Our more rural areas, specifically around our Indigenous People triangle nations. It was a very reassuring call. We were testing across the country. We do have about 63 of states that have less than 10 positive despite significant testing. And within the Indigenous Peoples and tribal nations they are seeing the same thing were seeing across the nation. Increase issues around those with comorbidity and those with elderly but also issues in Nursing Homes. They are testing, many of these states are still capable of doing full Contact Tracing. So theyve been doing Contact Tracing from nursing home outbreaks and other outbreaks. It really gives us a clear impression of no matter what we do in the future we need to really ensure that Nursing Homes have sentinel surveillance. What do i mean by that . That were actively testing in Nursing Homes both the residents
and the workers at all times. That is where, and how we saw this at the beginning, what we saw in washington state, and that is what were seeing in many of the states that have very low case attack rates. The other thing that i want to leave you with, i mean, we certainly know how desperate and difficult the situation has been in new york over the last few weeks. Weve been telling and talking about how this would be the week that would be most difficult because of the large proportion of cases that are coming from the new york metro area. Whats been encouraging to us, those early states outside of washington and california which still have extraordinarily low attack rates because of their level of mitigation, all of the new areas that are having new increase in cases, we talked about them yesterday, washington and baltimore and the philadelphia metro area. That includes camden,
wilmington, and the counties around philadelphia. Were seeing that the case numbers, what well get to as far as attack rates, we talked about 7 in a thousand in new york that are being measured. These are coming in even with their progress of their curve in the one to two per thousand range, showing that when you start mitigation early it has a very different impact. All of this data is coming together the testing rates, the zero positivity, the age groups, who really needs hospitalization, icu, the innovative pieces coming. We heard a great report from louisiana this morning on a phone call where they talked about a minimum now of 40 of people coming off ventilators alive and leaving the hospital. This is very encouraging to us. It really shows amazing process clinically at each of these hospitals and the real lessons were learning and sharing
across hospitals. It really shows us that the original outbreaks were very large. But the newer ones that we talk about in washington and philadelphia and baltimore, it looks like their attack rates and attack rates in denver and some of the other states that we have been talking about are much lower than new york and new jersey. And this gives us hope about really understanding how to integrate this information together. Not dealing with the model but the real life cases that are occurring and understanding how to move Forward Together to really have a different future. So thank you very much. Thank you very much, mr. Vice president. So just reflecting about what weve been doing over the last few days, remember last weekend, when we made the forecast that this would really be a bad week, as i mentioned yesterday and the day before, it is in the sense of deaths a bad week. In fact, every day there seems to be a record of number of deaths compared to the day before. In fact, new york today had again another record of i think the city, itself, was about 820 plus deaths. But what we were predicting with the increase and the real adherence to the physical separation, the guidelines that the Vice President talks about, physical separation, at the same time as were seeing the increase in deaths, were seeing rather dramatic decrease in the need for hospitalizations. Like i think yesterday was Something Like 200 new hospitalizations and its been as high as 1400 at any given time. So that is going in the right direction. I say that and i always remind myself when i say that, that means that what we are doing is working. And, therefore, we need to continue to do it. I know i sound like a broken record. Thats good. I want to sound like a broken record. Lets just keep doing it. I get questions a lot, dr. Birx and i, about these numbers, the projections that you went from 100,000, 200,000, now down to 60,000. Thats a sign that when as i keep saying, when you take the data you have and you reinsert it, into the model, the model modifies. The data is real. Model is hypothesis. Thats what you have to do. The other general good news from a general scientific standpoint that there are a lot of candidate, potential therapeutics going into Clinical Trials now that were sponsoring at the nih. The kinds of Clinical Trials that will give us the answer. Are they safe . Are they effective . And just what is the capability of using them under what circumstances . As preventative, treatment, early disease, late disease. As the time goes by and we have the Public Health measures to try and contain this were doing
an awful lot from a scientific standpoint so that when we do get to next year, next fall, next winter, hopefully well have something that we can offer in addition to the very important Public Health measures. So ill be happy to answer questions. Mr. Secretary . Mr. Vice president , thank you. And thanks to the task force and of course thanks to the president for his leadership. The important Public Health measures that have been discussed so much in these briefings in this room have had a large impact in american workplaces. We saw that again today as the Labor Department released figures showing that 6. 6 million new unemployment claims were filed last week. Were all mindful, the president mentioned this, that the American People are making difficult sacrifices. That is, including being furloughed, laid off, or having a Small Business struggle. That said, American Workers can be encouraged by how swiftly and comprehensively the president and congress have responded. Three weeks ago the u. S. Had never had a law requiring paid sick leave at u. S. Companies. But three weeks ago the president signed a Families First Coronavirus Response act, which did provide paid sick leave as well as expanded family and medical leave for employees at Small Businesses. With those Small Businesses being reimbursed dollar for dollar, for having provided that leave. Last week we at the Labor Department issued rules to implement these leave requirements of the Families First act and weve been in near Constant Contact with employers and employees to help them understand the law and in a number of cases already to help workers get the leave they were entitled to. Another unprecedented benefit for workers was provided in the
