Transcripts For MSNBCW Andrea Mitchell Reports 20200313 : vi

Tested and tests not available in most parts of the country. When will we know how bad it really is . I would think within a week we will start seeing a real acceleration of testing. As we go two, three more weeks, it will be much, much more. So i think were going to see a much different situation than we saw just a few weeks ago. And close contact, the canadian Prime Minister in isolation after his wife tests positive, and Canadas Parliament shuts down. The president of the brazil said he tested negative after a top aide who was with him and President Trump last week in maralago was found to have the virus. Should President Trump now be tested also . Generally speaking, if i was standing next to someone who had been diagnosed with coronavirus, should i isolate myself and find a test as well. Yes. That goes for the president likely in theory at least or leave it to his doctor. I will leave it to his physician, who is a very good physician. Good day, everyone. Im Andrea Mitchell in washington, on a day when with america is coming to a standstill. Schools, sporting events, museums, broadway shows all shut down as the nation tries to come to grips with the coronavirus. Administration officials tell nbc news President Trump plans to declare a National Emergency to a press conference this afternoon to allow more direct relief to americans affected by the virus. House treasury nancy pelosi and steve ma mnuchin demanding lawmakers break the gridlock and help those affected by the virus. At this hour there are 6 89 confirmed cases in the u. S. And 41 deaths. On wall street theres positive movement today. Investors buying off the losses for the worst trading day since black monday back in 1987. Right now the market is at 21,and some but it is not alleviating concerns across the country as shelves empty, streets close, Grocery Store shelves are empty, underlining the new normal. The Trump Administration put dr. Fauci in front of all networks to talk about when to selfquarantine, the National Decision to whether or not we have enough coronavirus tests. No denying theres a disconnect people here who have a test to anybody and they go into a doctor and didnt get it. Thats unfortunate. What were looking now is looking forward and hopefully the next few days to a week or so, its going to be a major escalation. Whats changing, dr. Fauci . What gives you that confidence a week from now anyone who walks into a hospital and goes to see a doctor can get a test from coronavirus . Im not saying everyone and anyone. Im saying its going to be markedly improved. Joining me now is nbc White House Correspondent kristen welker. What do we know about the News Conference, and what does a National Emergency mean . What force does that have . Andrea, we know President Trump at that 3 00 p. M. Press conference he announced a short time ago is expected to announce a National Emergency. That would essentially trigger the stafford act, which would unleash 40 billion this funds to deal with this growing crisis. This would give aid to not only those who have been impacted by the virus but for those who are trying to fight the crisis as well. The question though, andrea, will he unleash that full 40 billion . Will there be a component piece to this . In addition to the president s News Conference later today, of course, andrea, all eyes are on capitol hill because we know they have been negotiating a deal that would also provide aid to those who have been impacted by the virus. Im told based on my conversations theyre close to a deal, they would like to vote on a deal in the house by the end of day. Will that happen remains to be seen. But remember, andrea, the senate canceled their recess for next week to continue to try to work on this. That relief package theyre working on would include expanding unemployment insurance, expanded food assistance, food aid as well as covering coronavirus tests and some treatments as well. So this would be a robust package. Again, lawmakers, the white house, really working to try to get something done by the end of the day. President trump, though, taking matters into his own hands. Of course, hes come under criticism for not acting quickly enough and for there not being enough tests. So today an attempt to try and do more, andrea. Of course, one of the problems is Republican Leaders want to make sure that the president will sign on to anything they agree to because in the past weve known that he has undercut his own Vice President when Senate Republicans were told he would sign on to something, and then he did not. So i believe Kevin Mccarthy was seen at the white house this morning, possibly trying to nail that down, kristen. Thats right. We know Steven Mnuchin has really been the point person on this. Hes been working with House Speaker nancy pelosi who does have quite a bit of leverage. To your point, President Trump was asked yesterday if he would support the package democrats had essentially proposed and he said no, he wasnt ready to support it. Yet he felt like they were filling it with too much that didnt pertain to the actual crisis at hand. