Totally honest. Like the entire world flipped upside down. We will get there. Well get past it. Theres still a long way to go. Its good to see the numbers start to flatten. Those first couple weeks were a war zone. Thats not the case right now. We extubated my patient and its kind of exhilarating when we do it. Its happy. Thats what we cling to. Thats what i cling to. There is hope. None of my coworkers regret this. We are here to help our patients. Pandemic or not, were here. Stay safe, continue social distancing. Well keep doing our part. You keep doing yours. Kind of more of an uplifting open today. Everybody do your part. The medical workers on the front lines of this fight. Good evening. Im chuck todd on meet the press. Continuing the breaking coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. We begin tonight with the hope that we are finally going to get a concrete plan from the president to address the issue of coronavirus testing. But it is hope. Administration officials tell nbc news that todays briefing in roughly one hour is going to focus on testing. Which comes as experts, Business Leaders, members of congress and governors of both sides of the aisle have been repeatedly sounding the alarm that there has not been enough testing and in many of these states, most of the states they dont have enough equipment to make it so. The president disagrees and hes publicly pushing some states, by name, to reopen their economies despite yesterday telling those same governors that he wants them to call the shots on when and how to ease social distancing restrictions. The president is also feuding with the governor at the epicenter of the crisis in this country, new yorks Governor Cuomo. Well have more on that in a moment. While the president is obviously eager to reopen the country, no one feels comfortable reopening until they get more tests. Ahead of this briefing, the president again today signalled he was trying to wash his hands of federal responsibility saying, quote, the states have to step up their testing. He also took to social media with rallying cries to liberate michigan, minnesota and virginia. All of which are coincidentally potential key states for his 2020 reelection. And all of them coincidentally, have democratic governors. Again, none of them have tested even 1 of their populations and none have seen a sustained reduction in confirmed cases yet. Not in michigan, not in virginia either. As you can see by the data. Not in minnesota where protesters pushing to reopen the state were featured on fox news minutes before the president s tweets. Remember, criteria number one from the president s own guidelines is that states have to see two weeks of sustained decreases in cases before considering reopening parts of their economy. And as you can see from the data, states everywhere are still seeing cases go up. Even red state governors like texas is greg abbott are signaling theyre not ready to move as quickly as the president might want them to. Right now the number of confirmed cases totals roughly 700,000 with more than 35,000 deaths and as the president s task force warned, theres a number of undetected asymptomatic cases unless you test more people. Until you focus on a Marshall Plan for testing, the president is attacking Governor Cuomo. Including not being appreciative enough of the president. Heres some of cuomos response first on testing. The expression dont pass the buck without passing the bucks. Hes saying he doesnt want to provide funding to the states and he doesnt want to help on testing. I can tell you the states cant do it otherwise. If this testing doesnt work, thats a serious problem. Youre going to say after just saying this Monumental Task is up to the individual governors and the individual states, im providing no help. No assistance, no financial money. I understand that Small Businesses need the funding. By the way, i know that Airlines Need a bailout. But not the states. Why dont you show as much consideration to states as you did to your big businesses and to your airlines, right . As we look ahead to todays briefing, it seems all but certain that the president is going to escalate this fight. Heres more from Governor Cuomo responding to the president s criticisms. I dont know what im supposed to do. Send a bouquet after flowers. Hes being honest. Its up to the states to reopen. By the way, it was always up to the states. What are you going to grant me what the constitution gave me before you were born . Its called the tenth amendment. I dont need the president of the United States to read the constitution for me. Maybe he should have read the contusion before he said he had constitution before he said he had the power to open the states. Peter alexander is with us and heidi preis bill a is here. The president felt like a bystander. Yesterday he announces the guidelines and then hes like, okay, what are you doing states . Liberate this, liberate that with a clear political tingi to it. I assume that wasnt the intention of the Task Force Members yesterday. Its striking. A day after you hear from the task force with the guidelines that what set up by those medical experts here, it was basically hey to the governors, this is in your court. Now the president changing his tune and saying, hey you got to reopen to those states. On the issue of testing, consider the ricocheting opinions weve heerd on this issue from the president. A couple of weeks ago, i dont take any responsibility at all. A couple of days ago saying i have total authority on these topics and then again today as evidenced, try to put it in the lap of the states right now. Because this is really the fundamental vulnerability for this white house. They recognize it. Privately