cares act, less than two weeks ago. That law as you know includes a 600 a week plus up to Unemployment Benefits that are provided by the states. We have millions of unemployed americans making a sackary face f sacrifice for our National Well being. These are unprecedented, the government has never provided a plus up payment like this. These payments are intended to make those workers whole as near we can. This temporary benefit is available not just to employees but also to the selfemployed and gig economy workers. Before the president signed the cares act, gig workers, independent contractors were not available for unemployment compensation. Today they are. At the department our team has worked day and night to enable states to make this benefit available. I am pleased that a number of states are now making those 600 additional weekly payments. More states will follow in the coming days. How long it takes will vary by state. Some states systems will take longer. But we at the department will continue to support them. We have already disbursed 500 million to states to help them with their systems and making these payments. We have another 500 million that were ready to release. For workers who dont get this benefit when its first due them, states will be able to catch them up later when the Computer Systems are able to make these payments. Let me add that were also mindful at the Labor Department that Many Americans remain in the workplace, including on the front lines in our hospitals as well as our emergency responders. My departments Occupational Safety and Health Administration or osha has been providing guidance to employers and employees on coronavirus since the early days of this health emergency. We are faeldiielding and respon
to calls from workers worried about their health and sometimes from workers who believe theyve been illegally disciplined by their employer for expressing health concerns. We will not tolerate retaliation. Osha will continue to work with workers and employers to keep workplaces safe using all the tools available to us, including enforcement if needed. I wanted to finish by commenting on the Paycheck Protection Program we heard about earlier run by the Small Business administration. This is of course loans to Small Businesses to enable them to meet certain costs including utilities, rent, and most important from my perspective payroll. As you know, if these companies receiving the loans keep their workers on payroll, these loans are largely forgivable. Heres why that program is so important from my perspective. Were seeing unemployment
filings right now of a like weve never seen before. But these numbers arent the result of an underlying weakness to our economy. Our economy has been vibrant, incredibly strong just weeks ago, if as weve heard again today, if we are disciplined now and adhere carefully to the guidance being provided by health authorities, well get that economy back. The president spoke at the state of the union of the blue collar boom we were experiencing. We want to lay the ground work now for a blue collar bounceback. Well get there in part by helping Companies Hold on to their workers, which is what the Paycheck Protection Program does. Keep them on payroll so that when businesses are ready to reopen, they have the workers they need and americans have jobs. We will continue at the department and i know here at the white house to be laser focused on American Workers and jobs until this is done. So thank you very much. Very well done. Thank you. Great. Well take a few questions. Yes, please. Mr. Vice president , i have a question for you and then a question for dr. Birx or dr. Fauci. Just to clarify, on the federal funding for sites in the states, are you saying that federal funding will remain for those sites and will it remain at its current levels . Its not merely federal funding but in many cases we provided personnel from the u. S. Public Health Service and also flowed supplies, personal protective equipment, that was required for some of the early forms of testing. But its less required today with new formats for testing. But it is an option and as ive made clear to several governors, well continue to partner with our states. But i have to tell you that the way states step forward with the concept of drive through and Community Based testing is really inspiring. For our part, working with fema and our great team at the u. S. Public Health Service, weve stood up some nearly 50 different drive through test sites around the country but, literally, there are hundreds that have been deployed by states and by hospitals and local health care providers. But in this instance we wanted to at least give them the option to take control of that but well continue to resource them with personnel, supplies, and any other support that they need going forward. Just a question for the doctors. Im curious, did you see this information out of the cdc in south korea today that shows they are seeing evidence of reinfection in some people who had been cured of coronavirus . And what does that mean for our understanding of this . Im not aware of what youre speaking about now, but clearly there have been anecdotal mentioning of what appear to be reinfection. You have to really be very careful when you say reinfection because and we were dealing
with this with even ebola back during the ebola time. Someone might still, when someone does a test on them, do a pcr on a body fluid of some sort, and be able to detect what are likely not replication confident. If youre telling me which i dont think theyre saying that someone has coronavirus disease, they get sick, its documented, they get better, and then a month or so later they get sick with documented coronavirus disease, i dont think thats what theyre saying. But i dont want to jump the gun until i see the data. They used the word react investigate. Is that different . Well, yeah. What reactivating means if someone is ill and have virus isolated from them that they might have a prolonged course. If they were sick and had
