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unprecedented step to direct the department of defense to use military health care personnel to operate all covid facilities. at the javits center in new york, at the convention center in new orleans, and at the convention center in dallas. and we informed each of the governors of those states today at their requests we were making those military medical personnel available to operate in all covid facility. but we would emphasize to people in that community who believe you've been impacted or have contracted the coronavirus, contact your local health care provider. we anticipate in the new york area that your local health care provider will make the decision whether you transferred to the javits center. and in all case, simply look to the guidance of your local governors about how best to receive the care that every american, every american is entitled to have.
beyond that, let me say that we have been working through fema's acquisition process, not only to deploy, but to gather up personal protective equipment. and in just a few moments, you will hear from admiral john palovcek about the extraordinary progress we have made in deploying not just the strategic national stockpile, but also in identifying on the commercial marketplace around america and around the world literally millions of n95 masks, surgical gowns, gloves, protective equipment and at this point, we've distributed some 7600 ventilators, and you'll hear today specifically about the states that have received those ventilators. we're just -- this team has truly acted in an inspiring way. and literally is working with dozens and dozens of people at the fema stabilization task
force to make sure that we are leaving no stone unturned to find the fly supplies we need. let me also say today you're going hear from jared kushner, senior adviser to the president of the united states, but someone that the white house coronavirus task force directed to work with fema on supply chain issues. and in recent weeks, he had been leading a working group in conjunction with fema that literally has identified millions of medical supplies around the nation and around the world. and we're grateful for his efforts and his leadership. finally, you'll hear from peter navarro, who will explain the action the president took today using the defense production act. but as you hear details today about the medical supplies that have been distributed, those that have been purchased, those that we're making available, ventilators distributed to hospitals and those that are available, let me just remind every american that you can make
a difference in ensuring that every patient has the treatment that they deserve. every health care provider, every doctor and nurse and nurse's assistant has the protective gear to provide the care you would want your family to have by putting into practice the president's 30 days to slow the spread. i mean, we want you to take to heart the president's coronavirus guidelines for america. first, protect your own health, to protect the health of your family, to protect the health of your community. we know so many people are asymptomatic, and people that literally don't know they have the coronavirus, but have the ability to infect others. we want you to put these guidelines into practice, social distancing, using a drive-through at a restaurant, washing your hands on a regular basis. but as we focus today on supplies, make no mistake about it. every american can make sure that our health care workers and more importantly americans that are struggling with overhave the
equipment to support their treatment by putting these principles into practice. the fewer americans that contract the coronavirus, the fewer americans will have to enter our health care system. and that will continue to preserve the capacity in our health care economy. so we thank the millions of americans who have responded in the first two days of 30 days to slow the spread. and i'm just absolutely confident that in the days ahead, every american is going to do their part. for your health, your family's health, the health of your community. and to assure the strength and vitality of the greatest health care system in the world. with that, let me introduce jared kushner to speak about the work he has been doing, working with fema on ensuring a strong supply chain to meet this moment. jared? >> thank you, mr. president. and thank you for your great leadership on the task force. and thank you to dr. birx and
dr. fauci as well. it's been an honor working with you these past few weeks. when the vice president first asked me to help on the task force with different tasks -- >> i want to bring in our pentagon correspondent courtney kube because she has breaking news that we brought to you at the top of the 5:00 hour. we'll bring you back as soon as we get a science update and the questions there. after these various presentations. buff courtney kube, you just came out of a briefing. you were among the first people to report about the decision by the pentagon, or technically i guess it would be the commander in chief who made this decision to relieve the commander of the uss teddy roosevelt of his duties. he had gone very public with his concerns about the coronavirus spread on his ship. is that the reason he has been relieved of his duties, courtney? >> yes. we were told specifically by the acting secretary of the navy thomas modly that he had lost trust and confidence, that he saw that captain crozier writing
that four-page letter and distributing it to so many people that that was a lapse in judgment, and that is why he decided to relieve him. so it wasn't the fact just that he had the sentiments, that he had these concerns about the crew and about the ship. secretary modly and the chief of the naval operations gilday agree. his concerns were valid. he was right to raise the concerns. it was just the manner in which he did it, which is why he was fired. and something that you brought up in the intro, chuck, was actually one of my questions in that briefing, and that was who's ultimate decision was this? secretary modly said that he was the one who directed captain crozier be relieved of demand. when i asked him, he denied that he had any pressure from the white house or from the department of defense. he said he took the decision, he made the decision on his own. he knew it would be unpopular, ultimately, the buck stopped with him. he was the one who made that decision, chuck. >> i guess the question is, is
