Transcripts For FBC The Evening Edit 20240713

Treatment to stop the coronavirus, also talk of vaccines possibly available in less than a year, china is in a world of trouble, reported the economy contracted in four decades, china again raised the official death toll in wuhan, this time by 50 . But spring and former wisconsin Governor Scott walker, great to see you governor. Great to be with you, thank you for having me on. Liz were seeing a growing number of states possibly reopening in the next couple of weeks, this is about the administration shut down exit plan or are we heading into pandemic summer, what do you think, we have several western governors in their pack to reopen their economies like its happening in northeastern west coast, what do you think will happen. I hope that we are actually able to walk and chew gum and by that i hope are able to continue to provide the care that we need to make sure citizens are healthy and safe and we defeat the coronavirus, but at the same time put in place plans that allow us to gradually transition into a full economy, you dont do it all at once, ive been writing on this for weeks that we can ease into it certainly manufacturing and trades but we should not be pushing off decisions until memorial day or beyond, that is far too late to focus on reopening the economy whether in wisconsin or anywhere else across the country. Liz the democrat mayor of las vegas called the current shutdown total insanity. This is whats happening, certain florida beaches starting to reopen, texas is starting to reopen, michigan, wisconsin, idaho, mississippi, ohio, they will start to ease up over the next couple of weeks, there is concern that we are not ready for a vaccine testing that is coming in, certain test, look at this, were seeing colorado, las vegas, some of these tests are erroneous, defective, some coming in from china, are you worried about that we need a moonshot moment to get nationwide testing, thats been the pushback. Test will be incredibly important but i think we can go ahead with caution, for able to use social distancing like drug stores and grocery stores, theres other places that we can put this in, obviously an office where everyone is sitting cubicles in the middle of the bullpen, that is probably not the place to go back and they can sufficiently operate from home for manufacturing, trade, eventually for restaurants and other places there has got to be ways if you got seating for 150, you dont start with 150 but maybe start with a quarter of that and move on, theres ways that we can apply the practices that the coronavirus tax force that is told us to do in our own lives and at home we can apply that to Small Businesses that are dying right now, we need to make sure that we protect the health and safety of her neighbors and also have to find ways to reopen the economy and do it in phases. Liz heres the criticism, why is the house led by democrats, why are they waiting to work it back to the earliest as may 4, the smallest running out of money, half of u. S. Cities planing to lay off city workers and possibly firemen and cops, were seen firemen and cops, hospital workers, getting sick and infected more than 2000 cities face budget shortfall, 22 million out of work wiping out the dog games, the trust fund is getting depleted, this is one of our guitars for country. The senate comes back in the 20th, the house not coming back until may 4 unless theres an emergency built to handle says nancy pelosi, your reaction to that. Again this is another example of suspending common sense, common sense thing whether i dont care for democrat or republican, the paycheck protection is one of the smartest things a lot of people are spending money on that are outrageous, its a slamdunk, people are being laid off because the government has stopped their employer from being able to operate, we have to find a way to account to that, one best way is to keep Small Businesses going to allow them to pay payroll, we can do that, the program has been wildly successful for Small Businesses across the country. Liz weight, forgive me, the question is, how comes democrats are knocking back to worse in the house, watch how nancy pelosi shows off her ice cream while people around the country are standing on food lines, watch this. This is something that you can get in the mail. Its run out. This is the episode of cribs, i never knew i needed. Wow. We have chocolate and other chocolate here and we stopped the ice cream for Easter Sunday because we were enjoying. Liz its absolutely outrageous, the bottom line, americans want to go back to work and get their lives back and pay their bills, the house and the senate have got to get to work and got a find a way to do it. There is a simple plan, put money back into an allow small business. One other thing they could do, they can fix the federal unemployment so that you do not make more money and unemployed then you do being employed in todays society. Liz we hear you. Here is the thing, here in new york city working ambulance silence throughout the night, multiple ambulance sirens, our cops and firemen are getting sick, hospital workers are getting sick, doctors are getting sick, nancy pelosi showing off her ice cream collection, democrats including nancy say they will try to block President Trump from suspending funding, governor, are democrats out of step and they still out of touch with whats happening in asia, leaders in japan now see the World Health Organization should be called a Chinese Health organization, hundreds of thousands of people in asia signed a petition saying hold china accountable, nine out of ten say china shut down markets, the problem is, here is the issue, the American People are seeing whats going on in washington and there seen the fingerpointing and saying, the federal government should do more testing, they should have been ready for a