News conference on how his government is responding to the coronavirus outbreak. He was joined by the uks chief medical officer and chief scientist advisor. From london, this is a half an hour. [inaudible] i want to begin by thanking everybody, by thanking you. We are thanking everyone for their huge effort that the country is making to comply with the advice. We are asking such a huge amount. Students to put their education on hold. Already, we can see the impact this is happening having. Ts vital what we are asking everyone to do is crucial. Conscious as the days have gone by that people want to know how long we are expecting them to keep it up. The timescale of this campaign and where youre going and what we need to do. Within the the tide next 12 weeks. And i am absolutely confident that we can send coronavirus packing in this country. But only if we take the steps, we all take the steps that we have outlined. And that is vital. Because that is how we are going to reduce the peak. And once we achieve that, which if we do, then the scientific process will start to come into play. I want to discuss a little bit of that with you. Because we are rapidly doing so much better at understanding the genomics of this virus. A lot of that going on in this country. We may treat and cure it. Today, we booked a patient into a randomized trial for drugs that may treat the disease. Have started trials for the first vaccine and a month in a month. This virus is so difficult. The enemy is invisible. The answer is to remove uncertainty and identify the virus, to know which of us is carrying it or who has it. Idea of whatou an is coming down the track, we are in negotiations today to find an Antibody Test. As simple as a pregnancy test. To determine if you have the disease in 30 days. If it works as it is proposed, we will produce hundreds of thousands of these kits as soon as practicable. It has the potential to be a total game changer. Once you know that you have had this, youre likely to be less vulnerable, you are less likely to pass it on, and you can get back to work. We are rapidly increasing the testing to see whether you have it now. The testing to date is 10,000 to 25,000. That knowledge of where the virus is will make a huge difference to our management of ability to and the reduce disruption and economic difficulties. I wanted to set that out. Because it has rapidly been coming down the track. Its time to come through. And that is why, in the meantime, to get back to a theme im going to repeat, it is vital that we follow the advice that you have been hearing over the last few days. The announcements weve already made about staying at home, if you have a symptom, avoiding unnecessary contact, avoiding gathering places. Please follow all that advice scrupulously. Work from home if you possibly can. Wash your hands. Wash your hands. Ruthless, determined, collective action, and the scientific progress. We are already seeing that we will succeed. And i know how difficult it may be, or may seem, right now. But if we do this together, we will save lives today. Many, many thousands of lives. If everybody in the u. K. , everybody where he about their job, everybody who faces difficulties, i say to stand by your own bodies. Stand by your workers. Because we will stand by you. And you will hear more about that in the next day or so. How, with corrective action and the scientific progress, we will turn the tide of this disease and beat it together. I want to go straight to questions. [inaudible] p. M. Johnson lets go straight to questions. Thank you very much, prime minister. You told the country yesterday you wouldnt hesitate to take extreme measures. People wonder what that may mean. Can you tell people what maybe next . What might be next . Either shut pubs, cafes, clubs . A lot of people contacted us oury to say measures set simply not quick enough for them. We have had a lot of messages from people worried. Is it good enough . To just apply for a loan. When they have immediate decisions. P. M. Johnson first of all, about pubs and bars and someone, we are guided very much by the science and the advice we have given is working. As long as people are staying away from places where they may be transmittable or pick up disease, it is recommended. If we feel that is working, we just want to say thank you, everybody. It is extraordinary. Need to bring forward proper measures. And of course, nothing is ruled out. I know what is tough, i know its difficult. We just have to do it together. Please, please, please follow the advice. The second thing you mentioned, with businesses, i am all too aware of the difficulties they face. There will be more on this tomorrow from the chancellor. Is,my message to businesses stand by your employees. Because we will stand by you. And we will stand with the workers of this country. This one will be different. Happened in 2008. This time, we will make sure we look after the people who really suffer the economic consequences of what we are asking you to do. We will be directing the task force to them. Looking after the people first. Prime minister, just have a question. Half of the 29 deaths today are in london. Do you not think it is right to have a substantial lockdown of the capital . They have died in italy, and spain, you cant leave your house unless you are a worker or going to the shop for food or necessities. Are you not doing that yet because you dont know how to enforce it . Or is the time not quite