Washington journal live at 7 00 eastern thursday morning. Join the discussion. Tonight on cspan, President Trump gives an update on the coronavirus outbreak. That is followed by canadian Prime MinisterJustin Trudeau and british Prime MinisterBoris Johnson on how their countries are responding to the global pandemic. And later, the World Health Organization provides the latest numbers on confirmed coronavirus cases. In response to the coronavirus outbreak, President Trump announced he was invoking defense production act to have American Industries start manufacturing medical equipment but is in short supply. The administration also announced the suspension of foreclosures and evictions until the end of april, and a temporary ban on nonessential travel at the u. S. Canada border. I would like to begin by announcing some important developments in our war against the chinese virus. The chinese virus. We will be invoking the defense production act just in case we need it. In other words i think you all , know what it is. It can do a lot of good things if we need it. We will have it all completed. Signing it in just a little while right after i am finished with this conference. I will be signing it. It is prepared to go. So we will be invoking the defense production act. And which activated femas National Response coordination center. Fema now is fully engaged at the highest levels. Today, fema is activated in every region. We are at level one, level one being the highest level, which we will work with. We have been working with fema. I have done a lot of work with fema. They are incredible. It has always been on hurricanes or tornadoes. They are right now in tennessee. A large group working in tennessee. Been incredible, the tragic event. Alabama last year. Also a tornado. And then obviously, the numerous hurricanes in different locations that were in some cases very devastating, and in every case, fema came through. This is a very different kind of work for fema, but they will come through as they always do. We have tremendous people. Tremendous talent in fema. Request,nding, upon the hospital ships. Two they are being prepared right now. They are massive ships. They are the big white ships with the red cross on the sides. One is called the mercy. The other is called the comfort. They are in tiptop shape. They soon will be. They are getting ready to come up to new york. I spoke with Governor Cuomo about it. He is excited about it. We have not made the final determinations as to where it is going to go to the west coast. The comfort is located now in san diego. And it is going to be picking the destination very shortly. Those two ships are being prepared to go. They can be launched over the next week or so depending on need. Earlier this week, the first Clinical Trial of the vaccine candidate for the virus began in washington state, as you probably know. The genetic sequence of the virus was First Published in january. Thanks to the Unprecedented Partnership between the fda, nih and the private sector, we have reached human trials for the vaccine just eight weeks later. That is a record by many, many months. It used to take years to do this. Now we did it in just a short while. That is the fastest development in history of what we are doing with regard to the vaccine. We are making very, very big progress. Today i can announce further steps to expand testing capacity. We are working with groups to develop a selfswab test. A much easier process than the current process that is not very nice. I can tell you because i did it. We have a current process that is a little bit difficult. Done, the groups are working on determining if a selfswab by an individual is as effective as the other. The other is very effective and accurate. We are going to see if we can do a selfswab which would be a lot more popular, i can tell you that. That would be administered by a health official. It would be a lot easier to do. The fact is that the Health Professionals it would free up a lot is what it is. You do it yourself. The other has to be issued by a health professional. And it is something that is quite difficult. We think it is working out for the self swab. If you test positive, they do what they have to do. We think it is probably working out. I have asked the fda to cut through the red tape and reduce regulatory barriers. We are looking at some very exciting things. Im going to be holding a second News Conference today. We are going to be talking about the fda. Some things are happening that are quite exciting. We are going to be doing that either later today or tomorrow fairly early tomorrow. So we will see what happens. But the fda, my instructions i have been working very, very hard on a number of developments. We will be discussing them with you later today or tomorrow. And this afternoon, i will be meeting with nurses on the front lines in the battle against the virus. Shirley american heroes. Truly american heroes. They are incredible people. We are going to be meeting with nurses. I actually look forward to that. Very brave. They are taking a lot of risk. We have done an incredible job and they never complain. Today i am also announcing the department of housing and urban development is providing immediate relief to renters and homeowners by suspending all foreclosures and evictions until the end of april. So we are working very closely with dr. Ben carson and everybody from hud. Every generation of americans has been called to make shared sacrifices for the good of the nation. In world war ii, young people in their teenage years volunteered to fight. They wanted to fight so badly because they loved our country. Workers refused to go home and slept on factory floors to keep Assembly Lines running. The numbers of ships