Wants the country to reopen for business on easter. I think it would be a beautiful time. Scientists and joe biden push back. Its a false choice to make, saying that you either open the economy or everything goes to hell. But then, mr. Trump floats declaring a quarantine. I am now considering quarantine because its such a hot area of new york, new jersey, and connecticut. Before backing down. My guests this morning, dr. Deborah birx of the White House Coronavirus task force, Governor John Bel Edwards of louisiana, and Governor Gretchen Whitmer of michigan. Also, firsttime unemployment claims hit an alltime record. We may be in a recession. And Congress Passes the biggest rescue package ever. How many more bailouts will we need . Ill have an interview with joe biden. Joining me for insight and analysis are andrea mitchell. Eugene robinson, carol lee, and hugh hewitt. Welcome to sunday and a special edition of meet the press. Announcer from nbc news in washington, the longest running show in television history, this is a special edition of meet the press with chuck todd. Good sunday morning. As you can see, once again, we look a little different this week. This morning, and for the foreseeable future, ill be anchoring meet the press from my home office as we here at nbc news practice social distancing. Two images illustrate the week we have just been through. These all nurses in hardhit new york city wearing, yes, garbage bags, because personal protective gear is unavailable. And this graph illustrates the almost incomprehensible rise in first time unemployment claims to a record 3. 3 million. On a week when the United States passed 120,000 cases of covid19 and 2,000 deaths, when we appear to pass china and then italy for the most cases in the world, President Trump offered americans mixed messages. Early in the week, the president said he would like america to be open again for business by easter. That the cure, he said, shutting down the economy could be worse than the disease. Mr. Trump seemed eager to play the role of optimist in chief, leaving it to scientists and governors to own the hard news about shutdowns and forced lifestyle changes. By the end of the week, mr. Trumps tone had changed. Yesterday, he floated the idea of quarantined the new york city region before backing down. Tuesday marks the end of President Trumps 15day coronavirus guidelines. Will he tighten them, loosen them, extend them . We shall see. Its helpful to keep in mind what dr. Anthony fauci said. You dont make the timeline, the virus makes the timeline. Its like a war zone. Were in a war with very limited resources. A nation in crisis. All the patients in this room, all that you see, they all have covid. Doctors, nourishes, and First Responders are pleading for protective equipment. Feels like im fighting a fire with blindfolds on. Running out of supplies, iv pumps, ventilators. Im worried my patients will die alone, without the people they love next to them. On friday, President Trump signed a 2 trillion Economic Relief package and after weeks of mixed messages, used his power under the defense production act to compel General Motors to manufacture ventilators. But just 24 hours earlier i dont believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators. You know, you go into major hospitals sometimes, theyll have two ventilators. Now, all of a sudden, theyre saying can we order 30,000 ventilators. With all due respect to him, hes not looking at the facts. Mr. Trump has attacked many of the governors who are pleading for his administrations help. I say mike, dont call the governor of washington. You are wasting your time with him. Dont call the woman in michigan. It doesnt make any difference what happens. More than 228 Million People in 27 states are now living under shelter in place orders. But earlier this week, the president floated a rosy timeline. I think Easter Sunday and youll have packed churches all over our country. I think it would be a beautiful time. Before governors of both parties pushed back. Of course, i want the economy back. But you know what i want more, lester . I want them alive. I do not think south dakota will be back to normal for many months. Well be listening to doctors, physicians, scientists. And the president backed off his timeline on saturday, he floated a threestate quarantine. Some people would like to see new york quarantined because its a hot spot. Before retreating again hours later. As the virus continues to spread, the president is already declaring victory. The federal government has done a hell of a job. And arguing this was something nobody has ever thought could happen to this country. But many experts did. And told the president so. In a National SecurityCouncil Pandemic playbook, which the administration was briefed on in 2017, in a series of hhs simulation exercises called crimson contagion, conducted in 2019, which found the administration was not ready for the outbreak of a respiratory virus, and an Intelligence Agency warnings in january and february, while President Trump and aides played down the threat, failing to ramp up testing until the virus had spread. Did the cdc screw up or did you screw up . We did not screw up. Where did this go wrong . I dont think cdc screws up either. Nobody ever expected a thing like this. Joining me now is the response coordinator for the Coronavirus Task force. Welcome to meet the press. Lets start with the first question this way. It took from february 29th to march 17th to get to 100 deaths. It took another nine days to get to 1,000 deaths. Sadly, it took 72 hours to get to 2,000 deaths. Dr. Birx, where are we today . And where is this headed in the next few weeks . Well, this is the way pandemics work, and thats why we all are deeply concerned and why we have been raising the alert in all metro areas and in all states. No state, no metro area will be spared. And the sooner we