And it could save you hundreds. Xfinity mobile. Good afternoon. Im chuck todd. Its 11 00 a. M. Out west. 2 00 p. M. In the east. Here are the facts this hour. Unemployment claims have topped 30 million over the last six weeks as much of the country remains under lockdown. President trump says he believes next year will be a spectacular year for the economy. Senate ma jord majority leader is floating the idea of certain states filing for bankruptcy. They called a bailout of new york state irresponsible and reckless. And President Trump says covid19 should have never been allowed to escape china. Part of the president s larger strategy to shift blame ahead of novembers election. This as democrats sent a letter to hhs handling of the crisis. The senators are questioning whether key officials in the agency had the necessary qualifications. Theyre seeking Additional Information about possible retaliation against some hhs employees that they may have received when they contradicted the president. My coanchor at the field at a very empty Grand Central station is katy tur. Lijing forward we were just talking about the issue of Mass Transportation and the person in charge of it all. I have a lot of questions about that when we do have him on including the Contact Tracing questions and the plan he just laid out. Chuck, just look around me. Those of you that are just joining us in the 2 00 p. M. Hour. This is Grand Central terminal. Normally 750,000 people walk through here on a daily basis. And you can almost count the number of people that are in here right now on your hand. This is sad and unsettling. On another, its good news that there is nobody here. The vast majority of new yorkers and tristate area employees and workers, residents, are staying home. Theyre working to keep everybody safe. Theyre working to slow the spread of this virus. The people that are going through here today in need of shelter or they need to commute in and out of the city. People doing the delivery services, people that are working in ems that, are working at the Fire Department that, are working at the nypd, they still need to use the transit system. Earlier today, chuck, Governor Cuomo had a News Conference talking about the trans it system and shutting down subways between 1 00 a. M. And 5 00 a. M. Because it was so dirty within the subways. There were a number of Homeless People living in the subway cars overnight. He was concerned that is make things more dangerous. He wants to get the homeless out on to the street where they can get help and then clean the subways every single night. No doubt. And hoping this technology i saw, theres an idea you might be able to clean these cars super quick with some ultraviolet lite. But that is some things that we know Technology May help us in some of this Going Forward. Lets go down to texas, by the way. Reopening preparations are underway. Swroi joining me is a texas native and he is in dallas. Xwet whether the 25 capacity is the correct call or not. There are two questions, will there will anyplace fill its 25 capacity . Will people come, number one . And number two, can businesses survive at a 25 capacity . The short answer to the second question is not for long. The hope is that the capacity restriction lasts a couple of weeks and theyre able to open the sick it a little more and allow folks to come in. Quet about how to make consumer comfortable is the biggest question. Its the one that the restaurants are grappling with. St restaurants have the hardest task of any of the buildings businesses reopening. Folks have to come in for long enough to sit down and have to have a meal and to feel comfortable that the restaurants doing enough to take care of things from a sanitation perspective. Heres how the owner of odd fellows cafe in dallas explained to me what theyre doing to turn the takeout operation back into a restaurant come tomorrow. Take a listen. Well continue to operate through the walk up window. But instead of you having to take it home, well have a limited number of tables where you can sit and enjoy as long as you stay within all the guidelines issued by the state. So youll be a patio restaurant but no indoor seating. Turning into a Quick Service model. You order at the window and then well have trash cans to clean up their own trash and provide sanitation between guests. Chuck, the Texas Restaurant association polled their nebz and found only half of restaurants in texas are planning to even try to reopen tomorrow. Some want to wait this out and see how the new system works for a couple days. Ed there are practical concerns as well f youre a restaurant worker that has a childcare question, what do do you if the schools are closed, camps are not yet open. Daycare, childcare in texas has been limited to just essential workers. That doesnt necessarily include folks who work real estate tailor restaurants. Theyre going to scale back up even to that 25 goal really for tomorrow. Right. And garret, the other thing i shear some restaurants are concerned about whether the supply chain is going to be reliable enough to for them to serve a half menu, whole menu. So there is a lot of hurdles for the average restaurant. Thats for sure. The thank you. As the nation looks for breakthroughs source sorry about that, garret. As looks for breakthroughs in a covid19 treatment, the ceo of astrozenica, they will work this vaccine assuming it is workable. Joining us is Richard Engel. Richard, if we find this successful vaccine that next challenge is going to be scaling it up for mass use which is why in a lot of cases theyre going to start scaling up even before they know whether it works. I just spoke with the ceo of astrazeneca. There is a group at oxford that is working toward a vaccine. They have begun human trials. The group at Oxford University is confident that they will know if the current trials are the goal is to have 100 million doses by the end of this