documented virus and then three months later they had documented virus, is that reactivation or infection with another virus . Id like to see the data before i really comment on that. Dr. Fauci, i wanted to ask about medical criteria. You had a discussion with dr. Birx and the other Public Health experts on tuesday i understand. Can you discuss what is the medical criteria that you guys are discussing in order to reopen the government . What is the medical criteria . Well, its less medical criteria than it is Public Health criteria. And that is, and i think it is really important, because often people say, reopen the government, like its a light switch that goes on and off for the entire country. We have a very large country with really different patterns of disease and outbreaks in different parts of the country. So its not going to be a one size fits all. Its going to be what is the kinetics of an outbreak is that on the way down is it essentially out . Is it still smoldering and possibly going up . I think you have to take it individually. Are there some benchmarks youre looking at, numbers, some data you would like to see . What would you like to see before that happens . Well, i will allow dr. Birx to come up but just my own opinion i dont think there are going to be benchmarks that are consistent from one to the other. For example, i would not want to pull back at all in new york until i was clear that that curve really was doing what weve seen in other countries, a very steep decline down, and we had the capability if there was a resurgence of having everything in place to be able to do the containment as opposed to struggling with mitigation, with what weve been doing. Thats different than a relatively smaller city, town, or whatever in the midwest or mountain regions, which is
generally very well controlled. What i would want to see, do we have the capability of doing the isolation, Contact Tracing, and suppression of it . So it really varies. I dont think theres one medical criteria. But, deb, if you want to speak to it . Thank you. So its what i tried to cover in the representation i gave. In talking to the 17 states that have indigenous populations and tribal nations, in discussing with them what they were doing generally and what they were doing specifically through the indian Health Service, they discussed the ability to find new cases and doing full Contact Tracing. And so they are they have strike teams. They are very well organized. You dont hear about them every day. Thats why i wanted to call them out. They are really doing amazing work at their Public Health institutions, with their governors and their mayors. And they are really they are in full Contact Tracing. Yes, they are doing social distancing but they are also doing full Contact Tracing and understanding all aspects of their epidemic. So were looking at those pieces as well as when i was talking about blunting, really, when youre starting to go up that curve, having that unbelievable blunting where you only get evident attack rates and i want to be very clear about that when we see cases these are symptomatics that have been diagnosed, there is clearly, we believe, people we dont see. And that is why the Antibody Test is going to be helpful to us to really define that. So those are the pieces that were bringing together to really analyze that. I did want to say the president talks about the 150 plus countries that are in experiencing what we experience. I wanted to do a call out. We have americans around the world in every embassy that are working with those countries now. This scarf came from africa. It is one of my Public Health colleagues there. I just want to recognize the
Public Health colleagues around the world who are doing all of this Work Together to change the course of their epidemics in every single country around the globe. In response to that, just so you know, what the president has tasked us to do is there is a number of working groups looking at not only how do we reopen the country but how do we stay open . And i think most of america knows that no one wants to reopen america more than president donald trump. But the president s told us we need to do it responsibly and were going to follow the data. Were literally following the data on a county by county basis. This morning we were literally presented with information of each county that had more than 100 new cases, had, you know, went in the other direction. Had, you know, less than a
hundred than the day before. Its really remarkable. I think what you hear the Health Experts sayin experts saying will inform the president s decision and timing, but make no mistake about it that the best thing we can do to reopen america is put the coronavirus behind us, to reach the end of that curve with as little loss of life or hardship as possible, to have in place that we soon believe we will, the kind of therapeutics, i call them medicines that make you feel better, by this summer. To have more widespread testing that were scaling up each and every day and also to have the kind of guidance that the cdc is even now developing for businesses, large and small, for families, and for schools for that day that we do reopen america. Questions . Go ahead. Touching thon question this when to lean back on mitigation
there is a study out of los alamos that looks at the reproductive rate of the virus. The study shows that the arnot for coronavirus isnt between 2 and 3 as thought before but actually closer to 6 which means one person on average is infecting six others. With this information, how does that impact the model . How can you begin to think about when to reopen society if it is more contagious than we thought before . Well, i can tell you as the lay person, on the stage, we have known from the beginning that this was at least three times more contagious than the flu. I believe that fact alone has informed our projections in the modeling. Now ill let the experts respond. Ill go quickly. Well tag team together. So when weve been talking about the asymptomatic group and that is why i gave you that testing
data where 11 of young people under 25 were positive, many of them very low grade symptoms, what we will be triangulating for you is the testing data with hospital admissions and then youll start being able to see spectrum of disease. What you are not seeing in spectrum of disease is people who never even think this is something significant. We are seeing the significant cases. In testing you can see that were getting a lot of people in with symptoms who arent positive. And so really finding out, what is the arnot . Is it 6 . Is it 5 . The only way to do that at this point is to get the Antibody Tests out there and go into these places that had significant disease when we talk about attack rates of 7 per thousand like new york and 5 per thousand in new jersey. And test the Health Care Workers, the first responders, all of the Nursing Homes for
