Transcripts For CSPAN White House Coronavirus Task Force Briefing 20240713

Pres. Trump i would like to begin by announcing some important developments in our war against the chinese virus. We will be invoking the defense production act just in case we need it. I think you all know what it is. It can do a lot of good things if we need it. We will have it all completed. Signing it in just a little while right after i am finished with this conference. I will be signing it. It is prepared to go. So we will be invoking the defense production act. Last week, i signed an Emergency Declaration under the stafford act, which as you know, we invoked previously. And which activated femas National Response coordination center. Fema now is fully engaged at the highest levels. Today, fema is activated in every region. We are at level one, level one being the highest level, which we will work with. We have been working with fema. I have done a lot of work with fema. They are incredible. It has always been on hurricanes or tornadoes. They are right now in tennessee. A large group working in , have been incredible with this tragic event. Alabama last year. Also a tornado. Then obviously, the numerous hurricanes in different locations that were in some cases very devastating and in every case, fema came through. This is a very different kind of work for fema, but they will come through as they always do. We have tremendous people. Tremendous talent in fema. We are sending, upon request, the two hospital ships are being prepared right now. They are massive ships. They are the big white ships with the red cross on the sides. One is called the mercy. The other is called the comfort. They are in tip top shape. They soon will be. They are getting ready to come up to new york. I spoke with Governor Cuomo. He is excited about it. We have not made the final determinations as to where it is going to go on the west coast. The comfort is located in san diego. It will be picking the destination very shortly. Those two ships are being prepared to go. They can be launched over the next week or so depending on need. Earlier this week, the first clinical of the vaccine candidate for the virus began in washington state. The genetic sequence of the virus was First Published in january. But thanks to the Unprecedented Partnership between the fda, nih , and the private sector, have we have reached human trials for the vaccine just eight weeks later. That is a record by many months. It used to take years to do this. We did it in just a short while. That is the fastest development in history of what we are doing with regard to the vaccine. We are making very big progress. Today i can announce further expand testing capacity. We are working with groups to develop a selfswab test. The current process is not very nice to do. I can tell you because i did it. We have a current process that is a little bit difficult. If you have it done, the groups are working on determining if a selfswab test by an individual is as effective as the other. The other is very effective and accurate. We are going to see if we can do a selfswab test which would be a lot more popular. I can tell you that. That would be administered by a health official. It would be a lot easier to do. The fact is that the Health Professionals it would free up a lot is what it is. You do it yourself. The other has to be issued by a health professional. It is something that is quite difficult. We think it is working out for. If it would test positive, the people would go and it would do what it has to do. I have asked the fda to cut through the red tape and reduce regulatory barriers. We are looking at some exciting things. Im going to be holding a second News Conference either today we are going to talk about the fda. Some things are happening that are quite exciting. We are going to be doing that either later today or tomorrow , fairly early tomorrow. We will see what happens. , my instructions i have been working very hard on a number of developments. We will be discussing them with you later today or tomorrow. This afternoon, i will be meeting with nurses on the front lines of the battle against the virus. They are Truly American heroes. They are incredible people. We are going to be meeting with nurses. I actually look forward to that. They are very brave. They are taking a lot of risk. They have done an incredible job and they never complain. Today i am also announcing the department of housing and urban development is providing immediate relief to renters and homeowners by suspending all foreclosures and evictions until the end of april. So we are working closely with dr. Ben carson and everybody from hud. Every generation of americans has been called to make shared sacrifices for the good of the nation. In world war ii, young people in their teenage years volunteered to fight. They wanted to fight so badly because they love our country. Workers refused to go home and slept on factory floors to keep Assembly Lines running. The numbers of ships they built, in world war ii nothing like , that has ever been equaled. They were building ships on a daily basis. Nobody has ever seen anything like it. To this day, nobody has seen anything like what they were able to do during world war ii. Now is our time. We must sacrifice together. We will come through it together. It is the invisible enemy. That is always the toughest enemy. We are going to defeat the invisible enemy. I think we are going to do it even faster than we thought. It will be a complete victory. It will be a total victory. So we will have a second conference. Again, having to do with the fda. I think it