Transcripts For MSNBCW MSNBC Live Decision 2020 20200401 : v

MSNBCW MSNBC Live Decision 2020 April 1, 2020

Good week to ten days, and that is being able to fulfill the promises that have been made about testing. And this is now second day in a row where somebodys reminded a member of the task force, yesterday, it was somebody reminding the president , somebody, the Vice President , that we were supposed to be ramping up to millions of tests and you heard the Vice President say we are only able to just do 100,000 in a day. Dr. Zeke emanuel, penn university, a Health Adviser during the obama administration, kristen welk er with me, as wel. And the original sin of our struggles here, inadequate testing, dr. Birx seemed to say, maybe a month, maybe in a month we could have the asymptomatic testing. We heard Vice President pences very rosy response to not being able to hit the goals that they had set not very long ago. Zeke, ill start with you. Did you hear any green shoots here on the issue of testing . No, i heard a lot of evasion. The Vice President was pretty evasive about why we didnt get the testing pe, painting these y pictures. More than a month ago, we connected with the commercial labs that just doesnt seem to square with his statements before about when they permitted the or gave the green light to commercial labs to get into the testing regime. Weve made multiple mistakes, cdc and the federal government made multiple mistakes on the testing access. And look, even with the abbott, you know, point of care tests, so that will be ready in 15 minutes, they can produce 50,000 a day. You know, the best estimates are, we need a million a day to really get this contained and to really have the right inf infrastructure for losening up, first of all, knowing the extent of the virus and begin loosening up the regime. And we dont seem to be anywhere near that. I mean, 100,000 sounds like a large number, but remember, were a country of 330 million people. And this just isnt isnt the right answer. And we got no insight as to why the promises of 4 million tests oh, well, we delivered the tests but they couldnt be used. Thats not an answer. Thats evasion. Dr. Azar, you heard dr. Birx say they were hopeful between University Labs that they were going to have maybe in a month we would get there on the asim t asymptom matic testing here, figuring out who has antibodies, who doesnt. Zeke emanuel rope an oped where he said, we have to know, essentially be able to gps this virus. Yeah, i know, chuck, and i seem to hear two different messaging, two different types of messaging on thinking coming from this press Conference Today. One is that, of course, from dr. Faucis perspective, hes saying the testing is not the priority right now. His focus, of course, is going back to the stage one of the outbreak, you know, process, which is identifying, isolating and Contract Tracing in areas that still havent had a lot of pen trants. And then at the same time, dr. Birx is saying, well, this is a priority, because we want to test communities and want to be able to test folks in Nursing Homes and Health Care Workers. You know, im not a bench scientist, but elizas arent that difficult to get up and running, so, i certainly feel frustrated, as a Health Care Worker who will be going into the ward soon, that we dont have these theres not a race to the finish to get the tests out. Zeke emanuel, there was another thing that i was curious, if you heard this at the beginning and i had the mayor of teaknock, new jersey, who i thought articulated quite well the logistics frustration, and hes sitting there, going and he namechecked, theres 11,000 nurses in the military, just, can you deploy 10 of them to help us out . And lo and behold, we have members of the military suddenly come out at the start of the Coronavirus Task force. Nobody asked that question, but i guess the it does feel as if we have a logistics choke point, whether its on figuring out where ventilators go, figuring out, we saw yesterday, Vice President pence, usa i. D. Was sending supplies we needed here out of the country. We have a logistics problem in this country and the best logistics minds in america sit at the pentagon. Well, there is i would say a problem all across. We have a manufacturing problem, we have a logistics problem and we also have a demand problem. The Health Care System needs to decrease the demand. But i agree with you. We have the logistics, the worlds leading experts on logistics, both at the military, but also in private companies, you know, whether its amazon or u. P. S. Or fedex and i totally agree with you that, you know, what we need is better coordination. I think i look back today, i wrote my first oped about what we need to do in march 2nd, and i said, one of the big things is, we need to make sure we have the right supplies and that we can get them to the front line and we need Surge Capacity right now because the hospitals are going to run short of supplies and were going to need more hospital beds and more icu beds. Its not like we didnt know this stuff, all right . And i aint no genius. I wasnt being a genius on march 2nd. But we and i advised the president that we needed more coordination. We need a strong federal government. And i think the mayor of teaneck, new jersey, was absolutely 100 right. We need leadership at the federal government. And you heard the same thing from the official you had from washington state. Where is the federal government here . And the president keeps saying, well, the states should do this and do that, but its not something that you can distribute to the states. The federal government has to be the purchaser and the distributor. They can match the supply with the country, because states can only see their problem. They cant see whats happening in new orleans accurately or kansas city or lincoln, nebraska or wherever is going to be next. Right. And the federal government has to be there. And its awol. Kristen welker, i remember it feels like, again, i