One a blueprint providing guidance for increasing testing as states begin to reopen. The other document, an overview of testing so far. Well monitor that. Also breaking right now, Texas Governor greg abbott has Just Announced hell let his stayathome order expire on thursday, allowing businesses like malls, restaurants, theaters, to reopen with limited occupancy. Georgia and tennessee were among the states allowing some businesses including restaurants to reopen today. That comes as the u. S. Death toll now surpasses 55,000 with almost 1 million, 1 million, kwir confirmed cases. Worldwide there have been 200,000 deaths and 3 million cases, probably a whole lot more than that. Our chief White House Correspondent jim acosta is monitoring developments. Jim, youre getting new information from your sources. Reporter thats right, wolf, President Trump is holding a News Conference to talk about a new testing strategy in just a few moments. That strategy appears to include more burdenshifting to the states. Documents describe the federal government as the supplier of last resort. The white house had been going back and forth over the last 24 hours over whether there would even be a News Conference this evening. The choppy messaging comes just days after the president suggested that people can inject themselves with disinfectants as a cure for the virus. Still reeling from President Trumps suggestion that americans inject themselves with disinfectants to kill the coronavirus, white house officials are struggling to get their message back on track, scheduling a News Conference for monday, then cancelling it. Were not tracking a briefing for today because there will be a press avail at 4 00 p. M. With the president and retail ceos. Reporter then roughly three hours later the News Conference was back, all after a weekend when the president and the Coronavirus Task force took a break from their daily briefings as aids batted around new ideas for his press conferences after mr. Trumps jawdropping comments last week. And then i said supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or, uh, in some other way. And i think you said youre going to test that too. Sounds interesting. And then i see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do Something Like that by injection inside or or almost a cleaning, because you see it gets in the lungs. Reporter top doctors on the task force have grown weary of the topic. It bothers me that this is still in the news cycle because i think were missing the bigger pieces what have we need to be doing as an American People to continue to protect one another. Reporter hoping to change the subject, the president is ragetweeting his grievances, insisting the people that know me and know the history of our country say that im the hardest working president in history. White house chief of staff mark meadows praised his boss to the new york post. I can tell you my biggest concern as new chief of staff is making sure he has time to get a quick bite to eat. Still, the president has time to tweet, when will the noble prizewinning reporters turn bake their nobles . Back their nobles . The president later tweeted, does sarcasm ever work . I was asking a very sarcastic question to the reporters in the room about disinfectant on the inside. Reporter the president is nursing his grudges as dr. Birx acknowledged testing for the coronavirus in the u. S. Is still lacking. But at the same time we have to realize that we have to have a breakthrough innovation in testing. We have to be able to detect antigen rather than constantly trying to detect the actual live virus or the viral particles itself. And to really move into antigen testing. Reporter the outlook for the economy is also dire, with one white house adviser warning jobless numbers may hearken back to the great depression. The dropoff which were about to see in the next few weeks, well see major signs of it, is going to look like a drop thats as big as anything weve seen since the great depression. That doesnt mean in any way that were going to have a great depression. Reporter other white house aids are pushing back on that. My brother hassett is all gloom and doom. Reporter im told the president s disinfectant comments did not come up at a meeting held by the white house Coronavirus Task force on saturday. White house officials had said they wanted to scale back on these News Conferences but a trump adviser said the president likely wont want to give up on the huge audiences drawn to these News Conferences, we know he likes to tweet about the ratings. He certainly does. Well stand by for his remarks in the rose garden coming up soon. Lets get more on the texas reopening. Our National Correspondent erica hill joins us. Erica, the states stayathome order will expire on thursday. Update our viewers. Reporter yeah, thats right, Governor Greg Abbott announced a short time ago he will allow the stayathome order to expire on thursday. That means on friday, may 1st, businesses will be allowed to reopen. Were talking Retail Stores, mall, restaurants, theaters. This is a pretty broad measure to allow all these businesses to reopen at once. One thing thats notable, wolf, is the governor said things like barbershops, hair salons, gyms, he does want to bring those back but likely not before midmay. Seeing whats happening in texas and comparing that to here in new york, where it will be some time before you see those restrictions lifted, is another reminder of just how different the response is it depending on where you are in the country. Change is coming. What it looks like depends on where you live. We decided we wanted to play our part in helping get things started again. Reporter in montana, churches resuming sunday services although with strict physical distancing and limited capacity. Restaurants