is going to be a very exciting News Conference. We will do it as quickly as we can, whether it is today or tomorrow. I will ask mike pence to say a few words. Thank you very much. thank you, mr. President. The White House Coronavirus task force met this morning. Now that we have cases in all 50 states, we are continuing to move out on the president s call to bring the full resources of the federal government, the full partnership with every state and territory, the full power of the American Economy to support businesses. To us and every day, we will do whatever it takes. We are in this together. Yesterday, the president that with tourism executives and had an engaging discussion with all of the Top Companies in our industrial and medical supply chain. The president , as you all are aware, also announced by Mutual Consent of the northern border to canada will be closed to nonessential travel. This does not include essential travel or the transit of goods, but it was through mutual discussion that took place this morning between the president and Prime Minister trudeau and the department of homeland security, effectuating that decision. The president spoke with some of the top Business Leaders today to speak about the supply chain in the country. For our part, we are going to be conducting a Conference Call later today with state and local Health Officials to renew our ongoing commitment of cooperation and collaboration. As the president said last week in signing the stafford act, he stood up the National Response coordination center. Today at the president s direction, fema has gone to level 1. Supportission is to disasters that are locally executed, state managed and federally supported. Tomorrow, the president will be hosting all of the nations governors from a Video Conference at fema to ensure that they have a full connection to all of the activated regions for fema going forward. With regard to testing, i am pleased to report that we are increasing the number of tests being performed by the thousands every day thanks to the Publicprivate Partnership that President Trump forged with commercial laboratories around the country. Our Health Experts tell us to remind every american it is important to remember people without symptoms should not get tested. We want to make sure the supply of testing is there for those that need it most or are symptomatic or in the vulnerable population. Dr. Deborah burks will address the progress were making on testing. The infection rate, our recommendations to every american, as well as some important new findings about the impact on youth that we are gaining from data that is coming in from europe. That will be important to every american. On the subject of supplies, the president has our task force extremely focused. As the president mentioned, he is invoking the defense production act today. Secretary esper in a few moments will discuss the efforts the department of defense is taking. Secretary Robert Wilkie will announce decisions the v. A. Has made to expand capacity within within theircity system. With regard to medical personnel, hhs is issuing a regulation today that will allow all doctors and medical professionals to practice across state lines to meet the needs of hospitals that may arise in adjoining areas. In addition to that, we are again today asking every american and our medical Community Leaders and hospitals to partner with us in delaying elected procedures across the elective procedures across the country in our Health Care System to ensure medical supplies and medical capacity go to where they are needed most. Finally, i want to remind every american of the president s 15 day guidance to slow the spread. We are grateful for members of the media and the general public who are adhering to these, sharing them with neighbors and friends. All of our experts continue to believe that if every american do their part and put in practice these principles, we can significantly limit the reach of the coronavirus. Pres. Trump dr. Burks . Dr. Burks thank you, mr. President and mr. Vice president. We continue to look at data every single day. There are concerning reports coming out of france and italy about some young people getting seriously ill and very seriously ill in the icu. We think part of this may be that people heated the early heeded the early data coming out of china and coming out of south korea. That the elderly or those with preexisting medical conditions were at particular risk. It may have been that the millennial generation, our largest generation, our future generation that will carry us through for the next multiple decades there may be disproportional number of infections among that group. Even if it is a rare occurrence, it may be seen more frequently in that group. And be evident now. So we are looking at that information very carefully. We have not seen any significant mortality in the children. But we are concerned about the early reports coming out of italy and france. Im going to call on that generation that is part of that group that brought Us Innovation through their ability to look around corners and skip through games. I always went level by level. I did not realize you could go from level three to level seven. That is what they have taught us. They look for things we do not see. We need them to be healthy. On you to heedg what is in the guidance, but to ensure that each and everyone of you are protecting each other. We cannot have these large gatherings that continue to occur throughout the country for people who are off work to then be socializing in large groups and spreading the virus. You have the potential