right . Are you suggesting that if the public follows the rules, we can turn the tide on this disease . Are you telling people that by the summer, they might be able to go back to normal life in time for our holidays . Thank you. P. M. Johnson i want to stress this. We do want to see people follow the advice we have given in the capital. Which is obviously the place where the disease seems to be making the fastest progress there. It is heading the Retail Sector it is hitting the Retail Sector. Its vital that people follow that advice. Theres evidence that they are. Some evidence is that in some parts of the capital, it is very patchy. They are not following it quite the way that we need them to do. That is why i gave the answer i gave to laura. We may have to consider going for that. I want to stress this, there is no prospect of us stopping the buses, people need to go to work. Understand. Le with the media, there has been a bit of misunderstanding floating around about that. We are going to want people to avoid gathering where they contracted the disease. We are certain about that. If we dont want to ensure that, we certainly will do so. On the second question which was really about the timing, im very confident we will get the thing done. I am confident we will beat the coronavirus. I think we can turn the tide, but it depends on collective and resolute action. And the encouraging thing is, the more disciplined we are being in doing that, the greater the chances that the community that the Scientific Community will be able to get results on testing and medical treatments. If i could ask you a couple of questions. There is a lot of concern about shortages in hospitals. Secondly, there is a lot of concern among medical staff that they are not getting the protective equipment, which is not in the right places. How quickly would you be able to get it to the right places . You mentioned 250,000 tests. What do you mean by that . Are they on call, too . P. M. Johnson [indiscernible] testing is crucial to our success in defeating this virus. Progressade fantastic on testing. Mentioned the much faster and efficient tests to test for the disease, the potential for those. We are not there yet. We will get there very soon. , the proposal is to get much higher than 5000. And then the Antibody Test, if that turns out to be something that could really be applied, that would ramp up as well. We might get all sorts of numbers. You want to do the testing itself and you want to be able to do both of them. Testing the infection itself and testing the antibodies. [indiscernible] practically, that can be done. Testing the virus is a pretty standard technology. Its not a new technology. If the Antibody Test is reliable could berks, then that a relatively easy thing to scale up. At the moment, london, from the coronavirus, is under pressure indirectly. The first thing under the greatest pressure will be the intensive care assistance. That is the first point of real pressure. Even if everybody does all the things we hope, and we really ask that they do it, london numbers will continue to go up over the next two weeks. Because it continues, it takes a while for there to be a lag and things start to improve. At this stage, we need to do three things. The key thing that everybody can help with, in terms of social distancing. Let me be straightforward. If a high enough proportion of People Choose to and there is a huge number of people we dont know about you, its nuts. This is a national effort. The second thing we have to do, nhs will increase the number of beds per patient. Thats the big problem with this particular infection. So that is very important. The third thing we have to do is at the moment, all nhs staff who are getting symptoms compatible with this virus are self isolating and self isolating with her families if they have those. And that has taken people out of the system. The key thing we need to do is people testing out, test with symptoms with priority and test nhs workers quickly. We can test them quickly and if they can go tot, work and if they do not have a, they can go back to work. If somebody else in their family has symptoms, we can test them. There is a local and global view on it. I understand the point that my colleagues at the nhs are concerned about it. They write me regularly about it. It is a major strand of work. Obviously, in the short term, we the disease sure doctors go to the right places. In the longer term, it is about the global effort. Final thing when he to get right correctly, because if it is used incorrectly, you dont have any other options. It makes things worse. You have to get those three sorted out. On the Antibody Test that you mentioned, can you mention how that is going to be rolled out . How will people be selected . And secondly, there are some with online retailers increasing the prices of goods. Are you concerned about this profiteering going on in an International Crisis . He is going to talk about the test kit. Blood i think blood is required, blood rather than urine. That is the idea. Its like a pregnancy test. I really hope that retailers will continue to be reasonable. I certainly would not want to see profiteering at this time. We shouldnt have the shops empty. Stay home if we think we have symptoms or someone. But please be reasonable. Please be reasonable if you are shopping. The considerate and thoughtful of others. On the Antibody Test, although we are confident there we dontntibody