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi very clear with reporters yesterday she was willing to work with to make changes to some of the that language that the white house found problematic. We know Steven Mnuchin and pelosi have been speaking a number of times per day. Theyve already had a conversation today and, as you point out, andrea, President Trump has also been in close contact with leaders on capitol hill. It is possible, and we know theres bipartisan support for getting something done. This is a problem that is impacting the the entire country so theres immense pressure on both sides of the aisle to do something, andrea. Kristen welker, thuchank you very much starting us off. Joining us now, dr. Deke emanuel, recognized National Public health and chair of ethics and health at the university of pennsylvania, member of the Biden Campaign Public Health Advisory Committee now. Well, dr. Zeke. Thank you very much. No problem. First at this hour, my information is the d. C. Public Health Department is having a Conference Call with physicians throughout the city who are really alarmed they cannot get access to tests. Doctors and hospitals in this city asking for tests and the red tape has not been cut. Yes, i was on the phone i think yesterday with a western governor saying, yes, we have plenty of tests but we dont have all of the reagents to run the tests. Tens of thousands of tests we have just arent any good. We still havent solved this problem and you heard tony fauci say next week. By next week, what is certainly going to be true, is a lot of the commercial labs, labcorp, quest, will be up and running. I dont know how fast roche can get its labs out there. Academies can develop their tests rapidly. Then we have 0 to have the agents to run them, extract the rna and measure the virus reliably and accurately. Why is this test important . If we want to get to the top knowing were at the top of the curve, in the accelerating phase but when we might tip over, you have to have testing and understand what the prevalence is in the community. Governor dewine i think was on cnn yesterday and said he was told by the epidemiology experts they have at least 100,000 cases just in ohio. That has about 5 of the total national population. Thats a very large number, and you multiply that times all of the population in the country and youre talking about millions of people. And until we know what the universe is, where the hot spots are, we cant mitigate. And were past containment really. Were now in the stage of trying to find out reducing the spread. So the containment thing is keep it out. Prevent it from coming into the community. Youre absolutely right. Thats not relevant really now. Were past that. There are places probably in the United States mostly rural places, where that may be relevant. We should still push on that in the rural communities. But in 80 of the country, which is suburban or urban, where 80 of the population lives, we are in the Mitigation Strategy because thats where people intersect and people have it in the community. We dont know how many, as pointed out, because we havent been doing the right kind of testing. And thats what the social distancing, closing schools, closing theaters, is supposed to do. Its to put distance between us so we dont spread it one person to another person. And that, you know, we do know from previous Public Health Infectious Disease emergencies, that can be effective. What im concerned about is you hear this various timeline. Amazon says, workers who can work from home, work from home until the end of march. University of pennsylvania, my institution and most of the ivy league closed to the end of the semester, which is april may. Different timelines. If we ease up on the social distancing, are we simply okay, we postponed, which is very relevant, we postponed cases but we havent eliminated the total number of cases and, therefore, well have another uptick in the number of cases. That has a benefit. Your viewers should know, the benefit is it spreads out the number of cases, doesnt overwhelm the Health Care System or minimize the impact on the Health Care System but it doesnt minimize the virus and we might be back into we have to social distance again and this is a yoyo effect. The president controversially banned a number of flights or people coming in from europe. The w. H. O. Just declared europe is not the hot spot, so that is seeding the spread elsewhere. Anecdotally were hearing people are coming in from International Flights at newark, dulles. One case were told about from newark, a person saying i have been in africa the past two weeks where there i went through airports five times. All of the airports had some sort of screening for covid19. Most of the employees in the airport wore masks and gloves. I just landed in newark, there was absolutely zero screening. Not a sign, nothing about symptoms. No one asked if i had symptoms, no thermometer testing. And thats being replicated elsewhere. I was in oslo monday and tuesday. I flew back on wednesday. I got off the plane. We all got flew off in dulles, got in the peoplemover when you put a lot of people together. Got to passport control. I did my fingers, again, touching a surface, and walked right through. There was literally no information, no questions at all. So i dont think thats whoever that person was is unusual. We clearly have not done the right job in terms of screening at airports. But i would also say, you know, screening at airports, im