Families and businesses impacted by the economic shutdown as a result of the coronavirus. It is friday, march 27, and this is a prime time addition of washington journal. The u. S. Conference of mayors reporting 200 cities report a dire need for facemasks, ventilators and medical equipment. The president today formally invoking the defense production act to require General Motors to produce more ventilators. In miami, the first curfew taking effect at 10 00 p. M. Tonight. Residents told to stay home until 5 00 a. M. , some of the developing as this pandemic spreads coast to coast. We want to focus tonight on the impact it is having on Grocery Stores of the food supply and the Restaurant Industry. For the first halfhour here are 2027488000. S, and if you are a grocery worker or employed by a grocery tour Grocery Store chain, 2027488002. And also at facebook. Com cspan. A lot to talk about the next hour and we thank you for joining us for this evening addition of washington journal. Two members of Congress Today confirming they are battling covid19. Thet from Pennsylvania Republican congressman mike kelly from the 16th esther confirming today 16th district. Experiencingrted flulike symptoms and consultant my primary care physician with my doctor ordering a test site obtained at the drive through. I test came back positive. I will serve from my home until i fully recover. On twitter another member of congress now totaling five members dealing with covid19, in the house of presented us, conga cement Joe Cunningham from south carolina, confirming he also has the illness. Eiffel fine, i feel great. I feel fine and have to stay at home for a few days. This will not stop me from working for home from my constituents in the low country and fighting for low country businesses and workers. This means that i was not able to go to d. C. To vote on the stimulus bill. There,i could have been i would have been there and i would have voted in favor of it. Quarantine, i am lucky that i do not have many symptoms outside of the mild loss of taste and smell. There are others who are not as lucky. Host that update from congressman Joe Cunningham, from south carolina. Lets look at the numbers courtesy of Johns Hopkins university, as we do every night. World0 cases around the and 26,000 confirmed deaths, a most 27,000 at this point. The u. S. Passing the 100,000 mark, now one had 1000 confirmed cases confirmed cases in the u. S. The food and Restaurant Industry had particular hard. This from the Philadelphia Inquirer by nicholas bertram, the head of giant, a grocery chain in the eastern half of the country including pennsylvania. Grocery stores have become essential businesses and a lifeline for americans to stay healthy. Grocers continue to do their part. We turn to our customers to ask all to limit their purchases to what they truly need right now. Intois time, it has turned something more like panic buying. Again, to all i say please purchase only what you need, and leave the rest per your neighbor. If you find yourself with a surplus of canned goods and nonperishables, consider donating them to your local food bank. Is Shelley Miller with the university of michigan, school of environment and sustainability, the director of the program and the environment. We appreciate you being with us here on cspan. Thank you for the invitation. Host let me begin by those comments by the head of giant foods. Guest it is spot on. The issue here is not a supply issue. We have plenty of food in the supply chain. Food justen producing as well as we normally do. We have not had major shocks as far as climate drought or any recent to suspect food systems are being disrupted and so i think what people are seeing is empty shelves and a Grocery Store, they get concerns theres not going to be food there in the future and that is something not the case. We really are just seeing a system that is trying to happily adapt to a change in demand. The system needs a chance to catch up to where consumers are, and catching up to consumer demand. Panic oris no need to horrid groceries. Need to of food no hoard groceries. Host what is in the psyche of the termination to buy up all the toilet paper, milk, bread and supplies . Guest there a lot of complex sectors happening. From eight Human Behavior standpoint, once we perceive also, try to catch up to that commodity and purchase it ourselves, but there are a lot of other things going on which are changing demand patterns. We usually eat out a lot more. Most of our food dollars go outside the home, in typical situations. So, Grocery Stores are also now having to keep up with a shift in amount overall, from restaurants and cafeterias and schools to Grocery Store and household purchases. So there are a lot of factors happening. Buying, ands panic some is also a change in overall demand patterns and Shopping Behavior. Host and we will talk with sean candidate with the National Restaurant association about that issue. As you deal with this virus and pandemic which is likely going to continue into april, how are Grocery Stores adjusting and changing with the food supply, with the dissertation of these products . Guest sure. One of the big things to recognize is that supply chains have been optimized to have justintime delivery. Grocery stores are not equipped with major warehouses in back. So there really is a justintime system, to get food from warehouses from factories to warehouses to dissipation to stores themselves, and then into the sarah onto the actual shelf. So when you have an unprecedented amount for a particular item youre going to have to adjust in different ways. You see retailers doing a number of things. Diverting the district and sent her and trying to go straight from a factory to the stores themselves. One of the things governors have done in executor borders, is to relax weight limitations on tracks, so more products in their executive orders, is relax weight limits on tracks t rucks, so more products can get onto trucks and be delivered to stores. Trying to optimize and adjust to the new wave of things. Host if you are in the grocery 