in georgia and neighboring tennessee can reopen today with new safety measures. Theyre going to get the welcome to waffle house, the greeting were all excited to be able to give them. When they come in, it will be very clear where they can and cannot sit. Reporter tennessees governor wants a majority of businesses open by friday. The largest counties, which include memphis, nashville, and knoxville, will set their own timeline. More than a dozen states have started easing restrictions as Business Leaders and Health Officials warn more testing is still needed. What were seeing now are governors increasingly putting together economic recovery teams but its completely delinked to the Public Health component. Reporter denvers mayor choosing to delay reopening as his state moves forward. We didnt feel like we were ready. We felt more needed to be done before we ease ourselves out of this. This virus is not going away. It will remain with us for a while. We need to make sure were building an infrastructure for the long haul. Reporter mississippi still urging residents to stay home, maintaining its ban on gatherings of more than ten people. Allowing Retail Stores to open today with restrictions. In florida, more beaches poised to welcome residents, as the governor adopts a cautious tone. Im less concerned about a specific date than i am about getting it right. Reporter ohio one of the first states to take aggressive measures, announcing today its stayathome orders will remain in place although a phased reopening will begin friday. Retail, however, wont resume for another two weeks. In new york, expect some areas including hardhit new york city to open much later. In some parts of the state, some regions, you could make the case that we should unpause on may 15. But you have to be smart about it. There is no light switch where you flick a switch and everybody goes back to doing what theyre doing. Reporter tysons chicken processing facility in shelbiville, tennessee, linked to more than 120 coronavirus cases, closed for deep cleaning amid new questions about the countrys food supply. The companys largest park Processing Plant in waterloo, iowa, still shuttered as the companys chairman warns the nations Food Supply Chain is breaking. Hog farmers in minnesota are considering euthanizing animals if they cant be processed. Its tragic to have that conversation because it just becomes a waste of food. Reporter experts note that consumers may not see the variety theyre used to, while across the country, the need for help and the strain on local food banks continues to grow. Just one more example of that disparity, we learned from new York Governor Andrew Cuomo today that there were dairies farmers in upstate new york who are having to pour out some of their products because the supply chain they were used to is not operating in the same way. He said there has been an initiative started here in new york constituestate that will b, yogurt, other dairy products, to food banks downstate, in the lower part of the state, where the need is increasing. Erica hill reporting, thank you very much. The mayor of los angeles, eric garcetti, thanks for joining us in this incredibly busy time. As you know, the president is expected to release new information about federal efforts to ramp up testing in a few minutes. Has the federal government from your perspective as mayor of los angeles, done enough right now . Well, theyve been very helpful in certain areas. Certainly some of the direct aid theyve just gotten from the c. A. R. E. S. Act, getting the United States naval ship mercy. What we need more help with is testing. Weve had to stand this up alone, figure out with firefighters how to do it. We need probably double the amount of testing before we can reopen. I love what folks have been saying, you cant just reopen without the capacity to test. You cant think about this just as an economic question. Health and economy are linked together. Thats certainly how were looking at it. So i hope that we can hear some more help, direct help, maybe in the sense of assistance with laboratories and lab kits, and certainly with swabs and reagents. That to us is the backlog, even though l. A. Is now probably second only to new york in tests per capita of a big city. Should the federal government, mayor, act as what this new document that the white house is releasing, as a, quote, supplier of last resort, or should they take the lead on testing . I dont know, i read it literally. Its the United States of america. And im a big believer in federalism. We can do things here in california that are different than in indiana or alabama. But when it comes to these national needs, whether its defense, our foreign policy, international trade, or a pandemic, i do believe that a Strong National government should be the ones procuring things so were not competing against each other. You know, whether its 79 cents per mask or 7 per mask, its an embarrassment, that we all have to find our own kits and our own processing facilities, and laboratories. I hope we can also stand up a c. A. R. E. C. A. R. E. S. Corps. It would be a marvelous way to fund local governments to get that done. A lot of mayors around the country will agree with you on that. According to the new york times, President Trump has suggested on a call with governors today that some schools should reopen before the end of this academic year, the end of june, lets say. The president said, and im quoting, the Young Children have done very well in this disaster that weve all gone through so a lot of people are thinking about the school openings. Schools across california are closed until the next academic year, i take it in september. Do you see any reason to reverse that decision . No. Wolf, we dont. And theres been a huge adjustment, its been very