Transcripts For CSPAN White House Coronavirus Task Force Briefing 20240713

U. S. Economy. His plan called for phase return, outlining specific steps for state and local officials to follow. This is an hour and 15 minutes. Pres. Trump thank you very much. Our nation is engaged in a historic battle against the invisible enemy. To win this fight, we have thank you very much. Our nation is engaged in a historic battle against the invisible enemy. To win this fight, we have undertaken the greatest National Mobilization since world war ii. And that is exactly what it has been. We have marshaled every instrument of American Power and we have unleashed our most potent weapon of all, the courage of the American People. These have been trying times. A cruel virus from a distant land has unfairly claimed thousands of precious american lives. Is our pain. We mourn as one national family. Our country has come together. We draw solace from the faith that god has received the departed. He has taken the departed into his eternal and loving embrace. They will never be forgotten. Over the last weeks and months, millions of americans have joined together in a shared national sacrifice to halt the spread of this horrible disease. The army built field hospitals in sports arenas and convention centers. The army corps of engineers is great. Over 20,000 beds in record time. The navy sailed hospital ships to our biggest cities. Lifesaving supplies and experimental medicines were rushed to the front lines as we launched a rapid search for groundbreaking treatments and vaccines. We built the most advanced and robust testing anywhere in the world. And we have done more testing than any country. Anywhere in the world. We suspended dangerous foreign travel. We leveraged our Industrial Base to produce vast quantities of critical medical gear and enacted a historic 2 trillion relief package. Through it all, we have seen the heroism of our doctors and nurses like never before. They are our warriors. Such bravery from our Truck Drivers and food suppliers. Incredible bravery. And the determination and drive of our citizens. Through this unified national endeavor, we have made great progress. You could really say incredible progress. Our experts and scientists report that our strategy to slow the spread has saved hundreds of thousands of lives. Models predicted between 1. 5 million and 2. 2 million u. S. Deaths. If there was no mitigation, it could even have been higher than that. Between 100,000 and 240,000 deaths with mitigation. It is looking likely will, far under even the slowest numbers. Thanks to our all out military operation and the extraordinary devotion of our people, we believe we will experience far fewer deaths than even the optimistic projection. There is no such thing as an optimistic projection on death. One person is too many. Our experts say the curve has flattened and the peak in new cases is behind us. Nationwide, more than 850 counties or nearly 30 of our country have reported no new cases in the last seven days. Because of our early and aggressive action, we have avoided the tragedy of deadly shortfall that have befallen many other nations. , whereverich possible, we are helping. In america no person that is , needed a ventilator in america has been denied a ventilator. We are making hundreds of thousands of ventilators. We have delivered thousands and thousands of ventilators to the states. And actually, it has been an incredible operation. We started with very little and we ended with a lot. The United States has achieved a significant lower mortality rate than almost all other countries. Based on the latest data, our team of experts agree we can begin the next front in our war which we are calling opening up , america again. And that is what we are doing. Opening up our country. And we have to do that. America wants to be open. And americans want to be open. As i have said for some time now, a National Shutdown is not a sustainable longterm solution. To preserve the health of our citizens, we must also preserve the health and functioning of our economy. Over the long haul, you cannot do one without the other. It cannot be done. To keep vital supply chains running, the chains have to be taken care of so delicately. They are delicate. Their balance is delicate. We want to deliver food and medical supplies and you must have a working economy. And we want to get it back, very, very quickly. And that is what is going to happen. I believe it will boom. A prolonged lockdown combined with a forest economic depression will have inflicted an amends and wide ranging toll on Health Including drug abuse, alcohol abuse, suicide, heart disease, and many other dimensions of physical and mental wellbeing. Moreover, many patients have put needed medical care on hold creating entirely new hazards for Public Health. Our country has suffered. The world has suffered. 184 other countries have suffered. Therefore, my administration is issuing new federal guidelines that will allow governors to take a phased and delivered deliberate approach to reopening their individual states. I have dealt with them now a long time. And we have had a great relationship. Democrat, republican, the relationship has been good. This strategy is based on hard, verifiable data. I want to thank dr. Birx for her incredible leadership and drafting these guidelines in consultation with scientists, experts, and medical professionals across government. She will explain the guidelines and more details in a few moment and dr. Fauci has been absolutely terrific. We have all worked together and we have worked together well. They are interested in the health of our country and we are all interested in the viability in making us truly great again. We took the greatest economy in the history of the world and we closed it in order to win this war. And we are in the process of winning it now. Our approach outlined three phases in restoring our Economic Life and we are not opening all at once. But one careful step at a time. In some states, we will be able to open up sooner than other states. Some states are not in the kind of trouble that others are in. Now that we have passed the peak in new cases, we are starting our life again. We are starting rejuvenation of our economy again. In a safe and structured and a very responsible fashion. Our strategy will continue to protect Senior Citizens and other vulnerable populations while allowing military and other groups of incredibly talented people to go about their real business and the business that is supposed to be hard at work at doing and know nobody does it better. Our military is the greatest anywhere in the world and we are so all for what they have done. Healthy americans will now be able to return