2027488002, we would love to hear from you. University of michigan the School Sustainability and natural resources, how is Research Relevant . I look at commodities to assess their environ mental impact. I usually look at food systems and food waste produced throughout the supply chain. Thetrying to understand Environmental Impacts of products, and how to improve logistics and reduce waste through the supply chain. And also how to reduce the overall Environmental Impact of our food from the agricultural system to the household. Host lets go to mark from two lavista, california. Good evening. Caller good evening. In two lavista in chula vista, and the Grocery Stores, everything is gone, the water and the food. The same thing with restaurants, they are all closed down or only doing take out. Storestwo uncles who own in utica, new york and in a dairy, new hatcher, who are challenged with this business problem. Derry, nh. Looking at this economy we had and now going into this recession and perhaps we hope not depression. Host thank you for the call and your perspective. Did you want to respond, shelley . Guest i think we are definitely seeing that throughout. Overall, businesses are being stressed. We are seeing restaurant workers, that is coming up later in the show. It is a great perspective to hear from what individuals are feeling and experiencing on the ground. Host this is a headline from the pittsburgh postgazette. It involves a family owned Grocery Store in eastern pennsylvania. Who intentionally coughed on 35,000 for the food at a Grocery Store, that food was thrown away. They spent hours trying to clean it up. The woman is being charged. Again, it gives you a sense of where the country is. This is just one example. Aret stories like that disappointing on so many levels. Aspects a Public Health and human dimensions. One of the major concerns, the food system now, is that all food workers are considered essential workers. There is a lot of concern about keeping Worker Health and safety as primary. Is unfortunate to see those kinds of behaviors. We need to keep the health and safety of our food workforce in order to maintain consistent supply. We have plenty of food. We are not experiencing shortages in supply chain. But we also need workers to be able to show up to work, in order for all of us to get food. I think it is critically important to respect our food workers as frontline workers, and to respect the health and safety of that. Lossestion to the food that could be used to reduce potential temporary shortages. Host carolyn in ohio, good evening. , iler yes i want to commend live on the border of ohio and West Virginia. And i shop at krogers. Talked with management there, and they had said things such as how they have got additional to come to the store that were not scheduled. I got to tell them how much that was appreciated, that they had the stock in, because of their foresight to do that. Commend the kroger employees and West Virginia and belpre, ohio, because they have been absolutely wonderful. They are under so much pressure. And they are working so hard. It is appreciated by customers like myself. I also want to say, i have not i said come one the border of West Virginia and ohio, i have not seen the horrible things i have heard about customers, how they are fighting over things. What i saw when i was in line, different people were trying to let other people go ahead. Like if they were holding 24 packs of water or whatever. I was one of the people that offered the person to go ahead and they were like, oh, i have already been offered that. So, many times the people in our area, our offering help, and not fighting. So i wanted to put that out there. That it is not just everyplace is fighting. I said, ohioWest Virginia, they seem to appreciate the workers, appreciate kroger and try to make it better for everybody. That is my opinion. Host carolyn, thank you for the call. From ohio. Shelley miller . Guest that is a wonderful point and i think that echoes most peoples experiences. This really is bringing out the humanity and most of the people i would say. There really are relatively few bad actors in this system. I think that often we are attributing to overall panic buying what actually is not panic buying. It really is a fund mental shift in demand, that Grocery Stores were not optimized for. We are not working in an optimal environment. Fundamental shift. Most people are not panic buying, their dust stocking up for they are just stocking up for one or two weeks, buying what their family needs. But that is a different Shopping Behavior where they might normally go to the grocerys door two or three go to the Grocery Store two or three times a week and not stock up on staples. Demandseeing shifts in that is responsive to the guidance we are seeing from Health Officials, as a change from eating out to eating at home. Trucks, andint of Grocery Store managers changing, everyone i have talked to in the food system is scrabbling to make it happen. Job,oing an incredible really trying to get resources out to consumers. Host from sacramento, california, diane, your next. Good evening. Caller high. Ive a couple of questions. Hi. Go toher countries safeway warehouse Corporate Office and buy out there were house supplies their house supplies . The point of global trade and trying to figure out food balances and things like that, right now what we are experiencing is not an issue of needing to go to other countries or to change overall trade patterns at this time. We actually have plenty of food in the system, in our Current System and in our dissertation centers. The issue is in our distribution centers. But there are only so many tru cks and workers and docks. We are not seeing a shortage of food, we have sufficient supplies. We are having a hard time with the logistics of the system, and trying to get over some of the bottlenecks we are currently seeing in the system, just because is not optimized for the current demand patterns. Certainly, global trade is something we continue to do and we will see how things play out in the months ahead. But