pandemic when nancy pelosi since the reagan administration, Chuck Schumer has been around for decades, joe biden has been around since nixon, American People are saying where were you when Infectious Disease experts were testifying since hiv a crisis in the 80s that another pin democrats coming, where were you, what did you do, thats the question they make and people are asking. Nancy pelosi, joe biden Chuck Schumer have been out of touch for decades in the American People have seen it clear than ever before and i think in the short term, they have to rise up and demand action for people in congress, longterm they have to make changes to get nancy pelosi out of office and god help us, never send joe biden to the white house or will be a much deeper problems that we face today. Liz i have to close that with this, the federal retirement that oversees federal pension investment for government workers in the federal government, its moving to invest in Chinese Companies and we have 11 influential military veterans now sending a letter to the joint chief of staff saying please tell the president to stop this, it means even our military is effectively invested in chinese corporations that could make weapons designed to kill them, that is whats going on in washington. The biggest lessons we should learn once we get healthy and safe and get the economy going, we should never trust china again, we should not be dependent on them whether for our debt or our economy or things Like Pharmaceuticals and we certainly should be investing going forward, they cannot be trusted, the World Health Organization cannot be trusted and we need to be rely on ourselves, just like the president said the American People can see why it was so important to put america first. Liz former Governor Scott walker, thank you so much, great to see you. Lets bring in former cia analyst, fred, your reaction to this World Leaders including the uk foreign minister blasting the coverup of the coronavirus outbreak, saying it will not be business as usual with china is triggered humanitarian crises around the world in a new emerging market debt crisis, were talking about developing nations plummeting into debt problems, your reaction to this. I think the evidence is overwhelming that this is criminal negligence by the chinese regime in these efforts to shift the blame and the mass diplomacy with affected medical supplies has made it worse, i think china has an enormous Public Relations crisis on his hand in the relationship with the rest of the world will never be the same. Liz with china whats happening right now, massive unemployment, thats a critical issue happening inside of china, the compacted house with its people, we will give you power over us as long as you take care of us, they face widespread unrest in a throughout the country. Your take on what is happening with u. S. Officials confirm a full investigation of whether or not the coronavirus covid19 escape from the wuhan lab, ron johnson looking into the two, what is your take on this story, whether a lab worker at a laboratory in wuhan, china accidentally got infected with the coronavirus then walked out and affected others, your take . Jim gary wrote a National Review on the fourth of april that an advertisement that was posted by the wuhan lab from the 11th of november, advertising for scientists to research viruses in the relationship with coronavirus, there is coincidences and i meanwhile, there was another job vacancy post on the 24th of february to research the relationship between vax and sars, this lab had very lack security procedures and youre not kidding, there has to be a Major Investigation of whether this dangerous pathogen came from this lab, i cannot see how someone can argue that that did not happen right now. Liz inhabited 2004 at a lab in beijing, researchers studying an earlier version of the sars virus, according to research in the cdc, nine people in china became infected at the earlier 2004 leak of the sars virus, one person was killed and as many as nine died, it made sense that that couldve happened because people are asymptomatic but they can walk out and affect others, covid19 comes from the sars virus, the state department warmed about this and generate 2018 but then you had earlier this year China Official saying theres no human to human transmission and at the same time though trying to corner the patent on remdesivir. China tried to rob that in january. It all adds up, in other words, this all adds up when you put the timeline together, the u. S. Intelligence officials are doing now of what may have happened with the laboratories. I think the record is appalling, on our website we have a 130 page timeline, mostly chinese propaganda and misconduct concerning the virus, i hope your viewers check this out, we cannot say this is mistakes or that chinese did not know what was happening, were now having arguments did chinese officials let this virus leave the country deliberately, im not there, i dont think thats what happened, i think it was confidence, malfeasance, i think it was criminal met under negligence and has to be investigated. Liz mark esper is hinting at sending inspectors into Infectious Disease Research Labs similar to the u. S. Laboratories have some problems with breakdown in safety procedures and problems. But what he is saying, maybe we should have a regime of inspectors looking into the Research Labs because these Research Labs are looking at dangerous viruses including things like imola, the hiv virus is still setting, i cover the anthrax attacks lacks decade, doctor robert at fort Paul Dietrich worked on that and he is saying now china will not release the virus specimen so people can study, that sounds like a coverup, you were at fort Paul Dietrich, you worked there during ebola, what are you hearing in that community about whats going on with the laboratories. I