Another 15 days. The u. K. Government under fire for suggesting Health Workers reuse protective gowns as supplies run low. And the number who died in africa passes a sound including the nigerian president s chief of staff. The number of deaths and infections from corona virus continues to rise in many countries but so is the pressure on many governments to ease or lift their knockdowns spain has joined italy and the u. S. In seeing more than 20000 People Killed by the virus Officials Say the peak has passed as deaths in the u. K. Pass 15000 a government minister has admitted that surprise a vital masts and aprons are running short after warnings from hospitals meanwhile at the end stage of carolina has added evidence to the mantra that testing is the way out of the pandemic its claiming success with just 3 deaths and despite more than 37000. 00 deaths now reported in the u. S. Some governors appear to be bowing to pressure from the president and his supporters that rolling out plans to start lifting measures in their states. Thats not going to happen in the worst hit state new york where Governor Andrew Cuomo warned he wont be reopening anything immediately thats despite the day number of new deaths dropping below 550 for the 1st time in more than 2 weeks were not at a point where were going to be reopening anything immediately but we are planning and in the planning phase yes different numbers would suggest a different strategy balanced by your point people in mobile and not only people mobile you could create a you know unintended consequences of Governor Cuomo has been in a war of words with the u. S. President over how to respond to the crisis i mean all the governor of Washington State is accusing President Trump of quote from menton domestic rebellion jay inslee says trump is spreading lies in signaling his support for people to protest against knock down rules texas is one of several states which has seen hundreds of demonstrators call for an end to the lockdown President Trump himself used twitter to urge his supporters to quote liberate 3 states under god joins us live from miami and use growing pressure it seems to in some areas to lift the lockdowns. You know we really are at a critical juncture here clearly the government and President Trump wants this country to reopen its economy the largest economy in the world but President Trump himself says this us to be a science based approach and that the governors get to make all these decisions and yet he starts tweeting out in support of these people out in the streets in various states those protests now soon to spread to all sorts of state capitals across the country many of them organized by characters who are well known conspiracy theorists far right talk show hosts who in one case alex jones who was sued by the parents of the school in connecticut where those children were shot to death saying it was all actors so these are the kinds of characters youve got putting on these protests they seem to be getting a green light from the president when he says liberate minnesota liberate michigan and liberate virginia by the way your gun rights are also in danger so the point where President Trump is saying look this is clear i am hands off this is all about the governor as he seems to be whether he knows it or not encouraging these people to get out in the street of course theres a great deal of pressure to get the economy restarted 22000000 people have signed up for Unemployment Benefits in places like texas where the oil prices dropped dramatically there is real pressure there to get these economies and these people working again but if you listen to the scientists and if you look at the shortage of testing its not potentially a wise move at this point to reopen the economy and and potentially cause the virus to spread even more than it has already but it certainly seems to be something the president wants and certainly something a minority of mostly conservative people also want to see they basically think the cure is worse than the disease and what about the situation broadly in the u. S. What kind of state you are in a in in terms of getting a handle on. Well it really depends in which state youre looking at some states like wyoming and montana which have very sparsely populated large states theyre going into phase one already the schools are remaining closed across the country but if you look at a place like new york you heard andrew cuomo there the governor of new york say look were not out of the woods yet theres nowhere near the same thing in california one of the largest economies in and of itself in the entire world but then youve got these other more conservative governors like the governor of texas saying lets lets get the economy open again you got run to scientists here in florida whos reopened the beaches of jacksonville up in northern florida and people just flooding on to the beaches but its clear at this point in time the decisions these governors are making are becoming politicized and thats not necessarily a good thing for Peoples Health but they are pushing to reopen the economy in these more conservative states while those hardest hit are taking a very slow approach because remember out of the guidelines of this phased approach the states have to see a 14 day decline in cases and if you look at somewhere like florida where its not even peaked yet where over 700 deaths here about 25000 cases many of those inside of care homes so we are clearly not out of the woods here in the Sunshine State but the governor of the state is reopening parts of the beaches just to get the economy going again so it is a critical juncture its a delicate balance but ultimately these decisions could mean life or death and again i thank you very much indeed. Michael isikoff is