Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 05052020 20240713

Drevna with rainn talks about the Sexual Assault allegation against joe biden and the broader issue of Sexual Violence. Coronavirus world death toll passes the quarter of a million mark, new unreleased reports say that the u. S. Death toll could double by june. This is washington journal, for tuesday, may 5, 2020. Start theng, we will program by asking you about your experience with covid19. Are you personally affected . Are the lines for calling in, if you have been personally infected, the lines are 202 7488000. For those of you with a Family Member, a loved one, a friend, 202 7488001. The line for 11 medical. Rofessionals, 202 7488002 you can always send us a text. That line, 202 7488003. Tell us your name and where you are taxing from. On twitter, we are cspanwj. We will look for your facebook posts as well, facebook. Com cspan. Report, u. S. Quietly fears. Ily toll will soon double they write host the fda has changed its stance on Antibody Testing, a room work this morning in politico and other publications, this is the headline fda reverses policy that let over the markety tests on without review. They write the fda is walking back a widely criticized policy that let over 100 Antibody Tests onto the market without Agency Review and that manufacturers emergency use or authorization within 10 Business Days after their product hits the market under a new policy announced on monday and if a test is not specificity and sensitivity criteria, the suspendurer must distribution. These are the tests that can reveal whether a person has been infected by the coronavirus, identifying previously undetected cases, improving estimates on the overall size of the outbreak in the u. S. And the specificity measured host on the death numbers, one more story before we get to your calls, this is from the wall street journal. We have asked this a month ago , weasked it periodically have had a number of colors indicate to us that they felt they had meant impacted by the disease much earlier than boarded. Heres a story from the wall street journal about that. Past debts getting a closer look. Medical investigators review cases to see if the virus killed americans as early as november. They write host pulling out on the number here, we will show you the updated numbers from Johns Hopkins, but u. S. Cases as of 117, one point 17 8 million, almost 1. 2 million americans, over 68,000 u. S. Deaths now. The numbers again, if you have been personally infected, that line is 202 7488000. Family member or friend, that is 202 7488001. Andrew, sterling, virginia, good morning. Andrew, sterling, virginia, you are on the air. Go ahead . Are you there, andrew . We will let you go and go to flushing, new york. Flex good morning. Good morning to you. My brother works in Public Service. Here in new york we closed in february. He had a bad cold. Days. Ng for three or four but he didnt go to the hospital. We told him to stay there and monitor his temperature. But i cannot tell you. The symptoms that he told us and the way that he suffered is typical of this what you call it now, coronavirus. Another friend working in manhattan, working in business, in general he had a terrible cold. A very young man, healthy. He had to go to the hospital because he had never had such a thing. I connected one Family Member and a close friend, i can assure you that it has been in new york, as Governor Cuomo and my brotherinlaw would take a test here and he survived it. Host how early was this . How long ago . My brother in england is a Public Service worker, a bus driver. It was early february. My friend over here in new york, he told me to forget about it, dont worry. Host appreciate your call this morning. Is this is nudging open the doors. This is the front page of the washington times. Closure, andng for florida joining a growing list of easing restrictions on monday, while j. Crew filed for bankruptcy, becoming the first major retail casualty of the pandemic, underscoring the urgency of the nation to get back to work. A call from andrew cuomo, who had this to say about reopening businesses in new york. [video clip] which businesses do we open first . The ones that are most essential and pose the lowest risk, ok . Most essential and the lowest risk. Phase one, talking about construction, manufacturing, select retail with curbside pickup. They are the most essential with the lowest risk. Second phase, professional services, retail, administrative support. Third phase, restaurant food services, accommodation, arts entertainment. Remember, density is not your friend here. Large gatherings are not your friend area that is where the virus tends to spread. That is why those situations would be down at the end. And then we need businesses to also reimagine how they are going to do business. And get ready to protect their workforce. To change their physical environment, to the extent they need to. And to change their process to make sure that people can socially distance and that people remain at a safe, in a safe environment. And that is going to be up to businesses, to come up with ways to reconfigure their workplace and their processes to make this work. Nd thats business i business government can say these are the standards, but a business is going to have to say this is how we do that. Host have you been personally affected or infected by is 202 that line 7488000. For those of you with family, friends, or other loved ones, 202 7488001. David, tell us your story. Caller good morning. , number one, i think of had it. My neighbors brother contracted this disease or whatever, this virus. I was amazed at how quickly it took. We got to diagnosis and it was about eight days later that he asked. See someoneing to like that just go so quickly. The other part, i think this has been around for a while. We were going to have the st. And i couldy dinner not taste it. You know . Corned beef and cabbage is pretty big and i couldnt taste it. And i was so sick. I had a fever. I just kind of laid low for a while. I called it the cold from hell. Kind of went away. But i think it swept through some time ago. Host did you ever call your doctor to say can i get tested for it . No. Er as a matter of fact i called and asked if i could get the Antibody Test and as of a week or so ago, they still were not available. He would give me a jingle when things became available. As far as getting tested, i want to be. I seriously think i have had it. Im just self diagnosing, but thats pretty much it. I think it has been around for a while now. Right, candace, you have been diagnosed . I think i had it back in december. I got a really bad cold, fever, chills, body aches. It was difficult to breathe, im a nurse. I never have to go to urgent care or anything and i went in because i was that sick, telling my husband i really dont feel well. I went, they tested me for the flu, no fluke. They said it looked like i had a little bit of pneumonia. I never got diagnosed. My husband was like you definitely had it. You are an rn, shouldnt you now we tested or at . The Antibody Test, we just read the story about the Antibody Test, that they are changing some rules on those. But it seems like its necessary for your job to make sure that you dont have it or that you have the tests to continue working in public . Caller its kind of tricky. They dont really test you unless you have the symptoms. No matter if you are a nurse or not. Toif you have been exposed someone in the hospital, otherwise the hospital doesnt cover you to get tested. Host the state of maryland is doing testing, right . Caller they are, but you have to have symptoms and fall into a criteria. Like work in a nursing home, live in a nursing home, or exposed to someone you knew was positive. They wont just test you. Host got it. Thanks for sharing your experience. Betty is next in illinois. That had had a cousin the virus. Shes 80 years old. In a nursing home in pennsylvania. Its called the chestnut lodge. Shes recuperating. Which we pray for that. So, shes 80 years old. Born december 25. Host is she still in the nursing home . They put the ones that had the virus in a different area. Different from the rest of the people. But 17 people passed away. Host in that nursing home . Caller yeah. In pennsylvania. The report today in usa today, of the 60,000 that have died, over 16,000 work nursing home residents. We will talk more about that later in detail on the program. Lets go to gym, next, in buffalo, new york. Caller i have three really Close Friends in new york city that came down with this virus and they work right sick or quite a long time. They recovered. They told me are horrendous. I know america you want to get out of the house, you want to go and do what you want to do, but the moral of the story after talking to these guys, my friends, is youve got the call follow the guidelines. The social distancing staying at home thing is so incredibly important. I know its a big pain in the but that if we ever want to get through this, ladies and gentlemen, we have got to follow those guidelines. The Supreme Court, historically social distance from themselves yesterday in a teleconference case that was carried live here on cspan, as will the remaining nine oral arguments that they will hear. The headline this morning from the associated press, call to order. First arguments by phone, they politely took turns speaking and not a child, spouse or dog could be heard. With that, the Supreme Court hearingtory on monday, arguments by telephone and allowing the world to listen and live for the first time. The arguments were essentially highprofile phone discussions justices and to arguing lawyers. It went remarkably smoothly, notable for a high court that prizes tradition and only reluctantly changes how it operates. Want to show you aps this morning from the wall street journal, one of their Opinion Pieces on the court case yesterday. Timeice thomases question. Thats the headline. Host and you will hear that again today. The court gavels in at 10 00 eastern and we will have live coverage of the next oral argument coming out today. Ford versus alliance international, about aids and hiv funding for board affiliates of u. S. Based groups. Thats at 10 00 and we will follow that with discussion from our partners at the Constitution Center at 11 00 eastern, all of that live here on cspan and on cspan radio. Calls, your experiences with covid19. If you have been infected, that line is 202 7488000. If you have a Family Member or loved one, that number is 202 7488001. Darrell is next in glen bernie, maryland. Go ahead. Actually ind october i had a relative that became very sick and she has never been sick. 58 years old, went into the hospital. They put her on the respirator right away. They kept her there for like the week. They took her off, said she is in doing good, they were going to try to put her back on. Subsequently her mom got sick, her dad died, and i believe it was corona. This is like akin october. I had a sickness around that time, i got sick and i noticed my taste buds werent working well and i had a plane frankfurter and it was so hot, it was like the hottest thing in the world and i said something is wrong with me. I could have been asymptomatic from being exposed to my Family Members. Host did you ever talk to your doctor about it, see if you get to get tested for it . I talked to my doctor, the only symptoms i had was a cough for three weeks and it was kind of an ugly cough. He said if i didnt take care of it it would go down into my lungs. I was aggressive with it and i took care of it. Just me focusing on that, i got fired from a job in between. [laughter] host did you get fired during the shutdown or before that . Caller yeah, i got fired a few days after my birthday. March 1 is seventh, fired a few days later. Host sorry to hear about that. Thank you for calling in this morning. We are at the wj. This tweak tweet host front page this morning of the wall street journal, a look at Chuck Schumer and Mitch Mcconnell, both Wearing Masks as the Senate Return for business yesterday. The headline on the story on the legislative action ahead for the senate. Liability shield for businesses looms as next virus battle. Senate republican efforts to as allies ofsses businesses and labor fight over the terms under which the economy will emerge from shutdown and Senate Lawmakers return to washington on sunday monday to tackle confirmations of judges, officials, and start working on of relief for households and businesses on top of the 3 trillion approved so far. Mitch mcconnell has called Liability Protections a musthave and redline for republicans, saying he wont support Democratic Party calls for further state and local aid without it. Chuck schumer of new york said the republican focus on confirmations in the first week back, and their stance on the liability, highlighting a difference in priorities with democrats. Host and here is the majority legal, Mitch Mcconnell, laying out the agenda. [video clip] i dont think anyone can argue that filling in Critical National security posts is not important business, but to my colleagues who may wish that we didnt have to devote more time to these kinds of nominations, i would simply say that i agree with you. I agree with you. Unfortunately, for more than three years now my colleagues in democratic leadership have used across the board obstruction to force more time and even cloture votes for the kinds of subcabinet level nominations that used to travel easily by voice vote. So, if any of my colleagues on the other side wish that we could recover the senate spend less time on these sorts of nominations, i would invite them to share that distinguished democratic leadership and change tactics. As long as floor time and roll call votes remain the own the way for the senate to fill important posts, that is what we will do. Nuclear watchdogs or counterintelligence leaders stay on the sidelines. So, mr. President , the senate will be a smart and safe as we possibly can and we are going to show up for work like the essential workers that we are. Our bosses are the American People and they are counting on us to keep on serving. Senator mcconnell yesterday on the senate floor. This morning we are asking you your experience with covid19, if you have been personally infected, the line is 202 7488000. If you have a Family Member or friend, that line is 202 7488001. And for medical professionals, the line is 202 7488002. The latest look from Johns Hopkins, worldwide cases passing through. 6 million. The global deaths, 251,000 global deaths in the u. S. 1. 1, nearly 1. 