acknowledging this has been a serious problem. Speaking with allies of the president , former officials, they all agree to that right now. I spoke to a white house official late this afternoon who said that next month they will have significantly more tests. I asked why those tests werent available until now. This person pushed back and effectively said that a lot of those tests and the testing kits already exist in the states insisting its the governors problem that they havent done a good enough job keeping track of where the tests are. This individual suggested that right now at least their goal is to focus on making sure that everybody who has a symptom can be diagnosed, can get a test in the weeks ahead. The bottom line of this is that none of it, chuck, obviously resolves the issue that exists now. Now several months into this process, thoes tests arent there. Peter, this may be an unanswerable question. What is the phobia with the president and the task force about having responsibility on ramping up testing . Nobody is expecting this to be easy. Nobody was expecting one governor to handle it and one state. Its not a criticism if the federal government has to be the force here, yet it does seem as if the white house has decided any talk of testing is an admission of failure. Why dont they just embrace the fact that this is hard and lead . The president claims total authority on the topic he doesnt have authority. On this toing where he does have authority, he controls the defense production act. In the words of the governor, he could invoke that and help us get the tests we need. The president has done nothing. This is classic trump. I dont have to tell you that. Its clear to anybody watching right now about things where he thinks he stands to gain. He likes to take credit on virusrelated issues. On things like testing, where there are problems, the president likes to put the blame elsewhere. Its something, i think, ultimately the federal government is their hands are going to be forced here when you talk to these governors. Let me bring in heidi przybyla. I know youve been talking to experts. The scale of test and weave been talking to other experts too, the amount of tests that are needed and the amount of tests weve conducted, its a wide gap. I mean, basically 1 of the population and theres some people think you have to test 1 of the population every week. Chuck, were nowhere near there in term of where the epidemiological experts, as well as the Health Disaster experts are saying to nbc news. That number that you just cited, the 1 , would have to at least under the most conservative of estimates double to triple. That is the most conservative. A lot of the experts we talked to say it would have to be in the tens of thousands per day. So what is happening here . Number one, there is a Global Supply chain shortage of these kits as well as the swabs, the reagents. The kits used to extract them. Number one, we got in late, in line late for those items. Number two, the federal government isnt setting the goals. As you heard peter say, he said significantly more. Were still not being told what is the goal . Okay, states, heres the percentage of the population that you need to be testing in order to know that you have an epidemiologically significant sample size and youre getting reliable data on the testing, what the numbers are in terms of the spread. You look at the countries doing a good job of this, germany, south korea. Theyre doing that at a federal level. Lower sacks on i, you got to the scaling, dr. Birx yesterday was asked, what does the percentage have to be . How many tests need to be put out there for us to be confident whether this is spreading. Its still out there. As soon as you lift the lid, for example, like new york, you could see another big surge. Secondly, chuck, is the Contact Tracing. That is something that were just not doing. It wasnt part of the guidelines. That is essential if you look to countries like germany and south korea. If you talk Contact Tracing, very labor intensive. Again, that might take something bigger than one state can handle. Both of you, thank you forg getting us started. Let me get a perspective from Ohio Governor mike dewine. I think ill be speaking to him in a couple of days as well. Fw governor, let me start with what we picked up on. Somebody ive quoted a lot, i love that first quote she said, before pandemic begins, everybody thinks the sky is falling. After a pandemic is rolling, everybody acts why you didnt act sooner. That gets smarter and smarter every time i read it. What is your Testing Capacity have to be to make you feel comfortable opening the state . Well. Our testing is increasing, chuck. But its not increasing nearly fast enough. We want to do a lot more testing. You know, we try to drill down every day when i get a report where we are. The reagent that was mentioned a moment ago is a problem. Weve got hospitals chomping at the bit. Theyve got the capacity to do it. But they get the reagent is literally rationed as it comes in. We need some help probably from the fda to wide theres companies, theyve got some things coming online. A reagent is one problem. The other problem is when you get out into the field for the people doing the swabbing. Many times they dont have a swab. What we did in ohio, Ohio State University and our Health Department got together, formed a group and theyre working every day to get more swabs out. Theyre doing it, the liquid that goes into the tubes and all those things, that is starting to work. Were making progress. Were not where we would like to be, certainly. This reagent issue, is this something you think if the defense production act were invoked, we could not have a rationing