Widely available testing. The president says americas ramping up testing, tests for everyone is, quote, not going to happen. Lets begin here in new york with our National Correspondent athena jones. Good morning, athena. It is a sad image, more Funeral Directors being brought to the state. Reporter good morning, poppy it sad. There is more bad news, but it does come wrapped in at least not not good news, better news. New york state reporting its highest single day death toll for the third day in a row. But there is progress. As you mentioned, hospitalizations are down, so are intensive care unit admissions. Hospital admissions are down dramatically, to 200 on wednesday from 585 the day before. Thats certainly a good sign. Governor cuomo saying that there has been so much focus on new york city, theyre now watching counties around new york, rockland county, nassau county, suffolk counties, because the numbers are beginning to rise there. More than 7,000 new yorkers have now been killed by this virus, this coronavirus. And as you hear the governor mention often, thats double the number that died on 9 11 and it is putting a lot of pressure on funeral homes. One funeral director told cnn he typically gets 30 to 40 calls a month, now hes getting that number in a single day. That is what led the governor to sign an executive order last night that will allow licensed Funeral Directors from all around the country to come to new york state to be able to help out with this backlog of bodies. And one more thing i should add, that is that heart island, which is an island off the coast of the bronx in the Long Island Sound it going to be used for unclaimed bodies. According to new rules issued by the new york medical examiner, bodies that are not retrieved or claimed within 14 days will now go to that island for burial. They will be, we understand, from Funeral Directors, theyre well marked, so it is possible for families to later on get those bodies interred and give the proper burial they would like. That gives you a sense of just how much of an impact this virus is having on a city like this one, in a state like this one. For sure. Athena, we saw some Uniformed Service members walking behind you there, going to report to duty and the military stepped up really across the country, athena jones, thanks so much. John harwood joins us now from washington. John, President Trump wants to get the government, the economy in particular open quickly even as we heard, dr. Fauci urging caution. I wonder, the president has floated this kind of idea in the past and backed down. Do you get the sense this is one he might back down on or is he becoming increasingly committed to moving forward in may . Reporter it is possible hell back down again. But, jim, this is precisely the moment that the Public Health officials have feared in this crisis. There are signs that the mitigation efforts are working. Social distancing is working. That produces some good news in hardest hit areas like new york. But in turn, it also provokes the reaction of those who are impatient with these measures including most of all President Trump who said this yesterday. You see what is happening and where we are, where we stand, and hopefully were going to be opening up. Call it opening, very, very, very soon, i hope. Reporter now, the problem with that, of course, is that unless you keep your foot on the accelerator, as dr. Fauci said, it is hard to sustain that progress. We got through the end of the month, with the current guidelines. Some states like maryland, virginia, washington, d. C. Where i am right now have not even hit their peak yet and so theyre concerned about backing off prematurely. I talked yesterday to Cordelia Griggs who has been on our air, she is a front line doctor in new york city who said this is the really, really hard part, trying to sustain discipline and vigilance as we plateau. The question is going to be how does President Trump juggle the intense collision of those interests, all of the economic forces and the conservative republican forces. We heard from bill barr, his attorney general recent days saying we need to get off these draconian measures and stop telling people to hide under their beds. How he resolves those in the next couple of days, next couple of weeks, is going to be crucial to how long this crisis lasts and whether we actually have a relapse into a second hump in cases in the second extension of the kind of lockdown that produces economic damage hes concerned about, guys. Absolutely. I mean, it is so many people around him saying, john, dont do this too quickly or the price you pay economically will be so much worse in the longterm, well see if he heeds that. Thank you very much, john. Have a good weekend. Joining us now, dr. Celine gounder, clinical assistant professor of medicine and Emergency Room Physician dr dr. Thorades. If we can begin with the discussion about Antibody Testing. We are hearing more about this, dr. Fauci talked about it on cnn this morning. And i just wonder if you could explain to the american people, they start to see more headlines about this, what it actually is, what it means, and what the implications are for the country. Poppy, thank you very much for having me on. The reason that Antibody Testing is so important, essentially antibodies are our way to identify how our bodys own immune system is reacting to exposure to certain viruses or bacteria. This is a new virus. We do not have any previous exposure to it, so while the initial focus was on testing, so that we could identify those individuals who were infected and trying to quarantine them, the reality is that since testing has been slow to roll out, and even now across the country, Healthcare Workers are unable to easily get tests in certain areas, we need to be able to know who