Transcripts For CSPAN White House Coronavirus Task Force Briefing 20240713

And appreciate the great assistance from the governors and the people within the states. The relationships have been really good. I spoke with Governor Cuomo and were are working very hard to get additional things to new york as quickly as possible. As you know, we took care of the hospital including personnel. 2500 beds that we built just recently at javits including personnel and we opened it up to covid and it is something that we also did in louisiana and we are doing it in dallas. We have a lot of not only hospitals being built but now we are manning the hospitals because states in many cases are unable to get additional people to work. It is just an incredible situation. There has never been anything like this. One of the most important issues that linked this pandemic is coordinating the delivery of crucial supplies throughout the nation based on the most Accurate Information available. We have the best health care and disaster experts anywhere in the world. And everyone will tell you that. We are dealing with big part to we are dealing with big parts of the world on helping them also with this horrible situation. We are at 151 nations going through this. We are working to ensure that the supplies are delivered where and when they are needed. Sometimes, we have to tell governors that we cant go there, they are needed elsewhere and so far we have been pretty right about that and we will continue to do that. This will probably be the toughest week between this week and next week and there will be a lot of death unfortunately but a lot less death if this was not done but there will be death. We are looking for an obvious focus and the hardest hit regions. Some of them are obvious and some are not. They spring up. They come and hit you like you got hit by a club. An area that was not at all bothered you look at what is going on in new jersey where the governor is doing an excellent job. It sprang up there. Every decision we are making is to save lives. It is our sole consideration. We want to save lives and have as few lives lost as possible. It is there for critical of that certain Media Outlets stop spreading false rumors and creating fear and even panic with the public. It is just incredible. I could name them but it is the same ones. Always the same ones. I guess they are looking for readings. So bad i guess they are looking for ratings. So bad for our country. Look at the approval rating. The worst it has been. So bad for our country and so bad for the world. During a national emergency, it is essential that the federal decisionmakers cut through the fog and confusion to follow the facts and the science. Many hospital administrators that we have been in touch with the even in the really hot spots, you know where they are, are communicating directly with us that their level of supplies is meeting essential needs. Currently, they are thrilled to be where they are. Whenever local shortages are reported, we are asking states to immediately meet the demand. We are stockpiling large amounts in different areas. We will be discussing that in a little while. We want distributions to be made on a fair basis. We have to take care of a large country, not just certain areas of the country. But, no matter where, we have been there and been there strongly. I want to thank fema, the army corps of engineers and our military. We will be adding a tremendous amount of military to help supplement the states. Thousands of soldiers. Thousands of medical workers. Professionals. Nurses and doctors. And it will be a large number. We will be telling them over a very short period where they are going. They are going into war. They are going into a battle they have never really trained for. No one has trained for this. I would say since 1917, the greatest of them all, the greatest of this type of battle, probably the greatest of them all, 1917. Of two 100 Million People were killed. In addition upto 100 Million People were killed. The need changes. One day it is one state or one locale or one city and then they are doing well. We had some good reports coming out of the state of washington. Coming out of various parts of california. Areas that we were getting ready to hit hard, we can now go to other areas. Looks like new york will be hit very hard. Louisiana it is amazing how it spread. Everyone is doing a good job but they will be head hard. Areas of the country not experiencing large scale infections are requesting supplies beyond what their present circumstances require. We talked to them. We explain it. For the most part, they are good with it. We think we are right. It is understandable that officials would seek to get the most they can for their communities. But the fear is the shortages have lead to inflated requests. Some states are asking for far more one state asked for 40,000 ventilators. Think of it. 40,000. It is not possible. They will not need that many and now they are admitting they dont need that many. We are getting as many to them as we can. No one has seen anything like this in terms of ventilators and protective equipment and uniforms and outfits. It makes it more difficult for distributors to prioritize the real need and it could intentionally, everybody has proper intentions but they want to make sure they are 100 . Sometimes, when they know they do not need it, they want it anyway. It gives them a sense of satisfaction but we can do that. We are back up. Remember, we are the backup. The greatest backup that ever existed for the states. As specially when we got into the Hospital Building business and the Medical Center building business. We have build numerous hospitals in some states and Medical Centers. That is why my administration has been requesting actual usage numbers from the states and hospitals to meet their needs because we want to be ready when the brunt of it comes. It is coming quickly. When the brunt of it comes, we want to be ready to hit the area that needs its. We do not want to have spent everything in one area where they do not need it. Let me be extremely clear about one point. We will move heaven and earth to safeguard our Great American citizens. We will continue to use every power, every authority, every single resource we have got to keep americans safe. We have to get back to work. We have to open our country again. We have to open our country again. We do not want to be doing this for months and months and months. We want to open our country again. This country was not meant for this. Few were. Few were. We have to open our country again. I just spoke with the commissioners and leaders of virtually all of the sports leagues. Rob manfred, roger goodell, adam silver, commissioner of the National Basketball association. Garrett beckman, commission of the National Hockey league. Jane monahan, commissioner of the pga tour. Kathy engelbert, commissioner of the womens National Basketball association. Dana white. Vince mcmahon, president of the wwe. Don garber, commissioner of major league soccer. Steve phelps, president of nascar. Michael on, commissioner of the lpga. Roger penske, founder and chairman of penske core. Andrew fleming. And a couple of others. These are all of the great leaders of sport. They want to get back. They have to get back. They cannot do this. Sports was not designed for this. The concept of our nation was not designed for this. We want to get back and very soon. For example, and i have to say we are using the defense production act very powerfully. In some cases, directly. In many cases, indirectly. Just the threat of it is usually enough. Fema and hhs have ordered 180 million think of that. Who ever heard of 180 million n95 masks. We want 3m to help our country. I think it is going to be ok. We will soon let you know. We need the masks. We dont want other people getting them. That is why we are instituting a lot of defense production act you could call it retaliations. That is what it is. If people do not give us what we need for our people, we will be very tough and we have been. Usually, you do not have to use this but we have used it plenty more and more as it turns out. Our supply Chain Logistics Task Force Led by admiral john polo check who is doing a fantastic job will ensure they are distributed to the health care and Critical Infrastructure workers in the areas with the most pressing requirements. 60 Million Masks we are talking about and the 180 million n95 masks. Whoever heard of that . This is an incredible thing. A lot of times, we have to start to play this game. If a governor wants 200 ventilators and i say no, we are going to send you 1000. We think you need more than 200. And then the media meets with the governor. And they say the president should have sent more. They asked for 200. We give them 1000. They meet with the media and ask how the president is doing and they say we should have sent more. That is politics. It is unfortunate. One party is doing it and the other party is happy. They shouldve been doing this work themselves for a long period of time. Many of their cupboards were bare. With respect to the ventilators, hhs and fema continue to monitor the data on an hourly basis we are provided by the state to most effectively target the distribution of supplies. We have been asking states to provide us with daily updates on the number of ventilators and the utilization rates. Some had more than they need. They dont want to admit it. They will admit it when it is over but that does not help us much. This data is vitally necessary so we can ensure that the ventilators are getting to the right place at the right time. Hhs, fema, it eod are developing resources within the neck 24 hours. They will have a whole different set of criteria. Every day, it is different criteria. Every day, this horrible invisible enemy changes course. It changes course. If you were fighting the normal fight, you would know what is happening. They had one it hits one, another, and areas you dont expect. We are watching it and capturing it. Our goal is to stay several days ahead of the needs in each state but we can only do that if the cities and states use realtime local knowledge to provide timely and accurate data about actual usage. If a state has ventilators for example that they know they will not need, they should give them over. We have 10,000 in our pipeline. Stockpiled. 