Desire to quickly open the economy quickly as the wuhan virus has infected 2 Million People worldwide and killed 120,000 people of. The coronavirus has killed 24,000 americans and infected 600,000. President trump meeting with a group of the survivors of the virus hearing firsthand about their fight with the illness. They sat in the cabinet room. Among them a democrat michigan lawmaker. They say the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine saved them. President trump you took the hydroxy . I did. President trump that made a big difference . Within 12 hours i saw improvement. I cant say how wonderful to see your face and thank you for everything you have done. If you had not brought this to the forefront of being able to put this out here, i wouldnt be here today to have this conversation. Lou President Trump adding that if it was anyone other than him championing the drug, the Left Wing National Media would be singing his praises. But its just part of the hard work put in buy off the our president put in by our president and his team. The National Media are trying to deny giving him any credit. Nancy pelosi apparent live erupted during a phone call with the house dems calling the president s behavior during the coronavirus almost sinful. She is going to keep the house out of session until at least may 4. She said if there were an emergency it might change her mind. She said that in the midst of this National Emergency and pandemic. There are governors like andrew cuomo who find themselves at odds over who has the authority to open the country. President trump said it will be his decision and his alone. He insinuated that local governors need too much from the federal government to go their own way. He said mutiny on the bounty was one of my favor movies. But its fun to watch. But the mutineers need to much from the captain. The president will lead his Daily Briefing from the rose garden. In making testing for the wuhan virus available to more people. The fda authorizing knowledge use of the new test developed by researchers at rutgers university. This test uses pa uses patiet saliva to test. Its a spit test. Here is the fda commissioner dr. Stephen hahn. You can use saliva rather than a swab in the nose. Its more comfortable for the patient and can be repeated several times and its safer for the Healthcare Provider in terms of collection. This is not an athome test. It has to be performed with a provider. But it provides great advantages moving forward. Lou joining us is dr. Ian lipkin, the director for infection and immunity at columbia university. Hes researching the use of blood plasma drawn from patients who have successfully recovered from the virus. The doctor tested positive for the virus in the past month. Its great to the have you with us. I want to get to the news of this great to have a new test that is as simple as this one sounds. A spit test, if you will, that is not intrusive, is speedy, and every bit as accurate as other tests out there. It will be more convenient and less instraysive. I dont know if its as sensitive as the nasofir nays nl swabs. Its not revolutionary but well have to see how sit performs. Lou that seems to be the case with just about everything this country is throwing at this disease, and with some good effect i have to say. Congratulations to you and all the medical researchers doing extraordinary and heroic work work on antivirals and vaccines. The hydroxychloroquine that has become such a its become a lightning rod. The left attacking it without reservation. This seems to be working. And we have some anecdotal experience which i dont think diminishes the results, which is we are seeing people recover. And with great rapidity. I think there are a number of studies that are now in progress that will either demonstrate that this drug has a lot of value, or not. And the one thing we have learned recently is that there are dosages that are probably not safe. High dose ands of this drug high dosages of this drug. Its important that people not obtain this drug and treat themselves. They should have medical followup to make sure they dont have car cardio logical problems. Its not something you can take off the shelf like tylenol. Lou and you probably should be careful with tylenol as well. Thats also true. Lou they are talking about a second half of 2021 before their vaccines at senofi would be available. We are told the second wave if there is to be one would come near the fall of this year, if not the second half of next year. What are we to make of this . Im excited about all the investment in vaccines. If you can talk briefly about the process and how its been expedited by the fda. When we take a vaccine distribution. We have a phase one where we test it for safety. That takes a few months. Then phase two is where we test it for efficacy. Thats complicated. You are not going to give someone the vaccine and give them the virus. Thats dangerous and unethical. You have to find a situation where many people are getting infected. So you end up vaccinating many people and testing its efficacy and then you put it out for distribution. With covid we are doing a phase one and phase three and combining them and shortening that period. In addition we are investing in manufacture of vaccine even before we are certain which ones will be selected. When we get our answer in a years time or less, well be ready to begin distribution. This is a short time for vaccine development, 2 3 of what it used to be. This is a major event. This is what we talked