And protecting our children every day to ensure that they have access to the medical care that they need while this is happening. And to every pregnant woman out there, i was very reassured hearing from the American College of obstetrics and gynecology. They have put Amazing Things in place to protect every pregnant woman. They have been social distancing in their offices. They have increased all of the disinfecting. They lengthen the time between clients. To every pregnant woman, dont miss your appointments. If your ob thinks you need to be there, you should go. And please know that o on the labor and delivery wards, they are doing everything to protect you and your babies. They are committed to you and they are absolutely committed to you having a good experience. Make sure if your physician believes you should be in the hospital for your delivery, make sure you are following their guidance. We dont want any pregnant women to suffer a bad outcome during this time. So again, i just want to conclude by thanking the American People and recognizing the number of people we are losing per day is serious to all of us. It could be so much worse. But our Frontline Health care providers and the way they are talking to each other about how to improve care for every individual that they serve, you see them on the tv. You see them in the emergency room. You see what they are up against. This is how we can honor them is to make sure we continue to put, as dr. Fauci always says, put your foot on the gas and make sure that we continue to strongly mitigate and really protect those with preexisting conditions. Those preexisting conditions we know now include asthma. Asthma, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, any of these conditions, renal disease. No matter what age, please make sure youre following the guidelines to protect those individuals in your household. We know they are more susceptible to a worse outcome. We dont think that anyone is more susceptible to getting infected. I want to make sure everyone and understands everyone is susceptible to getting infected. Desires is very transmittable, as we well know. We need to protect those that need our protection the most. Thank you all for what youre doing to get the message out to ensure that we continue to protect each other in this very difficult time. Vice president pence dr. Fauci, please. Thank you, mr. Vice president. I want to followup and underscore dr. Birx has said. As i have said many times from this podium, the spectrum of going from infection to getting ill to requiring hospitalization to intensive care to death and what is the most striking thing that obviously is so sobering to us is when you see the number of deaths. We know now for sure that the mitigation that we have been doing is having a positive effect, but you dont see it until weeks later. Remember, this past weekend when all of us got up in front of this podium and mentioned that this was going to be a really bad week, at the same time we are saying that we hoped we would start to see a little bit of a change in the daily hospitalizations, intensive care, and into patients. New york is starting to see th that. So i say that but i drop back a bit, dont get in place and peg was going to happen to and a half weeks from now is going to happen with regard to the people getting the infection. As dr. Birx said, everybody is certainly as susceptible as noone else to getting infected. Its what happens to you after you get infected. Again, to just keep emphasizing, we need to keep mitigating. We know this is something that is a strain on the American Public but its just something that we have, not only the only tool, its the best tool. To just shift a bit to what we said yesterday regarding the Africanamerican Community. Its very painful to see, and ive seen it throughout my entire medical career, that the Health Disparities in the Minority Community but particularly Africanamerican Community puts them at risk, apart from coronavirus issues, it puts them at risk for diseases much more so than the general population. The double whammy that you suffer now is when you have this terrible virus, which essentially preys on people with those underlying conditions. Since thats more predominant in the africanamerican population, we want to double down and say to the young people, to the elderly people in that community, to please try as best as you can to protect yourself, if you are younger person, and to please protect the people who are susceptible. Your grandmother, grandfather, your elders, people who have these underlying conditions. We are not going to solve the issues of Health Disparities this month or next month. This is something we should commit ourselves for years to do. But what we can do now, today, is to prevent people who are put at higher risk because of their Demographic Group from getting into a situation which is much more deleterious than the general population. I plead with all of us in the population but particularly for those of us, our brothers and sisters, in the Africanamerican Community. We know that mitigation does work. The reason we know it works is the question was asked about the numbers and why they came down, from the projections. Remember, what you do with data will always outstrip a model. You redo your models depending upon your data. Our data is telling us that mitigation is working. So as dr. Birx said, keep your foot on the accelerator because thats whats going to get us through this. Dr. Redfield. Thank you, mr. Vice president. I just wanted to followup. One of the most important things we can do is keep our critical workforce working. I think you heard it said that we have many different critical Workforce Industries in this country. Obviously first responders, Health Care Workers, but as you heard, its also individuals who help