10,000 plus. We are moving some into new york. They will need some additional. We are moving some into new york city and state separately. And we are bringing them to the point where they will need them. I can also report that at my direction 1000 military personnel are deploying to new york city to assist where they are needed the most. The hottest of all of the hot spots. New jersey is right there, right next to it. I dont know if it is overflow. New jersey is a great state and a crowded state where you have people on top of people. It is tough. We are bringing in some of the ventilators. We got some for new jersey just yesterday and we will bring them doctors andng nurses. We are getting doctors, nurses, and other respiratory support workers. We are taking people out of our military. We had been doing that and we are now doing it on a larger basis. I want to thank secretary of defense asper who will detail what we are doing. As the situation in Washington State continues to stabilize, we are returning a 300 bed federal medical station to a different location. We need it and we appreciate them letting us know. We will move it to a different location. Many governors made large requests for federal support for their state in anticipation of a greater number of cases but the residents of Washington State have done a really good job of following the federal distancing guidelines. They really have. I am also pleased to report that oregon will be spending and sending that they are spending a lot of money because they did stockpile well and they are sending 140 ventilators likely to new york which we appreciate. And i want to thank the Vice President for the great work he is doing every day dealing with our nations governors. Mike pence has been working day and night on this and we want to get it over. He has to get a little more sleep than he has been getting. He has not been getting much. We are all in this together. It is a beautiful thing to see how people are joining forces to help one another. They really are. In addition to our courageous doctors, nurses, and Health Care Workers, i also want to thank the incredible food supply workers who are feeding our nation. I spoke just a little while ago to senator bozeman, you know senator bozeman. We all do. He is a great senator. A great person. We spoke this morning and we discussed how important it is to keep our farmers and ranchers processes and distribution in place. A lot of the senators and congressmen and everyone everyone is working very hard. My administration is working very aggressively to pioneer new medical countermeasures to treat and prevent infection. We are working on a lot of things. We must utilize our nation scientific brilliance to vanquish the virus. We have to vanquish the virus as quickly as we camp. As quickly as we can. Because we have a lot of things happening in this country and we have a great future but we have to get back to work. The fda established this week the Coronavirus Treatment Accelerator Program which is expediting the development of new antiviral and other therapies and they are doing it on a very rapid basis. I think we are having some very good results. Hhs continues this speed the development of therapies derived from human blood that had the potential to lessen the severity or shorten the length of the illness. And as you know, last saturday, the fda also gave emergency authorization for hydroxy chloroquine. The hydroxychloroquine, i hope it will be a very important answer. We are having some very good things happening with it. We will be distributing it through the Strategic National stockpile. It is going into the Strategic National stockpile to treat certain patients. We have millions and millions of doses of it. 29 million to be exact and in addition to that, we are making it and we are also getting it from various other locations and countries. In one case, i called Prime Minister modi of india this morning and they make large amounts of hydroxychloroquine. Very large amounts, frankly. And i said they had a hold because they have 1. 5 Million People. They make a lot of it. I said i would appreciate if they would release the amounts that we ordered and they are giving it serious consideration. But india makes a lot of it. We have already 29 million if you look, that is a big number. 29 million doses. We have millions of doses being made here. And many millions of doses made elsewhere that are being shipped here and it will be arriving. We are just hearing really positive stories and we are continuing to collect the data. But, i will just speak for myself. It has been out for a long time. It is a malaria drug and it is a drug for lupus. There is a study out that people with lupus are not catching this horrible virus. They are not affected so much i it. By it. Maybe that is false. You will have to check it out. There are a lot of positive things happening with that. That is a game changer. We continue to work on the vaccines but they are down the road by 14, 15, 16 months. We are doing great on the vaccines. Johnson johnson seems to be leading in terms of the studies but we will see what happens. I feel good about that but that is down the road. Tremendous promise with what has just been mentioned. And in addition to that, Gilead Sciences has initiated a phrase a phase three, clinical studies of a drug. It is approximately 1000 patients which is a pretty good study. Other drugs are also being studied. This week, oracle, a Great Company donated a new web portal. Larry ellison, an amazing guy. And platform to the government to gather Realtime Data on how patients are responding to the various new treatments. They have a very sophisticated site we will be learning a lot from. Thank you to oracle. We are spending economic dollars like you would not believe and speeding Economic Relief to american workers, families, and businesses. Yesterday, the Small Business association launched the Paycheck Protection Program to help employers keep paying their employees. In 24 were and 24 hours, the Small Business administration and over 1200 Lending Partners processed over 28,000 loans. So far ahead of schedule. And billions and billions of dollars. It has worked out incredibly well. I want to thank bank of america and Jp Morgan Chase and a lot of the big banks that of and involved in a lot of the community banks. Community banks have really jumped on it. And so far, it is going way ahead of schedule. The sba also clarified that faithbased organizations including houses of worship are eligible for the Paycheck Protection Program. That is great. As well as the Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program that you are familiar with. On the same terms as every other applicant. If we run out of funding for the Employee Retention program, i will immediately ask congress for more money. This is money really going directly to the people that need it. The Small Businesses and workers that need it. When we opened, we want to open strong. With businesses that are going. Remember, we had the greatest economy in the world and in one day, we were told to shut it down, stop it, tell everyone to stay home because of this horrible virus. And we did that and we did the right thing but now we have to open. We have to open our country. Finally, i can report that as of today, the state department has successfully ordinate of the safe return of more than 40,000 americans stuck abroad. And over 400 flights from other countries. Some of those countries i had to call their leaders. Once i did, they snapped like you would not believe. They really helped us. I appreciate that. We brought back 40,000 americans literallys duck in some countries with no chance of getting out. We got them back. 400 flights. 75 countries. Think of that. And those countries in almost every instant have a big problem with the virus. I want to thank the American People most of all for the selfless sacrifices they are making for our nation. I know it is not pleasant. Although some people have said theyve gotten to know their family better and they love their family more than ever. And that is a beautiful thing. They have actually gotten to know them they are in the same house with their family for a long time. I guess it could work the other way perhaps but we dont want to talk about that. I want to encourage everyone to encourage our guidelines on slowing the spread. Sustaining this war effort and that is what it is, a war effort is the patriotic duty of every citizen. While we may be more physically distant for a time, we are closer together in the heart and the spirit and through this Great National unity is happening. We are having a great unity developing that a lot of people did not think would be possible to develop like this. And we will conquer the disease and restore our nation to its full and glorious might. We are doing really well and im very proud of everybody out there. We are very proud of you. It is something that no one could ever have projected. It has been over 100 years since a thing like this has happened. And the problem with this one is the contagion. It is so contagious. No one has ever seen anything like this. It is so contagious. You can be feet away and just talking to someone and catch edge. You can catch it, you know how long it can live on surfaces. Things that nobody ever thought of, the level of contagion. We are getting there. We are to make sure that it is over soon. And just keep going. It wont be long. Thank you very much. I would like to ask dr. Hahn to speak. He has been doing yeomans work at the fda. Thank