Transcripts For CSPAN White House Coronavirus Task Force Briefing 20240713

And responsible fashion. During this time, americans must maintain strict vigilance and continue to practice careful hygiene, social distancing and the other protective measures that we have outlined, and that everyone has been very familiar with. We continue to be encouraged that many of the areas hit hard by the virus appeared to have turned the corner. For example, recent deaths are down very substantially. You can compare that with their peak not so long ago, and you 25 ,numbers of 30 , detroit as an example, is down over 50 . In new orleans, where they have done a terrific job, they are down 65 . 30 states had just one case or less per 1000 people. Thanewer cases per capita germany, united kingdom, spain, singapore, norway. The netherlands, austria, sweden. Administration continues to press conference to replenish the enormously successful Paycheck Protection Program which has impacted 30 million american jobs. We hope to have an agreement very soon, and hopefully tomorrow the senate is going to be able to vote. A lot of progress has been made on that, tremendous progress. It is a great plan. Has helped a lot of people. We hope to have a vote, maybe tomorrow in the senate. Based on the record low price of oil that you have been seeing, a level that is very interesting to a lot of people. We are filling up our National Petroleum reserve, the strategic reserves. Are looking to put as much as 75 Million Barrels into the reserves themselves. That would top it out, the first time in a long time that has been topped out. We get it for the right price. Were also pushing for a deal to theren additional were talking about 75 billion dollars for hospitals and other Health Care Providers. Visits, elected procedures, surgeries, elective procedures were canceled. We think we can get them online. Hospitals stepped up to the plate. They did a great job, we appreciate it so much. For areas lest affected by the virus, we have issued recommendations how to effectively resume treatments. Hhs has also distributed the first 30 Million Dollars in payments to Health Care Providers across the country. We have also invested 1. 4 billion dollars in Community Health centers to ensure our most vulnerable communities, including many africanamerican and hispanic American Communities have access to the services and testing that they need. Earlier today, Vice President pence spoke with governors from all 50 states about our unified effort to defeat the virus. He had a great call. A great call, very positive and i would say every way. Provided each governor with a list of names, addresses, and phone numbers of labs where they can find additional Testing Capacity within their state. It toabs, we will show now. If you need it we will give you the details. Hundreds and hundreds of labs are ready, willing and able. Governors, as an example, the governor of maryland didnt really understand. He didnt really understand what was going on. Now i think he will be able to do it, it is pretty simple. They have tremendous capacity, and we hope to be able to help him out. We will work with him, and work with all of the governors. Similar to the situation with ventilators, states need to assess their complete inventory of available capacity. Some states have far more capacity than they actually understand, that is a complex subject, but some of the governors did not understand it. From illinois did not understand his capacity. Federally as the government to provide unlimited support you have to take the support where you have it. But we are there to stand with the governors, and to help the governors. That is what we are doing. They have a tremendous capacity that we have already built up, you will see that we will be introducing a couple folks in a little while to talk about it. I want to draw your attention to Governor Cuomos remarks during his press conference today. He said the president is right, the states testing is up to the state to do. Testswill implement the and logistically coordinate the tests. Labs in newt 300 york, they are great labs actually. It is my job to coordinate those 300 labs, i think the president s right when he says the states should lead. Getting itrs are together in new york, a lot of good things are happening in new york. I think the governor is going to see us tomorrow, hes coming to the oval office tomorrow afternoon. Andrew will be coming in with some of his people. We look forward to that. Some of the articles that just recently came about if you remember, for a month it was all ventilator, ventilator, ventilators. Thats all people could talk about was ventilators. We did a great job with that. We built a lot of ventilators, we have so many now that at some point soon, we will be helping mexico and italy and other countries. We will be sending them ventilators which they desperately need. They were not in a position to build them themselves. We have thousands being built, every state has had the ventilators. If we dont, we have almost 10,000 in our federal reserve, our stockpile. We did a great job with the ventilators. Unfortunately the press doesnt cover it other than the fair press, so then you say g, dated ventilators, they dont need ventilators. That is under pressure we did that. Nobody that needed a ventilator in this country did not get one. Story that just came out, how the media completely blew the trumpet ventilator story. Im sure you love to see that. That is by rich lowry, a respected journalist and person. How the media completely blew the trumpet ventilator story. Trump ventilator story. Here is another one. The ventilator shortage that wasnt. The ventilator shortage that wasnt. Going to help the state stockpile ventilators. So anything should happen again, they have got them. The stories on testing are all over the place. Were actually in good shape. I will have the Vice President speak to you on that. Were Getting Better all the time. Before i would like to have the general who has done an incredible job tell you where we are. We are still building beds and hospitals for people that need them. Business ishospital generally getting close out now, but we are creating a lot of space for people just in case. On behalf of the services, on behalf of the federal government, thank you very much. Thank you mr. President. I just want you to know that on all ofof all of that, those patients and victims that have been affected by this terrible virus. The president and Vice President talk all the time about heroes. I have been out there and soon the doctors and nurses working very hard. Working ond to be this calling. There are three legs of this stool. We have got to worry about supplies, we have to worry about staff. Right when Governor Cuomo called the president about 30 days ago, said i need some help. What could be tens of thousands of hospital room shortages. So the president and secretary of defense asked us to fly with the team, we understood how complex a challenge it was. We did a very simple solution to be able to work with hhs, to be able to work with fema, the Vice President s task force. To be able to power this down all the way to the local level. Some governors asked us to build a hospital in a parking or field into our three week. You cant physically do that. Go tot we said was, lets an existing facility. Those that are either hotel rooms or college dormitories, or those that are in real large areas like field houses or convention centers. We design those facilities that were either noncovid or covid. Fromwe got that approval the federal government to power that back down. We went to Governor Cuomo and he said right up front, need you in the javits center. When we flew back that afternoon, we built the standard design and continue to able to power it down all the way through the rest of the team. I want to show you a couple slides, we will let you know where were are at right now. We had to do a bunch of assessments. Fororked for fema, we work the president , we work for governors and buyers. We said what do you think your demand is going to be questioning . We were able to understand what the peak curve was, but also understand what the bed shortage was. Executing 32ly different facilities. Is about 16,000 beds. We still have a lot more to complete, and in the next weekend i have, were going to complete about 15 more facilities. Some mayors and governors are still wondering do they have enough bed space, and what is important here, we need a very agile plan. You can do something three weeks ago and hope that is continue to stay. This entire team, the federal government has tried to be as agile as they can supporting states and governors. The beauty was, it doesnt have to be built by the United States army corps of engineers. We designed about extra facilities, we gave us to governors, they then imposed and but a lot of those on the ground. Im going to show you some simple pictures here. Next slide you dont mind. Example of the javits center. You heard the president talk about it quite a few times. Is about 11 or 12 foot square cubicle. There are lights in there, there is a nurse call. Theyre under throughout, pharmacies throughout. Noncovid. Arted as everybody has oxygen by their beds to take care of those patients. In detroit, with the governor, she walked us and told us her intent. You will see all of the cubicles that are laid out. This is right in the middle of a Convention Floor where there might be a boat or car show. They went in and built 978 capabilities there. Work, whileat pulling together. This is called the mccormick place. Mayor lightfoot walked us through, we went into another large convention center. This is actually 3000 bed spaces. Got this done in a relatively short time. Here is another one that helps you understand the dynamic here. This is in miami beach. I flew into see governor desantis. Out beds, andoped said how long is it going to take to build this. We probably said by the 27th of april. He went to his people and said how long to need . Said we need the 21st of april. I told my guys, you dont have to the 27th. You dont have the personal solution, you need the Mission Essential done. Lets go to the last one here. This is when we are doing right now in colorado. In denver, another gigantic convention center. You see all the different cubicles. Here to be able to bring in that oxygen, six copperplate that comes in. It is all pipe throughout the entire invention center, six miles of pipe. In closing, i want to be able to say, we are very focused on the corps of engineers getting this done. The federal team, the state seemed, the local team, the Vice President and his task force. A lot of people sitting here have informed us how fast we need to go. It goes back to the governors and mayors making this happen. I want to reiterate, President Trump has called me three times. Secretary esper has been