There are a number of questions waiting for our guest. Guest, thepecial managing director of the International Monetary fund. She will join this briefing to talk about the pandemic and the response of the International Monetary fund. Questions,ist to ask please raise your hand. Tetra whoart with dr. Joined by others. Afternoon, andg, good evening. By theined today managing director of the National Monetary fund. Welcome. She will say more in 18 minutes ofut the economy making part this and what the imf is doing to support countries and the global economy. More than one million cases have includingeported, 50,000 deaths. But we know this is much more than a Health Crisis and we are all aware of the profound social and economic consequences of the pandemic. It is taking a heavy toll on the income of individuals and families and the economies of nations. In the shortterm countries, we can ease the burden on their populations to ensure people have food and other life essentials. For some countries, it is essential to enable them to take care of their people and avoid economy collapse. This is cooperation between who, the imf, and the world bank. The best way is to trace every contact. Restrictions too quickly, it could research and the Economic Impact could be more severe and prolonged. In saving lives but in the long term social and economic recovery. There are three main areas for countries to focus on. First, what we call on all countries to ensure Public Health measures are fully funded , contactng testing tracing, collecting data, and communication and information campaigns. Second, we also call on countries and partners to strengthen the foundations and that means Health Workers must be paid their salaries and Health Facilities need a reliable supply of funding for essential medical supplies. Third, call on all countries to. Emove financial barriers if people delay or forego care because they cant afford it, they not only harm themselves, they make the pandemic harder to. Ontrol and put society at risk several countries are suspending user fees and providing testing and care for covid19 regardless of a persons insurance or status. We encourage these measures. This is an unprecedented crisis which demands an unprecedented response. Bepending this should compensating providers for the loss of revenues. Governments should also consider using cash transfers to the most vulnerable households to overcome their ears to access. This may be particularly important for refugees and displaced persons, mike, and the homeless. The pandemic is also having an effect on the fight against other diseases like polio good as you know, in recent years we have driven polio to the brink of eradication. This has been a massive global effort started and supported by many others and lead by thousands of Health Workers, in someing children dangerous areas. Many of the workers are now supporting the covid19 response. They are tracing contacts and finding cases and providing information to communities. To reduce the risk of transmission, the Oversight Board has met and have a decision to suspend vaccination campaigns, knowing that this may lead to an increase in polio cases. There to protect the health of people up. The imf is there to protect the health of the world economy. Hey are both under siege only united we can do our duties. I want to stress the message that you and i have sent to the saving lives and protecting livelihoods ought to go hand in hand. We cannot do one without the other. , we at the imf are concentrating on making sure that there is a strong response to the Health Crisis as well as protecting the strength of the economy. My second point is about emerging markets and developing countries. And they havehit very often less resources to thisct themselves against health and economic crisis. Countriesat in Many Health Systems are weak, we know that that we know in flight to hasty, a lot of capital left the emerging economy is. Way more0 billion, than during the Global Financial crisis. Some countries are highly dependent on commodity exports with prices collapsing, they are hit yet again. For us to place these countries and especially the weakest among them in the center of our attention, the same way the virus hits Vulnerable People with medical , it hitsions vulnerable economies the hardest. That takes me to my third point. We at the imf are mobilizing together withking the banks and Financial Institutions and bringing the world together to provide protection against this crisis. Trillion and we are determined to use as much as necessary in protecting the economy from this crisis. Emergencyilizing assistance to countries. A have never seen such growing demand for emergency financing. Been90 countries have placing requests to the imf. The appealncy is and it isnd i are out for health expenditures, use money to pay doctors and nurses. Ine sure hospitals function makeshift clinics and protect your economy, the most honorable people so they can help the workers because the highest risk we see is a way of bankruptcies and layoffs that would make the recovery harder. Third, in this line of the 1als art, we had trillion we have the emergency financing and we are also taking strong action for the poorest of servembers by mobilizing their duties to the imf they dont have resources for that purpose. Together