to work as conditions on the ground allow. Instead of a blanket shutdown, we will pursue a focus on sheltering the highest risk individuals. So important. We are establishing clear, scientific metrics and benchmarks on testing. New case growth and Hospital Capacity that must be met before advancing to each phase. And that is each phase specifically in the reopening of our country. This is a gradual process as a caseload in a state continues to go down. Restrictions can continue to be eased and come off. Throw the process, citizens will be called upon to use all of their weapons in this war. Vigorous hygiene. Teleworking when possible. Staying at home if you feel sick. Maintaining social distance. Sanitizing commonly used services. And being highly conscious of their surroundings. Those are our weapons and they are very powerful weapons indeed. Governors will be empowered to tailor an approach that needs the diverse circumstances of their own states. Every state is very different. They are all beautiful. We love them all but they are all very different. If they need to remain closed, we will allow them to do that and if they believe it is time to reopen, we will provide them the freedom and guidance to accomplish that task and very, very quickly. Depending on what they want to do. We are also encouraging states to Work Together to harmonize their regional efforts. We will have numerous cases where states have worked and will be working very, very closely together. As we reopen, we know there will be continued hardships and challenges ahead. Our goal will be to quickly identify and address any outbreaks and put them out rapidly. If the virus returns in the fall, as some scientists think it may, possibly, these guidelines will ensure that our country is up and running so that we can likewise put it out quickly. At the heart of our strategy is the vital role of medical research especially for therapies that will significantly improve outcomes for highrisk patients and reduce the need for urgent care. This will be tremendously valuable in allowing life to return to normal. At least 35 Clinical Trials are already underway, including antiviral therapies autoimmune , therapies in the form of convalescent plasma. You have all heard about some of these events and some of these therapies. They have come a long way. What has been done in the last four weeks is incredible. We will also expand our Testing Capacity. We have now completed 3. 5 million tests, by far the most anywhere in the world. Areas of our country that have been hotspots have done much more testing on a per capita than south korea. We have done more than south korea and south korea has done a good job but we have done more. We will continue to work with governors to advise them on how to conduct both surveillance and diagnostic testing. We have now distributed more than 600,000 point of care diagnostic tests. These are tests done on site and within five minutes you know the answer. Positive or negative. In recent days, we have seen a dramatic increase in the number of tests performed by hospitals and academic institutions with more than 120,000 tests recently reported in a single day. Far more than any country in the world has ever been able to do. And our numbers are actually going up. As these new and better Testing Solutions come online, we are seeing this additional capacity reflected in the numbers. For this reason, the number of tests processed in commercial laboratories has dropped from approximately 100,000 to 75,000 tests in the last week. The reason it dropped is because we have so many other tests and we do not need to go through the laboratories. Laboratories have additional capacity and states feel free to use that capacity. Some in the media falsely reported this as a bad thing when in fact it is a great thing because it indicates that the states are moving to faster, more local Testing Solutions including on the spot tests. The drop in the utilization of commercial laboratories is an affirmation that testing, which is at an alltime high, is growing at a historic rate. In other words, the laboratories are great but now, we have forms of testing that are much quicker, much better, and we dont have to use the laboratories but they are there and they have a great capacity to do the work. As dr. Birx has been advising our governor for weeks, we continue to have an access in the capacity of our testing and our capabilities are growing every day especially with the new test coming onto the market rapidly. As we begin a sciencebased reopening, we must be extra vigilant in blocking the foreign entry of the virus from abroad. Border control, travel restrictions, and other limitations on entry are more important than ever to keep the virus then check and allow americans to get back to work. The sacrifices our citizens have made in this time of crisis will be remembered, studied, honored, and praised for generations to come. We really are all working together. Democrat, republican, conservative, liberal all working together. This is not about parties. This is about our country. Now, the American People are ready to rise to the occasion once again. They are ready to show the world once more that americans can defeat any challenger. Together, we will rebuild this land that we love. We will reclaim the magnificent destiny that we share and we will carry our nation forward to new heights of greatness and glory. I would now like to ask Vice President mike pence and dr. Burx to further explain the new guidelines. I would like to thank dr. Burx, dr. Fauci, and i would like to thank really a specially a man who has devoted 24 hours a day to his task force and done such an incredible job, our great Vice President , mike pence. Mike . V. P. Pence thank you, mr. President. The members of the White House Coronavirus task force joined the president to meet with a Bipartisan Group of members of the house and of the senate to get their counsel on the development of what the president unveiled to americas governors this afternoon. The new guidelines for opening up america again are a product of the best science and common sense that the president has marshaled on his team and from a broad range of advisors from all across the nation. From the moment president established the White House Coronavirus task force early on, he made it clear that we have no higher priority than the health and safety of the American People. The president launched a wholeofgovernment approach. While we stand here on this day with more than 640 thousand americans having contracted the coronavirus, and our hearts go out to the families of the more than 31,000 americans who lost their lives and those that continue to struggle with serious consequences of the