to spread it to someone does have a a condition none of us knew about and cause them to have a disastrous outcome. On the testing piece and what we are learning, i know you know last week, in bringing the private sector, one has been exciting to me is to see the administration harness the full capacity of the private sector. Spread out in a prioritized way because we asked them to prioritize the regions that were the most affected. Still may have difficulty getting tests in areas that do not have significant cases. We have had them prioritize the regions where they need diagnosis. Remember i told you that south korea was under 4 . So 96 of people were negative . The last report we have seen from the laboratories have a seven plus percent positivity rate. 93 plus percent or 92 are negative, i think that is encouraging to me personally that we are prioritizing appropriately to those areas that have the greatest need. Today and yesterday, Thermo Fisher pushed out most of their Laboratory Testing capacity. That will dramatically increase the platform and the ability to run additional tests in addition to roche. I appreciate everybodys attention to these numbers. I am excited to have prioritized where these numbers are greatest. Please follow the guidance. Please make sure in every report you are putting out that you are talking about the president ial guidance to actually stop the spread of this virus. Thank you. Pres. Trump thank you, deborah, very much. Good afternoon, everyone. I want to provide an update on dods efforts. As we continue to focus on our three priorities, that is protecting our families and personnel and supporting the administrations whole of government approach. I do want to assure the American People the United States military remains ready and capable of defending the country and our interests abroad. With that, the department is leaning forward in our response to covid19. We have issued international and Domestic Travel restrictions to all dod personnel and families. That should dramatically reduce potential exposure to the virus. Those have been in place for some time. As i announced yesterday, the department of defense will make available respirator masks and personal protective equipment. The first one Million Masks will be available immediately. We are also prepared to distribute to hhs up to 2000 operational deployable ventilators for use as needed. Yesterday, i was at fort dietrich, maryland, which is probably the militarys premier Research Institute were i got an update on the work people are doing to work on vaccines. They are making great progress. We also have announced that we have certified our 16th lab. Or we will soon certify our 16th lab to help with processing tests across the country. Additionally i have directed the , hospital ships mercy and comfort be prepared to the ploy deploy to increase the nations medical capacity. We have incremented a variety of field and expeditionary hospitals based on the direction of the commanderinchief. Our leadership from the army corps of engineers is in new york, meeting with Governor Cuomo and his team. I spoke with Governor Cuomo yesterday. More governorsth in the coming days to make sure they know what dod can provide to address their needs. In my conversations with governors and members of congress, i have made it clear continue to support the administrations comprehensive efforts while ensuring our Nation Security remains the top priority. I want to conclude by thanking all of our members and families who have been affected. We are continuing to support them throughout this. We are all in this together. Thank you very much. Thank you. Yesterday, the president made a very important announcement about telehealth. This is allowing seniors to get medical attention from their home. We are also making sure the Health Care System is prepared and those on the front lines have the support they need. The reality is the stakes are high and we need to preserve personal protective equipment for those on the front lines of the fight. We have put out guidelines over the last two weeks to expand the types of masks that can be used m routine care and saving the 95 to the most risky situations. Conserving personal protective equipment is essential to combat the virus. Today, cms will announce recommendations. Specifically by limiting nonessential elective and medical surgical procedures including dental procedures. We believe these recommendations will help surgeons, patients in , and hospitals prioritize what is essential while leaving the ultimate decision in the hand of state and local officials. We urge providers and clinicians and patients to seriously consider these recommendations. They will not only preserve equipment, but it also allows doctors and nurses to help those on the front lines. It will protect patients from unnecessary exposure to the virus. We fully appreciate this will have a major impact on the Health Care System. But the shared sacrifice is essential to help those on the front lines. I want to thank the medical society such as the American College of surgeons and the American Dental Association that took a proactive approach and already posted these recommendations. We have already talked to the american medical association. They have fully indicated their support. We now invite the entire Health Care Community to join us in this effort. Thank you. Pres. Trump thank you robert, please. Thank you, mr. President. My instructions from the president were very clear. I was to do everything imaginable and as aggressively as possible to protect the nine and a half million veterans were who were part of the