has been exposed since some patient maze have absolutely no symptoms whatsoever and that way we can identify people who are now more immune to this, and it is particularly important for our Healthcare Workers to be able to know if they have any immunity given the unfortunate National Calamity that is our ppe shortage. Yeah. So, dr. Gauounder, lets plug ts possibility of this coming antibody test. The big question is how widely available it will be. Debate, how soon you open up the country again. Can you relax the measures without broad based testing to know who has antibodies or who has been infected . Well, jim, one important question that has not been resolved yet is what the antibody tests really tell us. Were not 100 sure that does truly indicate immunity. Thats one big question mark, the studies need to be studied more carefully. Assuming it does indicate immunity it would allow you to be more targeted and saying if youre immune, youre somebody who can go back to work, because not only are you immune, youre not contributing to further community transmission. But, you know, there are other really important steps that we need to implement here, one of which is being able to also test people who have symptoms with the older tests that we have had up until now and doing contact tracing. Right now were completely unable to do that because the spread of disease is so so much of it in the community. It is like a bowl of spaghetti, how do you trace one strand. You need to get to the point where you can go from a to b to c in terms of transmission and were nowhere near that right now. There was also a letter from the National Academy of sciences, committee there, to the white house, just on wednesday of this week, talking about just concerns in terms of testing, looking at the number of tests that have come back, that were negative, but those folks were positive, basically missing things here. Is the testing not full proof . Well, the testing is certainly not full proof, especially the type of tests that i underwent several weeks ago when i developed mild symptoms. The sensitivity rate was about 70 , which means thats about a 30 false negative rate. We had examples in our hospital and colleagues of mine who were tested once, twice, both times negative and it wasnt until they deteriorated that the test then became positive. So that is accurate. And i would have to agree with the other guests here that many of the things that she did say are true. Also, being able to get an adequate sample, it is difficult tests, they have to go very far up your nose and as well some patients may have symptoms but may not be viral shedding enough to be able to get enough sample. So it is true that these tests are certainly far from perfect. Dr. Gounder, given the failure in the early stages of this disease and this country, getting broadbased testing for who was infected, what needs to happen to prepare for the moment when you do have a reliable test for antibodies so that that doesnt happen again . Who is going to be managing this so that it is not like a random parking lot, you know, somewhere where one in one state where the entire state can get tested but you have it broadly available . There are dozens of companies that have come up with these tests and in addition to the commercial tests you have different Academic Medical Centers that are developing their own. And we really need to have a plan for how to scale up so this needs to be done in collaboration with local and state Public Health departments, and it shouldnt be just a, you know, ebay, first come, first serve kind of situation. It really needs to be done rationally on the basis of population size, on the basis of how many cases you have in an area, and then doing some random surveying of the population, in addition to that, to get a better handle on how much transmission has been occurring in the area. But that requires planning ahead of time. You dont just wait until the tests are available. To you, dr. Torradas, the fall, ive been talking to a lot of family and friends about this, and there are concerns also from medical experts, dr. Fauci said there could be a resurgence. If this thing normalizes as much as possible in the summer, and comes back in the fall and winter then, and were still, you know, 18 months out from a vaccine, they think, should americans brace themselves for a repeat of this in, you know, five months . Well, i mean, i think this is going to be an issue, until we find some way to appropriately vaccinate or find some cure, i think this is not going to be going away anytime soon. Right now were seeing this on the coasts, in large urban centers where there is a lot of population density, multigenerational households that live together. This is why it is affecting those areas more. But lets not fool ourselves. I think at this point most recently it came out that twothirds of Rural Counties have at least one case going on right now. So this virus doesnt care who you vote for, it doesnt care what news channel you watch, doesnt care who you pray to, this will eventually affect every single part of the country. And unless we are smart and diligent about how we approach this with social distancing, wearing cloth masks when we go out to areas like supermarkets, where we are going to be around other people, unless we do that, it is not going to be a flattening of one curve, youre going to see spikes in different parts of the country, and what concerns me more is that one out of four rural hospitals before coronavirus were already on the verge of closing, 19 closed in 2019, and these hospitals, these are not areas that have World Class Centers like new york, boston, california. These are areas that have thin medical staffs, with very poor resources. And if those communities that have high rates of obesity, smoking