Discusses the Coronavirus Response. House5 am, daniel ober discusses how the u. S. Power grid is responding to the pandemic. Host good morning, it is wednesday, april 1, 2020. President trump in the task force released new estimates projecting the deadly virus 100,000240,000 americans even under the current efforts. He warns those numbers could be much higher if they dont follow the guidelines aimed at keeping the virus from spreading. This morning onwashington journal we get reaction to the projections. Also, you could send us a text this morning. You do, please include your name and where you are from. On social media and twitter it is cspanwj. Very good wednesday morning to you. You could start calling in now. Some of the front pages coming off of president Trumps Coronavirus Task force briefing yesterday. This is Washington Post. Dire, thetoll is front page of the new york and this from the front page of the Washington Times. I want everymp american to be prepared for the hard days that lies ahead. We will go through a tough two weeks. Arefully as the experts predicting, as a lot of us are predicting after having studied it so hard we will start seeing some real light at the end of the tunnel. This will be a very painful two weeks. Nightou look and see at the kind of death that has been ,aused by this invisible enemy it is incredible. I was watching last night, governor murphy of new jersey say 29 people died today, meaning yesterday. Others talking about numbers far greater. I know new jersey so well. 29 people. Hundreds another location. We face a difficult few weeks. It is going to be like a burst of light. Strength will be tested and endurance will be tried. America will answer with love and courage. All is the time for americans to come together and do our part. Trumpthat was president yesterday evening at his white house Coronavirus Task force briefing. Getting your reactions in the wake of those latest projections from the white house. 100,000200 40,000 americans could die from coronavirus in the coming weeks and months. Taking your calls on the phone lines. We were just talking about the projected numbers. Here are numbers as they stand today. The total confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States from the Johns Hopkins university 189,632rus dashboard, confirmed cases. Total deaths just over 4000. Yesterday at this time that number was just over 3000. The number on the far right is the good number, 7136 is the number recovered from the coronavirus in the United States. That is the latest from Johns Hopkins university. Up first. Good morning. Caller thank you for taking my call. Know, is wilbert ross is still sec. Of commerce . Who is . From the seen anybody secretary of commerce. Host why do you want to hear from the secretary of commerce . Caller isnt he one of the big economic guys . Anyway, if the 2 death rate, and we expect 100,000 deaths, that means 5 Million People will get this virus. How many percentage of those people need to go on a respirator . Even if it is 10 that means you need 500,000 respirators. I dont get the math on a lot of these things. Nobody is considering the math. I dont know of cspan knows but there was a statement that america only has 160,000 ventilators for 300 Million People. That seems awful low. Is that percentage the same worldwide . Host for a couple of your , his last wilbur ross appearance we aired on cspan was march 5 testifying on the president s 2021 budget. ,ou could watch all the videos over 40 videos with the secretary of commerce on our website at cspan. Org. Wanting toking about hear from the secretary of commerce at this time. Do you feel like Steven Mnuchin has been somebody who has given you confidence in the Economic Situation . Patrick. Wanda is up next in california, good morning. Caller good morning. As far as the numbers go, they cannot put a number on it because they do not know what the number is going to be. Knower thing, how do they where this virus came from . You have americans over there in china. How do to know americans didnt bring it to china . What kind of proof to have that it came from china . He says it like he is definite. Like he knows for sure. What proved us he have . Host on the numbers issued you think it makes sense to prepare americans for that potential . It makes sense that they cannot put a number on it because they do not know. Host this is dr. Anthony fauci speaking with reporters again about that number in these projections. Should americans be prepared for the likelihood that there will be 100,000 americans die . Ayak who yes. Auci the answer is a sobering of a number as it is, we should prepare for it. Will be that much . I hope not. The more we push on the mitigation the less likely it would be that number. Being realistic, we need to prepare ourselves that this is a possibility. Reporter can the country handle such a short period of time . Dr. Fauci it would be difficult. Nobody is denying the fact that we are going through a difficult time right now. We are seeing what is happening in new york. That is really tough. If you extrapolate that to the nation, that would be really tough. That is what it is. We will have to be compared to that. That is based and heavily laden by the data that has come in from new york, new jersey, and connecticut. Peakcan skew to a higher and more significant mortality. If all of the other states and metro areas are able to hold , then it number down is a very different picture. Dataave to predict on the you have, which is heavily skewed to new york and new jersey. That is an important slide. The cluster of other cities that are not new york and not new jersey, if we can suppress that from a spike, the numbers could be significantly lower than what we are talking about. My plea at the end of my remarks here that now is the time to put your foot on the accelerator. Dr. Anthony fauci along with dr. Deborah birx, the Coronavirus Task force coordinator. Speaking alongside