you, mr. President. I want to talk about hydroxy to hydroxychloroquine. Mitigation is such an important part of our fight against the covid19 virus. Last week we issued an emergency use authorization to allow the donated hydroxychloroquine to come into the country and enter the general circulation. We are prioritizing this drug to calm in for clinical trials. And also into general use for physicians. As you know, physicians, based upon their interactions with the patients, they can write a prescription if they think it is appropriate for the patient. Being a physician, we do this all the time. That assessment needs to be done between a patient and a doctor. The third portion is we wanted to make sure that the drugs were in circulation come in the supply chain to people that have them or need them for the other indications, lupus, Rheumatoid Arthritis had them available. That was the purpose of the emergency use authorization. I would like to mention that on friday we stood up a formal convalescent plasma program. It was a great deal of enthusiasm for that. There are reports that this is of benefit to patients in other countries that have had the covid19 virus. It means taking plasma from patients that have had the virus and have recovered and transferring the immunity from that person to someone who is sick. And we are hopefully expanding that across the country. The red cross is involved in that program and i think it shows great promise. It needs to be studied like other things but it does provide help. We do not want to provide also but definitely help. Thank you. Dr. Fauci i would like to take a couple of moments to talk a little bit about the Public Health aspects and how it relates to what the president just said about the need for us to begin to think about returning to some degree of normality. And that has to do with what is going to be happening as we end this week and go into next week. You will be seeing and we should not be surprised because the kinetics of how this virus works is that we are going to be seeing that there will be deaths continue to go up. As i mentioned to this group and the general public multiple times, there really is a cascading of events where you have new cases, hospitalizations, intensive care, and deaths. At the same time that we might be seeing an increase in deaths, we want to be focused on effective mitigation. That is what we will be thinking about. We are going to pay close attention to that and hopefully the kinds of mitigations we are talking about are going to have the impact to allow us to begin to think about maybe changing a bit. The question arises is the mitigation working . Let us look historically and then at the reality. Clearly in the countries, china included, that have implemented very strict kinds of programs of mitigation, clearly it works. And our own country, we have seen indication of that in washington. Washington state was the first to get hit but they put in a really good program of mitigation. If you look at the charts that dr. Birx showed, they are doing well. We have two opposing forces here. The virus which wants to do what the virus wants to do. Irises transmit from people to people. When people are separated from each other, the virus does not go anywhere. That is the reason why something as simple as the physical separation if you look at the Vice President s chart that he shows all the time from this podium, every aspect of this ending the outbreak in 30 days has some aspect of physical separation. Whether that is avoiding crowds. Staying six feet away from people. Doing teleworking. All of that does that. That is our most important tool. We will be talking about vaccines and drugs that will mitigate later but this is what we have to do. But i want to plead as i do multiple times to the American Public. As sobering and difficult as this is, what we are doing is making a difference. We really need to continue to do that. I must tell you, i was just mentioning to the Vice President as we came in, last night when i was not here i went out with my wife and did a little power walking down massachusetts avenue for those that live in washington, you know what im talking about. We passed a couple of restaurants where people were getting takeout food. The restaurants were closed to people going in but they were opened a takeout. I saw something that absolutely made me feel really good. They were separating themselves by at least six feet. In fact, some of the restaurants had Little Things on the floor that said stand here or stand there. If we as a nation pull together to do that, hopefully as we keep coming back together to these press conferences, we can show you that the curve is going and the right direction. I will be happy to answer questions later. Thank you. Pres. Trump please. Reporter you said earlier that the virus is springing up in areas you did not expect. Yesterday, you said some states are not in jeopardy. The fact that this is unpredictable, isnt that an argument that some states should have pres. Trump i dont think so. In some states, they have great distance and few people and they are in good shape. And if there is a case, they can quarantine that person or would be brought to a hospital. You have Different Cases as opposed to a new york or los angeles. Areas where you have a lot of people typed together. There are many Different Cases. Reporter you mentioned military off the top. 1000 troops going to new york. Are we expecting other mass deployments around the country . Pres. Trump many of the places are in really great shape. They have done a fantastic job. We may add to the 1000 but new york will be getting about 1000 military people. Nurses and doctors. Medical. Medical military. Reporter you twittered earlier that you like the idea of a second Coronavirus Task force focused on reopening. Pres. Trump thinking about it. We have to open our country. I have an expression the cure cannot be worse than the problem itself. I continue to say that. Look your cannot be worse the cure cannot be worse than the problem itself. Reporter can you talk a little more about your call with the sports commissioners . Pres. Trump i want fans back in the arenas. Whenever we are ready, as soon as we can. And the fans want to be back also. They want to see basketball and baseball and football and hockey. They want to see their sports. They want to go onto the golf courses and breathe fresh air. I cannot tell you a date. I think it will be sooner rather than later. We will not have to have separation for the rest of our times on the planet. We need it for this period of time but eventually, people will be able to occupy seats in arenas next to each other as we have for all of my life and your life. They want to sit next to each other at restaurants. They do not want to be six feet away. Some restaurant man called up and said i am worried because i have a small restaurant with not too many seats. I think he said 120. He said if i practice what this is, i would be down to 30 seats. And i told him not to worry about it. Otherwise, that means your stadium is half the size what it was a month ago. They will be close together. They will be breathing air that is not infected that will not kill people. Reporter what are your contingency plans . Pres. Trump we will see where we are. We will be back to good health soon in my opinion. We are making a lot of progress. Were making progress because as tony told the story about the restaurant and how they are separated automatically, people are doing that. They are staying in their homes. They are doing what they know is the right thing to do. It is not very complicated. In many ways, it is a very beautiful thing to see. Reporter [indiscernible] what about the plans regarding the National Conventions . Pres. Trump we have no contingency plans. We will have the convention at the end of august in north carolina. Charlotte. And i think we will have a great convention. I notice i think we had an opponent but i am listed not know who it was. He got. 0000001 of the vote. Im not sure. That is the kind of opponent i had. Reporter lawmakers are working on the next round of relief packages. What was not in the stimulus package you signed last week that you think we will need . Pres. Trump i think we will need more money for the Small Businesses. It has been working so well. It is been so efficient. Based on the first couple of days, it has been incredible. I think that restaurant and entertainment that would include sports leagues, all forms of entertainment, will go back to the original where they get tax the duct ability for tax deductibility for what they are doing. And people come in and buy tickets and corporations can then people into these restaurants who will otherwise have a hard time reopening in my opinion. And that could be the same thing for the sports leagues. For entertainment and restaurants, we want to see the deductibility so corporations can take a good action. Can take a deduction. That is something that would be good for the restaurants. They used to have it. And when they ended it it was never the same. Reporter you just said you want to see as few lives lost in this pandemic. But there are still eight governors, republicans, who have refused to issue a stay at home orders. Your own experts including dr. Anthony fauci have said it is the most effective way to stop the spread of the virus. Pres. Trump we have a thing called the constitution which i cherish. Number one. Number two, those governors, i know everyone of them and they are doing a great job. They are being very successful and what they are doing. And as you know, i want the governors to be running things. In some cases, we will supersede. I think it depends on the individual state youre talking about what they are doing very well and they are doing a magnificent job in running their states. Reporter South Carolina has 1700 cases. Utah has 1255. Pres. Trump that is a small number relative to population. Reporter it is larger than some