An important symbolic role as the sovereign, right . In the uk, it is the monarch, the person in whose name the government is formed. So in great britain, head of governments Prime Minister. Head of state is the queen. And in great britain, Queen Elizabeth is often seen at ceremonial things, but she is rarely heard from directly. She gives a christmas address each year which is, you know, christmasy. But other than that, in her more than 50 years on the throne, Queen Elizabeth has only ever made an address to the british people on a small handful of occasions. Well, the coronavirus disaster, which is just ravaging the uk, is now the latest of those very rare occasions on which the queen chose to speak to the british people. Im speaking to you at what i know is an increasingly challenging time, a time of disruption in the life of our country. A disruption that has brought grief to some, Financial Difficulties to many, and enormous changes to the daily lives of us all. I want to thank everyone on the nhs front line as well as care workers and those carrying out essential roles who selflessly continue their daytoday duties outside the home in support of us all. I also want to thank those of you who are staying at home, thereby helping to protect the vulnerable and sparing many families the pain already felt by those who have lost loved ones. Together we are tackling this disease, and i want to reassure you that if we remain united and resolute, then we will overcome it. I hope in the years to come everyone will be able to take pride in how they responded to this challenge. And those who come after us will say the britons of this generation were as strong as any. That rare address from Queen Elizabeth was yesterday. Then today the british people learned that their Prime Minister has been moved into intensive care in a london hospital. Prime minister Boris Johnson has been ill with coronavirus for more than a week now. He was hospital sized last night at st. Thomas hospital in central london. The government said explicitly today that his move into intensive care was in part to facilitate his continued care in the event he needs to be put on a ventilator. Now, there is no vice Prime Minister in britain the way we have a Vice President who would take over if a president was temporarily unable to continue his duties because of illness. But in great britain, Prime MinisterBoris Johnson has reportedly asked the British Foreign minister, the equivalent of our secretary of state, to take over the Prime Ministerial duties at least in the short term while johnson continues to be hospitalized. The uk, as i mentioned, is having a very hard time with coronavirus. Theyve got more than 5,000 deaths. Theyve got more than 50,000 cases. They were among the slowest countries in europe to adeposop measures designed to slow the virus. Prime ministers government got sidetracked with some strange theories about maybe letting the virus sort of run rampant on purpose, and then maybe there would be immunity, and then maybe that would work to the they got sidetracked into that sort of nonscientific fantasy prospect in terms of how well they could do if they didnt address it policywise. They ended up starting their measures intended to slow the spread of the virus quite late. And now their epidemic is still just taking off as other European Countries are finally starting to bring theirs down to earth. In italy, france, germany, spain, the rate of new infections is slowing dramatically now. Going back to the beginning of this month, so just for the past six days or so, each of those four countries i just mentioned, theyve had a rate of increase in new cases that is below double digits. Italy has been below 5 growth in their case numbers since the start of the month. Spain, germany, france all now at growth rates of 5 or less. But the uk, which was so slow to get starts on its policies to keep people apart, the uk is still raging, and they have been between 10 and 20 growth in new cases every day since last week. And now, of course, prayers and well wishes worldwide for their Prime Minister, who is struggling. Here in the United States, we are with them in more ways than one. It is not just that they are our closest overseas ally. Our approach to the virus in many ways mirrors them in terms of being slow and even more patchwork than theirs. Were also paying the same kind of a price although ours is worse. Heres the Financial Times trajectories as of today. These are death tolls. You can see there some of the countries that are doing better. I mean you see there italy, right . Italy, overall a huge number of deaths over the course of their epidemic. More than 16,000 italian citizens killed already, but they are bringing that curve down now as is germany, which is the green line there well below italy, as is spain, which is starting to bring their curve down. France just starting to flatten out their curve. But as i mentioned, the uk is not making enough progress yet. Their curve still looks absolutely terrible, and the only one that looks any worse anywhere in the world is ours. Now, this data again, this is the Financial Times. They have they Data Visualization whiz kids that put this stuff together every day, and i think it is very helpful. Part of the reason its helpful and it tells a fairly clear story that doesnt need to be constantly revised or corrected is because they use a multiday rolling average. This, i believe, is a sevenday rolling average. Thats what the f. T. Has been posting and thats helpful because then you dont get distracted by individual one or twoday blips up or down. You instead see a more stable trendline. That said, if youre looking for hope and