on at least one of us times. Said what else we need to do to set you up for success. Any other knobs we can turn. You think about the equation of those threes, we have effectively taken that first s out of the equation. Of all the things i have done in my career, this is a noble calling to be able to step up and save american lots. Pres trump anybody of a question for the general . Do have a question . Are there more projects beyond the ones you just identified . The virus gets a vote. We are seeing some of those curves are stretching out, where we thought we had five or six days, we actually have a couple weeks now. Others are the opposite. Where we didnt think there is some, not going into locations, we are definitely getting requests in. They are a little bit smaller facilities in more remote areas, but our job, we have enough time to go build. We work for the mayor and the city and the governor. We can get them done at the mayors and those elected decision officials make a fast enough decision. Pres trump the general is in charge of the wall on the southern border. We want to build 450 miles of walled which is very much under construction. How are we doing with the wall . I think the most important thing, you stress this, there are several different priorities here. Our number one priority in the department of defense is to protect the team. No matter what we do, continue to take care of our civilians and servicemembers out there. Every single thing you can doing, whether you are building for the v. A. , civil works projects, department of defense or building on the southwest border, were going out of our way. I talked to our commander this morning, we have over 4000 contractors on the ground out there. No positives as of this morning, not on wood. Them, to make sure everyone is safe and everybody goes out of their way. Construction is going very smooth. We are seeing is our contractors are extremely focused, now that we have a good clear path post on the cbp program, as well as the dod program. It is a very aggressive build, but we are well posture to be able to meet your expectations. Pres trump where over 100 62 miles. 160 miles. Very exciting. You might just say one thing, the quality of that wall same thing. A pat on the back from commissioner morgan. He was very adamant that it continues to support his agents. We have a design that certainly does that. We have a phenomenal contractor working for us there. It is going in well, we dont see any significant problems. I think it is also important to point out, we want to do this the right way. We want to balance this with environmental considerations out there. We want to do due diligence. We are trying to make sure we are protecting all of the things we need to protect. Try to find that balance where we can both meet the administrations directive, while at the same time we are doing this so everyone gets a vote, and a fair shake. May ask what you are doing arding the availability how is the access going . I am an engineer. When the president says turn on america, what we initially did, i had a meeting with my commanders this morning. As soon as we think it is safe, turn it back on. Park it out there at the rec area where you are 500 feet away from everyone in a camper is probably a low threat. Where we get green lights, to continue put our rec areas full and let everybody out there. I want to do it safe, but i dont want to be the last guy that turns things on. Reporter do you have any information about specific efforts in communities hardest hit. Like black communities or latino communities, communities of color. Are the army corps of engineers doing anything that would be building any sort of temporary facilities for those communities . Lt. General semonite we basically key off what the city asked for. The city and the governor. There are specific areas that certain city mayors have asked us for. Again, im not going to go into details but we basically, if they say im very worried about a hot spot on this side of town or a specific community here, we will do thats what the administration has charged us to do. Whatever we can do to be most responsive. We just dont want ever to have an ambulance pull up to the back of a hot and hospital and is somebody says, were out of room, go to the next hospital down. Were trying to make sure that bed space is available and so far everything weve built has been ahead of need. In other words, were able to finish the building two or three days before its needed. Thank you, maam. President trump you have a choice. You can stay and watch. Watch these wonderful people ask us really nice questions. Or you can go back to building lt. General semonite i have a lot of building to do. If you dont mind. President trump an impressive job, isnt it, seriously. Really great. Thank you very much. Hes a terrific gentleman. We have a lot of great people doing that kind of thing. They really have to get recognition for the incredible job theyre doing. Because i dont think anybody else could do it. Nothing like that. Thats on top of thousands and thousands of hospitals. He built, just in new york one, four hospitals, 2,900 beds and got them done so quickly, nobody saw anything like it. Fortunately we havent had to use too many of them. And thats ok. Thats probably better news than having to use them all. Right . Because a lot of good things are happening in new york and elsewhere. So through the publicprivate partnerships and deregulation, the federal government has already made immense testing capabilities available. But some states need to take action to fully utilize it. To date, the United States has conducted millions more tests than any other country. You can add them all up and they dont catch us. Our numbers are doubling almost on a certainly on a monthly basis but almost on a weekly basis, were moving very rapidly. Far nobody thought possible. And well be doubling our number of daily tests if the governors bring their states fully online through the capabilities that they have. We have tremendous capability out there already existing. And we explained that to the governor today, mike and all of the people explained it very strongly to the governors. They really get it now. I think. As the experts have explained, this capacity is sufficient to allow states to conduct diagnostic testing to treat patients, as well as Contact Tracing to contain outbreaks and monitoring to pinpoint potential hot spots during phase one. And there are some hot spots and we have them pinpointed and they can really cover very, very nicely when they know exactly where to go and theyre being told where to go. Also these locations where theyre going and some of them are federal, some of the governors didnt realize they were allowed to use federal locations, they are, and we have a booklet of the federal locations, we can hold it up. I think yours show that. Maybe well hold it up now. Yeah. Ok. Fine. But you see the number things. These are all locations where they can go. Which is really pretty amazing. This is just one page out of many. Dr. Birx over 5,000. President trump look. These are all locations. Thats a lot of locations. And they can all what is it . 5,000 . Dr. Birx 5,000 peeks pieces of equipment pieces of equipment. President trump thank you very much. Thats more than anybody thought. Its already there. They have to use it. Thats all. They have to use it. Somewhere are very much aware, some werent aware. My administration also continues to support states with our massive operation to deliver masks, gowns, gloves and other vital supplies. The admiral and his team at fifa, what a job theyve done. What a job pete has done. Theyre calling on Easter Sunday to make sure everyones ok. Theyre using detailed data about supply chains to track the deployment of one billion pieces of protective equipment through private distributors every two weeks. So what were doing is were delivering a number that nobody anywhere in the world has s delivering. Femas working closely with dr. Birx and the distributors to prioritize supply of resources where they are most needed, where finding the location that they have to they have to get to that location. We have locations that are very important to get to and get to them fast. And thats where theyre going. So we have a very strong priority. This pandemic is has reaffirmed importance of keeping vital supply chains at home. We cannot outsource our independence, we cannot be reliant on foreign nations. Wiveb been saying this for a long time. If we learned one thing its lets build it here, lets make it here. We have the greatest country in the world, we got to start bringing our supply chains back. Somebody years ago got this crazy idea, lets build all over the place. And lets have a screw for a cart delivered and made in a country thats far away and lets have a fender made someplace else. And lets do this and lets do that and lets put it all together and i like making it right here, in the u. S. A. And i think weve learned a lot about that, especially maybe when it comes to pharmaceutical products. Weve also conducted Major Military operations providing cities and states with additional medical capacity and the incredible 1800 men and women from the army corps 1,800 men and women from the army corps of engineers, you just met with todd. The job theyve done is incredible. We have nurses, doctors, we have experts in every field, all over , spoke with Governor Cuomo, spoke with mayor deblasio, spoke with many of the other governors that im both friendly and i think im friendly with just about all of them, if you can believe it. Ive gotten friendly with a lot of them. Ive gained a lot of respect for a lot of governors. Both republican and democrat. During this process. Some really good people. Some really good talent. But were sending a lot of our medical people, not only our construction people like todd semonite, but a lot of our medical people are being sent all over the country to different locations. New york city, new york state, new jersey, i spoke with phil today. Doing a terrific job in new jersey. But new jersey got hit very, very hard. Phil murphy, governor. From today the day this crisis began, america launched a scientific mobilization of colossal size and scale. Some day theyll be able to write the true story because nobodys seen anything like it. The fake news just refuses to cover it correctly. But thats ok. The people are understanding. And thats what matters to me. There are now 72 active trials under way across the United States, researching dozens of therapies and treatments and another 211 are in the planning stages. Theyre getting i mean, theyre literally mobilizing on therapeutics and also on vaccines. A tremendous progress is being made on vaccines and, i must say, on therapeutics. If i had my choice, give me the therapeutics right now. Because that would help people right now. And we have some things