2 million cases confirmed in the u. S. And the death count is approaching 69,000. Senator Chuck Schumer yesterday on the senate floor said the focus of the senate should be in response to covid19. Heres what he said. [video clip] the republican leader has called the senate back into session despite the fact that the district of columbia fierce to be reaching the peak phase of this Public Health emergency. Despite the risk that we face by gathering here in the capital, despite the risks faced by Security Guards, cafeteria workers, janitors, and staff. Who operate the floor of the senate. I want to take a moment to thank and and every one of you, all of those capitol hill workers for being here today, for doing their jobs so that we may do ours. But mr. President , if we are going to be here, if we are going to make these fine people come into work in these conditions, let the senate at least conduct the nations business and focus like a laser on covid19. The republican leader has scheduled no significant covid related business on the floor of the senate. Among e will vote on on a nomination to the Nuclear Regulatory committee commission. Later this week the republican majority on the Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing for a manifest the unqualified, totally divisive rightwing judicial nominee. Related topic of covid legislation has come up, leader mcconnell has simply drawn partisan lines in the sand. Host the senate, back in session today at 11 doctor on our companion network, cspan2. Lets go back to calls in here from cynthia, knoxville. Caller good morning to you, how are you . Host fine, thank you. And you . Caller where find out here on in the smoky mountains. We are excited to be here to talk about the effect on , our governor has given guidance on the plan to reopen. I feel like churches are kind of left out with regards to guidance. Church, i, if im a have 50 members and im getting medy to reopen and they tell i need to get these items in place. Face masks, cleaning products. I need to have my church clean from head to toe. I need to have a protocol for the members to come in. They are at a disadvantage because of the disparity with resources to getting such a thing done. You are giving guidance for churches to open, reopen, but you are talking about sending them into harms way when they dont have the resources and the guidance to open up safely. Here in knoxville, tennessee we together, the vice mayor and mayor of the city, banded together and particularly focusing on africanamerican churches, saying that these are things we are going to talk about. Things were going to come together and bring our resources together. This coming thursday we will be having another Conference Call with about 50 or 60 pastors and churches to talk about putting a plan together. Call it my three ps plan, prepare, pray. That our churches, the church building, let me be clear when we talk about this reopening, the church has always been open since this started, but we are talking about the church building. Bringing the building up to snuff, making sure clean and there is a plan of action. Let the deacons know what to do. Ow to collect the tithes i know churches are doing a lot of Virtual Meetings and things online. Governor ofs the tennessee, what is the ruling . How many can assemble for a sunday Church Service or a religious service of any kind . Well right now the governor of tennessee says hes they open withat their own plan and that churches continue to meet remotely. And that they continue to have meet. Ve ways to he has not given specifics about the number of people. He has been saying he will finish it for them to open but we are pushing for them to not open the building, but begin to plan. Plan, prepare, and pray that we can bring our most vulnerable members acted church in the same way. We know that those who are faithful tend to be senior citizens. Those that will come and senior citizens. We as a Church Family across the band together, plan, prepare, and pray that we can get to a point. Not tomorrow or this coming sunday, not probably sometime in june, but maybe in july, august, or september, we will have a plan of action. Cynthia, thank you for your comment this morning. Fromng us next, andrew politico, talking to us specifically this morning about a hero hearing coming up on the senate side. This hearing will be getting a lot of attention because of the nominee himself, representative John Ratcliffe. Right. Thats exactly this is probably the most highprofile confirmation hearing we have seen on capitol hill in a large long time, and a large part due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has kept lawmakers far away from washington, but they will do it in a sort of adapted way so that lawmakers can maintain social distancing and, of course, themselves. Why is representative red cliff, why is this notable that hes getting a hearing . Nominated once before, then he withdrew his nomination, now nominated by the president again. What happened in between that brought him back to the forefront . I think what happened in between is the fact that richard grenell, fear slowing pierce loyalist of the president , was appointed acting director of intelligence, giving senators a choice. A lot of democrats of course have said that they are not comfortable with either man toping as the nations intelligence officer, but of course for republicans when given the choice between the two, they would prefer to see radcliffe in that position. Especially given that it would be a permanent nominee. The first time when he withdrew his nomination, there were concerns about whether he had embellished his resume. He said he prosecuted certain cases that he hadnt when he was a u. S. Attorney down in texas. That is what happened in between denominations. He is a former u. S. Attorney, what is his experience on intelligence issues . He has been on the committee since 2019. Thats obviously not a very long time, but he has demonstrated a of, he isnow, a sort very steeped in the issues, including cybersecurity. A lot of senators have said, and a couple of other issues that the director of National Intelligence will have to deal with. He of course rose to prominence in conservative circles as a fierce defender of the president during the impeachment hearings. That is something that of course likened a lot of republicans to him, showing that the president trust him and has confidence in him for this role. Host it is certainly likely that Democratic Senators will closely grill radcliffe, who are the republican senators to keep an eye on in terms of their view and their eventual vote . Look, some of the swing senators have also already basically come out to say what they will do on the republican side, including Susan Collins of maine, who sits on the Intelligence Committee and has indicate indicated that she will support radcliffe, though at the same time she is looking fromledges of independence radcliffe at this hearing today. Of course, these senators all have a chance to meet privately with the nominee and grill him on their own and get their own questions answered in a more private setting. But today we will see a lot of that spilling into public view and my prediction is that we will see a partyline confirmation in that all or most republicans will vote in favor mostm, whereas all or democrats will vote against him. Thank you so much for joining us this morning. Guest thanks, phil. Host a reminder to listeners that we will cover the hearing with the dni nominee John Ratcliffe at nine 30 this morning and it will be live over on cspan2. You can always follow that programming on the cspan radio app. Back to your calls on your experience with covid19. If you have been personally infected, the line is 202 7488000. For those of you with friends and family who have been diagnosed and infected by it, 202 7488001. Sam, woodbridge, virginia, thanks for waiting, go ahead. Caller i recently had a Family Member and a friend passed away in the last month. Questions. Quick one, i have noticed while watching the news they have stats on infections and deaths, but they havent really had any stats on the coverage. Recoveries. Second question, recent cases of people with hiv who have been . Nfected and third, a followup to the second question. Is there a link to any could help those with hiv and are also infected with covid19 . Good questions. On the recovery rate, thats available. I will see if i can find it on the Johns Hopkins dashboard. They do lists that and we will see we can track that for you. Sam is next in syracuse, new york. Went caller i went down to my local Grocery Store a couple of sundays ago. Department of health was holding Antibody Testing. So, i got my test. The next day i got a call from new york state, the department of health, that said that the test was inconclusive. They said could you go down and do it again. I said sure. I went down and did it again and it said i was positive for the antibodies. Im not sure what the point of ie story is, but i can say was a typhoid mary for probably a month or two months, who knows. I have been shedding virus for a long time. I never got sick. Im one of those people that dont get the flu, dont get colds, so i never had any kind insymptom, but at some point the last few months i did contract the virus and survived it. Host when did you get the Antibody Test . Guest probably two sundays ago . Host and they turned that around pretty quickly . Caller it was very fast, the department of health called and talked to me. They couldnt quite explain what inconclusive meant. The you hadey said shown signs, positive signs of antibody, correct . Caller yes, the second test came up positive. Host thanks for calling in. To the caller that asked about the recovery rate, thats part of the dashboard. The deaths in the recovery rate, 58,000 in new york, just new york, 58,950. Nearly 25,000. You can find it statebystate by going to that website. Julie is in wilmington, delaware. Good morning. Caller good morning. Host make sure the you turn down your volume and go ahead with your comment. Back in february i was diagnosed with double ammonia. I have heart failure. Im 77 years old. I cannot get in to see a doctor anywhere. Have tried several times because i have been feeling weak and tired lately. I dont know what to do. Host have they said its a probable prospect for getting tested . Caller im not sure where to go to get tested. Ok, laurie is next in hamburg, pennsylvania. Hello there. I know someone who had died in a nursing home. I dont understand why when the American People, when they stick together to follow the stayathome guidelines, they adapted and everything was going fine and america just all of a sudden changed. Suddenly needing to go back out and ignore the cdc guidelines. The economy apparently took precedent over peoples lives . Its really scary when there are armed men marching on the capitals against governors and their stayathome orders meant to protect the general public. Many countries where masks. In asia they wear masks. Its like a sign of respect to other people. Its not an infringement on their rights. I think that right now we are headed down the wrong road. Opening up too fast. Im not saying we dont need our economy, but the economy isnt going to be anything close to normal with 30 Million People unemployed. We will have to continue to adapt as we were. At home. Ere staying right now the senate is adopting methods to implement and deliberate their job and fulfill their constitutional duties. It is physically dangerous for theiro be together and do job. But at the same time normal goking people are saying back to normal, its ok, dont worry. We need this economy, its ok. At the same time, the employers and corporations, our government , we are trying to keep them liable rather than putting protections in place. Mandatory for these companies to keep the people safe. Christina is next. Brooklyn, new york city, good morning. How are you . Host fine, thank you. Caller im a home Health Attendant certified by the state of new york and i took care of a young man for 29 years. He was sick on january 1. Andad a lifethreatening other conditions which, you know, preexisting conditions. He passed here in his home on the ninth of april. It was pretty devastating, i have been attached to him. I never got paid. That is when i first started taking care of him. I went and took courses and became a certified hha. I never took any money. Toave some of my own money where he was stable and even married. Years. His wife after six he passed and he had been in pretty good shape. He just got symptoms like in the last five days before he passed. I told him that im not an icu nurse, but in brooklyn, where we are devastated with it all, brooklyn has more mortality cases than any place else in the nation. New york state is number one as well. He didnt want to go to the hospital because the viral load their. He would rather have died at home i guess. I thought he would get better but he didnt. I just want to Say Something that everyone must know, that the cdc, the president , our governor and our mayor are not telling people, which is so. Mportant to prevent this virus Governor Cuomo did say yesterday that the virus is everywhere. I dont know what people are supposed to deduce from that. The virus is outside. He admitted that his days on the subways, on the handles and the banisters when you go upstairs. Now we close the subways between 12 00 and 5 00. Host a headline here, 15 p. M. Rolls a day 15 funerals a day cuomo yesterday talked about the importance of Wearing Masks. Heres what he said. [video clip] [video clip] i think it is disrespectful for people not to wear masks. See these commercials on tv, thank you to the heroes, the nurses, the doctors, the transit workers, the police officers. And we should be thankful, right . They went to work so that we could all stay safe and go home. Showeast gratitude you can is at least wear the mask so the you dont infect more people who place more of a burden on the hospitals, the nurses, and the doctors all saying thank you for your great service. You really want to say thank you . Respect them, respect their job, where the mask so the you dont infect people. Well, i dont want to wear a mask. Its not that big a deal. By the way, you dont wear it for yourself, you where to protect me. I wear a mask to protect you. We owe each other a certain amount of reasonableness and respect in society. And i owe you that level of respect. If im sick, i should wear a mask. Local governments have the ability to enforce and penalize. Thats up to local governments. Do i think local governments should be enforcing it . Should there be sanctions . Yes, yes. It is a Public Health emergency. This is not just do me a favor. Health a public emergency. Its a statewide order that i put in place that im proud of and local governments have the responsibility to enforce it. Part of their right, their legal right, is they can have a penalty or a sanction that they impose. So, rochester can have one penalty. It can be appropriate to the community. New york city is in a different situation. Yeah, i think local government shouldnt force it and there should be a penalty. You can literally kill someone. You could literally kill someone because you didnt want to wear a mask. I mean how, how cruel and irresponsible with that be . Do you wear a mask when you are not here . Yes, yes. No one said where one all the time, right . Maybear a mask if you are in a situation where you cant socially distance. Spending the first hours iran washington journal, asking you your experience with covid19. If you have personally been. Nfected, 202 7488000 if you know a Family Member or friend who has, 202 7488001. Another version of that story here, draft addiction predicts covid19 cases reaching 200,000 per day. The draft government report projects cases searching for 200,000 per day by june first, a staggering jump accompanied by more than 3000 deaths each day. The document predicts a sharp increase in cases and deaths beginning may 14, according to a the washington post. The forecast, they write, stops in first but shows daily cases and thats on an upward trajectory at that point. The white house and center for Disease Control and prevention disavowed the report, though the slides create had the cdc logo. Theas reportedly shown to cdc as a work in progress. Arkansas, good morning. Yes. R good morning, i had a nephew who had it, but he recovered. Then i also had a friends grandson who passed away from it. He was only 25 years old. Doesnt the why news or the president talk about the scientists from harvard and the two scientists from china that got together in a lab . Why does nobody ever talk about that . Are you familiar with the doctor im talking about question mark want to mention his name. Whats the story you are referring to . The scientists from Harvard University and the two scientists from wuhan, china that got together in a lab and they, but nobody ever talks about that. Ant there is actually interview with dr. Fauci today, i will try to call that up. He disavows that from national geographic, that exclusive. A will see forget to that and bit. Linda, corning, new york. Caller yes, i believe i had the coronavirus back, i was sick towards the end of february and january. I was sick for three weeks before i finally went to an urgent care and they gave me a chest xray and a flu, a regular flu test that was negative, but i did have pneumonia. They didnt feel comfortable sending