worked for the Armed Forces Medical Intelligence Center where theres a bilevel poor lab, these are incredible labs and scientists work in spacesuits with air tubes putting air in the suits to breathe and its all pumped out of the room and purified. The state Department Said that china attempted to run a lab in wuhan and it was run very badly that there was gross safety violations, what esper is suggesting is a good idea, no treaty like the convention does not have an inspections regime, i think it should have one and i think we should negotiate that as soon as possible. Liz do you think china will not happen. There are a lot of nations that are very leery of agreeing to this, i think our goal right now should be to try to convince china to shut down the wet market into voluntarily allow some inspections of the laboratories in wuhan, the loss of face is a big deal to china, what you said the domestic instability, this is a huge problem and already a problem because of chinas declining growth rate earlier this year, i think in terms of domestic security the situation is much worse than is generally known. Liz great to have you on coming come back soon. Good to be here. Lets welcome texas attorney, great to have you on, your reaction to the new shutdown backlash lawsuits against shutdown underway in your state of texas, also michigan and pennsylvania, your reaction. Im not surprised, people are frustrated, they want to go back to work, their nervous about the Economic Future and there is no game plan that people have ever gone through, this is new to all of us. Liz what is going on with the lawsuit in texas, conservative groups are suing and i think your name is in a lawsuit as well. All of this is just beginning, some of the unrest that people have been relatively patient, the governor announced plans for protections to slowly go back to work and were in the process of moving in that direction. I think he will reissue executive orders next week and as we progress through this and look to the two statistics on the coronavirus in texas, i think its a numbers go down, you will see texans going back to work. Liz now we have thousands of americans turning out to protest, were looking at possible protest in places like utah, north carolina, ohio, virginia, many arrived on foot and encouraged to do Operation Gridlock in the capital michigan to protest the michigan governor shutdown order. More protesters will come in in oregon and idaho. I want to turn to Gretchen Whitmer a band stores from sellg nonessential items, band gatherings, even private homes, she outlawed even landscaping, watch the governor to defend her orders and snow would make that executive order meaningless. I have snow on the ground in michigan and lansing, were expecting up to 30 inches in the upper peninsula, the fact that were cracking down on people traveling between homes or planting or landscaping or golfing, really for a couple more weeks isnt going to impact peoples ability ability to do it, because the snow will not do it itself. Liz she also called protesters irresponsible for possibly spreading covid19. We have four michigan residents suing the governor, the issue here, people are saying this is the first and fifth amendment issue, putting pressure on the fourth and tenth amendment, these constitutional issues that play, it sounds like she is missing that. It does, the snow is cover for her policy and its a little unusual. Certainly the state of michigan maybe one of them that have overreached and not letting people landscape and play golf, here we have not banned those type of activities. We certainly put limitations trying to have people social distancing as they do things like that, but we have not outright banned activities that people can do outside, that makes no sense. Liz the views joy attack them saying i would like to ask them if they are sent ou willing to n away their rights to drug treatment if they get sick and infected are you going to say dont need a ventilator because i thought i should divide the governors orders. I would like to know people in states like michigan who are not following the guidelines augustine new york do not come to other states. Your reaction. I think what she said is absolutely ridiculous, these people have a right to protest just like she does. We still have the First Amendment, we stop the constitution, i think when you have a crisis like this, a lot of people forget that the constitution so matters and people have every right to protest, they can disagree with everything being done and thats part of their american Constitutional Rights and i encourage them to speak out. Liz americans are not so fatally naive, they know this is a highly Infectious Disease, people do not want to get sick, this is about safety, but were in a world of governors who are cracking down, for bidding, shutting down, arresting, and jailing, we have democrats say they are going to go to uses coronavirus outbreak to reshape american society, when the american see that, they are rightfully upset, they are worried they do not want the market values changed at all because of this outbreak. I think rod emanuel said it dont let a crisis go to waste, and certainly some of these governors are using the heavy hand of government in a way that they should not do. There is a Public Safety issue and were in an unusual time but that does not mean that you should totally ban people from doing everything possible. In some cases these states have gone overboard. Liz let me go back up to what youre saying, last week the governor of kentucky basically announced that anyone attending Church Services for easter would have their license plate numbers recorded and be notified that they were committing mr. Mainer. Orange county in california banned all public and private gatherings of any number of people. , they are banning private gatherings inside peoples hom