states that do have stayathome orders. Pres. Trump if i saw a massive breakout, i would come down really hard. Reporter isnt the key to get ahead of the numbers . Pres. Trump by the way, i think you are up to 92 of the country is covered. From a constitutional standpoint, they made the difference and they called the shots. Reporter a question about messaging. You are saying that people need to continue following the mitigation efforts but you are also saying that the cure cannot be greater than the problem. Which is it . Pres. Trump im just saying that we have to get this country open, jeff. This country was not designed to be closed. We had the greatest we ever had and now we are paying people to stay home. We are paying people not to go to work. How does that play . They want to go to work. They dont want money. This country is great. We are paying people and we have to get back to work. That is what im saying. Reporter it is about the announcement from last night. A yes or no question. Wasnt Michael Atkinson doing the job as Inspector General of the Intelligence Community the job he was supposed to do when he took the whistleblower complaint to congress that had not been taken previously wasnt he doing the job that he was supposed to do that the american taxpayers were paying him to do . Pres. Trump i thought he did a terrible job. He took a whistleblower report that turned out to be fake, totally wrong. It was about my conversation with the president of ukraine. He took a fake report and brought it to congress with an emergency. Not a big trump fan, i can tell you. Instead of saying and we offered this to him fortunately, the transcript did not have the deception and dishonesty practiced by the democrats. Fortunately, we had a transcript that was perfect. Even the Lieutenant Colonel admitted it was correct. Wait a minute. You asked a question. He took this whistleblower and i keep saying where is the whistleblower . Why was the whistleblower allowed to do this . Thisas he allowed to have fraudulent or incorrect transcript . We offered this ig, i dont know him. I dont think i ever met him. How can you do that without seeing the person . He never requested to see me. He took this terrible, reportate, whistleblower brought it to congress. We offered to have him see my exact conversation. It was all about the conversation. That was the whole thing. And after he saw it, he mustve said well, and as i have said many times and it drives you crazy, it was a perfect conversation. Instead of going and saying, gee, this is a terrible thing he said about the president s conversation. It was a fraud. I did not say it. You have the whistleblower, where is the informer . Remember the second whistleblower . Wait. After i had the conversation, he miraculously went away. Where is the informer . Maybe adam schiff was the informer . He is a corrupt guy. The informer was coming forward, remember . I did one thing that surprised everybody. This gentleman right here said boy, this was a shocker. I revealed the conversation. I had approval from ukraine. The president of ukraine and the foreign minister said he did nothing wrong. And over that, with 1960 vote, dishonest democrats impeached a president of the united states. That man is a disgrace to the ig. Sorry. He is a total disgrace. Reporter did you run by your pres. Trump will get off this because people want to talk about what we are talking about. But let me tell you this. That is my decision. I have the absolute right. Even the fake news last night said he has the absolute right to do it. Ask him, why didnt you go see the absolute conversation . Theres no rush. He even said it was politically biased. The report could have been, you know who the whistleblower is and so do you and so does everyone in this room and so do i. Theres no rush. He even said it was politically biased. The report could have been, you know who the whistleblower is and so do you and so does everyone in this room and so do i. Everybody knows but they give this was a blower status he some countries in the world are just handling it so well. 151, two or three days ago, probably more. Some people said they didnt know there were that many countries, that is how big it is. The state of new york has asked for help. I gave the military people. They were not supposed to be covid hospitals. There is nobody taking motorcycle rides. Away. On we have given the governor of new york more than anybody has ever been given in a long time. I think he is happy. Gavin newsom has been gracious. Why does that matter . Much aswe have given as we have given to new york, somebody should say, this is been very nice. Mayor de blasio has been very nice. No one has been given like new york. Do we have a new number now . It is an excellent question. They are reevaluating all of their models in light of the impact. None of us had really been through this. That had never really been in the model before. They are working on that diligently. We wont know how valid the models are until we move through the academic epidemic. We are looking at testing and triangulating positive cases. It is very important that the American People know there are an equal number of states with less than 5 positive despite high levels of testing. States that are mitigating and making this worse. Ofre are the states you know that have the larger outbreaks. We are watching them very carefully. Triangulating all of the information to make sure that clients who come to the hospital are cared for. There are states in the middle where we are trying to figure out, are they changing or not . Each of those epidemics within ,the bottom line is spain and italy are moving through this. They are seeing their number of cases dropped. They are seeing the number of people in hospitals drop. We are about 12 days behind them. In the same time, we see in the u. S. , really good case studies of the impact in Washington State. Of california. A series of smaller states, as well. We are trying to learn from them how to do surveilling. And with these new hhs kits, i want to thank admiral gerard for getting those out, being able to look at testing in a more comprehensive way so we can do surveillance and mitigation simultaneously. We can answer that very question. It will be very difficult to answer at this moment across the u. S. , because each metro cluster is on a different pathway as they move through the epidemic. I think we should emphasize through. We see italy, we see spain moving through. We hope to be in that same position. At the same time, as the president said, hes concerned about every Single Person that is succumbing to this virus, we all are. Thats why we are making sure that in this triangulation, they are tracking minute by minute. When we say fema and hhs is tracking minute by minute the ventilator hospital and icu beds, thats whats happening. Also being flexible and responsive. To have dod take 1000 health care out of their medical core is a very big deal. I was in the medical core for 29 years. We never did that. This is saying we respect and understand the importance and value of american lives. But the values will be variable by state. You had breaking news last night. I think the probable president ial candidate for the democrats will be joe biden. He agreed i was correct when i stopped people from china very early from coming into our country. Dr. Fauci said it was a big moment. It would be a much different picture we have right now had we allowed thousands of people from the specific area i dont have to go into it, from china, to come in highly infected. It would have been very different. I appreciate the fact he did. I was called xenophobic, racist, many things, when i did that very early. I got a lot of credit for it. The federalist covered the whole journey. They said trump was i didnt speak to the respected author, they said trump was right at every single move. On top of that, he was going through a fake impeachment, a hoax. I was going through a hoax when i made the decision. That does take a little time and certainly a little thinking time. I appreciated the fact that joe biden announced that he now agrees i was correct. You saw the report come out that i was correct when i stopped people from china coming in at a very early stage. Can we talk about captain cursor that was removed as commander of the uss . I dont know if you saw the videos of sailors cheering for him. Our reporting shows some sailors have said they are worried to reenlist, because they are not convinced commanders are taking care of their health and taking care of them. Pres. Trump i dont know much about it. Here we have one of the greatest ships in the world, Nuclear Aircraft carrier, incredible ship with thousands of people. And you had about 120 that were infected. I guess the captain stopped in vietnam and people got off in vietnam, perhaps you dont do that in the middle of a pandemic or something that looked like it was going to be. History would say you dont necessarily stop and let your sailors get off. More important, he wrote a letter. The letter was a fivepage letter from the captain. It was all over the place. Thats not appropriate. I dont think thats appropriate. These are tough people. These are tough, strong people. I thought it looked terrible. They made the decision. The secretary of defense was involved. I thought it was terrible what he did. To write a letter . This isnt a class on literature, this is a captain of a massive ship that is nuclear powered. He shouldnt be talking that way in a letter. He can call, ask, suggest. He stopped in vietnam. A lot of people got off of the boat, they came back, and they had infection. I thought it was inappropriate for the captain of a ship i dont want to comment as to whether or not, but i agree on their decision. Joe biden actually just attacked you in a tweet. Pres. Trump he didnt write anything. He has people, professionals from the democrats donald trump is not responsible for the coronavirus, but hes responsible