number one, why go public now? you know, there is part of me, i get the chain of command issues here. but it does feel as if they're feeding a new story unnecessarily. this seems to be one of those you know what? we'll discipline him later. that is one of the big questions here. especially when you a man who has been so publicly laud for his actions. he is beloved by many members of the crew. they and their families have been going on social media, praising him for bringing their plight to light and helping get attention to it and get the resources that they needed. secretary modly said in fact those resources had already begun flowing to the ship, and that they were already dealing with that problem. and the fact that the memo or the letter was made to public, all that did is serve to hurt the families and hurt the sailers. and it showed a potential lack of readiness. and it scared families who thought that their sailors would
be in some sort of a danger. but the big question here is why do it now. if you're worried about the readiness, if you're worried about the morale of the ship and those sailors, then why not wait until everyone is safe and back on the ship and then make the change of command? that's not something we got a good answer to here. >> look, you know that building better than anybody that i know. obviously, you do something like this not to just discipline somebody, but also to send a message to the rest of the ranks. some people will see this as an effort to muzzle, and to muzzle any potential -- call them a whistle-blower. call them whatever you want. but this is an attempt to make sure nobody else speaks out of turn. >> we asked the navy leadership than as well. and secretary modly specifically said this isn't about retribution. we hope that this doesn't have a chilling effect that other leaders feel they can come
forward. they just need to exercise the correct chain of command. modly said that captain crozier had a direct line to his office, that if he wanted to raise an urgent issue, he could call the navy secretary's office directly and express his concerns, and that he wasn't doing that. but again, the navy is one -- is the branch i would say who when they talk about accountability, they're the ones who if there is any kind of a loss of trust and confidence, you see them firing or relieving their ceos, i would say more so than the other services that we see publicly. but this is one of the very rare times where it's such a public issue that we have the leaders coming into the pentagon briefing room to talk to us about it. that is very uncommon. it just shows how much attention this has gotten. the administration is very well aware of it. the timing is unusual, chuck. we don't really understand. everyone here just assumed this was going go down the way we have seen a lot of these, which is a couple of months from now
he would quietly be removed from his job and he wouldn't be promoted to admiral one day. >> right. >> the fact that they publicly relieved him today and came to the briefing room to talk about it, it's not common. it's very uncommon. >> clearly designed to send a message. they decided they wanted this covered, and they want everybody to know the consequences of this. courtney kube with that reporting, thanks very much. let's go back to the briefing right now. you're hearing from an admiral, i believe right now who is talking about some supply chain issues. >> as you said, we're -- mr. kushner is absolutely right. we're trying to be data driven. i'm going talk a little bit about how we're trying to expand the industrial base here to meet this challenge. so the first thing i want to talk about is surgical masks. we've all quickly stated numbers here. so these -- i'm about to go through several different slides to give you just scale and magnitude of federal resources that have been applied at the problem.
27.1 million surgical masks pushed out to state governments. n95 max, 19.5 million n95 masks. if i was in a local hospital that was running short, i would look upward, because the federal government has pushed out resources. so for protective gloves, 22.4 million. 22.4 million pairs of protective gloves. for face shields, 5.2 million face shields. for ventilators, we have pushed to states more than 7,600 ventilators. and i think as we was coming over here, that number has changed slightly. i think it's now 7,640.
given to these states. we wanted you to have some numbers. now, as we've indicated, we have ventilators in the national stockpile. we pushed ventilators out. we're holding ventilators to put to the point to of need. but we're also buying ventilators, asking the industrial base who produces approximately prior to covid-19, approximately 30,000 ventilators a year. we are going to over the next several months, by the end of june, work to acquire 100,000. and so one of the tools that we're going to -- i can anticipate needing, we've already executed, is all of those venders that we're buying them from potentially will need help in their supply chains with their suppliers.
we might make orders. we might help them get ahead of others in that endeavor. i think navarro is going to talk than a little later. let me talk about the air bridge. it normally takes approximately 37 days to get from overseas the product, load it, get it to the united states and distribute it. that's about 37 days. to prime the pump, so to speak, we have lined on an air bridge to get product here faster. working with our major suppliers, as they work to fill orders to get more the health care workers now. we are working to align transportation to product. one of the things we're also
doing is the team that works for me are scouring the globe in finding pockets of personal protective equipment that might not otherwise be in the u.s. hospital supply chain. that is also going on these flights. six completed. and a number scheduled. 28 flights scheduled here in the near future. we're working towards some days we'll have one flight. some day there's might be two flights. multiple flights over the next coming days. these 28, or as far as i can see out a couple of weeks. matching products to flights to create volume in the supply chain here faster than the 37 days. i'm just going to leave that up as i talk about a few other items. so let's talk about new york city and the public health hospitals.