really, the issue is more of the logistics catching up to the change in demand. Have a sense when you see that some eyes heading are the road to krogers wegmans or routes or winndixie, just how much food is in that truck . Guest it is many, many pallets of food. I do not have actual numbers. When you talk about what a normal semitruck holds on a biweekly delivery schedule, it might deliver a few cases of pita butter, it is not have to deliver pallets of peanut butter. That is what we are seeing in the changes in demand and changes in the type of food people are buying. People are stocking up on pantry items and staple foods and all that makes sense. Usually you do not see everyone buying flour at the same time. It staggers over the course of a year. That is what we are seeing is all of these staple foods having to be delivered by the pallet load, rather than cases. To meires more trucks thats meant. Host we are talking about our nations food supply in light of the pandemic. Our guest is Shelley Miller from the university of michigan. From indiana. Good evening. Caller good evening. My name is david. I am 57 years old and i work for a big chain that im not going to name. I had to leave the grocery business seven days ago. Preconditions, to two stents in my heart, emphysema, and copd. Say toam trying to professional and one day i decided to say hey, i want the simple life. I work in a Grocery Store. But i have been so afraid of my fellow workers. A lot of us do not have gloves. And masks. Ok . Are unprotected. I am rightance and now being isolated. We all do the best we can. But i had to make a decision. The best we can for americans and grocery workers. I just want them to understand we are doing our part, but i had to protect myself paradigm under scrutiny i had to protect myself. But i am under scrutiny. I did the right thing because im vulnerable. But i am afraid to lose my job. I do not want that to happen. We need to reunite. Im a history teacher. We have not read night at since world war ii. I will tell you what, we have not reunited since world war ii. Host david, good luck to you and thank you for sharing your story. Helley miller, i think probably represents many employs around the country at grocery chains. Guest i think that is true and it highlights the human elements to the folks who are working every day to get food to everybodys household. Thank you, david, for being there. Everyone needs to make the correct decisions for their own health. The health and safety of the workforce is primary at this point. It also goes well beyond the Grocery Store workers. We are talking about people working in Food Processing facilities, folks working in farms and the planting season moving forward. All of those aspects of our food system do depend on a healthy workforce. Of those workers throughout the chain. So thank you for the call. Host good evening, sam in van nuys, california. Shelley,es, thank you, for taking my call. Should we be concerned about buying meets . The origin of the virus is supposed to be from animals. Meats. I wonder if there should be caution we should exercise buying meat. And i do not see grocery workers putting on masks and that is a concern to me because i am a senior stata center. Host thank you for the call and the question. I am a senior citizen. To thei will defer Health Experts on how the virus is transmitted. All of the evidence we have heard from Health Experts are that groceries are safe to eat. We are continuing health inspections, food inspections, are continuing. Every part of the supply chain from agriculture inspections, to food inspections prior to distribution, are all ongoing. Itself isystem to be inspected and safe. And again, the health and safety of workers are primary and i defer to the Health Experts on how to keep them as safe as possible. Host but the pressure on Grocery Stores and ploys to make sure that shelves are stocked, that the cashiers are sanitizing free time you hit the touchpad, you sign something, you pick up your groceries, you are pushing that grocery cart, there is a lot at stake. Guest absolutely. You see many retailers who have taken the steps of reducing their hours. That is not because of an overall problem of food supply. It is largely in order to give workers the space to be able to disinfect their environment and clean their environment. And also to have a chance to catch up to restock shelves and replenish goods. That is one of the ways the system is responding. Host janices next from washington. Good evening. I am from okanogan, washington. For the smaller communities here, we still have a lot of problems with people hoarding. Im sure it is everywhere. But it is annoying for us. I think also the people in the different stores, their prices fluctuate as well. Their prices have gone up since this has gone on. And i think it would be cool if the stores would flatline their prices to want through the stores and support your local stores, the smaller guys, because that is what keeps us going. We have the big ones. ,ut we need everybodys support when they go in there, do not grab everything off the shelves. Because we do need bleach prayed we do need everything. It is going to take we do need bleach. We do need everything. It is going to take more than people on tv telling us to stop hoarding. I think it is people knowing that they are going to get what they need if they are not greedy. Host thank you for the call from Washington State. Guest thanks, janice. All those points are excellent. The idea of trying to minimize that we areaviors, all in this together, so making sure you only take what you need and purchase food you are going to actually eat, is key. Put intailers have guidance on the limits to purchasing certain goods they know are going to run temporarily out of stock. So that is helpful. And this idea of supporting local communities and local economies wherever possible. In some cases supply chains are different for local economies. So they may have a different supply chain then some of the global retailers. And they may or may not have easier supplies. Everyplace