about in trying to push the envelope to get things done more quickly. This is a huge advance, lou, huge. Lou this huge advance is critical fit is to come back as some researchers have led us to speculate that the second wave might be even more ferocious than the first wave and far more difficult to contain. I want to get your thoughts on the fatality rate. The economist reporting on a study that found fatality rate is actually by their mathematics is about the same as the flu right now. Its sort of a jarring conclusion given everything we heard. What is your assessment. This is why i thought some of the early projections were off. Before we had you have to know the denominator. You know the individuals who died. But all these people who were asymptomatic dont register into this equation. As we begin to do more testing and find out the virus was more widespread, the fatality rate begins to drop. Even if you have a low mortality rate like flu, if you have more people infected, you will see more deaths. We are going to learn much more. It wouldnt surprise me if we dont have the figures on the mortality rate. The other thing we are starting to see is the reproductive index of the virus which people thought was 2. For he individual infected, 2 people would become i effected. Now it looks like the rate is higher still. That explains perhaps why we have so many people who are infected. Lou what is that index for the typical influenza. Its. 1 h . But we wouldnt be at all surprised if half the worlds population didnt get infected with this virus. But we hope we can shorten that risk with the containment measures that have been taken. But its also true the shelter at home situation is not ultimately sustainable. People have to return to their normal daily lives. The next question becomes how do we do that . The way well do that is by pushing for more testing. We need teams of healthcare workers who can go out and identify hose individuals who have become who have become infected. And if we invest there, i think well have a huge impact. Lou dr. Ian lipkin, always insightful. Thank you so much. President trump last night having a little fun with the Left Wing National Media and the radical dems. Blasting his critic who never cease in their efforts to find fault with his administrations efforts no matter what they may be or how successful they may be. Here are a few of the clips President Trump used in his presentation last night in the White House Briefing room. People should be more concerned with the flu. A lot of people are concerned about the coronavirus because they are hearing a lot of news about it. But comparing it to the flu, its not even close to that. How worried should the americans be about coronavirus. It wont cause a major in the use the. President trump well be suspending all travel from europe for the next 30 days. I am officially declaring a National Emergency. Medicare patient can visit any doctor by phone or videoconference at no additional cost. At the end of the date was pretty effective because it did take an aggressive measure against the virus. His team is on it. They have been responsive late at night, early in the morning, and they have been thus far doing everything they can do. He returns calls. He reaches out. Hes been proactive. Lou and the leftwing media of which there are a few in the White House Press corps going apoplectic. Today a Little Something for the right. President barack obama emerging to finally endorse why. Finally finally endorse joe biden. Hes the last man standing in the democratic nomination. He said barack obama spent the last five years, urging biden not to run. Even Bernie Sanders beat him to it. Biden is a bad candidate who will he bear is his party. President trump will destroy him, end quote. The warning signs for the wuhan pandemic surfaced as early as 2018. The u. S. State Department Warning of safety issues at wuhan urology lab. They warned of the potential for human transmission of a sarslike pandemic. Despite those warnings. The national understand students of Health Awarded a 4 million lab to the wuhan lab studying the virus. What were they thinking. Joining us, dr. Michael pulse mike, its great to have you with us. This Early Warning coming from the state department about wuhan, the virology lab there, combine that with warnings from the taiwanese and the World Health Organization last fall, why was there thought a better understanding of what we were dealing with on the part of the World Health Organization and the Chinese Government itself . There is a lot of Wishful Thinking about china being open and our friend and sharing things with us. We are deeply involved in it. The university of texas was providing support to them. The lead researcher, she has been to the u. S. A lot. Her nickname in china is bat lady. She goes to bat caves, extracts the virus and cull i rates them in the laboratory. What she was reportedly doing. She is adding something called gain of function to a virus, to a coronavirus. In theory this is extremely dangerous. Why would the use the fund her to do this. Thats an open question. Its beginning to look like the wet wild life market theory is not correct. Thats a theory china started. Our senators were calling for the market to be closed. They may be on the wrong track. It may be the cdc and other agencies in america helping the chinese. They wanted more money to go to the lab to help the doctor be more safe. One of the gain of functions is to see if the virus can spread more rapidly to humans. We did it too in