The minute and scoring an endorsement this evening. Amy klobuchar is dropping out of the race and reports that mayor Pete Buttigieg will be endorsing joe biden and will be in dallas. We begin with the bigger story right now, the coronavirus. We are execing to hear from Vice President pence in a few moments from the white house giving an update on the government response and join by ambassador birx. The expectation is that she is giving daily briefings about the government response from here on out as necessary. This update comes as we just learned of four more deaths in Washington State bringing the total to s total to six in the United States. This update as researchers say that the coronavirus may have been spreading and circulating undetected in Washington State for weeks. Thats according to a genetic analysis of samples. New cases reported today in california, oregon, illinois and new hampshire. New york city reported a first case of coronavirus in a woman who has recently traveled to iran. Speaking with the mayor of new york city bill deblasio in a moment. At least 14 states identified the virus with nearly 50 cases of americans evacuated from wuhan, china, and that cruise ship. The virus has spread to more than five disease countries around the globe and more than 3,000 people died. Here in the United States fema officials reportedly ready that President Trump will make an Emergency Declaration to use funding for the coronavirus response. President spent part of the afternoon meeting with pharmaceutical executives, a previously scheduled event having to do with price issues but they also spent a lot of time talking about a potential vaccine and the availability and affordability. Officials say it is time to be prepared. Nbc colleagues of mine are following the developments. All around the country. Hans nick nichols at the white house and gadi schwartz. Hans, lets start with you. Expecting to hear from the Vice President in a few moments. The first one of the briefings, the last briefing on saturday coincided with the announcement of the First American death. I assume were not hearing from Washington State officials for an hour. I assume theyre letting federal officials take the lead on this . Reporter one thing i think the white house wants to do and talking to proofficials is to try to have as much up to date information coming into them to share it with the public. So the challenge for the white house for the president on this is the short term and long toerm. Most of what we heard from the president today is about longer term, having some sort of vaccine in the pipeline. About expediting procedures, using the levers they can here at the white house to try to alleviate the regulatory hurdles to have a real emergency fast track. On the short term, well see if theres anything additional to talk about. There have been hints of additional travel restrictions but given the extent to which the virus is prevalent in the u. S. It is unclear if this is having an affect and see what they have to say about new testing kits because theres a broad sort of consensus that they want to have more testing kits for accurate information. Chuck . Hans, thank you. Lets go to kirk land, washington. Gadi schwartz. Gadi, look. We have been there were reports yesterday morning that perhaps this is circulating longer and in some ways i imagine thats of odd relief to folks because it was scary if a tiny outbreak causing the deaths. What have we learned today . How many of these deaths appear connected . Reporter yeah. So right now we have six confirmed deaths and only about 22 confirmed cases in the state of washington which is terrifying for anybody living out here. Sounds horrible an scientists and Health Officials caution thats most likely not the case. We are looking at a situation where hundreds of people may have already been infected here, possibly over 1,000 people infected and the way they know that is because of a genetic marker that was in connected to the genome of a case they saw back in the middle of january. That was a man in his 30s that came by from wuhan, china. He came here and then six weeks later another case of a high schooler getting the same type of strain with the same marker and extrapolated that and no way to tell because frankly not enough people have been tested here. What they do know is now seeing an outbreak in a nursing home and linked to four different deaths from that nursing home. Six deaths total in Washington State. All of them happening here at this hospital and so many people are wondering if this cough thats been going around this community for sometime is actually the coronavirus. Gadi schwartz with that update, thank you. I want to bring in well go to this briefing as soon as it starts but bringing in virologist and contributor dr. Fair and mayor of new york city deblasio. Its a nice pairing here. Youre gong to give us our Public Health issues and i assume you may have questions for him. Always. First of all, mr. Mayor, toll us what we know about the new york city patient. We have one case, first one after a string of eight cases that we tested and found negative. This is the first positive. Health worker was in iran. Gotcha. In the 