situation . You know, im not an expert on it, chuck. Im not sure about that. But i just know what our hospitals are telling us. You know, they would love to go full blown out and they could do that. But it is a reagent problem that literally is ration to them every week. That limits every day how many tests they can do. Since its a huge we can talk about its not all of the problem. Its part of the problem. Right. You had said youve laid out some ways that you may a very soft opening. Release of the steam valve, if you will a little bit. I assume youre like every other governor ive been talking to. Youve got Health Officials in one year, Business Leaders in another ear and youre trying to strike that balance. What is your biggest fear about may 1 . Is it opening too much or opening too little . Well, thats a good question. Were going to try to do some of the businesses that weve classified as essential, with the exception of a product that they produce are not much different from ones that weve not allowed to open. Were going to look at some of those that have not been allowed to open, let them open. Weve learned some things in three or four weeks. Weve had companies doing a bangup job as far as safety. I talked to a friend of mine, eastern part of the state the other day, i hadnt talked to him for a while. Hes got a tile company. He told me took him five minute to tell me the safety things theyre doing. I asked him how many people its a pretty big company. I said how many have come down with covid19 . He said to our knowledge, nobody. So hes had some luck, no doubt. There are also we can do these things and so taking what weve learned and then trying to expand the businesses that are doing that is important. Because if you just look at the Public Health side, a down economy is not particularly helpful for Public Health. Its not helpful. Our suicides go up, depression goes up. All kinds of bad things happen. We got to get the balance there. It seems that you have another challenge. On one hand, you acted early. You flat end your curve early. You sort of kept this at bay. It also means there are parts of your state that have gotten through this really well. Some of those counties are going to say, hey, governor, love ya, we want to open everything up, but they perhaps border michigan that has its own outbreak. How are you going to manage that those counties that sit there like on one hand they havent theyre doing well. On the other hand, theyre awfully close to some bigger outbreaks in southeast michigan. Well, one of the challenges as you know is people can have this and never know it. They can become big spreaders. Because we dont have the robust testing, some of the counties that dont have high numbers, they could have a lot of people Walking Around with that. This thing could take off very, very quickly. Quick story. Our prisons. We have like other states, problems in our prisons. We started really testing and my director told me this morning, she went into one area and over 100 people and 39 of them tested positive, not only positive. But 39 of the people that tested positive had absolutely no symptoms. No symptoms at all. Checked them every single day. Theyre taking their temperature, theyre checking them, doing everything they should do. 39 of the people who are positive had no symptoms. That is a scary thing. Thats something that bothers me. Its we tell the public every single day, you got to assume that the person youre talking to or close to has these. You dont know if they dont. Governor, youve faced a few protesters this week, the president earlier today on twitter seemed to encourage some of the protests. Not in your state. He did it in michigan, minnesota, virginia. Not with you. Look, politics is i get that. Is the president doing this to other governors, do you think that harms your ability to keep the state keep the state safe if you feel as if politics is being used to sort of force your hand . No. No. You know, look protesters are protesters. We believe in the first amendment. They have a right to be out there and a right to demonstrate. I grew up in yellow springs, a community in southwest ohio where we had protesters literally every weekend. Look, thats fine. Theres no problem. Were going to do what we need to do and what we think is the right thing to do. Do you wish the president wouldnt be involved in it . Well, look, the president is aspirational about wanting to open and you know, he expresses, i think, what most americans think. That is hey, we would love to get back. Wed love to get people back working. We all feel that way. You know, the white house is, frankly, whenever ive called them, theyve been very, very helpful in dealing with specific problems that we had. Governor dewine, youve, i think one of the more outspoken, one of the more aggressive on this. I appreciate you sharing your views with the public. I think its important for people outside of ohio to hear what youre up to. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. Coming up, the reality of the reopening. Italy takes its first steps out of lockdown. What lessons could we learn from them . Plus, what are the next steps really going to look like and how normal will the new normal be . Plus, potentially promising information about a coronavirus treatment. Not a vaccine, but boy, it would help. Chicago ok, so, magnificent mile for me i thought i was managing. My moderate to severe Crohns Disease. Yes until i realized something was missing. Me. You ok, sis . My symptoms kept me from being there for my sisters. Flight boarding for flight 2007 to chicago. So i talked to my doctor and learned. Humira is for people who still have symptoms of Crohns Disease after trying other medications. And the majority of people on humira saw significant symptom relief. And many achieved remission in as little as 4 weeks. Humira can lower your ability to fight infections. Serious and sometimes fatal infections, including tuberculosis, and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened, as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. Tell your doctor. If youve been to areas where certain fungal infections are common and if youve had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections. Or have flulike symptoms or sores. Dont start humira if you have an infection. Be there for you, and them. Ask your doctor about humira. With humira, remission is possible. If you cant afford your medicine, abbvie may be able to help. Your cells. Trillions of them. If you cant afford your medicine, thats why centrum contains 24 key nutrients to feed your cells, supporting your energy so you can take care of what matters most. Centrum. Feed your cells. Fuel your life. Welcome back. As governors across the country grapple with how and when to reopen, there may be good news on the horizon. A possible but experimental treatment, not the drug the president has been pushing. Not independently verified by nbc news. University of chicago medical doctors have had some success treating severe coronavirus patients with remdesivir. University of chicago doctors treated 125 coronavirus patients with the antiviral drug. Most of the patients had severe cases and most of them were discharged from the hospital. Two patients did die. The hospital is one of a number of participants in this global clinical study. But news comes on the same day the nih announce success with its own study of the drug that they were using on monkeys. Joining me now, a familiar face around these parts. Dr. Gupta, a pulmonologists, pandemics expert and nbc medical contributor. Dr. Gupta, i dont want to assume youre an expert on all of these drugs, remdesivir, but what about that drug that treat ebola that you understand about it that makes it perhaps a treatment for a severe case of the coronavirus . Thanks, chuck. So a few things just to level the side. First of all, to your point, this is an antiviral drug that has shown activity against ebola. Also other coronaviruses. Sars and mers previously to that. We thought that maybe this would have applications to covid19. Indeed, in non in socalled in vitro studies, not in the human body, seemed like there was efficacy, effectiveness against the coronavirus 19. It prompted phase one studies in the pharmaceutical world. Is this drug safe, potentially for use in humans . Now its phase two, phase three. What youre referencing in the university of chicago is giving us cautious optimism. I personally cared for patients on this drug in the icu. What we mean by severe covid is maybe theyre on a ventilator, theyre requiring a lot of oxygen. And what were seeing Observational Data is that if they get this drug, in one case in the new england journal published on april 10th, 68 of individuals that got this drug that were requiring icu level care did well. They had improvement in clinical outcomes. Were seeing Observational Data out of the university of chicago, part of a larger analysis led by gilead sciences. Were hoping, waiting with baited breath what the results are. I want to say two things. One, theres not a control. Intervention on one side, do nothing to a placebo on the other and assess effectiveness. We dont have that control arm. Heres why that matters. Hydroxychloroquine, you mentioned that ant ma layerial that president talks about a lot, what were seeing in small studies out of france is actually people in randomized control trials, theyre small trials, no effectiveness but harm potentially in those who get that drug. Science matters. The right tests matter to determine what is helpful. Dr. Gupta, and you may lecture me for being too hopeful with this question. But being able to find a drug that treats the virus, say, by the end of the summer, something that could be used to treat this virus by the end of the summer, what kind of impact can that have on our societal needs of social distancing and things like that prevaccine . Is that going to inform theres going to be a lot of public pol if we have a treatment to save you from death, i want to open up the economy more. You see where that would start to go in line. Is that something to hope for . Absolutely, chuck. I mean, right now were saying social distancing has to be in parallel with more icu beds and more testing. The reason were saying more icu beds with relaxing social distancing is we dont really know what to expect. Were hopeful, but if were wrong on the models, more people will have to come see me and my colleagues in the icu. But if we have a therapy, that is an off load. That depressure eyeses the system. Thats a panacea. Potentially a magic bullet where you dont need as much in Critical Care capacity. It would be revolutionary and very important. Yes, absolutely. It should impact those considerations if the data bears itself out. How hard is it for the at this point, does anybody with a severe case of this virus have an opportunity to get on this drug . So the data published in the new england journal and that we know right now, thats compassionate use basis. Thats a doctor like me and my colleagues going i want my patient to get this drug. In most cases, if a hospital, if the Clinical Trial site or this drug, you can get it. Those rules are dhanging. Its not necessarily in every case thats occurred. Ive heard of cases where individuals have not been able to get it because so many people want it. There is a supply demand issue. In the best case scenario, yes, you should be able to get this drug. Hopefully, once