for failing to prepare our nation to respond to it. Pres. Trump he didnt write that. That was done by a democrat operative. Hes probably not even watching right now. If he is, he doesnt understand what hes watching. Just so you understand, it was very nice what they wrote. They released it at a strange time. But he admitted i was right. If you read the federalist story, which most of you wont, because you dont want to, but you will learn something. It goes through a chart, times. I was early, i dont think dr. Fauci has changed his mind, but it was an important step when we stopped china from coming in. From the specific area that was heavily infected. We would have a different thing right now. I dont really know what joe biden said. I will Say Something, make a speech, and it will be critiqued, and i will get this beautiful, brilliant critique. Joe biden didnt write that. He wished he did, but he didnt. I wanted to ask dr. Fauci a quick question. China has warned of resurgence of the virus. Has the u. S. Developed a plan if a second virus occurs here . One of the things that is parallel about thinking of the possibility of mitigation, allowing this to turn the corner, very much on the front burner is what happens when we do. The risk of a resurge is real. What we need to have in place, and we will have in place is that as you pull back, you have to have the capability of in a very pristine and precise way to do the containment when you do see it. When you get to mitigation, containment takes the vaccine, because you are struggling to mitigate. When you get down, you need to make sure it doesnt resurge. It will require the ability to test, identify, isolate, and do contact tracing. Thats what we have to have in place, and hopefully we will. There were not many people infected as now, either recovered or doing well enough, and they are transferring it to family matters. Can you walk us through a casebycase basis of hospitals, the results . This is a situation where someone who has recovered from the virus doesnt have the virus in their system. You can take plasma. It is a pretty routine procedure, you can donate a couple times a month and give that plasma. That plasma contains the proteins in the blood that have the antibodies against the virus. You can take it, process it, and give it to someone to fill. That allows you to transfer immunity. It doesnt have to be matched by family or anyone like that. Since tuesday, we have allowed academic centers, laboratories, and hospitals to do this on a compassionate use basis. We pulled it together in an extended access program. They have the greatest system and capacity for doing this. This allows us to scale up so when people get sick, we can have these donated plasma packs given to a patient. We dont know if we have had, what should people be doing . Dr. Hahn we started with the red cross in this program. We are planning to actually scale it up. We will have more information this week. We want to make sure we have the systems in place. A great question. Can you clarify the situation with 3m. Germany said it was an act of privacy that masks were reverted to the u. S. Instead of berlin. Did that actually happen . Should 3m be fulfilling contracts . Pres. Trump we are very disappointed in 3m. They should be taking care of our country. They can sell to others, but they should be taking care of our country. The people that have dealt with them have dealt successfully with Many Companies over the last month. They dont like the way 3m has treated our country. They dont frankly like the representatives of 3m. There has been no act of piracy. It is the opposite. 3m has not treated our country well. If they do, great, if they dont, they will have a hell of a price to pay. I say it that way. I watched him on television. Talking about how it is so hard to believe, so hard to fathom. They should get their act together. I got involved and looked at what happened, 3m has not treated our country well. Was it diverted or not . Pres. Trump we will get you the information. I was wondering about what you see in regards to coronavirus, what is the medicine saying . Dr. Fauci what is the question . Incidents of coronavirus . If you have lupus, do you have a greater chance . Dr. Fauci right now, this is being looked at. We dont have any definitive information to be able to make any comment. It is an obvious good question. It might be a way for us to get some interesting and potentially important data as to the role of those medications. But that is something that is being looked at. We dont have any data to say it. Pres. Trump they can also do it with z pack, subject to your doctors approval. I hope they use it, because what do you have to lose . In some cases, they are in bad shape. It has been out there for a long time. I hope they use it. Work with doctors, get what you have to get. We have it stockpiled. We have a lot of it. We are getting more of it. We have a lot of it. I hope they use it, because it has been used for a long time, therefore it has passed the safety test. The fda has been terrific. I have seen some results. It is early, and they should look at the lupus thing. There is a rumor that because it takes care of lupus very effectively, its useful. Theres a study that says people that have lupus havent been catching this virus. Maybe its true, maybe it is not. Theres also other studies, with malaria. The malaria countries have very Little People to take this drug for malaria, which is very effective for malaria. Those countries have very little of this virus. You will check it out. I think people should if it were me, i might do it anyway, i may take it. I will have to ask my doctors about that. The last couple of days, you have been optimistic about russia and saudi arabia coming together on oil, but in the last 24 hours, it has been pushed back. Pres. Trump opec can do whatever you want. Ive been against opec all my life. Its an illegal you can call it a cartel, monopoly, a lot of different names. It broke down very violently. So i dont care about opec. I couldnt care less about opec. I think they are going to settle it. They are going to be destroyed. They are destroying themselves if they dont. Russia, a very important we had a very good conversation, president putin and myself, but a big part of their economic wellbeing is from oil. Oil is at a record low. No one has ever seen anything like this. It is actually lower than you even think. To their advantage, it is saudi arabias advantage, they told me they are discussing. Saudi arabia went further. He thinks the deal will be made. 10 million barrel reduction. Maybe more than that. He indicated it would most likely be more than that. We will see what happens. As far as opec is concerned, i was against opec for years, because i thought it was unfair to our country. The beautiful thing is we have built one of the great one of the things we have done is created so much we are the number one producer in the world right now. I dont like it for a different reason. It will hurt a lot of jobs in our country. With all of that being said, people are going to be driving, paying . 90 a gallon. What is that, 1952 . From that standpoint. I am a big believer in our great energy business. We will take care of our energy business. If i have to do tariffs on oil coming from outside or something to protect tens of thousands of Energy Workers in our Great Companies that produce these jobs . I will do what i have to do. You tweeted a while ago about how sad it is for kids that dont have little league. Im wondering if you are willing to share about your youngest son and how hes dealing with life and sheltering in place, not going to school. Pres. Trump hes a good athlete and loves soccer. Hes like everyone else. Everything is shut down. Hes in his room, hes happy, but not as happy as he could be. They would like to be playing sports. Lets see what happens. We have to get back. And we have to get back soon. On the jobs report number pres. Trump do you want to keep going for a little while . Do you ever stop . How many times you ask in many cases, it is the same. Keep going, yes . You are not going to blame me that i kept it going too long . It is amazing. I think every single hand went up the last time. You know what it shows you, it shows that you love what you do. Some of you do it well. Not all of you. Im not looking at you, by the way. The jobs report numbers yesterday, the first half of march, was there anything in there that showed any sign of optimism . Was there anything that we said maybe with this virus, we will see upwards gains . Pres. Trump the jobs numbers are what they are. We asked everybody to go home, dont work. The numbers are going to be astronomical. We understand that. Somebody said the numbers are meaningless, then they took that to mean jobs dont mean anything. It was another fake news story. They meant it by saying it really is the number the numbers are what they are. We knew the numbers were going to be massive. We told everybody to go home and lock your doors. Dont come to work, dont go outside, dont breathe, dont do anything. We have to open up our country. I know it is coming back. In my opinion, it will come back very strong. Theres tremendous energy, tremendous demand. Some good things have happened. Theres one habit that a lot of you covered me a long time, i was never a big believer in shaking hands. I decided if you dont shake hands, he wont be winning a lot of contests. Im not sure you have to shake hands anymore. A couple of people have told me that if we didnt shake hands, the incidence of flu, flu is a big deal also. Who knew that shaking hands was such a bad thing. I felt it. I always felt it. I was never to a point where i cant take somebodys head. I knew people like that. There werent too many of them. When i ran for office, all of a sudden im shaking hundreds of hands. I think thats a custom that may people dont have to we have to get close together, we have to sit together in stadiums, all