atlanta in the cdc. We had an accident. About 2004 or so. So the scientists may have been sent down from our embassy to wuhan to make sure the same kind of accident we had in atlanta didnt happen with her with far more dangerous viruses. Instead of the wild life where market where there were no bats, bats dont get sold there. The mystery is getting deeper, lou. Lou as you said, the wet mac the doesnt trade in the wet market doesnt trade in bats. But the virology lab was conducting experiments on the socalled horseshoe bat. The early messages from beijing. This sounds less like academic Scholarly Research than it does frankly buy lodge ca biologil warfare. Can you tell me the distinction that would put our concerns to rest with that issue . Thats something the chinese dont want to us think about. There are books on by lodge call warfare by chinese generals. This what the chinese call the 7th domain of war and viruses are important to it, this research makes more sense. As i looked into these articles, a chinese general shows up, hes part of the research team. He writes articles on the research. He got promoted. What is destroyed is the chinese would tell us everything and apologize for what could have been a terrible accident. Maybe that all it is. I would hate to think that we stumbled on to a chinese biological warfare. And they have a military Medicine Academy that publishes on the use of these kinds of viruses for warfare. This is getting to be a deep mystery and it could bode poorly for friends of china like joe biden in the future. Lou general milly today of the joint chiefs of staff is saying we dont think it was a weapon, but we dont know for sure. We think its natural but we dont know for sure. Thats very troubling given the level of intelligence that we had, the level of medical and scientific sophistication that we have, that we cant make a distinction and discernment as to whether we are looking at a bioweapon or accident. Yes. There is a famous spy thriller. I wont give the name for advertising reasons. The first 400 panels are the quest to discover if there is a bioweapon or not. Forensic k analysis of a virus is difficult to do without interviews and the discovery in the lab of what was going on. What is so suspicious is why xi jinping declined President Trumps i think kind you have a to send an American Team to wuhan. This is where the suspicion is getting to be too thick. Lou it is too thick. As i talked with dr. Anthony fauci during that period. I would ask directly about that. He did not want to accept the idea that china said no to the United States to send our scientists there. He was holding out hope they might relent. As you suggest, there is a view in this country that china is quite different. A sunnier place than it truly is and less authoritarian and communist place than it is. But i think reality is catching up with us now. I do. And dr. Fauci has been frank on his lectures of his attempts by phone to contact his friends in china. And hes a good diplomat. But i think dr. Fauci was disappointed by the se by the secrecy of his old friends in china. What they want is to be number one in the world. Lou what they are now is the number one story for certainly this decade in what they have unleashed on the world. I want to commend to you and the Hudson Institute, the wuhan virus timeline we are going to it up the contact for that, the address. And i recommend each of you go to the Hudson Institute website to take a look. Its revealing. As always, dr. Michael pillsbury. Thanks so much for being with us. House gop chief Drew Ferguson announcing his support for congressman doug collins in his bid for the u. S. Senate seat held by someone else. This comes as collins is campaigning to unseat republican senator Kelly Loeffler who traded stocks after attending a coronavirus briefing. Loeffler the choice of the Mitch Mcconnell and the leadership of the u. S. Senate. That may change. Congressman doug collins hoping that does change is the Ranking Member of the house judiciary committee. Hes also running for the seat held by loeffler and having a grand old time in the state of georgia. And we are always delighted to have you here with us on the show. Congressman, how goes the race . The race is going well. I cant thank my friend Drew Ferguson more for coming on. He has been a great leader. It clarifies to the people of georgia that we have a victory path that can win and beat the democrats in november in a runoff. And keeping the senate and getting back to business as the American People. Lou i thought it was interesting the way congressman ferguson put it. He sort of summed up the situation with all the infighting and conflict within the Republican Party for the seat you are campaigning for. He said georgia republicans need to unify behind dog and leave the distraction and uncertainly of other candidates in the rearview mirror. I think he sees the problem that developed. Senator loeffler, its not going well. We were winning before this happened and rear winning more. So we have to unify. We have to come together to beat the democrats who feel empowered by what they see across the country. We have to help President Trump carry the state of georgia. This is a big deal. This is about wing and Going Forward and taking the agenda the president started. We need four more years of. And the way we do that is to keep the senate seat in georgia. Lou the congressman has been a stalwart defender of this president from the beginning. I think everyone knows that and appreciates that. The