department of veterans affairs. Last month, we established 19 Emergency Operations Centers Across the country. We began to limit the number of visitors who entered our facilities. We were the first system to begin triaging across the country in our 170 hospitals the entrance of anyone into our facility without being questioned or tested. We expanded those restrictions to those in our 135 Community Living centers, which have about 7800 veterans who are in acute conditions to make sure they were protected. We also took the next step and made sure we limited the dental surgeries we provided. We have cut back by one third the number of routine appointments we have had. We have canceled elective surgeries. These were all part of the president s directive to be as aggressive in a Public Health sense as we could be. I think we have set the pace for the entire country. I will say we have often said we work the most Noble Mission in the federal government. Our veterans have and in the in the toughest spot in the world. They have been put in conditions that are unimaginable to most americans. They have responded clearly. They have responded with passion. And also the 400,000 members of , our department who are out there on the front lines. The last thing i will say is you have heard a lot about the Fourth Mission the v. A. Has. Our First Three Missions are health care, benefits, and memorial affairs. Our Fourth Mission is to support the federal government in times of natural disasters and pandemics. We are the buttress force in case hhs calls on us to deploy medical professionals across the country to meet crises. We plan for that everyday. We stand ready when the president needs us to expand our mission. Thank you. Pres. Trump thank you very much, robert. Thank you. Thank you all. Thats very nice. Any questions . Two questions if i may. Your treasury secretary was on capitol hill talking about the potential of what could come. He said unemployment could skyrocket to 20 . That could rival the great depression. Are we looking at potentially pres. Trump no i do not agree , with that. That is an absolute total worstcase scenario. But no, we do not look at that. We are nowhere near it. Why do you keep calling this the chinese virus . There are reports of dozens of incidents of bias against chineseamericans. Your own aid says he does not use this term. Why do you keep using this yucca . Comes from it china. It is not racist at all. It comes from china. That is why. I want to be accurate. Are you concerned about chineseamericans . Pres. Trump i have great love for all of the people from our country. As you know, china tried to say at one point maybe they stopped now that it was caused by american soldiers. That cannot happen. It is not going to happen as long as i am president. It comes from china. John, please. Two questions if i could. Defense procurement act you are invoking the act today. Senator schumer said on the floor that it urgently needs to be put into action to produce medical supplies particularly , particularly ventilators. You have some targets you would like to see immediately . Pres. Trump we have tremendous numbers of ventilators. There has never been an instance like this no matter what you have, it is not enough. It is being signed. I am going to sign it in just a little while. If we need to use it, we will use it at full speed ahead. You said urgently it needs to be used. Pres. Trump we are going to know whether or not urgent. We have targets for certain pieces of equipment. We have targets for masks. The numbers of masks are incredible. We have ordered millions, but we need millions more. This kind of thing has never been requested. We never had to think in terms of these numbers. We need millions of masks, and all of that will be ordered. We need respirators. We need ventilators is a big thing because it is a complex piece of equipment. Have a lot of ventilators, but we are going to be ordering more. And second question, what size will the checks be that will be sent out . Pres. Trump to be determined. We are working with the senate right now, we are working with everybody on capitol hill. With some exceptions because it is always the way it is. They have been getting along very well, republicans and democrats. It is a nice thing, very bipartisan. Would you like to see more than 1000 . Pres. Trump i do not want to get into that right now. We are looking at different numbers. Were looking at timing that would be different. We are looking at a lot of different things. It has not been determined yet, it will shortly be determined. Everyone seems to want to go big. They want to get to the recovery. The big thing we can do is get rid of this horrible i call it the unseen enemy. There are 1000 different terms for it. It snuck up on us. It did 128 countries. Something like that, very close to that. It spreads violently. It is very contagious. A very contagious virus. Do you consider america to be on a wartime footing in terms of fighting this battle . Pres. Trump i do. I actually do. The big thing we did was a very early stoppage of people coming in that could be heavily infected. That was a good move. It was very early. When most people, including a lot of professionals, did not want us to do it. That saved a lot of lives. I view it as, in a sense, as a wartime president. That is what we are fighting. It is a very tough situation here. You have to do things, you have to close parts of an economy that six weeks ago where the best they had ever been. Haved the best economy we ever had, and one day you have to close it down in order to defeat this enemy. But we are doing it, and we