think its ten days ago, when the Vice President came out and said, okay, fema is running point on this. And what that really meant was, look, fema was the running point on the logistics. I remember hearing governor murphy was on this program and said, boy am i grateful for that, fema, its nice to know theres one point of contact. I you know, it doesnt seem as if what they what was told to us, thats pe peter gainer is that fema would be the point person for everybody, is it working out that way or not . I think theres some confusion about who the point person is, chuck. And when it comes to getting those critical supplies out to hospitals, youll recall, of course, there is also this big back and forth about whether the president was going to officially invoke the defense production act and when he did and really put that to use and essentially ordered gm to start manufacturing some of the ppe, he said that he was going to put Peter Navarro in charge of that aspect of it, and so, there is some confusion about who specifically is the point person when it comes to getting out those critical supplies. I also thought, chuck, that it was remarkable when the Vice President was pressed on when the Trump Administration hasnt renewed the obamacare exchanges, the Vice President defended the decision and said, look, there are ways in which people who are not ensurinsured could get insu. We know two Insurance Companies are making sure they are going to cover everyone who is suffering from coronavirus and then you had the president who stepped forward and said, mike essentially talked for five minutes and didnt even touch the question. That was remarkable. It was this remarkable disconnect it was, between the president and the Vice President , and the president , at least, indicated that hes going to take another look at that issue, chuck. And so, i think you have both issues that are truly remarkable when it comes to some of the mixed messaging. One more point ill make on the supply issue, you do have ramped up calls for the department of defense to get more engaged, for them to be the point of contact on that, chuck. Thank you, kristen. Dr. Azar, let me talk big picture here, what weve seen overnight. There are, it appears, green shoots on the west coast of just seeing some flattening. Obviously these west coast, california was early, some counties inside of california, super early, king county in washington, super early at getting these stay at home orders and social distancing. Are you as optimistic as it appears folks out west are . I think so. I mean, i think that they are they practiced the behavior that was recommended and they are following the up deem logical trajectory, and, you know, we know what happened here. We its probably harder to socially distance and physically distance in an urban setting as new york city is, but i think that we should all look to that example as evidence that it can work and that until and unless we have a vaccine or a therapeutic, this is the best tool in the tool box and we need to sit tight at least for a minimum of 30 days. A minimum. Zeke emanuel, final word to you. It seems as if the president s decision yesterday and the grim death toll that the white house was projecting inspired governors, two governors who had been sort of a little bit slower with big case loads, the governors of florida and georgia, allies of the president , they got onboard. Do you believe we got to get the whole country in a similar position where every state is in some form of a stay at home . Absolutely. You know, again, if you look at this by risk, you might not have anything and then it literally explodes in just a few weeks. If you look back at the new york data, march 2nd, 3rd, 4th, there was nothing, no one was worried. All the way to about the 10th, no one was worried and then suddenly you have this big amount. And if you cant test in the community, you cant know how much of the virus is circulating before it explodes. And i would say it, you know, governors like cover, so, they like the president to say its necessary so they do it and they say, well, the president told me and ive got cover, im not going to be blamed for this, but it is also the case that Governor Desantis in florida, and there was a question to the president on this, you know, hes got some loopholes in there which are terrible. Large religious meetings can take place. Large meetings are one of the worst things you can do. The last thing that should come back are large concerts, conferences, sporting events, because people are packed in, you cannot practice social distancing, and that is a serious evasion of what we need to have happen. And i do think the question about not having airplane flights, having airplane flights is a classic way of getting someone who is asymptomatic but has the virus to go to a place would you ground all domestic flights . I think we definitely have to look at that. I am pretty sure i would and i think were going to have to look at that and its projected impact on the epidemiology. Its hard to justify it, except in the extremes. But as a regular commercial flight that we have, im not sure the rationale, if were trying to shelter in place. Right. I understand that. I do know logistically, we ne need we need to those planes are used to move our mail and to move boxes and packages, but theres certainly the flights have to keep going, but if people should be on them is the real question here. Zeke e man yum, natalie azar, our medical contributors here, kristen welker, White House Correspondent. Thank you for sticking around for more than 90 minutes here. The president , i believe, is still going there a little bit past 90 minutes, but for now, that does it for my hour plus. Ari melber takes over right now. The baton is yours. Good evening, chuck, thank you very much for your reporting. Our special coverage here of this virus pandemic continues. As mentioned, this Coronavirus Task force continuing to brief reporters at the white house. Were