pp funding, the paycheck protection funding. The democrats not ebb wanting to Call Congress into session. Nancy pelosi saying it would take an emergency for her to change her mind about returning on may 4 . This is surreal. This is monstrously absurd of her to even make such a remark. When did you expect nancy pelosi to think the American People were an emergency . They have never been an emergency. They were only a path to her power to get what she wants. She would rather put Small Businesses at risk. She would continue to worry about the economic he cover are you. Nancy pelosis emergency is only nancy pelosis. Thats the only emergency she knows. If its not her way, shell use the American People as pawns in her game. Lou do the Democratic House members are they under somele illusion they wont lose their seats by blocking this funding of urgently needed relief for american Small Businesses and employees across the country . Unfortunately under under the capture of nancy pelosi. And she is under the capture of the extreme element of her party. There are many in the Democratic Party in the house that are concerned about this. They realize they wasted a year going after this president instead of doing what they said they wanted to do, and that was for the people to do things for them. They did nothing for the people except delay aid and not done anything that would actually lift up everybody and not just the special interests they cater to. Lou lets turn to the president as he is talking about now and will be focusing this evening on announcing the new members of his task force to reopen america for business. Your thoughts about it. The timing, and the conditions as you see them necessary to do that. The we need to make sure the curve is flattening and we have resources in the hotpots. We need to give the American People the way to do that. Other issues that can show the people in certain areas can get back to work. The president understands this is something he has got to take in balance. You talk about healthcare and the economy. When he does that, hes taking the advice of dr. Fauci and others and doing so in a way that balances the needs. I am sure this president is taking he precaution to make sure we can open up our economy and people can feel safe about what they are going to do. Lou as to the origins of the wuhan virus if there was purpose to it, what that purpose was on the part of china. The president says china will find out what the consequences are if that understand out to be the case. Your thoughts on that as we close out here, congressman . Have you ever seen this president look across the world and not keep his promises to put America First . You know where adam schiff was when this started he was impeaching the president in the thick. This president will lead and he will hold china accountable. Lou congressman doug collins. Great to see you. Thanks for being with us tonight. As always, good luck. We would like to hear your thoughts on all of this. Follow me on twitter. Like me on facebook, follow me on instagram loudobbstonight. A programming night, dr. Oz, lara logan and gordon chang. We hope you will continue with us tonight. Up next. President trump throwing his support behind well, president obama throwing his support behind joe biden. The president thinks of that as support for him. Hes also pushing for amnesty in the middle of a pandemic. Congressman jim jordan joins us next. Stay with us. There are times when our need to connect really matters. To keep customers and employees in the know. To keep business moving. Comcast business is prepared for times like these. Powered by the nations largest gigspeed network. To help give you the speed, reliability, and security you need. Tools to manage your business from any device, anywhere. And a team of experts here for you 24 7. Weve always believed in the power of working together. Thats why, when every connection counts. You can count on us. Music i was overwhelmed. And i didnt know where to begin. I came across sofi and it was the best decision of my life. 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In india, volunteers run a mobile blood bank to help provide a steady blood supply for the local community. And in taiwan, people are working hard to get vulnerable citizens the support and services they need. With over one million members, we know what people can do when they come together. Take action with us. Find out more at rotary. Org action joining us. Well see you back here same time. [ ] lou good evening. President trump will announce new members of his new task force. The task will be advising him on reopening the economy and putting america back to work. President trump you have ad a preview earlier today at the white house. President trump well be making a decision quickly in conjunction with governors. We have tremendous support from governor. From governors. A lot of skill will have to be used to get our country back to where it was and we want to do it quickly. Governor the president s desire to quickly open the economy quickly as the wuhan virus has infected 2 Million People worldwide and killed 120,000 people of. The coronavirus has killed 24,000 americans and infected 600,000. President trump meeting with a group of the survivors of the virus hearing firsthand about their fight with the illness. They sat in the cabinet room. Among them a democrat michigan lawmaker. They say the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine saved them. President trump you took the hydroxy . I did. President