Easter. Even though, so far, the number of cases in the u. S. Shows no signs of slowing. Confirmed cases have now surged above 50,000. And they continue to double every few days. More than 600 have died, 130 so far today alone, which is already seven times more than at the same time a week ago. Case loads are growing across the country, but the situation is clearly most dire in the new york area. For some perspective, Vice President pence today said 4,000 ventilators are being sent to new york from the National Stockpile. Thats supposed to be good news, right . New york says it needs 30,000. So, thats a start, but a lot more. Today Governor Andrew Cuomo said they are still two to three weeks from the peak of the outbreak there, and he warned that other states may get hit just as hard. New york is the canary in the coal mine. New york is going first. We have the highest and the fastest rate of infection. What happens to new york is going to wind up happening to california and its just a matter of time. We are just the test case. We are just the test case. And thats how the nation should look at it. Look at us today. Where we are today, you will be in three weeks or four weeks or five weeks or six weeks. We are your future. In stark contrast to Governor Cuomos dire warnings today was president trumps optimism that this would basically be behind us in roughly two weeks. I would love to have it open by easter, okay . I would love to have it open by easter. I will tell you that right now, i would love to have that its such an important day for other reasons, but ill make it an important day for this, too. I would love to have the country opened up and just raring to go by easter. Thats 19 days from now. Okay. Is that true . Is that possible . I think its possible. Why isnt it . We have to get our country back to work. Our country wants to be back at work. This cure is worse than the problem. Again, people many people, in my opinion, more people are going to die if we allow this to continue. We have to go back to work. Our people want to go work. Its hard to make complete sense out of those remarks, not just because they seem to be a combination of hopefulness and recklessness, but that the white house sought to quickly amend what he said almost immediately. Another reminder that you cannot take the president s comments at face value. Thats been a norm for his entire presidency, but this is a huge problem. At a time like this. But if youre a local or state or federal official parsing the president s words, its probably a lesseffective use of your time. Trying to get more ventilators to the front lines in new york city. All of this president s happy talk gets in the way of the president himself. We do know that the next few weeks are going to be very difficult for this country. The World Health Organization today warned that the u. S. Has the potential to overtake italy by sadly becoming the global epicenter of this pandemic. Italy, meanwhile, has locked down the entire country for more than two weeks, with restrictions far greater than ours, and their death rate remains near record highs. As of midday, more than 700 people had died in the previous 24 hours alone. Around the world, 1. 3 billion people are now locked down, by the way, in the country of india. The uk just instituted extreme restrictions s and cases globa have now surpassed 400,000. It makes that easter projection really, really hard to fathom. Joining me now with the latest from the white house is my nbc news colleague, hans nichols. Also with us, dr. Tom inglesby, the director for Health Security at the John Hopkins School of Public Health, and dr. Megan ranny, an associate professor at brown university, also founder of the website getusppe. Org which is trying to get masks and other basic protective equipment to doctors and nurses on the front lines. Let me go to the white house first. Hans, anymore clarification from where easter came from . Is there any data that supports the easter idea of opening up the country or is this just a date on the calendar he picked . Maybe a little bit of both. And let me walk you through what we know, chuck. The data that theyre really focusing on is the number of counties that are affected. And theyre saying that 50 of the counties arent affected. Thats one basket of data that theyre looking at. The other basket theyre looking at is whats coming in not just in this country, but from Health Ministries all across europe. And that appears to be telling the white house, again, this is their take on it, that younger people, and theres a demographic component to this. When you compare those two and where the u. S. Thinks theyre on the curve right now, youre starting to hear this idea of when you open it up. Now, heres what we cant quite figure out. And that is, how much of this is aspirational and how much of this is actually operational and how much of it will be data dependent. When you talk to the president s officials, the president s advisers, they seem to suggest that this is still very much data dependent. And you have to follow the data. But when you listen to the president in the rose garden in the fox news town hall, and in the interview, its clear that he has a certain date in mind for symbolic reasons. Now, when you add it all up, and if you say the president is going to lift these stop the spread guidelines, basically, social distancing, ten people or less, that gets you to 26 days, if you back that out to easter. So well see if they do it slightly before that or if thats really the starting point. One line we just heard