antibody and really get to your question because right now its still theoritic. We understand theyre modeling this. And we are we will get the data to actually look at that. You will see what others have been presenting so you presented the six. What others are presenting, importantly, is theyre modeling what is happening with mitigation and theyre publishing that the arnot with mitigation is approaching like 1. 3 and 1. 5. So think of what that is. If it was six, and then with mitigation we have it into the ones that really shows the power of the American People. No one has varied arnots like that without a vaccine but this is what is happening with really the power of the American People. Tony . Ditto to everything dr. Birx said but i couldnt help but thinking. You know what the worst enemy of an arnot is . Physical separation. One more. Go right ahead. Is there Testing Capacity in the country right now to reopen in the foreseeable future . The president talked about 2 million tests. Are we going to have the Testing Capacity needed to make americans feel comfortable going back into their workplaces . I mean, it seems to me that is a pretty critical question at this point. People are not going to want to go back to work if they think their coworkers might be carrying the virus, if were not testing enough how do we know its safe to go back . Well, i think the American People see the incredible progress thats been made after President Trump brought in the largest commercial labs in the world. We are as dr. Birx said well over 100,000 americans being tested every single day. We have an Antibody Test coming online. Abbott laboratories literally has thousands of machines across the country working with hospitals and labs around the country to activate those
machines for the 15minute test. Do we have enough testing right now . Let me say were moving every day toward meeting that moment, but lets be clear. Reopening the country as the president is very anxious to do at the earliest responsible moment, will be through a combination of facts. First would be that we are at the end of the coronavirus for most major communities. Another piece of that is that we have therapeutics for americans to take, medicines if they contract the disease. Another piece of that is guidance from the cdc. The Public Institutions to businesses large and small about how to conduct themselves in a safe and responsible way. And testing is also a piece of that. And as the admiral has reflected, we are spending a
great deal of time expanding testing today every single day there is more and more tests across the country but were also working to scale testing that as we move into the summer and fall, well have the testing we need to do what these doctors call not diagnostic testing, which is to take a test of a person that has symptoms, but surveillance testing so we can identify people that may have had it and may be immune versus people also that we just need to know whether or not they were ever exposed or not exposed. How about one more quick question here if i can . I think he had one right here. Or ill go to you in the back. Thank you, mr. Vice president. In the next few weeks, the Supreme Court is set to rule on d. A. C. A. , deferred action for childhood arrival. About 30,000 of those people who are under that program are front
line Health Care Workers. Is the administration in any way ready to protect them if the ruling comes in your favor and takes the protection out and they can no longer work in the health field as theyre needed right now . Well, i think the president has been very clear on his desire to reach a solution on thattish yao you with the congress, but let me say whether it be Health Care Workers or people working in food supply, other people working in critical infrastructure, were incredibly inspired by the way people across this country are stepping up to Keep Health Care rolling and available, a high quality of care even in areas deeply impacted by the coronavirus, and, also, as we said the other day, hard working people in our food supply from the farmers to processors, to distributors, to truck drivers, to grocers. We received the good word that over the last several days weve actually seen a significant drop with one Major Company in absenteeism. We issued new guidance from the cdc about how people who may have been within proximity to someone who had the coronavirus could return to work before the 14 days if they zrdidnt have a fever, tested themselves twice a day and returned with a mask. But the dedication of people to continue to work is truly inspiring. And i know as we go forward, well work through a broad range of national issues. But were going to be incredibly proud for a long time by the way people all across this country responded to this moment. So thank you all very much. Well see you tomorrow. The Coronavirus Task force briefing for today. They were giving the latest update on the pandemic and it came as the United States has now reported more than 16,000
deaths related to coronavirus. There are, though, some new signs of hope in the state hit the hardest. In new york just as you had nearly 800 people die today, you also had only 200 new hospitalizations, which is down from 600 the day before. Obviously, you can see that as an improvement and admissions to the icu at the lowest level since march 19th there. But as i said, the death toll still a record all time high, 799 new deaths in the epicenter here in new york. Today. I want to go straight to dr. Sanjay gupta. A lot of interesting topics just came up in the question and answer with doctors fauci and birx and the Vice President. Let me start with one key point to you. And that is that they just came up with this whole question that they dont seem to know at this point, still, how many people one person can infect. One reporter was citing a recent study saying one person could infect six. Originally we had heard two. They were very open, dr. Birx at
least saying they still dont know. Yeah. That was interesting. I had not seen the study that showed one person could infect six. Typically this term which is arnot basically means how many people can one person likely infect and for coronavirus it is thought to have been somewhere between two and three people. So two and a half people with flu slightly above one. So thats why people say this is two and a half to three times more contagious than flu. So youre right, erin. They sort of left that open. They didnt say that wasnt accurate that it could infect a lot more people. What they did say was that outside of a vaccine it is typically very hard to reduce the arnot, to reduce this contagiousness, but the social distancing measures do seem to be working with this particular virus. So im not sure we got a lot of