monitoring it for news. If we see actual medical news information, we will either bring it to you or bring a clip of it, but were not going to stay in the press briefing. The president said hes considering two new hospital ships that could be constructed. He also addressed the National Stockpile protective equipment running low and addressed his shift in tone, just over the last few days, acknowledging the human toll of this pandemic. You said this is no fluke. Theres still some people who kind of think of this as the flu and over the past month, youve compared it to the flu, saying, treat it like the flu or, you know, treat it how we handle the flu. So, what changed your thinking on that . Well, i think the severity. I think also, in looking at the way, the contagion, it is so contagious, nobodys ever seen anything like this, where large groups of people all of a sudden just by being in the presence of somebody have it. Flu has never been like that. And flu is contagious, but nothing like weve seen here. We go to dr. Joseph fair, our medical contributor. And our White House Correspondent for pbs. Doctor, what is important, in your view, having just seen some of this press Conference Today . Well, first thing, there is acknowledgement of the seriousness of the issue. Id like to see more emphasis on the national confrontation. This is a problem that we should be dealing with on the over the entire nation, we saw a little bit of it, but we need to see more of it. This is a national problem. This needs a National Response. Dr. Fair . So, for me, my background is in Laboratory Diagnostics and thats what my ph. D was in, developing Lab Diagnostics and most of that was on the behalf of the department of defense. And so, when we say all hands on deck, were still not seeing that with regards to laboratory testing. There are at least ten d. O. D. Laboratories across the nation that could be testing for covid19, thats in addition to the los alamos laboratory, ffrdcs, federally funded laboratories. So, we have the throughput to actually do all of these diagnostics. Were just not using them. Why were not, i cant answer that question. That would have to come from the white house. It comes back to the Laboratory Diagnostics for me on everything. Unless we know who has it and who has had it, which are two different tests, were not going to make very much progress. Let me play for you a little bit of the evolution of the president here in how hes discussed this pandemic. Have you been briefed by the cdc, are the words about a pandemic at this point . No, not at all. Ive always known this is a real this is a pandemic. I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic. This is a flu. This is like a flu. Its not the flu. Its vicious. You hear 35,000 and 40,000 people and weve lost nobody and you wonder, the press is in his tier ya mode. 100,000 is, according to modeling, a very low number be. Does your reporting suggest that he is just very slowly learning on the job or that hes Still Holding those incorrect views but just cant stomach expressing them in this environment . Based on my reporting, what we know is that the president himself has said, i knew everything. So, it seems as though even in january when the president was saying that this was something that the United States had under control and that the virus was not something people needed to worry about, he was getting the numbers and showing that over 100,000 americans could be dead. Vice president pence said today that he got the final numbers from the white house on saturday and thats when the president decided to extend the guidelines for social distancing for the entire country, but it seems as though the president , while hes taking this a lot more seriously, he is someone that is still looking at this and thinking, how is this going to effect the economy . How is this going to effect my own political future . So, i think the president is it is sinking into the president , he does feel like hes more somber when it comes to his outlook on the virus, but i think he does still hold onto the idea that this is a virus that will magically disappear and things will go back to normal and he can run on the economy again. Take a listen to dr. Fauci today. Looking beyond, when were on the other side of this curve, are we looking at living with some sort of social distancing guidelines, essentially until theres treatment or a vaccine, for example, people looking forward to the summer talk about, you know going to baseball games, going to concerts, we have political conventions over the summer. Are things like that possible or safe without a vaccine or a treatment in place . Yeah, i think if we get to the part of the curve that dr. Birx showed yesterday when it goes down to essentially no new cases, no deaths, that period of time, i think it makes sense that youre going to have to relax social distancing. Doctor . We have a very good example of what that looks like, because thats exactly where china is. And im in good touch with china, ive got people who are working there, im in touch with them every day. They began to relax the social distancing, restaurants are open. They began to relax it to the point where theaters were open. They realized that was a mistake and they closed them down. Its going to be a very slow process. It isnt going to happen quickly. And as long as theres an epidemic raging in other parts of the world, youre never sure. Its not coming back. So, whatever we do here, we lets hope, do everything we can to bring that down, but even afterwards, for a long time, as long as this is out there, somewhere in the world, it can come back. Were not going to be infecting everybody, so, we need to be careful for a long period of time. Sure, sure. And were on were on a slight tape delay. My apologies. Doctor, while i have you, given all your work internationally, work at harvard, i did want to ask you big picture still with what were learning fr

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