Transcripts For CNNW New Day With Alisyn Camerota And John Berman 20200416

For firsttime Unemployment Benefits just in the last week alone. You can see that all over the place. Relaxed certainty on how many people are getting through. If i add this to the millions of other people over the past three weeks that have been asking for help, we could be talking up to 23 Million People in the space of four weeks filing for firsttime benefits. We are looking potentially at an Unemployment Rate in the United States of 17 . Just imagine what were seeing. Just in the space of four weeks. What that means for the people involved and the worst part of this, alisyn, were not done yet. We know states are struggling to process these claims. In the past hour, ive had a number of freelancers contact me and say in my state, i still cant get through. That could be a further 23 Million People. Weve got another hour and a half to wait until we get the numbers. But devastating, again, for everyone involved is the message. Julia chatterley for us. Please keep us posted throughout the morning. Joining us now is the director of Vaccine Research clinic at university of alabama at birmingham. And dr. Richelle wa len ski at massachusetts general hospital. We just got an economic report. But its directly tied to the medical reality in this country this morning. So much so that business leaders, dr. Wolensky told the president , they need to see more testing before theyre comfortable reopening at the levels the president wants to right now. More than 60 of americans are not comfortable returning to old routines just yet. Why is testing, in your mind, so important to reopen an office . Good morning, john. Good morning, alisyn. I think there are two kinds of testing were talking about. We need to understand how much antibody is out there, how many people might have been exposed. Presuming that antibody gives us protection against being exposed quickly again. Before a vaccine were to become available. We need to understand how many might be immune. That helps us understand how crowded we can be, how much protection is out there in the population. We then need the viral swab, the swab everyone has been talking about to understand how many might have the disease right now. Because of these data that in fact people might be able to transmit before they have symptoms or maybe they might get no symptoms at all, we need to understand how many people might be transmitting asymptomatically. For that, we need a lot of tests. Meaning, i might test today because i dont have symptoms. I might test tomorrow and not have symptoms. Were talking about millions of tests. Doctor, lets talk about that. This new study published in nature of medicine has gotten a lot of peoples attention. The idea that the highest viral load a patient exhibits from throat swabs is two days before they exhibit any symptoms. Okay. That sounds to me youre the medical expert. That sounds to me like a game changer in terms of how could we ever know who has the virus if its before they have symptoms. By the way, why were people being tested two days before they showed any symptoms . How do we have this information . Yes. Thank you, alisyn. Those are all great points. This is an interesting study that was done in china, published in nature medicine. It did show that the majority of virus seems to be shedding prior to the onset of symptoms which would explain a lot. That really explains why goes a long way to understand why this is a pandemic. How they got them to test before had to do with context. There were context of people who came down with the infection and they started testing them on a regular basis and found out that they were shedding virus before they developed symptoms. So that really explains why theres so many infections that a lot of people i talked to will who have gotten infected, they tell me, i got infected. I dont know anybody who was sick. That happens a lot. This explains that. Is the answer to the question that alisyn asked, how can we know who has it if youre not seeing symptoms . You have to Start Testing who are asymptomatic. Which means in my office right, the person in the cubicle next to me, in this case, Alisyn Camerota, does she need to be tested even though shes not symptomatic for me to feel comfortable coming back to work . I think thats what were getting at. When you start thinking about people who work in crowded places, who might be in the restaurant industry, who might be teachers, who might be working sporting events, thats the kind of testing were talking. Were not just talking once a month. Were talking potentially once every other day to really be able to detect this really early, isolate those folks, Contact Trace the people who they might have exposed and quarantine them. When were talking about that level of intervention that we need, you need a lot of tests. I find this conversation to be frustrating. I dont mean our exact one at this moment. I mean the one weve been having for weeks. We dont have enough testing. Yes. We all need testing to feel comfortable to go back. We dont have it. We dont have the capacity for it. We dont have the capacity to manufacture it right now. So thats why i always veer, dr. Goep fert to treatment and to a vaccine. Because somehow that feels as though were fast tracking that even more than the capacity for testing. I know your finger is on the pulse of the vaccine and first lets talk about the treatment, your colleagues are working on the remdesivir. Weve heard about that drug and that may be able to be employed. Is that our best hope . Well, recommend did he say dir, were testing people who are hospitalized. Thats a flack shonn of the people out fraction of the people out there with the disease. I dont think it will be much helpful, at least the way were using it right now to sort of