with the president of the world bank, we put out an appeal to bilateral credit to haveor economies spendingbligation also still, a moratorium on the service for either countries. Let me finish by saying that this is, in my lifetime, a bigtys darkest hour, threat to the whole world and it requires from us to stand tall, be united and protect the most vulnerable of our fellow citizens on this planet. Thank you. Thank you tedros for having me. Thank you very much for this very remarkable speech. Thank you dr. Tedros. We will now open the floor to questions. I would ask journalists to ask only one question and if its possible to specify to whom this question goes. So we will start first with cnbc and dawn from cnbc. Dawn, can you hear us . Reporter hi yes, can you hear me . Yes, please go ahead. Reporter okay. Thank you for taking my question. I am calling from quarantine in new york city. My question is that the fatality rates in italy and the United States, especially italy, are significantly higher than in asia and it appears that that may be the case in the next few weeks in the u. S. Ive seen Research Reports on ace inhibitors and ibuprofen affecting this disease. Is there anything in the diet, the lifestyle, the typical drug protocols that americans or european views that make this virus more severe . Dr. Michael j. Ryan i can begin and maria can follow up. Certainly the experience in italy and a large number of patients were questioned on their use, for example, of ace inhibitors and there was absolutely no association on the use of those ace inhibitors on having disease or not, or having severe disease more importantly. Obviously, we need to gather more evidence, but the evidence thus far would indicate that these antihypertensive drugs that are used and many people are on, do not appear to have any impact on the severity of disease. With regard to the reasons why we have different mortality in different countries. A lot of it is mediated by two factors. One, the age profile in those communities. Populations that have older populations or a higher percentage of people in the older population. It may not be that the overall case fatality is different, its just that case fatality is higher in that Older Age Group. Equally, the presence of underlying conditions in those individuals and the incidents of underlying conditions in those individuals, can also lead to worse outcomes. So you have a lot of issues that have to be factored in when you try to work out why one countrys mortality rate is higher or lower than others. Obviously as well, and this has to be taken into account, that systems that come under huge pressure, systems that are overloaded with the fatigued doctors and nurses with many, many sick patients at one time, clearly the outcomes for those patients can be worse. Thats what weve been saying and many countries are trying to do. We need to take the pressure off the Healthcare System. We need to reduce the tsunami of patients coming through the door to give doctors, nurses and other carers the opportunity to save more lives. We can only do that if we pressure the virus and put it under pressure, reduce the incidents and get back to a situation where we can deal with this virus within the Healthcare System in an effective way. Maria. Dr. Maria van kerkhove thanks, mike. The other reason why its challenging to compare mortality rates is because indeed it is a rate which you are calculating on any given day, which means you are looking at the numbers of people who have died divided by the number of people who have been reported in that country. And so there are significant differences in terms of the activities that areas are doing to identify cases based on the epidemiology, based on the transmission scenario that theyre in. And in many situations where systems are overwhelmed, theyre focusing on severe cases and those are the cases that are being detected and youre missing mild cases or unrecognized cases that may be in the community and so that could lead to a higher number of a mortality rate. At the same time, you have individuals who are still in hospitals that are developing. Either progressing to more severe disease and some people who are experiencing severe disease will have advanced treatments. They could be on ventilation, they could be on ecmo and it will take some time for them to either recover or to die. And so it is very difficult and misleading to be comparing mortality rates. What we really need to be focusing on right now are what is the age profile of people who are in icu. Weve talked about this before. Were seeing more and more individuals who are of the Younger Age Group in their thirties, in their forties, in their fifties who are in icu and who are dying. Overwhelmingly, we do see a trend across countries that people who are older, people who have underlying conditions will have more advanced disease. So if the population that is affected have those characteristics, then youll have a higher risk of death. But, we have some time to go before we can really understand what mortality looks like across different countries. So i would urge you to take those mortality rates with caution when comparing across countries. Thank you very much. We will now go to simon ateba from a today news africa. Simon, can you hear us . Reporter yes, i can hear you. Can