the president yesterday. Thoseg your reaction to numbers released yesterday that the president spoke about. Theres one more quote from the president. This could be a hell of a bad two weeks, is their headline. Caller good morning, thank you for for taking our call. I think donald trump has given us good numbers. Wife had some kind of virus real bad and it went on for probably about a month. We fought it, before it really ever came out. Wondering if that was what we had. They were doing tests for antibodies that people can donate blood to help other people. We have a friend that his daughter worked in a nursing home. There something about those antibodies . Also, i wanted to remind people that they can go to www. Shepperdschapel. Com and go to church. Toes chapter five tells you use the prayer. Scott is up next out of california. Good morning. Know if anyone realizes this or even thought about it, it should be obvious to most of us that destructive donald doesnt want any real covid19 testing. He is only showing limited help to hide his actual intention. That may sound like a strong statement. The best thing for his reelection would be a steep curve in cases. Although it would result in more deaths, it would peak the virus earlier than the flatten the curve. A flattened curve would drag on for months. Trump doesnt want to take a chance on it. If you look at the graphs they often show on tv, a steep curve benefits trump in two ways, it gives the people the pandemic over much more quickly. Toesnt help anyone come out and talk about numbers like that . Is that a benefit of any sort of electoral benefit . We are talking about 100,0002 earn 40,000 people dying. The more overall deaths could actually benefit trump. Will be able to say look deaths pandemic, 200,000 and i conquered it. No president has conquered a pandemic as big as i have. Got your point. Keith is in richmond, virginia. Caller good morning and im glad you allowed me to talk to you all in the nation this morning. About the dead right now. We have to realize that we just need to realize there are a lot of people that are hurting out there. A lot of people, a lot of going through things because a loved one has been taken away. It doesnt matter if they are democrat or republican. They deserve respect and dignity. But we are doing as a nation is we are dividing ourselves further. You and yourto ask producers to give us information , about 10 seconds for a moment of silence. So we could remember the dead for a moment. Would you just allow 10 seconds of silence for a moment have a blessed day everybody. Host you dont have to ask, i will give you that 10 seconds. Don is in michigan, good morning. Morning. Ood we have to Work Together as republicans and democrats. Republicans are doing just the opposite. Bill to poison the year air more. Insident obama put standards, trump will destroy them. He is putting judges in the have vowed to destroy health care. That last caller talking about trump,bers, waiting for it could lose for trump if the red states death toll is greater than blue states. Trouble use the higher death rates among the red states and blamed blue states for taking health care. Trump is a divider, a hater, he is destroying this country. Aboutcould you talk michigan and the impact of coronavirus there . Caller about a month ago, sandy patti came to do a concert and she helped spread the virus in particular there. It is a strong evangelical community which voted strongly for trump. Trump is at war and the republicans against michigan. He has told Governor Whitmer you have to find your own stuff because you disrespected me or didnt talk nice to me. Three weeks ago, frontpage infiltratingere michigan teachers union. Host we will stick to the numbers and projections that came out of the white house yesterday. 100,000240,000 deaths. White house warning those numbers could jump up higher if the mitigation and the distancing did not happen. From other models out there, this from the New York Times. At the devised university of washington predicted coronavirus deaths nationwide would soar to almost 60,000 in the month of april. The study suggest the devastation would slow with a total of about 84,000 deaths by august. Lets talk about those numbers today and with those numbers coming out of the white house from yesterdays task force briefing. Just want to get your thoughts. Caller how are you doing . I live in santa maria, california, Santa Barbara county. They tell us they dont have enough people to go around and check what businesses are working that shouldnt. We have a legal vendors and candy trucks going around while we are quarantined in our homes. A lot of people cant work and go to therapy. We need all hands on deck. We need a system that will support us. Together toto pull get this thing straight. People are running around like there is no problem. Host can you tell me more about the illegal food vendors . Caller they have illegal food carts here that sell corn and whatever to kids, anybody. They go around all the time. The mayor of santa maria knows about it. , and the of Police Health department knows about this illegal food sale. It is a bad habit. Wouldnt even take our calls if we see it. Here we are quarantined looking out the window at it. Host when people are worried about the food supply, are there efforts to try to make that legal . Caller this has been going on before that. People in a treat for the neighborhood. There are plenty of stores here. There are stores all around here. The kids are getting food from the school. They are giving out food for the people. They are starting to get towels and toilet paper. We have to have people support us. Going to quarantine down and maintain it we have to have the support from the police and the health department. We will just say it is a bad habit. Host we will be talking more , u. S. The u. S. Food supply agriculture industry coming up at our 8 00 a. M. Eastern our. We will be joined by Philip Brasher