this . Why not try that . People dont like change. We think we like change but we dont really like change. We like control more than anything. Right . So its hard. Its hard to make change. Its hard to make changes in your own life, let alone on a societal collective level. If you dont change, you dont grow. If you dont run the risk of change, you dont have the benefit of advancement. Not everything out there has to be the way it is. So we just went through this wild period where people are Walking Around with masks. Not because i said to but because they understand they need to. How do we make it better . How do we make it better . And lets use this period to do just that. We will. We will reimagine and we will make it a reality because we are new york tough and smart and disciplined and unified and loving and because we know that we can. We know that we can. We showed that we can. Questions . What you presented today seems to be an outline, a philosophical approach to reopening. When can people expect dates and hard facts and times of opening . You have them there. You have may 15th, the pause is statewide until may 15th. Then you have the cdc guidance that says hospital total hospitalizations declining for 14 days. Okay . So we get to may 15th. What regions have seen a decline for 14 days . Were assuming we will have seen a decline in the state for 14 days. What regions of the state have seen a decline for 14 days . Thats where you will start the conversation to get to phase one in that region. The regions that would be more likely able to open sooner would be the upstate regions. You take central new york, you take the North Country, you take the mohawk valley, those regions haveer numbers from day one. Talk phase one opening there, which is construction and manufacturing, with the caveat, dont do anything thats going to bring people in from all across the board. Then you have people from new york city and massachusetts and connecticut coming in. Also the construction by manufacturing is a business by business analysis. Not all construction is the same. Not all manufacturing is the same. What are those businesses doing to incorporate the safe procedures . But you would see that more likely in the upstate areas if those numbers continue to decline the way the cdc recommends. Downstate new york is going to be more complicated. You cant do anything in new york city that you dont do in suffolk, nassau, westchester. You cant do anything in downstate that we dont do in coordination with primarily connecticut and new jersey. Coordination does not mean total consistency. But it does mean coordination. We have to know if were doing something different. We have had issues where certain activities were open in connecticut and you saw many new york license plates in the connecticut parking lot. We opened beaches in new york city, but jersey doesnt open beaches, you will see new jersey people at our beaches. So you wont be in lockstep. But before we do anything, i want to make sure we know what were doing, because you will see people react to different activity levels in different communities. Conceivably, you could see manufacturing and construction start to come online in certain upstate regions after may 15th . With certain precautions after may 15. What about schools and retail . Schools are necessary for a large scale business opening. You couldnt really get to a maximum phase two without opening schools. The question on schools is going to be, do you reopen for the rest of the school year . Then theres going to be a question many local School Districts are talking about Summer School. Theyre contemplating Summer School to make up for some of the lost time. Remember, you have a real problem. This Remote Learning i think its going to be one of the lessons we learn. Remote learning is great in concept. We had to jump into it with both feet. We didnt really have a chance to scale up for it. So many of the School Districts we have 700 School Districts in the state. Many of them are saying they want to do Summer School. Because they want to make up for some of the class time. So that we have to feel out as we go. On any of these things, im not really comfortable getting too far ahead of ourselves. You want to talk about a twoweek window, i think thats an intelligent window to talk about. Anybody who says, i will tell you what will happen a month down the road, i wouldnt believe that. Districts are trying to put out a budget. What guidance for them . What should they expect . Call washington. They need to put together a budget. You said 20 . Is that the right number . Financial plan doesnt what number should they do . In the financial planning, could be up to 20 additional reduction. On may 15 may 1 was the first checkpoint. On may 1, we will know what revenues are, we will know where we are with washington and whether we have more money. We will release a plan by the middle of may that gives time for the School Districts to make their budget. Between now and may 15th, we will have more clarity and more spea specificity. This is where we want. This is where the revenue picture is. Those are the facts. By the time they put their School Budget votes together, they will have those numbers and we will have that time. How will they be done . Im sorry is. Your executive order puts the School Budget votes after june 1. Do we know when they will be, how they will be done . I dont know. We havent gotten there yet. I want to ask you about in your presentation i heard a lot about businesses and private sector. Have you been in touch with the state Worker Leader Union Leaders . Have you gotten any pushback, we dont want to be the guinea pig or first ones with our workers the first ones out at work . Have you laid out a plan of spacing and social distancing at state Office Buildings . I dont see it in the presentation. We are part of those when you talk about opening up a Government Office, thats not now open, we are part of that same analysis as for a business. We would not open any Government Office that doesnt have all those social distancing measures, reconfiguration of the workplace. We will do the same thing were asking businesses to do. Are you planning anything . Yeah. We are planning that. We come back in phases. Reduced work force. More space. Then we have certain functions that are more essential than others also. Same thing im asking business to do, we are doing. It would be easy to say, every state agency is essential. Yeah, but there are every state agency is essential. Otherwise we wouldnt have it. There are some that are more essential than others in a shortterm base. For a business, yeah, every division is essential. I get it. But shortterm, do you have more essential divisions than others that you could bring back and do spatial distancing in your workplace . Also, big factor here that is implicit, i think, but let me make it explicit in case im wrong and its not implicit. The big factor here is what people do. Thats been the factor from day one. Andrew, why do you spend so much time going through all the facts . Because i need people to understand so they actually do it. Right . Or not do it. I gave them the facts on why i think they need to wear a mask. If people dont wear a mask, do we have the ability to force people to wear a mask . 19 Million People. No. No. So they have to understand it. And if they understand it, they will do the right thing. I believe that. If they think my facts dont add up or my conclusion doesnt add up, then they dont wear the mask. Luckily, they wear the mask. On this phase one opening monitoring, monitoring, monitoring, that assumes they are going to be responsible in their behavior. That they can go out and go to a store thats open. Okay. If theyre wearing a mask and they are using cleaning their hands, thats one scenario. If they go to work and use a mask and they keep social distancing and they dont get sloppy, they dont get undisciplined, thats one situation. That personal behavior changes. I am telling you, were talking about a window of. 8 to 1. 