i believe they're called new york city health and hospitals. the president directed, as i speak there are pallets being formed, truck being loaded. i gay an address in new york an hour or two ago. and one of our distributors is making that happen, and that delivery will happen tomorrow. on the data front, this is almost unprecedented. this is a commercial supply chain with six to seven major distributors of health equipment. we brought them all in, and we said -- we need to make informed decisions, and we are going to help make informed allocation decisions.
so within a matter of day, feeding from their business systems, their enterprise resource systems, i brought on board a supply chain tower that the dod was using to manage its supply chains for a very complex weapons system. their data goes into a data link. we have a tool to be able to use their data and see it. i can tell what product is coming in, what their orders are, what they're filling, what they're not filling, and see the volume in the supply chain. and understand what they're doing down to the county level. we're working to get it potentially down to the hospital level. so this 200 and some odd n95 respirators, we took a look in there in the supply chain. we have the volume to go do that. i called the distributor, and they're making that happen. we anticipate as the hot spots
around the country, we anticipate these vendors at our direction helping them allocate product to the right place at the right time. so if i talk finally about expanding the industrial base. so the vice president was at walmart the other day, who told him i want to get in this game. how do i do that? so i got the call. we provided them specifications. walmart is going to use their suppliers to cut fabric, make gowns, sew product. but that's not always the case. we have lots of folks that want to help. i believe you will see in the coming days the use of the defense production act in creative ways to help people that are not doing this today to do it. we have essentially leads. the number yesterday was 210.
we are working with to find how each one of those might need help to get in the game that's not in the game to increase the through-put through the health care market. again, the president gave me one task. get more to our health care workers now. and i took that to heart, because have i -- not that i don't need that from the president, that direction to move out. but i have family in new york. my sister is a nurse practitioner in a west chester hospital. and my niece is a nurse on a long island hospital, and i have other health care professionals in the family. so i have skin in this game. the president asked me to get more to health care workers. i'm going get more to health care workers. i'd like to hand it over to mr. navarro. the 200,000 is going out as we speak.
>> be very specific about that. >> it will be delivered tomorrow. >> let me be clear if i ask what jared announced, what the admiral just unpacked is that pallets are being loaded right now to send 200,000 n95 masks to new york city to the public health hospitals. >> to the public health warehouse in new york city. >> all the health care workers, help is on the way. >> based on the tools and the data you have available to you, where is the logjam? where has it been? how have you identified that? you can say we have millions more ppes going out the door, as you well know, the front line medical workers are not getting them. >> let me answer you this way. we put up lot of numbers. i said that if you're in a hospital and you're not seeing ppe, i would look up to the state level first. >> some governors are saying they can't get the medical equipment that they need. >> and the reason for that is
because according to governors, and also by the fact that we haven't seen any numbers up there about what is going to the private sector, can you tell us what percentage of the supplies on these large cargo planes are going to private companies versus fema, versus the states. it's 80%? >> so this product that we're moving is primarily commercial product that would enter the commercial system and be distributed through financial business transactions between hospitals and these distributors. >> but just to clarify, that explains why states say they're bidding like they're on ebay, because the supplies are going to the private sector, and then they have to go there to get the supplies. >> that's normally how things work. so i'm not here to disrupt a
supply chain. say look, these six distributors, six, seven, they have 600 to 700 warehouses. they have trucks to go to the hospital door every day. we're bringing product in. they're filling orders for hospitals, nursing homes, like normal. i'm putting volume into that system. i would say that we have the data now. so we put together this data element over the last what, 13 days. get the people in, look at the problem, build this. i am now seeing truth about what's in the supply chain, and i would say that there has been some abnormal behavior, okay. >> yes, thank you, admiral. how fema democrats say officials told them the ventilators won't
be ready until june, which is well after the expected peak. will the bill signed to do do anything to speed that up? >> yes, we are online to receive several thousand ventilators in the month of april and several more in the month of may, ramping up to a big number in june. again, going from an industry that produces about 30,000 annual to a very big number. >> admiral, are you confident this means the states with the greatest need are getting the supplies? >> yes. >> a lot of donors are saying they can't get what they need and different states have more pressing urgency, obviously depending on the caseload. >> so we marry up -- we're marrying up where cdc, where the demand for covid is to what's in the commercial system. we're providing that to these -- to the commercial system. and we are making allocations to
those most of most pressing need. 13 days, we now have the data. we now can make informed decisions. and so all of the i need, i need, i need, i now know the volume that has been happening and needs to be happening. >> so admiral, with that, and i'd love for you to weigh in on this as well, you talk about -- you alluded to the fact there is possibly some shady business going on, that the product is here in the united states. >> and coming here. >> yes. and it is coming here. it's coming from china. it's in warehouses. it's being made here in the united states. it's in warehouses. but it's going to the highest bidder. so what can be done to keep those products here in the united states, not go overseas where companies are making a lot of money and get it distribute it to the most critical places here in the u.s. i would love to hear from -- >> we are. >> how is that being done?