tough on kids. I say this as father of an 8yearold. Learning how to learn online, a lot of families and communities dont have Internet Access or dont have computers, teachers learning how to do that. Its good that were learning these skills and building this capacity because i think this is going to be a series of expansions and contractions as cases go back up in later months, well probably go back home for schooling and work. So its good were building this up. But im worried about the kids right now that have fallen behind. I think it is way too early. You get a lot of credit for moving quickly at the beginning of this and taking action as we did out here in california. You dont get a lot of credit for moving too quickly to reopen, in fact its the greatest risk. I wish people would stop pretending that some places are open and some places are closed. Everybody is going to take baby steps in the days and weeks from now. You have to assess and decide whether you can take another step forward or whether you need to halt. Thats the kind of progress we should be talking about, instead of these people are open and these people are closed. Its about taking steps and deciding whether to take another one. States and communities across the country are beginning to reopen businesses. Can you gives an update on when los angeles will begin to ease restrictions . Our order runs through may 15. Were talking with our Public Health professionals. There are some spaces and some places that well look at safely reopening. But i say to everybody here in los angeles and across the country, you need to look at three things. How great is the need for that thing, either psychologically or economically. Second, how great is the risk of reopening that thing. And third, what do you have to make it safe. And if you look at those things through need, risk, and safety, i think you can make the right decisions not out of your emotions, like, hey, i would love to go to the beach, but look at whats the greatest need, where can we get people back to work safely. Weve had construction workers safely inspected with ppe throughout this in Southern California and there hasnt been a cluster. Its a great example of how to do this safely. At the same time i wouldnt open up my parks tomorrow and have thousands of people side by side at them. So you have to be very measured. You have to be very strong. And you have to listen to the medical doctors. Los angeles has kept its beaches closed during a heat wave this weekend. Some of your neighboring counties in Southern California opened their beaches despite the statewide stayathome order. Are you concerned about residents of your city driving just across to another county and going to the beach and then heading back . Absolutely. I think regions have to Work Together on this. I havent heard any Health Professionals who are recommending here in Southern California that we open the beaches yet. All it takes is one to open and people go there. And the thing is, you wont know, wolf, for two or three weeks, what was the impact of that decision. Was it rash . Youll never be punished for waiting a little longer but you could see a huge punishment that comes from folks beginning to spread this and seeing that tick up again. The more disciplined we are today, the quicker the end will come and the more prosperous well be. The more slippage we have, the more people will die and the economy will be hurt more. Mayor garcetti, good luck to you and to everybody in l. A. , well watch it closely. Were hoping of course for the best. Thanks for joining us. Stay with us. Once again, were awaiting the president s coronavirus News Conference at the white house. Well have coverage. Well also take a closer look at the president s erratic behavior in recent days as he takes to twitter to lash out and complain. Announcer the situation room with wolf blitzer brought to you by the new Fitbit Charge 4. How to burn more in less time. Which led to less stress. More changes. And the confidence to follow her dreams. Introducing active zone minutes on charge 4. Once again, were awaiting President Trumps coronavirus News Conference. Hes getting ready to leave the oval office and walk into the rose garden. Well have coverage of course of that. Hell make two announcements, were told, on the coronavirus testing issue. Meantime, lets bring in our chief political analyst gloria borger. Gloria, a strong column you wrote for cnn. Com. You argue that doctors and medical experts are filling a leadership vacuum left by the president. And you write this. Let me quote from your article. Doctors around the country are being heard. They have all taken the same oath, do no harm. Now theres a corollary, dont let the president do any either. After the president got so much blowback after his remarks about injecting disinfectants in the body, is there an idea that the president will step back and let the scientists and doctors take center stage . Well see in a few minutes, wolf. The president , who decided he wasnt going to meet with the press, suddenly decided, yes, hes going to meet with the press. Theyre putting out guidelines for testing as the states move forward. The point i was really making is the president has not been leading in the way he should and hes been giving people Bad Information and making the scientists do contortions in looking at the floor and anywhere else rather than look directly at the president as he suggested that perhaps hydroxychloroquine could be an easy fix or suggesting that you perhaps should inject your body with disinfectant. I think that was the moment where the president s friends, republicans, and even some people in the white house understood that they had to fix something and not let the president keep doing this both to himself as well as to the American Public. And