you are willing to get more microscopic about the data you are looking at, there is potentially a little reason to hope in the very latest numbers that we just got in tonight in new york city and in the United States. What the very, very latest numbers show that we just got in tonight is that the death rate, the number of people dying each day, appears at least to be dropping for the past couple of days in new york city. Now, again, thats just a couple of days, and we dont know if thats a blip, but that is down over the last couple of days. Now, that drop in new york city deaths appears to be driving a plateau in the death rate in the United States since the vast majority of deaths in the United States have been driven by the new york epidemic so far. So you see that plateauing there, right, in terms of u. S. New deaths. And that is good. Lets hope thats not a blip. Lets hope that is the start of some sustained good. Lets hope that holds because overall, the picture of the american epidemic remains almost unremittingly bleak. More than 10,000 americans have died now, including 1,200 in the last day alone although that number changes by the minute. That said, states that acted early to take mitigating measures to keep people at home, to prevent americans from spreading the virus among ourselves, those states are starting to reap rewards now just as the European Countries are that acted quickly as well. So as we start to see in europe italy and spain and france and germany bring their numbers down, we have at least an allegory for that in the United States. California and Washington State both announced that they would send hundreds of ventilators to the National Stockpile, so reversing the flow of ventilators back to the National Stockpile so those ventilators could be deployed in places that more urgently need them because the immediate demand in california and washington has waned. Oregon went ahead and sent 140 ventilators directly to new york after a direct request by new York Governor Andrew Cuomo for other states to please send supplies and things like ventilators to new york now in exchange for new york promising to send that equipment back along with other supplies and along with trained and experienced staff when those donor states now hit their peak in the future, or wherever the next peak arrives. In terms of where things are needed next in the United States, i think theres a few different horizons that we can watch as americans. They all give us a slightly different piece of information. But theyre all urgent, and theyre all interesting. In the immediate term, the shortest term, we of course are watching places like new york and new jersey, where they are overtopping the capacity of some of their hospitals right now. Were also watching the long term, where governors still even now in some states are refusing to take statewide action, which allows the unchecked growth of their states eventual case numbers, right . States that do not have stayathome orders, where people are not being broadly told to stay home and so people broadly arent, that is allowing the virus to spread unchecked in those states that will ultimately grow the number of people who have tested positive, the number of people who get sick, the number of people who need to get hospitalized, the number of people who need intensive care, the number of people who need ventilators and the number of people who will die. And those case numbers and all of the attendant consequences will go up the longer you have people going to work and having gatherings and doing their usual communal stuff day after day after day while this highly infectious virus circulates in every single state because weve got it in every single state. Nevertheless there are still governors that dont have stayathome orders and theyre defending their decision not to and are defying all advice, and theyre just letting their case numbers, what will eventually be their case numbers, balloon and balloon and balloon with each passing day. And so in the long term, we will reap the reward of that as well. But in between that immediate horizon and that longerterm horizon where we can see the way we are screwing up still badly as a country, there is this medium term where it is not as acute necessarily as what weve got in new york and new jersey right now with hospitals always overtopped. But we can start to see the epidemic showing its face in places all over the country. One of the places we have been watching, one of the sort of sources of data that weve been watching among my staff and on this show to try to get signs of that, to try to see where there might be brewing epidemics in individual American Cities and locations that we should keep an eye on in terms of where things are coming next, weve been looking at the data from the vam v. A. , Veterans Affairs medical facilities, which now daily report numbers of how many patients theyve got, how many people theyve got tested positive for coronavirus through those facilities. And the caution here is that v. A. Is not necessarily doing a great or very thorough job with testing. All signs indicate that they are not. But they are doing some testing, and importantly its an interesting nationwide repository of data because there really are v. A. Medical facilities all over this country in every place where any significant number of americans live. And so if you look through the window of these v. A. Statistics again, daily reports from the v. A. You can see it sort of gives you a lens into various American Communities and where there are upsurging numbers of coronavirus patients being cared for at least at the local v. A. Let me show you what i mean. Heres todays