because doctors i've talked to, surgeons on a regular basis. >> let me give you the bigger view of the dpa, and we'll directly address that. what we have essentially is a nation at war. we have a wartime president standing behind me. the defense production act is one of the most powerful weapons this administration can use to fight the invisible enemy of the virus. when i spoke with you last week, i explained the three points of the compass dpa can be used to hit. the first one is mobilization of the industrial base. this can involve things like repurposing from, say, a distiller like pernod ricard from licker to hand sanitizer. it can also involve expansion of production, which is having honeywell, which makes n95 masks open a new factory in smithfield, rhode island. with respect to the second point of the allocation of resource, we have two issue there's.
if you look at the manufacturer itself, what you want the make sure is that the supply chain, which can go tiers deep has enough components in that supply chain so we can actually make what we need. and once it's made, you also want to make sure that it goes to the right people. and then the third point in the compass, which addresses what you're talking about is basically hoarding of critical or threatened materials. so let me walk through what the president did today in terms of a strong action, what we've done dpa across those three points. the first order president trump signed was vigorous, swift. it was the gm order which directed gm to make ventilators in kokomo, indiana in trump time, which is to say as fast as possible. as the president mentioned, he spoke to mary barr today, the ceo of gm. that is moving forward. at the same time as the ford project is moving forward in
rossenville, michigan. i've issued a challenge to those two companies. a la ford v ferrari. this is ford versus gm. let's see who gets the ventilators out first. the second part of the order addressed today is this allocation of resource issues. the ventilator companies themselves express concern that in this rush to build ventilators there would be pressure on that supply chain. so what they requested that we do and the president do is to use the dpa this gentleman here, one of the strongest gentleman in the world in terms of applying things is to give him the ability to prioritize that supply chain for those ventilator manufacturers. he will do things like give them a d.o. rating in the defense procurement, which will allow them to get what they need. now the second order, which the president signed today has to do with the other part of the equation, which is once they
make the stuff, okay, does it go to the right folks. and this is a 3m order. and to be frank, over the last several days we've had some issues making sure that all of the production that 3m does around the world, enough it is coming back here to the right places. so what's going to happen with the signing of that order and trump time is we're going resolve that issue with 3m probably by tomorrow close of business. we can't afford to lose days or hours or even minutes in this crisis. now, the third part of the compass, this third point there, this gets to the hoarding issue. the president stood up here with -- he is the commander in chief. but we have a sheriff in town too, attorney general barr. he stood up here with attorney general barr. bill barr said i'm going to go out and bust him.
three days ago doj went into a warehouse in jersey, grabbed ppe, and the beauty of that, the beauty of that wasn't only seized, but within hours it was turned around and given to health care professionals in new york and new jersey. that's a beautiful thing. that's a beautiful case of using the dpa. now, what's going to happen tomorrow is the president is going to sign another order which is in the works. this is interesting. there is a black market spring up which you have described where we're having people bid against each other. brokers come in. they're bidding and bidding on all this different ppe. it's driving the price up. and guess what? you know where it's going? the domestic sources here are being exported. when president trump heard about that, he said that's not going to happen anymore under my watch. so tomorrow we're bringing that order. and what it's going to do is it's going to empower customs and border protection with the help of people like the post
office and express mail consigners like ups to basically deal with that issue. so we are going crack down unmercifully. i would say to the hoarders out there, the brokers who are trying to make money off the misery of people in this country around the world, that's got to stop. you've got inventory, what you need to do is pick up a phone and not call somebody out around the world. you call fema and say we got some stuff. we'll give it to you at a fair price and be done with that, because that stuff has absolutely got to stop. hang on, hang on. so that's what we're going to be looking for. and when we hear case likes this, we're going aggressively issue order after order to crack down on it. now before -- this is not my role to take a bunch of questions, but let me tell you one other thing before i leave the podium. it's a story which i'd love to share with you today, because this, again, illustrates one of the key principles of this president and this vice president, which is to wed the