so i do think were going to see a shift. And what i hope is that the president s science advisers will give him their unvarnished opinions, information, facts, details, in private so that they can then come out and talk to the American Public about it. Theres a real understanding within the white house, gloria, about why its so important for the experts to be front and center right now. I think there is. And dont forget how this started, wolf. It started with mike pence, who is leading the Coronavirus Task force, coming out with the experts and briefing the American Public. And the experts were the ones who were really by and large answering the questions, as was mike pence. Then the president decided that he needed to come out there and be the person who was center stage. As we all know, the president does not like to share the stage with anyone. And he saw this as an opportunity to talk to the American Public directly about himself and how well he was doing and how quickly this would all dissipate. Instead it became a real problem for him. And i think the president reads polls very directly and sees that he was not doing himself any good, that in fact if you look at the numbers, the American Public trusts dr. Tony fauci by nearly two to one over the president of the United States. Gloria, stand by for a moment, i want to bring in our chief medical correspondent dr. Sanjay gupta. Jane, we expect moments from now the president to announce new testing guidance at this white house News Conference in the rose garden. Were looking at live pictures right now. Hes about to leave the oval office and walk down those stairs. Just yesterday the Coronavirus Task force coordinator, dr. Deborah birx, said the United States needed, in her words, a breakthrough innovation in testing. What kind of Technological Breakthroughs are needed in order for the u. S. To meet this critical testing need . Right, right. The goal ultimately, wolf, is to be able to have enough widespread Testing Available that people can have confidence when theyre starting to reopen, people going into the public and starting to be in situations where they still maintain physical distance as much as possible and may not always be able to do that. Theres a few different tests, i think we have a graphic of this, that weve been talking about. Theres a test that tests for the virus itself, thats known as a pcr test. Youre looking for a piece of genetic peelmaterial, you need amplify the genetic material and test for it. You need reagents and swabs, you need all these Different Things, and if youre missing one of them, those tests are hard to perform. Theres the Antibody Test that weve talked about that can tell you whether or not youve had the infection in the past and youre likely to have some protection if you have the antibody, theyre still researching that. Its the bottom one, the ant general test, that dr. Deborah birx was talking about. This is basically looking for a piece of the virus, a protein on the surface of the virus. It can be easier to test for, you dont need the other stuff, the reagents. I dont know if youve ever had a rapid strep test, kids get it to check their throats, it can be a rapid test, done in the doctors office, you get a result back quickly. Even the flu test, you can get these rapid antigen flu tests done. That can be really helpful, if people can get it done, get a result back and then say i have the confidence now to walk into whichever place, you know, a place of work that is where its difficult to physically distance or some other event. Until people have that confidence, i think what ambassador birx was saying, its going to be hard to reopen the economy. Sure, you can open things, but if people dont have confidence that i am not harboring the virus inside my body and thus spreading it and the people around me dont have the virus in their body, thats what you really need to get to. Now, the challenge, the breakthrough part of it is these tests arent always that reliable, as has been the case with some other tests. Some of those rapid antigen tests can have a high false negative rate which can defeat the purpose. The goal is to create a reliable, fast test that isnt dependent on lots of different stuff, Different Things in the supply chain. That would be the holy grail, something that could be put in all these different places around the country so people would have really access to them, wolf. Ill have sanjay and gloria stand by, well have a lot more. Sanjay will also be coming back later to answer your coronavirus questions. Were standing by for the News Conference in the rose garden to begin. Well have live coverage when we come back. Our members understand social distancing. Being prepared and overcoming challenges. Usaa has been standing with them for nearly a hundred years. And well be here to serve you for a hundred more. Many of lifes moments in thare being put on hold. Are staying at home, and well be here to serve you for a hundred more. At carvana, we understand that, for some, getting a car just cant wait. To help, were giving our customers up to 90 days to make their first payment. Shop online from the comfort of your couch, and get your car with touchless delivery to keep you safe. And for even Greater Peace of mind, all carvana cars come with a sevenday return policy. So, if you need to keep moving, were here for you. At carvana the safer way to buy a car. Live pictures coming in from the rose garden at the white house, you see some of the reporters seated. Were told soon the president will walk down those stairs and make a statement and, were told, answer reporters questions. Well have coverage, of course. Georgia remains in the forefront of letting businesses try to get back to some sort of normal. Lets go to cnns martin savidge. What are you seeing . Reporter