that i think are working. Not only working, but we have some incredible things that look like they could be an answer. But well know soon. Being tested. Working out right now. This includes their therapies designed to attack the virus, as well as others that would hinder its replication, reduce the rate of infection, control the immunity response or transfer lifesaving antibodies from the flood of recovered patients. One of the incredible things that weve seen, and mike and i were talking about it before, is the fact oftentimes somebody ts very ill from the plague, ok, from this horrible scourge. And they get better and recover and the first thing they say is i want to give my blood. Thats happened, the doctors have told me its happened so so much. I want to give my blood. I want to give my blood. And theyre doing that. But tremendous things are happening. Youll be seeing that over the weeks, i think well be talking about it in the not too distant future. Johnson and johnsonsville along on vaccines Johnson Johnsons very well along on vaccines. A lot of good things are happening. Ultimately we also hope to prevent infection through a safe, very safe vaccine. That will be a great thing when we have that. And we will have that. So with that, id like to introduce admiral and brad smith to discuss some of the incredible things that have been done and we have they really are, what theyve been able to do in a very, very short period of time, and equipment. Youre going to see equipment you havent seen before. And if youd just come up, brad. If you guys would come up, you can give us a little display of some of the equipment we have and some of the things that are happening, having to do with testing. Because testings a big word. Remember, it was all ventilators. And the reason it was all ventilators, they said theres no way hell ever be able to catch this one. And not only did we catch it, we are now the king of ventilators all over the world. We can send them we have thousands being made a week. Nd theyre very high quality that wasnt playing well so they said, testing, testing. Well get him on testing. Testing is much easier than ventilators. Ventilators are big machines that are very complex and are very expensive. You need real, real you need a group of people that really know what theyre doing. We took auto lines we took a lot of different people and now weve done that. But it used to be ventilators. Ventilators, ventilators. Now its testing, testing, testing. And i think the admiral and i think that brad will show you some things that you havent seen that are really very spectacular, having to do with testing. Were way advanced, way advanced. The list i showed you, these are places you can go if youre in the states. ,000 different machines, 5,000 theyre all over the country. We have international also. But these are all over the country. Youll see something now thats really eyepopping in terms of what theyve done and theyve done this under great pressure. Theyve come up with things under great pressure that are absolutely amazing. So, please, if you would. Thank you, fellas. Thank you, mr. President. Want to talk about a couple things today a little bit different than ive spoken about before. Since early march, weve really been focusing on two key concepts for testing. Number one, to assure and expand supplies in the u. S. Market. This is really critical because were talking about really a Cottage Industry with very minimal suppliers that we were asking to supply over a twoweek period of time, the normal production that would be for at least a year. Admiral giroir as simple as a swab is, a swab is not a swab is not a swab and we need to be very careful that when we put something in a person and tell them a test result, that its really correct. The second component is to secure sufficient supplies at fema during this time of peak. Sease this is about supporting outbreaks. Starting many weeks ago, starting in my office many weeks ago, we assembled a Multidisciplinary Team of really incredible people. The medical side of the equation, which i represent, the laboratory side of the equation, hightech side of the equation, logistics and operation, and brad smith is his day job is director of the center for medicare and medicaid services, an incredibly important component of our countrys c. M. S. System, building the future health care system. But has done a really incredible job operationally and logistically in bringing everyone together. We have focused on every piece of the supply chain that relates to testing. Down to the most minute detail and hes going to talk to you about some of that. But that started in the second week of march. With starting an airlift because the only supplier, the main supplier of swabs at that time was a place in italy that was completely shut off because of the outbreak in italy. So admiral arranged air force planes to go to italy to bring millions of swabs back to secure. Thats just how it started and its expanded since then. The second part is weve been really marrying, and this has been the beauty, the logistics and supplies to the overall strategy. Two pieces of strategy. Number one, what is the overall testing strategy. And dr. Birx has had just an elegant strategy in the past but even more important in the future when we make sure we take care of indigent populations and those most vulnerable so the clinical, the Contact Tracing and the monitoring of those who are most at risk. Weve also married to the strategy, and youve heard more than you know than you wanted to know about it, that a small machine at point of care is good for certain things but its not going to test 5,000 people over a short period of time. So the small machines, the medium machines and large mshes and how to con tectualize them. The third thing which is very important and its really critical is coordinating the research, the epidemiology and the f. D. A. Regulatory process. Why is that so important . When we started five weeks ago, if we wanted to test this many people with the technology we had, we would have used about 80 of the Strategic National stockpile in p. P. E. Just to do testing. We needed an innovation. That innovation was to be able to test out of the anterior nose with a completely different kind of swab. It sounds mundane but if you dont do that, you cant get the testing to scale. That allowed us to go to widespread testing. Last week, moving to polyester swabs which is going to open up millions of new swabs on to the market, but thats a regulatory science and innovation step that had to occur with this. With that, im going to let brad talk about some of the details that he has really shepherded over the past weeks in ways that have truly been amazing and incredibly impressive to me. Shigget smith mr. Smith thank you, mr. President. Its an honor of a lifetime to be here and serving in this way. Ive been working under dr. Birx and admiral giroirs leadership over the past several weeks to increase the supply of testing across the United States. As you know, theres really three parts that you need to make the test work. First, you need the machine which dr. Birx will share more and the president spoke to. We have a very, very large number of those across the United States. Its about making sure that were taking advantage of them. The second part of the testing is making sure that we have the collection supplies to actually be able to collect the specimen and ill talk more about that. The third part is making sure that you have the materials you need to support the machine, to ensure that you can process the test once it gets to the lab. Ill let dr. Birx talk more about the machines in a second. But as youll see, across the United States we have a tremendous number. They range in variety. So we have some very small machines that do point of care testing. They may do 50 to 100 tests a day. We also have other very large machines that can do several thousand, process several thousand tests a day. On the collection supply piece, ill talk through a couple different kindses of collection that can be done. For the acid test, the tests that are currently being done today, you generally need a swab of the nose. To do that you need the swab, you need the collection tube, and you also need the transport combleed that it can be transported in. Media that it can be transported in. We have a large number of swabs already in the country. But we have secured an additional three million in production that will be ramping up over the next several weeks. One Company Located in the northeast, were going to be using title 3 of the d. P. A. To help them build four new production lines. They are currently the largest swab producer in the country and this will help them ramp up their production tremendously to over 20 million additional swabs a month. A second Company Located in ohio is currently the largest qtip maker in the country. Were helping them convert their line from making qtips into making swabs. They are ramping up production starting this week of swabs and will be ramping up to over 10 million per month. So in total thats over 30 million new swabs that will be coming just over the next handful of weeks. The second piece is on the collection tubes. The collection tubes weve been partnering with Oak Ridge National lab, a department of energy lab, based in tennessee. They have very unique and sophisticated injection molding, manufacturing capability. And they are in the process of ramping that up to create collection tubes and they will be ramping up to over 40 million collection tubes a month here over the next several weeks. In addition to the swabs, we believe that as testing progresses there will be other ypes of testing like other testing. Those samples have to be collected in different ways. So many times some of those tests will require a finger prick. So in addition we secured over 17 million lancets which is what you use for the finger bring, as well as 17 million alcohol swabs which is what you need to clean the finger before you do the finger prick. In addition, although folks are not talking about this much yet, we also believe that businesses across the country may want thermometers to test folks as they come into the office. So weve secured over 650,000 infrared thermometers that states and businesses will be able to access to be able to test folks as they come into work. So i think weve made tremendous progress on the collection side. Noosh the collection side, weve been very focused on ensuring that the labs have what they need to process a specimen in lab, you really need two things. You need something called an extraction kit and you need something called a p. C. R. Test. In order to be able to fully process a test, you need both of these things. Sometimes these things come together and sometimes they come separate. For some of our point of care tests, including the other tests, they come together, they are ramping up production rapidly to over three million of those tests per month. And these are tests that did not exist even a month ago. The second piece is on some of these large machines. They also sell complex things that come together. One of the big manufacturers of that has ramped up production from about 1. 