is different, but supporting local economies is a thing we also do. Host i want to go back to something you said, your studies in this area. Why did you decide to pursue this . Guest one thing we are looking at is sustainability of our overall society. Food is a major part of that. It affects our health, wellbeing, and when we are talking about things like disruptive chocks to the system, right now we are dealing with a health disruption. Disruptive shocks. But we are also facing things like limit change. So we were about future shocks to agricultural systems, what those Environmental Impacts are and how systems could be affected. These are all critically important. Disruptions and shocks can come in a number of different ways. Right now we are experiencing a health crisis. Things like climate crises are ongoing and continuing problems we will need to solve. Host zachary from michigan, good evening. You are a grocery worker, what is your position . I work midnights. I stocked shelves. The small towns it here in northern michigan, we stock our shelves between 4 00 a. M. And five clock a. M. And come some 00 a. M. Or 8 00 a. M. , there is no toilet paper and we do not have bleach. We lose our all of our bread aisle. People are hoarding like crazy up north here. It is ridiculous. You have to leave something for the people who do not have the money. Host is the store putting limits on how much you can purchase in terms of bleach or toilet paper . Caller they were supposed to but our store did not. Because of how small an area we are, we are just a little vacation town up north. To share the name of the store he worked for . To. Er i do not want host thank you for the call thats fine. Again for thank you being on the front lines of stockingstores and being at work and helping everyone in this critical time. That highlights the issues that. E need to be mindful if you happen to be at a place for there is a lot of toilet paper, there will be toilet paper again, but there is a asrent mentality now that people perceive a scarcity, they are trying to get as many as i can for themselves and we need to look out for each other. We really do need to make sure we are only taking what we need because there is plenty available we just need to get it out. Collar,ctor our last from nashville, tennessee. Good evening. Caller yes. Everyone is worried about the food. Into, for 70 years i worked construction for 45 years. Ill give you an example of why im calling. The hospitals, jacob javits, all right . If one is committed to those areas and is sick, if you do not have an isolated hvac room, everybody whole Hospital System is going to get sick and possibly die, all right . Host we got the essence of what you are saying. Referring to what is happening center,ork, the javits neli a 1000 bed hospital. What will be the lessons for Grocery Stores coming out of this pandemic . Shelie i think theres going to have to be a lot more resilience as far as responding to shocks. I think as logistics become more nimble, as consumers buy more things online, we are going to see a lot more flexibility in the system. Certainly, theres a lot of lessons to be learned as far as how do we change supply chains very quickly to respond to shocks . Host Shelie Miller is the director of the programming environment at the school for environment at the university of michigan. We thank you for joining us on cspan this evening. Shelie thanks so much. Host this is the headline on rollcall. Com. Pains, planes and automobiles. How half the house made it to the stimulus book. We carried it live as lawmakers met, debated briefly and voted on the 2. 2 trillion stimulus plan. Joining us is kathleen who has been following us all evening. Thank you for being with us. Guest thanks for having me. Host a lot of attention on the congressman from kentucky. What was the sentiment along lawmakers . Guest lawmakers were overwhelmingly frustrated from those i talked to and what i could observe from being in the chamber during the vote. Leaders in both parties believed and hoped that they could pass this legislation through unanimous consent or by voice vote and Thomas Matthew was the only thing standing in their way of doing that. It forced lawmakers from across the country to really scramble to get to washington. They took flights, drove overnight to be there in order to vote for this. People were frustrated. They wanted to observe the social distancing recommendations that Health Officials are telling us to do. They wanted to model that for their constituents and for the country. And by bringing them together in one room, it was not an example of social distancing. Host it came on the same day that two more members of the house, one democrat, Joe Cunningham, one republican, mike kelly, confirming they now are battling coronavirus. Katherine yes. Callreally been a wakeup for lawmakers, i believe, in congress to watch their peers come down with this illness. We also saw it in the senate where a senator started to take the risk of themselves and community much more seriously as one of their own was diagnosed. In the house, there have been members who fell ill and were tested and tested negative, but the concern that they did have it kept them away from the vote out of precaution. You are seeing that also with lawmakers who have family members who are vulnerable. Theyre concerned about going to work at the capital and then heading home to maybe someone who has a preexisting condition and could have really negative consequences. To getting ill. Host lets turn to this massive piece of legislation. The president making the comment tonight he has never signed anything with a t in it. Well over 2 trillion in this stimulus plan. Where was the oversight to make sure there is not waste, fraud, and abuse with this amount of money . Katherine they built into this legislation an Oversight Board that will be tracking where this money goes and how it is spent. That was one of the primary sticking points over in the senate before the Senate Passed the bill. Democrats wanted oversight. That was not primarily with the Treasury