of that stuff is going to happen. I think the concept of shaking hands is may be something that will be a little bit from the past. Lets see what happens. Maybe they will go right back to shaking hands. Is there anything you want people to do to show their support for the medical community . Is there something that we see people clapping when nurses leave, pres. Trump we have seen a lot of that. I have seen such support. I saw this morning, they were clapping for the fired apartment, policeman. These people are like warriors. They were going into elmhurst hospital, which has been tragic. Right near where i grew up in queens. The people in buildings they are the rock stars, they are warriors. Nurses, doctors, first responders, what they are going through. They dont even know whats going to happen. Even if they have great equipment, they are catching it. They have good equipment, they catch it. With good, with bad. It is evil. I would like you to Say Something about that. Dr. Fauci im glad you put that question. I dont think people can really fully appreciate the extraordinary effort of these people. It is amazing. I did all of my medical training in new york city in a big, busy new york City Hospital at a time when it was what you normally see in a hospital. I came to nih and spent about five to eight years in the very early years of the aids epidemic, which was just the darkest years of my life. Almost every single one of my patients died. As we knew, epidemiological he, that there was very little risk, it was a small risk, but very little risk of getting infected from the patient. To see now with these brave warriors, what they are doing in the hospitals, not only giving lifesaving treatment to people, but every single day putting themselves at risk for themselves and their family. I just think that the American Public owes a phenomenal debt of gratitude for these people. And they should salute them every way they can. When we were at war, at the height of the war in afghanistan and iraq, when you are at an airport and see somebody with a uniform come by, everybody claps. Vp. Pence the stories are incredibly moving about what healthcare workers are doing every day. Its not just that they are going back into the hospital, places like new york and new jersey. Earlier than that, in Washington State and california where this first began. Its not just they are providing care to people, but because of the nature of how contagious the coronavirus is, they are also supplementing for family. Thats what gets to me. When i hear the stories that understandably in Nursing Homes and hospitals, they are restricting visitors. And they should, to prevent the spread of the virus to be brought into the hospital or out. To hear the stories of Health Care Workers who are holding up an iphone while someone who is critically ill with the coronavirus may well be saying their last goodbyes to their family. To be there in those moments. Our Health Care Workers are not just doctors and nurses today, they are supplementing for family, for people all across the country. I just think tomorrow is palm sunday. It is holy week. I have people ask me from time to time, send me an email, or the many Conference Calls we have, what can we pray about . The families who have lost loved ones and the patients struggling with coronavirus. During this very special week, i encourage people to pray for our Health Care Workers. Pray for them, their families. They are really the hands and feet every day. Not just of health care, but the heart of the American People. We are all grateful for them every hour of the day. Pres. Trump and think about the army corps of engineers. Its a little different, depending on where they are and where they work. Throwing up a hospital in new york city, 2500 beds in three days. Think of that. And fema, what they are doing. The National Guard is now delivering for the states. The states were unable to get, we would drop it at a big warehouse we were told to drop, and some states were unable to bring it from the warehouse to the site. So we got the National Guard to become a delivery service, if you can believe it. Some of those sites were dangerous sites. Think of that. It has been amazing. I just think ive never seen anything like it. Im so proud of this country. It is a world problem. Some countries in the world are just handling it so well. 151, two or three days ago, probably more. Some people said they didnt know there were that many countries, that is how big it is. It is palm sunday tomorrow. Think of it, we are not going to churches on palm sunday. Next sunday, easter. I brought it up before, maybe we could allow special for churches. Maybe we can allow it, with great separation outside on Easter Sunday. I dont know. It is something we can talk about. But somebody did say, then you are sort of opening it up to that. Do we want to take a chance on doing that, when we have been doing so well . But Easter Sunday, palm sunday. Im going to be watching tomorrow, live from riverside, california. But i will be watching on a computer, right . A laptop. I think on easter, i will be watching from a laptop, as opposed so, how sad is it we have easter, palm and Easter Sunday and people are watching on laptops and computers . Its sad. But the job this whole country has done is amazing. But ill say this. Our medical professionals, what they have done. They walk into those hospitals. You see them putting on their gear, putting it on as they are walking through the front doors, and some of those people are going to die. They are going to die. You know . Its, like, incredible. We can say what we want, tony and deb, about young and mediumaged. There are plenty of those people dying, too, you know . Generally it is the older people who have problems. It hits younger people too, middleaged people, too. But these people are walking into hospitals. I cant watch. I think it is incredible. They are putting their outfit, getting it, going in. Its like a war. Again, theres never been anything so contagious as this. In 1917, it was vicious if you got it, but it wasnt contagious like this. Now, in 1917, had they had the internet and all the means of communication, they could have practiced distancing. By the time people started thinking in those terms, they had lost i guess, 75 million to 100 Million People. So thats modern, you know, modernday, great thing to happen. Please . Reporter on antibodies. To what extent do you think you can use antibody tests to determine who can go back to work . Pres. Trump i dont know. Id rather leave that to the doctor. Doctor, do you have an answer to that . We think it will be a tool to help us get people back to work. It will be additional information. As you know, if you have an antibody it means you were exposed and can recover for it. That is information that should help. How can you scale up this testing to determine on a largescale how many people can go back to work . As you know, a few weeks ago we provided a great deal of regulatory flexibility around this. A lot of Great Developers have been working on this. Dr. Birx put a call out to the academic labs around the country to do this, and have been working closely with manufacturers, so we think it can be scaled up relatively quickly. Mr. President , a question for dr. Fauci. In a recent interview, you had said you knew the 15day guidance would not be enough. I wanted to ask your confidence level about the 30day guidance and whether it would be enough . Dr. Fauci you know, its tough to talk about levels of confidence. But i can tell you one thing i feel strongly. That if we do in a very proactive way what i said in my opening comments, and people literally across the country as a baseline have that physical separation, and as we mentioned up here, there are varying degrees of that, depending on whether you are in new york city or every place, everybody should be doing some degree of this physical separation. If we do that, i have confidence we will see the turning around of the curve. Whether or not it will be all the way down where we want, it is impossible to say. I would be foolish to say that. But the one thing i am confident in, lets take this to the bank, that mitigation works. It does. We have seen it in other countries. We have seen it in our own country. Thats the reason i keep coming up at every chance i get to plea d with the American People to please take a look at those guidelines the Vice President keeps putting up with his chart. Because every single one of those points has something to do with physical separation. Pres. Trump and mitigation does work. But again, we arent going to destroy our country. We have to get back. Because, you know, at a certain point, you lose more people this way with all the problems caused than what were doing right now. I think what were doing right now is going to be very successful but you know what . , i dont know. We have a big decision to make at a certain point. We have a big decision to make. We went this extra period of time, but i said it from the beginning, the cure cannot be worse than the problem itself, and we cannot let that happen. We have an incredible country. We were having the greatest period in our countrys history from an economic standpoint and many other ways. We cannot let this continue, so at a certain point, some hard decisions are going to have to be made. Go ahead. Ventilator manufacturers are doubling and tripling and quadrupling their production. That medical experts and some manufacturers are predicting there will still be shortages of tens of thousands of ventilators. Is it time for you to level with the American Public that there likely will be shortages of ventilators in some cases . Pres. Trump could be. It could be you have shortages, and it could be you also have some that way overestimated the number of ventilators they need. We think, you know, we have a good amount ready to move. Literally, like an army. They are ready to move to any hotspot. But some of