get us back to work. However, remdesivir could be a useful drug to help people survive. We should because the trial has been enrolling throughout this country and other parts of world, we should have an answer to that question within a month or so. The Vaccine Development and let me also mention that vaccines are going to be a little bit longer off, unfortunately. I think we can gear up testing much more rapidly than we can get a vaccine. Remember, Antibody Testing, as dr. Walensky mentioned, we dont have a reliable Antibody Test right now. Although thats coming on board, too. That would be tremendously helpful in getting us back to work. To get off this quarantine stuff. But vaccines take a while. Theres several vaccines now, about five that are being tested in phase one, which is just safety. Well know the results of that in a couple months. Month or two maybe. After that, you have to do another phase of testing, which takes a couple months and finally, you have to test for efficacy and you have to have enough cases to test a vaccine for efficahe have kaefficacy. What have your preliminary tests shown of remdesivir . I mean, theres no way to know preliminarily. Half the patients get placebo, half of them get the remdesivir active drug. I dont know who gets what. Theres no way for me to tell whats going on. Thats the way weve enrolled internationally over 700 patients, close to 800 patients now. Thats the way you do testing. Its interesting for people to see it in realtime. Youre agreeing, youre nodding dr. Walensky. I want to reiterate that were in a point right now where the virus is winning, right . We need a multipronged plan of attack. None of them can we let off the gas. We need Antibody Testing, we need vie row logic testing, we need treatment and a vaccine. I think we need to go full steam ahead on all of them. Right now were losing the battle. I mean, that is discouraging, obviously, to hear. That the virus is winning. We can see that with our own eyes from the people that we all know and interview who are getting sickened. The governors saying how hard its going to be to restart the economy and let people go outside. But i mean, again, dr. Walensky, dont you get discouraged by saying the vast, widespread testing youll need and then knowing were nowhere close to it . Well, yes and no. You know, heres sort of the way i see it. We didnt know about this virus until january 1. When you look at the extraordinary scientific discovery that has happened, the tests that we have already, the treatments that were testing in clinical trials, the fact that we have vaccines already in phase 1. Nobody would have predicted that was possible. You look at somebody who has diabetes for example. They test their blood sugars at home four times a day. We know those kinds of tests, we know that testing at a massive scale it possible in other situations. So i think we have the potential to get there. I dont think that that that weve lost that potential. I think we have to if not get there immediately. Really understand that we need to sort of have the social distancing in place until we get there. And be patient with that. Dr. Walensky, i wonder if you can weigh in on a new bit of information received overnight. That comes from south korea. That 114 people there who had recovered from coronavirus and covid19. They were sick and got better. Or at least they had it and got better, recovered. Have now tested positive again for the virus. Can you explain exactly what that means . Because obviously, one of the things were concerned about is the question of whether you can get it again once youve had it. Right. Its really interesting. I think were going to be following this carefully. We know from relatively small Animal Studies that if you rechallenge animals who have had it before, they didnt get it. They were small studies in animals. I think there are a couple of things that could be happening with the south korean study. One is did they document the fact that they cleared virus to begin with . We know people can shed virus on average about three weeks and sometimes over a month after theyve been infected. So is it the case that they actually did completely clear their virus and are now shedding it again, or is it the case that theyve been reinfected or is it the case that they cleared but didnt fully clear . I think we really need to understand where in their disease course and whether it is reinfection or persistent infection . That would be helpful. That changes the alarm bells. Because if these are just traces of the virus that they are still shedding, then thats one story. Thats different than them not having immunity and getting reinfected. Yes. I think its also important to point out that in any type of viral infection, not everybody develops protective immunity. Thats why we need things like vaccines and the community protection. I dont know the details of this study. But it is possible, another possibility is that these individuals didnt develop the type of antibody protection thats necessary to protect them from a sdweubsequent infection. Its possible that the majority of people are developing those antibodi antibodies. We dont know. I think dr. Walensky rightly pointed out, this is a new pandemic. Its been january 1. Were learning a lot very quickly. I feel confident well get ahead of this virus. Were learning a lot thanks to doctors like the both of you. Thank you so much for being with us. We really appreciate it. Be sure to join Anderson Cooper and dr. Sanjay gupta for a town hall tonight at 8 00 p. M. Joe biden will join them. As well as facebook founder and Ceo Mark Zuckerberg and dr. Priscilla chan. 