2. Thats all were talking about. We can blow through that like wind through reeds. It depends on what people do, how smart, how disciplined they are through this whole process. Show the way with private sector so you can set up the scenario that would work and then the state yes. Private sec we will do that. We will show a workplace that is socially distant. People wear their masks. They dont go to a cafeteria. Theres no congregation. Transportation is accommodated. We will show that in what we do. Can the state ensure businesses are complying with ppe regulations or mask wearing . They have to give us a plan before we say they can reopen. Businesses were talking to businesses now literally individual businesses. We have groups that have been set up that are meeting with businesses, talking to businesses. Steve cohen, who is a former secretary, bill mulroe, former secretary to me, have been doing this for weeks. They were here at one meeting one briefing, dealt with your questions, ran away. I dont know that there was a connection between the two. But they have been talking to businesses, coming up with individual business plans. Because even construction and manufacturing, which are in phase one, yeah, what construction, how will you operate . Manufacturing can be anything. Right . How will your business operate in this quote, unquote, new normal . That is business by business. How will the state keep track of new infections or transmissions while phase one is in effect . Just the way i said, with the three dials. You have hospitalization rate, which you know now. We have a new system in place. Every hospital in this state on a daytoday basis gives us their hospitalization rate. Thats dial one. Dial two is the Antibody Testing, which we are now bringing up to scale in a large number. Statewide and regional, Antibody Testing tells you how many people are infected with a twoweek lag. Thats what roughly two weeks to develop the antibodies. Thats the second dial. The third dial is diagnostic testing sta ining statewide and. This is what we got last week when we tested. Last week we were in buffalo and we tested 3 of the population. They were positive. This week, 4 of the population is positive. Maybe thats statistically relevant, irrelevant. Four days later, 5 . Oops. Close down the valve. You have those three dials. Those three dials, hospitalization rate, Antibody Testing rate, positive diagnostic testing rate, positive negative, they give you the rate of transmission, which is how fast is the virus spreading. More testing done in the regions that are phase one . Yes. Thats why we have said all of this is dependent on testing. Because without testing, you only have one dial. You only have the hospitalization dial. The hospitalization dial is a little misleading. Its not misleading. It tells you what it tells you. People who got infected in some period over the past two weeks or maybe three weeks and who are seriously infected so that they had to go to a hospital. But thats all that hospitalization rate gives you. The Antibody Test and the diagnostic test give you a higher level of information by region. Governor, the Westchester County center was one of the areas that was one of the facilities that was crafted into a temporary hospital. Infection rates going down, the work has been completed but there have been no patients as far as i know. What do you do with those facilities, with that facility in particular that doesnt appear to be much of a use for . Yes. Today, we are in good shape. Today that would be a true statement. Do you know if that will be a tr true statement in 60 days . What would you do with the facili facility. Im not the governor. You would leave it there. Is there a possibility theres been talk about nursing home patients and residents. Could you move people out of Nursing Homes into nursing home patients lets go back to square one. A nursing home can only provide care for a patient who they believe they can provide adequate care for. If he had cannot provide adequate care for a patient, they must transfer that patient. If they cant find an tell tan nursing home or facility, department of health will. We have vacancies in Nursing Homes and in facilities. Is there no nursing home who says, i have john, i cant take care of john, i dont know where to send him. Then Call Department of health and we will find a bed for john in a facility that can take care of him. That is how it works. There was one story that said, a nursing home said they wanted to send someone to the comfort, the ship the federal government gave us, and department of health said they cant send them to the comfort. Yes, nursing home cant send a person to the comfort because thats not the agreement with the federal government. The comfort only took referrals from hospitals. The person was says assessed at hospital first. Forget the comfort. If a nursing home says i need to send i cant take care of this person, we will find a bed for that person. Period. Doesnt that isnt that at least a mixed message from the march 25th memo that said, you cannot deny admission or readmission because of a suspected covid19 case . No. You were in that facility. You have covid. You are back in that facility. That facility, if theyre going to care for you if theyre going to care for you must quarantine, must have ppe for staff, must follow these guidelines. Or they say, i cant take care of john. I cant take care of him. Im not equipped. I dont have the space to quarantine, i dont have the staff, i dont have the ppe, i condition ta cant take care of john. Im going to transfer john or call the department of health and tell them to pick up john. If you keep john and im paying you to keep john or johns family is paying you to keep john, then you have to give john the appropriate care. Here is appropriate care for a person who is covid. Alec baldwin released a video calling on you to grant clemency to people in the prison system here. Do you have any plans to do that . What do you make of his comments . We have been doing that. I havent heard his comments. Based on what . On vulnerable populations, pregnant inmates. How about if they are violent and just started their sentence . Specifically for prisoners near the end of their term within a year or that we have been doing. That we have been doing. How can you possibly help farms struggling upstate. The supply chain is in a bind. The department of agriculture is looking into these stories about dumping milk. I dont understand what the economic forces are where they have too much. We have talked to the department of agriculture. If theres a way we can buy it were talking about food banks in new york city for lowincome communities and then we talk about dumping milk in upstate new york. I dont get it. Thats the exact issue that were looking at. If theres a way that the state can purchase as part of these food bank programs, for example, we will do that. One of the things is, new York City Schools bought a lot of the product from upstate new york. We worked very hard to develop ta that relation. Apparently the purchasing of the schools is down or its different purchasing. I dont know the exact specifics. Anyway we can fix that, we will. A different topic, Domestic Violence. You did a hotline and website. Is there any update on the data . Are we seeing incidents go up . We see Domestic Violence going up. We see parent trends in alcoholism going up. We see some trends that say drug usage is going up. Mental health needs are going up. Do not underestimate the stress that this situation has created, the abnormal circumstances that it has created. I dont know if i have a job. Im not getting a paycheck. The bills are still coming in. I see no light at the end of the tunnel. And im cooped up in my home, and im under tremendous stress and then i have this added stress of being in the situation that ive never been before in my life. That is a toxic mix. When we talk about reopening, getting people out, some activities, a place where people can walk, just something, you know. I say tongue in cheek its the sanity index. People need to know that theres an opening, theres a future, that theres hope, that somebody is doing something. You need a relief valve on a day to day basis so people have some relief in their lives, some vent. Just about everyone at this point has said this crisis has emphasized how Important Health care workers are, even outside of a crisis. That being said, does that shine any sort of light or add urgency to the plight of the former st. Claire hospital . Thats a good sk schenectady dying off at this point. I dont know if we could get that to problem with this situation. Im aware of it, i dont know that i dont know how we can help those people through here. But it is something well look at. Financially, it would be difficult because it is for but as far as investigating for who is responsible for the disappearance of their money, is that something that should be emphasized since these people are living here. Yeah. For sure. Governor on monday you canceled the president ial primary in new york. Im sorry. Do you think tomorrow the democratic commissioners of the board of elections should cancel the president ial primary in new york. I havent expressed any opinion to them. No im asking to you express any opinion. No, it is up to the voa. Youre a smart guy. Im not that smart, not that opinionated. Just a smooth you wont weigh in. No. Mark and then well come back to you, jesse. Since deaths lag behind hospitalizations, why not use a decline in the death rate as the bell weather for reopening instead of hospitalization. Well, we look at both, right. We look at the death rate by region. And we look at the hospitalizations. They basically track more or less do we know statistically what the variance is between the two. The death rate, we look at hospitalization report because that is the front den and you know what the capacity is on the system. We still note as a ratio about 25 to 30 of all hospitalizations due to covid end up in icu and of the 25 to 30 , 90 percent end up