year. I asked him, well what if come this summer it proves that the Research Proves that vaccine is either unsafe or doesnt work or is otherwise flawed . He said well, then well just have to scrap the project and well rolling the dice and have to take that risk. But they are confident enough that it will work, that the preliminary results that they have so far are positive enough that they are going to that theyre already going to start production. He said producing a large quantity of the liquid isnt the problem. It is actually getting it into little viles. He said part of the solution that theyre working on is each vile, because can you imagine, 100 million filling 100 million little vials is not that easy. He said theyll put multiple doses per vile as a way to speed it up. He also said that initially while this is still a pandemic, they will be selling them at cost. Richard they would hopefully have 100 million for dlcti million distribution on an emergency baseis by the end of this year. Was this a bidding war between pharmaceutical companies coming to Oxford University . Were they being lavished with partner with us and astrazen oechlt ca won a bidding war . Or did they have a previous relationship with the university . They have a long standing relationship. I dont know if there was back room negotiations. A lot of that is going on right now. Around the world, there is a race going on for a vaccine e weve done stories on it. I did a story on it a few days ago. There are several companies that are already in human trials in the united states. In china, the oxford one here in the uk. Each of these are now working with Partner Companies to try to get ahead of the game. They want to be the first one out of the gate. There is likely going to be multiple people, multiple shots on goal and all willing to go forward to start producing it now. This one is a big twoun have the ceo come out and publicly say theyre going to try and have 100 million doses by the end of the year and have them ready to go in a little viles. Well see if this is essentially won by astrazeneca. Now back to katy tur at Grand Central terminal. Lets talk about everything were seeing from this crisis. Just like just the logistic whats happens once people dont make it at the hospital. A number of bodies were stored in an unrefrigerated u haug haul truck in brooklyn. What it is like to coordinate this . Thank you so much for gifgs me the opportunity to talk about the important work of the staff of the medical Examiners Office during this pandemic. It has been overwhelming for everyone. Our health care partners, partners in the funeral industry, nursing homes, all the essential workers, and were doing the best that we possibly can to support all of them. With regard particularly to the Funeral Directors that the situation that you eluded to, i have seen those horrible photographs. And my heart goes out to all those families that are affected. We have been working very closely with them throughout this pandemic giving them information guidance, and any assistance we k the single most important thing is increased dramatically our storage capacity. So that it alleviates some of the burden both upon Funeral Homes and families to rush to make funeral arrangements during this difficult time. This is not decreasing dramatically. So youre more bodies will be coming your way. What is the city going to do since so many Funeral Homes are at capacity . We have seen hearts island open up, mass graves, people that dont have next of kin or not enough resources to bury them through a funeral home and in a cemetery. The city is tremendously supportive of our efforts in this area. Most importantly, as i said, we increased our capacity for storage and also long term storage. Have you increased it enough . Yes, absolutely. We are able to increase our storage of proportionately to the need and i have every confidence that Going Forward that will not be an issue. Thank you so much. Sorry to cut you short. I understand that, chuck, we have a big guest coming in. We do, katy. I dont think your guest will mind us cutting that short here. Joining me now is the governor of new york. Thank you for spending a few minutes with us. I know we want to talk more about the Contact Tracing program. I want to start with this. I know youre working with bloomberg philanthropies on this and it is a Public Private partnership. The question is, should it be a Public Private partnership, number one . Number two, is this enough or you are still going to need federal help for the size of Contact Tracing army that youre going to need . Thanks. Of good to be with you, chuck. Fwheer a place weve never been before. We have the big looming challenges. Frightening. Unchartered water. There is resistance is to try Something Big and new. We have to do what we have to do. Thats what made this kun thcou this country. We have to get testing up to scale. You have to have the tracing. The testing alone, by the way, can help you monitor the virus, monitor the spread and inform you on the reopening. But then you have to get to tracing to actually slow the spread. The numbers are the problem on tracing. We did testing yesterday. We had 4600 positives yesterday. Tracing means you take all of those 4600 positives from yesterday and you start going down and tracing all the contacts. And that is an overwhelming task. So yes, were we estimate between 6,000 to 17,000 people in the state. Mike bloomberg is organizing organizing the effort for us. How do you do it . How do you train . How do you test . How do you recruit people this quickly . But its a massive undertaking. You could use this as an americorp if the government wanted in on this. Is that something you want to see . In new york youre going have a large unemployment line. This is one way to find people work. Wlikd to see the federal government involved with the recruitment and funding so of course. But we do what we