the ones you are talking about, always a nasty question from cnn, ah, because i think, you know what . You have asked that question about 10 times already. Look, were mobilized and ready to go. We have a lot of ventilators ready to go, and if we had given them all out, you would be overstocked in many areas. What we are doing, we have a very good plan to take from some areas, even though we have almost 10,000, we are also taking from areas that will not be as badly hit as today we think they will be. There will be some areas hit harder than we think, and theres nothing deborah, tony or any of these professionals can do about it. This thing moves in a lot of ways. But what we are going to do, we are going to have, and look at us compared to a lot of countries, we are in much better shape. But these professionals have done an amazing job. Now, over the next week and two weeks, this is going to be a very deadly period, unfortunately. But we are going to make it so that we lose as few lives as possible, and i think we are going to be successful. I think we already are successful in that regard. When you look at that graph and you see all the bumps, if you want to call it, at a very low level. And you see a couple at a higher level. They were tough. But you see all those levels. You know, when you look and hear about italy, france, what we have, we have many italys all over. They are like countries. California is a country. New york is a country, if you look at them from the standpoint of what we are talking about. We have many, like, country spots. Some are hotspots, and theres nothing we are going to do about it. One of the biggest surprises is louisiana, because it started off so good and all of a sudden it shot up like a rocket, but we are going to try to have ventilators wherever we possibly can. Jeff, go ahead. Dr. Birx what about the what about the herculean effort of some of these companies to ramp up, it will still not be enough. Pres. Trump new york wanted 40,000 ventilators. It is like cars. It is a big project. It is an expensive product. Some of them are 50,000 apiece. I saw one the other day, 55,000 and that was before they started playing the games with supply and demand, ok . Some are very, you would call them luxury. Some are not. But frankly, these are very expensive products, high tech projects and products, and they take a period of time. We have thousands of them being built right now. Some will be ready, and we are going to have extra, and we will keep them at hospitals. But a lot of hospitals, a lot of states, had a chance of getting ventilators and they turned those ventilators down so they could spend their money on something else. In a way, i understand that. Because who thinks a thing like this . It is not enough. Knock. Not a if i am told, perhaps new york, you can spend 1 billion on ventilators and get 16,000 of them or a massive number of ventilators, or you can build a new bridge or road or something, i understand how that works. I am not blaming anybody. Im just saying, a lot of the states had chances of stockpiling a lot of ventilators. They didnt do it, and i think we are doing a very good job in helping them out. And it is a very i understand that question very well. To followup on what you said about it being a deadly week or two coming. Can you give us a sense, perhaps, dr. Birx, of what that means numerically . Pres. Trump i would also like to say, we know pretty much the line of attack. We know the numbers. The numbers seem to be checking out unfortunately. , in some cases they are on the low side, which we are very happy with. We will keep them on the very low side. That is where we are headed. But id like to ask maybe you and tony, where is the week or number of days of greatest the attack . What will be our worst day, if that is possible to determine . I think thats what youre asking, right . Yes and how many deaths exactly are you expecting . Dr. Birx as you can look in the places that are the most difficulthit right now, the detroit area, the new york area, louisiana area. We are doing it by the counties in those states. Because there are mostly, its metro areas and the bedroom communities around those metro areas, because people went to work and got exposed and came home, and exposed other people. In new york now, you see it is in long island, in suffolk county, nassau county. All of those counties, wayne, oakland, they are on the upside of their curve of mortality. You know when you get to the peak, you come down the other side. Pres. Trump and when will that be . Dr. Birx by the predictions that are in that healthdata. Org, they are predicting in those three hotspots, all of them together in the next 67 days. Are you thinking tens of thousands of deaths in that time . Dr. Birx you can go to the website. It is variable. Each one of those communities is different. But you know where new york is, how much their mortality has been. And you know, what we are seeing today are the people who were infected two or three weeks ago. If mitigation in new york worked, and we believe it is working, the cases are going to start to go down. But the mortality will be a lag behind that because of the comorbidities and other conditions. So, thats why all the predictions are that this next week, and i think we said this last sunday when we talked about the charts, and its difficult, and we try to prepare the American People to understand that. As much as you go up, you have to come down the other side, because coming down is a reflection of the cases that were coming in before. Would you rather not say a number . Dr. Birx i would rather not say a number. But the numbers are available if you go to the website. And you can see theres several hundreds per day in new york. And i think Governor Cuomo has talked about that increasing still, into the 500, 600, 700 range a day. Thats very concerning to us. We again applaud the Health Care Workers who are doing everything humanly possible to save more lives, and we are ensuring on a ventilator by ventilator, day by day, to get them there so we can say and we can be there when they need it. Because we are supposed to be that group that comes in after all the resources are exhausted. We really applaud what oregon did, and we really applaud what the governor is doing about moving between the states, the different counties, to bring them to new york. Because that is what is needed today. A different place will be needed tomorrow. You mentioned, apparently yesterday, that you had concerns about pennsylvania, colorado and washington, d. C. Can you expand on that . Dr. Birx we are watching them, because they are starting to go on that upside of the curve. We are hoping and believing that if people mitigate strongly, the work they did over the last two weeks will blunt that curve and they wont have the same upward slope and peak that new york, new jersey, connecticut and part of rhode island are having. So, this is a very important, the next two weeks are extraordinarily important, and that is why i think you heard from dr. Fauci, from myself and the president and Vice President that this is the moment to do everything that you can on the president ial guidelines. This is the moment to not be going to the grocery store, not be going to the pharmacy, but doing everything you can to keep your family and friends safe, and that means everybody doing the six feet distancing, washing your hands. Dr. Fauci so, ditto to everything dr. Birx said. But also to emphasize why it is so important to do that. We are looking at three or four really key hotspots still going up. Its absolutely essential that the ones that are down at that lower level that dr. Birx showed the other day, the communities where they are still going up, we have to make sure we dont have multiple waves of peaks. Thats going to be the answer to the question of when we can start pulling back. Because if you keep having multiple peaks of different waves, thats going to make it very difficult. Exactly what i said just before, and i keep repeating. Just make sure everyone does at least the minimal amount of that physical separation. Because the virus has no place to go if you are physically separated. Pres. Trump and one of the reasons that i keep talking about hydroxychloroquine is that, the question nobody ever asks, and the question that i most hate the answer to, what happens if you do have the ventilator . What are your chances . And i just hope that hydroxycholorquine wins. Coupled with perhaps the zpack, as we call it. Dependent totally on your doctors. You know the answer to that question. If you do have the ventilator, you know the answer to that question, and i hate giving the answer. So i dont want to get them there. I dont want to get them there. There is a possibility, and i say it, what do you have to lose . Take it i really think they should take it. But it is their choice, their doctors choice or the doctors in the hospital. But hydroxychloroquine, try it, if youd like. The other thing, if you have a heart condition, i understand probably you stay away from the zpak. But thats an antibiotic. It can clean out the lungs. The lungs are under attack from this horrible virus. But when you have a ventilator, dont ask the answer, because i hate it. If you have it, and it is working beautifully, i dont like the answer, because its not a very high percentage. So i want to keep them out of ventilators. I want to keep them, if this drug works, it will be not a gamechanger because thats not a nice enough term. It will be wonderful. It will be so beautiful. It will be a gift from heaven, if it works. Because when people go on to those ventilators, you know the answers, i know the answers, and im glad you dont write about it. Mike, please. Vp. Pence you have heard from the experts what our task force has heard. Its going to be a difficult week for the American People. You will see testing increase around the country. Some cases are going to continue to rise across america. Before i