you hear me . Yes, please. Please go ahead. Reporter thank you for taking my question. My name is simon ateba from today news africa in washington, d. C. And my question goes to the managing director of the imf, miss Kristalina Georgieva. From legos in nigeria to join johannesburg in south africa and even to kinshasa in the democratic republic of congo, africans who have been forced to stay home are complaining about hunger. Many of them said their hunger may first may kill them faster than even the coronavirus. The who director general recently said the imf and the world bank granted debt relief to developing countries including african countries to provide food to the citizens and curb the spread of the coronavirus. Can you guarantee here today that you will pay special attention to african nation who contain this pandemic by granting debt relief to african nation before its too late . Thank you. Kristalina georgieva well, i want to thank very much for this question. It is the continent, we at the imf worry a lot about. There has been a momentum built in africa. Africa has been growing and many countries have done really well in recent years and we are risking to lose this momentum and even worse to reverse it. And therefore it is hugely important to provide substantial Financial Support to africa and we do it in two ways. One, we are scaling up emergency financing and i can tell you that yesterday our board approved emergency financing for rwanda and today two more african countries are going to be in discussion for approval. Our objective is to double what normally is being provided as emergency financing and we do that in a very highly concessional terms with a big component of this financing being defacto grant component. We do so because we recognize that many governments are faced with this dilemma. Do they provide support to people to simply survive . Do they fight the virus and we want this to be a false dilemma. We want them to have for the next months, substantial Financial Resources so they can step up their support for people against the pandemic and their support for the economy. In many cases, informal economy that requires social safety net to be strengthened to help people. Two, we do see the issue of debt as one that has to be addressed urgently. For us at the imf, what it means is that for our poorest members, we are raising grant financing to cover their use to the imf. It is called catastrophic Containment Relief trust and we have been getting support from the u. K. , japan and others so we can do what youre saying, provide that relief visavis our own obligations. Beyond that, we are also calling on official creditors to countries, either countries, many of those are our countries in africa, to provide much needed space for countries to address their immediate priorities by a standstill on that service to official creditors for a period of one year. And i can tell you that i have been in touch with many of the leaders in africa. I know how important it is right now to stand up and support africa. Build a bridge over what is such a dramatic drop in their economic performance. Thank you very much ms. Georgieva. And thanks to simon for this question. We will go now to randy from al jazeera. Randy, can you hear us . Reporter yeah, i can hear you now. Thank you. Please go ahead. Reporter my question goes to ms. Kristalina georgieva of the imf. Id like to ask you something more specific on the Economic Impact in Southeast Asia, because im wondering, based on the imfs assessment, what has been the Economic Impact of the pandemic on indonesia, Southeast Asias largest economy in life economy is like and what does jakarta, the capital city need to do more in order to overcome the issue . Thank you. Kristalina georgieva well, thank you very much for this question. Indonesia, over the last years has done a lot to build very strong macroeconomic fundamentals, and buffers exactly in a case of a crisis. And what is happening today is indonesia is taking a set of measures that are significant, theyre large, and theyre well targeted to support the economy to go through this very difficult time. Like many other emerging market economies, indonesia is experiencing a significant outflow of capital, and that makes it so much more difficult for the country because there is a drop in production, and that is to say drop in revenues, and at the same time the needs of supporting the population in this crisis are growing. What we see indonesia doing very well is to have a coordinated response between the ministry of finance, and the central bank. So measures that are taken are impactful, theyre strong and impactful. We are also fully aware that a issue of dollar liquidity is one that many countries including indonesia needs to wrestle with. And this is where we are very strongly supporting Central Banks of advanced economies, and especially the Federal Reserve in the United States to do more of what they have started doing, and it is to offer swap lines to banks in emerging market economies. On our side at the imf, we have been very much encouraged by indonesia among many other countries to look into whether we can offer more, in terms of instruments that are fitting for emerging and market economies, and address the issue of liquidity and our board is going to review a proposal in the