on intubation and that rate of death is fairly high so we work when the government talks about hospitalization, that is an entire process factors in the reopen, not reopen. And the train doccomes off t tracks when you overwhelm the health care system. Thats that is when everything goes bad. That is italy. That is what we were very worried about. That infection rate keeps going up, youll have a death rate associated with that infection rate. But first youll have a collapse of the hospital system. And youll have people in hallways, on gurneys, who arent getting cared for. That is what we were petrified of, frankly. And that is why we boosted all of the hospital capacity, all of the other facilities. That is why that hospitalization rate, 1,000 people walked into a hospital today, that number of people walking into the hospital, that number gets too high, you will overwhelm those emergency rooms, we go back to where we were, shuttling equipment all across the system, shuttling patients across the system, that is the first indicator warning sign. But my question related to reopening and the economy and the state as opposed to using the death rate going down for 14 days. Yeah, the cdc came up with the hospitalization rate. I dont know their methodology, to tell you the truth. But we do use both. We look at both. Jesse, take the last question. What would you say to Business Owners in upstate clobbered by this economically. What sort of words of hope or comfort could you offer them or this will get better, this will be over by x date. Well x date, nobody has x date. There is no x date. You listen to the national experts, you listen to dr. Fauci, right. Dr. Fauci said there may be a second wave. It could come back in the fall. Right. So nobody is giving anybody a date here. But shortterm the numbers are on the decline, everything we have done is working. The rates are all dropping. The hospitals did phenomenal work but they did not get overwhelmed and we coordinated the health care services. The policies are working. Were now looking at a relatively short period of time, 14 days of decline. If you dont have 14 days of decline, nobody would say be reckless and open anyway, right. That doesnt help any Business Leader in the state. And start incrementally which is what everybody says, construction and manufacturing, the piece you wouldnt have and the Business Owners who are feeling pain, retail stores, hospitality, hotels, et cetera, that is a more problematic area to open up even if some of the states that are rushing to open. You see those retail stores, jesse, they still try to figure out how to do that and sort of left it up to some Retail Store Owners are opening, some arent opening, some people are let in, some dont let them in. So that is a complex sector to deal with. The hospitality and the hotels, it is hard to do these precautions in a hotel setting. But there is no doubt but that we have at this point gone through the worst and as long as we act prudently Going Forward, the worst should be over. On the issue of sports, do you imagine yankees games happening in a empty Yankee Stadium this summer. Ive asked. Ive talked to many of the sports owners and sports companies. Look, i dont know. It is not my business. I dont run i dont know the economics. But if you had an if your was players stay home, i dont know what players get when they stay home by their contracts, but assume the players are getting less money or no money, right. If you could make the economics work without the seat sales, right, and you could have teams play without the seat sales, but you had televised and you had the television revenue, and whatever else went with that, you know, were in a different place. Bee creative. Try to figure it out. But if players could get paid more than staying home, and owners will get some revenue versus total shutdown, why not. I would love to watch sports. Yes. [ inaudible question ]. Ive talked to a number of sports owners, i dont want to get into names. But it does depend, i know the economics of baseball are different than the economics of basketball and different than the economics of other sports. So it would have to be up to them that they do an Economic Analysis that says, yeah, some revenue is better than no revenue and my players are willing to negotiate a contract reduction and if they could do it, yeah. But everybody has to think outside the box. Right. Because there is no box. Okay. And there we have new York Governor Andrew Cuomo giving us a lot of information yet again today but perhaps one of the reasons we appreciate his news briefings is the statement that he said, im not that smart. Im not that opinionated, im just a cool dude in a smooth move and indeed he is. Someone well prepared for the briefings. A very good day. Were approaching the top of the hour here at msnbc World Headquarters in new york. Welcome to weekends with alex witt. I want to weigh in what the governor said with dr. Libby roy, a physician and contributor natalie azar and also with us and thank you for staying with us through the last hour, democratic congressman steve horseford from nevada. Doctors, first, to you. He talked about the Antibody Testing giving legitimate reason for doing so, to you, dr. Natalie, first, there is some conflict with regard to the cdc, the most recent information with the cdc suggesting we cannot interpret Antibody Testing positive results saying someone has the antibody that means you are now not able to attract or contract, rather, covid19. So how do you see the importance of Antibody Testing . Well, alex, it is still an intergr int intergal part of it all of this and talking about the three moving parts, the rate of antibody and diagnostic testing and if im correct the World Health Organization is the body that put out is that statement that we dont know if someone who has had coronavirus in the past could be reinfected and i think we talked about this yesterday, that i think the assumption from most experts and from science and precedent is that if youve had a viral infection, and have developed antibodies, in a high enough amount, that you likely will experience some perhaps longterm or at least temporary immunity. We talked about that yesterday, about how important the different tests are in determining just that, whether or not it is a quantity answer versus how tight the Antibody Test. So the Antibody Tests are a very important part and even though we cant guarantee immunity and we wont know until longterm we do the studies and how effective the antibodies are. And right you are are the w. H. O. I stand corrected there. With dr. Roy, with the rate of transmission, the governor gave some numbers out there. Im trying to figure out how to put this in perspective but he said if you have one person infected infecting one other person, that is a point at which we could begin to open up our economy. And we look at the state of new york. He said that we on average have one person infected now affecting. 8. And you cant decide if a person is infected but he made the point one person infected 1. 2 people, could you put into perspective where we are at. 8 versus when we have to see an uptick of covid19, something we do not want to return to, the discrepancy between. 8 and 1. 2, how large is that . How much are we on this very, very tight rope between where we are now and where we dont want to go . Yeah, youre absolutely right, alex. It is interesting when i listen to Governor Cuomo talk, in a nuanced way, here is a politician with no formal medical or scientific training talking about rates of transmission. Hes talking when this is something who is clearly listening and learning from his Public Health and medical experts. This is kind of what we really need in terms of leadership, right. So, yes, hes correct in that right now it is one to one, slightly less than one to one transmission. And actually ideally we want that to be as low as possible because if we go above that, he pointed out that threshold number of 1. 