homes, this is not the america we grew up with. No, this sounds more like what happened in china people trying to express their religious liberties and washed up in kentucky and everywhere else, they still have First Amendment rights to worship and were encouraging churches when. Liz my ear is going outcome im having technical difficulties. Can you finish your point. The president is now with the Coronavirus Task first. Lets listen. Thank you very much. I just had a great conversation with the leading faith leaders of our country, and went extremely well, we learned a lot, i learned a lot and were working on some things that are very interesting. Very positive. I think them all for being on the call in yesterday we unveiled detailed guidelines for americans governors to initiate a safe and gradual reopening of america. That is whats happening, the guidelines provide governors with the fact driven and sciencebased metric they will need to make the decisions that are right for their own particular state. To view the guidelines, you can go to the website at whitehouse. Gov opening america. So that is whitehouse. Gov opening america. Treasury has sent out Economic Relief payments to more than 80 million americans who have their direct deposit information on file with the irs and are an incredible success it has been, if you have not received your check, please visit irs. Gov, get my payment. How about that one, irs. Gov get my payment. That way they can get you your payment in days and they done a fantastic job i have to say and you will not have to wait for a check in the mail, i have some very good news, we sent out 80 million deposits and in less than 1 , a couple had minor glitches but its substantially less, 80 million deposits, that gets corrected immediately so please do as they say, you will get that very quickly, very easily. Today im also announcing that secretary purdue who happens to be right next to me, handsome man in the department of agriculture will be in implementing a 19 billiondollar Relief Program for our great farmers and ranchers as they cope with the fallout of the global pandemic, im very honored to be doing this, farmers, ranchers, these are great people, great americans, never complained, never complained, they just do what they have to do. The program will include direct payments through farmers as well as mass purchases of dairy, meat and Agricultural Produce to get the food to the people in need. The usda will receive another 14 billion in july that will have funding to continue to help our farmers and are ranchers and its money well deserved. Not only were they targeted at one point by china, that was over a period of time and you saw that happening, they never complained but that worked out very well, 12 billion they got in 16 billion they got and now its 19 billion. Im just going to ask secretary purdue to explain exactly how we will handle it. Thank you. Mr. President you may remember earlier that you tweeted a message to the farmers and ranchers that no matter the circumstances you pledge to standby and while none of us could have anticipated this type of pandemic that would occur, i think todays announcement is proof that you have put our farmers backs and you will continue to do what it takes to support them. They are very grateful, we heard a lot recently about our food supply chain, i think american now knows that more than ever the wholesome food of our family depend upon and starts with americas farmers and ranchers. America, agriculture has been hardhit like most of america with the coronavirus and President Trump is standing with our farmers and all of america s to make sure we get to this national emergency. Today, thanks to your direction and leadership, usda is announcing the coronavirus Food Assistance program, as you mentioned the new 19 billiondollar program will take several actions to assist farmers, ranchers and consumers in response to the covid19 national emergency. The program is divided into two parts, one is a direct payment, 16 billion in direct payments to farmers, ranchers and producers who experience unprecedented losses during this pandemic. Since we wanted to get the payment out to producers as quickly as possible, we decided to use the funds in the ccc, the current funds of six and half billion dollars combined with a 19. 5 of covid money rather than wait for the replenishment of the ccc funds in july, based on industry estimates of damage it is becoming apparent that we will need the additional ccc funds as we continue to track the economic losses. Secondly, this is really important, the usda will be purchasing 3 billion in fresh produce, dairy and Meat Products to be distributed to americans in need through the Food Bank Networks as well as other community and faithbased organizations. Having to dump milk or plow under vegetables ready to market is not only financially distressing but also heartbreaking as well to those who produce them. This will not only provide direct Financial Relief to farmers and ranchers but it will allow for the purchase and distribution of her agriculture abundance in this country to help our fellow americans in need, in recent weeks we have seen heroic patriotism over fluid supply chain workers that have shown day in and day out to serve the needs of the low americans, our farmers have been in the field planting into what they do every spring to feed the American People even with the pandemic as we speak. I want to thank you, mr. President for your unwavering support, they want to thank you for their unwavering support for americas farmers and ranchers and i want to commit to you and to the American People at usda will do everything in our power to implement this program as quickly and efficiently as possible to help her farmers, ranchers, producers and consumers during the great time of need, thank you very much for having me here today, god bless you, God Bless America and God Bless American agriculture. Thank you. Our great secretary of agriculture was the governor of georgia for eight years in the only reason he is and still there frankly as he was too limited, i said lets get him for agriculture and hes done a fantastic job, we went to thank you very much, eight years at georgia. We really appreciate it. Good job. Even as we prepare to rebuild our economy, america continues to wage of an allout medical work to defeat the invisible enemy. Today we have conducted more than 3. 