next days on creating a short term liquidity line that is exactly targeted to countries with strong fundamental, strong macroeconomic fundamentals that may be experiencing short term liquidity constraints. Thank you very much. Kristalina georgieva and i actually, if i may add, what is very impressive is to see how much attention indonesia is paying exactly on this issue of protecting firms, especially smes in this period that would allow then, when the recovery comes, for the country to step up. Its a very well thought through targeted fiscal measure. Thank you very much, ms. Georgieva. Now we will go to italy to a journalist who tried, on a couple of occasions to ask a question. So, we will try this time please. Reporter yes. Can you hear me . Yes, go ahead. Reporter okay, so can i ask you, what is the who stance on antibodies testing . W. H. O. s stance on antibodies testing . Have you already approved some of them, and is that a Good Practice that we widely use tests for antibodies before the lockdown is actually over . And of course the immunity passport also. Is that a good idea . That comes from germany i think . Is that feasible for countries such as italy . Thank you. Dr. Maria van kerkhove so, thank you for the testing. Question. Theres a very large number of molecular tests, and serologic tests that are now available for use, some of which have gone through approvals in their countrys regulatory approvals. We are working with a number of countries right now that are looking at the use of serologic assays in the form of research, where they are looking to estimate the seroprevalence, or the antibody levels in populations in their countries. Theres a number of countries across europe, and across asia that are currently doing this, and theyre looking at different types of tests. Theyre looking at screening assays, which are elisas, but theyre also looking at micro neutralization assays which are more confirmatory testing. There is a large amount of work right now, and were working with find, and were working with other groups that are trying to evaluate these against a wellcharacterized panel of sera from infected individuals and noninfected individuals or controls, and that work is still underway. What we would like to be able to do in the form of research is to be able to compare some of those serologic assays with individuals who are known to have been infected, so identified through molecular testing, and all of this work is underway, but there are a number of tests that are available, and this is very positive, in terms of being early four months into a pandemic where they were rapidly developed because full genome sequences were shared very quickly by china. Dr. Michael j. Ryan just to add, the tests that are currently being used are pcr type tests that the tests detect the virus, and usually in the nasal cavities of individuals. So, if someone is symptomatic and they get tested, you test for the virus. The serologic tests dont test for the virus. They test for the immune response to the virus, and they say youve had a recent infection, or maybe not so recent infection. And there are different parts of that test for igm, which tells you if youve had a very recent infection or some infectious, and igg, which says youve had an infection at some time in the past. So, we have to be careful in using these tests that they may diagnose you as having had the infection, but theyre not necessarily used in the act of diagnosis of an active case. You can be sick, and infected with the virus and you may not have yet developed a serologic response to the virus. So how these tests are used has to be very carefully calibrated. We welcome all the innovation, and we need a comprehensive set of testing tools, but they need to be rolled out with the careful objectives of what theyre actually supposed to achieve, but we do welcome the innovation. We welcome the private sector innovation, and we welcome governments introducing these testing into their National Policies in the appropriate way. Thank you very much. We will go now to anyiss our colleague based here in geneva from afp, anyiss can you hear us . Reporter yes, hello, tarek, i can hear you. I wanted to had a question to something that Maria Kerkhove said before. She said if i understood well that more, and more it appears that more, and more young adults are in the intensive care. If she can give us some figures about that, and if she has any explanation. Thank you. Dr. Maria van kerkhove so, thank you for that question. Yes, indeed. We are seeing more, and more younger individuals who are experiencing severe disease. I should say overall, most of the people who are experiencing severe disease, and ending up in icu, and needing advanced care are people of older age, and are people who have underlying conditions. But what we are seeing in some countries is that there are individuals who are in their thirties who are in their forties who are in their fifties who are in icu, and who have died. Weve seen some data from italy, weve seen some data from china, weve seen some data from a number of countries across europe where people of younger age have died. Some of those individuals have had underlying conditions, but some have not. And so what we need to better understand is why there are young people who are dying from this infection. There