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This morning, doctors and Drug Companies worldwide are racing to develop effective coronavirus treatment. But experts say the efforts here in the United States are disorganized and chaotic and the lack of a centralized National Strategy is undermining the search. One doctor told the washington post, its akah cough any, not an orchestra. My heart aches over the chaos in the response. That doctor, Derrick Angus joins me now. Hes at university of pittsburgh, school of medicine. Hes a lead. Covid19 trial testing multiple therapies. Thanks for being with us. Explain to me what you mean by chaos. Sure, john. First of all, its not just at the national level. Aits the international level. So as you and everyone knows, we have no active treatment for covid19. Weve got plenty of yts about what drugs might work, but we need to test these drugs in trials. Otherwise, were bungling along not knowing what works. The drug you hear about a lot is hydroxychloroquine. Its a synthetic version of quikwie nine. We thought it was a good idea for the spanish flu. 100 years later, we still dont know if it works. We have three problems with trying to do trials. The first is these trials themselves are hard, but when we try to do them, hundreds of people are having ideas about trials, but theyre all in competition with one another, rather than collaborating with each other. Finally, were using trial designs that make people uncomfortable a lot of times at the bedside. No one wants to be 50 50 to get out of an in an active treatment tore placebo group. No one wants to be the place theres a notion its supposed to be the National Institutes of health. The director says i think we have the necessary clout to steer this ecosystem. I want to know what works and i want it answered by june or july. Is that not where the direction is coming from . I cant it would be fantastic. I think they could have the clout. But thats certainly not whats happening right now. Whats happening right now at University Centers all over the country is physicians are being asked to participate in hundreds of different trials. They cant even choose which one to enroll in. There are 94 trials registered for testing hydroxychloroquine. Ive never heard of any drug needing 94 separate trials in the same disease. Do you think thats interesting. I hadnt heard that. Do you think theres an overemphasis at the national, perhaps nonmedical level on hydroxychloroquine and have you seen any evidence in the some 94 trials that youre talking about that it works . We have no evidence at this point and the problem is, if youre trying to do lots of little trials, thats not as efficient or as useful as trying to do large coordinated trials. Weve had over 2 million confirmed cases of covid19, mainly in north america and europe. And yet, barely more than a few thousand of these 2 million patients have been enrolled in clinical trials. Talk to me about what youre doing, the testing youre involved in right now. So we have tried to join in within International Effort to design called a remap effort. Remap trials are adaptive platform trials that test multiple therapies simultaneously and try to give as many patients as possible at least one potentially active treatment. So that theres hardly anyone in the socalled placebo group. This trial then also learns as this goes, getting rid of therapies or combinations of therapies that dont do too well and favoring over time those therapies that are doing better. We feel this is an easier trial design for patients and doctors to get involved in. What weve been doing in pittsburgh is trying to put it right inside the Health Record so the whole thing takes place across the entire system, not just in the big teaching hospitals, but in our Small Community hospitals so that any patient with covid19 can potentially participate in these therapies. Do you have any early signs . I know the way trials are conducted. I know youre smiling already. You get asked this question a lot. Any sense of what has been working in any of these trials . No. Look, that sounds depressing to say i dont know. We can find out there are 2 Million People already who have this disease. If even one in ten has been able to participate in a trial, we could have gone through about 100 different drugs by now and known definitively which ones worked or not. But as it is, at this point, we could be excited about the potential of some but we cant tell among the hundreds of ideas, we have no idea which one is the best. If you could answer one question right now, if you could ring a magic bell and get the answer to one question about coronavirus this morning, what would it be . You mean other than how can we have lots of tests for everyone . Other than that. For treatment, it would still be great to have a safe, easy to take antiviral that patients could take as soon as they have symptoms to avoid getting sick in the first place. That would still be an incredible i take it from your other comment, you still dont think theres enough tests in the country . Theres not enough tests in the country or anywhere in most of the world to effectively engage in smart or precision public health. Dr. Derek angus. This is an education. I really appreciate your time this morning helping us understand. Its been really, really enlightening. Youre most welcome, john. Thanks. What did china know about coronavirus and when did they tell their citizens . If not the world. A live report from china with the facts, next. Wasting time. Thats why Td Ameritrade designed a firstofitskind, personalized education center. Their awardwinning content is tailored to fit your investing goals and interests. 