trump that made a big difference . Within 12 hours i saw improvement. I cant say how wonderful to see your face and thank you for everything you have done. If you had not brought this to the forefront of being able to put this out here, i wouldnt be here today to have this conversation. Lou President Trump adding that if it was anyone other than him championing the drug, the Left Wing National Media would be singing his praises. But its just part of the hard work put in buy off the our president put in by our president and his team. The National Media are trying to deny giving him any credit. Nancy pelosi apparent live erupted during a phone call with the house dems calling the president s behavior during the coronavirus almost sinful. She is going to keep the house out of session until at least may 4. She said if there were an emergency it might change her mind. She said that in the midst of this National Emergency and pandemic. There are governors like andrew cuomo who find themselves at odds over who has the authority to open the country. President trump said it will be his decision and his alone. He insinuated that local governors need too much from the federal government to go their own way. He said mutiny on the bounty was one of my favor movies. But its fun to watch. But the mutineers need to much from the captain. The president will lead his Daily Briefing from the rose garden. In making testing for the wuhan virus available to more people. The fda authorizing knowledge use of the new test developed by researchers at rutgers university. This test uses pa uses patiet saliva to test. Its a spit test. Here is the fda commissioner dr. Stephen hahn. You can use saliva rather than a swab in the nose. Its more comfortable for the patient and can be repeated several times and its safer for the Healthcare Provider in terms of collection. This is not an athome test. It has to be performed with a provider. But it provides great advantages moving forward. Lou joining us is dr. Ian lipkin, the director for infection and immunity at columbia university. Hes researching the use of blood plasma drawn from patients who have successfully recovered from the virus. The doctor tested positive for the virus in the past month. Its great to the have you with us. I want to get to the news of this great to have a new test that is as simple as this one sounds. A spit test, if you will, that is not intrusive, is speedy, and every bit as accurate as other tests out there. It will be more convenient and less instraysive. I dont know if its as sensitive as the nasofir nays nl swabs. Its not revolutionary but well have to see how sit performs. Lou that seems to be the case with just about everything this country is throwing at this disease, and with some good effect i have to say. Congratulations to you and all the medical researchers doing extraordinary and heroic work work on antivirals and vaccines. The hydroxychloroquine that has become such a its become a lightning rod. The left attacking it without reservation. This seems to be working. And we have some anecdotal experience which i dont think diminishes the results, which is we are seeing people recover. And with great rapidity. I think there are a number of studies that are now in progress that will either demonstrate that this drug has a lot of value, or not. And the one thing we have learned recently is that there are dosages that are probably not safe. High dose ands of this drug high dosages of this drug. Its important that people not obtain this drug and treat themselves. They should have medical followup to make sure they dont have car cardio logical problems. Its not something you can take off the shelf like tylenol. Lou and you probably should be careful with tylenol as well. Thats also true. Lou they are talking about a second half of 2021 before their vaccines at senofi would be available. We are told the second wave if there is to be one would come near the fall of this year, if not the second half of next year. What are we to make of this . Im excited about all the investment in vaccines. If you can talk briefly about the process and how its been expedited by the fda. When we take a vaccine distribution. We have a phase one where we test it for safety. That takes a few months. Then phase two is where we test it for efficacy. Thats complicated. You are not going to give someone the vaccine and give them the virus. Thats dangerous and unethical. You have to find a situation where many people are getting infected. So you end up vaccinating many people and testing its efficacy and then you put it out for distribution. With covid we are doing a phase one and phase three and combining them and shortening that period. In addition we are investing in manufacture of vaccine even before we are certain which ones will be selected. When we get our answer in a years time or less, well be ready to begin distribution. This is a short time for vaccine development, 2 3 of what it used to be. This is a major event. This is what we talked about in trying to push the envelope to get things done more quickly. This is a huge advance, lou, huge. Lou this huge advance is critical fit is to come back as some researchers have led us to speculate that the second wave might be even more ferocious than the first wave and far more difficult to contain. I want to get your thoughts on the fatality rate. The economist reporting on a study that found fatality rate is actually by their mathematics is about the same as the flu right now. Its sort of a jarring conclusion