Department or the white house. Areais a congressional that they will assign people to be on this Oversight Board who will have shortterm and longterm oversight. That is money gets doled out the next couple of weeks, there will be people looking at it at that point instead of just a couple years out, taking a look back. Host we are talking with katherine tullymcmanus. Her work available on rollcall. Com. A couple of pro forma sessions, but essentially lawmakers are out for nearly a month, the house and the senate, correct . Katherine correct. We dont know at this point when the house will come back. Majority leader steny hoyer told reporters he didnt know and that he will be checking in with Health Officials, the members of the house themselves, and other entities to make sure that when they come back, it is safe for members to be traveling back to conduct business of the house. But, also that members are ok to leave their communities. But, to have the majority leader said he does not one when the house will reconvene for legislative business was pretty stunning. Host thank you very much for being with us. Her work available at rollcall. Com. Katherine tullymcmanus. This is the headline of the New York Times. Restaurant growth screeches to a halt amid the pandemic shutdown. The New York Times reported restaurants and bars face a catastrophic loss of revenue that could destroy countless operations across the nation, as customers stay home and practice social distancing to stem the spread of the virus. The industry is not alone in feeling the pain from the economic it as the u. S. Heads into a likely recession but it is reliant on people going out and congregating. Mainly in the industry have been left without solid answers as to how deep this Pandemic Impact will go. On that front, we turn to sean kennedy who was with the Restaurant Association based in washington, d. C. Hiss joining us via zoom, home in washington. Sean great to be here. Host how big of an industry for the industry over the coming weeks and months . Sean the forecast we gave to congress and the white house last week is we are anticipating 225 billion in losses. Job loss between 5 million and 7 million jobs if it continues at this pace. From the survey we have done with our Restaurant Owners, about 25 billion in sales have been lost. 30,000 restaurants have already announced, told us they are closing, giving the keys back to the bank. That is a total of 3 million jobs affected in just three weeks. Whats staggering when you think about that is we are an industry that employs one in 10 american workers. Unlike a lot of storms and unlike a lot of natural calamities, we dont know when this is going to be passed over us. We are the most forward facing, customer facing industry out there. So we are in an unprecedented situation where dozens, every state has shut us down or curtailed operations. A lot of restaurants are making really tough decisions right now. Host if you are in the food service industry, we would love to hear from you. We are also dividing our phone lines, those in the eastern half of the country and those in the mountain and pacific time zones. How many restaurants do you think will reopen when this is all over . How many will be forced to shut down permanently . Sean right now, that 30,000 restaurant number are closed altogether. They are never going to be able to reopen. There is already permanent damage done to the system. Your question is a good one. Restaurants right now we are in industry with a very tight, low cash margin. Probably only 15 days. We are at week three right now. As restaurants decide how long they consisting this, it really comes down to how much support can we get from the federal government as we respond to this federal crisis and how long is the epidemic going to keep en they insist wh on Restaurant Operations being curtailed. Host if they ease the restrictions and allow the public to go back to restaurants, limiting the number of people who can be in a restaurant, is that feasible . Is that doable . Sean our First Priority is the safety and health of our customers. So, we are going to follow the lead of what state Health Officials and what the cdc are telling us. If you look at Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath from that, when the storm waters receded and when restaurants in new orleans reopened, people really slow in coming back it. Restaurants are still going to have a struggle even when we get the all clear of getting customers where they feel comfortable. Host the take out service now available in so many restaurants, is that cushioning the blow to these companies, Restaurant Owners . Sean its helping. What a lot of restaurants are maintaining delivery and Takeout Service and drive through, really as a means so they can continue to serve the community. This is such an interesting time we are in right now. Your last guest was talking about shortages at Grocery Stores. Restaurants are such a critical part of the Food Supply Chain for americas families right now, which makes the challenge we are facing right now we want to stay open. We want to offer those services. We want to give people comfort in such an uncertain time. The only thing restaurants can do is offer a very limited array of business services. Theres not a lot of revenue that comes on there. It makes it that much more of a challenge for us to keep our doors open. Host sean kennedy is the executive Vice President of Public Affairs for the National Restaurant association. The profits from any of these restaurants come from the bars, correct . Sean it comes from also just capacity. Dining in is really having enough people in there that signals to the American Public that it is safe to come back in and we are ready to serve you. If we are only doing takeout and delivery, it is hard to keep the lights on and pay the bills for so many Restaurant Owners right now. Host we will go to tammy from carbon springs, florida. Caller hello. Sean hi, tammy. Caller hi. I own a restaurant down here in florida. And, im listening and you are so right. I mean, it is a struggle every