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So try making it smaller, and youll be surprised at how easily starting small can lead to something big. Start stopping with nicorette. Were expecting another devastating weekly jobless report in the next hour that could wipe out all the job gains of the past several years. Economists are forecasting 4 to 8 million americans will have filed for unemployment in the last week. Many of the newly unemployed are Small Business owners. We hear about their stories. What did you learn, vanessa . Good morning, alisyn. Those numbers coming out in about an hour now are going to be in the millions from the department of labor. Many of them Small Business owners trying to figure out, one, how to save their business, but also how to save their personal livelihood. Everything is just prospering and just growing. Everything was actually really good. Business is great. For these Small Business owners, it all came crashing down. Like many businesses around the country, covid19 changed everything. Like apocalyptic. It was the scariest day ever. Americans who are selfemployed, gig workers or freelancers can now apply for unemployment. Anna castillo is one of them. Her family owns a cruise parking lot in miami. But with no cruises, her income is zero. Me and my parents have put blood, sweat and tears into not only coming to the country and building something for themselves but in general, it was built from their savings, from every penny theyve ever worked for. How business works. Christina owns a p. R. Company in atlanta and business is slow. As a single mom to a 9yearold, shes the familys bread winner. She hasnt heard back from unemployment and Rainy Day Fund is drying up. I would say by the end of april, maybe first weeks of that will be gone. Christopher payne is in the same boat. The bills dont stop between now and then. The money is rapidly wiping out. His gaming shop in North Carolina is a month away from shutting down. I applied for the ppp, the loan and the grant and ive also applied for unemployment. Nothing has worked out at this point. With the backup in unemployment processing, payne believes hes weeks away from a check. If the unemployment came through, i would be able to turn all of that money into money that i would use for my business. 43 of Small Business owners say they have less than six months until theyll close because of covid19. According to a survey by the u. S. Chamber of commerce. For some, the pure will to survive could be enough. Failing is not something in my radar or in the back of my mind. I know i wont be that 40 to 50 . For others, the wound may be too deep. Its not just like the business. Its like the people behind it. Everything that they do to provide a service to you and to make a living for themselves. I would say support your local business. Small businesses are running out of lifelines, john. They are having to string together multiple federal, state, local programs, one including the Payroll Protection Program that the federal government fundied with 350 billion. That fund is already close to drying up and with these Small Business owners still waiting for their unemployment checks and not having access to these federal dollars, a lot of them are wondering how theyre going to be able to survive this, john. That money is drying up. There are discussions of getting new money but theyre concerned that the initial batch of money wasnt distributed in exactly the ways that were most optimal. Vanessa yurk vich being thank you for that report. Really important to see those stories. A new report from the Associated Press says that china knew about the potential scope of the coronavirus threat but sat on the critical information for six days before alerting citizens. David culver live in shanghai with the details. Youve been there from the beginning, david. What have you learned . Reporter ill walk you through this report, john. Coming from the a. P. Based on what they characterize as a leaked memo from a confidential teleconference involving the head of chinas National Health commission. Cnn has gone through the public report from that teleconference which highlights the worries expressed by Health Officials to other leaders six days before officials alerted the public here. Heres what we know of what china knew. Take you back to december 8. The wuhan government notes the first patient symptoms of the then unknown virus. Nearly a month later, january 3rd, wuhan Health Officials stressed, there is no obvious human to human transtransmissio. On the same day, they notified the u. S. Of the virus. Then the first Public Awareness known. A week later, january 14th, this is the teleconference were talking about. The government release says a sober understanding of the situation was made known to top government officials. They add that clustered cases suggest that human to human transition is possible. Heres the concern. Publicly as late as january 19th, four days after that teleconference, the Wuhan Health Commission said the outbreak was controllable, preventable, not contagious. Then the next day, we see a very different narrative come out. Leading Health Officials acknowledge cases of human to human transmission and stress that medical personnel had gotten infected. Three days later, wuhan went on lockdown. As of now, we know that chinas foreign ministry, they say it has been an open, transparent and responsible handling. China has kept the w. H. O. And relevant countries updated on the outbreak. Thats how theyre couching this, john. You can see by the timeline, there appear to be gaps in terms of how things were explained and when. David, its interesting. In this country, theres a discussion about how and when to reopen. Theres some alarm among the community by being told, you know, if we do open a restaurant, for instance, its not going to be like it was before. People want things to be back to normal. But as youve seen in china, thats hard to do. It means extraordinary measures. Reporter it is hard to do. I want to show you, though, some video thats two months old. The reason its relevant for you guys now. This is possibly what youll be going