me home. They sent me to the er. They basically just, they gave me a dose of medicine there for my pneumonia and sent me home. Recently, i really want to get an Antibody Test and i really do think that i had it. Qwest is one of the places doing it. Andnearest one is in africa when i went online and said they are closed until the end of may. So they are really even giving anybody Antibody Tests in this area, corning, l my rock, ithaca, whatever. So you know, i think everything is kind of a mess. But yeah, my symptoms actually start with like violent vomiting. Host how early do you think you had symptoms . Caller pardon me . Early do you think i had symptoms . When do you think you first noticed them . I started getting, i was, i started with the vomiting , it was late february. Late in february. Then it went right into, you know, the respiratory. I have done some research that said like 20 of people in china problemsith the gastro. Diarrhea, vomiting. They dont say much about it, but i have read that 20 of people, it started with that symptom. And then i did not really run a fever. Which i have heard other people say, who tested positive, didnt really have a fever when they had it. And you said that there in corning you cant get an Antibody Test until the end of this month . Quest diagnostic was one of the ones where you didnt even have to go to the doctor, you could just go get it. But the nearest laboratory is in africa and online is says they are rosen to the end of may. Host linda, good luck. Thank you for calling in. Todd is next from cottage grove, minnesota. I was testedler yesterday. I tried to get a test the day before at a private clinic. Im in uber driver, i dont have insurance. They wanted deposits. A veteran, so i went to the v. A. , yesterday, told them my symptoms. Now im waiting on my test results. I should have the test results later today or tomorrow. Host so you are showing symptoms then, obviously . Caller yeah, sore throat. The nurse that i talked to said most likely dont have it, but in past they had people that thought they didnt have it but came back positive. That we failed on preventing this disease from spreading and i think were going to fail on containing it as well. Theres people that dont have insurance. They, especially in my profession, they dont have the resources, uber doesnt pay for anything, to get tested. And if we are going to prevent this, we have to get people tested. If we find out that they are, we have to, you know, track them and quarantine them. But if you are not testing them, whats the point . Are an uberid you driver but also a veteran, so you got tested at a v. A. Facility . Host what was caller yes. Host what was that process like . What precautions did they take . Caller very professional, im very impressed. They had to go through a special door to screen you. Turns outope it negative, but either way we hope you get your answer and feel better. Caller i got tested for strep throat and that came back negative already. So we will see. Todd, from minnesota. Next up is rob in cocoa beach, florida. Caller how are you doing . Caller host doing fine, thank you. Caller my brother had it. You might think that we are crazy, but he had it back in october, ok . Pneumonia, all the symptoms. Everything about it. And my father is on a feeding tube now. He served his country and the ran out ofhat they food for him. We had a friend yesterday trying to find someone to get food for him. He had the virus im sure, a couple times. We still had them Health Care Workers come in in and out. Not tested, we dont know if they have the virus, coming in and out of the house. Host what about your brother, where does he live . Caller he got over it, he lives with him. But the Health Care Workers, its just, its a common shame that the government cannot test everybody with a blood test. Its very simple. This way they could get tested. If you had the virus, number one, and then who knows when. I believe it started way before they are telling us. I know for a fact, the pneumonia and everything else, its the same as it was if someone had fullblown covid. They need to test these people before they go out into the community. People need to be tested with blood test. Just like my diabetes. You take a blood test, boom, boom, boom, youre done, you know if you had it or dont have it or are going to get it or you dont have it and this and that. Bottom line, they need to test these people before they let them out in the community. Host looking at politics, we are six months away from election day. Forrticle this morning, for binky assets helping reelection bid. Finally, the campaign has a cash advantage. Money certainly helps and right now the Trump Campaign and Republican Party have an edge over democrats. President trump with a couple of political tweets yesterday, saying, a group of rino republicans who failed badly 12 years ago, then again eight years ago, there were beaten by me for years ago, have copied the concept of an ad from ronald reagan. Doing Everything Possible because they do not know how to lincolntheir socalled project is a disgrace. I do not know what kelly and did to her husband, but it mustve been bad. Asich. Aver lost bad to k this is the ad he is referring to. [video clip] more than 60,000 have died from a deadly virus that trump ignored. An economy in shambles, more than 26 million out of work. The worst economy in decades. Trump build out wall street, but not main street. This afternoon, millions of americans will apply for unemployment. And with their savings when their savings run out, many are giving up hope. Many are worried that a loved one will not survive covid19. There is mourning in america. Under the leadership of donald trump, our country is weaker, sicker and poorer. Now americans are asking, if we have another four years like this will there even be in america . An america . Paid for by the lincoln project. Host sue in louisiana, good morning. Caller how are you doing . Host fine, thank you. Caller i know of someone who has had their grandmother passed was notd it is it said to be that at the time because it was back in february. We are goingthat through something that we are going to go through anyway, and we will continue to have more viruses and more viruses. And that we need to come together as a country. I am in the deep south. And they did not blink an eye down here about 70,000 people dead. We celebrate every year that 3000 have not died at the world trade center. We are desensitized to humanity. Do not evenre we feel it. We do not even care that almost 70,000 people have died, and more. And it is like it is nothing. Well, that is what i have to say. Host thank you. Here we will be joined in next by sara nelson, International President of the association of attendants, talking about how the coronavirus has affected the airline industry. Later on American Health care , associations dr. David gifford discusses how Nursing Homes and other assisted living facilities are dealing with coronavirus outbreaks. First, during an event yesterday hosted by the brookings institution, mark esper was asked about how coronavirus is affecting recruiting and basic training. [video clip] one infection is too many, but i can say at this point in terms of 2 million Strong Military we have had fewer than 5000 persons infected. Fewer than 100 have been hospitalized. So i think that that is a testament to a couple things. One, we have a young, fit healthy force. Secondly, we have been issuing guidance since late january. Ive issued nine or 10 updates to that instruction not to our commanders, senior commanders, to get out further guidance. And as you know, each of those commanders has extensive resources by which they can amplify or refine the guidance. At this point, we are in good shape. Weis tragic, but that lost to service members, but only two is fairly good when you look at how we stack up against our civilian counterparts. The force is strong when it comes to the coronavirus. What concerns me more is the longterm impacts, as we have had to make adjustments to basic training and recruiting. Each has adapted their basic training, given the respective circumstances, how the new recruits flow into the training. In some cases we have done a one or two week suspension to do testing and whatnot. But for the most part we have seen over the past six or seven weeks, a reduced throughput. That will be something that will bear itself out in the long run. We are paying attention to that. I did not want to shut off the pipeline, because it has ramifications that could affect us for months, if not years. We continue to improve the pipeline. The services have made good adjustments to that, whether it is testing of recruits, quarantining before the begin training and other mechanisms to ensure we can maintain the flow of people through the system. Washington journal continues. Host sara nelson, International President of the association of Flight Attendants, tell us about your organization, how many members you have and how Many Airlines it includes. Guest i am the president of the association of Flight Attendants. We represent 50,000 Flight Attendants at 20 different airlines. Host of those 50,000, what is your sense of how many are still working . We have a little over 100,000 Flight Attendants in the United States. Right now, approximately 40,000 are either completely out of work or on some sort of voluntary leave or furloughed. At the restaurant not necessarily going to work, because demand dropped to only 3 in march. Arethere are others who continuing to be paid because of what we accomplished in the cares act, but that only goes through september 30. Host what does the overall situation look like for commercial air, air passenger travel in the u. S. . Youve have talked about demand being down, but airlines have to keep the airplanes running for maintenance reasons and other reasons, correct . Guest that is correct. Aviation is the backbone of our economy. It is necessary. Alls an essential Service Across this country for all of our communities, large and small. While air travel demand is down, the Aviation Industry must continue to provide service, otherwise communities would be stranded without the goods and services they need and without the connection they need. We are moving essential workers around the country, to be able to address the virus. And there are people who still have urgent reasons to travel. So part of what was in the cares act was not only funding to continue to keep workers in their jobs connected to health care and off the unemployment line, but also to make sure that airlines can continue to deliver service to all those communities. Host are the airlines what are they doing to ensure that their workers, the gate attendants, pilots and Flight Attendants are safe in the current environment . So this is really difficult because we have experienced for decades and at the association on Flight Attendants has a Communicable Disease a checklist of that we pull out every single time, and its recommendations from the government, airlines and for members. Often times, we are able to stop the spread of a Communicable Disease at transportations door when you take swift action and everyone works together. So this is a bigger crisis, a Bigger Health crisis than we have faced in the last 100 years. And we do not even have the essential personal protective equipment for our Health Care Providers on the front lines. So what we would normally demand is masks, gowns, gloves, sanitation wipes, and other that areour virus kits simply not available to Flight Attendants. That is why we made such a big deal when we started to see full flights again with the airplanes getting pulled down, demand picking up ever so slightly with the talk about opening up our economy again in some states, also from the white house. We saw a little bit of an increase in the passenger loads, even some full flights, which made it all important to demand that masks be mandated across the board for everyone, because we do not access to ppe that would keep Flight Attendant safe. Host sara is the president of the association of Flight Attendants, here to talk about the u. S. Response to the coronavirus and how it affects the airline industry. We welcome your calls. Eastern and central time zones, 202 7488000. Mountain and pacific, 202 7488001. If you are in the airline industry, the air travel industry, that line is 202 7488002. You have been with United Airlines since 1996, president of the Association Since 2014, so this is not the first time you have seen an epidemic breakout, Health Concerns and other countries. First of all, what has been done in the past in outbreaks like this . Guest in the past, what we have seen is really there is a command essential from the white cdce and down through the and hhs, and from our perspective in transportation. I was at the white house speaking with the Obama Administration under the direction of when he was the ebola czar, and saw how it all worked together. Because they would understand that while you have authorities who can give guidance on health care, you need people on the front lines lakefront lakefront like Flight Attendants to be able to provide feedback to say which guidelines have helped and how we may need to adjust that a little bit in our space. That is the coordination, just with Flight Attendants, but with every other industry. We worked closely with the health industry, teachers unions, nurses unions, and with other aviation unions. And we were able to put in place procedures that helped us address the spread and try to contain that and keep everyone safe. I do not want to compare the two outbreaks, they are different viruses. And we have Community Spread now, but has just overtaken transportation. What we have seen in the past is a real coordinated effort and it starts with good information, the first and most important piece. Everyone must be on the same page come understand all we can understand about the virus, apply the Proper Health guidance to everyone involved on the front lines, even the public. And we have had so much misinformation and disinformation here that it has been difficult to coordinate, not even including the fact we have not had this interagency coordination and real clear direction from one source. So has not been great. Host who typically then in terms of guidance for Flight Attendants and air travel workers, who with that come from, the department of transportation . Guest it would be an coordination with ecdc and also with osha, coordinating with the department of transportation and the faa. So it is an interagency working group. That direction, those agencies can certainly work together, but it is much more helpful when you have coordination coming from the white house, because everyone has an area of expertise and you have to pull that together to make the best decisions. Because the cdc would tell you right now, we do not know the Flight Attendants workspace. We need feedback from you and from osha that would be more attuned to the occupational issues in order to give good guidance. Host back to your experience with united and your time as president of the association. When you heard news coming out of china about the virus, what were your initial thoughts into reaction . Guest and reaction . Guest the initial thought was, lets gear up. Lets make sure that Flight Attendants are protected. We got the checklist out to our airlines into be asked of the government to coordinate on the response. So our immediate actions were to get the airlines to make sure they had virus kits on the airplanes, so there would be ppe readily available and there would be extra sets for medical personnel on board, so they could wear those as well. We did not know a lot about the virus at the time, so we went to the basics about what we knew about addressing Communicable Disease. As we have gotten more and more information, it has been clear that even those initial steps that we wouldve taken to protect the crew and passengers immediately around anybody who may be sick were just not enough. What we