6 million a month to more than twice that already. Thats already occurred. In addition to when they come together, they also sfimes come separate and we see significant sometimes come separate and we see significant several million more over the next few weeks of both the r. N. A. Extraction kit, as well as the p. C. R. Test kit. So with that, thank you. President trump mike, please. Thank you. Vice president pence thank you, mr. President. I share your admiration for this remarkable team. From the army corps of engineers to brad to admiral giroir, theyre doing a remarkable job every day. As the president mentioned, today we had our Weekly Conference call with governors across the country, states and territories. And i was able to convey to them our appreciation for the leadership that every governor of every state and territory has provided. Thanks to their leadership, thanks to the extraordinary cooperation of the American People, despite the fact that more than 770,000 americans have crkted contracted the coronavirus, and our hearts grieve for the more than 41,000 americans who have lost their lives. The truth is that as we stand here today, we are slowing the spread. As the president reflected, we continue to see steady progress in less cases, lower hospitalizations, even in hot spots around the country. And we commended americas governors for their efforts in that regard. We are preserving our health care capacity, as the general with the army corps of engineers reflected. The president s direction, weve built a great number of hospitals around the country. But the utilization rate has been fairly low because of the mitigation efforts, the cooperation of the American People. We have not had to use them. And that, as the president said, is very good news. In a word, we thank governors across the country for taking actions, decisive action, to save lives and to make a difference. I reminded them that were all in this together. We have one mission, one team, we spoke on the Conference Call about last weeks guidelines to open up america again. And we heard from governors across the country about the progress that they were making. We spoke to governors from new jersey, connecticut, florida, louisiana, texas and michigan about their ongoing efforts at social distancing and addressed questions that they had about needs that have been spoken of already in this presentation today. In addition, as we promised last week, when we spoke to governors on thursday about the guidelines to open up america, our Team Presented every governor in the country, states and territories, with a memorandum detailing Laboratory Capacity and all locations of Laboratory Equipment for diagnostic tests that can perform the coronavirus test. We also provided, as dr. Birx will elaborate in just a few moments, literally a map about where these testing devices are located and i must tell you, mr. President , i was very impressed at the way governors, as we speak, are scaling testing in their own states. Using these resources. Our hope is that by providing this information and by our team that weve enlisted out of walter reed, its contacting every one of the laboratories in the country to find out what their needs are and to encourage them to activate those testing machines to do coronavirus testing that will continue to be able to support a statemanaged effort to increase testing even more. But a few height loo highlights. A governor introduced Antibody Testing for 250,000 Health Professionals this week and First Responders, a partnership between the state and the university of arizona. We spoke today about governor Gavin Newsoms announcement that he set up a task force for testing at five to seven highcapacity testing hubs in partnership with u. C. San diego and u. C. Davis to increase testing in high capacity labs around the state of california. We heard from governor ron desantis, mr. President , about the efforts of the state of florida. I believe he said that at this time florida had conducted 275,000 coronavirus tests. And theyre in the process of a major expansion of statewide testing with the goal of opening up additional sites and using the Florida National guard to test residents at Nursing Homes and longterm care facilities in florida. We also recommended today to every governors attention the Public Health website that the florida of florida established which has useful information on a county by county level where testing is happening. Governors are ute lying testing assets, theyre managing and deploying these resources as they see fit and as your direction were going to continue to work very closely with them. Other governors that we spoke with included Governor Whitmer of michigan. There are 13 new or expanded coronavirus drivethrough testing sites in michigan that her team has stood up with michigan primary care association. And we assured her that we would ontinue to work, as brad and admiral giroir are working around the clock to make sure they have all the supplies to support that testing. Governor hogan, who always begins our Conference Calls as hes chairman of the National Governors association, expressed appreciation for last weeks guidelines to open america up again. And his appreciation on behalf of all the governors for the list of laboratories in each individual state. He did raise the issue that we had included on the list department of defense facilities that have laboratories and machines and also other federal facilities, many of which are in maryland. And i was able to assure the governor and every governor on the call that we will make all of those laboratories available across the country to every state as the need for Testing Capacity continues to scale. And so this is one more step where you see the army corps of engineers, where you literally see thousands of military doctors and nurses on the streets in new york and other cities around the country. This is one morph step where we one more step where we literally are leaving no stone unturned and we are delivering a whole of government approach for our states as they deal with the coronavirus outbreak. Governors are continuing to expand testing and we assured them that were going to continue to work in every way to support their efforts to do just that. I will say again as weve said before, as dr. Birx comes up to explain to you what we delivered to the governors today, we told the governors once again today that by our best estimates, we have enough Testing Capacity today for every state in america to go to phase one. If they meet the other criteria f 14 days of reduced cases and sufficient Hospital Capacity to prepare for any eventuality that may occur. Once again, we have enough Testing Capacity for every state in america to go to phase one. But we assured the governors today that were going to continue to work around the clock to expand the Testing Capacity, support supplies, and to support their efforts to encourage social distancing and the very mitigation efforts that the American People have been doing that have brought us the progress that we see all the across the country today. With that, mr. Speaker, mr. President , ill let dr. Birx describe what we distributed today. President trump thank you, mike. Deborah. Dr. Birx thank you, mr. Vice president , mr. President. Just want to show you a couple of additional slides but also to remind all of americans that we still have a significant number of cases, both in the boston area and across massachusetts and chicago. Our hearts go out to those cities as they continue to struggle with coronavirus and the consequences at the hospitalization, all the Health Care Workers on the front lines. These are just an illustration of the different types of equipment that are out there. Describing them both is low speed, but quick turnaround time. To high speed and taking three to four hours to actually run 100 or more tests. So the equipment range from those different thats why theres 5,000 of them as noted by the president in this list. We wanted every governor and every state and Health Laboratory director to have a clear understanding of the full capacity within the state, both for the capacity, but also where Technical Assistance and additional supplies may be available. And we were proud to put the federal labs on that list because the military and the v. A. Have stepped up every step of the way to provide support both in testing and care and we have many military members on the front lines and im sure the military would offer their facilities to the governor of maryland or any governor who wanted to utilize those to expand testing. So next slide, im just going to run through them very quickly. Every governor not only received the excel spread sheet with the complete list of the equipment and the zip code of the location and the laboratory, to really be able to create a mosaic of laboratories of the high speed and low speed equipment together to meet the needs of their clients depending if theyre drivethrough or hospital needs. So this is what florida looks like, next slide. This is what louisiana looks like. Next slide. Maryland. With significant capacity. Next slide. Virginia with significant capacity throughout the state. Next slide. New york. Obviously a lot of capacity in new york city, with overlapping capacity. Its important to know where this is because then hospitals and labs can support each other when they need surge capacity. Next slide. This is new jersey. Next slide. Pennsylvania. Next slide. Massachusetts. Next slide. Ohio. Next slide. Oklahoma. Next slide. Washington. Next slide. I think thats wyoming. So we wanted to show both in states that have large populations and in states that have lower populations. You can see that in general the number of machines match their population. Were working with the Walter Reed Group and the American Society of microbiologists and all the Lab Directors to create a web of understanding of what the capacity is currently, what the capacity can be and how the federal government can support them in developing their strategies, linked to the overarching federal strategy of testing as outlined in our guidelines. Thank you, mr. President. Reporter question for dr. Birx. The university of Southern California and the l. A. County Public Health put out a report almost 40 times what it was ieved to become a 42,000 442,000 people in l. A. County have been infected which suggests there are more people who could be spreading the virus but also suggest the case fatality rate is more in line with the 20172018 flu and what we have seen in some other areas