day. I dont know whether to keep my doors open. Im getting further behind on my bills and do i order the food . I only have three employees left out of 35 and im struggling with that. Its such a hard decision. A lot of regulars will comei in and go police they open. I dont know. We are trying so hard, but it is so difficult. So, the quicker these loans get out there and everything then youve got another choice to make. Do you take out a loan going into the slow season come june or july . Host thanks. What type of restaurant do you own . Caller it is a mediterraneanstyle restaurant. Carmel kitchen. Host thank you for calling. Sean it sounds delicious, number one. I appreciate you doing what you can to serve the community. As noted earlier in this piece, Congress Today did pass legislation that creates a large sba grant pool with specific provisions written in i am happy the National Restaurant association was able to take a leadership position emphasizes Small Business loans in some instances that do not have to be repaid targeted to the Restaurant Industry. I would urge you had any other Restaurant Owner to visit our website. Host we are getting a lot of calls from those in the food service. Mike is one of them in michigan. Good evening. Caller hello. Host what is your job, by the way . Caller i work at logans roadhouse. They just shut down all of their 280 something Stores Across the country. Craft works was in chapter 11 bankruptcy on march 3. We had a financial lender and then when the crisis hit, the financial lender backed out. Im wondering if that Parent Company is going to get any kind of help . Host sean kennedy . Sean michaels story raises a really good flag here which is a does not matter how big your restaurant is. A lot of folks think this is really going to affect the smaller corner diners. This is a tidal wave. This is a situation where it doesnt matter if you are a fullservice restaurant or a drivethrough, you are not being allowed to operate. We are going to comply with that, but the challenge for us is how long can we sustain that . If a chain like logans roadhouse that has National Exposure is feeling these headwinds, it creates a real problem for all the employees that rely on that for their paychecks every day. So as far as what the federal government can do, we are pushing for as much federal assistance to respond to whats obviously a federal crisis. The bill does take care of some franchises some of the larger franchise owners will be able to see relief. We are still pushing for everything we can to make sure every industry is able to benefit from the federal government so we can keep our doors open. Host you recently canceled your annual tradeshow, correct . Sean we did. We have an annual tradeshow in chicago, the National Restaurant tradeshow. We have been doing it for probably 70 years now. The city of chicago has been slowly canceling events on a rolling basis. The canceled our events. We completely understand. It is obviously a disappointment for the many vendors that were looking forward to selling their wares. Host lets go to lawrence in martinsville, virginia. Good evening. What is your profession . Caller i work in a small bakery in martinsville. We are learning to adapt. What i mean by adapting is we have changed a lot of things to basically meet the publics needs. We are doing entrees to go now and serving hot meals for families, things to that affect that has been really effective for us. Of course, we have bread which is also huge for us because a lot of stores are out. But, learning to think outside the box and adapting to the situation around you it is helping. Remarkable about this industry is really how quickly we have been adapting our Business Model so we can continue serving customers. Nttaurants that were offering takeout, that dont plan on doing delivery are changing their Business Models. They are changing the structure of their kitchen, retraining their workforce on the spot to keep the doors open and find some way to continue serving people. It has been a lot of work, especially as sounds like for that bakery and for tammy, but we will continue with this for as long as we can until the funds are not there from a cash flow perspective. Host you live in the d. C. Area. We are seeing those signs grab and go which have really popped up, trying to get people to come inside and get takeout. Sean it is remarkable. We are at a point now where a family is looking at making 21 meals a week as we are socially constrained and quarantined. And thats a lot. Restaurants are such a vital part of the chain right now because some families do not have the wherewithal to put up, to produce that many meals in one week. We want to be here to help lighten the load to provide some comfort. We will do that as long as we can. Host julia joining us from indiana. Caller hello. Host go ahead. Say i i just wanted to live in a very rural area in indiana. So, people have to drive 30 to 40 miles to go to, like a large restaurant. But, my daughter works at one of those restaurants and theyre doing pickup and carry out and delivery. Its a pizza, nice pizza place. My comment i would like to say is that people, the regular people that come in all the time to that restaurant have been so kind. Them one couple her and one of her coworkers and envelope with a 100 bill in it the other day. And, its just heartwarming how people are trying to help these young girls that are trying to raise families and some of them are single mothers. I did, if i could, want to make one comment on the hoarding. These people have their kids at home now. Extraheyre going to use toilet paper because they are not at school. Using the bathroom during the day. And, i understand that kind of went overboard at first but i think people were afraid they were going to be quarantined in their homes for a long period of time. m hopeful that will discontinue, you know, and that people wont continue hoarding like they have been. Host thanks for the call from indiana. To the first point, sean kennedy, your response. Sean i will even speak to the second point. We have a