given everything we heard. What is your assessment. This is why i thought some of the early projections were off. Before we had you have to know the denominator. You know the individuals who died. But all these people who were asymptomatic dont register into this equation. As we begin to do more testing and find out the virus was more widespread, the fatality rate begins to drop. Even if you have a low mortality rate like flu, if you have more people infected, you will see more deaths. We are going to learn much more. It wouldnt surprise me if we dont have the figures on the mortality rate. The other thing we are starting to see is the reproductive index of the virus which people thought was 2. For he individual infected, 2 people would become i effected. Now it looks like the rate is higher still. That explains perhaps why we have so many people who are infected. Lou what is that index for the typical influenza. Its. 1 h . But we wouldnt be at all surprised if half the worlds population didnt get infected with this virus. But we hope we can shorten that risk with the containment measures that have been taken. But its also true the shelter at home situation is not ultimately sustainable. People have to return to their normal daily lives. The next question becomes how do we do that . The way well do that is by pushing for more testing. We need teams of healthcare workers who can go out and identify hose individuals who have become who have become infected. And if we invest there, i think well have a huge impact. Lou dr. Ian lipkin, always insightful. Thank you so much. President trump last night having a little fun with the Left Wing National Media and the radical dems. Blasting his critic who never cease in their efforts to find fault with his administrations efforts no matter what they may be or how successful they may be. Here are a few of the clips President Trump used in his presentation last night in the White House Briefing room. People should be more concerned with the flu. A lot of people are concerned about the coronavirus because they are hearing a lot of news about it. But comparing it to the flu, its not even close to that. How worried should the americans be about coronavirus. It wont cause a major in the use the. President trump well be suspending all travel from europe for the next 30 days. I am officially declaring a National Emergency. Medicare patient can visit any doctor by phone or videoconference at no additional cost. At the end of the date was pretty effective because it did take an aggressive measure against the virus. His team is on it. They have been responsive late at night, early in the morning, and they have been thus far doing everything they can do. He returns calls. He reaches out. Hes been proactive. Lou and the leftwing media of which there are a few in the White House Press corps going apoplectic. Today a Little Something for the right. President barack obama emerging to finally endorse why. Finally finally endorse joe biden. Hes the last man standing in the democratic nomination. He said barack obama spent the last five years, urging biden not to run. Even Bernie Sanders beat him to it. Biden is a bad candidate who will he bear is his party. President trump will destroy him, end quote. The warning signs for the wuhan pandemic surfaced as early as 2018. The u. S. State Department Warning of safety issues at wuhan urology lab. They warned of the potential for human transmission of a sarslike pandemic. Despite those warnings. The national understand students of Health Awarded a 4 million lab to the wuhan lab studying the virus. What were they thinking. Joining us, dr. Michael pulse mike, its great to have you with us. This Early Warning coming from the state department about wuhan, the virology lab there, combine that with warnings from the taiwanese and the World Health Organization last fall, why was there thought a better understanding of what we were dealing with on the part of the World Health Organization and the Chinese Government itself . There is a lot of Wishful Thinking about china being open and our friend and sharing things with us. We are deeply involved in it. The university of texas was providing support to them. The lead researcher, she has been to the u. S. A lot. Her nickname in china is bat lady. She goes to bat caves, extracts the virus and cull i rates them in the laboratory. What she was reportedly doing. She is adding something called gain of function to a virus, to a coronavirus. In theory this is extremely dangerous. Why would the use the fund her to do this. Thats an open question. Its beginning to look like the wet wild life market theory is not correct. Thats a theory china started. Our senators were calling for the market to be closed. They may be on the wrong track. It may be the cdc and other agencies in america helping the chinese. They wanted more money to go to the lab maria good morning, everyone. Happy wednesday to you. Thanks for joining us. Im maria bartiromo, wednesday april 15th, 6 00 a. M. On the button on the east coast. Getting america back to work. The white house working with the private sector to open the economy mean wile President Trump halting funding to the World Health Organization announcing investigation into what he calls china centric decision that was made on coronavirus response. On the earnings front this morning a lot coming up. More big banks reporting earnings in if First Quarter including goldman sachs, citigroup, all the numbers, full analysis and tell you how they are impacting markets