2 and then you see graphically, im a very visual learner so you when you see graphically that 1 infecting more than one that is how you get an exponential increase and that is what were seeing with the viral pandemic. That is the thing about Infectious Diseases as opposed to noninfectious, like Heart Disease and cancer, you cant get that from someone else. But that one to one transmission is through the preventative measures weve been doing, the social distancing and the hand washing and covering the face, these measures are working and we need to continue to keep that transmission rate low. Okay. Doctors thank you so much for that. I want to move to the congressman as i welcome you, sir. Im sure you were listening to the governor terms of the health perspective, where he said that we are in terms of testing and the rates of infection and deaths and the like. You also were listening to him in terms of reopening this state, which im sure is reflected there in your state of nevada. Youve had a lot of protests, people clamoring to get back to work. In fact, before i get to your answer to this, i want to have you listen to part of a report by my colleague nbcs Steve Patterson able to speak with an employee in the iconic Caesars Palace and talk about what the issues are for this particular employee and beyond. Lets take a listen, sir. The usually packed vegas strip now a ghost town. Hundreds of thousands of jobs and millions in revenues lost. It is very eerie and sad and to think that it operated nonstop for 54 years and then just comes to a screeching halt. Reporter caesars pal ace which hosts 50,000 people a day now vacant. Nobody wants to put people back to work more than i do but a person shouldnt have to choose between a paycheck and their life. Reporter but with more than 300,000 residents unemployed some are fighting for a swept reopening. You have a great economy going in america. Leave it alone. Open it all back up. Congressman horseford, why not give into protesters and open them back up. Is there any scenario under which you see that happening right now . Well, alex, thanks for having me on. This is about protecting peoples lives, their live lie ho livelihood and our democracy. And that is what were focused on. We need more accurate tracking and tracing and the more we could do that effectively, the sooner we can hope. I want to commend the governor and local officials have been working hard on the crisis so we can help our Small Businesses and other clamoring to reopen. My state is the hardest hit state economically because of the tourismbased economy and what workers want is to go back to work but they need to go back to work in a safe environment, consumers need to have confidence that they could travel and be in these establishments and that is what it is going to take. So i want to commend our local officials to all of the hard work that they are continuing to do and the fact that congress was able to approve 25 billion of additional funding for testing and for the development of a National Testing strategy is integral to this overall effort. And you say the word integral and that applies to tourism and gambling and casinos in the state of nevada but regard to opening slow or otherwise, it doesnt appear that is relief to all of the laid off and furloughed workers right away. It will take some time. What could be done to help them . Well, first, i Hope Congress will take up my bill that Worker Health protection act to protect Health Benefits during this time. It would provide for 100 of federal funding of cobra payments so that people do not lose their health insurance. We also need to provide more direct cash payments. Im for universal basic income. I think we need to increase that to 2,500 a month during the portion of the pandemic. Families are hurting, workers are hurting. Communities are hurting. And lastly, let me say, that it is outrageous for Mitch Mcconnell to suggest that state and local governments should go bankrupt in order to be made whole. It is state and local governments that are providing essential sfervices and we cannt open effectively without our state and local governments being properly funded and i hope that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle and in the senate will work with the House Democrats to get that done in the cares 2. 0 package. Thank you for staying us with through the governors News Conference and i thank you for your constituents there in nevada. And well be speaking with adam schiff from southern california. Chair of the intel committee. Hes hooked up ready to go. But lets get a few News Headlines and the details at this hour. There are more than 940,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus across this country. More than 53,000 people have died. Several states prepare to reopen this week. Local leaders are talking about next steps. Also the risk of lifting regulations too soon. Were all worried about the potential for a spike along with the fall in september or october or whether it is july. It is why weve been really laser focused as an administration on figuring out how we can endure and sustain these kinds of social distancing measures. And new reaction from two governors who are seeing a rise in calls to emergency hotlines after the president s comments about injecting disinfectants. When misinformation comes out or you just Say Something that pops in your head, it does send a wrong message and we have hundreds of calls come into our emergency hotline at our Health Department asking if it was if it was right to ingest clorox or alcohol cleaning products. Whether that would help them fight the virus. So we have to put out that warning to make sure that people were not doing Something Like that which would kill people. With the person with the most powerful position on the planet to think about disinfectants, whether it is serious or not, people listen so we have seen an increase in people calling poison control and so i think it is important for everyone of us on a platform disseminate that no one should be using disinfectants. You could imagine hundreds of calls querying about whether people should use disinfectantsed on the president s suggestions there. And we have fresh insight from the top doctor on Johns Hopkins on where we fall on the curve. We have reached a plateau nationally. Trends could change over time. But at this point weve a plateau in new cases per day. Unfortunately it is a very high plateau. Still seeing 30,000 now cases of covid19 every day in the United States and still are seeing something on the order of 2,000 deaths per day. So we are not out of the woods by any means in terms of this pandemic, but at least weve reached a stable number of new infections and the number of people who are dying from this illness. And starting tomorrow the Small Business administration will resume taking applications for the Paycheck Protection Program as congress has approved additional 310 billion to keep Small Business as float after the program ran out of money a bit earlier this month. Also today new reaction from response coordinator dr. Deborah birx on the president s remarks when he suggested that people might inject disinfectants. Monica alba standing by on that. Dr. Birx makes comments. What is she saying. Reporter dr. Birx has a tough task here, alex, because so often shes asked to explain incidents when the president has not been careful or selective in his language and shes forced to do so by picking her words very, very carefully and doesnt want to spend all of her time trying to interpret what the president meant. For him, the process often is a thinking out loud type of situation. That he when he receives new information it takes him a little bit of time to digest that. That is the case with the comments on disinfectants on thursday. But we havent heard dr. Birx pressed on that much beyond that since she wasnt on the briefing yesterday and there was no briefing yesterday. But take a listen this morning how she was pressed on meet the press on how she balances the president s own words with science. You said he was digesting information at time when that came out of his mouth. Do you have any more information and are you concerned that people might take bleach because of what the president said . I think i made it very clear on how i interpreted that and made it clear and so has dr. Fauci and everyone associated with the task force in their clarity around this is not a treatment. Reporter and you remember in the briefing later on the president did pose a question directly to dr. Birx on the question of heat and light as a potential cure for coronavirus. And she was clear in that moment that it is not considered a treatment even though yesterday the president issued a tweet in which he was saying he was talking to somebody else when clearly the transcript showed she was asking for advice and she sposhdresponded in that mom. And there are conversations about how they will continue if he doesnt do one today this weekend is a notable break but does he resume tomorrow. Theyre still trying to figure out the communication strategy that is best. But the Washington Post took a look at how many hours the president has been speaking behind the podium and it amounts to about 28 hours since march 16th but they broke down how he spent that time and over the past three weeks the tally comes to more than 13 hours of the president with many hours of that portion spent on attacks, 45 minutes praising himself and his administration, and only four and a half minutes expressing condolences for people who have died from covid19. And that is a significant point to make because yesterday the president also said it may not be worth his time and effort Going Forward holding these News Conferences because you see there and from our own tally, he has spent so much time in the Briefing Room in total hes appearing at about 40 different Coronavirus Task force briefings and the task force has held more than 50 and some of them as long as two hours and 23 minutes, the shortest on friday with only 22 minutes and significantly since weve been talking about the