restaurant in d. C. That is offering, if you buy a bottle of wine, they will give you toilet paper with your purchase as well. We will have to fight ingenuity anywhere we can. Julie raises such a good point. Restaurants are such the cornerstone of every community and when a restaurant is on financial straits, which all of them are right now, we have had 70 people coming into restaurants say can we buy a gift card . Can we buy a bond so to speak . What a great idea because you know that restaurant, when they come back, they will be stronger than ever and they are so eager to serve. Affordan financially to swing that, it will be such a great assistance to the restaurants. We have had so many Great Stories of people giving extra tips for folks because they know the income, that tip income is not as high as it used to be. It is so gratifying and every Restaurant Owner appreciate hearing those stories. Host tim is on the air from new york. Good evening. Caller good evening. I have a question within a comment. Now that the bill has been passed and signed by the president , im pretty sure that restaurants and Small Businesses are going to find it hard to navigate through this bill, trying to figure out where they apply for the loans and how they get the loans and what they need to apply for loans. What type of credit. Is the credit going to be based on the personal assets or based on the business . If you could shed some light onto this. Host thank you. Sean that is a great question. Im happy to know that the National Restaurant association, our Public Affairs team has assembled an analysis of what is in the bill. Eyeried to write it with an towards the Restaurant Owner. If you visit our website, you can find more information. I can tell you really briefly that the new sba program that is created, it is fairly streamlined. We have a lot of confidence that sba, they get it. They know they need to execute with a huge mandate from congress and a huge need for the Restaurant Industry. Theyve got a big job ahead of them they have been staffing update we have been talkinp. We want to make sure that transition as they start implementing the loans and getting the doo money out the door happens as quickly as possible. Host this headline from marketwatch. The National Restaurant association forecasting at 225 billion loss in revenue, up to 7 million jobs as a result of coronavirus. We are spinning the hour focusing on restaurants and the food supply in the country. After this is over, theres a concern we could be back in the fall with another wave of the coronavirus. How do you prepare for that . Sean great question. Right now, we are just focusing on this phase. A lot of restaurants are beginning to look at things from a cash flow perspective and say if we can reopen and we are at 80 capacity, 70 capacity, how does that work . It will put a a lot of lot of straight on these restaurants. You mentioned the 5 million to 7 tillion jobs that could potentially be lost. When we put that letter out it unleashed a huge grassroots effort from americas Restaurant Owners and employees through the National Restaurant association in washington. Over 400,000 communications as industry to capitol hill and governors and elected officials nationwide that really outlines our industry has 2. 5 trillion of Economic Impact that employs one out of every 10 workers. We really need to be an emphasis because, again, the restaurants end up being the basis of so many communities. We are driving retail, driving property values. We need to be present, we want to be present, but unless Congress Acts in a comprehensive , many more businesses are likely to be closing. Host sean kennedy is the exec at a Vice President of the National Restaurant association. I hope we can check in with you from time to time. Sean thanks for having me. Host appreciate it. Coming up, we will check in with a member of congress from seattle. First, this from todays White House Briefing with dr. Deborah birx on the importance on testing and an update on where things stand. Dr. Birx the import thing about testing, it only tells you if you are positive or negative that day. You could become positive the next day. So, testing should be used intentionally as a surveillance tool or a diagnostic tool. I think what we are going to work on over the weekend is together a testing strategy for surveillance, which you have brought up in the key point, while maintaining a strong testing for diagnosis because our first obligation is still to ensure patients get diagnosed. The personal protective equipment for those who are negative does not have to be utilized but also give the patients opportunity to get optimal care. I think dr. Fauci mentioned this. The things we have learned over the last three months was a lot of information about how best to ventilate patients. I think that has been shared across communities and across clinicians around the globe. We never previously had an experience where a lot of people had to be ventilated prone. This kind of information that has been shared has been critical to improve the survival of the patients we have in the United States and we really want to applaud the countries who have been giving us all that information and sharing it across the clinical network. Host that is from the White House Briefing with dr. Deborah birx. We cover all the briefings live on the cspan networks and post them on the web at cspan. Org. Joining us from her district in washingtons seventh Congressional District is representative, via zoom. Congresswoman, thank you for being with us. Guest it is great to be with you. Host how are you personally dealing with this and what you hearing from constituents . Guest this has been a very hard time for our state as is the case for others as well. We were the place where the first case was diagnosed. Andow have over 3200 cases 147 fatalities. So, this has been very challenging for us. We have seen the effects of it probably before others have seen some of what we are seeing. We are getting a Field Hospital which will help tremendously so that will come into my district and