have to do, right . And we are where we are. So we can talk about what we would like to see in the meantime i have to get things running here tomorrow. So were dealing with the situation we have. And well put together the army, so to speak. Mike bloomberg was a great talent and stepped up to help to the extent the federal government wants to get involved and wants to help, i say amen. How am i supposed to get on mass transit once this shutdown starts to end and the restrictions start to ease . What is my commute going to look like . Well, katy, we announced something today that talk about doing something youve never done before, were starting to disinfect every subway train every night. And for the First Time Ever were going to close down service from 1 00 a. M. To 5 00 a. M. And that four hour shutdown will allow us to disinfect all the trains, monew york city subway trains, metro north, long island railroad. That goes out to the railroad. We have the essential workers who were so grateful to because theyre coming to work every day even though they know the risks. The people in the hospitals, they need food delivery people. We all say thank you. But gratitude is best acted upon, right . I want to know that they have safe, clean, decent transportation. And that means we have to disinfect the trains every 24 hours. The virus can live on a train for two or three days. So were starting that next week. Its First Time Ever. Weve never disinfected trains like this before. The 1 00 to 5 00 a. M. Hours will be covered by the mta. Theyll provide alternative transportation or theyll use uber, lyft, et cetera, if they dont have a route to get people home. Ridership is way down. Its down 90 . 1 00 to 5 00 a. M. Are the least traveled hours. Its another thing we never imagined doing. We have to do and were going to do it. And mayor diblasio, new york city mayor, myself, the surrounding county executives, were all in agreement and were going to start in a week. I think ridership is down. There is nobody here in Grand Central. 90 down as you said. What happens though when the state starts to reopen and when people start to get back on the subways and in larger numbers. How do you social distance on a new york city subway . How do you not touch anything on a new york city subway . You dont. Is the short answer. Thats one reason why the virus spreads so quickly in the city. It was coming from europe and nobody had had an idea. We closed down china. By the time we closed down china travel, the virus went to europe and we got the virus from europe. Two Million People came from europe during the time period in early january and february. And we had no idea. But it is also the density of new york city. Now what were doing, d disinfecting is a very big deal. You cant open the subways until you have the pandemic under control. Because, youre right, you cant socially distance on a subway platform. And thats why we have to phase in the reopening of the economy and phase in with the full demand of the subway system. If you open up everything, people will go right back to the subways. The virus spread will go through the roof in a matter of days, i guarantee it. So governor, are you saying youre not going to reopen the subways now for until there is a vaccine . Or until there is a treatment . I mean what you just said seems to me that were not going to be getting back on mass transit en masse for the foreseeable future. Yeah. First of all, the subways are open now. Right . We never closed the subways. We have to keep the subways open. Essential workers need the subways to get to work. You close down the subways, you dont have doctors or nurses or food delivery people. You dont have municipal employees. So the subways are open. If you reopen the economy fully, you will drive many people into mass transit and on the squawks and you cant reopen the economy until you know you can handle the pandemic. Its when can you uncrease the density and volume . Thats tied to reopening the kmech economy but the subways are open. Governor, at the end of the day youre going to have to make some tough choices on your budgets Going Forward. There is just so much inundation. There are so many needs. There are going to be a lot of people that say we have to fix this and. That pick and choose. Im curious as you prepare new yorkers, what are service thats are likely going to be something you might have to cut back for a while in order to prioritize the health and safety of another line of workers . I mean, are there certain Government Service thats new yorks have to prepare themselves for not having or not having it the way they had it before . Tough decisions. Close down is a tough decision. All of these are tough decisions. But thats that comes with the job. But im not going to pick between the health and safety of any worker. And, yes, the budget is going to be tight. The economy closed down. But i want to see the federal government step up and do their job. They have not funded state and local governments. They want to fund airlines and hotels and restaurants, big corporations. But they havent funded state and local governments. Thats who state and local governments fund. And for washington to be saying theyre not going to fund state and local governments, states can go bankrupt with senator mcconnells statement. States can go bankrupt. They want to help the economy. They want states to go bankrupt. I mean can you find a single economist would say that will help the markets letting states go bankrupt. So they have to step up. They have to do their job. They want to take care did you really believe him . Or did you think waits a negotiating ploy . It certainly looked like he was looking to horse trade on this. And i cant believe. No, chuck. I cant believe. Im shocked. Gambling. I guess the question is, what is the better way to convince some of these conservatives that new yorks budget is new yorks budget, floridas bud