the chief investigative correspondent on yahoo news he joins us live via skype from washington d. C. Thanks for being with us just want to go back to the handling of the spy President Trump me clearly its an Election Year and some of what hes done is perhaps linked to electioneering but what do you make of that the tweets the liberate tweets against. That reference particularly the democratic governors just making the link more overt between the election and unless right i mean what we have here is clearly a cynical political strategy by the president he. Has chosen to let begun owners make the decisions about when to start reopening when to lift the guidelines when to try to get take cautious steps back to normal which does relieve him of any responsibility for blowback if the things go wrong he can say it was the governors who did this not me at the same time he is clearly trying to put pressure on those governors whipping up his base with these tweets liberate virginia liberate michigan liberate minnesota. Designed to stir up his supporters to push for that reopening that clearly so many of them want and do you expect those protests to spread have popular is that that may have not alarmist threat they are spreading now whats unclear is theres this go beyond the core the hard core trump base i mean clearly there are lots of people who are going out there protesting in austin in austin texas the capital of that state in michigan but whether that translates into sort of significant broad public support for reopening things before before the numbers start to gum come down is is far from clear and i should point out as your correspondent just did we are not out of the woods here yet. The number of the deaths are still significant they were up to 2500 yesterday that was up from 2100 the day before the number of new cases continues to increase so i think the white house was hoping wed see a steady decline in those numbers by now and while theres been some drop off on the heights of last week there is not a steady decline. Thank you very much indeed my case the cough and lets take you straight now to hear from President Trump. Some of these trends in a few moments but the very positive trends for winning are when you close it out. While we mourn the tragic loss of life. And you cant afford it any stronger than were mourning at the United States has produced dramatically Better Health outcomes than any other country with the possible exception of germany and i think were as good or better. On a per capita basis remember that on a per capita basis our mortality rate is far lower than other nations of western europe. With the lone exception of possibly germany this includes the u. K. Switzerland belgium the netherlands italy france spain for example has a mortality rate that is nearly 4 times that of the United States but you dont hear that you hear we have more deaths but were a much bigger country than it is countries by far so when the fake news gets out there and they Start Talking about the United States is no one but were not number one china is number one just so you understand china is number one by a lot its not even close theyre way ahead of us in terms of death its not even close you know it i know it and they know it but you dont want to report it why. Youll have to explain that some day ill explain it since we released the guidelines to open up america again and this was 2 days ago a number of states led by both democrat and republican governors have announced concrete steps to begin a safe gradual and phased opening. Texas and vermont will allow certain businesses to open on monday while still requiring appropriate social distancing precautions and i can tell you the governor of texas greg abbott he knows what hes doing hes a great governor knows exactly what hes doing montana will begin lifting restrictions on friday ohio north dakota and idaho have advised nonessential businesses to prepare for a phased opening starting may 1st throughout this crisis my administration has taken unprecedented actions to rescue Economic Relief to our citizens as an example you dont hear any more about ventilators what happened to the ventilators and now theyre giving you the other School Testing testing but they dont want to use all of the capacity that weve created we have tremendous capacity dr blix will be explaining that they know that the governors know that. The democrat governors know that theyre the ones who are complaining through the Paycheck Protection Program weve already processed nearly 350000000000. 00 to 1600000. 00 Small Businesses across the nation to keep American Workers on the payroll so were asking the democrats to get it done it should be bipartisan this should be 100 percent vote. And its really been incredible the 350000000000. 00 thats been approved is so popular and its keeping businesses open it will be open hopefully forever our swift action is directly supporting 30000000. 00 american jobs. Amy wright from North Carolina as an example said the program is a game changer for her and her family its coffee shops and she has 120. 00 employees many of whom have developmental and intellectual disabilities and now theyre all staying in the getting paid and shes got a. Dream and its going to take place very quickly when she opens again so amy good luck North Carolina great place scott in julie altering. Helped lead a church and own a restaurant in south dakota with about 15 employees there were already starting layoffs layoffs were moving along rapidly but now theyve hired their employees back and they can keep their restaurant open and it will be moving quickly very quickly as opposed to not having anybody and probably not having. A place to. Have all of these people employed she would have it out of business she would have been gotten the Paycheck Protection Program funding is now fully drained its out its gone 350000000000. 