potential fate of hhs secretary alex azar, we havent seen him in one of briefings since april 3rd. So Something Else to keep track of here on this sunday, alex. That is a packed report from you in the white house. Monica alba, thank you for that. Joining me now california congressman adam schiff, chairman of the house Intelligence Committee. Always good to see you, congressman. Youre reaction to some of the numbers, sir, that monica alba just shared and the notable one of the 28 hours the president spent speaking during these coronavirus briefings, the task force briefings, 4 and a half minutes with an air of empathy perhaps for americans who have lost their lives or suffering hardships. What are your thoughts on that . Well, you know it is not surprising even if it is distressing because this is a president where everything is about him. And so he enjoys talking about himself, his accomplishments. I think those why the press conference has been a toxic mix of misinformation from the president and selfpromotion attacks on rivals and only 4 and a half minutes talked about the loss of over 50,000 american lives. Ive been urging for sometime frankly that stations stop covering those press conferences live because of their penchant for misinformation and now we see with graphic results the president touting clorox as a potential cure and the calls coming into hotlines. I think my view the news should the press conference and replay something if it is newsworthy but he uses them so much for selfpromotion and so concerned about his ratings, hes having a hard time divorcing himself from them merely because theyre watching not because they add any particular value to country during this pandemic. Yeah. And under the category of misinformation, perhaps nothing more highlighting under that than the president s comments about disinfectants. You heard governor larry hogan say he received hundreds of calls with people, his constituents, asking if they should take some sort of disinfectants and ingesting it. You heard dr. Birx talking about her interpretation of the president s words and that he was still digesting information. What is your reaction to the president continuing to put himself on that podium even though he said hes going to back away for a while . Well, you know, i think even more serious than the bleach comments and the fact that hotlines are now getting calls from people who are contemplating injecting bleach is the push the president is making without scientific basis to advance things he believes might be a cure like hydroxychloroquine which in an early v. A. Test did more harm than good and, in fact, people have and there was a fatality in arizona where someone took the wrong kind of chloroquine and died as a result, a couple that died as a result. This is not useful for the country for the president to simply speculate, opine and to try to gloss over, as dr. Birx does on a daily basis that he thinks out loud. This is the president of the United States and when he does think out loud and those thoughts are illconsidered, they have deadly consequences. But even more tragically when he interest fears with the science and tries to push cures or potential cures before theyre ready, then people lose their lives and so i hope the president sticks to it. In terms of not doing the Daily Press Briefings but i suspect he cant stand being out of the public attention for very long and that well see them resume. If would seem that your echoing the sentiments perhaps for Different Reasons from the trump advisers who have said to him, mr. President , these briefings are not helping you. With the standing with the American Public, nor with your reelection campaign. What are your thoughts on that . I think theyre probably right about that. I mean, his ratings in terms of the handling of the crisis keep going down. I think as people in politics say overexposed himself by these daily rambling and incessant and destructive press conferences. But my perspective on this is what is the best thing for the American People right now. I dont mind Daily Press Briefings if theyre done by experts like dr. Fauci but for the purposes of propaganda and that is the president s purpose then they dont add value and they have done real damage. So maybe well have a happy confluence of the president s perm political interests taking him off the air with these personal political ads and ruminating about cures as well as what is best for the country, which is more from the experts and less from him. Congressman, i want to take a look at something, sir, that you said during the impeachment trial back in january which seems almost like a lifetime ago. Merely three months ago, though. Here is what you said. Take a listen. You know you cant trust this president to do whats right for this country. You can trust he will do whats right for donald trump. Hell do it now. Hes done it before. Hell do it for the next several months. Hell do it in the election if hes allowed to. It was very powerful what you said there. And do you believe if think republicans recall what you said as this nation endures this pandemic . Are the republicans, sir, whom you believe may regret their votes and their comments supporting the president earlier this year. You know, im sure there are republicans who regret their comments, whether they regret their votes, there may be some who regret their votes as well. Certainly one particular senator who talked about how she was sure the president was going to learn his lesson, it is very clear the president learned nothing except he feels he could get away with anything. But sadly i think in this crisis we do see the president once again doing what he believes is best for him, not what is best for the country. And that those go to his egging on of the protesters about reopening states. Even in violation of the president s own Health Care Task force guidelines. Why would the president do that . Why would he egg on the people in the states urging states to reopen when his own guidelines say they shouldnt. Because he does what is best for him. Not what is best for the country. So this is his character. And we said during the trial, a man with no moral compass will never find his way and he wont find his way in the middle of a pandemic like this. Joe biden said that he thinks trump will try to delay the november election. Do you put it past him trying to do that. It doesnt seem like something an executive order could accomplish . He doesnt have the power to do that. That doesnt mean that he wont try to do anything that he believes is political advantageous. Im more worries he will try to disenfranchise millions of americans and try to put off the election. Hes already talking down absentee voting, making false claims about the reliability of absentee voting even when he votes by absentee himself. But he has openly admitted and it is rather startling to hear him say out in in the open that he believe thats more americans vote, more would participate in our democracy and he and other republicans couldnt get elected. That may very well be true. But that is not a reason to disenfranchise people, a reason to change their platform. But i do think that like they tried in wisconsin, the republicans may try to force people to choose their vote or our health and we need to insist and i think needs to be a very important point in terms of protecting the health care of our democracy, we need to insist that every american in the fall, if they choose to do so, has easy access to voting by mail with a postage paid ballot. Because we cant prever presee health of our country if we allow democracy to be destroyed. Indeed. Nbc news was reported that trup and top aides have played favori favorites in awarding coronavirus contracts and allocated scarce resources. Do you see with holding military aid to ukraine which resulted in his impeachment. There are parallels with him with holding military aid from president zelensky with the comments now about not wanting to return calls from governors or have the Vice President return calls from governors who are pleading for more protective gear, the protect of Health Care Workers unless they say nice things about him. Why does he care apart from his ego an vanity, weve seen the republican parties turn it into political commercials for reelection and so he wants the governors to say things he could use in his campaign ads to show what a great job hes doing when hes doing an awful job in dealing with this pandemic to help his reelection and hes willing, it appears, to withhold federal support from these states not on the basis of anything but his pure political personal interests and when people and states are struggling to get the gear they need to protect their Health Care Workers and people are dying, that kind of putting himself first is devastating and tragic consequences. One more question. About your colleagues in the Senate Intelligence committee releasing a report now saying that the 2017 intel assessment about russian interference in trump was accurate. And untainted by political