learned early on was that the virus could be spread by asymptomatic people who are carrying it, which makes it that much more difficult to be able to pinpoint it and really be able to stop the spread. Host if i am a passenger and i need to travel for business or for a Family Reason in the next couple days, how safe do you think it is for people to fly now . Guest in the airlines are in the process of rolling out requirements for everybody to wear a mask. Att is required already frontier airlines, jetblue, United Airlines, delta air lines, American Airlines in the next few days. That is really a key component here, and really important. There are still efforts by the airlines to put proper procedures in place to make sure that we are disinfecting the aircraft and disinfecting different areas in the airport. Airlines have already put social distancing policies in place, but those are not consistent on the airplanes themselves. So it is much better than it was a few weeks ago. Take stepsl need to to be able to say that it is absolutely safe to fly. I think that we are in a better place where we can try to protect you. If you get to a gate and the airplane is full, and it is an airline that has not mandated the masks, that is a little concerning at this point. But we are taking steps to make it better. News,a story from ky w Flight Attendant union wants covid19 Airline Safety rules. Sara, you are talking about the Airlines Taking action. Theould like to see osha, department of transportation implement the rules industrywide. Guest yes, it is always better with consistency and a clear message from the government. So that everyone is on the same page. Travelers often do not really identify with which airline they are flying on, they only identify with that airline experience. So when you have policies at that are inconsistent across the airlines, it is difficult to communicate properly to the traveling public about what they need to do to prepare to travel. Also about what they can expect. It is important to set those expectations clearly. And also have the backing of the federal government, because at the end of the day if somebody is not complying with the policies of the individual airlines, it falls to the Flight Attendants to enforce that and it is better when enforcement is coming with the backing of the federal government. Host you have been with united since 1996, now president of the association of Flight Attendants. We have callers. Donald in newbury park, california. Caller good morning. One of the things that was of concern was the recirculated air on board aircraft. The Economic Impact of social distancing on the aircrafts. D food and Beverage Service does the coronavirus transfer on currency. Those are my concerns. Host donald, thanks. Guest yes, one of the things we did early on several weeks ago was stop all food and beverage aisle service on the airplanes. Many Airline Kitchens are closed because there have been outbreaks in some of the kitchens. And people have not wanted to receive food or beverage from the crews, because we need to cut down on the interaction, the Human Interaction on the plane. If you were to fly now, this is what you may be seeing. You would want to make sure you bring those items yourself on board, in order to have something to eat and drink during the flight. It does not mean we will not have things on board, we just do not have the aisle service. In addition, some airlines are putting in place social distancing policies, for example, not selling any middle seats. People say immediately that that is not enough because you are only about 20 inches apart then, but what that means is the Flight Attendants have some room on the airplane if there is somebody experiencing symptoms, we have a place to go to reseat people and get them away from that person. Or if we have a medical emergency on board, we can do the same thing. We have to have space to be able to work with to put in place the best possible procedures. But it is also why you have got to have those masks and continue to encourage people to continue with their handwashing, bring hand sanitizer, and wipes to wipe the area down around yourself. That is important. And i think i forgot your last point. Host he talked about recirculated air. That was the first topic you brought up. Guest yes, we are in a isssurized cabin and air recirculated t o a point. Often times what happens is the air is brought in from outside and circulated through the engines and into the aircraft. People do not understand how the air is recirculated. It is more about the pressurized cabin. And so close to each other. We have other issues with air quality with the circulated if through the engines, that there is an issue with the canne, any oil leaks, that be pumped into the cabin. There are issues with air quality on planes, but in terms of the circulated air on the plane, that is not what people think it is and the concern that people think it is. What is concerning as what we have learned about the virus, how it can stay suspended in the air for a period. That is more of a concern anywhere. Enclosedially in an space like on an airplane, as opposed to on a running trail where there would be some wind and the ability to move the air around. In this case it will stay stagnant. Host some airlines are requiring face masks, do you think the faa should mandate that . Guest they should absolutely mandate face masks for passengers. We need to have one level of safety and we need to be very clear. The faa has that authority to do that. Host lets hear from samuel in maryland. Hi. Caller hello, good morning. Host good morning. Caller how are you . And i live inuel maryland. And im calling, if you give me a minute in normal times, the Airlines Make money. They make billions. They charge for luggage and stuff. They never provide free rides for passengers or customers. A situation and the taxpayer has to pay airline employees, when it is a private business. Mean, independent contractors a light limousine owners, cab owners, they are not getting anything. This is going to pay for employees. Private paying for the airline industry, which has made billions . Why didnt they put money aside for a rainy day . It is not fair. Guest i appreciate that question very much because we have experienced this before as airline employees. I was a Flight Attendant, i lost some good friends on 9 11. We also dealt with bankruptcies of that followed over the next nine years. And what we wanted to make sure in this instance is that this crisis was not put on the back of workers. The airlines were asking for a bailout. So the first thing i should recognize is that, yes, they give their money a lot of the revenues toward stock buybacks, which meant bigger bonuses for management and the workers on the front lines oppose that every single time. I should note that this crisis is so large that any savings that could have been put in place would not made a difference, it wouldve been a drop in the bucket. I know that is hard to take. But what we did was we said to the airlines, the public does not like you because of this, because you have been squeezing them tighter because of all the seats, the way you have been treating them. And we do not like the fact that it falls on the back of the workers, when times are tough, but you have not shared with us in a communal way that when the airlines are making billions. So this time when we are in trouble and we need the airlines to continue to provide service to all of our communities, we need to have a package of is focused on workers. So in the 2 trillion cares act, 1. 25 of the funds were allocated to go to workers. That is in the aviation funds. We are able to say to Management Committee will not get what you want, but if you make sure that this money is allocated to as we think that we can get this done. That is what we did. We also wanted to create a template for others. This is the key component, these are payroll grants that are designated to only go to workers, salaries and benefits. It can only go to us. They cannot take the money and decide to do Something Else with it. They cannot involuntarily furlough anyone. That keeps more people in their jobs, and keeps us away from the unemployment lines. It requires them to have no stock buybacks. No dividends for a year be on the release in place. Relief in place. So we were able to get at some of those things that are so concerning, and keep the airlines from filing for bankruptcy. Because the bankruptcies and consolidations that happen to lead to those concerns you are expressing, that led to the luggagen seat size and fees and everything else. We believe this can be a template for other industries, paying you and making sure that you continue to get your paycheck. That is what we put forward. That is what nancy pelosi says she wants to do. This has been introduced in a bill in the senate with doug jones, bernie sanders, mark warner and senator blumenthal. It has been introduced in the house by congresswoman paul. So it is a paycheck protection act that holds of the corporations accountable, but gives the money only to the workers on the front lines. We are hopeful we can put that in place for other people, people can be called back to work and get this money. And unemployment can be used for anyone else who does not fit into those categories, then we will not have the strain on the unemployment lines, and actually be able to provide help for people. Oft it is the future passenger travel, more expensive tickets . Guest if we allow the airlines to go into bankruptcy, that will happen. On the other side we will see less competition and we will see more hurt on the workers and consumers. We want to avoid that, it is not a good outcome. If we have relief mandated by congress, we can actually help the American People to have control. I should be clear, that money is going directly to people who are the taxpayers. I am a taxpayer and consumer, so are the 2 Million People under the cares act provision. We are paying back into the economy. We are contributing to the economy. And we are paying back into taxes and is staying connected to our health care benefits, which is important because it you want to have as many people who can remain strong as possible and take care of themselves, especially in an emergency like this. This is a simple plan that we are hopeful we can make possible for everybody else in the country. Host on twitter karen says, im all for social distancing on airplanes. Remove every other seat and let the passengers spread out. Mike in cincinnati, go ahead. Caller good morning. Thanks for taking my call. I think that the flights must be limited because we are in a dangerous situation. My father was affected by covid19. He lost his job and has economic problems. Some days we do not have enough food. Some days i have had to wait in line for five hours to get free food. It is a shame that we live in the richest country in the world, but we have such terrible situations. Host bill in buffalo. You are on, go ahead. Caller good morning. Consumers believe that a toporation is responsible shareholders, so it is not surprising when they get money it goes to the top. George washington believed citizenship should be for the country. As long as you have conservatives running the government, like Mitch Mcconnell, the main goal is for corporate profits, not citizens. So you have an uphill battle. The people you mentioned you are working with, obviously they are democrats and or they believe our Founding Fathers believed in that theygclass, should share the wealth and be part of the wealth. It is not taking money from the wealth, we should share the prosperity. But consumers believe the money should go to the top. Ronald reagan said a number of times at that corporations work for the shareholders. As long as people keep electing conservatives, the whole point of the china problem was things should be closed in america. It had nothing to do with trade. Now i am watching and you have saudi arabia with the not the host i will let our guests respond. Guest absolutely, these policies came from democrats. Let me be clear, this was degressman or chairman blasio, chairman of the infrastructure committee. He is from oregon and has been in the house for a long time, but he has never forgotten his roots and he has constantly fought for workers. We brought this plan to him, he took it immediately to the speaker. And Speaker Nancy Pelosi took this up as a key point in the cares act into fought for it relentlessly. Of course, our main champions in the senate were senator Chuck Schumer, senator brown. Of hope. Is a ray this is a simple plan that actually helps people. So since that time, we have actually seen senator hawley from missouri speaking up about this. It did take republicans in order to get it done, so we also had support on this in the house from congressman graves, the Ranking Member on the transportation infrastructure committee. And we also had support from ted cruz in the senate on this. But i want to be clear that this was pushed for by democrats. And is being notnow by jimmy well. By democrats as well. But there is republican support. We have to talk not about what people think is political identity but actually solutions and that will make a difference for the people. And what we found when we proposed this, people are so used to seeing bailouts that go to corporations and that they were much opposed to it. They could not imagine the idea that we could shape a policy that actually helped people first. I want to make one note. Once it went to the administration and secretary Steve Mnuchin got his hands on it, he changed what was intended. In turn, part of the money that was dedicated for the frontline workers is a loan, so that piles up the debt sheet for airlines. And also the senate, Mitch Mcconnell did not want to fund this the full rate the house had, so when you take those two things together the airlines are only getting 50 of what they need to support their workers. The that means, when requirements run out on the involuntary furloughs on september 30, that will fall to the workers. And already the airlines are working now to try to put it on the workers backs. Delta airlines and United Airlines, where they can and where they think they can, have been cutting hours down to parttime work for workers. That is not what was intended by the cares act. Corporations are so conditioned to put this on the backs of working people, and on the people of the front lines. American airlines and southwest are resisting that and believe clearly that the cares act was intended to keep people in their jobs at their fulltime rates. I should also note that the virus has placed all the problems we have in our economy, we have pushed americans to work at high productivity. What that means is most people have to have two or three jobs to get by. Or if you have one job, you are working overtime in order to meet your bills. So there is not a Single Airline employee getting overtime hours right now. They are getting the bare minimum. Beyond that, some airlines are really cheating. I will call them out. Again, delta and United Airlines are cutting hours of workers. We will challenge this because this is not what was intended by the act. If we do not hold them accountable and hold them to the rules, you are right. Their main focus is on the shareholders and on wall street, and not on reinvesting in the business and protecting workers on the front lines who create all the value in this country, and also are the consumers and taxpayers. We need to rethink our economy in this moment and make sure that we are recognizing all of the failings that led us to this point, where we are so poorly prepared to face this virus. We are the only country that does not have health care for all. That is a major problem. What this does is it creates a bigger screen strain on our lawmakers to address more problems in the country, which is also difficult because at they are trying to get through all this now and the ideologues against these policies that help people on the front