wolf, this is one of those places that has opened up its dining room. Its empty. The only people in here are staff. Its been very empty throughout the day. You can see what theyve done is theyve got tables that are essentially marked closed. This is the way they do the social distancing here. Reorganizing the dining room area, and they have to to meet state requirements. You can only have ten people for every 500 square feet. Thats a severe limitation. Thats easily done. Its the kitchen in many restaurants, thats the problem, theyre often in tight quarters. The story overall is many restaurants did not open today. Theyre having all sorts of issues, whether its fear of the virus or whether its just sheer logistics of getting the Safety Equipment they need for their staff. Or it could be that they just feel now is not the right time. Those restaurants that did open, and this is the second one weve seen today, very limited numbers of people. Most people arent comfortable coming back and dining in at a restaurant, wolf, they still carry out. That may improve as the days go on. We cant blame them, a lot of nervousness for very good reason. Thanks, martin savidge, very much. The mayor of albany joins us, mr. Mayor, thank you very much. Your town of albany is one of the hardesthit areas in the state. Your county has also seen more deaths from coronavirus than any other county in georgia. Do Business Owners where you are feel they can safely reopen their doors right now . Wolf, i dont know where mr. Savidges report was from, but here in albany, the situation is exaggerated. Were still having deaths as we speak, our rates are declining but i dont think the people in Albany County are quite ready to go back to business as usual. Certainly our people are apprehensive about going into Public Places such as restaurants. And unfortunately, i think the fewer restaurants in town which have opened are not going to have much in the way of revenue in the next few weeks. And you cant blame them. Martin savidge was in atlanta for us, the state capital, the largest city in georgia, and people are nervous there as well, they certainly have reason to be nervous in albany where you are. Georgia Governor Brian Kemp continued the reopening decision even after President Trump said he strongly, his word, strongly disagrees. Do you worry the governor has put the lives, potentially, of albany residents, others in georgia, at risk by reopening despite these warnings . I hope not. But i hope im wrong, but my concern, one of my concerns my westeconcern is for my fello georgians, wolf, but more than that, the governor should have carved out exemptions for places like albany where infection rates continue to be exceedingly high. This state by state approach has some flaws. Lets take pennsylvania. If the rates were coming down in pennsylvania, but pittsburgh remained a hotspot, well, then exceptions should be carved out for pittsburgh, obviously, so that the citizens of that locale could be protected. Did the governor call you and consult with you before making this decision . Ive spoken to several other mayors in georgia, they say they never heard from him. Well, i think thats sort of unfair. The governor had a decision to make and i believe he knows what our position was. We made our position known. And we have requested since the governor expressed his intention to reopen the state, we asked for an exception to albany. We were advised that the governor felt that it was absolutely essential to have universal regulations throughout the state. And the Governors Office did commit to the people of albany and elsewhere that if we see infection rates increase mayor, im going to apologize, im going to interrupt for moment, i want to go to the rose garden and the white house. Mayor, well continue this down the road. Thank you. Today i would like to provide you with an update in our war against the coronavirus. Thanks to our comprehensive strategy and extraordinary devotion to our citizens, we have had such tremendous support all over, we continue to see encouraging signs of progress. Cases in new york area, new orleans, detroit, boston, and houston, are declining. Denver, seattle, philadelphia, washington, d. C. , atlanta, indianapolis, st. Louis, all stable and declining. All parts of the country are either in good shape, getting better, in all cases getting better, and were seeing very little that were going to look at as a super creseding hotspot. Things are moving along. Really a horrible situation that weve been confronted with but theyre moving along. As we express our gratitude for these hardfought gains, however, we continue to mourn with thousands of families across the country as loved ones have been stolen from us by the invisible enemy. We grieve by their side as one family, this Great American family, and we do grieve. We also stand in solidarity with the thousands of americans who are ill and waging a brave fight against the virus. Were doing everything in our power to heal the sick and to gradually reopen our nation and to safely get our people back to work. They want to get back to work. And they want to get back to work soon. Theres a hunger for getting our country back and its happening and its happening faster than people would think. Ensuring the health of our economy is vital to ensure the health of our nation. These goals work in tandem. They work side by side. Its clear that our aggressive strategy to slow the spread has been working and is saving countless lives. For those who are infected, we have taken unprecedented action to ensure they have the highest level of care anywhere in the world. The federal government has built more than 11,000 extra beds, shipped or delivered hundreds of millions of pieces of personal protective equipment, as you know, in fact some of the people here are going to be talking about it, some of our greatest executives, some of the greatest anywhere in the world, and distributed over 10,000 ventilators and we now have in a very short period of time, many have been delivered and hundreds of thousands are being built. And frankly every governor has more ventilators right now than they know what to do with, theyre actually shipping them to different locations and were shipping some to our allies and others throughout the world because we have ventilators like, uh, the job that theyve done in getting this very complex piece of equipment built is actually incredible. You dont hear about ventilators anymore except in a positive way. Weve launched the most ambitious testing effort, likewise, on earth. The United States has now conducted more than 5. 