full force of the federal government with the full power of private enterprise. just two days ago, we at the white house got an urgent sos from the chief of police of the new york police department. and they're in a situation now because of the strain on their resources where personnel such as their homicide detectives were offering to go into houses and deal with covid issues without protective gear. now the beauty of this president is because of his leadership, we were able to solve that problem in two phone calls. two phone calls. the first one went to phoebe novakovic at general dynamics. phoebe, you call tom at raytheon. i need you to scoop up all the tie vex suits you can. this president under his leadership, and the voluntary efforts and the pride and
patriotism, you talked about it earlier, that we had 4,000 tyvex suits delivered to the new york pd within 16 hours. that's a new record in trump time. at the same time, a second phone call was made to terry angle at pernod ricard, and lauraline. we have this issue. they need hand sanitizer. literally, within two hours, we had 50 gallon drums, 6,000 gallons of hand sanitizer on a ups truck heading up to the nypd, and it probably arrived today with a promise from pernod that they will continue to supply the nypd throughout the course of this crisis. so this is a beautiful thing that america is rallying to. we are becoming a stronger, more united nation. and i couldn't be more proud of this president, this administration. these guys up here are doing a heck of a job organizing the
supply chain. and my promise to you is that the president is going to use that dpa to make sure that the american people, particularly our health care professionals get the ppe, the medicines, everything we need. let me stop there. i don't think it's my place to field a bunch of questions. >> good job. >> go ahead. you go ahead. come here, come here. >> one of the -- one of the things that this crisis has taught us, sir, is that we are dangerously overdependent on a global supply chain for our medicines, like penicillin, our medical supplies like masks, and our medical equipment like ventilators. we have right now as we speak over 50 countries have already
imposed some forms of export restrictions in their country against the rest of the world. and what we're learning from that is that no matter how many treatyious have -- >> i want to pull out for a second good, to our white house correspondent kristen welker. i want to go to dr. megan rainey that you have gotten to know during these broadcasts for a little bit of a reality check about the situation with the ppe and the supply chain. first to you, kristen welker. you know, before the day began, if you had asked me who is playing point on the supply chain issues, i thought the answer was fema and peter gainer. and today you hear from jared kushner. today we hear from the rear admiral. today we hear from peter navarro. we don't hear from peter gainer, the fema chair. just like there seems to be some questions about the supply chain that the rear admiral was about a bit uncomfortable talking about. there seems to still be
questions about who is in charge here. >> and i think you saw that on display, chuck, in the way that you just laid out. the fact that we have heard from jared kushner, peter navarro talking about the supply chain. and we know based on our reporting that jared kushner has been running what has been described by some as this sort of shadow task force that has for some at least who are working on this crisis created some confusion. now we'll look to see if he gets questions about that. but i think, and you and i were talking about this last night, the question remains who is in charge of the supply chain. should bit fema or should it be headed by the military, as some people are calling for? i'd also point out, chuck, essentially what peter navarro was talking about is the fact that president trump expanded his use of the defense production act today, essentially ordering six different companies to try to get to work to enhance the number of ppe or all of the
medical devices, that critical gear that it gets to the hospitals that need them. but the question that i still didn't get an answer to listening to this briefing, and hopefully some of the reporters in the room will ask is what are they going to do about this bidding war. and i know we tried to get an answer to that. >> didn't get an answer. >> and yet we still haven't gotten a clear answer. the governors are saying, look, it's like ebay trying to get ventilators. an these ventilators are critical and life-saving tools. so still waiting for an answer on that, chuck. >> yeah, the rear admiral called it abnormal behavior, but he also said he wasn't going to disrupt the supply chain. dr. raney, at all -- do you feel good about the number? it does look like they're now trying to marshal the resources. we found out it's been a 13-day effort from when it began here. do you feel better about what
you heard? >> so i am glad that something is being done. the strategies that got outlined today are similar to what dr. valerie griffith and i recommended well over a week ago in a piece in the "new england journal of medicine." but the numbers that were quoted today are so insufficient to the scope of the problem. i mean we've already heard that the strategic national stockpile has basically been depleted. and what i heard today is they are relying on private companies to sell basically to the highest bidder, which is not what hospitals or governors need right now. if we are truly in a wartime situation, we need the government to step up and provide those supplies to its front line troops. we don't need for hospitals to be bidding against each other or for governors to be struggling to find funds to get these desperately needed supplies. >> i thought that was the most alarming remark there to some people was the admission that they are not going to get involved and not try to essentially disrupt this price war. let's go back to the briefing.