lines are standing in the way of getting immediate help. That means that people are standing for five hours in bread lines. It is inexcusable. Host if you are a travel rker, a Flight Attendant, pilot, you work at the airport, you will want to call 202 7488002. On that line from new york, welcome. Caller good morning. It is good to see you again, sara. I am also a United Airlines employee, a retiree now, but i am proud of my company. I have flown many times with you. I remember you well. I was not a Flight Attendant but i was associated with that organization a lot. And i had a thought. I know that this is a difficult time for everyone. And we are trying to be as cautious as we can. Has anyone given a thought to me be using disposable seat covers or something of that nature that perhaps might cut down on the contact issue . I wish you well. You look pretty. God bless you. I love United Airlines. Host ok. Guest thank you. I think that you are accentuating the fact that the airlines are really the people that make them up and aviation is all about connecting people and making those personal connections, so good to hear from you again. As far as the seat covers go, that has not made it into the mix, but there are efforts going on to try to think about how we best protectd people, and how we can best protect best follow through with cleaning. That the cabin is disinfected before we load them up again. So i think that is something that could certainly be considered. And we will be looking at that. But very nice to hear from you into thinking for focusing on the fact that airlines are not just people in a board room, it is all of us on the front lines who think of ourselves as family and we love being together. Host also on that line is rick. Go ahead. Caller yeah, i am retired. I retired in 1995. I know about the cabin, the drums in the cabin and cockpit, you know, it is unbelievable. Address are starting to these situations, which i am happy they are doing that, but then again because of my age they will not let me fly anymore. So i am driving a limousine now, back and forth with people like Flight Attendants and the tsa people. Nobody seems to know what is going on. It is scary to see all the airplanes parked at the airport where they are back to back into the airport is a ghost town. And i do not know when things are going to start returning to normal, but trying to restart all the airplanes, they are hafted are going to have to be inspected and that will take time. I do not see this ending anytime soon, probably the end of june before they get back in the air. Host are you currently working, sara . Guest i am working aroundtheclock, but not going to the airport. I am sheltered in my home and working on Airline Policy and safety and connecting with many people, like we are connecting now. So i also receive all of the reports from Flight Attendants on the front lines. We are staying connected with what is happening, but also working on policies to try to protect them. I will say that what is concerning hear about the airlines, about the airplanes being parked, is the reason they are on the ground is the virus. So we have got to do everything we can to help assist our Health Care Authorities and professionals on the front lines in fighting the virus, because until we have that under control we are not going to see demand return. At the same time, what we are doing is trying to take the time to put in place policies for airlines, until we have a vaccine, because we know that we will need to have the traveling public feel confident that when they get a ticket they are not exposing themselves more or putting themselves at greater risk by traveling on airplanes. So we have a lot of work to do. And we do not yet know when we will get to the point where people, where we have gotten through this threat and we can restart. We know already when we do it will take time and it will take time to pull it back up to full strength. Host do you think the u. S. Acted swiftly enough to close down flights from china and from europe . So, what i would say is it was not coordinated well and we have seen policies announced from the middle of a press conference at normally would be wellplanned with all stakeholders knowing exactly what is going on. It created pandemonium. The way it was done we ended up being passengers getting pushed together at customs, days after the european flights were pulled it down because of the way it was done, so we created a situation where the spread of the coronavirus was much more likely in aviation by doing that. It is about planning and coordination. You have to work fast in an emergency, but you need to make sure that everybody who is implementing the policy is on the same page and with you, see you do not have unintended consequences like that. So, no, our government did not act fast enough. There was denial it was even an issue. There was more we could have done if we were coordinated, through aviation, to try to stop the spread. Now we are learning that even before the flights were pulled down there was a possibility coronavirus was already in our communities. Communityame a spread. So we have to take clear steps now, obviously, for testing, testing, testing. And contact tracing, if we can get to that point and really get the virus down, so we can get back to some normalcy. Until then, we need to continue to help her Health Care Providers and not be aiding in the spread. Host a story from the bbc, the headline an airline accused of spreading the coronavirus, tracking how covid19 infected passengers took the virus from iran iraq and lebanon. That is on bbc. A caller from staten island. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. I am the mother of a United Airline Flight Attendant. Got actually was just she hired in january. I was at the ceremony in houston, texas, and i was very proud of my daughter. She was looking to get a flight from london. She came back very sick. That was in february. We did not know what was going on at that time. God. Got over it, thank my question is, she lost her job. We are proud of what you are doing for everyone, sara. Really, really proud of you. So thank you for negotiating the , toor the Flight Attendants have a job until september. I mean, to get a paycheck. My question is after september will my daughter still have a job, because i am worried about that for her. She loves the job and she wants to continue. Host thank you. Guest thank you so much. We are proud to have her with us. So we are working very hard to make sure that there is not involuntary furloughs on october 1. What i will tell you though that if conditions do not change, that is very likely. Or if we do not get additional relief. There are some things we will be working on. One is to make sure that we are continuing to put Safety Measures in place so people can have confidence flying, and we are also containing the virus. That is the main threat. It is extremely important. The second is what we can try to do is to fix legislatively what secretary Steven Mnuchin did in eroding cares act funds intended to keep your daughter in her job and continuing to get a paycheck rather than going to the unemployment line. The third thing we will be doing is working with airlines to negotiate early out packages, for retirement, to create as many programs as possible where people can voluntarily get themselves off the schedule and then leave space for others who want to or need to continue in the job. Finally, we also have contractual provisions that provide for voluntary furloughs. So putting all those things together may be enough to protect that job, but if not, and if we are not in a place where we have contained the virus, we may also have to come back for additional federal funding, because the last thing we want is to push people into the unemployment lines. Because there is already an overload and no ability to get people help that way. We have shown that the most, the most streamlined and efficient way to continue to help people is through these payroll streams, where you can money from the federal government through the corporation and to the workers on the front lines and keep them in their jobs. We will continue to promote that, if all those other things i said do not do enough to support those jobs. We will continue to fight for your daughter. None of this is a sure thing. Stay connected and take action with us when we ask you to do that, because your efforts to contact lawmakers are a huge part of our ability to be successful. Host we want to get your response to a story this week in what, ted read writing, about sarah nelson as joe bidens running mate . How did that come about and what are your thoughts on him selecting a running mate . Has your union endorsed joe biden . Guest our union has not endorsed yet. We will go through that endorsement process over the next month. That headline and story was a result of a story that came out that named five women and my name was among them. And it was a very surreal thing to see that. Im very humbled by that recognition. And to be placed alongside those amazing women. My focus is on labor organizing and fighting for people on the front lines, so that is where i am focused. The person that really has the policies that best match up with what we need for our world right now is Elizabeth Warren. We are encouraging joe biden to pick her as his running mate. And we believe that that will round out the ticket and bring the most number of people to this ticket to be successful in november. So let me be clear, Elizabeth Warren for Vice President. Host we enjoy to the conversation, thank you for being here. Coming up, we will be joined by the American Health care associations dr. David gifford, talking about how Nursing Homes and other assistedliving facilities are dealing with coronavirus outbreaks. Will hear from a representative of Domestic Violence organization, talking about allegations against joe biden. First up, the governor of virginia talking about what easy restrictions looks like in the commonwealth. [video clip] measures like these are important for all businesses. In addition, we will be publishing additional guidelines for specific industries, including restaurants, retail, fitness, personal care and grooming, as well as entertainment. But here is the bottom line, you will be able to get your hair cut, but you will need an appointment. You will see new Safety Measures in the salon. It means you can go out to eat again, but restaurants will use less of their seating so they can spread people out more. Employees will wear face coverings and they will do more cleaning. E means more retail establishments can be open, but they will have to operate at lower capacity. You can go to the gym, but with fewer people and more requirements for cleaning. Farmers markets will have more flexibility with foot traffic and prepared foods. Our farmers markets are important as we get into the growing season. We will accommodate the needs of churches and houses of worship to gather in person, but social distancing still matters, even at church. We anticipate phase one could last about three weeks, consistent with ecdc guidelines. Cdc guidelines. Could eachand three last about three weeks, as an oz data continues to support it. In the second phase, we will continue to ease restrictions if we see numbers trend downward. The continued downward trend of our positive tests, continued downward trend of our hospitalizations, stable capacity of hospital bed and intensive care. A stable supply of ppe and continued robust testing and contact tracing. We are to phase three, looking for no evidence of rebound for a sustained period of time. Lets talk about timing. I will extend executive order 53, which is of the order that restricted certain businesses and banned gatherings of more than 10 people, through next thursday night, may 14. Just thejust t ad current stayathome order as well, emphasizing safer at home rather than stayathome. That gives us an additional two weeks to watch the data and determine if we are meeting the metrics we need to see to interface one. Enter phase one. Host with us is dr. David gifford, the chief medical officer with the American Health care association, joining us. Next, talking about the coronavirus in Nursing Homes and assisted living facilities. We welcome your calls at 202 7488000 for eastern and central time zones. 202 7488001 for mountain in specific time zones. If you have experience with assisted living. If you have been in a nursing home or have a relative or friend, that line is 202 7488002. Particularly during the pandemic. Medicalfford, the chief officer with the American Health care association, joining us momentarily. We will have the on in a moment. We lost the signal, but we will have that back up momentarily and get to that conversation. One thing we will talk about is a story that came out on the front page of usa today, our patients are dropping like flies, 16,000 dead in u. S. Nursing homes. Under mounting public pressure to increase transparency, more states are releasing information about the scourge of the coronavirus on Nursing Homes and longterm care facilities. The data paints a grim picture. More than 16,000 residents and staff have died, a quarter of the nations overall deaths. That is from usa today. And joining us now is dr. David gifford with the American Health care association. Thank you for being here. Tell us the types of organizations that your organization represents, who do you cover and how many members do you have . Guest we represent both Nursing Homes and assisted living. There are about 15,000 Nursing Homes in the country, 10,000 of them are part of our association. And there are about 28,000 assisted and 5000 are part of our association. Host what do you think is the Biggest Issue . We just read that staggering figure from the usa today, that in terms of the coronavirus deaths in nursing facilities, what is going to be the biggest thing that will help stop that . Guest i think we need to learn more about the virus. What we discovered is each time we have been following the guidance, it has been outdated by the way that the virus behaves, particularly how it spreads from person to person who does not have symptoms. In those whovirus are over 70 and 80, can really be devastating. And so when we have enough testing, i think that will be the key, we could understand who has the virus and who doesnt, because following a symptom approach has not worked. Host do you expect a flattening of the curve anytime soon at health care or assisted living facilities, particularly the ones you represent . Guest we hope so. Weo not know, because how know the virus spreads person to person, particularly when many people are in close proximity. And Nursing Homes, assisted living, just like with the meatpacking plants and schools where people can come together, it spreads. Whether that continues is a big question. Host how early on in the outbreak and then the pandemic did you give guidance to your members and what was the early guidance . Guest we started rather quickly when we heard this was spreading. We were providing early guidance in january and february. And then in early march, when this was discovered in washington, we came out with guidance in rapid succession, along with ecdc and with the cded. C. We all came out with regulations limiting people coming into the building. The goal was to limit the virus from getting in. Then when it does get in, to prevent it from spreading. The first up was to limit people coming in. Host the numbers we mentioned, 16,000 in Nursing Homes. What about the workers in the Nursing Homes, how vulnerable have they been to the covid19 . Guest this virus does not discriminate between who people are. And we are seeing, just like in hospitals and elsewhere, healthcare workers getting sick. That is one reason we have been calling for and needing more personal productive equipment, because we really have not been getting as much as we need. Host certainly the virus has pressed hospitals to get much more ppe, personal protective equipment, and Nursing Homes, and assisted living facilities as well. What are you doing to expedite that . Guest i think that you are right, hospitals have gotten a lot of attention. I think that we need to turn some of that attention to Nursing Homes and assisted living. We have been making that call wherever we can, working with states and at the federal government. We are pleased that fema will be khipping a wee supplyk wee supply of ppe to Nursing Homes this week and at the first week of june. But we need more. Supplies around the world, and of those from china, will not reach normal until the end of june, or sometime in july. So we will need more help. Host the president is calling on a state to run their own programs and stipulate who gets tested and how. Are you satisfied that nursing home residents are getting priority in all 50 states . Guest the center for changed the priority to make for Disease Control changed the priority to make residents and Health Care Workers in the top priority, we were not always there, so that will be helpful. Now we have to make sure we have access to the tests and the results quickly. That is our next challenge. Host our guest is dr. David gifford, chief medical officer of the American Health care association. 