78 million coronavirus test, by far the most of any country, it is not even close, and the hardest hit area in new york and louisiana, we tested more people per capita than south korea, singapore and every other country. The United States has the most robust and advanced and accurate testing system anywhere in the world, as of yesterday we have distributed nearly 660,000 abbott ids that is an incredible test, its called the id now. Care diagnostic test and its fantastic. Its a hot one. The problem with this business is a hot one until two days from now. Because we do have a saliva test that just came out and that can be self administered and said to be fantastic. I want to think abbott laboratories, they have been incredible i want to think roche, they likewise have been incredible. Over the last several days weve seen a dramatic increase in the tests conducted by hospitals and academic institutions which is now performed nearly 600,000 test, there is a tremendous amount of unused capacity in the states available for the governors to tap, we have tremendous unused capability within the laboratories and i hope the governors are going to be able to use it, the governors are responsible for testing and i hope they will be able to use his tremendous amount of available capacity that we have, its up to 1 million additional test per week. What do you think of that in the next few weeks we will be sending out 5. 5 million testing swabs. They can be done by the governors themselves, mostly it is cotton, not a big deal, you can get caught in easily, but if they cannot get it we will take care of it. Yesterday the fda announced a new collaboration with United Health group, the gates foundation, quantity and in u. S. Cotton to expand the supply of essential swabs including a new polyester qtip type swab for the coronavirus testing, all these actions will help our testing capability continued to grow dramatically, were helping people even with swabs, we get ventilators, the king of ventilators, we have hundreds of thousands under construction, we dont need them ourselves the governors are in great shape, if we do theres a great stockpile that will send to the state need that we handle the situation incredibly well. I hope people understand it, i wish the media would get the word out, what weve done in ventilators is amazing, theyre expensive and highly complex. While speaking to other countries, i spoke to the president of mexico today, great gentlemen and i told him we are going to be helping him out with ventilators and helping mexico out and helping some other countries. We have a lot of highlevel, high quality ventilators. And they are here and also be manufactured as we speak. Following the announcement of our reopening guidelines, there have been some very partisan voices in the media and politics that have spread false and misleading information about our Testing Capacity, totally false and misleading demonstrating a failure to understand the enormous scope of the testing capability that we brought online and we started learning from ground zero. We started being very outdated and obsolete as a country from the past. I will say this, they did not understand it it is unfortunate, hate to say this because weve been getting along very well but it would be false reporting because they understand the capability. It is going to be up to the states to use the capability, the states have local points where they can go, the governor can call the mayors and the mayors can call representatives and everything is perfect. That is the way it should work in a we should work. It will help new york and all of the other states get even better on the testing, we have to get even better in some people thinks a little bit differently, theres areas where we have vast amounts of area where you have very few people and almost no people are infected in those places will be looked upon differently by different governors and i think you will have a lot of news coming out about that over the next few days, certain states are going to come online and theyre going to start the early stages of the puzzle that were putting together and its going to be together sooner than later, a lot of incredible things are happening. At some point, in the nottoodistant future we will have our country back and its going to be with what were doing on stimulus and helping people keep their businesses together, their lives together and their jobs, it will be better than ever before, i hope so, i really do. The current conversation is reminiscent of what happened on ventilators, you remember that. When requests were made far beyond what was objectively needed, we are hearing from certain states we were hearing a lot of that they need farmer in ventilators in one case they wanted 40000 ventilators, 40000. It turned out they had plenty and they had a number of about y prewe supplied them with a lot. That was the right number, we got it just about right. If they did need more were ready to get more. I think the surge seems to be over and theres a lot of governors doing a great job in their working with us but were all working together, the research and development that was done at the federal level was been absolutely incredible. The media will be accepting of these figures when they get to see the end result, i think they will see it and i think