is, dont think of this as a green light red light or red light green light situation, think of this as more gradual and there being a transition involved, taking account for e demographics and geography. That sounds like a staffer trying to smooth out what the president said there, and i have an idea of which staffer is trying to put a little bit more a little more formality around something that is clearly informal. Ive got to ask you about something the president did today. He had a call with the president of south korea. And according to the South Koreans, the president made an ask for medical equipment and some other things and the south korean president said yes, were happy to, but the fda needs to change its guidelines. What equipment specifically did the white house ask the South Koreans for . And to me, its a bit of a tell, the president publicly saying were about to open up, privately asking other countries for help. And the white house version of the readout of that call didnt have anything about any sort of ask for medical equipment. According to South Koreans, its for ventilators. And maybe some other activities, as well, or other equipment, as well. You always get slightly different readouts when you have two leaders talk. Its dish mean, most of the time, and you know this from your time over here, readouts are usually terribly boring, right . Very rarely do you get someone to say. You almost have to parse it. Theres a frank and robust discussion of use, which almost means theyre yelling at each other. The South Koreans are clearly offering help. And well see whether or not the president , if he comes out and talks this is another question for him, what does he need internationally and how is he willing to change rules to accept it . And we shall see if we see him, hans. Let me let you get back into that room so you can get socially distanced positions for the right questions to ask. Thank you. Let me go to my doctors today. Dr. I thinnglesby, let me play another clip from the president about his goals of easter in turning the economy back on and get you to react to it. Heres what he said about an hour ago. Look, easter is very special day for me. And i see it sort of in that timeline that im thinking about. And i say, wouldnt it be great to have all of the churches full . So i think Easter Sunday and youll have packed churches all over our country. I think it would be a beautiful time. And its just about the timeline that i think is right the president says its the timeline he thinks is right. What does the science say, dr. Inglesby . I think the science says that we are still on the rise in this epidemic. The rapid rise of cases and deaths. We still dont really have a full understanding of where the disease is, because of limits and diagnostic testing. And we have shortages of mask, gowns, and gloves at hospitals around the country, so we are not at our best prepared to manage this rise thats coming. So, i think, picking a date at this point really is just too soon. We havent seen the full impact of social distancing measures yet. In other places in the world, its taken as long as three weeks to see social distancing turn things around. To begin to turn things around. What would be for example dr. Inglesby go ahead. What would be a good metric that youre looking for that would tell you, okay, now you can start thinking about opening up parts of the country . I think we need to get past our peak and to begin to drive numbers down substantially, before we can really responsibly think about letting up on social distancing. I think we should also have a much better prepared Health Care System before we think about it. We owe that to doctors and nurses who are, you know, scrambling to try and create their own masks because of shortages. We should have at least a sense of when more ventilators are coming. We should have better diagnostic Testing Available at sites, in hospitals, in clinics. We need a lot of things in place to be ready for the possibility of more cases. And were not there yet. Dr. Megan ranny, you were talking about like if the order is lifted too soon, then we are going to have this situation where hospitals cant deal with appendicit appendicitis. Cant deal with minor heart attacks. Cant deal with stents. Because all of a sudden, were you know, theyre overrun with coronavirus. And people are going to end up dying of other things. Yeah, figure it this way. Up until about four months ago, there is virtually no human being on the planet that had ever been exposed to this virus. Even now, the vast majority of us have never been exposed. So as opposed to the flu, where most of us have seen it before, we have almost no natural immunity, no builtup immunity to covid19. That means that every one of us when were exposed to the virus for the first time are at risk of getting sick. We have no vaccines, no proven treatments outside of standard clinical measures. And what were seeing in new york, even if we mobilized the entire National Stockpile of ventilators, gloves, gowns, and masks, we would pretty much deplete that in order to supply what new york is projecting it will need over the next few weeks. If this spreads across the country the way that were predicting it will, if we dont put these social distancing measures into effect and really follow them, then our Emergency Departments and hospitals across the country are going to be overwhelmed, medical professionals are going to be getting sick, because were not using proper protective equipment, and we are simply not going to have the folks there to take care