Up. You dont want people getting together and hotels and clubs and everything you get together. We want to beat this deal. So i have many of them. Hotels, clubs, things like that where people get together. I would think it would be Good Practice to close them up. As you know weve talked a lot about masks and about how not Everyone Needs to take a test. What about a temperature test . As we know we all came into this room and got tested before we entered. Well, i do it. I have to have temperature tests. I didnt ask everybody here but i wouldnt be surprised if they had temperature tests. Otherwise ill run off the stage. Should those be on a Master Distribution a mass distribution basis too . I think they are pretty much. The easiest thing is the temperature. I dont know. Are you learning a lot from the temperature test . Could you maybe discuss that for a second . Yeah. Theyre not infallible. There are so many ways to get around that. Right now every time, certainly here, every time i go into a different room i get my temperature taken. I took his temperature. Very low. There is a role for it under certain circumstances. What i dont see the massive distribution of thermometers that are actually going to have a major impact on what i showed we need to do. And ive seen things when tony mentions thermometers, they aim something at your forehead. They stay this far away. Boom. They tell you what your temperature is. Ive never seen that before. Ive learned a lot. Back corner . This morning the Washington Post ran a story suggesting that you delayed taking action on the virus in january and february. Dr. Fauci has indicated your action in the chinese travel ban helped america immensely. What do you say to the Washington Post . Well, i love whoever youre with. Because i think that is such a nice question. I think the Washington Post covers us very inaccurately, covers me very inaccurately. I saw this story. I think its a disgrace. But its the Washington Post and i guess we have to live with it. It is a very inaccurate story. From many people i get a lot of credit for having closed our country very early to a very heavily infected country. China, unfortunately, china. I wish china would have told us more about what was going on in china long prior to us reading about it even though the news isnt exactly disseminated. As you. China kicked the Washington Post out of china and kicked the New York Times out of china and i guess the wall street journal. Thats okay. I mean, thats what they do and i think it is a terrible thing they did. I also think it is terrible when people write inaccurately about you and they write inaccurately about me every single day every single hour. By the way, your group really, i really think, and i just say fair not good or bad. I think you write very fairly and do very fair reports about the great job that all of us are doing, this group behind me is doing. It is so insulting when they write phony stories that they know are fake news because theyre not insulting me. Theyre insulting everybody. These incredible people that have worked so hard so long that are thinking about nothing other than this invisible enemy. Theyve done such an incredible job and theyll continue and there will be celebration when we win and well win with as few lives possible. That is the game. Win with as few lives lost as possible. It is a tough enemy, a tough killer. Far bigger, far more vicious than ever before. But i appreciate you saying it because the fact that we closed so early to china and most people, hey, look. I was called xenophobic by sleepy joe biden. I was called a racist by democrats. I was a racist because i decided i didnt want to have people that could hurt our country come in. And i was pretty much in a very small group of people. I will tell you it was a tiny little group. Most people even that worked in the white house disagreed with me very strongly. Saving of those many weeks was a tremendous thing. When they keep talking about acting early that was the ultimate act. That was the biggest act. Because we didnt and i also closed europe early. Very early. And i took a lot of heat for that, too. But that was a good thing. Now theyre doing similar things. So i didnt act late. I acted early. I acted far before anybody thought i should be. I took tremendous criticism from the various papers from many of the papers. I very much appreciate the question. It might have been more of a statement than a question but whatever it might have been i appreciate it very much. So a number of states have done these different measures. California ordered one thing, new york something similar. Do you want all of the states to do one uniform . No. They can do what they want to do. If california can get a mask sooner than we can get it for them, through all of the things were able to do, well end up with a big over supply. At some point this is going away. If gavin can go out and order gowns faster or good masks faster or other things faster thats good. We do have a lot of i mean the coordination with the ships were sending in as you know, the medical ships were sending in and even cruise liners well be sending in probably cruise liners into some areas in particular california and in particular new york. If somebody can do something faster, if they can order that mask faster than us i want them to be able to do it. So people cant leave their homes. Certain businesses. We coordinate very much with them, yes. You dont want all of those to be the same. It doesnt have to be at this moment because we have places in the country where, you know, states where they have two people or three people and those people are in quarantine. You cant put on them what youre putting in new york. You do have a tremendous problem. We have large portions of the country, middle america, where, you know, they have a few people. It may be a time, i hope it never happens where we have to take drastic action. Some people are following them some people are not. Do you think the American People are doing enough right now . Some people are not. I think they