202 7488000 in the eastern and central time zones. 202 7488001 for mountain and pacific. If you have experience with assisted living facilities, that number is 202 7488002. We will hear from samantha. Good morning. Caller good morning. Thank you for being on. I have two elder relatives who were in assisted living facilities. About sixy, i guess or seven weeks ago, our family had a meeting and we decided that someone needed to get them out of where they were. Witho we moved them back Family Members. And so far, we have not had any infection of any kind. They still have their underlying have beenues, but we able to take care of them atically by quarantining home, where they are. And considering the fact that the virus has may have been brought into these facilities, if anyone could take care of their relatives, i would if theyy say to them are in good health and they can deal with it, that they bring them home. Host any response . Guest i think that is an individual Family Decision. Many individuals in Nursing Homes are there because the families could not take care of them in the first place. And also, you know, this virus is still spreading back and forth and we have seen it ineading in home health, and the elderly at home as well. So you have to balance all the risks with that process. It is an individual Family Decision on what to do. Because in some circumstances, taking individuals home and changing the environment, it could make things worse for their underlying reasons or expose them to the virus at home as well. It is a tricky balance. I feel for the Family Members. Host let me ask about Infection Control. We have a story about potential there was the rules, a today saying the federal government is considering rolling back requirements in Nursing Homes, even as the longterm care industrys workers are overwhelmed by the virus. Rules proposed last year would modify the amount of time an Infection Prevention must provoke most people promoted, an undefined term that lets the facility decide how much time should be spent. The regulation has not been finalized, but cms last week defended its proposal, saying aims to reduce the Regulatory Burden and strengthen Infection Control. What is your view on the proposal . Guest we have been supportive of having Infection Preventionists in the buildings, because infections have always been a problem. That requirement went into effect in november of last year to help us be better prepared for viruses. I think that the flexibility was that the old rules said they had to be an employee and in certain areas of the country, mainly smaller facilities with may be areas, it, in rural was hard. It. Hey had consultants do with other large facilities, they needed more time. So i think it was a reasonable approach. I think it is misconstrued as a roll back of requirements at that were there, because there were no other changes with the Infection Prevention controls out there. Host richard in arkansas. Good morning. Caller hello, my wife is a cook in assisted living and she has very little protection whatsoever. They take her temperature and that is about it. My question has to do with the testing. This is an airborne virus. You have to stay six feet apart, wear a mask, it is all over the place. Police carry these things called breathalyzers. Somebody please explain to me why they cannot modify a breathalyzer with some kind of center chip in it that can recognize the virus. You breathe in the thing. Know whether or not you were spewing out this virus. Greenlight, you dont have it. Red light, youve got it. It is so simple. Instead of this dragged on testing about sending to labs and everything else, the stuff is in the air. Why cant they just we are highly technological. There is no reason they cant make a breathalyzer that wham. Tests you instantly. Host dr. Gifford . Thet your wife is one of heroes out there risking herself for the elderly out there. We really applaud that. I think you underscore the need why we need more personal protective equipment. While attention shifted from the hospitals worn out to the Nursing Homes, assisted living has been left out and they need to help. As far as testing, i agree it would be great to have a rapid test like that. The challenge is that not all people breathe out enough of it. It is very small. You have to amplify that to get the red lightgreenlight signal. If we can have the scientists develop that, that would be fantastic. Host you got your degree from case western university. Case western reserve and ohio. Your masters in Public Health and epidemiology at ucla. What do you make of the trump administrations green lighting the use of remdesivir as a therapeutic to treat covid19 . Guest i think certainly the data from the early trials suggests they can help slow the progression of the symptoms and duration. It did not really affect mortality overall, but it is the first drug that has some benefit there. We need to keep doing more trials. We need to keep learning what works out there. It needs to be done through trials. If we are not learning it, we might make mistakes and use the wrong medications that are ineffective or be harmful. Its a good step in the right direction but that is not going to be the lifesaver we need right now. We need a vaccine. Host brian in ashland, ohio. Caller good morning, bill. First time caller. I love cspan. I have a simple question. As far as Nursing Homes, theytals and airlines, know about viruses in these places. Up didnt they have stocked for the employees with the supply of these items needed instead of going to the government right away . Thats it. Guest thats a really good question. Part of the challenge was the planning for a viral pandemic has always been to rely on what the state and federal stockpiles rely on the state and federal stockpiles. That did not work. This exceeded the magnitude of what many people thought about. Then we have the double whammy that turns out most of the masks and gowns are manufactured in china and the city where this started. All those factories got shut down because it started there. I dont think anyone expected that. We learned a valuable lesson here from what we need to do going forward. In thet is early on pandemic could get worse, but what where the early lessons you think you have learned, your industry has learned that you can apply in the future . Guest the first one we learned strategies we have learned in medical school and in Public Health and that are put governmente federal and professional associations are assuming the virus spreads when people have symptoms. That is true for almost all viruses. That is not the case here. So, almost all the recommendations and the strategies we use have been effective ineffective because they are based on a symptombased approach. We also assumed the spread is between residents, between people. We forgot about all the other people coming in and then spread within the building that is happening. Do whenpractices we interacting with residents, but the staff was spreading it to each other or taking it home. Those are valuable lessons from that. We need testing early. Host based on your deputy logical experience epidemiological periods, is it possible they showed up way earlier than we had previously thought . Guest that is hard to tell. If it had shown up earlier i think we would have seen a lot of spikes and illnesses and deaths in the Nursing Homes. It can have that effect. Whilehard to tell because we hear a lot of these news reports of horrifically bad stories, a lot of the elderly you ok. We are testing more. We are discovering a lot more people had this and had no symptoms in the Nursing Homes. A lot of people are recovering Nursing Homes without going to the hospital. They could have been there. When we get more widespread Antibody Testing and are able to look back at this, we may discover that was the case. Host carol in st. Louis, missouri. Caller i had a daughterinlaw who works at a nursing home. A large complex. An assisted living. She is a nurse. She said about a month ago they brought in this is been on lockdown. No family could come in. They brought in a patient from the hospital that had pneumonia. Probably it was advanced from corona. She said they have 10 patients right now infected with the coronavirus. They are not doing testing on anybody else. They decided not to test anybody else. People not to send these people to the hospital. They did not give her a coronavirus test. Host this patient was discharged from the hospital to the nursing home . Caller transferred, yeah. Host dr. Gifford . Guest this virus does not care who it infects and how it moves from people to people. I think a lot of the guidance was about limiting visitors, but other people are coming in. We shut that down, then we forgot there were people coming from the hospital that could also bring the virus because we did not have good testing of everyone. A lot of them came in that way. We did not have adequate enough ppe. The spread from that one incident case that came into the facility. This is why we are making the call we need more ppe notified this. More testing to understand who has this, otherwise we are flying blind. We need that. Host that kind of situation, i assume it is fairly common across the United States. A patient has been in the hospital, pneumonia in this case, but discharged and sent to an assisted living facility or nursing home for recovery. What else could be of limited to help forestall or prevent the virus spread . Guest the current recommendations are that you assume the person has it whether they have symptoms or not. We keep them in isolation for 14 days, which is the incubation period before you develop symptoms, if you develop symptoms. That is the current recommendation as people come in. Ideally its better to have testing. Host kenneth from fayetteville, north carolina. Caller good morning, gentlemen. A previous caller stated the virus was airborne. Im trying to get a definition between those two, between airborne and droplets. Are they the same . My second is a statement. I heard from usa today this morning. Wendyshe hosts stated was out of beef. Inalled every single wendys fayetteville and that is incorrect. We have got to stop the false information coming out. Host thanks for that update, kenneth. To his point of the difference between airborne viruses and droplets . When you cough or sneeze or even breathe, little bits of droplets go out into the air. They can settle down. They usually dont go more than six feet. That is why you have the distancing there. Some viruses can float around in the air. Things like measles. If you walk through that cloud, you can get infected from that. This virus does not appear to be airborne unless there are certain procedures where people are on ventilators or getting breathing treatments and spewing things out. There might be a little bit of an airborne function there. That is why they recommend certain types of masks that prevent the airborne spread when you have those conditions out there. We may learn more about it over time, but it appears to be principally droplet and when you touch your face, your eyes, your nose, your hands and you may spread it to someone else as well. Host madeleine and wayne, wayne,vania in pennsylvania. Caller i think its a Good Opportunity to have an awareness that many times there is a lack of communication between a case manager who is assessing the placement of a patient to a hospital and into a nursing home. Are reallyes providing a level of care that is almost to the level of a hospital. Many times. Arrive withoutl all the information for the staff. Dont haveany times the equipment to properly care for these people. From those isolation who are living there until the end of life because, as the doctor pointed out, they had no one to take care of them. They are subjected to all of this. I can imagine at this time it is probably much worse. I think the government needs to insist upon that they be in charge of the testing somehow because the administrator and the case manager, they are profit driven. That is their focus. Nothing prevention of this disease not the prevention of this disease. Host dr. Gifford, your thoughts . Guest i think the Committee Case and between Health Care Teams is critical. As often is the case in these emergencies or when something goes awry, it unmasks underlying problems. I think we in the nursing home area and assisted living cap and left out a lot of the resources for ppe and testing. When the government was developing electronic records and commune occasion, they provided funding to support that for hospital physicians but they left out assisted living and Nursing Homes to help Effective Communication that goes on. As she was outlining, the communication is critical and important. Particularly during this time with covid. Host i want to redo part of an article from Forbes Magazine on the business ahead for the Business Model for Nursing Homes. The grim future for Nursing Homes. He writes Nursing Homes struggle to sell a product few consumers want, even before covid19. Older adults strongly preferred to stay at home. They will be more motivated to stay home now. Their Adult Children may be increasingly reluctant to move them into a facility unless they can fundamentally change the way they deliver care. Facilities will have a hard time marking around those attitudes. Any reaction . Guest i think everyone would rather stayathome as long as home as longtay at as they can. It is hard to take care of people at home and they need to be in a different environment where it is safer and better care for them. Its aome out of this, Good Opportunity to look at what do we do and how do we do that and support this. While no one really wanted to do it, they have tended to ignore us. I think that has exacerbated the problem. As we come out of this pandemic we need to ask ourselves as a country, what do we want to do with our elderly who cant be taken care of at home . How do we want them taken care of and how are we going to support that . , chiefr. David gifford medical officer of the American Health care association. We go to middletown, new york and steve, you were up next. Caller hello, dr. Gifford. Aware,ndering if you are as bad as the nursing home situation is, there is the antecedent problem of china having released this virus into the u. S. And around the world. Now the nursing home problem really occurred mainly because of our great new york governor thatassed a law stating positive covid19 patients had to be admitted into Nursing Homes. The rule he provided specifically provided that the Nursing Homes would not allow to screen a patient to see if they were positive. They simply had to take them in. The large proportion of patients and the being elderly largest proportion of those being from new york, in effect, cuomo committed mass murder by making this order to fill up the Nursing Homes with positive nursing home patients. Host when did he make this executive order . Caller it was first reported on the 25th of march in the wall street journal. 