through of the its a restaurant experience that we had when we first came to shanghai. It was a rather lonely experience because restaurants were just starting to reopen. As the governor of california suggested, people will be wearing face masks. Thats something were seeing here still. You go in, you record your name, your temperature, your cell phone number. Thats all part of that Contact Tracing so that they can track you. Then when you sit down, the first thing that comes to the table is hand sanitizer. The appetizer, if you will, you use it before touching the menu and after touching the menu. One of the things they were doing early on, which has since stopped, they would keep a buffer space between you and other diners. So several tables would sit empty intentionally so they could keep that social distancing and they would limit the party size. The restaurant we went to, for example, you couldnt have more than four people at a table, john. Interesting to see, david. Maybe a window into our future. David culver, thanks so much for that report. Coronavirus is hitting underserved communities so hard. Whats being done to help ensure that help gets where its needed most . Thats next. But if you look to the land, its a whole different story. From farms to backyards, wheels are turning. Seeds are being planted. Animals are getting fed. And grass is growing. And families are giving their all to the soil because no matter how uncertain things get, the land never stops. 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There are times when our need to connect really matters. To keep customers and employees in the know. To keep business moving. Comcast business is prepared for times like these. Powered by the nations largest gigspeed network. To help give you the speed, reliability, and security you need. Tools to manage your business from any device, anywhere. And a team of experts here for you 24 7. Weve always believed in the power of working together. Thats why, when every connection counts. You can count on us. Nearly 7,000 people in new york city have died from coronavirus. There are also more than 4,000 probable deaths from the virus. The virus is killing and infecting black and latino communities at a higher rate than others. For people who are poor, the double whanl i of losing their jobs whammy of losing their jobs and getting sick is devastating. Join us now is michael bla, he represents the bronx, one of new yorks five boroughs. Great to have you this morning. Weve all become so painfully aware of the disproportionate impact that the virus is having on those of color. The bronx, the district youre from and where you represent is the poorest Congressional District in the country and so what does coronavirus look like in the bronx . Alisyn, first of all, thank you and respect you and all women journalists around the country, around the world for all that you do. There was a pandemic of poverty and institutionalized racism before coronavirus hit our shore. What we have to do now is find and fund a cure for both. It has been challenging to say the least for what weve been launching on the ground. Because weve seen communities who always come together, but still have so much challenges on themselves. And what do i mean by that . This is everything from the family that is of the essential worker and god blez our essential workers, whether youre a Health Care Hero or grocery worker, someone at the airport, a restaurant. When you leave and have two children at home, what happens to the child for Remote Learning . What happens to the Small Businesses that have not had the support because the federal government didnt help us fast enough. What about the person with no food to eat. So alisyn, been hit hard but we understand in the bronx things happen. Were going to find a way to overcome these challenges due to coronavirus. Lets dive into that a little bit. What is happening for children in the bronx . If they dont have access to a laptop, how are they doing Remote Learning and how are they being fed right now . So for education, obviously, we have to figure out a faster way to get devices out to everyone. We have been incredibly frustrated by the delay. Part of it, unfortunately, is because workers doing the process and delivery became ill. Then we have to figure this out. If you dont have a laptop or tablet as of yet, theyre essentially giving you paper to go home and complete the assignments. But the challenge, alisyn is that we are currently only tracking engagement and not true attendance and progress. Wee always tell people theres a difference between activity and progress. If we made sure that the child had a tablet in their book bag rather than arrest them for a dime bag, there would be better priorities here. Within that, theres the food challenges. So we are giving out 17,000 meals a day in the bronx due to our partnership with world central kitchen. With here to here, dream yard, bronx so many different restaurants. Mont haven bar and grill. Weve surpassed 325,000 meals. Weve given them out since march 17th. We have to keep going. So we encourage everyone in the bronx to obviously follow us or wc kitchen and god bless chef joez jose an drez. Were going to get tablets out through dream yard. Thats a herculean effort that you are engaging. Lets talk about the 2 trillion of stimulus funds, the relief. The Financial Relief from the federal government that is supposed to be going out to people, you know, in dire situations. Why isnt that trickling down to the bronx . Unfortunately, alisyn, its not trickling down because i dont think donald trump cares if black and brown people die and doesnt care if black and brown businesses die. When you think about the ppp program, it has not worked at all significantly on the ground and thank god for partners like Michael Brady at third avenue bid