there already seen it, that includes not only ventilators but beds and in most cases far more than they even needed. But we wanted to err on the side of caution, this is what the governor wanted, a certain amount in louisiana, i spoke with the governor and had a long talk with him, i said you think youll need the final hospital and actually did not need it, we built a lot of beds, i appreciate it from the governor. And we saved building a hospital. In new york i think we did just a spectacular job at the javits center. Even sending the ship up became we brought into covid but they did not really need it, it did not get much use but it was there and ready and it was not supposed to be used to that purpose, we changed it to that purpose and it was there, ready, willing and able, same with javits but they did not need the rooms the bed that we produced, so we produced almost 2900 beds and i think i would rather tell you that we were over prepared and we were underprepared. That was a good faith effort by newark, i have to say that. Very good faith effort but its nice that we did not need that instead of needing it, it was not very occupied but ready to go. Still there should something happen but i think they have it under very good control. As you hear from our experts today, we have ready built sufficient Testing Capacity nationwide for states to begin the reopening and i think you will hear a lot about reopenings in the coming weeks and months, most exciting in the coming weeks i think you will see some very dramatic steps taken, and very safely, were putting safety first. We may be opening but were putting safety first. When you look at the numbers and you look at the possible number of deaths 2. 2 Million People, couldve very well been that, couldve been more, ive been looking at numbers were couldve been higher than that. 2. 2 Million People dying, if you figured you lost 500,000, maybe 600,000 in the civil war, 22 Million People, a minimum of we did nothing wouldve been 1. 6, if you cut that in half youre talking about a hundred thousand, 900,000, a Million People dying. But we did a lot of work in the people of this country were incredible. I have to say were heading to the other category, if we did work and it was successful to have between 100,220,000 to 240,000 on the upside and i think will be substantially below the hundred number. I think right now were heading out around 60 may be 65000. One is too many, its a horrible thing the hypertrophic country, horrible thing that happened to 184 countries all over the world. Its a horrible thing and theres no reason for it. It should never ever happen again. In a few minutes you will hear from doctor redfield, dr. Fauci, dr. Birx to explain these facts in really great detail. Earlier this week the fda authorized to new Antibody Test which is very exciting that will determine if someone has been previously infected with a virus bringing the total to four authorized Antibody Test already this will help us assess the number of cases that have been asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic in support or reference to get americans back to work by showing us who mightve developed the wonderful beautiful immunity. Ultimate victory in this war will be made possible by scientific brilliance. There is nothing like us, nobody like us, not even close. I wish i could tell you stories about other countries, even powerful countries say to me, the leaders, they say it quietly and off the record but they have Great Respect for what we can do in our country is at a point a few weeks ago, for, five, six weeks ago we were at a level that nobody had ever attained, the best job numbers weve ever had, the best economy weve ever had. Every company virtually was doing Better Business than ever before, the stock market was an alltime high in one day they said you have to close it up. And we did the right thing, we saved maybe millions of lives by doing it the way that we did it. But were paying a price but that price is very unimportant compared to the number of lives were talking about. The nih and others are conducting Clinical Trials of 35 different therapies and treatments, therapies and so exciting because that is really like if something happens, you will get better. Reasonably quickly. Without such a horrible deal as some people have to go through. Too that end today, nih announced it was launching a Public Private partnership with more than a dozen biopharmaceutical companies. Hhs, fda, cdc, and the European Medicines Agency are all working together with a lot of other countries. The partnership will marshal and coordinate the vast resources knowledge, assets and authorities of more than a dozen organizations and agencies to accelerate develop into the most promising therapies and vaccines, the vaccines are coming along really, really well. Johnson johnson is very well advanced in one thing is, having Great Success but we have to test them, it takes a long period of time. It takes probably over a year but therapies likewise are coming along very well. Itll be immediate when we get that, that will be a big day, were also equipping our medical worriers on the front line in total. We have the project air bridge in the air bridge has been incredible, the National Strategic stockpile and every other channel, the federal government has deployed, if you think about this 44. 000000 n95 masks, 524 million gloves, 63. 