coronavirus, the truth is that because of the Decisive Action that our president took early on suspending travel from china and thereafter from portions of europe, south korea, screening passengers. Because of the strong actions in partnership with every governor across america, because of the extraordinary efforts of Americas Health care workers on the front lines, and because of the cooperation of the American People and gods grace, we are slowing the spread. We are flattening the curve. We have preserved the capacity of our Health Care System and we have protected the most honorable. In a word, because of the actions of this president , of this administration, governors at every level, our healthcare workers, and our fellow americans, we have saved lives and every american should be comforted by that. And we can see it in the numbers. In the charts that i will present today, these three maps track influenza like illness which, in this instance, is mostly coronavirus, across america. The first map reflects the total number of cases on the week ending march 28. The next map reflects our data about the total number of cases on the week ending april 4. And we stand here today with the final map reflecting the total number of cases across america as of april 11. With these trends underway, President Trump asked the White House Coronavirus task force to develop new guidelines for opening up america again. Those guidelines were presented today first to our nations governors. And it is our intention at the president s direction to provide these guidelines to assist governors and state Health Officials in evaluating the most responsible manner to reopen the economies of their states at a time and manner of their choosing. The guidelines as americans who are looking on will note begin with what is the best criteria that our experts have developed. A downward trajectory and cases over a 14 day period of time. Ensuring that states have proper capacity and their Health Care System. The second set of proposals includes a description of recommendations for state preparedness. And let me say to the American People what President Trump made clear to our governors today. Our administration will continue to work day in and day out through our task force, and through fema to ensure that our states have not only the medical supplies but that we continue to rapidly expand testing across the nation. The president reflected on the progress we have made on testing but a few statistics for that as well which i hope are an encouragement for the American People. On march 11, we performed a total of 23,588 tests. Because of the partnership across the country, that number was 83,500 march 18. As the president just said, that number is 3. 5 million today. It is our expectation we will have tested more than 5 million before the end of april. And we will continue to scale those resources. So testing and medical supplies will continue to be an Ongoing Partnership with the state and we want our Health Care Workers and people across the country to know of our commitment that. Our commitment to that. Finally, we have proposed a phased approach to reopening our economy based on uptodate data and readiness. We will continue to provide the very best data to our states, working with their Health Officials. The focus is on the mitigation of any risk of resurgence. Emergence of the coronavirus in states where it has not yet emerged. There is a focus in the new guidelines on the most vulnerable and we made this very clear today, these new guidelines for opening up america again can be implement implemented on a statewide or a county by county basis. With that, i am happy to turn it over to dr. Birx. If i may, i would like to extend my admiration and appreciation to dr. Birx dr. Fauci, and every , member who worked aroundtheclock. I know every american is grateful for your leadership and for theirs. Thank you, mr. President and mr. Vice president. We will go through these quickly as i know you have them and many have already spoken on television. Next slide please. This is a very important slide. It talks about gatekeeping criteria to moving into phase one. It is very much related to influenzalike illness we have the United States has been tracking these illnesses through controlers for disease for years. Both state and county Health Officials are used to watching it, and frankly, every family around the not its around the United States knows how to access this to get uptodate information. It also looks at a syndromic program that can be utilized for many illnesses, in this case, for respiratory diseases. In addition, we are tracking the number of cases and it must have a downward trajectory. For 14 days, as well as the influenza like illness and the syndromic illnesses. And a downward trajectory and ts with high levels of testing. The hospital is to ensure we can treat all patients without any crisis care, and ensuring there is a Robust Testing Program in place for at risk Health Care Workers, including frontline responders with the emerging antibody tests. Just to show you what this looks like. What the cdc did for me was chart the syndromic illnesses throughout early march. You can see in new orleans, respiratory diseases were starting to be seen in the emergency room. The cases are shown in the dark blue line. The Gray Mountain is testing. Underneath that is the Blue Mountain of positives. You can see the early alert was present from the emergency room about early respiratory disease. You can see it predated the cases. Throughout the summer, when we do not have the flu to contaminate the picture, we will be able to determine city by city, state by state. In addition, the cdc has the influenzalike illness throughout the United States. Very useful in the wintertime. Peak is influenza b. In the red, thats the season. I showed you all of the seasons. The second peak is influenza a, and then you can see the coronavirus. You can see it is declining towards the baseline. This will allow us to look for variation and an early response mode in the localities i described. Hopefully you see we brought the cdc and their amazing talented individuals and all of their abilities to the response and the surveillance we need. But i want to call your attention to the third bullet on this graphic. We are tracking those pieces i described. The third bullet is about setting up sentinel surveillance sites to find symptomatically individuals. Individuals you have heard about who may be presymptomatic or a symptomatic. We want to find them in communities of particular vulnerability. We will be doing sentinel surveillance throughout nursing homes, innercity federal clinics, and indigenous populations to really find early alerts of asymptomatic