therapy is clarified and as are the adverse effects, then we can open up the spigot even more with federal help. I hate belaboring the testing point with you because i feel like you and i have done this a gazillion times. But it does steam as if the disconnect seem as if disconnect is getting more difficult to reconnect. The reagents and the swabs, i heard governor dewine, i dont know if you caught that. He said both are issues. What is this reagent and how hard is it to get . He says its being rationed. Explain where this reagent comes from and who is rationing it. Well, so you need to transport, its called the transport media. Not to get too jargony. Lets say i put the swab into my nose. Unless you have a test that can be done on the spot, which is the abbott test for exam exam, you have the accoutrements there. You can clear an employee or Health Care Worker on the spot. In most cases you take that sample, we take that swab, screw it into a tube where theres transport media to keep the sample, the dna of covid potentially stable so it doesnt break down. Right. Thats critical. So we can send it to a lab to run it. So what governor dewine, who i think is doing a good job is noting that theyre rationing it, theyre dividing it up so more tubes can have the right transport media. This is where quality becomes an issue. At what point do we start rationing that reagent such that we actually lose good sam am, so that the tests becomes a poorer quality. The thing, chuck, we dont talk enough about, these tests are just going live. The flu test that is the same type of swab test that weve been doing year after year after year is falsely negative 30 of the time. We have no idea what the sensitivity of these tests really are. Here we are rationing reagents. This should give us pause and as we think about scaling mass testing. The actual this reagent itself, why is it so difficult to get . Well, i dont think or produce. Its a good question. No supplier has expected to produce enough reagent for 330 million americans, much less this population. Theres only so Many Companies producing this under certain quality standards that meet the fda guideline. I say thats important because the United Kingdom just sourced 3plus million swabs with reagent that they deemed ineffective. It was a big embarrassment for the government. Wow. This seems easier said than done and its easy to manipulate. Get products that dont meet quality standards on the market and the United Kingdom, unfortunately, fell victim to that. You keep making the case you cant have 50 different places speeting for this stuff. You got to have one national coordination. Dr. Vin gupta, as always, thank you. Ill be seeing you in a little bit in the next hour as we listen to the president and the Coronavirus Task force briefing. Up ahead, local lawmakers across the country are facing the same key question. What is the right time to reopen . Im going to talk to the mayor of one major city weighing that very difficult decision. There will be parties again soon, and family gatherings. There will be parades and sporting events and concerts. To help our communities when they come back together, respond to the 2020 census now. Spend a few minutes online today to impact the next 10 years of healthcare, infrastructure and education. Go to 2020census. Gov and respond today to make americas tomorrow brighter. Its time to shape our future. Dont bring that mess around here, evan whoo dont do it. Dont you dare. 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Better life. Welcome back. As weve been saying, President Trump is leaving it up to governors to decide when its time to reopen their states. The mayors with a best sense of how their cities are faring. South carolina is one example that has over 4,000 cases statewide. 116 deaths. But nearly half of South Carolina cases are in two media markets, charleston and columbia. Two of the largest communities in the state. So while parts of South Carolina may be ready to reopen in days or weeks, other parts of the state may need longer to begin that process. With me is the mayor of charleston, South Carolina. Youre going to have an interesting unique situation where whats good for some parts of South Carolina perhaps isnt going to be what works for you. What kind of conversations are you having with the governor about reopening . Thank you, chuck. Welcome to beautiful and historic charleston. The requirements that we have for reopening are very similar to other places in the country, which include a low prevalence of new cases or reduction in the rate of increase in cases, number one. Number two, that our Health Care System can handle the projected increase in cases and thirdly, to make sure we have a robust testing and Contact Tracing capabilities in place. Now, believe it or not, in charleston, were pretty good shape on the first two of those items because we started staying at home early when it was most effective. Our rate of increase has been on a good slope for the last couple of weeks. So thats tracking along nicely for our region. Secondly, were blessed to be home to teaching hospital, medical university and other hospitals so we believe we have capacity to handle the projected surge. But the thing we need to work on the most is the testing capability and Contact Tracing and weve been in touch with the governor about his plans for reopening and believe were in sync in that regard. Well, mr. Mayor, i have to say, some people might accuse us of being a broken record and of elected officials being a broken record. Youre saying the same issue that we run across in every state and locality in this country and that is the testing issue. How to ramp it up and what is your choke point . What