react and the sooner the states and the metro areas react and insure that they have put in full mitigation at the same time understanding exactly what their hospitals need, then well be able to move Forward Together and protect the most americans. Theres a new website up. It comes from chris murray out in washington state. Its on the ime website, imhes website. It predicts, it looks at this, billed as an Infectious Disease model. I would love to take a look that. What part of this model, what is it telling you, and what does this mean . What is it you have learned from that model that tells us, you just said no metro area spared. That does tell me this idea of creating a countybycounty low, medium, high Risk Advisory level by the middle of the week, is that something thats not going to happen . No, i think those two pieces come together. Theres two pieces that we absolutely need, and i think you have had many experts talking about this. One of them is insuring that we have full capacity for full diagnosis. And so that is still going on, and we do have enough tests for that. The other piece of this is surveillance. So were looking across the United States for counties that do have lower case numbers right now. To see what we can do right now in order to really put into place full surveillance, full contact tracing, and full diagnostic capacity to insure that cases are found and we contact trace. While the metros and other areas go through clearly important mitigation efforts to spare as Many American lives as possible. What are you seeing in new york that raises alarm bells to you when this does when suddenly detroit, new orleans, chicago start to see the same incoming to their icu units that the new york area is seeing now . Well, were studying new york very carefully. Were studying them, the hospital needs, how to do better testing, how to keep less sick people away from the hospital and being tested elsewhere. Looking at admissions, looking at how to keep those hospitals stocked. Its not enough for us to get materials to warehouses. We have to be working with the state and local governments comprehensively to insure that equipment and supplies are getting to each hospital. Hospitals are so busy taking care of the people who are ill, they cant be spending time doing inventory. We need to help and support that. Well, that appears to actually be a problem, and look, im curious, what role do you play in deciding where spare ventilators go versus the role fema plays . And the reason i ask that is there seems to be some confusion, governors are complaining they find themselves either bidding against other states or the federal government. When it comes to different equipment issues. So is the federal government going to take over all procurement and dispersement of medical equipment or not . I think at this moment, were asking every single governor and every single mayor to prepare like new york is preparing now. Know where every hospital is, public, private. Know where every one of your Surgical Centers are. Know how to change the anesthesia ventilators to take care of people. Know where every piece of equipment in the state is, know how to move the equipment. The one thing we can do as americans is we know how to innovate. Its not just what you have inside your doors today. Its how you can surge and move things around. We know this epidemic moves in waves. Each city will have its own epidemic curve, and so we can move between states. We can move within states to meet the needs of everyone. You sort of overlooked the question, though, about is the federal government going to take over at least the procurement and the distribution of things Going Forward . I understand what youre saying, states and mayors need to do right now in case they dont have this from the government, but who should be trying to acquire new equipment . States or the federal government . Well, i think the federal government right now is working very hard on looking at where all the ventilators are and where production can be. But we need states at the same time to look where all of their ventilators are. Including outpatient surgical center, which is a really important place to be looking, because you get staff plus ventilator. They have also the clearly, the cardiac monitoring, being able to monitor oxygen levels. All of that can come into the hospitals to care for patients. Both of those pieces need to come together. The government looking to increase procurement and states looking for every single option they have. New york city, if you could quarantine the tristate area, and theres a lot of legal hurdles to that, if you could, do you think it would be the best way to slow this virus down . When we looked at what new york state and what the mayor and governor did over the last ten days, when those alerts went out of the increased number of infections, a lot of people who could leave new york left new york. And so we immediately saw cases rising out on long island and cases rising in southern florida. What were trying to say to everyone is when this virus comes to your metro area, please stay in your metro area where your care can be provided, because its spreading virus more quickly around the United States. Should we be shutting down domestic air travel . I understand you need to move airplanes for supplies, for people in necessary environments, but should there be some domestic air travel shut down . It does seem odd that new york city airports are wide open for people to leave. The amazing thing to me, and what has been so heartening to me, and when i work on epidemics around the globe, its seeing communities come together. And communities have selfquarantined and selfisolated themselves. The amount of air travel in and out of new york we believe is down by 90 . Metro down by more than 90 . So people are using common sense to protect others. We also have to be able to move