are doing it well. The American People have been incredible for the most part. I will start with you. You said there are a tremendous number of ventilators that we have. But for weeks hospitals have been worried about a critical shortage that they say we are not prepared for. Why did it take so long to invoke , hospitals are supposed to have ventilators, too. Pres. Trump hospitals are supposed to have ventilators, too. Nobody ever saw numbers like this, even with regard to testing. Normally we would not be doing testing, but they decided to do it. We are getting highly sophisticated tests, and it is going well, but nobody has heard of testing of the kind of quantities we are talking about. But we needed more ventilators. Pres. Trump it depends on how it goes. Worstcase, absolutely. Best case, not at all. Ordering thousands and thousands of ventilators, and they are complex machines. Mic . Anybody have a maybe you do. How many do we have . Do you know the number . Ofwe have a specific number ventilators in stock, in excess of 10,000. The president , even this morning, yesterday afternoon, speaking with the Largest Companies in the supply chain of this country, we are hearing a tremendous spirit among Industry Leaders who are ready to step in and add to that volume. The stockpiles do not count all of the ventilators that exist today in the marketplace and Healthcare Facilities around the country, but the president has given us a directive to make sure our stockpile just as important, working with Industry Leaders that we are securing the increase in ventilators, the increase in masks, gloves, eye protective care that are all necessary to lean forward, and they are confident we will be able to accomplish that with the incredible cooperation of the supply chain that exists in america today. How many ventilators do we have . Pres. Trump we can give you that. Well ordering a lot more. In the back. One second. We will do it in a second. It is important. On the canadian border, what was the Tipping Point . Friday we talked about it and you said no. Pres. Trump no, i said not yet. I spoke with Prime Minister trudeau, a very Good Relationship obviously between us and our two countries, and no Tipping Point. It is just that we want to isolate from the standpoint we do not want people coming into contact because that is the way we are going to win this war. That is so important. It is not affecting trade. It is nonessential crossings. It will not affect trade at all. It was something we thought would be good for both countries. Second question, mr. President. Pres. Trump please. How can you be sure that trade and everything that is being shipped from one sector , they are doing it in a very careful man pres. Trump they are doing it in a very careful manner. Please. Thee are hearing that trillion dollar economic stimulus package could look Something Like 50 billion for the airlines, 150 billion in and a 250tees, billion payment directly to individuals, and three hundred billion dollars for Small Business loan guarantees. Is that in the general sense pres. Trump it could be. We are playing with a lot of very big numbers and very small numbers, frankly. We have to help everybody. It is nobodys fault. It happened, and some people could say it was somebodys fault, actually. But it was nobodys fault, and all of these companies that suddenly had no passengers on planes and cruise ships and all of the things that have happened but i will say that they cannot be blamed for this. We want to keep those companies vibrant because there is going to be a comeback very, very quickly, as soon this is solved. And it will be solved. We will win and there will be a comeback and it will take place very quickly. There is give or take 330 million americans were so. A family of four, that would be about 3000 on average, rough estimate. Pres. Trump i dont want to say that because it is a moving every number that you mentioned, we talked about those numbers. We are moving those numbers in both directions. It is moving along fast. Again, there is a great bipartisan effort going on that i have not really seen before to this extent. Has the fda approved pres. Mp ats. Trump we are looking at it down the line. You said you would give yourself a 10 in terms of handling the crisis. How do you assure americans at home who do not trust you to handle a crisis . Pres. Trump i think we are doing a good job. We started with a termination of the border, the people coming in from china when this all started. When i use the word calm, calm does not mean that i am not taking it seriously. We should be extremely calm, but 95 percent within the Republican Party and over 50 and we have very great approval numbers. People like the job we are doing. When you compare this to other epidemics or if you want to use a different term, you can, but within this country, you look at what has happened over the years, this is being handled very professionally. We have the greatest professionals in the world who are doing a good job. Nobody has ever been swamped like this. Nothing has been so contagious. Contagion has been incredible, actually. Peter, go ahead. You and your colleagues have said why is the federal government 59,000 tests have been processed to this point. We just heard from the atlanta Public Health director, saying they have fewer than 50 test kits for more than 900,000 citizens. Pres. Trump i will let mike answer that. Question. A critical the test kits that we put out the approval, the Rapid Movement of the meeting that President Trump called less than two weeks ago, has resolved in bringing the private sector to the table because the