bias. Does this finally quiet the president s efforts to paint the allegations of russian assistance as a hoax . Well, it should. But of course it wont. Because facts dont matter to this president. Now but you have the Intelligence Community with the conclusion and the house Intelligence Committee and the democratic members reaching the same conclusion as democrats and republicans on the Senate Intelligence committee that not only did the russian interfere in 2016, they did so with the object of helping elect donald trump and harming hillary clinton. So everyone has reached that conclusion except for a motley group that includes the president , people like devin nunes and will herd who departed from the facts here and the facts are very clear about what the russians did and tragically what they appear to be intending to do again in 2020. Congressman adam schiff, it is always good to see you, thank you so much for your time and for waiting through the governors News Conference as well. Thank you. Do take care. Los angeles countries reporting 48 new deaths, 6067 additional deaths bringing the total to 895 deaths and more than 19,100 cases. This just days after coronavirus became the leading cause of death in the county. Surpassing facilities from cancer, the flu, emphysema and Heart Disease. New data reveals younger africanamericans and latinos are dying from covid19 at higher rates in california. Our colleague steve patter sorn joins me from los angeles with more on how fear and danger are challenging for the underserved and poor communities there are a lot of elevates risks and the specif threats that the communities are facing so lets get to them with you. Reporter most of the threats that you hear about are the Underlying Health conditions that affect the communities of color. Hype tension, diabetes, obesity, asthma. All of those are contributing factors that make covid worse. But what is less talked about is the generational socioeconomic and race factors that have contributed to this over a serious sustained amount of time and led to the state of the communities. And so i spoke to a woman who not only first survives cancer and survived covid and wanted to talk to us to relay a message of help that people of color could beat this as well. So listen to this. As the coronavirus pandemic spreads to every corner of the u. S. , these are especially dark days for communities of color. Covid19 is an opportunistic killer, most dangerous to those with underlying conditions like this plan who beat uterine cancer. I didnt find out i was positive until i came out of a coma. If you do get the diagnosis, you can beat it. It is beatable. Despite the fact that you may be black or have preexisting conditions. Reporter africanamericans and hispanic communities have been hit hard by the virus. Because hot spots like new york, chicago and new orleans have outsides minority conditions. It is nonsense to say it is genetic. Reporter dr. Fauci explained the particular danger to listeners. Africanamericans have a higher degree of hypertension, obesity, asthma, all of those kinds of things that are preconditions that if you do get infected, you wind up having a worst outcome. Reporter the threat has spread from city centers to the most remote areas like the Navajo Nation which has seen 1200 cases per capita that is the third highest infection rate of any state. One Family Member contracts or is exposed to the virus, they have the potential of exposing most if not all of their family to it because of their close family structure. Reporter roughly 50 people have died here and with elderly at elevated risk, an entire culture is at stake. Some of our oral traditions are going to be lost because of covid19 because those are the keepers of the stories, the keepers of our history and our culture at practices, are held within these older populations. Reporter a pandemic that knows no race or color or class. Yet threatens all of them. So the thing that has been said over and over again across the country and the world is that information and data on how the virus is spreading and where it is is so important so access to testing has been incredibly important and that is one of the other things that communities of color suffer from, these testing deserts. That is one thing that the state Health Department said they are working on immediately. But one of the things that many experts say is you cant triage systemic issues so the hope is that we learn from this so it could improve issues like access to health care and access to housing to make the situation like this better in the future, alex. That is something that has to be done over time. It is important that youre bringing to light all of the challenges of the minority communities so thank you very much. Nbcs Steve Patterson. We have breaking news to share in the coronavirus pandemic today as there is nor now than 941,000 confirmed cait cases here in the United States. More than 53,000 people have died. As we look at new jersey, it makes up more than 100,000 of those cases and the state has been on lock don for a month. The governor said restrictions will likely not be lifted for several weeks and underscored the need for financial help from the federal government. We wont go bankrupt, but well gut the living daylights out of things like educateors, First Responders, the very folks we desperately need. This is the Health Care Crisis of all time in aur countrys history. We need states to me fully funded at the point of attack, being there for our residents. General motors reportedly set to bring some workers back to factories home tomorrow to prepare, all plants have been idle since midmarch and there is no indication when production will begin. Neiman marcus could file for bankruptcy as soon as today. Stores have been closed since march 17th because of coronavirus and adding to the 4 billion of debt. They are in talks with leaders to secure around 600 million in emergency funding and it does have plans to restructure. Then in hawaii crowds flock to city parks acrossa wahoo. They were closed for more than a month and parkgoers must pract proper social distancing protocols. There are people in the park again. Theyre running and exercising. It is amazing how many people are in the water swimming. Think everybody is glad it is open and most of them look like theyre respectful of keeping apart from each other and wearing a mask when you get too close. Been cooped up the last month. It is good to see the fresh air and just be out, see people. Well as the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus across this country rises, there is a new warning from the World Health Organization issued a statement saying there is no evidence that recovered patients cannot be reinfected with the virus. Joining me now, dr. Vin gupta, Global Health policy expert and dr. John torres, msnbc medical contributor. Welcome to you both. Before we get into Antibody Testing and some of the other details i want to discuss, your thoughts about people getting out and about, getting to parks, exercising, really kind of opening up their minds as well. Dr. Gupta, you first on that. I think we have to open up safely. We talk too much about essential, nonessential. We should liberalize that so what is safe and not safe. There is mixed messaging on masks. We know now there is good evidence that fabric masks help minimize droplet transmission even with normal speech. Soo if somebody is in spected and speaking normally, this could transmit covid19. So if were Wearing Masks and being vigilant with social distancing, we need to trust people to follow the guidelines. Dr. Torres, i have to say anecdotally ive seen a lot of people and ive been out seeing people talking walks and out running and people without masks passing by me on the walkway and i getir tighted. Should i have a right to get irritated. Should everybody out exercising be wearing a mask. I think youre adequate because it is disappointk and discouraging and i live in manhattan and you see 30 if not more of people not Wearing Masks or exercising. What the advice is to have the mask with you, if you pass somebody else put the mark on because we do know youre breathing heavier and the droplets could come out and it is important to get out there and exercise, sunshine those are all healthy components but do it safely and that means Wearing Masks and not necessarily wearing it so you protect yourself but youre protecting others. And that is an important thing to do as a communitybased process to make sure we get through this because those numbers are going to go right back up if we dont take precautions and protections that we need toward to keep it under control. Doctors, lets get to the Antibody Testing and the World Health Organization saying there is proofr you cant be reinfected. Is it a matter of time and waiting for definitive proof to prove what we expect or does it also reflect really how little we know about this virus . It is the latter, alex. And we dont know enough right now. And what do is that the tests that assess for