for Demetrius Julius at spring bank. We need to find creative ways on the ground. Weve launched a relief effort to help with this as well. Led by Derrick Lewis and julie Diamond Foundation and others to help our Small Businesses not being assisted. Mr. Blake, sorry to interrupt. Explain that to us. I understand youre relying on fill philanthropy p and thank gr the folks who are helping. Why wouldnt the federal money make it to the bronx to understand the disconnect. When you have a cash economy, a restaurant, barbershop, beauty salon, everyone has to sign up with a 1099 contractor is unrealistic. You have an immigrant community that have not been able to be engaged and are afraid of the government. Therefore, theyre not online. The larger banks, first come, first serve approach did not engage with us on the ground at all. It was not sufficient technology to help our Smaller Banks with applications. Only 70 applications were approved in the bronx when theres more than 23,000. That demonstrates a broader problem. Its the reason why we coauthored an oped in newsweek to say that the next cares act can be an assault or lifeline on black and brown businesses. We have to partner Financial Technology companies with the Community Development Financial Institutions so that the next bill actually provide relief in the way its needed. Whats happening right now, donald trump is not working and our black and brown businesses are on the verge of extinction in the bronx and so many communities of color if we dont resolve this immediately. Thank you for sounding the alarm for us and explaining how your Community Feels forgotten during all of this. We appreciate talking to you. Thank you, alisyn. We want to take a moment to remember people lost to the coronavirus. Billy birmingham was an emt in kansas city since 1998. Hes the first City Employee to succumb to the virus. The citys Firefighter Memorial was turned on in birminghams honor. He was 69. He had seven kid, more than a dozen grandchildren and great grandchildren. David was 49 years old. He loved to fish and be around family. His daughter says he was initially turned away for treatment. Eve eventually, he was put on a breathing machine. His organs started shutting down and his heart gave out. Davids widow juanita is still battling the virus from a medically induced coma. A beloved member of the bedford, new York Community managing a hardware store. I can tell you from personal experience he was delightful. Always smiling. Always helpful. Never made you feel silly or incompetent. Even when you were asking something silly or incompetent. The store says the outpouring of love and memories is a true testimony to his sincerity, his authenticity and the relationship he made with so many. His big smile and welcoming heart will be sorely missed. Douglas childs made things better. Well be right back. Americas oldest lighthouse has weathered many storms. Seeing the break in the clouds before anyone else. Together, well weather this storm. Easy to let fear in timesgrip our hearts. Is fear of sickness, fear of lack, fear of the unknown. But when fear and anxiety try to plague our every thought. We can remember this one important truth, and that is god is with us. He is with us, he is for us, he loves us and he invites us to enter into his rest. Were not alone, when the storm rages he offers us peace and refuge in the midst of it. He promises hope and strength to those who turn to him. What is god saying in this crisis . Among the answers must be this promise. Do no fear, for i am with you do not be afraid, for i am your god. And i will strengthen you; and i will surely help you. Turn to him today. Working day in, day out. E. At t is here. Providing support with advanced services for first responders. And connected temporary hospitals, mobile testing sites and Emergency Management centers. Because until their job is done, it is essential that we all have their backs. Its what weve always done. Its what well always do. Tums ver bell rings la stick when heartburn hits fight back fast. With tums chewy bites. Beat heartburn fast tums chewy bites Bleacher Report update brought to you by tums, for fast heartburn relief. So the nations top Infectious Disease expert dr. Anthony fauci giving a little hope to sports fans. There is a way of doing that. Nobody comes to the stadium. Put them in big hotels, you know, wherever you want to play, keep them very well surveilled and mainly surveillance but have them tested like every week and make sure they dont wind up infecting each other or their family and let them play the season out. Thats dr. Anthony fauci talking to peter hamby about a plan being discussed by Major League Baseball to play games in arizona. Joining us to discuss what that would look like, christine brennan, sports columnist for usa today, the governor of arizona doug ducey is open to this idea. It is not impossible that this happens, put all the players in hotels, test them all the time, play games in empty stadiums in arizona, how would this work . What do you see as the benefits and perhaps the pitfalls . There is a chance that this could happen and i think right now for where we are in our society and our world, i think a chance a little slice of optimism is probably a really good thing. I think were going to get used to another term here soon, in addition to social distancing and other catch phrases of our last month or so, and it will be spectatorless sports. I think this is the only chance we have for the time being with professional sports. Dr. Fauci has said this as well. And the idea would be that it would look a little weird on television, but you have the games, and i know you know this as well as anyone, as a sports fan, basically sports is a tv entity. It is television for most people. A lot of us love going to games, but most fans dont. And