4 million tests, nearly double the number tested in any other country, more than twice as much as any other country. Think of that. Moments ago i came from a meeting with some of our nations largest retailers including walmart, walgreens, cvs, rite aid and kroger. Were joined by the leaders of those Great Companies. And we also have with us the leaders from the worlds top medical Diagnostics Companies and suppliers, thermo fisher, labcorp, quest, u. S. Cotton, and the American Clinical Laboratory association. These are great, Great Companies. These private sector leaders along with others such as roche, abbott, becton dickinson, cephaheid, have been unprecedented partners. The job theyve done has been incredible. The testing thats been developed and being developed right now has been truly an amazing thing. I want to thank Abbott Laboratories for the job theyve done. I want to thank roche, and in particular those two have really stepped forward. Abbott with a fiveminute test that people can take and in five minutes they know what the answer is. I would like to ask, if i could, the executives of these Great Companies and, uh, they have really helped us a lot over the last 45day period, were talking about a 45day period when many of us met and since then what walmart and the others have done has been nothing short of amazing. So i just want to ask them to come forward and say a few words about their company. Plus theyre going to make a big contribution to our country. Please come forward, please. Thank you. All right. Were going to continue to monitor that event over there in the rose garden, once the questions from the reporters start, well go back to it. Well keep you up to speed on whats going on. The president voicing some encouraging words that things are moving along and suggesting 5. 4 million tests have already been done here in the United States, more than anywhere else. Kaitlan collins, youre our White House Correspondent. We had been told he would make two major announcements on testing. I didnt hear any major, specific announcements, at least not yet, did you . Reporter no. So far it looks like hes just inviting these ceos up on stage. Were waiting to hear what he lays out about these documents, these are two documents the president discussed on a call, the white house discussed on a call with governors early. Basically one lays out what the Administration Says theyve done so far on testing. So there arent any updates in that. The second is a blueprint for basically how they envision things Going Forward as they start to see states open up because, wolf, you know as well as i do thats been the number one concern for states, theyre looking at how to reopen their communities. They say they want to reopen but theyre not sure if theyre there yet on testing. Weve heard those concerns echoed by doctors on the president s own Coronavirus Task force team. Were waiting to see what updates we actually get from the president about whats going to be different about this testing. What it looks like from the blueprint document we obtained from someone who was on the call with the white house earlier, they still believe it will be up to the states to handle the majority of this and local governments to execute the actual tests. And they say the federal government will be a supplier of last resort, basically, something that the president and his other aides including Jared Kushner have been saying for some time now. So the question is really going to be what are they saying thats going to satisfy these questions weve seen from states over the last few days as theyre moving forward with testing. And wolf, were looking at this rose garden event. The president has got the ceos who were in the meeting with him earlier today, and theyre including walmart, target, several other stores. Remember, those were the same ceos that were with the president in the rose garden in march when the president was touting the Public Private partnership where they were going to be doing testing in parking lots, the president said. That was an effort that floundered for several weeks, we reported at cnn, and its just now starting to pick up more steam with several of these companies starting to basically implement that drivethrough testing, which is not happening in a lot of their parking lots. The question will be, coming out of this, what are the updates . Because you have to remember, they werent going to fihave th briefing today, that the white house announced. Were still waiting to see if the president will take questions because the president got so much backlash for the remarks he made on thursday, of course. Then on friday there was a very short little briefing in the briefing room, 22 minutes, and the president didnt answer any questions on friday. There was no briefing saturday, no briefing yesterday. Lets see if the president answers questions in the rose garden after all these executives make some remarks. Dana bash is with us as well. Dana, its unfolding right now, this event in the