maintain our food supply et cetera. So what cdc has done is that we really looked at the essential workforce and how to maintain that workforce, particularly at this time as we begin to get ready to reopen and have confidence in bringing our workforces back to work. So we put out a new guidance for essential Health Care Workers who have been exposed to the coronavirus. These are individuals that have been within 6 feet of a confirmed case or a suspected case so that they can, under certain circumstances, they can go back to work if they are asymptomatic, as the Vice President said. They could go back to work if they do several things. As we say here, take their temperature before they go to work. Where a face mask at all times. Practice social distancing when they are at work. What we would ask them not to do when they are at work is we want them to stay at home if they are sick. We want them not to share objects that would be touching their face, and we would like them not to congregate in break rooms, lunchrooms, an end crowded places. In the second slide, if we are talking to the employers of these critical industries, we would ask those employers to take employees temperatures and assessing them before they go back to work. If the employee does become sick, we want them to be sent home immediately. We would like them to increase the air exchange and the buildings and increase the frequency of how they clean common surfaces and really begin to get these workers back into the critical workforce. So that we wont have worker shortage in these critical industries. So thats the new guidelines that cdc will be posting today. Vice president pence those are available at cdc. Gov. Thank you, dr. Redfield. Questions for anyone on the panel. Reporter the 500 million masks, the president mentioned that are being developed, are those for Health Care Workers or are you planning to actually handout masks to the American Public . Vice president pence i think the focus has been to make sure that our Health Care Workers and our Health Care System has the supply and with regard to what we are gathering from literally around the world and from manufacturers in the United States is first being deployed to states and to hospital systems. But i must tell you that whether it be the Haynes Company or other companies, we are seeing manufacturers in america that are recognizing the growing demand for masks by the American People and they are spinning up production literally by the hour. The trick our continuing focus is on making sure our continuing focus is making Health Care Workers safe. Reporter the kansas governor says shes put in several requests to fema for supplies from the stockpile and those have not is kansas getting any of the ventilators question what does she need to be calling the white house instead . Have you spoken with her directly . Vice president pence i have not spoken to the governor directly but i will reach out this evening certainly. In our Conference Call with governors this week, we spoke to them about the approach that we are taking. Traditionally governors are accustomed, when a hurricane strikes the gulf coast, when wildfires strike out west, when flooding or tornadoes hit in places like indiana, you are accustomed to have a declaration of emergency approved and resources flow from fema. In this situation as we deal with a nationwide declaration and an epidemic, what we have explained to governors is that what President Trump has directed is that we leave no stone unturned to find resources around the country and around the world, including ventilators. We make sure as the coronavirus epidemic impacts individual areas that the Health Care Workers and the families and the patients impacted have what they need when they need it. What i would say to the people of kansas is that we are looking at their numbers every day, just as in the case of every state in the country. And we are going to work our hearts out to make sure that as the coronavirus cases emerge and we hope that through the great work that kansas has done on social distancing and mitigation, that the people of kansas have done a remarkable job, that we may well lead to a place where their existing resources and capacities are present. We want people to know that taking the council of dr. Birx and our entire health care team, we are focusing just as we did first in seattle, california, and now in new york, new jersey, connecticut, louisiana, the detroit area, the chicago area, we are going to make sure that those resources go in that ord order. Reporter he brought up social distancing and the work kansas has done. There is a controversy over her order to limit the number of people and religious gatherings to ten people. Should states be telling religious institutions how many people can gather to stop the spread of the coronavirus . Vice president pence the president s guidelines for america ask every american to avoid any gathering of more than ten people. Thats on the advice of all of our vast scientific experts as a way that we can slow the spread. But as we have made clear to every governor, we defer to our governors and what they believe is the best and appropriate practice in their states and we will support those local decisions. Reporter thank you. In his opening statement, the president said there were ten drugs known Clinical Trials. Would hydroxychloroquine be one of them . Vice president pence i can speak to that and then i will invite dr. Birx, dr. Fauci to come forward. We do have, i believe, we will have roughly four separate Clinical Trials underway studying hydroxychloroquine. Its important to remember that as the president has made the point many times, the fda has approved whats called off label use. In consulting with your physician, if your physician determines its appropriate to write a prescription for