25th or 26. Host are you familiar with at all . Guest there are several governors who are really struggling with what to do with the hospitals who were overflowing and did not have enough beds and where to move them out. Nursing homesme were trying to prevent people from coming in. How they balanced those issues. They wrote orders that really were trying to facilitate and address the whole Public Health and for structure. Nursing homes really are the safety valves are hospitals out there. Most of those orders did allow if the facility could not handle them or did not have the right staffing, they could stop that process out there. They have evolved over time. I think it is a tricky balance for the governors on what to do with the situation. Host jackie in illinois. Good morning. Caller hello, sir. Thank you for taking my call. Host you bet. Caller i wanted to make a quick comment. Im a registered nurse. I worked at longterm care facilities. I happen to be working at one during the outbreak. I professionally get my resignation due to my age. It was like a parttime thing. My comment is there was no Infection Control going on. We did have some ppe that was dwindling, but if these Nursing Homes cannot handle it, let someone come and that can such as fema or the national guard. Get these places disinfected like they are disinfecting the subways, public transportation. If they cant handle it, move those people out and get some people in that can. That is all ive got to say. Host David Gifford . Guest thats a great point that we need the right resources to fight this battle. If we are not having the right equipment, it is hard to fight that battle. If youre not having the right testing, it is hard to fight that battle. There are many Nursing Homes saying we dont have the right equipment, the right staff for the right testing so we will not take anymore admissions until we get that. Host roebuck, south carolina. We hear from todd. Caller hello. I have a question for the doctor there. If we have this Scientific Community and the medical half of them are saying one thing and half are saying another thing, i think they ought to get together, come up with one deal and tell the people one thing instead of shooting at 50 different directions. I could not agree with you more on that. The challenge is the virus is so different from all the other viruses we know. It has caused a lot of confusion. There have been changing recommendations and that is hard to keep up with. We are just as frustrated with that as well. People are trying the best they can in the circumstances. That is something we can learn from this. How do we better coordinate that messaging coming out of this . Host it differs from facility to facility, but are most Nursing Homes prepared for situations where they have to isolate or quarantine individual residents . Are. yeah, they the challenge is just numbers. If you dont have any empty rooms, how do you move people around . You dont necessarily want to send someone to the hospital there. There is covid we know when the elderly go to the hospital, it is not good for them. It can be very harmful. The recommendation is only send them if you need to. How you do that varies on the size on the nursing home and the layout of the nursing home and what you can do. One shoe fits all approaches sound good on paper but does not work a number of times. There needs to be alternative strategies for that. Host responding to our caller from new york a moment ago, steve tweets, Governor Cuomo forced nursing home to accept patients that went to the hospital for covid19. Nursing homes were refusing to reaccept patients. The hospital beds were needed and Nursing Homes know how contagious patients. Georgia, this is dennis. You are on with dr. David gifford. Caller how are you today . Who is ator of the terrorist murderer. His background is being covered up. I suggest people look into that because it is a serious malfunction going on in the world right now. It needs to be looked at. Host a little off our topic. The world health organization. Dr. Gifford, you talked about the evolving nature of the coronavirus. What do you think the next steps on the federal level should be specifically focused on your industry . Couple ofthe next months we definitely need the right equipment. Masks, theve any n95 filtering masks needed out there. We need more of them. We need access to the testing. They made us a priority which is fantastic, but we need the access to the supplies in the testing. What do we do with the testing and the results from that with regard to people coming in and visiting the facility . We know this virus is not changing. People are still at risk. When do we open up and how do we open up . That will be around testing and what to do with the testing results out there. We just dont have good guidance on that right now. I think until we have that guidance we need to stay in a lockdown mode. Otherwise we will let the virus back in and see more devastating outbreaks. Host the pandemic has stressed the financial ability of your industry. Has the industry been part of aid . Ederal guest the cares act has been very helpful. Some money has come out which is definitely helpful to keep the Nursing Homes and assisted living operating and able to buy the personal protective equipment they need and pay for some testing, but it is not enough. We need them to dedicate some of those funds directly and get them back out to the Nursing Homes and assisted living. It will be critical to keeping them operating. Otherwise i think we will see bankruptcies and some closers. We want to avoid that. Host a call from joe from temple hills, maryland. Caller good morning. Good morning, doctor. I wanted to make a comment about the assisted living and the Nursing Homes. We have Family Members and good friends who are certainly depended upon that care. We hope they are able to continue that. Its about the protests of people who were protesting distancing. I hope they would realize that they are not invincible. We are not invincible as a society. We need to work together. Sometimes you can force the issue but sometimes results are devastating. I hope they take time to look at themselves and see that gun toting carrying does not sign carrying does not change the outcome of this epidemic. I pretty got to get us past this i pray to god to get us past this. Guest i dont think i can add much that except add to his acknowledging that the staff in these facilities, not just the but thend the aides, housekeeping, dietary, they really are heroes out there. They are risking their health and their families health, often with inadequate supplies. It has really been heartwarming to see and hear the stories, which i dont think have been covered enough out there. I would like to make sure they can acknowledge they get acknowledged with the work they are doing. I hope they get the right supplies out there. The speaker is right. This virus spreads persontoperson. The people care who are. Its a deadly numbers game. The more people have it, the more interactions occur, the more chance of spread and the more of a chance of spread to the elderly. Certain groups may not be worried about it but they are contributed to the spread that can think get to Health Care Worker that can then be introduced to a nursing home and that has dire consequences. Part ofeveryones honoring the social distancing really is helping our Nursing Homes out there. Host dr. David gifford, chief medical officer for the American Health care association, thanks for joining us this morning and good luck. Guest thank you for having me. Host as we have been doing over the course of the pandemic and the shutdown, we have been speaking to members of congress on the situations in their districts. We are joined by representative dan kelly, chief deputy whip from michigan. Thank you for being with us this morning. Guest thank you very much for having me on. Host how are things in flint, michigan, and the Broader Community represent you represent . Guest it is challenging, particularly in flint where we are coming out of the water crisis. Having this Global Pandemic on top of that makes it that much more difficult. We have been hit pretty hard. We have a significant number of cases. A couple hundred more than maybe 250 people in my district have died as a result of coronavirus. That number continues to rise. I have lost a couple of friends to it. It is a very tough situation and it is frustrating to see some of ders try tona minimize the threat when we see it every day. People struggling with this and sadly families are mourning the loss of loved ones. Meanwhile others are testing against the inconvenience of some of the measures. That is quite frustrating. Host we have been talking about the effect on, Nursing Homes assisted living facilities. How well do you think medical facilities in your area are prepared now in terms of personal protective equipment, the equipment they need, ventilators, etc. , to fight the disease . Guest personal protective equipment is still an issue. In extent to which the facilities have been able to manage, it is not consistent with the practices they would normally employ. People would get fired for having to do what they are doing now, typically but not able to use clean ppe for every patient. It is still a significant issue. The most significant challenge, i believe in terms of managing rampingur area, is up testing 25 people carrying to identify people carrying the virus more quickly and allow us to rationally and thoughtfully allow the economy to reopen to an extent. The only way we can do that is with much more good data. That only comes from a dramatic increase in testing. I think that is where the real challenges. Host the president has put the onus on states and state governors. Do you think your state and your governor has acquired enough testing kits to handle the need . Guest we have been able to get more but certainly far from enough. The president said some things i disagree with and some i agree with. He referred to himself as a wartime president and considers as the equivalent to war. I dont recall in modern history a president saying the country is going to war, i hope each of the 50 states can muster an army to fight. This is a national and global challenge. We need a nationally scaled response. While the states certainly have some responsibility and are clearly exercising it, the president cant have it both ways. He cant criticize states for the measures they are taking to try to minimize the spread of and then not be supportive with a National Strategy around testing to make those measures perhaps less necessary. We need a National Strategy specifically around testing. Host michigan, your district in particular, hardhit on unemployment. He suggested extending benefits until the end of the year. How would you make that happen . Another federal aid package . Guest yes. It is not clear to me what the right moment will be but i have introduced legislation myself with 53 other members of the house that would extend the current federally supplemented unemployment benefit until december 31, with a soft cut off some members people who were still on unemployment or having those extended benefits available to them could keep them after the first of the year. It is based on the belief i think all of us understand. When thewhich is expanded unappointed benefits expire, the federal supplement expires, we will not be back at full employment. Not by any stretch of the imagination. We are hoping more people will be able to get back to work, but we will have to continue to provide the support until the economy is fully back on its feet again. Even that rosie is scenario says that is not going to happen by the end of july. We need to extend benefits to get families the financial tools they need to be able to stay at home, to socially isolate, to make sure they are protecting themselves. We cannot ask them to do that if they dont have the Financial Resources to take care of their families. Guest you mentioned the protesters that came to the state capital in lansing. A story this morning. Flight Family Dollar Security Guard killed after turning away the customer without a mask. What do you think can be done to ratchet back some of the tension between protesters and the governor . Of all wehink first have to recognize the right to protest is protected, and should be protected. But people who engage in these activities have to take responsibility for the message they sent. It is find a protest. What i dont understand is why these protesters who go to ear full assault weapon gear. Battle gear to go carry a sign protecting protesting against the line the governor has chosen to draw as to where social distancing ought to occur. Recognize have to these messages and packed away the public looks at these questions. I think they have some explaining to do. I want to be clear. The right to protest is something we all ought to defend. They have the right to say what they want to say, but they have to take responsibility for the effect of what they say and i dont know if they are willing to do that. Host it is election day in michigan. Local election day. How was it going there during epidemic . What lessons have we learned nationally from what you are doing . Guest thankfully in michigan, in 2018, we changed the rules and the laws around voting. It allows for no reason absentee voting. Used to be you had to have a stated reason to vote by absentee ballot. Much more of the election will be cast using vote by mail absentee balloting. I think the really important lesson is people have to have their constitutional right to vote protected without putting themselves at risk. As we go into the next several elections, the primary in michigan is in august and the november election obviously, we have to ramp up support for absentee voting for vote by mail so people can exercise their democratic rights without having to put their health at risk. Host congressman dan kildee, chief deputy whip in the house, thank you so much for being with us this morning. Guest thank you so much. Thanks for having me on. Stay safe. Host we continue. We are joined by Heather Drevna, Vice President of communications abuse, ande, insets national network, or rainn. Tell us about your organization and its mission. Guest thank you. Rainn is the largest antisexual Violence Organization in the nation. We were founded in 1994. We primarily do four things. Support victims of Sexual Violence through a hotline available 24 7 with free confidential support. 