4 million surgical masks in more than 10 million gallons and we have 500 Million Masks coming in very soon between manufacturing and orders, 500 Million Masks, the last few months have been the most challenging times in the history of our nation, this invisible enemy is tough and it is smart innovations. But every day we are getting closer to the future that we have all been waiting for. I talked about the light at the end of the tunnel, we are getting very, very close to seeing that light shines very brightly at the end of the tunnel and its happening, i want to think everybody in the room. I want to think some of the media, weve had some fair coverage and i appreciate it. What im going to do, i will introduce a great Vice President mike pence and he will take over for a while, im going to leave and were coming right back, we will take questions and go over our tremendous testing capabilities and again, i will be right back. Thank you. Thank you ra you very much. Thank you, mr. President. Good afternoon all. Today as a president reflected remains a challenging time in our nation. Because of the extraordinary efforts of the American People, because of the Strong Partnership of the federal government with states across the country, were making progress america, despite the tragic loss of more than 36000 americans according to our best data reporting this morning, we continue to see new cases low in study on the west coast and we continue to see cases and hospitalizations declining and Greater New York city area, new orleans and detroit. And elsewhere. This is a tribute first and foremost to her healthcare doctors, nurses, all of those working on the frontline, also a great tribute to the American People who put into practice the social distancing, the guidelines, the guidance of state and local officials and we hope that every american is encouraged by the steady progress that we are making. We are continuing to bring at the present instruction, full resource of the federal government to bear. Today the president approved a major disaster declaration for American Samoa in all 50 states in all territories for the first time in american history. At this present moment, 33000 National Guardsmen are on duty, 5500 active duty military personnel have been deployed to nine state to have in place before. You will recall states have a downward trajectory encases over 14 day period of time and ensure that proper capacity and could move to phase one with the easing of some social distancing and criteria for states that meet the criteria, we outline specific responsibilities, protecting workers and industries and the most probab probable, those who work in senior care facilities, and to have a plan for testing symptomatic individuals and ensuring testing for the most vulnerable population. As a president make clear governors will decide the time and manner that their States Reopen and we will look to support them in that effort. As we assure the American People yesterday the present Instruction Administration will work with governors across the country to ensure that they have the equipment and supplies and resources to reopen safely and responsibly. On the subject of supplies we issued a letter to the nations governor summarizing the medical equipment and supplies that have been distributed to the state from fema between the first of this month and april 14 through project air bridge into the commercial supply network. We will be speaking with the nations governor on monday and detailing the information at the time. As the president reflected briefly, fema has correlated the delivery of millions of pieces of medical equipment including 44,000,095 respirators, surgical masks, more than 10000 ventilators and applied more than 8600 medical beds. On the subject of testing resources, we are going to take some time to speak about our administration approach in partnership with states to expand testing across the briefing. But from the very outset of this epidemic, President Trump made efforts to essentially reinvent testing in america. The testing that takes place at cdc for state labs was designed for the diagnostic testing that is routinely required but the president early on in this effort brought together the leading commercial labs in america and forged a partnership in six weeks ago we had 20000 test in this day we have performed 3. 7 million test. They are performing 120,000 test today and we stood up a team from walter reed under dr. Birx to identify additional testing across the country. We believe states could double the amount of daily testing that is happening today by activating all the labs, dr. Birx will detail those today and we will go over those specifically with governors on monday. Weve also been promoting the development of new and innovative test, we know about the 15 minute avid test but the fdas currently working on Antibody Test that could add 20 million new test to our supply even before the end of april. I want to assure the American People we will work with your governors and state Health Officials to scale testing in the days ahead. As you will hear from oliver experts tonight, our best scientists and Health Expert that states today have enough test to implement the criteria of phase one if they choose to do so. Let me say that again, given the guidance and the presidency guidelines for opening up america again, states that meet the criteria for going into phase one and preparing the testing going to phase one with the best scientists and Health Experts say today we have a sufficient amount of testing to meet the requirements of phase one reopening estate governor should choose to do that youll hear more detail on that in just a moment. At the present instruction we will have an outline to testing in a partnership with states during this briefing it will be locally executed, state managed and federally supported. Dr. Fauci will give us an introduction to the testing that is contemplated to deal with the coronavirus. Doctor redfield will describe her plan to mobilize cdc officials in all 50 states specifically monitoring coronavirus incidents that occur in every state in the union. Dr. Birx will describe not only our test but the current capability and the capability to expand to very readily and admiral will summarize our approach. I want to assure the American People that we will continue