Centurylink Field will have beds, fema iseds150 hospital being deployed here. The army corps of engineers is doing work right now. We are struggling. We need more ppe. We need more ventilators. We need more icu bets. Front lighteep our Health Workers safe and we cannot do that if we dont have the critical equipment and the staff to go along. At the same time, i am seeing the economic devastation. I got a call from one of my favorite restaurants. People are in tears because they dont see how they make it through this economic crisis. Obviously, we passed a bill. We hope that will help but we need aide yesterday. We need the supplies being manufactured yesterday and have us because we are not at the peak of this surge yet. Host you mentioned king county and Washington State became the original epicenter. What are the lessons for other communities . Whether it is new orleans, chicago, detroit that may be seeing in a couple of days or a week what you are seeing now . Rep. Jayapal the first thing is you have to respond before you think you have to respond. You have to do the physical distancing, the stayathome orders. You have to take this seriously because if you wait until you think it is time to do Something Like that, it is too late. It concerns me that there are still some states not taking this seriously. That is the first thing. The second thing is get your Public Health apparatus as fortified as possible because that is where you see and you detect immediately. Had the university of Washington Virology Lab not already had a test essentially ready to go, we would not be testing as much as we are. But, the reality is we are now testing about 6000 a day between the state labs and the uw labs and some commercial labs. That is much more than other places, but if you were doing this correctly, you would be testing everybody so you understood the epidemiology and the spread. The third thing is, just make sure that the community understands what is going to happen. Some communities that have not been hit yet do not yet need some of the relief that is in this bill, but i have some folks that have been filing for unemployment for weeks now and they dont have money in their pockets. So, get ready to deliver relief as quickly as possible. That means that cities, counties and states can take action immediately to expand moreurance, to provide standup shelters for the homeless. To get rent moratoriums and foreclosure moratoriums. These are the kinds of things that people are going to need, both the local, state and federal government to invest in quickly. Relief for people. That is what its going to be all about and then protecting the front line healthcare workers and getting the testing and icu capacity and the hospitals stood up to get ready for the search. Urge. Host are you satisfied with the response by the federal government, by President Trump . We. Jayapal no, look, are very grateful for fema to getting this hospital, getting this hospital here, the Field Hospital. But, we needed actions to be taken by the president weeks ago. We needed we still have a disaster an emergency declaration, a disaster declaration that is not completely fulfilled. Only pieces of it have been fulfilled. We need that to unlock the final suite of benefits for our state. We need to have Domestic Production of ventilators and the president is only just invoking the defense production act which i am glad he is doing that today but honestly we needed that to be done months ago. No sense whatsoever. The federal government should be stepping in and helping to produce more equipment here in the United States and also distribute this and to buy it at the lowest cost, not allowing the private sector to jack up the cost. We need more from the federal government, coordination and proactive reacting. Government should be coordinating that. Hopefully that will happen. There is a new fema administrator who was taking a responsibility, but i think people have to understand this will be a crisis of Epic Proportions and people are dying. When they dont have insulators, it is not just a piece of medical equipment, it is life or death. People are making the decisions about who will die and he will live because we dont have enough been letters. It is essentially a game of thrones competing to get these supplies. That is right because we are placing orders for n95 masks because there has not been coordination from the federal government, so we are trying to find some wires who will send us masks. I know we have placed a significant order. That will not come to our state until april. He said congresswoman, we need these machines to run these we need the government to get to those machines to us, otherwise we cannot ramp up capacity the way that we need to and the way we want to. We are running out of all of these different items that will be important for us if we are going to manage and contain the spread of the virus. We are trying to reduce the number of cases, not just trying to flatten the curve. System so it can accommodate those cases. The other is we are trying to limit the spread and in order to do that, we needed to practice these very intense roles so if the president says this is not really an issue and we will be through this by april or easter, that is not helpful. We need people to take this seriously because on the frontlines, we see what is happening. We see what is happening in new york in this will hit everybody. The death toll in king county is about [inaudible] because we are doing more testing, we are seeing those numbers increasing both and positive cases and fatalities. Yesterday, somebody said to me what happens to the families of the people who die . What if they get the hospital time at thet hospital and they cant pay it . Carent afford our health to start with and now we be paying for the treatment. That is one of the things we tried to get into this bill. The republicans would not allow it. Representative jayapal health, she represents the seventh Congressional District. Be safe. Thank you for staying with us. 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