are. I think its going to have a very profound effect. Well know a little more on day 14 and 15. Well see. What is the plan . Well have to see what the result is. We want to flatten that out and see what the result is. I just want to say im going to negotiate a very large transaction and have been negotiating it for two days so im going to take one or more questions and then leave it to Vice President pence. On the hill, with the hill. The various elements of the package. Steve, go ahead. A number of groups are calling for the postponement or cancellation of the olympics. Have you given any no, i havent. Look, we understand the difficulty of that. And he is a very good friend of mine. You take a look at shinzo abe, he is a great gentleman. He loves his country. We just finished a 40 billion trade deal with japan and Prime Minister abe has a big decision to make. They have built one of the most beautiful venues ive ever seen. They are all ready to go. Its not late, not over budget, just done flawlessly and it is beautiful and theyre sitting back and saying, you know, i told him, i said, thats your decision and it is his decision. I know he is going to make it soon. I dont hwan it is going to be and i didnt think i should be influencing it at all. The job japan has done on that venue is incredible so, i mean, there are options obviously including delay and maybe delay for next year but that is totally up to them. Well see what they do. Since this story keeps popping up when did you first learn that this was going to be a problem . Well, you know, when i learned i started doing the closings, so, you know, probably around that time. We didnt learn much. I think youre going to ask a little bit about china responsibility. I do think that, again, i have Great Respect for china. I like china. I think the people of china are incredible. I have a tremendous relationship with president xi. We didnt know about it until it started coming up publicly but i wish theyd have told us earlier because we could have come up with a solution. Tony fauci and all of the people, the talent we have, would have loved to have had three or four months of additional time. If you knew that this was going to be happening. They didnt have that time. They read about it in newspapers like everyone else. China was very, very secretive. That is unfortunate. With that, i have Great Respect for that country and for the leader thaf country and like him. He is a friend of mine. But i wish they were able to i wish they would have told us earlier, steve, that they were having a problem because they were having a big problem and they knew it. I wish they could have given us advanced warning because we could have had a lot things as an example some of the things were talking about where we order them as quickly as we can, if we had a two or threemonth difference in time, it would have been much better. Yes, please . To follow up on that, as you were saying china was extremely secretive about this. Several advisers have been critical of china. Secretary pompeo was talking about it yesterday and he had been saying so for quite sometime. So why, then, on january 24th, did you tweet that china has been working very hard to contain the coronavirus, that the United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency . Because china has worked very hard. China has lost thousands and thousands of people. They werent transparent. They were transparent at that time. But when we saw what happened they could have been transparent much earlier than they were. That was a month after just so you understand china is not a beneficiary here. China has lost thousands and thousands of people. China has gone tlhrough hell ovr this. Theyve gone through hell. Ive had conversations with president xi. I just wish they could have told us earlier. They knew they had a problem earlier. I wish they could have said thank you for the numbers on the testing. Can you share any other hard numbers on the number of available tests and ventilators in the federal stockpile . I am going to leave that up to dr. Fauci and everybody else and i think the answer is we want to share them. Admiral, do you want to discuss that . The masks you cited the billion masks not billion. 500 million. Excuse me. The last number on ventilators we had was 12,000 to 13,000. Can you update the number on that . Theres never been numbers like this. A ventilator is a very complex machine and to think that we have to order hundreds of thousands, nobody has ever heard of a thing like this. You know, when we had in the stockpile, we had thousands in the stockpile. Ready to go. Thats a lot. All of a sudden you need hundreds of thousands and youre not talking about the mask is whether its plastic or material is one thing but youre talking about a very sophisticated, heavily computerized machine, and delicate. And you need hundreds of thousands of them. Nobodys ever heard of a thing like that. With that being said, general motors, ford, so Many Companies i had three calls yesterday directly without having to Institute Like you will do this these companies are making them right now. But to think of these numbers, its pretty mand boggling. Do you have numbers to share though right now with us . Well weve spoken a lot about masks this morning but the president has also given the task force a priority of assessing the availability and expanding the availability of ventilators. And on monday we will detail some very encouraging news for americans. You speak about the number of 13,000. It is a little more than that that we have in the national stockpile. But its important to remember that doesnt include the more than 100,000 ventilators in Health Care Facilities and hospitals around america today. It doesnt include what will be produced as the president said. Were seeing Companies Step forward. Manufacturers tell us a ventilator actually isnt a very complicated piece of equipment and many of them are literally surging forward to create more ventilators. One of the more exciting developments in the last week, which well detail