clarity on that particular issue. Let me ask you a followup to the point youre making. They were saying, well, maybe the social distancing has succeeded in bringing the arnot down. They were saying 1. 3 to 1. 5. That would get it to where the flu is from what youre saying. When you look at the range of flu deaths in this country you can get 50,000 to 70,000 a year in many years. Thats with arnot of 1. 3. They are saying we have now possibly successfully brought this down to just to show people if you dont completely eradicate it arent you saying that would immediately go back up if people resumed any semblance of normal life . Yes. I think that is very true. There are two interesting points here. One is that all these social distancing measures that have been going into effect weve been thinking about them with regard to coronavirus but we also are seeing data that shows it has impacted the flu. So the arnot for flu, you know, the contagiousness or impact of people spreading this has gone down for flu as well as a result
of the social distancing. I think the big difference here, erin, is there is a flu vaccine. Its not a hundred percent effective but it does offer a significant benefit to try and, you know, really inoculate people. As it turns out, less than half the countrys adults get the flu shot every year and if more people got it, you know, then it would probably bring it down even more. Well see what happens when a Coronavirus Vaccine is actually available if people will get it. If people do get it, it works well. It should significantly bring down the likelihood that the virus may still be there i guess to your point but the idea that somebody would get it and then spread it in a community that is very well immunized it becomes very, very low. So to the point that youre making, talking again about a vaccine and, you know, whatever scenario and either there are some who are talking about sort of extraordinary circumstances in which one could try to use a vaccine if effective earlier than a full set of trials. Putting that aside, youre still looking at a year, about, maybe more, right, for a vaccine if
there is the perfect vaccine . Yet you have the Vice President there at that briefing a couple moments ago say that they believe, you know, sort of implying you can have a real reopening of the economy because there will be therapeutics by this summer. By that, essentially means a cure or something so that people dont get really sick. Is that reasonable that theyre going to there are going to be therapeutics that work and make this a nonevent by this summer or are we really look ath waiting for a vaccine . Well, i think until we have a vaccine were probably never going to be at that point of complete normalcy. You know . I think that even then if people dont get the vaccine there could still be transmission. I think it could be a very different scenario but there are two things that i think are important. We keep looking at these projections, 60,000. Its tough to say 60,000 and say that is a good thing but it is a lot lower than weve been hearing. When you look deeply at that model, what theyre basically saying is beyond may, the only
way you get to 60,000 is if social distancing, these physical distancing measures stay in place until august 4th actually. So that is obviously well into the summer. That is what the models that project 60,000 say that the physical distancing measures have to last until, august 4th. So just to keep that be in mind. Second of all, yeah. Therapeutic would be really helpful especially if it is a really good antiviral or whatever type of medication. But the testing is still probably in pole position in terms of what needs to be done because until you can test people, isolate them, trace their contacts, youre still running into the same situation. People may still get very sick. People may still need to be hospitalized. People may still be contagious because there is no vaccine. So testing, all the other stuff is important but testing has to be first in line here. That is something we sort of were Everybody Knows inadequate at the beginning of the curve. At the end of the curve we have to make sure its well set up. All right. Of course obviously so many issues as we are hearing from front line Health Care Workers still not able to get tests along with so many others who struggle to get that test. Thank you, sanjay. I want to make sure everyone knows sanjay is going to be back because tonight cnn global town hall with coronavirus at the top of the hour, 8 00 eastern. And we do have a lot of news to get to from across the country. When you look at the situation here, with the spread, with the death toll today, lets go to nick watt outfront. Reporter more than 16,000 have now died nationwide. In detroit, Health Workers say people are dying in e. R. Hallways. This chicago jail now americas largest known site of infection outside medical facilities 400 plus cases. Among inmates and staff. In new york, military doctors now deployed not just to field hospitals but inside city hospitals. What theyre suffering from is doctors getting sick or
nurses. Reporter this city the crossroads of the world now has more confirmed cases than any other city on earth. According to data from john hopkins university. Its been 18 days since we closed down new york. I know it feels like a lifetime. Reporter new york states curve is now flattening. The numbers are now encouraging. But the message stays the same. Do not stop social distancing. Because we cant handle the worst case scenarios. We cant even handle the moderate case scenarios. Reporter the president regularly hails his imposing travel restrictions on china in late january. I cut off china very early. I closed down our country to china, which was heavily infected. Reporter nearly 17 million americans have now filed for unemployment in just these past three weeks. Thats more than 10 of the total work force. I already cant swim and i literally feel like im drowning. Reporter air travel in the
u. S. Is down a stunning 96 year on year according to various metrics reviewed by cnn. Dr. Fauci says we mate stiight e able to take summer vacations this year. It can be in the cards and i say that with some caution. We have to be prepared that when the infections start to rear their heads again that we have in place a very aggressive and effective way to identify, isolate, contact, trace. And make sure we dont have the spikes that weve seen now. Reporter this summer might still be very different to the last. Just listen in to the santa clara county, california supervisors virtual meeting. I dont expect that well have any sports games until at least thanksgiving and well be lucky to have them by thanksgiving. Reporter for now in brookhaven, mississippi, a drive by show of support for 90yearold bryant johnston, sick with the virus that just