>> like for instance, whoever heard of a governor calling up, sir, can you build us a hospital of 2,500 rooms? and we built it. can you build us four medical centers? we built it. you deliver a ship, a hospital ship with a thousand rooms? and we did it. and we did it in los angeles too. we've done an unbelievable job, these people, and thousands of people behind them. but we're a backup. ideally, those hospitals would have had all this equipment. ideally, the states should have had all this equipment, and i think they will the next time. you know, you heard the case where thousands of ventilators could have been had at a very inexpensive price three years ago, and a certain state decided not to exercise that right because they wanted to build a road or they wanted to build something else because it's big money. i think it was a billion dollars. you're talking about a lot of money for something that may
never happen. because normally on a ventilator, other than a pandemic or an epidemic, you wouldn't need anything like this. hospitals have three ventilators, big hospital, and they get by with it. and now they want thousands. they want thousands of ventilators. you call up a governor, and he says sir, could you send us 40,000 ventilators? nobody has ever heard of a thing like this. so they've done some job. let me just tell you when secretary mnuchin spoke, they want you to call not .com, but sba.gov for the application and for information. so it's sba, small business, sba.gov, if you don't mind. yeah, let's go. please. >> thank you, sir. thank you, mr. president. i want to follow up from a question yesterday regarding your administration's denial at the special enrollment period. in the wake of this pandemic, in your own words, you gave a
five-minute nonanswer, but people facing this pandemic illness and even worse, most experts say having health care is critical to our nation's health and financial well-being. >> sure. >> can you assure americans tonight that you will reopen obamacare so they can be covered in this time of combined health and financial crisis. >> i understand the question. we're doing better than that. we're going try and get a cash payment to the people. and we're working out the mechanics of that with legislature. so we're going to try and get them a cash payment, because just opening it up doesn't help as much. so we're going to work it out so we're going to try and get for that certain group of people, it's a certain group of people, a cash payment. go ahead. >> i really want to ask you about masks. but i also want to follow up on opinion threads there. just the question earlier about the bidding. what happens, though, when states are bidding against each other on those markets? >> well, that i have that, and they have to work that out. what they should do is they should have long before this
pandemic arrived, they should have been on the open market just buying there was no competition. you could have made a great price. the states have to stock up. it's like one of those things. they waited. they didn't want to spend the money because they thought this would never happen. and their shelves in some cases were bare. by the way, in some cases they weren't. they were beautifully serviced. they did a good job. but in some cases their shelves were bare. so the best thing they can do is when times become normal ides, and they will, hopefully soon, and actually, you're going to have a lot of excess material because so much is being done right now in terms of protective gear, protective outfits. a lot's being done. it's going to be within six months, it's going to be sold for the right price. they've got to stock up for the next time. but the we are doing that. and the admiral has done a fantastic job. senator schumer wrote a letter today and you should put a military man in charge. chuck, if you knew a little bit more, we have one of the most
highly respected people in the military, the admiral. this what he does too. very professionally. and he's in charge. but chuck didn't know that. okay, jeff? >> mr. president, you tweeted this morning about your call with saudi arabia, mbs. we have some people say that the figures that you cited between 10 million and 15 million barrels per day is not what they're agreeing to. can you be more specific -- >> i don't know what they're agreeing to. i think they might have agreed to more than that. >> did they tell you, that sir? >> yeah. he did say that, actually. russia talked about 10 million barrels. russia and saudi arabia are fighting over this, as everybody knows. it's really killing an industry. hurting russia badly, hurting saudi arabia badly. i said this is an easy one. should it be an easy one. and it may be 10 and it may be more than that. i was actually told it may be
10, as i told somebody before. it may be 10 and it may be more than that. maybe it's 15. maybe it goes up to 15. it could be as high as 15. and, you know, there is a tremendous oversupply right now. that industry, it was oversupplied before the virus. and when the virus came along, they lost 35, 40% of the world. happened there is an unbelievable -- you can't get a ship now. every ship is loaded to the gills, sitting out some place in the ocean. they're storage tanks. they're not even ships. they're storage tanks. so it would be great for russia. it would be great for saudi arab arabia. i hope they make that deal, but that's what they said. i think it will be hopefully soon. i think hopefully they'll announce something soon. now, can a deal be broken? can something happen where it doesn't happen? i guess. in which case there is another alternative. but i'd rather not see that other alternative. i hope they can make a deal. i think they both want to make a deal. and they're both smart.
they love their countries. they want to make a deal. it's good. it's also good for the world if they do, because you save an industry. yeah, please. go ahead. go ahead in the back. >> what do you mean by cash payments? >> i'm going let mike. because we went over this very specifically. and i'll let you talk about it, mike, because you responded last time. >> right. thank you, mr. president. as i said yesterday, the president's put a priority on ensuring that no american has to worry about the cost of coronavirus testing, and we've been working every day to make sure that americans don't have to worry about the cost of treatment. and at this point, the white house coronavirus task force is working on a proposal for the president to use some of the $100 billion that we're making available to hospitals to compensate the hospitals directly for any coronavirus treatment that they provide to uninsured americans. working out the details of that, the president will make a final decision tomorrow.