tests and the platform out there could and 12n between four test platforms per day. We have now moved into platforms that can run basically tens of thousands of tests per day. The reason i am grateful for your question, because it allows me to point out that of course there was backlog. There were individuals that had been tested, who had not had the specimen run because of the slow throughput. It is now at a highspeed platform. We will see the number of people diagnosed dramatically increase over the next four to five days. I know some of you will use that to raise an alarm that we are worse than italy because of our slope of our curve. To every american out there, it days worthe to six of tests being run in 24 to 48 hours. So our curve will not be stable until sometime next week. The reason i talked about Thermo Fisher yesterday is because there platform is in 2000 laboratories. They are the ones who are putting out the million tests this week that will solve the issue that atlanta and others have brought up. I wanted to be clear we prioritize the area, doing county by county analyses. Based on those analyses on what counties had more than 50 cases, we prioritized the test kits we put out, the 400,000. That is why we are seeing a 7 plus positivity rate. We will be able to expand that platform and reprioritize based on the effectiveness of the other kits. How are nonsystematic professional athletes getting tests while others are waiting in line . I would not say so, but perhaps that has been the story of life. It does happen on occasion, and i notice where some people have been tested very quickly. We inherited a excuse me. We inherited a very obsolete system. This was a system that was out of date, obsolete, or it was a system that was never meant to take care of the kind of quantity, the number of people that we are talking about, millions and millions of people. If you go back in years past, even recently with the flu, nobody had tests before. They did not test the entire nation to see whether or not they had the flu. They got the flu, they got better, hopefully they got better and that was it. Now they do this complex testing. Have broken it down, broken up the system, but it was obsolete and or it was a system that was not meant to handle behind of volume you are talking about. We have rebuilt it into a system that for the future will be a very good system if you want to go this route. But this was never done before. I would imagine it will be done in the future, but we have built it into a very good system by using private companies, great private companies. I have to say roche has been doing a good job, a lot of work, doing a very good job. This was not a system that was meant to do anything like this or anything near this. John . Isa major trade coalition calling on you to suspend tariffs with other countries as part of the response to the coronavirus. That trump who heads group . Those countries do. There are is saying billions and billions of dollars in tariffs, and there is no reason to do that. They have not even spoken to me about that. China has not asked me to do that. Millions of terrace from china, and i cannot imagine of tariffs from china, and i china has had their worst year in 76 years, as i understand it. On top of this, this happened with the virus. Billions ofg in dollars a year in tariffs, and this is caused by something other than tariffs. For people who cross the southern border illegally, are you planning to invoke a policy that would prohibit the entering of certain people . Pres. Trump the answer is yes. When would that happen . Pres. Trump very soon, probably today. Will we shut the mexican what about the u. S. Canadian border . Pres. Trump we have military working together, industry working together, and again, it is not affecting trade. Go to a restaurant to have dinner leisurely which they we have kind of thing ended on a temporary basis. Close it, going to but we are invoking a certain provision that will allow us great latitude as to what we do. Please. Go ahead. I am trying to clarify something because a week ago you are standing here and telling us that unless there was sustained contact with somebody who was covid19, ther president , the Vice President , said that if you shook hands with somebody, took a photograph, you did not need to worry. And yet a week later we are in a situation where there are key fuse and you cannot walk alone at night there are curfews and you cannot walk alone at night. Two things. We look at data all the time. I know you are looking at the china and south korea data. When you look at china and south korea and what they did, you can see that their curves are not blunted outside of china and south korea if you look at their curve today, they are already on the far end of their epidemic curve. None of those countries are fully back to work, and so that is what we worry about, too. Secondly, there was a series of scientific articles published about surface contamination. I think none of us really. Nderstood the level of surface so we are trying to work out how much of it is by human transition human transmission and how much of it is by surface. Do not expose yourself to surfaces outside the home. Those guidelines are, do not expose yourself to excess number of persons who could be a symptomatic and infected, and the persontoperson contact. And do not expose yourself to surfaces that could have had the virus on it, for which on hard surfaces i know we had the cardboard issue on shipping but hard surface transmission. These are the issues we have not had to deal with before with the level of respiratory infections, and