they built during world war ii, to this day, nothing like that has ever been equaled. They were doing ships literally on a daily basis. Nobody has ever seen anything like it. To this day, nobody has seen anything like what they were able to do during world war ii. And now it is our time. We must sacrifice together. Because we are all in this together. We will come through together. It is the invisible enemy. That is always the toughest enemy, the invisible enemy. We are going to defeat the invisible enemy. I think we are going to do it even faster than we thought. It will be a complete victory. It will be a total victory. So we will have a second conference, again having to do with the fda. I think it is going to be potentially a very exciting News Conference. We will do it as quickly as we can, so whether it is today or tomorrow. With that i will ask mike pence , to say a few words. Thank you very much. Thank you, mr. President. The White House Coronavirus task force met this morning. Now that we have cases in all 50 states, we are continuing to move out on the president s call to bring the full resources of the federal government, the full partnership with every state and territory, the full power of the American Economy to support businesses. As the president says, to us and every day, we will do whatever it takes. We are all in this together. Yesterday, the president that met with tourism executives and had an engaging discussion with all of the Top Companies in our industrial and medical supply chain. The president as you all are aware, announced today by mutual consent, the northern border to canada will be closed to nonessential travel. This does not include essential travel or the transit of goods, but it was through mutual discussion that took place this morning between the president and Prime Minister ofdeau, and the Department Homeland security will be effectuating that decision. The president spoke with some of the top Business Leaders today again to speak about the supply chain in the country. And for our first we are going to be conducting a Conference Call later today with state and local Health Officials to renew our ongoing commitment of cooperation and collaboration. As the president said last week in signing the stafford act, he stood up the National Response coordination center. And today at the president s direction, fema has gone to level 1. Femas mission is to support disasters that are locally executed, state managed and federally supported. Tomorrow, the president will be hosting all the nations governors from a Video Conference at fema to ensure that they have a full connection to all of the activated regions for fema going forward. With regard to testing, i am pleased to report we are increasing the number of tests being performed by the thousands every day thanks to the Publicprivate Partnership that President Trump forged with commercial laboratories around the country. Our Health Experts tell us to remind every americans it is important to remember people without symptoms should not get tested. We want to make sure the supply of testing is there for those that need it most or are symptomatic or in the vulnerable population. Dr. Deborah birx will address the progress were making on testing. As well as some important new findings about the impact on you that we are gaining from data that is coming in from europe. It will be important to every american. On the subject of supplies, the president has our task force extremely focused. As the president mentioned, that he is invoking the defense production act today. Secretary esper in a few moments will discuss the efforts the department of defense is taking. To make medical resources available. Secretary Robert Wilkie will announce decisions the v. A. Has made to expand Hospital Capacity within their system. With regard to medical personnel, hhs is issuing a regulation today that will allow all doctors and medical professionals to practice across state lines to meet the needs of hospitals that may arise in adjoining areas. In addition to that, we are again today asking every american and our medical Community Leaders and hospitals to partner with us in delaying elective procedures across the country in our Health Care System to ensure that medical supplies and medical capacity go to where they are needed most. This person will describe guidance they will be issuing on that front. Finally, i want to remind every american of the president s 15 day guidance to slow the spread. We are grateful for members of the media and the general public who are adhering to these, sharing them with neighbors and friends. All of our experts continue to believe that if every american continue to do their part and put in practice these principles, that we can significantly limit the reach of the coronavirus in the weeks and months ahead. Dr birx thank you mr. President , and mr. Vice president. We continue to look at data every single day. There are concerning reports coming out of france and italy about some young people getting seriously ill and very seriously ill in the icu. We think part of this may be that people heeded the early data coming out of china and coming out of south korea, that the elderly or those with preexisting medical conditions were at particular risk. It may have been that the millennial generation, our largest generation, our future generation that will carry us through for the next multiple decades there may be disproportional number of infections among that group. And so even if it is a rare occurrence, it may be seen more frequently in that group. And be evident now. We are looking at that information very carefully. We have not seen any significant mortality in the children. But we are concerned about the early reports