more on monday, is that in the president s engagement with our Health Care Community we learned that ventilators that are currently used by anesthesiologists, used in out patient clinics and other procedures, can be converted to be used as ventilators for people struggling with the effects of the coronavirus. Weve confirmed a particular screen in that device can be changed readily. Were working with the fda to approve that. Again, this is a great testament of the American People and our Health Care Professionals that are stepping forward and bringing ideas forward that literally as well document monday will increase the supply of ventilators by tens of thousands. But, look. The president has made it clear. We want to make sure that all the incredible, courageous men and women who are serving in health care around america have the support they need, that our patients that are struggling with recovering from coronavirus have the equipment they need. And well have a lot of detail on monday as we continue to assess you said two days ago youd have 1. 4 million tests onboard by today. Do we have that . Can you give us the number . Let me let the admiral speak to that. So ill answer your question and then try to persuade you to stop asking about a specific number. Okay . So from march 2nd to march 14th we have put over 10 Million Laboratory tests into the u. S. Commercial market. We expect that by march 28th to be well over 27 million into the market. So that answers your question. And let me tell you why it is not the right question. Not every lab can run every test. Not every test is completely selfcontained. So the more important question is not how many tests are in the market. We got them in the market. It is to make sure that every segment of the market has the kinds of tests they can use. Admiral, we are using your numbers trying to find out for the public if the things youve promised are happening. Yes, they are happening. We promised 1 or 4 million. Theres 10 million tests in the market now. Are the masks that are in the Strategic Reserve being deployed, mr. Vice president . Yes, the masks in the Strategic National stockpile so it is not 13,000 anymore. It would be a lower number would that be fair to say . Masks . Ventilators. Im sorry. The respirators. Thank you. Were trying to understand if the things we have been told through these briefings in many days are happening and getting into the hands of the Health Care Providers. You understand. You understand it. Youre an intelligent woman, kelly. You understand exactly what he is saying. And what he is saying is rather incredible because we inherited an obsolete, broken system. And when you hear the number of tests that will be provided and are now, its incredible. Ive heard a lot of governors say the same thing. We took over an obsolete, broken testing system that wouldnt have worked for even a small problem let alone one of the biggest pandemics in history and what these gentlemen have done is incredible. I am going now to negotiate a great deal for our workers and citizens. Ill be back tomorrow. Well probably do this tomorrow. If i might id like to ask Vice President pence to take over and thank you all very much. Thank you, mr. President. Thank you all. Mr. Vice president , the military has sent planes to honduras, morocco to pick up americans and bring them home who are stranded there but there are still a lot of other americans stranded and cant get home. Does the military plan to send planes to pick those folks up or when will they be going . Can you assure americans who are stranded that they will be able to get back . Well, we received a briefing this morning from the state department about their efforts. We want to be very clear. While the president has suspended all travel, from europe including the uk and ireland, suspended all travel of course from china since january, any american who can get home can come home. Theyll go through additional screening. Its all been implemented. And is working in an orderly way. At a number of airports around the country. But there are instances morocco being among them where there are simply not flights to get home. Our state department has been working very closely with our embassies in those relevant countries. I was told this morning all the way going back to bringing americans back from china that we have made individual efforts to bring home about 3,000 americans. I think there is an ongoing effort to address that with chartered commercial flights that the government is providing. Obviously also military transport is available, but our task force received a briefing this morning and we would just encourage any american that is looking on from overseas, contact the local u. S. Embassy. Let them know about your circumstances. And know that were going to work, continue to work very diligently to get our americans home. All right. Guys, last question. Two quick ones. Education and medication. You guys have announced that standardize testing is essentially canceled in this country. To the tens of millions of students out there, the teachers and their parents who are sort of scratching their head wondering what does that mean . Obviously a lot of this is driven by local and school districts, by the state. Is there any federal guidance on this . If not today could you have secretary devos or someone come and explain that to the millions literally sitting at home trying to figure out what exactly that means . I think its a terrific question. We will bring secretary betsy devos here tomorrow or on monday to address our efforts. The objective here was as people are embracing the president s 15 days to slow the spread, we have decisions by local School Boards and local and state officials that have canceled school or suspended school for a time. And we wanted the federal department of education to make it clear that the burden of standardizing testing which back in my days as governor i remember takes a number of days and sometimes up to a week to administer is not going to be placed on schools. But well have the secr