are still many unknowns, at the present time, so i cant give you a complete answer on that. But what is important is that people who are infected with this, even if they have a mild disease, what is classified as a mild disease, or a moderate disease, moderate disease still includes pneumonia. And if you hear anyone who has been infected who explains the kind of disease that theyve had, its still pretty significant even if you dont require hospitalization. But what we need to better understand, and these will come through these Natural History studies which are being conducted of why are some people progressing from moderate disease to severe disease to critical disease . Why are some people progressing backwards from very severe disease to more moderate disease, and recover. So these are really fundamental questions that we need to better understand so that we can improve our standard of care for anyone who is infected with this. Theres also a large number of Clinical Trials that are underway that youre aware of that are looking specifically at therapeutics for covid 19, and those are currently being conducted and were hoping for results of those in the coming months. So, again, we can have more specific options for people for treatment for covid 19. Reporter but sorry if i understood well, you were saying that, at the beginning of the epidemic there was more older people, and that now there are more young people infected, and in intensive care is it a change . Dr. Maria van kerkhove so, its not a change, but with more countries affected, and more virus circulating, were going to see maybe some slight differences in epidemiology in different countries. Its too early to conclude one way, or another if this will be the same in all countries. As we mentioned before, it depends on the populations that are affected, that are infected. But what is important is that Everyone Needs to do what they can to prevent themselves from getting infected, and by preventing themselves from getting infected, and taking those measures will prevent the onward transmission to someone else who could perhaps be more vulnerable. Mike . Dr. Michael j. Ryan and if i may add, there was a tendency at the beginning, in the last number of months for almost a dismissive attitude to say, well, this disease is severe in older people, and its fine in younger people, and maybe that was a way of people assuring themselves that younger people were not going to be so badly affected. But weve been saying again and again in this forum and with our data. In korea, even in korea, who have managed to control the disease, one in six deaths have been in people under 60. In italy over the last five, six weeks at least 10 15 of people in intensive care have been under 50. Its not that anything has changed. Its that we collectively have been living in a world where weve tried to convince ourselves that this disease is mild, and the young people, and its more severe in older people, and thats where the problem is. And i think the evidence has been there all along that there is a spectrum of severity, and it is definitely more severe in Older Age Groups, but there is a spectrum of severity in younger people as well, and sometimes in younger people with underlying conditions, and sometimes not. So i dont think theres been a significant change. As the numbers grow, as the clinical datas collected, we begin to see that this disease has an impact on the young as well as the old. But again, younger people tend to have a milder course of disease, but that is also younger people. And that is not to scare younger people to say, oh, you need to be careful because you may become very sick, in the main, younger people still have a milder course of disease. What weve also been saying is milder people who get sick can transmit the disease to people who are even more vulnerable. So, there are two reasons here for younger people to avoid infection. One, it is not always a mild disease in your age group. And two, if you get sick and you start to transmit that virus, you may infect someone whos in an Older Age Group who is vulnerable and therefore you need to try and do whatever you can to protect yourself, and protect others. Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus thank you. Maybe i would like to add, in order to remind young people i said several weeks ago that to young people in my message, in one of our pressers, that you are not invincible. And because we had cases actually how the virus was affecting young people too. Still, older people are more vulnerable and people with underlying conditions are more vulnerable, but we have even now more evidence that it affects younger people too, and thats what were saying today, but if you compare that to still the Senior Citizens are the most affected, but we have now more, and more cases also from the younger population. Thank you very much, and we will go now to latin finance network and jo. Jo, can you hear one second, we connect. Yes, please. Go ahead. Reporter yes. Oh, thank you. This question is for world bank. So for the imf, im sorry. So, the question is, im sorry. In this situation, theres probably been a lot of work on trying to do institutional innovation, and the role of the imf has been very active in raising funds to help the poor economy. But theres also been talk about