the presence of antibody dont actually assess for whether those antibodies could neutralize or fight off covid19. We just dont have that level of sophistication with the tests. The tests are quite nascent. Were having problems with false positive and overestimating who has an infection or those antibodies in the community. So long story short, Antibody Tests are not to be trusted at the moment. As some sort of written basis for return to work strategy, to your point and the w. H. O. s point, we dont know if having an antibody notes immunity. We just dont know that yet. Maybe it does. But we dont have that nuance or level of detail. Dr. Torres, Governor Cuomo said Antibody Testing helps assess the rate of transmission. So that is valuable even if were not sure on an individual level how much someone could be protected Going Forward. Exactly. But that means we have to have the testing in place. And there is a couple of components you need to open up and one of those is testing, that tells us people that are actively sick and testing with who has been sick in the past and where the numbers are. On top of that it is quarentine or isolating people who are sick and getting the hot spots under control and contract tracing. Those come into play to make sure everything is done safely. But one of the things World Health Organization said is this doesnt mean that that antibody level doesnt give you immunity and it means we dont know that. We are saying you tested positive for antibody therefore you could go to work and free and okay and it gives a false sense of security and we want to make sure that doesnt happen. So again more time is needed to get this test under control to get a better idea but for now it is a good teal to use to find out where we are. I wish i had more time. Dr. Vin gupta and john torres, we look forward to seeing you again. For countless businesses, tomorrow may be the last chance to save themselves and the livelihoods of so many americans. Back after a break. O many americans. Back after a break are you tired of clean clothes that just dont smell clean . What if your clothes could stay fresh for weeks . Now they can downy unstopables inwash scent boosters keep your laundry smelling fresh way longer than detergent alone. 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A second application period for the Paycheck Protection Program begins tomorrow but many Small Businesses are outraged because they didnt receive support from the first round. Vaughn hillyard is joining us live from phoenix, arizona. With a welcome to you. How is this affecting the business there where you are in phoenix and around the country . Reporter yeah, alex, look, there is that initial 300 billion pot of money allocated by congress to go to help Small Businesses. But over the course of the two weeks when that money started to get dolled out, just a small fraction ended up going to truly Small Businesses. These are companies with less than 100 workers, less than 50 workers. Out of the 350 billion, just 17 of it came out in loans that were less than 150,000. Meaning a lot of businesses like changing hands book stores here in phoenix did not receive those funds. Tomorrow morning at 10 30 a. M. Eastern a second pot of money is opening but there is a lot of question marks as to will the Small Businesses get the money to help companies this go around. I want to bring in the owner of changing hands book store cindy dash. An establishment since 1974, a staple here. And im sorry we have to keep a little distance and i would encourage everybody when they come to phoenix to check out not only your bookstore but coffee and wine bar. Will you give folks an idea what the last four weeks have looked like for you and what youre hoping for tomorrow. Absolutely. And thanks so much for having. We opened in 1974 in tempe in 2014 we opened a second location in phoenix and put in a beer, wine coffee bar. Weve been a locally owned business for a long time and on march 16th we made the decision for safety precautions we would have to close our doors to the public. We kept our staff on for as long as we could. We were paying full salaries. We really believe the ppp funding was going to come in. And thun unfortunately our bank ke kept telling us we were in the queue and didnt then have funds for us and we had furlough our longterm employees because we were using savings to get there this. Weve prided on a Community Gathering space and somehow overnight that became a liable. Were a place where people gather, we get books to School Children and foster care families. We are a place where people gather and see amazing author events here and find their next book that makes them achieve their next goal in their life. And to close the doors is just so hard. Reporter thank you so much. Cindy the owner of changing hands book store. There are stories like this from the pizza and concert venue down the road. There are more than 75 public traded companies that received the ppp loans. Treasury department is urging them to return that money. There are Big Companies that received the loans intended for the Small Businesses. The question is will round two which again opens up tomorrow, will that funding actually make it to businesses like cindys here in phoenix. Yeah. One more time, what is the name of the book store because books and coffee and wine, altogether. That is my kind of place. Ill check that out. What is it called . Changing hands book store. Thank you. And thank her very much for the conversation. Appreciate that. Vaughn hillyard. With more than 24,000 confirmed cases in texas and more than 700 deaths, texans are waiting for a possible reprieve from the stay at homes that expire this week. Joining me now Priscilla Thompson from houston. What are you hearing from the Business Owners youre speaking with . Reporter were here in the river oaks district where there is everything from retailers to restaurants and even salons and all of those Business Owners tell me they are excited for the opportunity to possibly reopen their doors. But theyre also focused on taking the proper Safety Measures. I think most people recognize that customers will not come in if they dont feel safe. I was just speaking to the owner of the gelato shop who said in addition to wearing protective gear they wont give oum samples to avoid the touching. At the salon theyre taking more dramatic steps installing plastic barriers at the front desk and nail tables and taking temperatures to make sure theyre at right temperature before getting their hair done. Now it is almost impossible to maintain that six foot distance that the cdc is recommending while doing someones hair and i actually asked the salon owner about that. Take a listen to what she told me. You wear the mask and the clients wearing a mask and we wash our hands and wear the gloves. I do i dont know what more else we could do and we need to be people once again. So theyre reopening the store this week to take appointments in anticipation for a possible reopen in may and folks have been asking about the Safety Measures that they put in place and theyre still interested in making appointments and coming in. And i do want to point out that texas began offering retail to go this weekend. Where focus could pick up things curb curbside and where i saw lines around the parking lot were at the Beauty Supply stores. It makes sense because there are those of us ordering things online on in category. So thank you so much Priscilla Thompson there in houston. We appreciate that. Many around the country have been quarantined for weeks with the stayathome orders ongoing. There is a new Washington Post report that said that could lead to quarantine fatigue as researchers find more americans venturing out against those stayathome orders. And joining me now dr. Patrice harris, the president of the american medical association. Welcome back to the broadcast, doctor, good to see you. Lets get to the researchers from the study which analyzed smartphone tracking data and it showed that more people have been leaving home for the last 12 days. Is there a timeline that you think in your mind that says oh, this makes sense, this is the time when people would start ignoring the orders. Well, alex, thank you for having me back. And certainly it is understandable that people are getting cabin fever and really want to get out. It has been about five weeks now for most folks and social distancing and in some areas the weather is getting warmer. Also there have been mixed messages regarding the importance of physical distancing and frankly in some areas where folks are either living alone, they feel more isolated. And so it is certainly important that they want to get out. I havent been able to visit my father. And in six weeks or so. So that is understandable. But when we decide to loosen restrictions, we should do so with a certain set of data and metrics in mind. I have to say i feel the same about my mother so i share your concerns that way. Were looking at pictures, doctor, of people on the beach, at newport