of those everyday medical emergencies. On behalf of physicians and nurses and paramedics across the country, we are all determined to do our best for our communities, but its going to be really tough if we have the number of critically ill patients that new york has seen. Tell me what the status of ppe today, dr. Ranney when it comes to and i know we heard the Vice President say, theyre getting some ventilators. Ive heard the president talk about, i guess, 3m is coming online, a few other companies are coming online with personal protective equipment. Ford is talking about creating more face masks, which wouldnt normal be n95 related, but perhaps helpful. What have you what are you seeing out there today that tells you were going to be able to fill this gap or are we just not . So, based on experiences across the country, day by day, individual hospitals are running out of their stockpiles of these protective equipments. And theres a huge variety. Like you said, there are ventilators, this critical equipment, theres pharmaceuticals, gloves, gowns, masks of various types, hand sanitizer. Theres all of this stuff thats needed and we just dont have the stockpiles out there. Im so excited to hear that all of these companies are starting to manufacture, but were also in this situation right now where hospitals are basically bidding against each other to try to get supplies. We really need a National Coordination of that effort. Dr. Inglesby sorry. Go ahead, im sorry, dr. Ranney. Im sorry, chuck. I was going to say that thats really where were looking to try to help with getusppe. Org, which is not just me, it is a group of more than a dozen physicians, dozens of Software Developers are trying to create that matching, but we need a lot more than that to fill the need that physicians and nurses are facing. You know, another thing another headline that got lost today in the president s easter comments is the fema director, peter gainer said theyre using the defense production act right now when it comes to masks. Dr. Inglesby, i want to ask you about the northeast corridor. The numbers in new york, new jersey, i mean, in new jersey, im going to speak to some local officials in new jersey in a few minutes. I feel like its like totally gone under the radar that new jersey surpassed Washington State as number two for cases. It just shows you this outbreak in the northeast. Is there any do we rye to seal off the northeast . Are you surprised we havent shut down the airports, the three big ones there, at least . I dont think we can shut this off around the country. I think Governor Cuomos comments today were right. If we keep going on this trajectory, if we release social distancing measures that are now being put in place, i think we will begin to see whats happening in new york, new jersey, Washington State, california, happen around the country. This disease is not going to follow any state borders or county borders. The idea that well have counties that are free of disease or not free of disease, its too transmissible. And its transmissible in ways that they dont know theyre transmitting. Theres asymptomatic transmission going on. So we need i completely agree that we need a National Approach in that we should presume that there will be spread around the country and if youre lucky enough to not have had spread, that should give you more time to prepare your Health Care System, to put stronger social distancing measures in place, but i dont think we can cut this off from one part of the country or another. Dr. Inglesby, if you had your druthers, would you want to tighten things up even more . Heres the president talking about loosening things up. Ive heard other medical professionals saying, floridas not in a lockdown, other states are not in a lockdown. We need to do more, not less. I think the language that people use is different across the country. I think in our state, for example, were not in a quote, lockdown, but the governors directions are pretty specific and pretty aggressive. So partly, its language. But i dont think we should be trying we should not be so, so severe that we begin to shut down production lines, make it difficult to move goods around the country. That will compound our problems. But we should all in all parts of the country at this point, given the uncertainty, we should be schools should be out, gatherings should be canceled, people should be telecommuting. And people should stay at home unless they need to go out for things that they need for their families. Dr. Ranney, would you have opened up Liberty University today . Would you advise any university to open up and bring students back . No. Yeah, my own university, brown university, has been shut for little over a week. All of our students are home. We are actively canceling events across the spring. That close quarters of students, and as dr. Inglesby mentioned, the asymptomatic transmission, its just a little petri dish for transmission of the virus, and then people go and spread it to their parents and grandparents at home. My own governor, governor ra money d ramundo that anyone coming off a plane flight right now has to stay at home and basically quarantine themselves for 14 days. So, no, i wouldnt open up universities right now. All right. Dr. Inglesby and dr. Ranney on the front lines, thank you both for sharing your expertise today with our viewers. Much appreciated. We are awaiting that 5 30 briefing from the White House Coronavirus task force. Well bring that to you the second it begins. 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