of the world. Dr. Birx looking at all the studies carefully, i think you will remember over the last three weeks i have been talking about the level of asymptomatic spread. My concern about asymptomatic spread with the flu and other sick,es, when people are it is easy to contact trace. When people are not sick and shedding virus you have to have a very different approach, a different surveillance approach, a sentinel monitoring approach which we outlined in the guidelines. That is why the guidelines took that seriously. We knew that was unique for respiratory diseases but it is because we were concerned about the level of asymptomatic. We talked about younger age groups may have more asymptomatic disease and asymptomatic disease may decrease with older age groups and youre symptomatic disease might increase with age groups. This is still our working hypothesis. We have no data right now to support that. These studies help that. We know new york and detroit and other cities are interested, which we want to support them in testing for frontline responders, First Responders and healthcare workers because we think there were exposure may have been the greatest. What we dont want to do, these tests are not 100 sensitive or specific. I will go over this over and over. If you have 1 of your population infected, and you have a test that is 99 specific, that means that when you find a positive, 50 of the time it will be a real positive and 50 of the time it wont be. At is why we are asking people among the First Responders and Health Care Workers that may have had the greatest exposure because that is where the tests will be most reliable. When we have the luxury we can go to broader communities. This has been the fundamental question to begin with and has been persistent, and we will emphasize to the American People, this is a highly contagious virus. Atdont know by looking someone whether they have preexisting conditions or not, and all of us as far as protecting others must continue to do all of the recommendations to ensure that when we are in an asymptomatic state we are not passing the virus. The governor of South Carolina announced they will open stores with restriction but they told my colleague they havent achieved that criteria in the white house guidelines about the trajectory for 14 days. Shouldnt they not be reopening stores today . Everyrx we asked governor to follow the guidelines. We asked every american to follow the guidelines put out by the president. But each of the governors can decide for themselves whether specific reached guidelines and specific areas. I had a question on saturday about jacksonville. And their beaches. I did spend about five hours going to every state website and swill tell you that Florida Department of Health Website is extraordinary. This is what every department of health should have because when you go to the website, you can see most of the cases are in southern florida, in the miamifort lauderdalebroward county area. If you look at jacksonville they had less than 20 cases per day. Less than 800 in four weeks. When you inform the public and give them the information they need, they can make decisions along with the local government and governors. Im not going to say specifically with South Carolina because i dont know their specific website now and i dont talk about data unless i have seen it myself, but i know from jacksonville, they had less than 20 cases per day. This is how we need to start informing the community. These websites are critical. It is by zip code and county. They can see cases, cumulative cases, new cases, hospitalizations, mortality, age group of mortality and where every testing piece is. This is how we have to inform the public. This is where the American Public will develop confidence in each of their local governments. The Vice President mentioned there is enough testing to proceed to phase one but what about phase two or three . Are there enough machines and cartridges . Dr. Birx you can see the current machine outline and you can see both of these gentlemen everythinged to have ready for phase two and preparing it now for what we will need in the future. I think that is what you saw with the ventilators, that is what you are seeing with ppe, it is fortomorrow and it federal planning, not just for this instant. It is making sure we meet the needs of this instance but we are planning for 30 and 60 and 90 days ahead. I would agree that dr. Birx, we are ready to enter phase one and we are ramping up all of our capabilities across the board, not just to achieve what is necessary for phase two but 2x, 3x, so we will be over prepared when the nation is ready to go into those phases. Pres. Trump not everybody agrees we have to do that. We are going maximum. Some people do want to do that much testing but we are going maximum. We are going to the outer limits. That is the way it should be. You opened the press conference with oil. The crude futures went hello today,day below zero negative. Does that make you want to seesaw saudi arabia and russia and opec do more . Pres. Trump much of it has to do with shortsellers. If you look a month and the future i think it is at 25 or 28 per barrel. A lot of people got caught. They got caught and there are a lot of people that are not happy because they got caught. If you take a look you will see it is a financial thing. But because you take i believe in a month or so, it will go a little bit out, it is 25 and 28 per barrel. It is largely a financial squeeze. And they did get squeezed. Would you like to see saudi arabia and other countries saudi arabia and russia are cutting back. Mexico is coming back. The opec plus additional states are cutting back. The problem is, nobody is driving a car anywhere in the world. 184 nations. Factories are closed. Businesses are closed. We had reallyn a lot of energy to start off with, oil in particular. Lost 40 ,udden, they 50 of the market so it stopped. It is going to be picking up in the Energy Business and it will be strong but they cut back. It could be 20 Million Barrels but lets say its 15 between russia and saudi arabia. This had to do with the squeeze and it was a tough squeeze. Lots of people got [indiscernible] pres. Trump they will do more by the market. If the way people will slow it down or stop. That will be automatic and that is happening. On criminal Justice Reform and the sba loss, i got any mail this morning from a fellow in the northwest to owns a supply business. Has a felony, a nonviolent felony on his record in the past five years which under the guidelines makes him in eligible for one of these ppp loans so he has had to let go 50 employees, many of whom are criminals trying to get back into society. I dont believe there is anything in the cares act that would restrict pres. Trump give me the name of the company and i will have that checked out. I will do it. A friend of yours . No. Pres. Trump you say he is a criminal . He wanted to apply for an sba loan and couldnt and wonders how that squares away. Pres. Trump i would like to look into that. Haveese companies employees come back to work, if they get sick will the companies be liable . Companies youhich cap manufacturing, any kind of Companies Open where people get sick. Tos. Trump we are trying take liability away from these companies. We dont want that. We want the companies to open strong. I will get you a legal opinion on that. I will get you a legal opinion. You havent discussed it yet . No, but we will. Have executives brought concerns to you . Pres. Trump not at this point. They have talked about general liability. I will give you a specific answer from the lawyers. I wanted to follow on oil. , youyou talked earlier were talking about the ppp deal and you mentioned the sbr. In the first stimulus package, although you announced pres. Trump you know the price of oil right now . I do. Negative. Pres. Trump nobody has ever heard of negative oil but it is short term. Remarks, youening were talking about the ppp deal. Then, you mentioned the barrels of oil you previously had said you wanted to purchase. You werent able to get funding in the first deal. Pres. Trump what the price you are talking about, you dont need funding. They pay you. If you can get it. , are youstion is asking for the funding . Pres. Trump we will store it. We will use it as storage. Peoplerge for it, but need storage desperately and we have massive storage under the petroleum. You are not going to make it a requirement in the ppp . Pres. Trump if we could buy it for nothing, we are going to take everything we could get. The only thing i like better than that is where they pay you to take the oil but that is a shortterm squeeze. I dont think you will see that. We would like to have congress, this is a great time to buy oil and we would like to have congress approve its so we can, instead of storing it for usually the big companies, because i think we have 75 billion gallons capacity. That is a lot. We have been building it up over sometime. That is a lot, 75 billion barrels. We are going to get either ask for permission to buy it or we will store it. One way or the other, it will be full. Some senators called on you to stop saudi Oil Shipments that are on the way now. You could do that under section 232. Pres. Trump we will look at it. As i walked into the room, we certainly have plenty of oil. I will take a look at that. On testing, in the sba loan dparam, will you invoke the for the company you mentioned to ramp up production . Pres. Trump we dont need it. We use it, and i have used it a lot. But we use it and then sometimes called a have to do is see it coming. Do you want to talk about that, admiral . I dont think anybody knew about the dpa but there is a side of the dpa where you force a company to do something but there is a second side of it which is really a hand up. The company we are talking about had done everything to support this effort and have ramped up production. Im on the phone with them multiple times a day. This is the hand up. This is the government coming in and saying, how can we help you expand your lines . There is no asynchrony at all. This is the hand up side of the dpa. This is exactly what these small american heroic companies need. They dont need to be forced they are all in. Pres. Trump we dont want to embarrass people, either. We were on site with that company finishing out what their capital projections will be in order to be able to ramp up the additional four lines we talked about. The company will turn in a white paper could the dod that will move the process forward but it is actively in process. I know the need is enormous but in march we were promised 47 million tests. Roughly 4 Million People have been tested. Did the other tests not materialize . The one who said that, let me explain where we are, where we work. I was getting correct information about the actual tests that are in the