doctors and nurses around the United States. Theyre part of our surge capacity. You can see many have come forward as volunteers, and we need to be able to get them places. Are you going to announce the new guidelines given everything you have just said, given no metro area is going to be spared at this point right now, thats your concern, should we assume these 15day guidelines are going to get extended another 15 days, through the end of april . Whats realistic, dr. Birx . What i wanted to be very clear on is every metro area should assume that they could have an outbreak equivalent to new york, and do everything right now to prevent it. If they mitigate now, before they start seeing cases in the emergency room and in the hospital, once you see those, the virus has been spreading for days to weeks. So this is really my call on every mayor to prepare now. So it sounds like these guidelines are going to be extended at least another couple weeks. Is that fair . As americans are watching, should they be prepared to be hunkering down for the rest of april . My job today is to put all the data together, the integrated data of testing, case reporting, the global situation, and prepare the best briefing i can for the president and Vice President so they have all the data to make the decision thats best for the American People. So are you what is your recommendation . What recommendation are you going to be giving to them or are you not sharing that with us . Im going to share it with the president and Vice President first. All right. Dr. Birx, i will leave it there. Stay safe. Stay healthy. And were all wanting to defeat this as soon as possible. Thanks for your kufrbs. Thank you. And joining me now are governors of two states that have seen an alarming rise in covid19 cases. Governor Gretchen Whitmer of michigan and Governor John Bel Edwards of louisiana. Governors, welcome to both of you. Governor edwards, i solemnly want to start with you. Sadly, you had to report that you had a staffer die from coronavirus last night. I just figured i would let you say a quick word about that. Well, thank you. April was a tremendous asset to louisiana. She was a valuable member of our team, someone that i was actually personally friends with and had gone to church with. And she died last evening about 6 00. And this should be a reminder to everyone just how serious, how deadly covid19 is. And we need to do everything that we can to minimize the spread, slow the spread, stay home. Slow the spread and save lives. And you know, thats my message to the people of louisiana today. Governor whitmer, let me start with you, tell me the situation in detroit specifically right now and where michigan is today. Our numbers are climbing exponentially. We knew it was a matter of time, not if covid19 would come to michigan. We took aggressive measures. We have been on the front end of aggressive measures that states have been taking, but we see this astronomical rise. We have hospitals that are already at capacity. Were running out of ppe as well. Im grateful we got a shipment from fema yesterday for 112,000 n95 masks, but you know, were going to be in dire straits again in a matter of days so were keeping up the pressure and working 24 7 at the state level, and grateful that there are people who are doing that at the federal level as well, but this is not something that we should be fighting each other on. It should be everyone fighting covid19. Everyone versus covid19. Governor edwards, give me the situation in new orleans, and in particular, i think a lot of folks are concerned about some of the Rural Communities of louisiana. How quickly do you fear that your system could get overwhelmed . Well, we have the coronavirus now and cases in 56 of our 64 parishes. So while the hot spot is down around new orleans, it is statewide. We know that if we dont flatten the curve, were on a trajectory currently to exceed our capacity in the new orleans area for ventilators by about april 4th. And all beds available in hospitals by about april 10th. So were doing everything we can to surge capacity. It is very difficult. We did get some ppe yesterday, like Governor Whitmer said. We have already allocated about 100,000 masks just yesterday to the hospitals. Ventilators are the shortterm really big pressing issue that were trying to solve for. Very difficult because every state is looking for these. There are only so many to be had, so were trying to get the public to slow the spread by following the mitigation measures while we ramp up our medical capacity. This is a very challenging Public Health emergency. Governor edwards, did what dr. Birx said about the ventilator situation in particular, basically saying shes urging governors and mayors, do your own inventory, basically find anything you can, it seemed to be a subtle message that the federal government is struggling too. Well, thats true. Everybody is struggling to get these items. But that really isnt anything new. We have been doing that for many days here in louisiana. Were inventorying all of our Health Care Clinics in various settings to find any breathing device that can be used as a ventilator. Perhaps it has to be retrofitted or modified in some way. We have emt type ventilators that really arent designed to be used in hospitals but they can be if necessary. Were also trying to see if there are certain ventilators that could service more than once patient at a time depending on their acuity level. Were doing everything we can, but we have only been able to procure 192 ventilators over the last several weeks when we had about 12,000 on order. Governor whitmer, you seem to imply late in the week that you thought the federal government or perhaps President Trump was punishing michigan in your attempts to procure different medical items. Do you have any do you still believe that is happening . Or do you believe that you were mistak