and diabetes get affected, were in deep trouble. We have been talking to doctors in those rural areas across the country in recent weeks. We heard the same message. Thanks to both of you. Thank you. Still to come this hour, were go heing to speak to the ceo of michigans Henry Ford Health system where more than 800 Healthcare Workers have new been diagnosed with coronavirus. And this man spent six days on a ventilator in intensive care. Young man, only 44, he says he would not be here without that life saving machine. Were going to speak to him. Wow. Also ahead, a cnn exclusive, we talked to Melinda Gates about how the bill and Melinda Gates foundation is spending billions of dollars to try to stop the spread of coronavirus. What is the one thing that keeps her up at night . What keeps me up at night are the vulnerable populations. The kids who are falling behind because they dont have access to broadband or to a computer. Because theyre here. Working day in, day out. At t is here. Providing support with advanced services for First Responders. And connected temporary hospitals, mobile testing sites and Emergency Management centers. Because until their job is done, it is essential that we all have their backs. Its what weve always done. Its what well always do. From anyone else. So why accept it from your allergy pills . Flonase relieves your worst symptoms which most pills dont. Get allinone allergy relief for 24 hours, with flonase. Which most pi ls dont. I know that every time that i suit up, there is a chance that thats the last time. 300 miles an hour, thats where i feel normal. I might be crazy but im not stupid. Having an annuity tells me that im protected. During turbulent times, consider protected Lifetime Income from an annuity as part of your retirement plan. This can help you cover your essential monthly expenses. Learn more at protectedincome. Org. You might imagine these more suited to war zones but now another Field Hospital like the ones we have seen in central park and new york is being set up just outside detroit, michigan. This as the state announces after today, travel between two residences will be banned. Ryan young is in detroit. Ryan, these new travel guidelines, extremely strict. You cant go from one household to another. Tell us what is behind that and are people following it . Reporter absolutely, jim. Theyre doubling down on this right now, trying to make sure that more people dont get sick from the coronavirus. Theyre telling family members they dont want them traveling from one family house to the next, maybe even bringing food over to the next house. They want to make sure people dont get infected with the coronavirus and take it somewhere else. We have talked to folks who lost multiple family members and some of that comes from somebody being infected and not knowing it. Going to another house and spreading it. In stores, going to increase restrictions as well. They want to make sure that one person per thousand square foot inside one of these stores, theyre also going to have social distancing lines outside the store to let people in. We also wanted to show you something else, a grim reminder of what is going on here. Look at this video from the medical examiners office, these are the trailers brought in just in case they have overflow when it comes to all the people who are dying here. We know that more than 1,000 people have lost their lives in the state of michigan. So theyre trying to beat back that curve. To come back live to where im standing, were at the tcf center, thats where this mobile Field Hospital is getting ready to open up. Members of the police department, national guard, are all on the inside. 25 patients will be put into this Covid Patients are go to be put into the Field Hospital just today. But with all this going on, you think about the health concerns, we talked to a local reverend about what is go on in the state and how we need to keep an eye on the health concerns. The virus and the nations response has revealed the inequities that we have been complaining about for years. Access to Economic Opportunity is a matter of life and death. So everyone is trying to get their own little party of this to make sure people stay home. This will be easter sunday. People are worried about people going out for that. One thing ill bring up before i leave, guys, Police Departments having to give out tickets to people who decided they dont want to do social distancing. Theyre having parties. Those First Responders are having to go to these calls to break that up, putting their lives in danger. 100 , ryan young, thank you for that reporting out of detroit. Lets stay focused on this city. Joining us now is the coo, chief operating officer at Henry Ford Health systems overseeing six hospitals in and around the motor city now. 872 of your employees have tested positive for covid19. Thank you for being here. How are they doing . You know, thank you for having me. Our first and our number one priority, of course, is the safety of our patients and safety of our fellow team workers. And we have 33,000 employees and we have over 800 that have tested positive. Some of them through community contact, no doubt. And certainly some of them from the risks of working in this environment. And most of them are doing incredibly well. In fact, we are down to only 200 of those individuals that are still off work quarantined. Many were some have been symptomatic but returned to health. It is something we worry about every single day and we make sure we can give them every kind of support possible. But, bob, you spoke with Vice President mike pence this week about the Clinical Trials, specifically for Healthcare Worker and First Responders. Your hospital is conducting with hydroxychloroquine, of course, the antimalarial drug there has