30s. Did everything, of course, right. She is a Trained Health worker and the minute of symptoms on saturday she was tested. Went right to isolation after that. Isolated at her apartment. Had serious contact with her husband only. He is isolated, too. So, you know, look. This is a reminder for a lot of people this is manageable. It could feel like the flu when handled right and if people dont have the underlying conditions. Thats the good news here but a reminder to be seeing more of these and we have to get ahead of it. Doctor, we spoke yesterday. Yep. And right when we were speaking i said, hey, have you seen the reports . Looks like they think there might have been 1,500 cases of the virus in Washington State. Your reaction was, thats what i expected. Yeah. Explain. Epidemiology and once we have Community Based transmission. Community based some people hitting me on this. Can you just meaning sneezing and coughing , right . Unknown origin. Other Community Based transmission issi transmissi transmission is ongoing. That will be done. Just hearing they were analyzing the genome of the virus. Its a detective and learning where the virus came from. Would you be wanting now to almost go to the clinics that people might have gone to over the last six weeks in that suburb and see are there cultures to go retest . Is that something thats not available . Not right now. I think in the next couple weeks we will have enough testing up an running do that retrospectively. I think it would be prudent probably to also start sampling of pneumonia cases and we know theres Community Based transmission and nice to see random sampling done to see in case it is covid19. Mr. Mayor, are your Health Officials going back in time now . Look. Right now, what were trying to do is make sure anyone with the symptoms regardless of whether they have a nexus to travel goes and gets health care. This is job one for us today. Get it away from that notion that if you went to china thats the only reason it might be part of your life but to focus everyone getting to the health care to get people having an effective outcome and protect against the spread. We havent what to do that detective work. We have a group of disease detectives we call them at the department of health and had this one positive case and we know that there wasnt a lot to track in that case. But i think the amazing thing is that we have been telling new yorkers five, six weeks get to health care immediately and seem to be heeding that and helpful here. Folks often try to explain away with a disease, ill deal with it later. With coronavirus get to health care immediately. Theres an unintended consequence, you can overwhelm the system. Absolutely. What is the balance here . So the balance is honestly, most of the cases and most of the cases will be mild to moderate. Coldlike symptoms. What would we do . Stay at home and take care of ourselves. In this particular case, because its covid19, a new virus, ideally you would be able to quarantine yourself and theres unintended consequences with that. How do you get food and pay your bills . If you are working at an mcdonalds, for example, not necessarily feasible to stay home for 14 days because that might mean your rent so theres only a lot of derivative effects of quarantining yourself. Given that four of the deaths from one senior facility. Yes. Okay . This is frankly, many families probably like my own today. I have a grandmother in a senior facility and worried. This is one outbreak and it can really what can Nursing Homes, assisted living facilities, what do we need to do Something Different here to protect them . I would say thats an argument for a long time in general because nursing home and Elderly Care Facilities known for being breeding grounds of disease and needs to be heightened awareness. There needs to be rigorous cleaning protocols and sterilization and adhered to from this point onwards. Mr. Mayor, the governor of this state, governor here, talked about that theres still not a full cooperation of the federal government. How much of this do you feel is them getting up to speed . I think it took way too long. We have been down this road before, chuck. Finally now we have testing to do locally in norgs. Enough kits . Enough for now. We have to build capacity and the ability to test, could have been done weeks ago by the federal government. We are waiting on supplies. They could have put that structure together weeks ago. Well be reimbursed. So i would say bluntly there was about a month of lag and now getting the federal cooperation we need. This is common sense says considering where this came from first that your seattle, san francisco, l. A. Was going to be some of the hottest spots. Chicago, new york would be next considering the international travel. Do you feel as if your that the right amount of quarantine is happening and at the airports testing is happening . I think the travel restrictions were the right thing to do. I think the administration did the right thing. Want to see more of them . Any time of Major Development in a country, just shut off that my personal view, cut off that possibility. That scientifically . I get the government argument. That