killed betty, his wife of near 60 years. I didnt get to see her. I didnt get to hold her hand. I didnt get to tell her goodbye. Reporter one small and encouraging number tonight from california. 22. Today there are 22 fewer people in the ichtu than yesterday and the governor says that is more evidence that social distancing really is working. Erin . All right, nick. Thank you very much. We are learning more about how the virus got to the United States. There are two new studies now. Finding that the outbreak in new york, which is of course the worst in the United States, came from europe not from china directly. Dr. Anthony fauci weighing in giving the studies some credence. Given the travel and the air traffic from anywhere in italy but also particularly northern italy it is just not surprising
that, unfortunately, and inadvertently, new york was seeded before they really knew what was going on. Outfront now one of the authors of that study. And, you know, i suppose to the extent they were looking anywhere in those early days they werent they would not have been looking at europe. But i guess just on a very basic level, when people hear this virus they assume it is just one virus. Obviously what youre pointing out here is that there are small differences that enable you to tell if someone got a virus from one place versus another. How is that . How could you determine it came to new york from europe primarily . So the Health System is the Largest Health care provider in new york city and we serve a very diverse population across the citys different neighborhoods. And to monitor the viruses and back tear yas that cause disease in our patients we put in place a Pathogen Surveillance Program over the past years so we can follow and monitor, for example
the influenza or bacteria. When we heard about this new virus emerging in china, we retooled our Pathogen Surveillance Program to be on the lookout for this new virus. When the first cases were identified, we were ready to take action and to immediately sequence those viruses. When more broad diagnostic testing became available middle of march we could sequence and obtain information of the viruses that caused those diseases in the many new yorkers. So basically its mutating i guess over time not in any way that changes how it affects people but it mutates nauf so you c nauf so you can tell where it came from . Exactly. We can compare sequences with new yorkers we analyzed and with those in the data base from the worldwide analyzed coronaviruses
and we can compare based on those mutations in the viruses. Many of the survivors viruses resemble those in europe. Are you able to look at it in that detail . We dont have enough data yet so future studies will provide more information so we can see from where the virus came. So it is important to note that if the virus originally came from china, it took it didnt take a direct flight but, you know, it connected to europe and came indirectly to new york city. Were you surprised to see that . I mean, i know obviously we know washington state, you know, you obviously had a lot of travel from asia there but a lot of travel from asia to the United States as well as from europe. Were you surprised when you saw this that sort of it had really, it seems essentially really first gone to europe before it came to new york . Yes. We were. Yes and no. So, yes, we were surprised by the number of viruses that were interrelated with the viruses circulating in europe. And, no, we were not surprised because there is really a lot of travel for tourists going back and forth and new yorkers also traveling to europe. And so in a way it was not surprising. But the extent of it was unexpected. We only had one case where the virus resembled asian lineage. Wow. Only one out of how many . 84. Wow. All right. And that resembled the virus seen in washington state. Thank you very much. It is fascinating and really important as people try to understand exactly what happened here. Thank you very much. Tomorrow morning on cnn dont
miss an interview with dr. Fauci live on new day at 7 00 a. M. Eastern. President trump moments ago is saying the United States has the best testing system in the world. Of course the United States has failed miserably in getting tests to many who needed it particularly at the beginning of the crisis. Why . Drew griffin is outfront. Reporter as coronavirus was silently racing around the world in late january and early february, the federal government not only failed to use the massive arsenal of hundreds of laboratories across the United States for emergency testing. It actually left road blocks in place to prevent nongovernment labs from assisting. That is according to documents obtained by cnn and interviews with more than a dozen scientists and physicians involved in coronavirus testing. At the very beginning of this pandemic it was the federal government that had the sole ability to do the testing and made it very difficult for private labs, for University Labs to make their own tests based on certain regulatory hurdles. Reporter several hospital and university based labs have told cnn they saw the pandemic
approaching, were developing their own tests as early as january to detect the virus, but the red tape with the fdas regulatory process prevented them from moving forward, meaning labs sat idle. Rather than enlisting the tremendous strength and power of the u. S. Laboratory capacity, getting everybody working on this and creating tests and having widespread test availability, we had cdc trying to keep running everything by itself. Reporter the federal government was prepared to enforce the rules, sending this memo on february 6th telling state Health Departments to actively police against labs using their own coronavirus tests. The reasoning behind the tight regulations were good. Assure their safety and efficacy of tests. But dr. Glen morris of the university of florida says the fda rules were written for normal situations not a crisis. When we suddenly hit the