expanded quantitative easing from Central Banks in europe at the global level. And i was wondering if the imf is considering a role, a new kind of role there in sort of a serving as a guarantor, or intermediary in a global level of quantitative reasoning for easing for Central Banks in by bondsd the u. S. From [indiscernible] Kristalina Georgieva yep. But thank you. This is a very interesting question. Let me first say that we have seen unprecedented stepping up of action of Central Banks and also of ministries of finance in advanced economies that has been done in a very short period of time with a tremendous significance, because we have seen as a result of this determined action, some stabilization in markets, and most importantly finance in going to protect people, protect firms, protect jobs that could have not been done by Central Banks alone, on their own only, it does require the monetary side, and the fiscal side to come together. So, i just want to recognize that what has been done is unprecedented. The problem we face is gigantic, but also the actions that are taken are very significant, very big. When it comes down to the role of the imf, our main preoccupation in this crisis is one, to very rapidly step up financing for countries, especially emerging markets, developing countries that are faced with very significant, and growing needs, and two, to think of what may be needed, but is not there in the Defense System of the world. And in that context what we have done is on one side to encourage Central Banks in advanced economies to do more for liquidity in the emerging markets. Actually, i must say i think that they have recognized that need on their own, and we have seen both stepping up of swap operations with emerging markets by the fed. Well have seen rapid operations that are directed towards this stabilization of emerging markets, and then two, we looked at our own instruments, and what we have identified is that we are short of one particular instrument, and it is to provide short term liquidity to countries that are basically strong but may find themselves in a tight place. We have not been pursuing anything beyond the mandate of the fund that traditionally we have been exercising. We have been asked by some of our members on something that the fact to go seem to, if you wish, quantitative easing for the world, and it is, whether or not what was done in 2009, by the allocation of additional sdrs. This is to boost liquidity. Mostly useful for emerging markets in developing countries. The special drawing rights, this is what the fund offered that as an addition during that crisis, many of our members are saying, we should look into this again. At this point, however, our membership, our shareholders are saying, use everything you can use right now, fast. And that is the focus of our attention to step up double emergency financing from 50 to a hundred billion, that order of magnitude, and then make sure that we are ready to deploy the 1 trillion we have as lending capacity as this crisis continues to evolve. But as you said, we do need to think beyond what we have, and in that context, the questions around what more we can do are always very welcome. So, i really appreciate you bringing up that question. Thank you very much ms. Georgieva. We will go to bloomberg now to naomi. Naomi, can you hear us . Reporter hi. Yes, i can. Thanks for taking my question. I actually have one for each organization. First of w. H. O. , we saw some countries in asia tightening restrictions on public life today after virus infections popped up again. And i just wonder if you can help us understand how this sort of raising and lowering of restrictions might work throughout the world. And if this would be the new normal for the next year, and maybe the next 18 months, what should we anticipate . And second, an imf question. Do we have any assurances that china supports a postponement on official bilateral Debt Repayment . Dr. Michael j. Ryan on the issue of measures, i think many countries around the world have been claiming a very tragic, and dangerous mountain of disease. And we need to be also extremely careful on the descent. We need to be watchful, be aware, we want this disease to go away. We want the numbers to drop. But as they drop and as we try to come up with transition strategies to allow economies, and social life to reemerge and nobody wants that more than us here at w. H. O. , and all our medical nursing colleagues around the world, our healthcare professionals. But what we need to absolutely ensure that as we, if we want to transition back to a steady state with a virus, if we want to reach a point of disease control, we need to put in place the Public Health architecture. We need a massive investment in our capacity to do surveillance, contact tracing, isolation and quarantine. We need very good information systems. We need a highly educated, engaged communities around the world. We need the world who understand what to do if theyre sick, where to go. Have access to a doctor, to a nurse to testing, to isolation to quarantine. And all the while developing new therapies and vaccines to solve this problem once and for all. If we want to reach that this situation where we can live with this virus and have our economies back on track, we must make those other investments. As we do