individuals in the community, and for the cases tested, the influenzalike cases, and doing Contact Tracing with support from the cdc working with each state and local government. In addition, we want to make sure Health Care Facilities have adequate ppe and the equipment to handle the search and to ensure icus can handle increased capacity. We want every state to have a plan for the health and safety of its workers and critical industries, and protect the health and safety of those living in highrisk facilities. Including senior care facilities. When we talked with all of the states that had not had a major metro outbreak, their central there sentinel surveillances picked up at first cases in nursing homes. So this is very much a big focus of the plan moving forward i will not go into the rest of the details, but there is quite a bit of detail on expectations of every state and local government. You will recognize this slide. It is what we have been talking about in the 15 and 30 days to prevent the spread. It is continuing. Handwashing, and sanitizing, avoid touching your face, disinfecting surfaces, using masks in public, following state and local guidelines, and critically staying home if you are sick. I know a lot of people go to work when they are feeling ill. You know when you are feeling ill. It wont get better by going to work. We are asking for people to stay home when they are sick. Our next slide is for employers to ensure there can be social distancing and protective equipment temperature checks. Use disinfectant in hightraffic areas, including rape rooms, and ensuring there is no nonessential business travel. Then monitoring for any symptomatic individuals in the workplace. If you become ill at work, immediately go home. Ensure there is Contact Tracing of all of the individuals that become sick. I will go through the phases quickly. Phase one, you have to go through those gating criterias related to 14 days of increasing evidence of illness and decreasing testing despite adequate testing. Phase one begins with all vulnerable individuals, including those with comorbidities continuing to shelter in place. Ensuring that those who go out first are not the most vulnerable to bad outcomes. And then ensuring we continue to do six feet physical distancing in public spaces and avoiding large gatherings and all nonessential travel. Further employers for the employers, if a vulnerable population needs to return to work or cannot be teleworking, there should be special accommodations for all vulnerable populations. We believe every employee employer should encourage return to work in phases and minimize all nonessential travel. If the schools are already closed, they should remain closed. All visits to Senior Living facilities should continue to be prohibited. Large venues can only be operated under strict physical distancing protocols. Can open if they adhere to strict social distancing, and elective surgeries can resume on an outpatient basis. Phase two. You have to go through the criteria of a continuation of another 14 day decline among the criteria that we are negating. We are asking for all vulnerable individuals to shelter in place. We did not put a timeline on any of the phases. We want the governors with the data they have to be setting up those timelines. We are asking for the public to maximize physical distance. However, we increased social settings to be able to have 50 individuals. Nonessential travel can resume. This next slide is for the employers. We would still like to encourage telework and common areas should remain closed and physically distant. Nonessential travel for employees can resume. Special accommodations for vulnerables. This next slide should be a relief to many with children. Schools, day cares, and camps can reopen in phase two. Visits to Senior Living facilities should remain prohibited. Large venues can operate, but solely under moderate physical distancing. Elective surgeries can resume on an outpatient and inpatient basis. Wont go into detail, it is essentially returning to our new normal with all that we talked about through the phases. Continuing good hygiene practices, continuing respect for spaces between individuals. We know we still have an issue with asymptomatic spread. I believe with this plan that we are both confronting the issue symptomatic individuals through our network with early alerts, as well as those who come and present two different hospitals and Emergency Rooms with testing and Contact Tracing, but critically put in place what we believe is a safety net through asymptomatic sentinel surveillance centered around our most vulnerable groups between nursing homes, native American People, indigenous populations, and innercity groups that may be in multigenerational households and be at unique risk. I will stop there, mr. President. Thank you very much. As you have seen just now from the detailed presentation, this is a rather Robust Program for reentering into normality. There are a lot of details here and i know it will take a little time to digest. What i thought would be good is to take us back to the discussions we have had here before and why this is a Natural Evolution from what we had said before. You might recall a few occasions when i was up here before, i told you that when we get to the point where we will take those steps towards trying to get back to some form of normality, that it would not be a light switch you can turn on and off. I meant that in two different components. First of all, that we are a very large country and we have different dynamics in the country. We have areas of the country that have gone through a terrible ordeal, and others have gone through this rather lightly. Thats the first thing. The other is that light switch on and off is the exact opposite of what you see here, which is a gradual gradation. The first and only thing on my mind with my colleagues, the physicians, scientists, or Public Health issuers, the predominant and completely driving element we put into this was the safety and health of the American Public. I know there are a lot of other considerations that go in. Considerations you have heard of right at this podium. But the dominant drive is to make sure this is done in the safest way possible. So let me just make a couple of comments to reiterate more from a broader standpoint the things dr. Birx did so well in a very granular detail. First of all, in order to even consider getting into phasing, you have to pass the hurdle. Thats the hurdle we refer to as gating in. When you look at the map of the country, and look at the differences, you will see that there are some regions, states, locations that are going to be almost already into some of that gating and will have a field