numbers from the v. A. Again, these come out every day. Just take a look on this long list about whos over two dozen cases already at their local v. A. Facility. Its ann arbor, michigan. Atlanta, georgia, boston, the bronx, brooklyn, chicagos west side. North chicago too. Cincinnati, cleveland, columbia, west haven, connecticut, denver, colorado, los angeles. The Hudson Valley in new york. Upstate new york, indianapolis, long beach, california. Miami, milwaukee, east orange, new jersey. New orleans, huge number in new orleans. Orlando, philly, san juan puerto rico. Nashville, kansas city, missouri. Washington, d. C. I mean today in all of those places, theres more than two dozen cases among veterans who are being served by their local v. A. Medical facility. So today you can see through those stats these are your veterans struggling. These are your veterans testing positive. But those federally collated statistics that come out every day also give you a window into what is happening in cities all over this country because these are communitybased facilities and their testing of their veteran patients is shining light on what is going on in those communities. And lo and behold, its not new york and new jersey that are the only places that have this to worry about, right . I mentioned columbia, South Carolina, there. Theres 44 cases reported as of today at their local v. A. Facility, which tells you something about columbia, South Carolina, and the type of epidemic they are dealing with there whether or not theyve got their arms around it yet. Well, today the governor of South Carolina, republican henry mcmaster, finally today put in place a stay at home for his state, but hes not calling it a stayathome order. Hes calling it a home or work order because hes not actually ordering people in South Carolina to stay at home. Hes ordering them to stay at home, quote, unless theyre working, theyre visiting family, or recreating outdoors. Those are the limits he said today. So you can stay inside. You should stay inside, stay at home. You should stay inside, stay at home unless you are visiting with your family, unless you are doing outdoor recreation, unless you are doing other things that the governor says probably wont spread this thing too much. But in case that sounds too onerous, dont worry. Even that doesnt go into effect until tomorrow night because why rush . South carolina has more than 2,000 known cases now. Theyve got more than 40 cases just at their v. A. Facility that isnt doing a ton of testing. But anybody in South Carolina right now who doesnt know theyve got it but they are spreading it asymptomatically, your governor, mr. Mcmaster, im sure really hopes you wont spread it unabated while you continue to visit family and work and, you know, do whatever you need to do within his work and home order. In georgia, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp this weekend overruled all the cities and towns in georgia that had decided locally to close their beaches to keep people from congregating at beaches and spreading the virus that way. He overruled those cities and towns and ordered georgia beaches back open because thats Georgia Governor Brian Kemps kind of approach to this. Georgia already has more than 7,000 confirmed cases and more than 220 deaths. Reopen the beaches. Tomorrow in wisconsin apparently were going to have an inperson election with polling places staffed by poll workers and people expected to turn up to vote. Republicans in the state legislature decided they want that election to go ahead anyway regardless of the health risk. They filed a lawsuit to stop the governors executive order. The conservative majority on the state Supreme Court sided with the Republican Legislature and blocked the governors executive order. Then the u. S. Supreme court blocked a lower courts effort to at least extend the deadline for people to submit mailin ballots. So they wont extend the deadline for people to submit mailin boughts eve mailin ballots even. This is a developing story, but Wisconsin Republicans and the president , when asked about this matter, have been pretty blunt about their belief that the lowest possible turnout they think benefits republican candidates. And theres a republican state Supreme Court candidate who they really want to reelect on this ballot. You know, if youre hoping for low turnout, boy howdy is it a pretty bulletproof way to ensure low turnout, to threaten the lives of people who turn out to vote, and to threaten the lives of poll workers who will have to turn out in order to facilitate that vote. Thats one way to get what you want. In new york, the Javits Center and the u. S. Naval hospital ship comfort will both be taking coronavirus patients after the federal government initially said those two facilities would only take noncoronavirus patients. Those changes have been made for both of those facilities now. The new york hospitalization burden continues to be fairly relentless. These are the Daily Hospitalization numbers that we have been tracking in the city. You see just over the last four days were up to 15,000 now in the city. In addition to the builtout facilities in new york that theyve already stood up in parks and stadiums and the Convention Center in manhattan, today the latest makeshift hospital to be announced in new york city is the nave of the cathedral of st. John the divine, which will now host 400 hospital beds as overflow for mt. Sinai hospital. Today doctors and nurses and other Health Workers at harlem hospital protested the fact that they really are having to work without the protective equipment they need to prevent themselves from becoming infected. You see their signs at t