that there will always be the chance as we lift and as governments lift shutdowns, lockdowns, as people go back to school, we have to have in place to protect almost a safety net. The other things in the system that can trigger and maybe and may happen, we may have to modulate that. We may have to decide which are the measures we can put back in place if necessary to create more physical distance. And we dont want to end up in a cycle of a lockdown, followed by release, followed by another lockdown, followed by release. Thats not the way forward. And the way to avoid that is we need a transition strategy that gets us back into more control of the virus. We need to get ahead of the virus. And then if we are in control, we can protect our economies. But if we lurch from lockdown to poor control and back to lockdown and back to poor control, that is not what anybody needs right now. So the investment we need to make, the lockdowns have given some time. Theyve taken the pressure out of the epidemic. You see that. This is precious time not only to strengthen the Healthcare System as the dgs said, but precious time to put in place the Public Health architecture, the testing, the Community Education and build this response from the community. Thats the challenge. And if we do that, we have a chance of transitioning back into a life, an economic and social life, that may in some senses not be the same again. Maybe a more caring, engaged society with a better Healthcare System. With better universal access to healthcare. With more social justice and more care for each other. And that wont be a bad society to go back to. So from my perspective, we need to work hard now to put in place the comprehensive architecture of Public Health and health care, if were going to unlock safely from the economic measures, from the societal measures and population measures that are affecting and impacting peoples social and economic future. Thank you very much. Would you, ms. Georgieva, would like to answer the question please . Kristalina georgieva yep. Yes, thank you. Thank you for your question. China is constructively engaged on this issue of that standstill for poor countries so they can weather the tremendous difficulties theyre faced with during this crisis. We had a g20 ministers of finance call earlier this week. This topic of potentially having a debt relief for either countries, for poor countries was on the agenda and china addressed that issue by framing a set of principles they would be interested to see being in integrated in that process. And it is also important to point out to chinas decision to contribute to the catastrophic Containment Relief trust that the imf has been mobilizing to make sure that poor countries do not have to serve their debt obligations to the imf, that this would be taken over by grant provision. And china is one of the countries that are making commitments to that fund, to that trust, the catastrophic Containment Relief trust. We will be obviously working with everybody in the next days, the g20 the paris club, imf, world bank. By the time of our spring meetings, we look forward to advancing this discussion. Thank you very much. We will go now to bangladesh. Us . You hear yes. Thank you very much. I would like to address the director general. But i want to ask do you have in bangladesh testing policy or testing system on covid19. Wrong ng is that. An take question. Ou for your our regional director for Southeast Asia actually spoke with the minister of health and bangladesh yesterday in bangladesh yesterday. We spoke about Laboratory Testing and beefing up that testing and bangladesh. What is interesting is that bangladesh has already implemented a wide network of testing. There is a real opportunity for us to use an existing platform that has been invested in as part of Health Systems development and to leverage that in order to scale up the testing and bangladesh. We see that as a way forward. I think bangladesh is taking the issue of testing very seriously and the minister was extremely keen to broaden the testing availability in the country to improve and drive surveillance using polio surveillance and other avenues. I think there is a strong focus on good surveillance in bangladesh. Thank you. We will go now to south China Morning post. To we can connect stuart. Stuart from south China Morning post. About wequestion have seen a lot of media reports that say the who is considering revision on the advice on the use of masks. May i check with you guys on whether there is any plan undergoing about potential changes to encourage the public or at least not dissuading the public from wearing surgical masks . From au seen the reports team of hong kong scientists on about the potential effectiveness in using masks and preventing in preventing coronavirus . I will start. On the issue of masks, there is an important and healthy debate looking at how masks are used. First and foremost, surgical and n95cal masks and masks like are for the medical system and we must prioritize their use to protect our workers on the front line. That is what we are working on with our partners around the world, governments, colleagues , toin the u. N. , governments make sure we get the best possible protective gear to our Health Workers. Mind, who already advises the use of medical masks for people