have fulfilled that criteria. Others, because of the dynamics in the outbreak, will take longer to be able to do that. But you dont get to phase one until you get through the gating. And then in order to make sure safety and health are the dominant issue, the design of the phases were just that. You go into phase one, if you get no rebound and satisfy the gating, yet again a second time, then you go to phase two. If you have no rebound and you satisfy the gating criteria for the third time, you go into phase three. There are multiple checkpoints of safety. Podiumve said from this when we were talking about the first 15 days of the mitigation and we extended it another 30 days, i pleaded with the American Public to let us make sure we do the best we can to accomplish that. Mitigation works. You saw the chart of the Vice President and dr. Birx put up, it works. What i hope, and i believe we will be successful, if we cant do this again Pay Attention to the health of the American Public that will be able to, it will be staggered. Not every state, not every region will do it. Its clearly obvious because of the dynamics of the outbreak. What we feel confident that sooner or later, we will get the report hopefully sooner for safety as the most important thing to appoint or we can get back to some form of normality. What i like that dr. Birx said so well is no matter what phase you are in, there are fundamental things we have done that are not like it was in september and october. Call it whatever you want, even if you are in phase one or two or three, its not game over. Its going to be a way that we protect ourselves because as we know, it may very well be that there will be this virus that wants to come back to us. I think we will be able to handle that. Thank you. I assume there is also a phase four. Which is after a vaccine is developed and available to everybody. Question on phase three being the new normal. Are we going to be able to see things like packed arenas for sporting events, large crowds, concerts . It is conceivable we will be able to do that. There will always have to be attention to making sure we dont do all of that packing in together. We will be able to have Sports Events in the phase where you actually have participants. Im not sure you will do that temporally. D evenly when people get to that phase, paying attention to the fact that if there is a rebound of any sort when you are in that phase, you can respond to that. Or, you put it back and go the other way. So the flexibility is that there may be some setbacks. Lets face it. This is uncharted water. There may be setbacks we have to pull back a little and go forward. But the direct answer to your question, i do see us getting more towards normal. If you take a look at the gating criteria in these guidelines, there are at least a handful of states that look like they have already satisfied that criteria. So in your call with the governors this afternoon, did you hear from any states that said they were already there . I heard from a number of governors who said they were in good shape. I think you have some very good things to report over the next few days. Having to do with your call on sports, pending on the area, you will have large areas of the country where this has been totally eradicated. You will be able to have those full arenas. With everything being said, a lot of great work has been done on vaccines but you have a testing process. Therapeutics likewise. It will be a step further but in terms of sports, they will probably start off. I spoke to the commissioners yesterday of every sport. Many of them are going to be starting without the fans. It will be made for television. It will go that way and then fans will start coming in. Maybe they will be separated by two seats. And then ultimately, we want to have packed arenas. We will be back to enjoying sports the way we are supposed to be in the same can be said of restaurants. When the virus is gone, we will be back to normal. Can you clarify, is the 30 days to stop the spread, are those mitigation efforts still in place . Have they been replaced . They are going to be in place to a large extent. It also depends on what you look at montana, wyoming, it is a lot different in new york, new jersey. It will be dependent on the governor. We aresee in the charts, recommending certain things. It will be very dependent on the governor. If we see something wrong, we will express ourselves strongly. Will they be able to go to phase one as early as say tomorrow . Are you talking about states that are in great shape already . Tomorrow, yes. They have met all of the guidelines. Going back 14 days or even a month, the ones i am thinking about, they have met those guidelines pretty long ago. What is your message to the protesters we saw in michigan that say they are refusing to comply with the stayathome orders issued by governors and local officials . Isnt it important for everyone to go along with this . Itwe have been going through a long time. It is a tough process for people. There is death, and there are problems in staying at home. It is not just wonderful to stay at home. They are suffering. This country wasnt built on that principle, it was built on an opposite principle. I watched in one particular state where they want to get back. There were very strict sanctions put on people, probably the most strict of all. I just think the American People have been incredible. When you look at what they have been through, all of the deaths and problems and sickness. When you look at what has happened i think the American People have been incredible. Shouldnt the protesters listen to local authorities . I think they listen to me. They seem to be protesters who like me and respect my opinion. My opinion is about the same. They all want to open. Nobody wants to stay shut, they want to open safely. So do i. But we have large sections that can think about opening. They will keep it going for a time, including masks, by the way. I asked today why they would wear masks in wyoming or montana. Thats if somebody should come in from an area that is not so successful. That will be a governors choice. We will have no problem with it. You spoke with your new congressional advisory group, 32 members of the house, 65 bipartisan members of the senate. A big topic was the fact that the Small Business Association Loan has hit the cap. It is exhausted. There is nothing moving on the 250 billion to replenish it. What did you tell those groups today about getting the move on . For the viewers, exhausted is a good thing, not a bad thing. It went quickly. It went to 4000 banks. They still need a lot. What they want is to keep it going. We are doing it to keep businesses open and keep workers paid. We