we expect an announcement. but the president's made it very clear. we don't want any american to worry about the cost of getting a test or the cost of getting treatment. we've expanded coverage through medicaid. we've expanded coverage through medicare. health insurance companies around the country, including blue cross just today announced that all of their members will be waiving all copaints on coronavirus treatment. before there were some 30 odd million uninsured americans, the president has directed the coronavirus task force to find way to make sure they know we will find a way to pay for your coronavirus treatment, a and the president will be addressing that and announcing that tomorrow. >> mr. president, a point of clarification and a follow-up question. yesterday you said you spoke to florida governor ron desantis before he issued his stay-at-home order. did you advise him to issue that order? >> no. but i talked to him about it.
and he wants to do what's right for the people of florida. he has been a great governor. you can see that just by his popularity, which is extraordinary. we're proud of him. he has done a fantastic job, and he made the decision. but we spoke before he made the decision, yes. >> and he had also said he is considering putting people who are suspected of having coronavirus who are have tested positive for it in isolation centers, and that he -- he hasn't consulted with you. >> i haven't heard. >> thank you, mr. president. a few hours ago mayor de blasio said new york is leaving their homes to wear masks and should also wear masks when they're with other people. are you considering that kind of recommendation on a federal level? and if you are, how would you present n 5 masks. >> i think they're going to be coming out with regulations on that. if you want the abide by them. i don't think they'll be mandatory, because some people don't want the do that.
if people wanted, for example on the masks, if people wanted to wear them, they can. if people wanted to use scarves, which they have. many people have them, they can. in many case, the scarf is better. it's thicker. depending on the material, it's thicker. but they could do that if they want. now recommendations coming out, we'll see what that recommendation. but i will say this. they can pretty much decide for themselves right now. >> would that be nationwide? >> nationwide. >> nationwide. not just -- and maybe this is best for dr. birx, but we heard some differing guidance here at the w.h.o., even the surgeon general have talked about various studies that show that mas masks may actually increase the rates of illness because people touch the masks and then they touch themselves. >> sure. >> can you talk about the evolution of the thinking on this? >> dr. birx? and you might mention that other point also. >> yeah. >> thank you. so i hope you got from the conference today that we're
triangulating date that that we know from the case numbers, the testing numbers, the supply chain numbers to create an integrated picture so that we can really support hospitals in their needs. and i think that level of granularity is really critical. secondly, i just want to make the point that we really applaud the governors that are looking at a whole of state or a whole of metro approach. and what do i mean by that? the united states going into this had about 160,000 ventilators across the united states. and another 60 to 70,000 anesthesia machines. that's about five times what most of the european countries have. but it's a matter of distribution to need. and i really applaud the governors that are bringing together their public hospitals with their more private hospitals and their visibility across their state. because what we tried to talk
about yesterday is every state, every county is different. and that's why we're looking at it at that level of granularity. as we move through this epidemic, the needs need to be very tailored to those county, and frankly, those hospitals. i mean, there is a reason why the president and mr. kushner have been very much involved in finding out what the public hospitals need. why is that? because the public hospitals sometimes have the weakest supply chain, because they're often sometimes not as attractive to private sector distributors, or they may be too busy caring for the needs of patients to be really on top of their order forms and their supply chains. so really listening to the community that's at the front of this fight, and getting feedback from those specific communities, no matter where they are, and listening to the frontline health care workers. because it's their reality that is important to all of us. whether you're the mayor or the
governor or the federal government. and if they're saying they need something; we have to work together to supply that. so that's what you're seeing with this triangulation. every county will move through this differently, and that allows us to move around these vital issues that protect the front line health care workers and protect the patients flew the ventilators to make sure that the supply chain is aligned with the need as it happens. now, you have to have very good data in order to be willing to work in that level of granularity. that's what we've been working on to really develop that level of granularity to ensure that. so i just wanted to say one other thing about testing. just to give you the bottom line data of what we're seeing. we appreciate the groups who are reporting. not everyone is reporting yet. and this is part of us trying to understand at a very granular level. we do have two states that have 35% positives. and that's new york and new
jersey. so that confirms very clearly that that's a very clear and important hot zone. louisiana, though, has 26% of their tests are positive. michigan, indiana, georgia, illinois, that should tell you where the next hot spots are coming are at 15% test positive and colorado, d.c., rhode island and maine are at 13%. there's a significant number of states still under 10%. every one that i didn't discuss. california and washington remain steady at an 8% rate. what we're seeing finally is testing improving. more testing being done. still high level of negatives in states without hot spots allowing them to do more of the surveillance and containment. then prioritizing this new rapid test kit to those areas that may not have the same amount of access to the indiana health services and to the public