656hope, or rainn. Org. We educate the public about Sexual Violence and its effects. We work to improve Public Policy and to support survivors by helping them to get justice. And we help companies and organizations the way they respond to Sexual Violence. Typically how, many phone calls, inquiries does your organization receive . Guest we receive about 25,000 inquiries across all of her Victims Services per month. That is several hundred calls and online chat sessions per day. Host we are having you want to talk about the sexual abuse, but in particular get your thoughts and reaction to the allegation against former Vice President joe biden about an alleged Sexual Assault when he was a senator. What has been your groups position on that . Guest we believe every allegation deserves to be investigated and taken seriously. We are averaging everyone to cooperate in the investigation. It is good Vice President biden has spoken out already and is calling for the release of records. We encourage him to continue to do so and to make himself available, as well as any staff you might be able to shed light on the allegation. Host the former Vice President speaking out, answering questions last friday on morning joe. Here is part of what he had to say. [video] back inere unequivocal 2018 during the kavanaugh controversy and hearings. You said women should be believed. For a woman to come forward in the glaring light of the focus nationally, you have got to start off with the presumption at least the essence of what she is talking about is real. Whether or not she forgets the facts, whether or not it has been made worse or better over time. She will be going on National Television on sunday. She is coming forward in the glaring light. To use your words, should we not start off with the presumption the essence of what she is talking about is real . She said you sexually assaulted her. From the very beginning i have said believing women means taking a womans claim seriously. Thenshe steps forward and look into it. That is true in this case as well. Women have a right to be heard. The press should rigorously investigate claims they make. I will always uphold that principle. In every case the truth is what matters. In this case the truth is the claims are false. Is a possible these claims are held in an nda . Do you have any ndas signed by women employed by you . There is no nda no one has ever signed i never asked anyone to sign an nda. There are none in my case. ,ost Heather Drevna of rainn what evidence can the Vice President provide to help clear this allegation . Reids credibility is something everyone will need to decide for themselves. In many cases there is not clear evidence. The Vice President so far is being forthcoming and requesting any complaints that might have been filed, but those complaints might not include the Sexual Assault allegation. We can only encourage him to continue to be forthcoming, to continue to release any records that may be relevant. Her credibility is something everyone is going to need to judge for themselves. We should not dismiss someones allegations where the because the story has changed or what they have told audiences has different at time differed at times. The complaint might not match what she is alleging now. You need to take into account she told some friends and Family Members at the time of the assault. It is not unusual for a survivor to take years to process the trauma they have experienced. Just because they have not come forward immediately after an event occurred does not mean they did not happen. Host our guest is Heather Drevna, Vice President of q for rainn of communication for rainn. Central and eastern time zones, 202 7488000. Mountain and pacific, 202 7488001. If you are a Sexual Assault survivor, the line is 202 7488002. We welcome your comments. You mentioned the word credibility a couple of times. That is a difficult thing when you are up against someone who is a wellknown politician, years of service in the senate, matching your credibility as the person who alleges the sexual violation up against a powerful political figure. Guest it is. Unfortunately that is the situation many people who were coming forward with allegations face. Its the reason any people hold onto what happened to them for years. Host the u. S. Senate, the secretary of the senate yesterday declined to release the information on the allegation information. Alex bolton reporting the secretary of the senate and formed the former Vice President it has no discretion to disclose the existence of former aide tara reids complaint against the then senator in 1993. They said eitan gave his first interview on friday, denying the allegation he pushed her against the wall and sexually assaulted her in 1983 when she worked for him. On friday, he wrote to the secretary of the Senate Julie Adams asking, you take or direct whatever steps are necessary to establish the location of the records of this office. Once they have been located to direct the search for the complaint and make public the results of that search. The sec. Saying it has no discretion to disclose any such information as requested for the Vice President. Is this one of those cases where the information would be helpful . Guest it would, but the senate needs to follow the law. We would like to see that amended so they can really release their records. Host lets hear from richard in st. Petersburg, florida. Go ahead. Good morning. Caller hi. Papers are housed at the university of delaware. Furthermore he is most reluctant for any search of the ladys name to be done on this papers. He referred to such things as there are things about other world leaders. Why on earth cannot a searcher her name be segregated from any legitimate concerns they have of other things being brought out in this papers . Host richard in florida. Heather drevna, any comments . Guest thats a great question and something we have urged the Biden Campaign to allow. To search the records for her name and anything that might be related to it rather than opening them up publicly. Host you mentioned before in for f it takes a while i can take a long time for a Sexual Assault victim to process what he or she has gone through. In this case the allegation was made in 1993. How does your organization help victims, alleged victims work through some of the process . National Sexual Assault hotline is available 20 47. We hear from survivors across a very wide spectrum. About one third of the calls we received are from someone who is in crisis. An event has just occurred or occurred in the last 48 hours. They are typically looking for things like medical care. How did they get a rape kit exam if that is something they want to do . What are the options for reporting to police . . Two thirds of the colors might another two thirds of the callers might be anywhere along the spectrum of healing. Be 10 years, might 20 years, 50 years. A Brett Kavanaugh, we had 300 increase in calls. Many people calling the hotline were that bulging what happened to them for the very first time. For most of those callers it happened decades in the past. Host we will hear from beverly. For sexualine assault survivors, 202 7488002. Verily from van nuys, california. Caller good morning. Sayomment is i wanted to it sort of pissed me off when these women cannot years and years later. I was 11 years old when i was assaulted and i am medially told my mom. The person that sexually assaulted me was jailed. If i was 11 years old and had someone,nse to tell which was my mom, i dont know why an adult would wait years and years and come out. I dont believe the accusations against mr. Biden. , telus inher drevna addition tell us what are some of the reasons you hear from people on the phone that they dont you say sometimes it is years and decades later that they dont tell others . Im sorry that you wereto you and yo able to get help and you were able to get your perpetrator behind jail. Unfortunately for far too many that is not the situation. There is a great element of shame involved, especially in child sexual abuse. There is also an element of fear and retribution in many cases where the perpetrator has power over the victim. For these and many other reasons survivors might take longer to come forward. They also process trauma differently. There has been a lot of studies of trauma, looking at the way people focus on events, how they block out different pieces to help themselves cope. Gay can take years for them to process the trauma and feel comfortable talking about it. Host did your organization come out with the allegations against now Justice Kavanaugh . Guest yes, we did. We called for the allegations to be thoroughly investigated, as we did with the numerous allegations raised against president trump. Ford a tweet says dr. Volunteered to take a polygraph test. Do you encourage that . Reid toe encourage tara take whatever steps are necessary to take to support her claim. Host robert in st. Petersburg, florida. Go ahead. Caller good morning. Bidentinct tells me mr. Did not commit this offense. Supporter, i am not a of mr. Biden, nor am i a democrat. Trump, iy voted for sent him Small Campaign contributions. My thinking is mr. Biden is a sophisticated, intelligent, thoughtful man. Men trying to get what they want to go do not approach women this really. Rudely. They develop an interest in a woman. They develop friendships and flattery and so forth. That is why i simply dont believe these allegations are true. Ibelieve mr. Biden sadly dont believe he is that rude. Host Heather Drevna, any response . Guest its understandable that many people are struggling with these allegations. The credibility of Vice President biden for themselves. We need all the facts out there for folks to make that judgment. Host cookie in boston, massachusetts. Caller ive got one question. How come nobody went after donald trump when donald trump was doing what he did to women and what he was talking about women like they was nothing . Did nobody go after him like this . Whats the problem . Wet to be clear with you, have had segments on those allegations when those happened. We will hear from maria in los angeles, california. Caller good morning. I wanted to ask a question regarding the vetting process. I understand mr. Biden and his team say he was vetted when he was trying to be Vice President. However, Brett Kavanaugh has been vetted six times for the fbi and they were never any allegations arise during that time. Why wont joe biden consent to an fbi investigation for proper vetting . To the woman or gentleman, a polygraph test is not 100 guaranteed which is why they are not allowed in trials. Not, eithersts or women are to be believed or not to be believed. It cant happen both ways. Host Heather Drevna, is this a case where an fbi investigation is warranted . Guest the Democratic Party will have to decide what he wants to do here. We want all of the facts out in the open. Tara reid has filed a complaint with the department in the district of columbia. That would be the first steps as far as law enforcement. Host in terms of her responsibly for corroborating people she had told the story to, what is the responsibility of the person who makes an allegation . How much evidence or how much supporting material is that person expected to provide . Women are not anymore or or less or less truthful than men. If someone alleges they were sexually assaulted, we owe it to them to investigate using any means at our disposal. Many timesearlier, these allegations are not raised until years after the fact. Victims come to term with what happened to them. There may be a lack of evidence. We need to look at what she has said not just now but what she said to people at the time, any records the Biden Campaign can provide, any records any of his papers might provide us. Host in general and in the case of the biden allegation, do you too movement has shined more seriousness on these allegations . Guest we are happy to see Sexual Violence has become a more acceptable topic in the National Conversation. The National Conversation and tone about Sexual Violence has changed dramatically in the last three years since the first allegations were raised against Harvey Weinstein and the Metoo Movement took off. We have seen incredible promotion at the workplace level of Sexual Harassment policies designed to stop incidents like this, to protect men and women from harassment in the workplace. All this work is far too important. We have come so far in the last two and half years to let politics get in the way of that progress. Host you mentioned the uptick in reports during the Brett Kavanaugh hearings. What about overall since the Harvey Weinstein case . Have the numbers gone down in terms of sexual abuse allegations . Guest the numbers to the hotline have not decreased. They have stayed at a very high level. Prior to the Metoo Movement and the Harvey Weinstein allegations we were helping on average about 15,000 people a month. That average is now 25,000 people a month and it has stayed there over the last three years. Host lets go to detroit. Gloria is next. Caller hi. Movementn the metoo has freed us to open up our minds and our hearts about what happened to us when assault is penalized in the regular the socalleded, abuse in the marriage and wherever else it should be penalized. I think biden should be seriously investigated because they have a reason to fear being investigated. Thesek women dont give accusing of rape or whatever else have happened to them they do it seriously. Biden should be investigated. He should be investigated as far court hard as the supreme nominee was. Televisionave it on just like his was. This guy is getting away with i mean that symbolically. Host Heather Drevna, i wanted to ask you what the coronavirus pandemic. Reports of Domestic Abuse are out there. What about sexual abuse . What is your organization hearing . Guest for many people and especially children expensing sexual abuse, stayathome does not mean safe at home. We expect we will see dramatic of intimate reports Partner Violence and child sexual abuse. Once the stayathome order went to place in midmarch, we started closely looking at the hotline data. We saw a dramatic shift in who was contacting our hotline. For the First Time Ever in late march, more than half the visitors to the online hotline where minors. Of those minors who were talking about coronavirus with concern, 67 identified the perpetrator as a Family Member. 79 of those children said they were living with the perpetrator. More than half of those are staff walked them through planning and steps they might take to report their abuse. In 10 had discussions on how to plan for safety and leave their perpetrator or avoid the perpetrator. In one out of five sessions, our staff helped connect them to authorities and stayed on the line until the authorities arrived. Host roger tweets this. Whatever allegations are brought forward, both accuser and accused should be subject to a polygraph of that exception. Stephanie from cherry hill, new jersey. Thatr i would like to say we have all seen ample video of joe biden inappropriately touching women in all kinds of waves in public. That was in public. So just imagine what he was capable of doing in private with no one else around with a subordinate who had a career she was pursuing. I believe her. I believe her because just because some of the Democratic Women now say that is not the joe biden i knew, ok, this happened many years ago. People change. Men change. They evolve. We have even seen recent video of him inappropriately touching women. I dont know he has changed at all. Host Heather Drevna . Guest thank you, stephanie. All allegations of Sexual Assault, no matter who has made them or who they involved, deserve to be taken seriously. Sexual assault or harassment of any kind is not acceptable and cannot be tolerated. These allegations must be taken seriously, as are any other allegations. We have come too far in our understanding of the issue to dismiss allegations because the accused said they did not happen. At the same time, everyone deserves due process. Vice President Biden deserves to defend himself as well. Host your website, rainns. Org,te, rainn 18006564673. Heather drevna, thank you for being with us this morning. Washington journal back tomorrow morning. Tonight, primetime programming a data clock is at 8 00 this evening. Up next, day the breakin tradition due to the coronavirus pandemic. For the first time, the audio is available live to the public which you can hear right here on cspan in just a few minutes. Case ofis will hear the the United States agency for International Development versus the alliance for open Society International inc. They are revisiting an earlier case in which conditions proposed amounted to restrictions on freedom of speech and violated the First Amendment area that oral argument is coming up momentarily live on sees and. On cspan. [no audio] honorable, the chief justice and associate justices of the suit in court of the United States. Oh yea, oh yea, all people having business with the honorable Supreme Court of the United States are admonished to give their attention, the court is now sitting. God save the United States and this honorable court. Hearis morning we will argument in case 19 177, United States agency for International Development v. Alliance for open Society International inc. Iot