have a 250 billion request. The democrats like it, the republicans love it. To be honest, i think something will be happening. I hope so, because it is a Popular Program that was really executed flawlessly. The first day, they changed an application a little bit. When you look at what bank of america and wells fargo did, when you look at what all of the Community Banks did, it has been really incredible. We are negotiating with democrats and they should frankly approve it quickly. Its a great thing for the country, Small Businesses, and the workers. We are having a hard time getting them to approve. I think its going to happen and should happen unanimously, but they are trying to get things and we are not too happy. Can you just say which states you think have hit the requirements . Id rather not say but you will see it soon. Id rather have the governors be able to announce. They are proud of it. Some are in an area less susceptible. Some was done, i think you can say through talent. They really worked very hard. We have some states that got too much credit for what they have done. I could name a couple of those. And we have others that have not been given credit that have done a phenomenal job. States of it shifts to and companies, the burden not just of additional testing and surveillance, but also this new normal in which there are smaller crowds in restaurants, bars. There is not going to be a new normal or somebody used to have 180 seats in a restaurant and now he has got 30. That is not normal. Normal is if he has 168 seats. That is going to happen relatively quickly, that is our normal. The normal is if you have 100,000 people at an alabama Football Game or 110,000. We want every seat occupied. Normal is not a game with 50,000. To that point, best Case Scenario that happens in a month. For a lot of states, it will be longer than that. So my question is, what is the federal government going to do to help Companies Pay for what is now going to be even longer . We are going to be watching over and making sure everything is working out smoothly. We are in very strong communication with the governors. We are going to be helping with testing. They will be doing the testing. It has to be a localized thing. It has been since i have been involved. The federal government is supposed to do testing in the parking lots in the middle of a certain state that is 2000 miles away, it is ridiculous. But the testing has been so incredible. Testing and ventilators. Ventilators are really tough. They are very complex and expensive. They are very sophisticated machines. Some are unbelievably sophisticated. You saw at General Motors yesterday, thousands are being issued. We have 11 companies building them. We have not had one complaint in the last week and a half. It is surge time. They were calling because they in going to need ventilators a few weeks, not because they need them right now. We were right on our accounts. Nobody that wanted a ventilator didnt get a ventilator. If there is a surge, we hope there will not be one, but we will be able to build up the stockpiles of states who didnt have who should have had them, and we will also have a big stockpile in the federal government. We will be able to help countries who need help. You have countries who will never be able to build a ventilator. It is tough stuff. We are uniquely talented. We can do things nobody else can do. We will get back to you. Peter . You wanted to name states that might be ready to go. Can you give us some, or maybe the experts can give a context of how many yesterday . You said 29 were in good shape yesterday. I think 29 states are in the ballgame. Not for opening, but i think they will open relatively soon. The remainder are just getting better. New york and new jersey are just having tough times and they will be there. They are not going to be one of the earlier states, it will be later. I just spoke with the governor of new jersey, mike, and a couple of other folks. We had a great talk with him. Phil is a terrific guy and he is working very hard. A democrat, but we get along. He is working very hard. I guess the fact that hes next to this big, massive city where everyone is closely they are together, new jersey has been hit unbelievably hard. As hard as anybody in a true sense. They are doing a great job in new jersey. That does not mean they are opening next week. But we have a lot of states that through location, through luck, and through a lot of talent, we have states in a good position that are getting ready to open. Ofr the next short period time, it will be up to the governors. We will work with them and help them, but it will be up to the governors. I think you were going to see quite a few states start to open. I call it a beautiful puzzle. You have 50 pieces, all very different, but when it is all done, i think it will be very beautiful. And very important is what dr. Fauci said. In the fall, there could be some flareups. We will be in a great position with everything we have done and learned. This was something nobody ever saw before. Such contagion, and very powerful. People dont realize. We all probably have friends. I have a number of people who were great people who were just decimated by what happened. Some are dead right now. They went into a hospital. One called me saying he tested positive. Four days later he was dead. The following day he was unconscious. So this is a tough deal. At the same time, some people got the sniffles did not even realize they had a problem. They are supposedly immune. Well find out about that, but even that is a little bit soon. We dont know how long the immunity lasts. Some states are in great shape to open. I think you will have a few states opening soon. Theyre going to be very vigilant and very careful. Public Health Experts have said that this would be better done if there was comprehensive surveillance testing, which we are not in position to do. I wonder if maybe you could talk about it. We will do it together. Thats why i wanted to put up the syndromic and asymptomatic illness piece. What is key is the early alert and getting in their before they even know they have a problem. The cdc has been remarkable building these platforms and integrating them so they are all on the same website. If you look at covid19, go into cases, you can find the data. The beauty of it is that the states are used utilizing that. The testing and Contact Tracing, and dr. Redfield will be putting people in every single state to make sure the cdc is standing beside state officials to make sure all of those cases are immediately identified. What is new and critical is this constant sentinel surveillance Individuals Inc communities that we know who are particularly vulnerable. That hasnt