to work every single day to make sure states and communities have the testing that they need to reopen at the time in the manner of their choosing. We will work every day to make sure the state of the resources and the supplies to reopen their states and reopen america. In a safe and responsible way. With that dr. Fauci. Thank you very much mr. Vice president. As a Vice President said i will give you a brief introduction to kind of answer the question that we have been asked a lot. In fact we had a very productive teleconference with the Senate Democratic caucus just a few hours ago. And they asked a number of questions which were really reasonable questions, questions on the mind of a lot of different people. One question was posed a moment ago is are there enough test to allow us to be able to go through this first phase in a way that is protective of the health and safety of the American People. I want to spend a couple of minutes clarifying a few things and providing information on a broad 40000foot which you will hear more granular details for my colleagues who will follow me. I think they asked me too give the 40000 but one because i am not a testing person, i did not run a testing lab. But i am part of the team looking at this of how we can best make sure that this happens in the right way. First of all, let me Say Something that we said before, i apologize if im repeating things you already know but i think in some respect is important to do that so people have clarity and what were talking about. There are two general types of test even though within each general type there are different subgroups. One is to test for the infecti infection, is a person infected. The other, i will get back to that in a second, the other is to test as we just mentioned, if someone who has been affected who has recovered and you can assume that we need to do more work that that person is actually protected against subsequent exposure and infection with an identical organism. What are some of the pluses and mine and is interim minuses, they are really going to impact how we best use the test and have a test actually should be used. Lets take the test whether or not you are infected. The test whether or not you are infected is not an easy test to do there is some that more rapid and different groups within that. The good news about that, it is a sensitive and specific test. If youre infected, you know your infected, as ill get to in a moment, if you need to do something with that, if you need to get the person, put them in care, take care of them, get them out of circulation thats important. The part that i think is often misunderstood, if you get a test today like i did, today, its negative. If you get a test today, that does not mean that tomorrow or the next day or the next day, as you get exposed, perhaps from someone who may not even know that they are infected that that means i am negative, which means if you take that too extreme in order to be really sure, you would have to test somebody either everyday or other date to be absolutely certain. That is an issue. The problem that i talk about when i try to compare this to other situations with what testing means to you. I think most people know, i have been involved in hivaids for 38 years 39 years for the very first week of hiv. So thats what i do. If you get a test for hiv and you are negative and you do not practice any risk behaviors, you can be guaranteed that next month, six months, one year from now you will be negative if you do not have a risk behavior, theres a big difference of what testing actually means. The point that youre getting, there clearly is a place from needing to test 70 for a given reason, test means youre negative now. The other test is an Antibody Test. A test that tells you that you have been infected. That is really good, you will hear about that for my colleagues in a moment. That will give you a broader view of two things, one what the penetrance of the infection had been and you can make an assumption that we still need to prove that. We assume that you are infected you have an antibody that you are protected, thats a reasonable presumption based on our expense with the virus. What we want to make sure that we know in these are the challenges what is protective, how long is the protection, is it one month, two months, six month or year we need to be humble and modest that we dont know everything but is an important test. The other thing between testing and monitoring what is out there. The difference what we need from phase one is to be able to identify, isolate, contact traits, an important part of when youre pulling back gradually and slowly on the mitigation and you might have people who are infected and you want to put them. That is something that we need to do. Theres other ways i want to make sure people understand not to underestimate the importance of testing, testing is a part, an important part of a multifaceted way that we are going to control and ultimately in this outbreak. Please dont interpret that im dowdown plain testing. The emphasis is testing is everything but it is not. If the mitigation strategies that are an important part of that. Now just a couple of things before i handed over to my colleagues. No doubt that early on we had a problem, i had publicly said that we had a problem early on. There was a problem that had to be corrected and it was corrected. Youre watching the evening edit on fox business. That doesnt press, join us monday as we stay on the developing story. We hope you have a good evening and a good weekend. Thank you for joining us. Lou gooding being everybody a number of important developments. Sethe chinese coronavirus continues to spread around the world killing tens of thousands of people and today the United States mounted what sources call a fullscale investigation Hubei Province the president xi jinping was