not sure what it does now. Its here. We know coronavirus is here and in most where the population of the United States is, its out in the community. So preventing another case coming from europe is not going to prevent further spread in the United States. The further spread has to be by to prevent it, social distancing. The president of the United States was with the president of brazil. Hes been tested. Of. Information minister. Actually the president of brazil tested positive. Right. But the president himself has been tested and he says its negative. Theres conflicting reports about that. That be said, should the president be tested . Well, first of all, if you test him immediately after shaking hands, you can get a false positive. You need an incubation period of five, six days. Immediately testing and getting a negative, thats what we in the business call a potential false negative. It was too early. He didnt have enough virus in the system to detect it. Look, i think everyone has to be careful. The president is no different in this circumstance. This virus doesnt distinguish between people who vote democrat or vote republican, people who happen to be rich or people who happen to be poor. So i dont think hes immune. And weve already got, you know, cpac had someone who shook hands with his various mark meadows and others, hes come into contact with a lot of people who are potentially and his doctor has to decide. Hes over 65 years of age so we have to be concerned. One other quick question, youre involved with a lot of hospitals, directly in philadelphia but elsewhere around the country. How close are we to being overwhelmed if this thing is as bad as we think it is . So were not there now. Hospitals aric thatting various measures to try to prevent being overwhelmed. But as we wrote in the new york times, you know, if we get 5 million people, we could easily be overwhelmed. We have about 800,000 hospital beds in the United States. We have about 68,000, 70,000 intensive care units for adults mostly affected by this and less than 100,000 ventilators that are fullfunctioning ventilators. Thats skating very close to the wind, and we do need to build in some search capacity. Probably ten hospitals recommissioning facilities for this. And doing it now. We have to anticipate the worst. We cant wait for the worst to jump on us. You know, maybe it will all be unnecessary. Wouldnt that be lovely . People say youre going to waste a lot of money. I dont know the stock market just lost trillions and trillions of dollars. That seems like a waste too. That isnt going to be reversed really fully even if the stock market went up today until we get our hands on this infection, get it under control and people can feel confident weve got the right measures in so its not going to spread like wildfire in the population and truly overwhelm all of the systems. Dr. Zeke emanuel, thank you very much. Thank you. Quickly, this update from tom hanks, who along with his wife rita wilson tested positive for coronavirus while filming in australia. The actor is thanking australians for helping them. In an Instagram Post he said, quote, were taking it one day at a tile. There are things we can all do to get through this by following the advice of experts and taking care of ourselves and each other, no . Remember despite all of the current events, there is no crying in baseball, hanks. Good advice for all of us. Coming up travel ban. The impact of President Trump blocki blocking european arrivals. Will it help stem the spread of the virus . 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It grabs peoples attention. Then they come to my store. Buy that sofa. And leave happy its easy, and its effective. And its why Comcast Spotlight is changing its name to effectv. Because being effective means getting results. President trumps ban restricting travel from 26 European Countries to the u. S. Will be in full force by midnight tonight. Moments ago the World Health Organization declared europe has now become the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic. The president said the aim of the travel ban from europe is stop the spread of the coronavirus, a move condemned by european leaders in part because mr. Trump announced it without consulting or notifying any of them. Joining me is keir simmons, who is at Londons Heathrow airport. Kooer, what are you seeing there talking to travelers . A lot of anxiousness and i think the World Health Organizations announcement europe is now the epicenter of the pandemic will just make people more fearful. The World Health Organization saying europe has now more cases and deaths than the rest of the world combined, apart from china. Look, one of the things that unites us all is human beings. For most of us at least, andrea, at times of unstability and fear we want to be home. I think what youre seeing behind me on planes and still taking off from this, one of the worlds busiest airports, likely to be very much full of people just trying to get home. I have spoken to a number of americans trying to do that. One couple, for example, who were woken up during the night because of President Trumps announcement by their mom, packed, flew here from portugal and now held up at a hotel on their airline trying to get an earlier flight instead of tomorrow. They can still fly b