been done with flu before. I think that will be the dividend that focuses on who is most vulnerable and how to beget and how we get the fastest alert by screening people without symptoms. People who were just coming to the clinic will be screened for covid19. We do have enough Testing Capacity to do both surveillance and the diagnostic contact piece and Contact Tracing. People have gotten confused about this. In the beginning, we were focusing on mitigation and really trying to keep peaks down and trying to worry about ventilators, ppes, and things like that. Now, when you get more of a grace period, you can figure out the penetrance of the virus. What are we missing in people who might be infected . What is the percentage of those people . That will inform us greatly of a number of things, including the level once we prove that Antibody Testing that you have is really protected. We still dont know that yet. We may get a good feel of what the level of protection might be in society, but we dont know that yet. Information as to what the vulnerable areas are and how we need to respond. Remember, there are two types of things. Antibody tests and tests for the diagnosis of who has the disease. One you need for Contact Tracing, another for society. We will have both of those much better in the coming weeks and months. And by the time we get to the fall, i think we will be in good shape. As we see a hot spot possibly developing, maybe not, we have learned a lot. We will be able to suppress it, we will be able to do things that people werent even thinking about, because nobody has gone through this. In 1917, they went through something similar. ,robably not as contagious probably more powerful in certain other ways. But we are going to be able to suppress it and we have been watching very closely. We will be able to watch things very closely. Thank you, mr. President. Whats important during this bringing people back to work and our economy back to work is we are going to be very aggressively focused on early case recognition. Isolation and Contact Tracing. In the event that we just went through unfortunately, we were very cable of doing that. When the initial cases all came from china all the way through january and the end of february. We were able to identify cases early. Do the Contact Tracing over 800. We identified two of those were infected and were able to isolate them. We were able to contain the outbreak. We are about to enter a new phase of this where we are going back to containment. Mitigation will continue as dr. Birx and others have said. We will continue to do some of the things we have learned. But the major thrust of how we are going to control and continue to keep this nation open is early case recognition, isolation, and Contact Tracing. Thus the fundamentals of Public Health. Thats what we are going to do. We have good Surveillance Systems that are going to help us. As we see these cases sporadically across the country, we have to jump on them with early diagnosis, isolation, and Contact Tracing. Thats what the cdc is going to help continue to build across the nation. We discussed this today with senators and congress. There will be some areas of our country, a wide open plains, wide open spaces with not that many people, relatively speaking, or you will not have to do that. Senators are saying theres no reason to do that in certain states and certain areas where you have the wide open. In other cases, we will do that. We will be following it. That largely will be a function of governors. They know their states. That will be a function of governors. You use the term clear, scientific benchmarks on testing. The main periscope i think you are talking about is the syndrome and surveillance and sentinel testing. Are you opening things up without doing widespread testing . Is that because you dont have the capacity or you dont think it is necessary . We dont have the capacity, but you have states with a few problems and cases at those have healed. States with very little death, relatively speaking. One death is too many, but you have states with very little and are frankly at a point where there is almost nothing. So this is a much different case than new york or new jersey where they frankly go through hell. If you look at new york, im looking at bed count, we filled the Javits Center with 2900 beds, they built it in four days. They did an incredible job. It was not used very much. We sent the hospital ship in two new york harbor. It was not used. The bed count has gone way way down. When do you see yourself going back to campaigning . This is not campaigning i want to make the country better. I dont care about campaigning. I think this team has been incredible. Whether it is the army corps of engineers, fema. One thing that happened on the call today that i noticed more than anything is so many. Overnors that i want to thank pete gaynorl saying has been unbelievable. They called one after another. Thats fema. I want to heal this country. This is a war. We have an invisible enemy. In many ways, the invisible enemy is much more dangerous, is much tougher. In the g7 today, we went through country after country where we all get along great. Angela merkel, shinzo abe. The Prime Minister of japan. Countries have been devastated by this. Their economies have been devastated by this. 184 countries all over the world. We went through one after another. I was angry because it should have been told to us early. It should have been told to us a lot sooner. People knew it was happening and they did not want to talk about it. I dont know why, but we are going to get to the bottom of it. Im saying people should have told us about this. They should have told the rest of the world. When i looked at germany talking today, france talking today, the European Union was there and represented. That represents a lot of countries. Their economies have been devastated, but they are going to build them back. We are going to build this economy back bigger, better, stronger than ever before. And we have stimulus. And we will do things. Whether it is infrastructure, which we would like to be able to do. Roads, tunnels, highways, bridges. Our bridges need help. A lot of you have reported on our bridges. A lot of bridges are in bad shape and they should have been fixed 25 years ago. They have to be fixed. Hopefully we will get an infrastructure bill. The Interest Rate is close to zero. Zero interest is a good thing when it comes to rebuilding your infrastructure or your country back. Mr. President , walk us through the calendar when it comes to memorial day. You have got july 4 labor day weekend. What would you anticipate in each of those milestones . I dont like to anticipate, because you have a