marketplace. If you want to use those metrics, there have been over 40 million in the marketplace. We have an end to and issue we needed to deal with and that is what we have been dealing with, the swabs, the transport media. If we dont have people utilizing the machines the way dr. Birx is talking about, we have some of our main platforms that are only 10 utilized. You can have a lot of tests in the market and those are correct numbers, but it does if the machines are not utilized and organized at that level, they are not the in utilized to its fullest. At the machines were utilized you would have those millions of tests already being done. Dr. Birx estimated we have another million tests a week on one platform that could be done if the machines were utilized more fully. Admiral, you state, and the Vice President said that there will be enough tests in place for phase one. There are. The question is, what is the standard of testing that you now have the capability for . To test people who are only very ill . Justst people who come in because they want to get a test . What is the standard . Walks it as a guideline. I tried to be specific on friday and we all tried to. Number one, you need to test everyone who is symptomatic. You need to overtest them. How symptomatic . Whacks any symptoms consistent with covid. There is a wide range of symptoms. You want to overtest. We talked about the approximate metrics. This is a good metric that you want to get one positive for every 10 tests, that way you know you oversample. Second, and this is an important part, because so many people are asymptomatic, there is no way you can test enough people to pull one asymptomatic out of 300 people in the population. The strategy with which dr. , andoffered epidemiologists go, i wish i would have thought of that, is to focus on the vulnerable population where we know the asymptomatic rate could be much higher than the rest of the population. This is what my office does during normal times, focusing on the underserved populations, particularly in inner cities and urban areas. They have a higher rate because overcrowding, they cant telework, they are subject to poor nursing and dish and. There is a symptom met against them dramatic spread. Indigenous populations. This is an important layer most of the models and people dont talk about. This is where we will pick up a asymptomatic carriers. That is when you focus on track and trace. If we have enough tests now for everyone to going to go into phase one, why is the governor of erland having to get tests from south korea . What thet know governor of maryland is doing in south korea but there is excess capacity every day. If you wanted to send 30 or 40,000 tests to labcorp, that could be done. That could be done tomorrow. They needed to up the Testing Capacity i think we are seeing it across the country, that in the states that have been hardest testingir capacity and far exceeds south korea and they have been able to do that on a relatively straightforward basis. I dont know what the governor of maryland he didnt bring that up today. We were on the governors call today. You spoke to him personally . We spoke to Governor Hogan today. I heard there was an announcement today about, that he acquired some tests from overseas. Maybe we can put the slide back up that showed the number of facilities in the state of maryland. Part of our process, and i dont know when the governor placed the order from south korea, i wouldnt begrudge him or his Health Officials for ordering the capacity of all of the different laboratories and the number of machines across maryland is part of what we were communicating today, including federal facilities. Nih is in maryland, there are department of defense facilities. We assured the governor then, and all the governors, we will open all those facilities. The act to your point, john come on another element of that is the phase one testing. I cant really describe it as itl as the doctors here, but is the Contact Tracing piece. We believe states that meet the criteria of 14 days of cases going down, and proper Hospital Capacity, if they test the people that have symptoms, and if they deploy resources to vulnerable populations, Nursing Homes and other designated vulnerable populations, where we believe the threat of serious outcomes from coronavirus is real, we also today informed the governors that we will be deploying a cdc team to every state and every territory in the country to assist them in Contact Tracing. Governor polis raised a good thet about the legislation president s negotiating on capitol hill. He recommended we make sure that the new bill, but has 25 billion in testing resources, also covered Contact Tracing expenses by states. We assured him our administration strongly supports that. To theunicated that secretary of the treasury and the team and we will pursue that. We told every governor that we will be deploying teams, we think of 10 or 12 for a start, from cdc to reside in all of our states and territories to supervise and work with to doctors and others Contact Tracing. It is, test people that dont feel well and may have coronavirus. Keep a careful eye and monitor your vulnerable population, and when you come across a case, have a team on the ground that can do the immediate Contact Tracing and testing. That is how we restrain and contain the spread of coronavirus during phase one and frankly, it is the beginning of the structure for how we contain the coronavirus going forward. Pres. Trump the governor of maryland could have told mike of money. Save a lot look at those different places. That is maryland. Could have saved a lot of money. I dont think he needed to go to south korea. A little to get knowledge. Do you think it is right major corporations and institutions like a restaurant chain got a lot of money under the cares act, money that was supposed to be earmarked for Small Businesses . Pres. Trump i know i didnt get any, that is for sure. We are looking at individual things and some people will have to return it if we think it is an appropriate. The criteria is pres. Trump it is being done by great professionals, banks all over the country. That is what they do, they loan money and they are supposed to do it according to not only criteria but according to what we think is right. If somebody got something we think is inappropriate, we will get it back. Good point. A different question about south korea, there are reports you are personally negotiating with president moon the terms of reduction of u. S. Forces on the Korean Peninsula and there are 4 scenarios involved. And you confirm that . If so, what is the desired outcome . Korea,rump south president moon is a friend of mine. I congratulated him on a wonderful election victory. Negotiating for president moon and south korea to help us monitor monetarily. As you know, we have 32,000 soldiers there, that varies from what you thousand 32,000 in theyrea and we think pay very little. We are defending a wonderful nation, a nation we have a great we are askingbut them to pay a big percentage because it is not fair. It is a question of, will they contribute to the defense of their own nation . We are defending wealthy nations. They make our television sets, they make everything. Them great credit. We have been defending them for overam a many, many eight decades. I have gone to them in the past, last year i went to them and now they are paying 1 billion per year. I went to them again and said, i will be back because that is just a fraction. The relationship is great but it is not fair. Trade dealated the and made it more equitable than it was in the past. It was a terrible deal. Done by hillary clinton. The new deal is a more equitable deal on trade. We are paying for the military to defend another nation. It is a thousand 500 miles away. They are not the only when i am talking to, as you know. I want going to names, but nobody talks about that but i have done this. The taxpayers want to hear these things. Now, they have offered us a certain amount of money and i rejected it. I said, we are doing a tremendous service. We have a wonderful feeling of the wonderful relationship with each other but we have to be treated equitably and fairly. That is where it is right now. What is going to happen . I cant tell you but we will find out fairly soon. I congratulate the president , was a friend of mine. I congratulate president moon on having a terrific victory. A question about Governor Cuomo and for dr. Birx. Governor and the National Governors association in the past have called for unrestricted, as state and local governors and revenues drop. Are you open to the idea of unrestricted aid . Pres. Trump we will be talking whichthat in phase four, has to do with infrastructure. This country needs infrastructure. We spend all this money in the middle east, h trillion dollars, rillion dollars, trillion 8 trillion, trillion with a t. Theyf there is a pothole, dont want you to fix it. How stupid have we been . That is changing rapidly. You have seen that. Including things like negotiating with friends, but when we are helping friends, friends should reimburse us for the cost. Why should we be defending nations for free . We are defending a nation for free. Now, i am getting 1 billion per year. We were offered more than that but i turned it down. That is where we are with that. As far as the other is concerned, we have to be smart in this country. We have been taken to the cleaners by every and i mean with allies, not just with enemies. Frankly, the allies have taken than the enemies. The enemies, we dont do business with. The allies we do business with and whoever made these deals and these contracts, and many cases we didnt have a contract. We didnt have a contract or a trade deal with china. They came in and took 500 billion a year for many years. 