hydroxychloroquine, we are working today to make that available across the country. Its broadly available today is an antimalaria medication, but we are working around the country and internationally to increase that supply. We are studying it and at least four different Clinical Trials. Dr. Fauci can speak to that. Thank you for that question. The easiest way to find out is to just go Clinical Trials. Gov and it will tell you everything thats there. There are a number of different Clinical Trials, some of which are randomized controlled trials which ive said many times from this podium, to be at the optimal way to determine ultimately if something is safe and effective and works. There are a lot of different ways that its being looked at. Its being looked at against a placebo. Its being part of a multitrial comparing it to others. Theres a trail that was recently started actually in prophylacticprophylaxis among he workers. In addition to that there is but was just mentioned, that any physician, in consultation with their patient and backandforth, can make the decision to use the drug on and off label. We have two things simultaneously going on. We have actual formal Clinical Trials in the off label use. Vice president pence next. Reporter i wanted to get back to the disproportionate population in the black community. Youve been talking about Underlying Health issues, they are most at risk. If we knew that blacks disproportionally have fallen into that category, why wasnt the cdc prepared to gather this data in realtime . Im not sure. We have the rector of the cdc, we can answer that question. Let me try to take it from that different perspective. The Health Disparities that exist are not anything that started with coronavirus. They were there. There isnt much you can do about the disparity. The thing you can do is to make an extra special effort to protect people who have the underlying conditions. So its the same way as we say the elderly and those with underlying conditions. Unfortunately the Africanamerican Community has a much greater proportion population for population of these underlying conditions. So the best weapon we have right now is what i said in my opening remarks, its to do whatever we can to get them to realize that what we need to do is to protect them from getting infected and to also protect them from inadvertently and innocently bringing the infection to people who have these underlying conditions. Reporter thank you, sir. Can you explain the thinking behind these 100 ventilators that were given to colorado when other states like kansas have had trouble getting ventilators. Can you say whether a personal relationship with the president is helping states like colorado get these ventilators . There are 15 state 15 states the more cases than colorado. Vice president pence we have been watching denver very closely like many of the other key areas that i touched on, we are beginning to see some encouraging news. In our interactions with the governor and with local officials and with the senator. We have made an effort not only in colorado but around the country to be particularly responsive to states where weve seen a growth in cases. Im going to let dr. Birx speak to that as well. Literally beginning with new york, new jersey, connecticut, louisiana, the detroit area and michigan, chicago area. There is a series of other cities, including denver, that we have been watching very carefully. While we are beginning to see some encouraging news, we want Health Care Workers in those communities to know for certain that we are going to move resources into those areas where we see significant outbreak. Reporter the point about whether individual governors relationships with the president are getting preferential treatment. I can tell you within that decision complex, its not just the absolute number of cases. Its the Hospital Capacity and what each of those hospitals has to remember, i think a couple days ago we talked about how the states are sending the information about icu beds, hospital beds, ventilator needs. Different states have different i dont think any of us probably knew this before but some states have lots of ventilators and other states, proportion to their population are by their cases of covid, have less. So im sure denver and colorado fit into that model where there were hospitals that had less ventilators proportionally and were needed for the cases that we are seeing. Thats the kind of analysis. Every state that has a few cases more than colorado have all received ventilators except for i think texas. Thats just because they are just starting. Colorado was early on the curve, so they had many more people whove moved through the progress and are in need of ventilators. Texas is very early in their curve in both dallas and houston. Thats what i was talking about. Each of these are a micro curve we have to follow independently, or would be making general decisions rather than specific decisions by geography. Reporter mr. Vice president , follow up on the churchs question. Youre obviously a very religious man. Will you be going to church on sunday . Vice president pence we will be attending church right in the living room at the Vice President s residence where we have been attending from the last several weeks. The advantage is we get to go to our home church in indiana. Reporter is not the same example you would like to see churches around the country, regardless of what governors are saying, do as well . Vice president pence i think that president s coronavirus guidelines for america are clear. During these 30 days we are calling on every american in every state for us to listen to your state and local authorities but right after that to avoid gatherings of more than ten people. Avoid unnecessary travel. Use drivethru at restaurants that are going into the