couple of states that are having difficulty, that have made a lot of progress. They are either here or they are heading down. Im not going to go in terms of dates. But i think we are going very quickly. I think we will have a lot of states open relatively soon. We are beating the date. I set a date of may 1 and here we are. I think we will have some nice surprises over the next few days. That will be before. That is big stuff. Some of the states have big stuff. And it is going to be added on. Anybody coming back that is in position to come back. The last thing we want is for new york to come back to soon, or new jersey. We want them to come back when they are ready. But they are really heading in a good direction. I think it will be much faster than people think. But it has to be safe. Has the government modeled the possibility of what might happen, how many deaths might occur if there is a widespread resurgence . If this doesnt work, how many deaths are we talking about . If we didnt do what we did, we were talking about 2. 2 million deaths. That is five times almost what we lost in the civil war. If everything goes properly, it will be significantly less than the lowest number. It will be significantly less. It is still a lot of people. One is too many. We will be under the number of 100,000, which was the minimum number projected by the model. I give everybody appear, the people we have been working with. This was a military operation with a lot of private help. Was incredible. Johnson johnson were very far advanced on the vaccine. Therapeutically, we have some of these genius companies. I am meeting with the people that run the companies and scientists. What they are doing is incredible. Its beautiful to see. I think we are very far advanced. I think we will be in great shape. I know you dont want to mention specific states, but what about washington and california . Do you have guidance . Do you mean Washington State . Washington state. That will be up to them. They will have to make that determination. The governor of Washington State was saying they could not find cotton. Swabs are easy to get, scarcely more sophisticated than a qtip. You have to be able to go out and find it. The federal government should not be forced to do everything. What we have done are the ones that cant be done by anybody but a very powerful, great manufacturing country, which is what we are. And what we are really getting to be. I have to tell you, some of these companies, the job they done, in terms of getting out, in particular, ventilators. They are so hard. Some say its not really that complicated. Well, its like building a car. And the price is the same, too. It is a very expensive thing for a sophisticated ventilator. Let me toss this question up to you and the doctors as well. For those states that are not ready to go to phase one, to get through these phases, we have an idea of how many tens of millions of tests they are going to need . Any number out there . You have heard me talk about tests for a while from the podium. I think what has happened over the last several weeks is hospitals and clinics who could move to the more point of care tests move to those point of what is left is an amazing array of capacity that exists in the country for at least one million more tests per week. We have a whole team working lab by lab to see what it would take to turn on all of those labs. They arent running the pieces of equipment now. In the system, there are one million more tests per week. We have tests and equipment sitting there. Now we have to really deal with each single lab to figure out what they need. I want to thank the administrator who went through with us, and thanks to the lab directors, they explained us the highly technical difficulty to run these pieces of equipment. You have to allocate the samples, centrifuge, put them on the machine, take a test fulltime. At 50 a test, it wasnt enough to hire another technician. Those are the kind of changes we. Ave to make bit by bit that alone doubles our Testing Capacity per week. We are committed to work with laboratories to answer everyone of their issues with the state and local governments. Frankly, every conversation i have, the governors will say they need 5000 people tested, and i say at the university of x, there are 6700 tests waiting for you. It is more making sure every governor and Public Health official knows exactly where every lab is and where the tests are so we can create with them a real understanding so all of these tests can be run. So there is twice the capacity right now. Just so you understand, the we have tremendous capacity. The reason the labs, it has gone down is because we have so many other tests that are easier, because you dont have to send. They are onsite. Now we do saliva tests which came out yesterday, which is probably the easiest of them all when you get right down to it. Involved, great school, great college. They are using that. So many are wanting to use that. But they dont have to use the labs. Labs are great, highly accurate. Very great companies. As that goes down, there is additional capacity. There is tremendous Testing Capacity, and to think that a month and a half ago we had virtually nothing. I just want we are opening up our great country again. It is going to be over a period of time. We are working with great people. People who have become friends of mine. Including democrat governors who have done a great job. Republican governors, most of whom i have known, who have done a good job. They are all working together. With few exceptions, the relationship has been outstanding. I want to thank the doctors, mike, the director, fantastic job. Head of the fda has broken hurdles that years ago, even recently, would have taken years. He got one thing done in one day that would have taken two years for somebody else. We have incredible people we are working with. We are going to bring our bentry back and it will bigger, better, and stronger than ever before. We have learned a lot about ourselves. I want to thank everybody, and more important, i want to think the American People. Thank you very much. [indiscernible] television has change since cspan began 41 years ago, but our mission continues. To provide an unfiltered view of government. We brought you primary election coverage and the president ial impeachment and now the federal response to the coronavirus. You can watch on television, online or listen on our free radio app and be part of the National Conversation to see walsh journal program. Brought to you today by your television provider. The a News Conference governoror said the state was doing well. She created a covid19 task force and talked about when it would be possible to reopen the economy