for that discussion. Stick around for that conversation coming up in about 40 minutes. Sean is next, gilbert arizona. I want to talk about these masks. The n95 masks. The numbers basically our worst case scenario. That is all i have to say about that. Host what the white house was saying yesterday was that the numbers are projected to be 100,000200 and 40,000, even with the mitigation efforts. We certainly hope those numbers are high. The worst case an area they are saying without mitigation and then those numbers get into the millions. Caller true but they are doing the mitigation right now. They are basing what you are talking about on how affected new yorks and other places close to new york. That is correct. Spoke to thatrx yesterday. Finish your comment. Caller in regards to the n95 masks, they will protect you. They will protect anyone from getting this virus. Only good the surgical masks will do is they will prevent you from giving the virus to someone else. There is a serious misunderstanding in regards to that. The n95 masks as long as they are properly fitted and you dont have a beard or anything cause you to have some type of opening where the virus could get to you, the n95 mask is the only mask that will protect you from getting the virus. On the surgical masks, are you saying you think it is worthless for people to have those . Todaysn entire page of New York Times on how surgical stepbysteph instructions and the schematics on what that surgical mask should look like. Caller they have their uses. The uses are if youre wearing it to prevent yourself from infecting someone else. Fromwill not protect you getting coronavirus. The droplets are big. If they are big, they are only protect your only protection will be the n95 mask. Host thank you for the call. To the numbers you are speaking about and the projections, what they are being based on, want to show dr. Deborah birx of the Coronavirus Task force talking about the new yorknew jersey anders and the projections what those numbers could mean for the rest of the United States. Birx this light is all 50 states and the district of columbia. It shows a stark reality the difference between new york and new jersey and other states with similar populations and urban areas. Our goal over the next 30 days is to ensure the 48 across the bottom maintain this lower level of new cases. With the hope that we dont have significant outbreaks in other states and other metro areas. As the Community Comes together to Work Together and ensure the Health Care Providers around the globe and in the United States are strengthened by our resolve to continue to mitigate community by community. This is done community by community. We all know people are in states and in communities. We are very dependent on each person in the United States doing the same thing. Following the president ial guidelines to a t. I know it is a lot to ask. If you can show the next slide, please. This is what gives us a lot of hope. This is the case finding in italy. Are beginningthey to turn the corner in new cases. They are entering their fourth week of full mitigation. They are showing what is possible when we Work Together as a community, as a country, to change the course of this pandemic together. Is this graphic and the graphic of many of the states that give us hope of what is possible with continuing for another 30 days. I must say that like we warned about detroit and chicago, we start to see changes in massachusetts area new orleans continues to be a problem of new cases. It really shows the depth of dedication of the American People of the Health Care Providers. You could see the strain this puts on it. Together toking stem this tide of unrelenting sick people coming to their doors. Yesterdaydeborah birx at the white house talking about projected numbers, 100,0002 hundred 40,000 u. S. Coronavirus coming out of the task force briefing. That is what we are talking about to you on the phone lines. You can keep calling in, we will get back to your phone calls in just a second. Want to bring in congresswoman shalala. The time this morning. Your reaction to those numbers yesterday out of the white house . Guest i think the numbers are still horrifying. We dont have a treatment. Even though the projections are that we can study this down over a period of time, what we are basically trying to do is to starve the virus by staying at home. Transmission the is not coming from people who have fullblown coronavirus but people that arent showing the symptoms right now. Dangerousvery situation. We just have to find a treatment. Congress has put tremendous resources into the International Search for treatment. Trying to make people whole economically. We are rolling out those programs right now. Hopefully a Health Care Safety net. I am in miamidade county. Our governor just has not issued a stay in place. Host do you think he may in the briefing in the wake of the briefing yesterday . Are you chatting with him . Every elected official is telling him he must. Saveant to stay lives in florida you must issue the stayathome order. Participate ino staying at home, social distancing, washing our hands. That is the only thing that will slow the virus down and begin to starve it until we get a treatment and eventually a vaccine. Oft is miami ready in terms its hospitals and medical systems . This is an area of hurricanes. Plan always had emergency Surge Capacity in our hospitals. Never on this scale. Of abusinghe process public spaces for the possibility of needing more hospital auxiliary. Workforce and making sure we get supplies. It is not easy to get supplies. Masks, all sorts of machines like ventilators have been in short supply. The supply chain is the states are competing with each other to buy these supplies. Some of those states are searching the world for these supplies. Hospitals, idual worry about our hospitals that are in the process of losing millions of dollars. They cancel nonessential oper