point when we were looking at china and seeing what was going on there what we needed was extremely aggressive leadership. Weve got to move fast because otherwise were going to run into a problem. Reporter the problem developed as soon as the cdc rolled out its own test for verification. It didnt work. Weeks were lost as the cdc scrambled to make a new tifest. We were basically on pause for a few weeks within the Public Health system and meanwhile the academic laboratories who developed their own tests were also not able to test because the regulations didnt allow it at that time. Reporter what is even worse in 2018 after the zika outbreak the cdc came up with a plan to avoid the very testing disaster that is happening. Cnn obtained a copy of this memorandum of understanding between the commercial and public labs and the cdc that was supposed to increase National Laboratory testing in an emergency by engaging commercial labs early in the response. It didnt work. Dr. Karen call who runs the Laboratory Services in evanston, illinois, was one of the labs pushing to launch its own test and was stopped by overbearing red tape. It seems like this has been a bit of a failure. I do think there is definitely room for improvement. Whats happened is weve had a number of laboratories and a number of manufacturers and groups that are not all working together in a coordinated fashion. Reporter in a statement to cnn the fda insists there was nothing wrong in its process and instead blames individual lab delays where labs did not understand the fda process and mistakenly believed there was more work involved. Despite that the fda did publish new gla new guidelines on february 29th allowing labs to begin testing. Experts tell cnn it was just too late. Erin, the cdc got back to us and said they were communicating with these labs early on but the cdc would not answer our
question, why did you stop those labs from using the tests they had that worked back in january . Just think of that, erin. If we had started testing back in january based on what your last guest said, testing in new york in january, what kind of different outcome we may be looking at right now. That is for sure. Drew, thank you very much. And, you know, i want to turn now to where testing remains a problem. That is connecticut. Officials are bracing for a peak in cases they say could still be a couple of weeks away according to one key model. Things are getting worse and worse. Outfront now the governor of connecticut. Obviously youve talked about your state and having issues with testing, being behind on testing. You just heard drews report. Are some of these problems caused by the red tape he was detailing from the feds on down . I think the feds, erin, just got off to a slow start. They didnt take it quite as
seriously as they could have. There was maybe some red tape regarding testing. Imagine if we had commissioned ford and ge to start making ventilators three months ago instead of three days ago. Imagine where wed be today. The feds are catching up now. Fortunately the governors hit the ground very early in terms of social distancing and a lot of protocols and i think that is going to save a lot of lives. You have announced and you are one of the few to try to put a date on it. Obviously i know the date depends on what the numbers show but you had said you wanted connecticut to possibly reopen schools, bars, restaurants, by may 20th at the earliest. How realistic do you think that date is . I think its probably a little wishful. But i wanted to give people at least a sense that over the next seven weeks you know were not going to open anything up. You should apply for the federal, forgivable loans if you are a Small Business. Parents should think about teleeducation and other ways to take care of their kids at least
until may 20th. But most of the models we show this is going to linger beyond there. And we are seeing that. I know theres also been a lot of talk and hope about the Antibody Test, right, you would give people an Antibody Test, know who had it, pick up people who had been asymptomatic theoretically and they could go back to work. That would work of course if this has much more widely penetrated the population than it seems to have from other models in other countries right where youd be looking at 1 to 5 of the population. That doesnt help get many people back to work. Obviously a much more deep penetration would. How important is Antibody Testing going to be for you in connecticut to reopening . I think it is quite important. I think were going to do very broad based Antibody Testing, focus first of all on first responders, maybe folks in our defense related industries. Big manufacturing facilities. I dont the people we test to see whether or not they had covid as small minority of the people who actually probably had
it and they built up some antibodies. Theyre immune to covid. If i can test for that, we can get people back to work sooner and safely. So, totals have dropped to their lowest level in two weeks. The cdc is saying connecticut has the highest rate of hospitalizations in the country when they look at it on a per capita basis. Why do you think that is from your medical experts . I think we had a very high level of infections down in southern connecticut. We are part of that new york metropolitan area. New rochelle, remember that hot zone, was just across our border. Frankly, a few folks from new york come to our hospitals in southern connecticut as well. And now the virus is slowly moving up the state, but its tough because maybe its going to slow down in southern connecticut, but its going to speed up in northern connecticut. All right. Well, governor, i appreciate your time. Thank you very much. Governor lamont. Thanks, erin. I want to go now to dr. Jonathan reiner who advised the george w. Bush White House Medical Team for eight years. Hes currently director of the cardiac Catheterization Program at g. W. U. University hospital. You heard governor lamont. He wants to open, he said that may 28 date is Wishful Thinking. A little wishful, he said. What is realistic from a medical standpoint here . Obviously, you know, connecticut is one specific example, but more broadly . Well, everyone is trying to look at infection rates and the curves to try and guess this. But the truth of the matter is dr. Fauci has mentioned many times, its really the virus thats making the rules here. Were reacting to outbreaks around the country and were only really going to be able to start looking at ways to open up areas if infection has dropped to very low levels in these places. So the virus is really setting the pace. And we just dont know right now. So, you know, the vice