beach, california, granting soaring temperatures and this is panama beach in florida there, but when you look at people gathering on the beaches, social distancing does not seem to be exactly honored. How much does that worry you . Yes, you have to get people outside or if theyre feeling itchy, they want to get outdoors, fresh air is not bad nor anybody. But do you worry about social distancing not being complied with . I do worry. Because we know the American Public has done a wonderful job thus far. We know that we have flattened the curve as they say and therefore slowed the risk of infection. But the virus is still there. And so, yes, it is okay to be outside as your local Public Health officials allow. But we should all be wearing fas coverings when we are outside and we absolutely must maintain that six feet of distancing as well as continue to wash our hands, wash our hands. So that is very concerning. We have done such a good job and we really dont want these rates of infection to go back up where they are flattening by the way. Not everyone is experiencing a decrease at this point. Yeah. There was Something Interesting reported through the l. A. Times and other publications, in fact, talks about dreams. How people are saying theyre having intense dreams right now. Dr. Harris, do you know what is behind that and causing folks to dream in a more vivid fashion than normal. I dont know that and i did see that report and as you imagine as a psychiatrist i found that particularly interesting. I tease that psychiatrist could interpret dreams and understand pathophysiology, but we dream for many reasons and it may be the increase stressors, increase worries, for all kinds of reasons. So i did find that very interesting and i think we will just continue to, as psychiatrists and those of us in the Mental Health and medical community continue to be there for patients and make sure they get the support and care they need. Okay. And im sure youll agree that obviously this is having an affect on the mental state so that is a domino affect to the dreams. With regard to a Virtual Forum and town hall youre part of, when is it and what do you hope to accomplish. Ive had the opportunity to participate in several town halls over the course of this pandemic. And just raising issues around race and ethnicity. Raising issues around the importance of clear, consistent communication. Making sure that all communities get the Accurate Information. A social media post came over my feed and said were all in the same storm but were not all in the same boat. And i think it is so important for us to continue to have conversations, to have these town hall events to make sure people get Accurate Information and that they know their risk and as always we encourage everyone to continue to stay home, yes, go outside when you can. When your Public Health officials allow. But please maintain physical distancing and wear cloth coverings. Amen to that. Dr. Patrice harris, thank you so much. Good to see you. Best of luck in the virtual town hall. The georgia chef who said it is not safe to dine out yet. Hes going to talk with me next. Our offices, schools and playgrounds. All those places out there, are now in here. Thats why were still offering fast, free two day shipping on thousands of items. Even the big stuff. And doing everything it takes to ensure your safety. So you can make your home everything you need it to be. Wayfair. Way more than furniture. I have moderate to severe pnow, theres skyrizi. 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Farm waste into renewable natural gas led chevron to partner with california bioenergy. Working to provide an alternative source of power. For a cleaner way forward. Tomorrow georgia will join tennessee in becoming the first two states to reopen dine in restaurants since the start of this pandemic. Georgias Governor Brian Kemp received a lot of flack for the states accelerated reopening schedule and that is in part because the number of cases in georgia is rising. There are now more than 600 new cases and eight more deaths this weekend. The white house Coronavirus Task force says in order to waive restrictions and reopen, cases anywhere should decline for at least 14 straight days. Joining me now from athens, georgia, is chef and Restaurant Owner hugh atkinson. He is the owner of five in ten in athens and by george. And we want to talk with you because you wrote for the Washington Post that even though you and your employees are feeling great pain, economic pain from this coronavirus shutdown, its no the safe or smart to dine out yet. Talk about what you wrote and when you think it will be safe to dine in again. You know, alex, i thafrgs for thanks for having me, first of all. I think its a little too soon and a lot of place thats are being asked to reopen are not really economically viable in this time. Weve seen testing just cresting over 1 of the total of 10. 5 Million People in georgia and thats doesnt seem to be enough of an impeerical Statistical Analysis of the situation. I worry about less economically affluent people being charged to come back to work, being economically reliant on their jobs, feeling like they have to pay the bills and work through a fever in a crowded restaurant scenario. The businesses that have or are being charged with reopen on friday was like tattoo parlors and bowling alleys, hair salons, these are all hands on things except tore bowling. But those are the dangerous holes in the ball. So its just not the time yet. Yeah. I do want to applaud you for having kept at least a core group of employees. Youve expanded on that. You started out with takeout. But then you are now serving about 25,000 meals over the last three weeks to First Responders, medical facilities, as well as communities in need. First of all, how is that going . What are the big challenges to doing that with so few employees . Thats going really well. 20 of our workforce so doing that. And the dispatching of it is really up to myself and many i two daughters who are 15 and 17. Were just feeding a ton of communities and hospitals and First Responders and thats just gave us a reason to be doing what we do and nourishing a community that needs us right now. For the first time in my life, we dont need fine dining, we need nourishment. Between the three restaurants you have again one in athens and two in atlanta, i know you had to furlough almost 100 employees. Do you have a sense of how theyre doing and whether theyre getting unemployment . You know, they were getting unemployment very successfully. Everything was going great. And we went and got ppp loans. So all of my crew at the two restaurants that i own are back on payroll. Most of the 80 of them were working from home. 20 working within the restaurants doing emergency meal service. So theyre on my dime now and were going to get through this. Okay. Chef, that all sounds good. Im going to name the restaurants one more time for anybody who wants to go based on the good work that youve done in helping the community. Five and ten in athens, empire south and by george. Bouj bo both of those in atlanta. I promise ill come see you sometime. Thats all the time we have for this edition of weekends with alex witt. Join me next week. My colleague takes over the top of the hour. Shes talking to the mayor of dallas about his states plan to reopen some businesses and whether thats the right decision. It its coming your way next. Igt decision it its coming your way next r every move. Like this left turn. Its the next one. You always drive this slow . How did you make someone i love . That must be why youre always so late. I do not speed. And thats saving me cash with drivewise. My son, he did say that you were the safe option. And thats the nicest thing you ever said to me. So get allstate. Stop bossing. Where good drivers save 40 for avoiding mayhem, like me. This is my sons favorite color, you should try it. [mayhem] you always drive like an old lady . [tina] youre an old lady. 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A single hub for a consistent operating experience across all your clouds. That should clear things up. Hello, everyone. For most of you, were at the start of another week of stay at home orders put in place to stop the spread of coronavirus. Doctors and politicians warn the nation is not out of the woods just yet. Another 2300 people have died from the virus this weekend bringing the total to more than 53,000 nationwide. But Officials Say there are signs that the pandemic flatteneded and now leaders are faced with the difficult decision of when and how to reopen their states. Four states are already partially opened with some restrictions staying in place. Another 15 are scheduled to join them by the end of the week. But governors of some of the hardest hit states say their restrictions are staying in place. We have to have robust testing. We have to have community tracing. Weve got to have a plan for isolation for people that do get tested positive for covid19 in the future. Were still a number of weeks