give a few facts relevant to an earlier question about ventilators, let me add my voice to what the president just said, and what all the physicians whove spoken have said. Even though we see the losses rising in the days ahead, do not be discouraged. Because there is evidence across the country that americans have been putting the social distancing mitigation into practice, and it is making a difference. We are seeing it in the new cases being reported. Remember, people, families who have experienced loss, up to this day and in the next week, have a loved one who contracted the coronavirus, in most cases more than two weeks ago. In many cases, before social distancing and mitigation efforts were put into effect. So, we want to encourage you, believe in the president s coronavirus guidelines for america. Go to coronavirus. Gov, print them off again, put them on the refrigerator and remind yourself to put them into practice. On the subject of ventilators, if i can amplify the point the president made. Our team at fema is doing a remarkable job, working with governors, state Health Officials and local hospitals. Particularly focused on our priority areas. We will refer to the new york metro area, which includes new jersey, connecticut. Were focused on the new Orleans Metro area, in louisiana. Were focusing on detroit. We are focusing on chicago. These are the areas where we see the significant rise in cases, and we are surging supplies, specifically ventilators, but all personal protective equipment, from fema to those areas. Just to give you a couple of examples, i spoke to governors in new york, new jersey, louisiana, massachusetts, michigan and maryland today alone. In those cases, Governor Cuomo is assessing all of the available ventilators. We sent 4,400 ventilators already to new york, as has already been referenced. They will receive a shipment of over 1000 from overseas. Allow me to say, as i told her personally today, the governor of oregon, governor kate brown, her unilateral decision to send 140 ventilators, because oregon, they felt oregon today is in a place where they could give those ventilators to new york, to me was in the very highest american tradition of loving your neighbor. When i talked to Governor Cuomo, mr. President , he told me they never asked oregon for the ventilators, and Governor Brown had not even called them to tell him that she was doing that. It really is remarkable. I talked to Governor Hogan today. The president and i will speak to all of americas governors on monday again. I told him how inspired i was and how he should spread the word to other governors in areas where they can spare resources, to be joining with us at the federal level in providing them to states at the point of the need. As we track new jersey, as i told governor murphy, we have deployed 200 ventilators to new jersey today. Louisiana, we are monitoring literally hour by hour what is taking place in new orleans, with some encouraging news but still great challenges. Yesterday, you heard the president say we deployed 330,000 gowns delivered to Public Health systems in hospitals there, 200 ventilators. I spoke to Governor Charlie Baker today and was able to inform him that we are watching boston area very closely. 100 ventilators are deploying today. I spoke to Governor Gretchen Whitmer today. Detroit is experiencing a significant number of cases. Were watching it carefully, and today fema directed 300 ventilators to michigan. Again, as the president said, were all working our hearts out. What i want to say to american families, what i want to say to Health Care Workers, is that we are going to identify the resources, leave no stone unturned, and we are going to focus resources on those areas in the order that they emerge. The last thought is back on mitigation. We are hoping we do not see other major cities in the country experience what, what seattle experienced, what the Greater New York city area is experiencing, what new orleans is experiencing, and that is on the hands of the American People today. In the hands. So i want to encourage you, coronavirus. Gov, put into practice the president s coronavirus guidelines and you will do your part to save lives, protect the American People and ensure that we will have the resources to meet this moment wherever the need should arise. About the sba program that got up and running yesterday, we are hearing from Small Businesses a lot of concern about whether they will get this money. Some of the banks were not ready to start processing loans. Pres. Trump were way ahead of schedule. The banks have been great. J. P. Morgan chase, bank of america. They are so far ahead. This is typical with you, in particular. We hear they are behind. They are not behind. It has been flawless so far, far beyond expectations. You should say i hear you are doing well. I dont even hear of any glitch. They have done billions of dollars of loans to Small Businesses, and these are great loans, that get immediately paid off, that get businesses back. I wish you could ask a question, where something is working so well . Maybe things wont work well and i dont mind that, but when something is working so well and you ask a question with such a negative way . Its doing great. Its doing great. Go ahead really good. Maybe it wont in two weeks and i will respond differently, but its going great. You know it. So does everyone else. Everyone is shocked how well it is doing. Dr. Birx, some demographics such as that men might be more susceptible to the virus. In europe, more cases between 3050. Has the data in the past two weeks changed that . Are men more susceptible . Pres. Trump i dont think it has changed much, has it . Dr. Birx same pattern. Folks between 30 and 50, more than what weve seen in asia . Dr. Birx no. Tomorrow i will bring the graphs back. So you can see it. Pres. Trump we can bring and updated graph back but it is similar. You talked about possibly restricting flights from hotspots . Where are you on that . Pres. Trump we are looking at it very seriously. Right now, we are dealing with governors, with airlines, with a lot of factors. Its a very difficult decision. We are also doing testing, getting into planes, very strong testing. States are doing testing of people who leave planes, because they dont want people coming in who are infected. So understanding that, and the level of testing has been enormous, ok . Some states are saying you have to go quarantine for two weeks, if you come from certain areas. So, knowing that, were working with the governors. What kind of tests, when you say testing, do you mean Domestic Travel or people from pres. Trump both. Some states when they land are doing strong, powerful testing. Please, go ahead. Ok. Well, they will check up again. Governments are doing it to come our government. One last question on ventilators. The governor of new york said he received ventilators from jack ma of alibaba, your friend. Would you call on the Business Community to donate ventilators, for louisiana . Pres. Trump jack ma is a friend of mine, and hes made it very possible to get about a thousand ventilators from china, but that is from him and my other friend there. It was really a gift, and we appreciate it very much. It was very nice of them. All right. I think weve had enough. We will be seeing you very soon, and im sure that you know that all of us will be working very hard. We are working very hard. We are coming to a time thats going to be very horrendous, probably a time like we havent seen in this country, wouldnt you say . I dont think we have seen a time like this in the country. Were getting to that point where its going to be really some very bad numbers. We will keep those numbers a lot lower than they would have been, and we will do that. We have tremendous talent working. We have tremendous people, and that includes governors, that includes everybody. Everybody is working, but unfortunately we are getting to that time when the numbers are going to peak, and its not going to be a goodlooking situation. I really believe we probably have never seen anything like these kind of numbers. Maybe during the war, or a world war, a world war i or ii or something, but this is a war, all unto itself, and its a terrible thing. We will see you soon. We will keep you totally abreast. We will also be releasing new ventilator numbers, because we have a lot of them coming and a lot of them coming and a lot of and going to different locations, and we appreciate it very much. Thank you. Thank you. [inaudible question] are we in that 24hour window yet . [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] journal,ns washington live everyday with news and policy issues that impact you. Coming up sunday morning, ill was secretary of state on the new voting measures states are considering for november elections. Then, a healthcare director on meeting the needs of patients during outbreaks. Then, the captain of the u. N. Ss mercy on the role the ship is playing in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic. And jeremy brown talks about his book on the history of influenza. Be sure to watch cspans washington journal. Join the discussion. Kingdom has more than 40,000 confirmed cases and more than 4000 deaths due to coronavirus. Lapeerw, Queen Elizabeth in a broadcast with a message on the impact of the virus and the governments response. The message was recorded at Windsor Castle with the queen is staying with her husband. You can see the address starting tomorrow on cspan. Today, new York Governor Andrew Cuomo held a briefing in the state capital on the response to the coronavirus pandemic. Modeling,at based on he believes the state is roughly one week from hitting the top of the curve. This is about 35 minutes. Happy saturday. Have friends out of quarantine. Looking healthy. They were 14 days in quarantine. They have to take Vacation Time for those 14 days. Let us go through some numbers. The increase continues, we are up to 10,482 cases. 23,000 ppl