205 hundred 50 billion per year out of our hides. This trade deal a number of months ago and it is a great deal. 250 billioning 25 , dollars, a lot of things are happening. They will have to purchase 250 billion worth of goods including farm products, up to 50 billion. A lot of good things are happening, but with china, the plague hit us. The plague. That was after, this was long after we signed the deal. The plague hit us. Im not happy about that. Question for dr. Birx. Itself, as it ,asses from patient to patient over time have you picked up any indication that it has become virulent . Nt dr. Birx we watch that all the time particularly with rna viruses to track. Youadaptation to humans, are asking, is this virus becoming more adaptive to humans and more able to spread or is it becoming less had opted to humans adapted to humans . We dont have any indication it is less able to spread. We will have good analyses that the come from obviously roosevelt had its incident with a virus outside of the United States and we will the able to look at those presenters. Video those parameters. The dod has done a great job in ensuring the health of the sailors and ensure these questions can be asked and answered. We have extraordinary evolutionary molecular biologists in this country, around the United States, and they are looking at this question. A lot of the work we have been doing, you see a lot of work happening with testing in new mexico and other states. They have extraordinary molecular biologists that are evolutionary biologist and they will be able to look at that both in new mexico, that may have lower transmission rates, and compare that to new york, times theaybe 10 transmission. But it is an excellent question and it is something we will be able to answer by what we see in the United States. Pres. Trump what a great question. Where did that come from . That is very impressive. When senator schumer wrote a letter a couple months ago, he said, you should use admirals and generals. I said, first of all our Vice President has been incredible but we have the admirals, we have the generals. I was talking to the admiral just before we came out. I said, did you go to annapolis . He said, no, sir. I said, thats too bad. Where did you go . He said, i went to harvard. That is ok, too. He was a great student at harvard. A young gentleman, he was very successful but he wanted to help the country, wanted to come into the country and we appreciate it very much. A big, big success. Lets do here and there next. Is there a reason Governor Cuomo is coming all the way down here . He wanted to. Believe it or not, we get along. He was very generous yesterday in particular. Me, its about these people and thousands beyond mike, the admiral, and all the other people working with us. I dont understand when i see polling and Approval Ratings for the job. A 95. Ld get i really shed. We are really helping the governors a lot. In the governors call me and to governors call me. They say incredible job. Not me, the job this group is doing. I am watching from the corner, and i am just saying boy, this is incredible stuff, when you watch the general get up and talk about it. You dont see that. When you hear the admirable admiral speak about the testing and how good it is. A was all about a ventilators month ago. We fixed it. You dont hear where is the ventilator . We are helping other countries now. They are very hard to come by and they take a long time to make. Its incredible the job we have done, that our people have done. About the act. You dont like to use it in less you have to, but a lot of times, just the fact that you have it gets you need. Well before you have to use it because they dont want to be embarrassed and i dont want to embarrass them because they have done a great job. Behind you. I promise. I cannot tell a lie, so we will get you next. Thank you so much, mr. President. First, about testing. You talked about first, its ventilators, next, testing. Think talking about testing is a personal attack. Can you talk about why you think it is a personal attack when it has been an issue for a long time, bipartisan, and there is still an issue with testing . Its mostly partisan. Its incorrect. You have the experts look at the maps. So many different organizations. As an example, Governor Hogan didnt really know. It was very obvious to any of those listening on the call today even though you were not supposed to be on their im sure some of you were. He really didnt know about the federal laboratories. He didnt know. Is less controversial than i am, but he didnt know about it. Jobave done a really good in testing. With that being said, we have tests coming out in the next two weeks that will blow the whole industry away. People want that abbott test. So do i. They cant do, massive numbers like the big machine, but the big machine takes a day, day and a half with delivery and everything else. Testing,ve tremendous tremendous testing capability. We have tested more than any country in the world by far. In fact, i think i read where if you add up every other country in the world, we have tested more. But we are dealing in politics. We are dealing in the thing called november 3 of this year. You know what november 3 represents, right . You know better than anybody in the room. Its called the president ial election. No matter what i do, where we go and i came up with a tablet this thing was gone, they would say trump did a terrible job. Thats the political soundbite. They know the great job we have done. Said if that being dont want to bore you with this. Not everybody believes you should do so much testing. We dont need so much. Others, they want maximum because they want to be able to criticize. Its almost impossible to get to the maximum number, but we have been able to do it already. I think over the next couple of weeks or sooner, we have a test, if it comes out, it will revolutionize the whole of testing. Not fairthing thats to thousands of people who have done such a good job. I second question is about your language and how you have approached the coronavirus from the beginning. I interviewed someone whose family got sick. They went to a funeral in midmarch. He said if the president had a and had said we need to stay home. He said family members were sickened because they were listening to you. Are you concerned that downplaying the virus made people sick . Mr. Trump a lot of people love me. I see them all the time. I guess i am here for a reason. To the best of my knowledge, i one, and i think we are going to win again. I think we are going to win in a landslide. But you are talking about march. Excuse me, excuse me, i understand. And yet in january, a certain date, you know the date better than i do, we put on a ban of china, where china cant come in. Ban inmarch, we put on a europe, where europe cant come in. How can he say i wasnt taking it seriously . I put a ban on china before anybody in this country died. So you tell me. Nancy pelosi was having she wanted to have a street party in chinatown in San Francisco at the end of february, a month later, and then they tell me its only a political talking point. But you feed into it. You are too good of a reporter to let that happen. You are a good reporter. Remember this. At the end of january, i put in a ban. There were 21 people, i was the only one in the whole world who wanted to do it. Fortunately, i was the one who counted for that purpose. We put on a ban because i was reading bad things about china. World Health Organization should have told us. Cover up for china. World health covered up for china. No, no, wait. I put on a ban. Coming tochina from the United States. I stopped europe from coming into the United States. People should say i acted very early. That was a hard thing to do. I didnt want to do that. Fauci said by doing it, President Trump saved tens of thousands of lives, so i did take it very seriously. You held rallies in february and march. I dont know about rallies. I havent left the white house in months except for a brief shipt to give a wonderful comfort. You held a rally in march. Did i hold a rally . Let me tell you, in january, when i did this, virtually no cases, no deaths. How could i not . Right . Ncy Pelosi Nancy Pelosi was holding a street fair. She wants a street fair in San Francisco in chinatown to prove you know what the purpose of it was . To prove there is no problem. Many other politicians did the same thing, wanted to prove. Of course not. No, no, no. People are amazed at how early i acted, and i did act early. With that being said, its very hard to say lets close down the greatest economy in the history of the world. Who worksybody else with me built the greatest economy in the history of the world. Best employment numbers, stock market numbers, virtually every category, even manufacturing numbers. I did that and somebody walked into my office and said sir, youre going to have to close down the economy, close down the country. I say we are going to rebuild it and its going to go faster than people think. Mr. President , thank you. Americans, with the exception of exceptionhuman or of pelosi, schumer, ann romney, we have seen incredible and romney, we have seen incredible bipartisanship. Mr. Trump i think its a great question. There is bipartisanship. Plane getting the paycheck the 300 50 billion was approved essentially unanimously. Another 250 i think its going to be a higher number than that. I think its going to end up being more than 250 billion. This is going to Small Businesses and workers. These are bipartisan plans. Its a great thing happening, so i think the fact that we can do all of this in a bipartisan way is great. The tax cuts the republicans did, we had no help from the democrats, so you cannot say thats bipartisan. But this whole thing, getting our country back, nancy pelosi is very nasty. She wasted a lot of time with impeachment, which was a total hoax, went nowhere. And that was not good. And schumer, i guess, same thing, but he sort of accepted it. He just did what he was supposed to do, and he didnt do very well with it. That was not appropriate. Our was a bad thing for country. They had the majority so they decided to stirred up. Theye wasted a year couldve been doing things that were good for the country. They should have been looking into china. The democrats were wasting time. I think we have had a great spirit of bipartisanship. I would not say we are going to set a record throughout the , but things are happening that are very good. The country is coming together. The people are coming together. I think you will find our country is much more unified. I think the press, the media foments a lot of anger. I really believe it ferments tremendous anger. I will be asked a tremendously hostile question from somebody and i will answer in a hostile way, which is appropriate, otherwise, you look foolish. I cant do that. A lot of these questions are asked from certain networks, so hostile, and there is no reason for it. War. E in a this is a world war ii. This is a world war i. By the way, the war essentially ended because of a plague that was one of the worst ever, almost 100 Million People. But we are in a big war. I will say one thing about because i think its important. The last person i did it early, but i was the last person that wanted to close down one of the great economic you cannot call it an experiment, but everything in life, i guess, is an experiment. One of the greatest economic stories in history. Im the last person that wanted to do it, but we did the right thing. If we didnt do it, you wouldve had a Million People, a million and a half people, may be 2 Million People dead. 50 i amoing toward hearing, or 60,000 people. One is too many, i always say it. One is too many, but we are going toward 50,000 or 60,000 people. That is at the lower as you know, the low number was supposed to be 100,000 people. We could end up at 50 to 60. Its horrible. If we didnt do what we did, we wouldve had, i think, a Million People, maybe 2 million, may be than that. There is oneat country in particular that said lets swing it. They are being inundated with death. If you take a look at some of the hospitals where one of them i knew, growing up in queens, and i am looking at the bodies lying in hallways, being brought into refrigerated trucks. Times 10. Hat its not sustainable. In many of the people that have this fear, lets, maybe we could have gone right through it. Have somebody that would loved to have done that, but it wouldnt have been sustainable. You cant lose a Million People. Thats almost double what we lost in the civil war. I use that as a guide. Civil war, 600,000 people died. So its not sustainable. If you took that number and cut it out half and half and half again. You would end up at 500,000 people if you want to make a conservative guesstimate. 