00 to Small Businesses and in turn it goes to the employees of those Small Businesses lawmakers must stop blocking these funds and replenish the program without delay the democrats have to come on board i used to read that these were democrat programs not republican seems to have switched around a lot as. Switched around a lot the republicans won it i think the democrats probably do too but they also one of the things that are unacceptable this is about. This is about. The plague and what its done to us isnt about extraneous things that theyve been trying to get for years that our country doesnt want them to. As we enter the next stage of our battle we are continuing our relentless effort to destroy the virus my administration is taking steps to protect high Risk Communities by providing funding for 13000. 00 Community Health centers sites and mobile medical say sions in order to equip them with the most advanced and robust testing capabilities these sites are incredible what they can do is incredible the job they do is incredible these centers provide care to 28000000 People Living in medically underserved urban and Rural Regions including many africanamerican and hispanic communities were taking care of them and its so important because youve all been reading about the disproportionate numbers on africanamerican and youre reading a little bit less about hispanic but likewise hispanic communities the numbers a disproportionate effect would doing big studies on it right now we dont like it not right nationwide weve now conducted over 4000000. 00 tests and deborah will be talking about that its double the number conducted by any other country on earth so thats more than 2 times actually the number conducted by any other country on earth you hear so much about testing what weve done is incredible in testing and i started with an obsolete broken system from a Previous Administration or administrations but i would really say administration for a different reason because testing has become so advanced over the last number of years. And we have the most advanced of all i spoke with other nations this morning the leaders and they all the talking about our great testing capability and some of them want to know what to do what how can they get involved because they need it for their own countries in louisiana Massachusetts Rhode Island new york and other hot spots we have also tested more people per capita by far than italy spain germany france and the United Kingdom and all other major countries so think of that in new york for instance per capita testing is 6 percent higher than in singapore in fact theres a typo its 67 percent higher the big difference and say theres a big difference between 6 percent and 6 i was looking to said 6 percent doesnt look too good its 67 percent good job at a. Higher than singapore 64 percent higher than south korea and 47 percent higher than australia so its 67 percent higher than singapore which is a very advanced place in terms of what theyre doing my administration has also been speaking frequently with many of the governors to help them find an unlocked the vast unused Testing Capacity that exists in their states dr burks discussed yesterday the commercial and academic laboratories in the states have tremendous unused capability which they can use the governor should use it tremendous and use capability there waiting for business from these governors that some of them complained i must tell you for the most part were getting along great with them but some of them like to complain but i still go back because the hardest thing of all by far by a factor of 20. Is the ventilators and now were the king of ventilators we have ventilators were going to be helping other countries very soon were going to be helping mexico i spoke with the president of mexico hes great great guy. And i told him were going to be helping him they desperately in mexico need ventilators and i told them were going to be helping them very substantially were in a position to do that were building now thousands a week and theyre coming in rapidly and theyre very very high quality. But were also helping President Trump there outlining what he called the continuing the relentless battle to destroy the virus he mentioned that several states texas and vermont would allow certain businesses to reopen on monday with certain precautions on town i would begin to lift restrictions on friday and he claimed that the u. S. Had produced a Better Health outcomes on a per capita basis for them all right and they said the mortality rate is lower than other nations in western europe perhaps the exception of germany over 10 to present time for a little later on. First though italy then the u. S. And now spains death toll has passed 20000. 00 reported another 565. 00 deaths on saturday the death toll there continues to rise at a slower pace a test of also shown a no infection rate in your Health Workers in madrid celebrated as part of a makeshift hospital was closed after treating a 1000 coronavirus patients on is that better sanchez says he asked parliament to extend the state of emergency until may the 9th and will relax the confinement for children before that. On the black. Market we contemplate a horizon of a slow march towards the new normality it will be slow and we wanted to be progressive with maximum precautions markers and with a viable criterion altera to know exactly what the degree of the pandemic you want to know the evolution of the pandemic if it is controlled or not and consequently what steps we can take. In the u. K. More than 15000 people have now died in the government as admitted theres a shortage of crucial masks and gowns f