coming out of italy and france. So again im going to call on , that generation that is part of that group that brought us particularly throughout all of their ability to look around corners and skip through games i always went level by level. I did not realize you could go from level three to level seven. That is what they have taught us. They look for things that we do not see. We need them to be healthy. Calling on youly to heed what is in the guidance, and to ensure that each and everyone of you are protecting each other. We cannot have these large gatherings that continue to occur throughout the country for people who are off work to then be socializing in large groups and spreading the virus. You have the potential then to spread it to someone who does have a condition none of us knew about and cause them to have a disastrous outcome. Finally on the testing piece and what we are learning, i know you know last week in bringing the private sector, what has been exciting to me is to see the administration harness the full capacity of the private sector. Understanding that a lot of our solutions that we need to confront this virus rely on the private sector. Bringing the private sector commercial labs was critical into this process. We are now beginning to see they have spread out in a prioritized way because we asked them to prioritize the regions that were mostly affected. And so you still may have difficulty getting tests in areas that do not have significant cases. Diagnostic percent remember i told you south korea was under 4 . So 96 of people were negative . The last report we have seen from the laboratories have about a 7 plus positivity rate. Still 93 plus or 92 are negative, i think that is encouraging to me personally that we are prioritizing appropriately to those areas that have the greatest need. Today and yesterday, Thermo Fisher pushed out most of their Laboratory Testing capacity. That will dramatically increase the platform and the ability to run additional tests in addition to roche. I appreciate everybodys attention to these numbers. I am excited to have prioritized where the greatest. Please follow the guidance. Please make sure in every report you are putting out that you are talking about the president ial guidance to actually stop the spread of this virus. Thank you. Pres. Trump thank you, deborah, very much. Thank you, mr. President. Good afternoon, everyone. I want to provide an update on dods coronavirus efforts. As we continue to focus on our priorities. That is first of all protecting our families and personnel and supporting and third of course supporting the administrations whole of government approach. First of all i do want to assure the American People the United States military remains ready and capable of defending the country and our interests abroad. Now with that, the department is leaning forward in our response to covid19. We have issued international and Domestic Travel restrictions to all dod personnel and families. That should dramatically reduce potential exposure to the virus. Those have been in place for some time. As i announced yesterday, the department of defense will make available up to 5 million n95 respirator masks and other personal protective equipment from our own strategic reserves. The first one Million Masks will be available immediately. We are also prepared to distribute to hhs up to 2000 operational deployable , ventilators for use as needed. Yesterday, i was at fort dietrich, maryland, which is probably the militarys premier research institute, where i got updated on the incredible work people are doing to work on vaccines. They are making great progress. We have also announced we have certified our 16th lab. We will soon certify our 16th lab to help with processing tests from across the country. Additionally i have directed as the president mentioned that the hospital ships mercy and comfort be prepared to deploy to increase the nations medical capacity. We have incremented a variety of field and expeditionary hospitals to deploy as well based on the direction of the commanderinchief. Today leadership from the army corps of engineers is in new york meeting with Governor Cuomo and his team. I spoke with Governor Cuomo yesterday. I will be speaking to more governors in the coming days to make sure they know what dod can provide to address their needs. In my conversations with the governors and members of congress about dods resources, i made it clear it will continue to support the administrations comprehensive efforts while ensuring our nations security remains the priority. I want to conclude by thanking all of our Service Members and families who have been affected. They are all great heroes. We are continuing to support them throughout this. We are all in this together. Thank you very much. Pres. Trump thank you very much. Thank you. Yesterday, the president made a very important announcement about telehealth. And this is allowing our 62 million seniors to be able to get some medical services from the safety of their home, reducing the risk and without any copays. We are also making sure the Health Care System is prepared and those on the front lines have the support that they need. The reality is stakes are high, and we need to preserve personal protective equipment for those that are on the front lines of the fight. We have put out guidelines over the last two weeks to expand the types of masks that can be used in routine care and saving those n95s to the most risky situations. Conserving personal protective equipment is also essential to combat the virus. Today cms will announce details recommendations to further promote this needed conservation, specifically by limiting nonessential elective medical and surgical procedures including den