health institutions and the public health and state labs so they use that and start forward leaning into surveillance. we know that our people waiting for tests and they are waiting for tests because when these areas became very -- when they got onto the a rhythmic curve, we prioritize the decisions where the test decisions would make it critical for their care. we prioritized hospitals and nurses and doctors and front line workers. that means if you went through drive through or through your doctor, you could have that delay. is mas the masks, i try to give you how we're using data in a granular data. there's experimential data that have utilized masks from personal protection when they are themselves, sick and have
used their masks in public. we looked at the rate of this kcovid-19 in though populations. then we're looking at the scientific evidence. to bring those two pieces together. let me say one thing though. the most important thing is the social distancing and washing your hands. we don't want people to get an artificial sense of protection because they are behind mask. if they are touching thing, remember your eyes are not in the mask. if you're touching things and then touching your eye, you're exposing you're in the same way. we don't want people to feel like, i'm wearing mask, i'm protected. i'm protecting others. you may be protecting others but don't get a false sense of security that that mask is protecting you exclusively from getting infected. the number of asymptomatic and mild cases out there. this worries us.
that's why the debate is continuing about the mask. everybody needs to stay away from everybody and needs to be washing their hands. to send a signal that we think mask is equivalent to those pieces. with want to make sure everybody understands it's not a substitute for the presidential guidelines that have already gone out and to be clear about that. >> there's a lot of evidence that experts are saying a high number of tests could be producing false negatives. that would almost be impossible
with having 35% positives. if that was true you would have 100% positive or 66% positive. the number or positive tests is tracking closely with the number of cases diagnosed. i look at the numbers every night. they are trending exactly in the same way. that's important when validating data to really validate does the same site. i'm looking between testing sites to see are there con s consistencie consistencies. is there an anomaly to make sure for what you very specifically asked. i will go back and look at it more care fully. i haven't seen that. this same platform is being used across the country thansds range from what i reported 3% positivity up to 35% positivity. that range reflects also what
we're seeing with the hot spots and the number of cases and frankly, i mean we hate to talk about it but it also tracks with the hospitalizations independent of diagnosis and the mortality we're seeing. >> are you concerned people might be getting false sense of security or we might not be seeing all the data? >> i'm still missing 50% of the data in reporting. i have 660 test reported in. we have done 1.3 million. >> the regard to the test, the president sample collection took one minute. results reported back in 15 minutes. i realize you're the president of the united states, but when will every one get to take a test that works that quickly and you get results that quickly? >> so, these are new tests.
we have prioritized the groups with the least access to testing. we mean the indiana health service. they are in remote area, rural areas. the governors of the north western states that may not have the advantage of these high throughput machines that are across to east coast and in high metro area, colorado and across the west coast. we have prioritized the presidential 15 minute test to the indiana house services and public health labs so they can support nursing home testing and other areas where we think surveillance is absolutely key. at this moment they prioritized in that way. >> i'm glad you asked that. today there's 18,000 of these
machines already out there. we're trying to find out exactly where every one is because you can see that gives you maiamazi flexibility. 18,000 test s a huge amount. it gets to your question about how we moving out what is new. really figuring out who should those go to. these will be in the community to share those machines into the community who need the testing now. that's an incredible question that needs to bans s ts to answ next 24 hours. >> you said it's still a point of debate. is the guidance coming out and when?
>> yes. >> when, sir? >> in the days ahead we're working throuwith the task forc taking the constitution advice, cdc, our top exert experperts a bringing forbring i bringing forth the guidance. >> when we say no gatherings of ten, we want it to be clear if you have a family of ten p , we don't want you to be split up. we don't expect people to be having dinner party, cocktail parties. i know you have seen the slope in the united states versus the slope in itly. we have to change that slope. we see country after country having done that. what it means in the united states is not every one is doing
it. we're only as strong as every community, every county, every state, every american following the guidelines to a t. i can tell by the curve and as it is today that not every american is following it. we see spain, italy, france, when we see others beginning to bend their curves, we can bend ours but it means everybody has to take that same responsibility as americans. >> can i have a quick follow up on oil, please. did you have to make any concessions to get them to agree to cut their production? >> we didn't discuss that. they want to do that. that's good for their countries. we did not discuss that, no.
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