who are ill or people who are caring for people who are sick. The deep the debate regarding basedmasks in public is not on protecting yourself. The evidence is clear that wearing a mask in public does not necessarily protect you. But if a sick person wears a mask, than it is less likely they may infect others and then it is likely they may infect others. Arehe moment, people who sick with covid19 should be in isolation. We need to make sure they are. But there are circumstances and we need to be open on this. This is a new epidemic. It is challenging everything we know, so there are particular contexts where it might not be possible to do physical distancing, and which people may not have access to all Services Available in other countries. And there may be situations where Wearing Masks may reduce the rate at which infected individuals may infect others. It is not the ideal solution, but it is but it should be considered in the context of the comprehensive strategy to control the disease. It should be considered in terms of the types of transmission happening, how intense transmission is at a Community Level, and what the resources are to deal with that. Medical,reserve surgical, and respirator masks for our frontline workers, but respiratoryusing coverings or mouth coverings to prevent coughing and sneezing, projecting disease into the environment, towards others, that is a mechanical process, and that is not a bad idea. That does not negate the need for handwashing, physical distancing, the need for people to stay at home if there is a stayathome order in place. It does not negate the need for everyone to protect themselves and to try to protect others. We can see circumstances in both the use of masks, homemade or cloth masks, at a Community Level may help overall as a comprehensive response as part of a conference of response. As part of a comprehensive response. Ensureve all, we must that our Frontline Health ourers are the ones frontline have dish frontline Health Workers are the ones that are most exposed. There are many articles coming out about types of transmission and presymptomatic transmission. I have seen one recently from i think singapore, where there is an estimation that about 6 of presymptomatic people may have been caused by people who were presymptomatic. Im not here to question that. Corollary oft the that is that 94 of infections are caused by people who are not symptomatic by people who are symptomatically. There is always the possibility nonsymptomatically transmission, but we have to look at what is the main driver of this pandemic. In this case, we still believe the main driver is symptomatic sneezing,s coughing, or containment inc. Surfaces or contaminating other individuals contaminating services or contaminating other individuals surfaces or other individuals. That, we arell of having a very open, healthy debate. A had a meeting today with strategic and Technical Advisory Group on infectious hazards from all over the world. Our expert group on infection present in Infection Prevention and control has been talking about this very, very intensely. We will look at all that evidence. We will read every paper. We will engage with every single researcher. We what see what can be found in the intervention to this response. Thank you. We will have to conclude. First, if you would like to have a closing. Thank you for joining us. Much foryou very inviting me. Bringingeve that together epidemiology and economics is crucial. Message is that we will get through this, but how effectively would depend a lot on the actions we ine and on making sure that, these actions, we bring the world together. The commitment of my institution, the imf, is to play our part. Thank you again very much for all you do. Thank you, my sister. It is because we have agreed in both lives and livelihoods matter. That is why we joined forces forcesit thank you today and thank you for this important cooperation. We now have our plan together that we need to implement and we agree on how to handle this pandemic and it, not only that, we also agree that, together, we can defeat this virus. This is a new virus, new firstvirus, and the coronavirus ever to cause a pandemic. There are many unknowns and we and,d learn every day while learning, the united force is key. As you said it, i fully agree. We will overcome this. Thank you for joining. I look forward to working with you closely. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Well have an audio file sent very soon. That will be posted tomorrow. We will also send you some of the news from our regional and country offices. We wish you a very nice weekend. Today, trump and members of the White House Coronavirus task force hold a briefing on the federal governments response to the pandemic. Well have a live coverage of the briefing. Cspan has roundtheclock coverage of the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic and it is all available on demand at cspan. Org coronavirus. Watch white house briefings, updates from governors and state officials, track the spread throughout the u. S. And the world with interactive maps, watch ondemand, anytime, unfiltered on cspan. Org coronavirus. Happy saturday. And asrselves friends out of quarantine. Quarantine. Lets go through some numbers. The increase continues. 23,000 people were tested, the