president just made a comment about possible therapeutics by this super, which seemed a bit like Wishful Thinking. Therapeutics that would be so transformational you could have a broad economy reopening from a vaccine. Did dr. Fauci say summer vacations were possible . Heres how he put it, dr. Reiner. It can be in the cards, and i say that with some caution, because as i said, when we do that when we pull back and try to open up the country, as we often use that terminology, we have to be prepared that when the infection stars start to re their heads again, we have in place an effective way to identify, isolate, contact trace. And make sure we dont have those spikes that weve seen now. Is that Wishful Thinking . I guess it depends how you define summer vacation. It implies with a return to normalcy in american life. Is that Wishful Thinking . Well, i think the number of people on this planet qualify to say that something that tony fauci has said is Wishful Thinking can fit in the back seat of a twoseat car. I will say that i think that its aspirational. With proper planning and with widespread surveillance in the United States and the ability to do Contact Tracing, should smoldering areas flareup, i do think its possible to have more of a normalcy this summer. And the other question i had, this also came up at the briefing, dr. Reiner. We had seen a study that came out of south korea that the word they used was reactivation of the virus. Dr. Fauci seemed to pour a little cold water on that. Essentially saying he wanted more data. Sort of theres one thing if its reactivation a week or two later if its not fully out of your system. Its another thing if its, quoteunquote, reactivation three months later. It does raise a question of how little we know, whether someone
can, quoteunquote, reactivate or be reinfected or how long someone can transmit this. We still dont seem to have answers to any of those questions, do we . Right, this is why we need to focus on science. We need to focus on the epidemiology, the epidemiology will show us when we can start to open up areas. We need to focus on Clinical Trials. The Clinical Trials will show us which therapeutics work, so that when and if this virus comes back for a second round, perhaps in the fall or winter, we have the benefit of all that knowledge and were not starting over again. So this is why science now, getting this right, is key. And Governor Cuomo in new york today made a comment to the point you just made. He talked about a possible third wave. He said you look at incorrectly, known as the spanish flu of 1918, that actually really went from 1918 to 1921. There were multiple waves. Obviously medically and vaccine and the world was in a different place. But a virus is a virus, and so
if this virus is it very possible we see wave after wave every time you try to reopen things, that it surges yet again . Well, we certainly might see more than one wave. I think what were really unsure of now at this point is actually how many people have been exposed to this virus, which is why we need to continue to accelerate testing in this country. We might find that a much larger number of people have been exposed to the virus. The more people have been exposed to the virus, sort of the more you have kind of a fire break to prevent transmission from person to person. So we have a lot to learn. But i think its very reasonable to expect that there might be a second wave, which is why we have to get ready now. All right. Dr. Reiner, thank you, as always. Have a good night, sir. My pleasure. And now in this country, the impact of this so broad and so painful, nearly 17 Million People are now out of a job. That is about 11 of the United States work force in just the past few weeks. And that number is growing and growing quickly, and it will almost certainly become higher than at any point since the great depression. Out front Cameron Mitchells ohiobased company had to layoff 37 people due to the coronavirus shutdown. Cameron, i am glad to have you back. Of course, im sorry its under these circumstances. Although i do know, i believe you applied for a loan through that Small Business program in the stimulus bill, applying for 10 million, which may sound like a lot to some. You are awaiting an answer. Many havent been able to get through. I know in the sense you were able to get that through is possibly a good thing. But still, i understand its only half of what you need, right . Thats right, erin. And im very concerned about the possibility of us opening up in another two months or so, call it early june, to about 50 sales volume. And opening up to bleeding red ink, all of our fellow restaurateurs across the country. Im not sure how were going to survive. And the stimulus package, while its great and helps us, its just not nearly enough that our Industry Needs to survive through this, i think. So, when you you look at this, cameron, and you look at a world we dont know what the world is going to look like, okay, ill be honest about that. I agree. It is possible were looking at a world where when you reopen, you are not going to be able to reopen to a full restaurant. Youre going to be reopening to half capacity or something thats very different, and that that could extend for quite some period of time. Is that a scenario under which you could even operate, that you could even, you know, make your payroll and be profitable or not . Not really, erin. Its one of my biggest fears as an entrepreneur in this business the past 40 years, to move forward. The average restaurant in the United States has about a 7 profitability margin. If you take our average rent in
the United States from a restaurant at 7 , and you open up a restaurant at 50 capacity, that rent is now 14 , which virtually erases any potential profit margin. You cannot cut your utilities by 50 . You cannot cut your management labor by 50 . So i believe many, if not all restaurants across the country, reopening at 50 volume will continue to bleed red ink and eventually go out of business in short order in the future. And im very concerned about that. So, you know, when you say that, it just makes me think of the restaurateur david chang. He told the new york times, i think the restaurants and Service Industry there is going to be a morbidly high business death rate. Is that sounds like you would agree with that. This is going to be an industry transformational event. Oh, absolutely. I dont see how very many restaurants survive through this, especially if we talk about another year of social
distancing and another year till americans get vaccinated from the coronavirus. Its going to be very difficult to survive. And so, cameron, what do you do now then . I know youre waiting for this loan, but what are you doing right now . Well, were working on trying to acquire different avenues of capital to get the capital we need, not only to reopen, but hopefully withstand some losses. Once we reopen, obviously raising capital. In todays environment its very difficult. Our banks are willing to participate, but that money is very, very expensive also. So were working on securing the remainder of that capital needed to move forward and get through this. All right. Well, cameron, well be checking back in with you and hoping that youre going to be getting some slightly better news. Thank you, sir. Great. Thank you. Thank you. And thanks very much to all of you for being with us. Again, as another night as we cover this story, cnns global
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