that is why we have this concern. That is why the president put out the guidelines. It is to cover both of those pieces. That is all new science, new models. Many of you have the imperial study available and look at the impact of those. It is the first time those have been modeled as a comprehensive approach to mitigating an epidemic. What about money . The wall street journal is reporting the administration is looking at executive orders of expanding investigational drugs against the virus, that the fda scientists are pres. Trump i have not seen the article. We are making a lot of progress therapeutically, but i have not seen that article. Go ahead. Mr. President , we have shut down nonessential travel to canada. Are you considering shutting down all travel . Industries like the airlines who are taking relief what other industries, or how exactly is your administration going to determine which industries and businesses bes. Trump airlines would number one, if you look at what is going on. Having the best year they have had to having no passengers because of what we have had to do in order to win this war. It is a war, and so, you know, basically what many of the industries what we want to do is make sure they all Stay Together so that after the war is won, we can immediately go back up to where we are, and i think we will even go beyond where we were. A lot of people say we are poised to do that, but we have to win the war first. Following up on that, y has proposed money for the industry, but has not detailed how much. What about the current industry, the hotel . Pres. Trump we have not detailed it yet. We have detailed it to senators and members of the house. We have been talking about it and are coming up with numbers. We have not gotten there yet. Certainly the hotel industry, the cruise ship industry, the airlines, those are prime candidates. When you say temporary, which is what you said in your tweet, does that mean 30 days . Pres. Trump i would say 30 days, and hopefully at the end of 30 days we will be in great shape. Jeff, please. Birx saidhat dr. About millennials and them not taking the warnings as seriously as we would like some of them , your supporters, with what you said at the beginning of this, comparing it to the flu, what is your message to them . Are you concerned they are still listening to your earlier comments rather than your more recent ones . Pres. Trump i think my earlier comments were to be calm. I want people to be calm because we are going to win this, it is just a question of time. Based on the fact that i want it to go quickly, i hope they will listen to what we have been saying. I do not want them gathering, and i see that they are gathering at restaurants and beaches. Young people do not realize i dont know if you felt invincible when you were very young, but they were feeling totally invincible or are feeling that way, but they do not realize they can be carrying lots of bad things home to their grandmother or grandfather and even to their parents. I do believe it is getting through. I was going to say, what pres. Trump hed the advice heed the advice. Thank you. Talkingresident, and about china, you have been very clear about who you think is to blame or where the origin is to blame for this environment. Think, no, no,t i know where it came from. I dont know that china is to blame. It would have been helpful if we knew about it earlier, but it comes from china. It is not a question about that. Nobody is questioning that. That theye saying should be punished, and so money words, for inflicting this on the American People. I have a lot of respect for tom cotton and i know what he is saying. A lot of people have been saying that. Thank you. You have been waiting a long time. It is your turn. We have seen the chinese reporters kick out we have seen that from the Washington Post and the new york times. What do you think about that . Pres. Trump i am not happy to see it. I have disputes with all of those media groups, i think you know that very well. But i do not like seeing that at all. I am not happy about that at all. Isdo you believe that china inflicting this upon our country . Pres. Trump no, i do not believe they are inflicting, what i think they could have given us earlier notice, absolutely. President , your credibility ratings are very low. That npr a recent mbr poll pres. Trump who are you asking that question . We just had a poll that was done whereery reputable group i am beating Sleepy Joe Biden by a lot in the state of florida and other states. So i dont really know who you are talking about. Jennifer, go ahead, please. Your conversations with the Airline Executives did you ask plaintiff them what is coming . Pres. Trump i did and they explained to me where they are coming from. They went from full planes, packed, the best year they have ever had so far, to one day, wh of what we of have to do to win this war. They have been great but they went from it being extremely happy to people Running Companies that are going to need some help, and we will help them, jennifer. Loans, will you give us an update on how that is going . Some counties have been having difficulty getting pres. Trump there is a lot of influx to those loans. We are going to be increasing funding a lot. They are very well prepared to do what they have to do, and the sba is doing a fantastic job. She is doing a really good job, the administrator. A question for dr. Birx. Inchers have shortening the duration of the disease, is that something that i think we are exploring every one of those issues. The president asked for a critical briefing on that today. He opened with