make sense . We found its limited effectiveness. Theyre not always honest about where they have been for fear of being screened and isolated once they arrive where theyre going and limited effectiveness. That being said, by china quarantining a vast majority of the population, they slowed the spread of the virus to the rest of the world and particularly with china restrictions that did slow things down for us and clearly it didnt prevent it from getting here altogether so, you know, it is a balance we have to take and always a controversial one. You feel confident that three major airports here are on good footing . Yes. I would emphasize people have to heed the warning with symptoms to come in. Someone comes through the airport and doesnt manifest until the next day and this is understanding the responsibility, everyone else, symptoms, get the help. Before we go, dr. Fair you gave me what i consider good news. The death rate is higher than the flu but the death rate is lower than 1 . Anywhere from 2 to 3 rate that we have heard of, thats in the vast majority of cases in wuhan and really the reason that happened perspectively and cant say scientifically but why that happened is that the system was overwhelmed and people not able to get the supportive care. Some people may have died that shouldnt have died. Indeed, absolutely. Outside of that, the rates we have seen hover. 8 . Compared to the flu . 1 versus. 8 . Lower than 2 . I was going to say. Better news. Good luck handling this. Dr. Fair, i appreciate your expertise. Thank you. Waiting on the briefing from the Vice President at the white house. Well bring that to you as it happened and the white house getting the message right on coronavirus. Our political experts weigh in next. First buttigieg and then klobuchar. Whats going on with Michael Bloomberg . Democratic president ial contest looking more and more like a twoperson race. Th experts warn the us is underprepared. 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Right now we are awaiting Vice President pence who is about to hold a briefing at the white house on the covid19 coronavirus. Bringing it to you live when it happens. Trump administration has been touting the ability to keep the coronavirus out of the United States as long as possible but today it may have been here a lot longer than first thought. Joining me now joshua johnson, Zerlina Maxwell and john podquist. I felt like theres a sea change of how the administration focused on this since the first death, joshua. Even the president s own rhetoric has for him changed. He was angry and on friday night he didnt bother the level of attacks on saturday. I feel like in general everybodys sobered up. I think so, too. The initial response to this President Trump trying to kind of of project calm, dont worry. Everythings going to be fine. There was some of the political comments of a hoax and what Mick Mulvaney said at cpac and so forth. I think the people that every day folks listen to are not in washington. Theyre not even at the cdc. It is your primary care physician. It is the person to i think tony fauci matters, a little to people. I dont think they knew who he was unless theyre following the hiv epidemic which he was active in. Reporters follow him an it does matter if hes projecting one level of that is who the reporters are going to follow, whose lead if that makes sense. Granted but looking at alerts in san antonio mall that closed. Parishes should stop Holding Hands in our father. Nodding here. Yeah. All had these conversations. I understand about Anthony Fauci but at the end of the day it is people like patients who are going to need that one person they already trust to say what do i do . Those people, the caregivers, are the one who is are looking to government but i think folks like you and i as long as i look at my doctor and trust what my doctor is telling me i will feel okay. Yeah. I think some of this is fear of the unknown. A personal conversation that me an my family you know, we have somebody in a Senior Living facility and when you see Washington State thats scary. My sister works as a home care person so everyone in that industry is thinking about how they can protect themselves because theyre the First Responders and theyre taking care of patients every single day. But to your point i think that people are looking to the primary care doctors and i think it matters that the administration is on the same message in terms of whether or not we should panic or whether or not we should watch more netflix. It is more serious than not serious at all. And in addition, i think it could get a lot worse and it can be precipitated by actions taken by the administration or not. You cant sharpie marker your way out of this one because people are getting sick and unfortunately some have died so they need to take it seriously and cant try to spin their way out of this one. John, one bad habit the administration has is dont spike the football on, hey, look what we were able to prevent the disease and literally the next day, no you with respect. Yeah. You know . You dont need to tout something that isnt you know, that you dont know if it worked. Go back in time. Every unanticipated c