tests, know if the ones currently in the market are the right ones. Priority of england. The key thing is Health Care Workers and other workers. [indiscernible] now we can be confident you can return to work. It will be a while before we record large enough numbers, and it is more useful for the wrong in the epidemic, but this will be something which helps us start to normalize. It will improve things in the long run. Thank you. New data from the centers for Disease Control and prevention so 47 patients who have been underalized in the u. S. 54 years old. The government is not doing enough to help struggling businesses retain work. You mentioned the chancellor is going to talk about this tomorrow. Do you expect the announcement of more measures . Definitely understand. We will stand by businesses who stand by their employees. There are fantastic companies that will bounce back. It is [inaudible] weve been talking to the trade union and others today. [inaudible] on the second question you asked, three things you will need to think about simultaneously. Firstly, [inaudible] children as a whole and had a milder disease. True that older people and vulnerable if you look in the data from china and data from italy this is the point that the u. S. Is making. Its not to say that there will not be severe cases among younger adults. Its important that people dont trivialize this. Disease isurden of the more vulnerable groups. [inaudible] there will be people who dont fall into those groups who will fall deathly ill. Some well. Will. Take this seriously yourself. Take pressure off of the nhs. That, pretty much. [inaudible] [inaudible] this is the first time youve said this. What would that look like . Will we be well over this . Will we have just hit the peak . What does it actually mean . What i want at the moment, the disease is proceeding in a way that does not seem yet to be responding to our intervention. Of theve a combination measures we are asking the public to take and testing progress will enable us to get on top of this within the next 12 weeks and turn the tide. I cannot stand here and tell you that we will, by the end of june, that will be on the downward slope. Its possible. We dont know that. We dont know how long this thing will go. That we will turn the tide. How quickly over the next 12 makes weeks. The measures in place should start having an impact on the growth of the epidemic. Those are significant measures, as we all know. Its about breaking the transmission chain. The epidemic will come down. The sooner we get that down, the more we can test and trace and make sure we keep on top of this. Theres the start of vaccine trials in midapril expected. [inaudible]s start to look at what we do in the long term and get into the right position. Thats where we need to get to on this timescale. [inaudible] i genuinely think with a combination of these two things, we will turn the tide. We will get through. We will alter the first of those things. A very energetic effort to follow medical advice. Differencee a huge if we all do it together. See in other countries, the curve is starting to come down. We will see the impacts of our testing programs. That is why my message to companies is, think carefully start before you start laying off your employees. Thatant to make sure we are going to stand by them. [inaudible] thank you all very much. You are all moving further and further away from each other. We will start doing this remotely. I hope you agree that however we do it, its important that we should continue to have these discussions every day. We are as candid as we possibly can be to get this done. Way ofhave to find some whereg this done in a way we are following the advice we are giving. You are far away from each other. Maybe we need to do even more. [inaudible] if we have to if we have to move to a more imote form of interrogation, will ensure we get our affairs in order that we do. Thank you all very much. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [c its easy to follow the federal response at cspan. Org coronavirus. Track the spread throughout the u. S. And the world with interactive maps and charts. Watch briefings and hearings with Public Health specialists anytime, unfiltered, at cspan. Org coronavirus. Journalns washington live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Deany morning, the vice for Public Health practice at john hopkins discusses the developments in the coronavirus development. And then a member of the city council, who tested positive, talked about his experience, and new york citys response to the operate. They sure to watch cspans washington journal live on 7 00 eastern on friday morning. Join the discussion. Television has changed since cspan began 41 years ago, but our mission big continues, to provide an unfiltered view of government. We brought you election coverage, impeachment process, and the federal response to the coronavirus progress. You can watch all the programs online, or listen on our free cspan radio app, or be a part of the conversation on the Washington Journal Program or through social media. Industry,eated by created by a Public Service and brought to you by your television provider. Holding National Guard a briefing on their role in response to the coronavirus outbreak. He outlined his resources and how members are responding in each state. This is 25 minutes. Gen. Lingle thank you, good morning, everybody. Im glad to be here today. Today, we face a national