that. There are other drugs that individuals are looking at. Just to go back to what we talked about many times, there goodings that look really in cell culture against the virus that may look good in small animals and then do not have an impact in humans. Those are the pieces that we are looking at very carefully. Of course, there are also anecdotal reports and we are trying to figure out how many anecdotal reports equal real scientific breakthroughs. Second question. Are you confident of the seasonality of coronavirus . At thewe can do is look past to inform the future. We know and i just want to put this out i know you can get it online. Look at the curves in china and look at the curve in south korea. Those curves were accomplished in the winter season, so we are trying to understand what those relationships are. We are very interested in the curves in italy because they are because of their different approach. All we can do is look at prior coronavirus and prior respiratory infection rna viruses. These are rna viruses. When you look at flu in the northern hemisphere, when you coldat influenza and the viruses, and when you look at sars, that is the way the peak normally occurs. But that is november to april. We all started later, so you are asking me to predict based on a later start, and that is what we are trying to really look at china and south korea to inform that. Pres. Trump kate, go ahead. Those many veterans of that need to be tested have been tested . Those who need to be tested, we believe we have caught most of them. Right now we have 44 veterans have tested positive. Inly, one has passed portland. We are working with state labs and private companies to make sure that testing is available. Because the president had us out aggressively early, we have been in a better place than most elf care systems in the country. I cannot predict when the next surge will be, if it will be, but one of the things that we do at v. A. Is that we prepare for national emergencies, be they National Disasters or epidemics. We started preparing for this, we started stockpiling equipment. Our equipment is stable, and i think that is in large part because of the instructions the president gave. We tested several hundred. I cannot give you the we tested several hundred, yes. I dont know exactly. I do know that 44 veterans have the virus. Most of those are quarantined at home. I am trying to understand what we about the mortality rate. Yesterday we underlined the fact that we had reached 100 deaths to this morning we wake up and we are at 110. Byhin 12 hours, we climbed 10 . Is this something we have to expect from now on . Can we expect an increase every 12 hours . Very early on in these cases, if you look at these countries today, the mortality is higher at the beginning because you are diagnosing the sickest, the ones who came in quite ill. I want to remind the american public, still the majority, the risk for serious illness in the majority of americans are low. But that does not mean that you cannot transmit it to one of those higher risk groups, and that is why we are asking for all americans to take responsibility. You are seeing mortality or deaths today from infections that occurred two to three weeks ago in general. The other thing you are seeing is the dramatic and very difficult impact of this virus in nursing homes. That is why very early on the president and Vice President had us come out and cms put those very strict rules in place and everybody thought we were being too strict in keeping loved ones away from their families in nursing homes. If we are going to solve this with a lower death rate, we have to protect the elderly because there percent is much higher in mortality than any other age group. Pres. Trump go ahead, please. The federal government has a plan that the coronavirus outbreak might last as long as 18 months. Are you seeing those numbers . Pres. Trump we are not seeing that at all. There is one white house official who used the term kung flu. Is that acceptable . Is it wrong . Are you worried about talking about it as a chinese virus . Pres. Trump do you know who said that . I dont have the persons name. Term again. Say the a person at the white house used the term kung flu. Do you think using the term chinese virus could pres. Trump not at all. I think they probably would agree with it 100 . It comes from china. How about the last question. Please, go ahead. Switching gears to a larger question here. We have seen that before the pandemic there were a lot of americans that were already alienated. We saw a depth of despair increasing through suicide and other things. Now individuals in rural parts of the country are self isolating. What is your message and what do you hope individual communities and churches can do . Pres. Trump to those americans going through a lot, we love them, we are with them, and we will not let them down. Thank you all. [all shouting at once] dr. Burks, do you believe that this is a chinese virus . Do you believe that is ok to say . Announcer on todays washington journal, James Wallner talks about congressional operations during the coronavirus outbreak. Also, cq roll calls jennifer the coronavirus. Host President Trump signed the second of likely to be three coronavirus aid packages passed by congress, the third topping 1 trillion will get initial consideration in the u. S. Senate. Good morning and welcome to washington journal for this thursday. We continue our conversation hearing from you about the governments response to the. Oronavirus pandemic your lines are the same they have been the last couple days. Mountain and pacific, 2027488001