500 thousand people is not acceptable. Remember this. 52 when wee compare 50 to 35,000. We are not talking about with the flu. We are not locking ourselves and our units. We are not locking ourselves and our apartments, not moving, not touching anybody, just saying the world. In this case, we are. If we just kept it going on a normal basis, which is the only standard you can compare, the flu, because that was a normal basis. You get into an airplane. You travel to florida. You go to texas, wherever you are going. Anything, theo number wouldnt be 50,00060,000, it would be a Million People dead, million five, a million two, maybe 700,000. It would be a number like that. Its so important because i see so much oh, well, you cant compare it, because i tell you what. The people of this country, what they have done, its not great, its terrible. Sudden, you see whats going on. They want to get going. Wewe wouldve done that, wouldve lost anywhere from a million to more than 2 Million People. With all of the death we have seen, 50,000 or 60,000 people right now its at 40,000. Thats with our guard up. If we took our guard down and just said ok, were just going to keep this open, we wouldve lost millions of people. Can you imagine . Look how bad it looks now when you look at the bodies, when you look at new york where they have the mass grave and all of the things that you see. Can you imagine if we had the guard down . If we didnt do anything and we just said lets ride it out . It would not have been sustainable in any way. It would have been an atrocity. So we have done the right thing. We have really done the right thing. The people who have worked so hard and dangerously. I watch those doctors, nurses, medical people running at hospitals they dont even have gear on. Forget about gear whether its great or not and we are bringing in the best in the world but they are running in with everything open they are like warriors. The job they are doing. If we didnt do the moves we made, you wouldve had a million, a million and a half, 2 Million People dead. So multiply that times 50. 10 to 20 to 25 times more people dead than all of the people we have been watching. Thats not acceptable. Not acceptable. Its so horrible. But can you imagine multiplying . Hat out by 20 or more its not acceptable, so its a very big question, i appreciate it. We will see you tomorrow. 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. In the world with interactive maps. Watch on demand at any time, unfiltered, at cspan. Org coronavirus. [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] washington journal prime time, a special evening edition of washington journal on the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic. S are chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot on her cities and her personal response to the pandemic, and the director of the ucla center for global and immigrant health talks about the spread of the virus and the latest data on how well it is being controlled. Join the conversation tonight at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Hear the concerns of those i am honored to serve. I see the terrible impact of covid19 on Public Health as well as the pocketbook. Informed by the Coronavirus Task force and Public Health officials, opening up america again includes three phases to safely reopen and get folks back one,rk, to initiate phase the state must meet a series of basic criteria, which can be tailored to reflect specific circumstances for a region or statewide approach. Our state has taken targeted action to address the threat of coronavirus by leveraging data and advice from officials in the public and private health sectors. Thanks to this methodical approach and the millions of georgians who have literally slow theligently to spread of coronavirus, we are on track to meeting the criteria for phase one. According to the department of Public Health, reports of emergency room visits for. Lulike illnesses are falling documented covid19 cases are flattening, and we have seen declining emergency room visits in general. By expanding our hospital bed capacity, including the temporary facility at the Georgia World Congress center, we have the ability to treat patients without crisis care in hospital settings. Our proactive actions have reduced stress and strain on our area hospitals as well as the communities and the families that they serve. A key component of the criteria is testing. For weeks i have expressed my frustration at the status of testing and committed more resources to expansion. We have partnered with the University System of georgia, partnered with the private sector and offer drivethrough services, and recently empowered Public Health departments across georgia to offer testing for all symptomatic individuals and specific asymptomatic individuals. The cdc experts and the cdc as an institution as a model for the whole world. That not without reason other countries call their similar institutions africa cdc, china cdc, and so on. Many countries use the same name, cdc, and it shows how the cdc is very strong and influences the whole world, and many countries want to have an institution like the cdc. Capacitybecause of its , i think, works with many countries, but at the same time, with who. Us. Hat, of course, helps we worked together, and it helps time more, but at the same means there isc nothing hidden from the u. S. Because americans are working with us. They tell what they are doing. For who, it is open. We dont hide anything. It is open. Cdc, for others. We want all countries to get the same message immediately, because that helps countries prepare well and quickly. , to the question you ask, all countries get information immediately. Some president s give more advantage than others because we are opening give information to everybody. Informationo pass to their institution, no problem. There is no secret in who. Things confidential and secret is dangerous. Why everybody inside our organization and experts from other countries sends out messages immediately. That is what we want. There are no secrets in who. Its about lives. Life is very precious. A single life is very precious. When we get information in who, we get information and numbers. People died. This many people have been infected. Dont see the figures. We dont see the numbers. We see the individuals behind the numbers. We see the individuals behind the figures. Theont want to see average. We want to see the numbers. Anyone dying is a daughter or a son of somebody. Is the father, mother, grandfather, grandmother of somebody. Its life. See thewhy we prefer to individuals, the faces, the people. They are not numbers. They are not averages. Hey are people they are individuals. And that is why we dont have secrets. As soon as we get information, want toit, because we save lives. Even one life matters. You cant bring it back once its gone. That is why we are asking countries, please, this virus in danger is dangerous. This virus is public enemy number one. In behavior, new very contagious like flu, and at killer likee, very sars and mers. It has a very dangerous combination. This is happening in 100 years again, liket time the 1918 flu that killed up to 100 Million People. But now we have technology. We can prevent that disaster. We can prevent that kind of crisis. We can prevent it. We should have confidence that we are in a different situation and can fight back. If there is National Unity and global solidarity, we take this as a common enemy for humanity and give our best, of course understanding that this is a new virus, we can win the fight. We can. But lets consider those dying as individuals. They are not numbers or figures. Even one life is precious. From. Ow where i come i know war. I know poverty. I know disease. Suffer in people those conditions. I know how people are killed because of poverty. I know how people who could have been saved are dying because of this. I know a tragedy. I know. I see people. I see faces. I see the mother or father of somebody. I see the daughters and sons of somebody. I see a tragedy that can be followed family. A family. I see that. Know. And i i am telling you from firsthand experience. Losing a brother means from childhood. Tragedies you all the i have seen. That is why in my last prayer i said lets not play with fire. Tragedy, which is already affecting many families. Many are losing their loved ones. So we dont hide information. Because i know what poverty means. I know what war means. I know what killer disease means. I know what is behind all this problems. We have been warning from day one. This is a devil. That everybody should fight. Proposing iswe are National Unity. Strong National Unity. Everybody fighting this virus. Aking care of their citizens taking care of real people. Solidarity and genuine National Unity. Without National Unity and , thel solidarity, trust us worst is yet ahead of us. This tragedy. Many countries are promoting their own conclusions because they didnt know and got into trouble. We warned developed countries, even harms virus will developed countries. It did. We said that. It will surprise even developed countries. We said this on record. Lets stop additional surprises. Lets stop tragedy. Hundreds of thousands now dying is serious. Even when life is precious. Lets say enough is enough. Even one life is precious. Lets say enough is enough. Has changed since cspan began, but our mission continues, to provide an unfiltered view of government. We have brought you primary election coverage, the impeachment process, and the response to the coronavirus. You can watch all of cspans Public Affairs programming on television, online, or on our part ofio app, and be the national conversation. Cspan, created by private industry, americas Cable Television company, as a public service, and brought to you today by your television provider. All month on cspan, we are featuring the winners of our studentcam documentary competition. Middle and High School Students created videos answering the