rose garden, as theres a lot of concern at the white house, were told, about the format, how to go forward with these Coronavirus Task force briefings and what the role of the president as opposed to the doctors and the scientists should be. Thats right, which is why as kaitlan was just reporting, it was a late add that he had this rose garden event in the first place. The White House Press secretary said there would be no briefing today, and there werent briefings saturday and sunday, which is different from what weve seen, as you know, wolf, hes been working every day so you know what happens on the weekends. The one thing that is going to be interesting is whether or not the president does talk about those two documents that kaitlan mentioned, the two documents that were presented to the governors on this call today, because it is something that is giving some governors a little ray of hope. I spoke to one of the governors who was on that call today who said that they have spent that the white house has spent three days making calls to individual governors, the administration, i should say, members of the task force, saying what do you need, tell us exactly your asks are when it comes to testing. Swabs, everything, reagents, everything that goes into doing a proper test. And so the governors gained that information. And what the call today was, was just kind of Touching Base with the governor saying, we hear you, were going to try to get you what you need and were going to tell what you we can get you in the next couple of days. This governor i spoke to said they hope its going to be concrete, but when they actually give a timeline and a commitment, theyll see. This governor said this was at least a commitment to give us a commitment, which is way more than they have gotten on a broad and a very clear strategic scale to date. Sanjay, dr. Sanjay gupta is with us still. Sanjay, the president says more than 5. 4 million tests here in the United States have already been done. We all know and youve been making this a very, very strong point, dr. Fauci has made it a strong point, a lot more needs to be done to deal with this crisis. Yeah, wolf, i mean, i think, you know, people have different ways of sort of approaching these numbers. I think looking at the absolute number is probably not the really critical point or even comparing us to other countries is not the critical point. I think the better way to sort of look at this is to say, are we getting to the point of testing where were actually starting to feel like were doing surveillance, like were getting an idea ofs going on in the communities. And one way to think about that is that when your test results, when youre starting to get 10 of the results coming back positive, so the majority are coming back negative but 10 are coming back positive, thats sort of an indication that youre testing enough. So that has nothing to do with the absolute tests. In some places you may not need to test as much to get a 10 positive, in some places you may have to test a lot more. That may be a better way to look at that. If you look at it backwards, what does that mean . Probably 1 to 2 million tests a day is likely what needs to be done around the country. Again, thats not the same in all places around the country, not uniformly distributed. It sort of depends on where you are and how the virus is circulating in those areas. But i think thats the important point, we talk about widely available tests. Its enough tests to really feel confident, now youre starting to actually find the people who have the virus in their the way you know that is you are testing enough people that you are getting a lot of negatives. Thats a good thing. We are not there yet, wolf. I have been looking at these numbers and the positives are 20 or even 30 in some of these places. Until they can get to 10 or below and feel like they have enough tests to keep doing that for a period of time because people may need to be tested more than once. Until we get to that point, it will be hard to get the confidence that we can go out and not infect somebody else and they themselves will not get infected. In georgia, restaurants may be open with social distancing inside the restaurants, but people are scared to go to those, at least the reports we have seen. Another thing you mentioned, false positives, false negatives. How reliable are all of these tests . There are a whole bunch of tests and some are more reliable than others. This is a huge point, wolf. Understandably there was a rush to put the tests out there. People want to get tested for the virus and antibodies. A lot of tests went out that didnt necessarily go through validation meaning you take that test and validate it against a Gold Standard test and see does it match up. Some did, but many didnt. As a result people out there may not know is the test they are taking now, is that a validated test. How much can i trust the results. Some of these tests, even the abbott test which there is now an antibody abbott test which just got approved, but some of the tests it showed the false negative rate was as high as 15 . That means 15 people out of 100 had the virus but were told they didnt. You could see the problem there, wolf. Part of the reason they do these tests is to isolate people who have the virus. But i think also psychologically to Start Building some confidence that i can know. Do i have this virus, do i not. Am i going to infect somebody else or take this back to my home and infect my family or will i not. We have to be able to say that with confidence. It is not an easy task. These are challenging tests to make. A lot of people are working on them, but we have to get to that point where it is a reliable test and it can be done quickly and where the person is. They know how to get the tests, know