so the idea that it is a tv show actually is not that foreign to many fans and even people who just would love a distraction from being at home right now. Ive been practicing spectatorless sports for my whole life by not watching. So but even i recognize, even i recognize that this is the life blood of american culture. And that this is one of the universal experiences that people like to all gather around and celebrate together. So, christine, i mean you think that will it make a big difference if there is nobody in the stands or will everybody still enjoy it . Alisyn, it will look strange at first and i think well get used to it very, very quickly. There are golf tournaments you watch, you see no one around a green. As fans, theyre not sitting there, standing there at that particular moment. There certainly are early season mens and Womens Basketball games in the tournament where you see big gaps where the fans from the other team are going to come later. I think thats a very minor point in this conversation. I think well get used to it. The bigger issue is if someone tests positive. Youre going to you got 30 Major League Baseball teams theoretically in arizona. What happens if a hotel worker tests positive. Youre in a big hotel, but now that person has been delivering meals to the rooms of the players, thats what we saw with the nba. Of course, keep in mind the sports really kicked us off, that was march 11th when the nba said it was shutting down and i think it woke the world up, woke the country up to what was going on with coronavirus. So sports may well be the way back, but it also, i think, there are a lot of Lessons Learned in march that we need to take into may, june, july. Two quick points. One, im a soccer fan also. Sometimes european games, soccer games are played in empty stadiums because of violence reasons but they do it. It can be done and people will still watch on tv and we all need the distraction. Your point about what happens if someone gets sick. Thats real. It is also proximate because we learned the first nfl player that we know about has tested positive, brian alan, i think a center for the rams, has tested positive. That would create a whole series of problems. You can keep fans separate from this, but you cant keep players from each other. Theyre all over each other during the game. Theyre shedding all kinds of things from their bodies when hitting each other and grappling. Without a doubt, john. That just happened, we learned that over the last 8, 12 hours about alan, the rams center. So that is exactly what happened a month ago, past is prologue. We saw that with the nba. Reason the nba shut down on march 11th, because of a positive test and the dominos fell soon after. Pretty much every sport was shut down. If we decide to gear up and i know everyone would like to see that in a healthy environment, once, of course, our people on the front lines get all of these supplies they need, once we gear up with sports, what happens . Key question what happens when there is another positive test like the one in the nfl . And what does that do . Does that shut us back down . These are the key questions that these commissioners, that our officials, that dr. Fauci and others have to deal with before they can definitively say that sports are back. And have they figured out what they would do. This is a very real probability and they have seen it already happen. Theyre playing a lot of different models, different scenarios, but i dont think they know. I think the bottom line on this is we have to tell sports fans, people are i get it all the time from people, alisyn, wanting to know, emails and texts and whatever, when are sports coming back . The answer is we just dont know. Golf, because those acres and acres of a golf course, they have been social distancing even before there was social distancing. The game of golf. We may well see mens and womens golf tournaments come back before anything else. I think the interesting answer to the question what could happen to team sports is someone ended up positive, it is testing, it is the same thing affecting every level of society now, the medical story and the economic story of sports is going to come back. It is going to take mass testing. Fingers crossed because i think these games could be some of the most watched games in history. Christine brennan, thank you for being with us. Thank you very much, john and alisyn. We are minutes away from what is expected to be a devastating report on unemployment. New day continues right now. It is difficult to imagine us getting together in the thousands anytime soon. They are going to unveil new guidelines. The president has been hinting he believes there are some states that can reopen. We want the states to administer these tests and if were not happy, well take very strong action against a state. Why doesnt the president want to go near testing . Because testing is a quagmire. No one can bring it up to scale quickly. Checks are starting to be cut by the treasury department. We have almost 17 million americans who are out of work. So much of the transmission occurs from asymptomatic people. Perhaps the way to really put this fire out is to Start Testing asymptomatic people. This is new day with Alisyn Camerota and john berman. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is your new day. We begin with the crippling effect of the coronavirus pandemic on the u. S. Economy. And the debate over when and how to get americans back to work. President trump will announce new federal guidelines today, but governors and even Major Business leaders are warning the president that widespread testing needs to happen first before they are willing to reopen. Dr. Deborah birx says they have identified nine states with fewer than 1,000 confirmed cases, she did not spell out at the time which