how to get the results quickly. We will get to that, but we are not there yet. You get a test result and they say you have nothing to worry about, but you really do and only find out later that you really do and it could cause major problems and if you are given opposite information, it could cause major problems. We need these tests to be better. Stand by for a moment. I dont think there was a formal coronavirus meeting in the white house situation room today. I dont think there was one yesterday either. Give us perspective on that. There was no briefing today. There wasnt one scheduled. They didnt meet yesterday but they met saturday. For them not to meet two days in a row is notable. They have basically met every single day since they were assembled at the end of february. The president put Vice President pence in charge and they met every day. Typically these meetings can be long because they are going over the latest data and numbers before they come out to brief the press, something that happened almost every day except easter weekend. There wasnt a press briefing on saturday and was unrnnt one su and friday only one question was answered. It seems like they are trying to change this in the white house. Some aides hope they can scale this back. They dont think the president should be coming out as much unless he can provide updates about the coronavirus. They believe these q and a can go offscript and it can go like we saw thursday. The president was briefed about the dhs study and about light and what it can do to the coronavirus on hard surfaces and thats where the president took another turn at it about using things within the body. And there was that backlash. This was not on the schedule as of this morning. They had a briefing and canceled it. They said it was a mistake. They didnt mean to put it on the schedule and now they are having this News Conference. The question is if it is a president ial statement or if they take questions. The question Going Forward is whether or not they continue to hold daily briefings. We have sources telling us they are trying to scale those back. But we are also told they may scale the Coronavirus Task force back as well. Times this white house stand by for a moment. The president is back at the microphone in the rose garden. I would say as thrilled as they can be considering the fact is that there has been so much unnecessary death in this country. It could have been stopped and stopped short, but somebody a long time ago it seems decided not to do it that way and the whole world is suffering because of it. 184 countries at least. I want to thank these great businessmen and women. My administration has urged unused Testing Capacity be used in states. A week ago we provided each governor with a list of names, addresses and phone numbers with the labs where they could find additional Testing Capacity. Within 48 hours the numbers across the u. S. Again to skyrocket. On saturday alone more than 200,000 test results were reported which is a gigantic number. A number that is an increase from earlier in the month when we tested less than 100,000 a day. So we have much more than doubled it and that will be doubling again shortly. We are continuing to rapidly expand our capacity and confident we have enough testing to begin the reopening process. We want to get our country open. Testing is not going to be a problem at all. In fact it is going to be one of the great assets. Today we are going to release a testing plan for states for a phased reopening. A blueprint on the testing platform, conduct contact tracing. Other countries are calling saying how do you do it. We are dealing with a lot of countries helping them on testing, just like the ventilators. I directed medicare to make it easier for seniors to get the testing they need and pharmacies, as you know, we are allowing pharmacies to do testing. We have other testing locations that we are going to be allowing also. Having pharmacies get involved in testing is a very big deal. We are asking governors to do the same in their Medicaid Program so they will be able and authorized to do the same. That is a big deal. We are deploying the full power and strength of the federal government to help states, cities, help local government get this horrible plague over with and over with fast. There is Tremendous Energy in our country. Energy like people havent seen in a long time. A spirit that they have not seen. We are doing very well. Very well. Considering what happened to us and considering if you look at what happened to others, this is something that the world has not seen for a long, long time. You can probably go back to 1917 where it was a terrible period of time. You all know what happened in 1917, over 100 years ago. With that i would like to introduce, if i might, dr. Birx. Between the two of you, you will explain the entire process and how much progress we have made and where we are going. Thank you, mr. President. So the blueprint lays out the roles and responsibilities to enhance our partnership between the private sector and the Public Sector bringing together state and local governments with the federal government to ensure that we can accomplish and achieve our Core Principles and objectives. The correllments of the testing plan include three elements, robust diagnostic testing plans developed in partnership with states. I want to thank the governors and at state and local official who is have been working with us day and night. As well as the American Society of microbiology who have been working with us to be sure the plan is effective. Within the robust diagnostic testing plan, it is unlocking the full capacity of the state. We have multiple tests for different platforms. Increasing the ability to collect samples, ensuring that we Work Together to be sure every