are you struggling with . Is it personnel . Is it kits . What is it that is hampering your ability to test as much as you want to test . Well, again, luckily were relying on a Health Care Professionals and system, including medical university in South Carolina and our department of health of the state and i think its been the supply chain of getting the tests on the ground here, the medical university now has hundreds of thousands of tests on order. They ramped up early to be able to do local testing. But it took a while to get the numbers up. Still, were waiting for supplies to come in to be able to say, we checked that last box, to be able to safely and strategically start opening back up again. We hope it will be soon and, again, im blessed that our citizens have done a wonderful job of cooperating and staying at home and staying distanced because it has kept that it has flattened the curve here. It has kept those numbers down and kept charleston from becoming a hotspot which we believe will lead to our resilience and rebound as our economy even better. But whats important right now . To not let off the brake. Is to continue to stay at home and safely distance and practice great hygiene so that we continue to flatten that curve until those conditions are met. The supply issue, is this something the state can provide or is this something you need fema and the feds to do when it comes to testing supplies . It is something that our local medical university and state department of health are working on and have those supplies on order, been develop their own local testing capability. They didnt have any local testing capability right from the getgo, so its been a work in progress. Theyve made some progress. But we still got a little ways to go. Thats the missing link right now. You were pretty optimistic. You did a virtual opening day for the charleston river dogs. You think people are going to physically be able to go to a baseball game this summer . Thats questionable. To gather large crowds is a questionable thing until theres a safe treatment, effective treatment or a vaccine. By the way, were having another virtual celebration tomorrow. We had hoped to have a huge communitywide gathering, but obviously that got put off. Tomorrow, april 18th, is charlestons 350th birthday. So happy birthday to charleston. All right. When we were founded. Well, mr. Mayor, happy birthday to the probably, no offense to my friends in new orleans, but the single best city to eat in, in the south. Look, i think we all look forward to eating out again in the great city of charleston soon. Mr. Mayor, thanks for coming on and sharing. Hope we welcome you here soon. Thank you. Up next, an update on one of the biggest coronavirus clusters in the nation and what the south dakota meat plant outbreak means for the disruption of groceries coming to your kitchen table. So you only pay for what you need [squawks] only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. [ aevery box has a mission to protect everything inside from everything outside. That is where the true glory lies. When whats inside matters, [ doorbell rings ]. Count on boxes. Paper and packaging. How life unfolds. Thats ensure max protein, with high protein and 1 gram sugar. Its a situp, banana bend at the waist im tryin keep it up. Youll get there. 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So abbott is getting new tests into their hands, delivering the critical results they need. And until this fight is over, we. Will. Never. Quit. Because they never quit. Welcome back. Weve been following the coronavirus outbreak at the smithfield pork plant in sioux falls, south dakota. It includes close to 800 cases. Nearly 150 of their friends and family, over half of the overall cases in the state. The sioux falls plant is far from the only one impacted by covid19. Smithfield has already closed two other plants in missouri and wisconsin and beef and poultry plants all over the country have had to shut their doors temporarily due to sick employees, tyson chicken plant in georgia, sadly died from it. Its impacting americas meat supply. The wall street journal reported today that americans are stocking up on meat as the amount of factories are able to produce at this time have dropped off significantly. The bottom line is get ready, the meat aisle might look like the rice aisle has looked. Blayne alexander has been reporting on the outbreak in sioux falls and the larger impact its having on food supply chains. She joins me now. All right, blayne. How impactful is this going to be for the average consumer . Chuck you nailed it when you talked about the rice aisle. Theyve likened it to the run on toilet paper. There is a concern about panic buying. People stocking up. What we can likely expect to see is some stores limiting the amount of meat that you can purchase. You might see some signs saying you can only take one packet of ground beef for example. Thats certainly one thing that people are concerned about. The National Grocers association is trying to calm shoppers down. Look, the supply chain needs time to catch up. That will happen. In the meantime, yes, you could see some of the products either trarl out of stock or running very low. The big question to all of this, chuck, is how long this is going to last. Thats the big variable. Every day that i talked with you about this, it seems weve had new plants that we can report that have either had to shut down for two days, two weeks, indefinitely. Every time, that means there are massive amounts of meat that are not going through those plants. One other point i want to make, chuck, is even for the plants that are up and running, still operational, many of them have had to reduce output. Slow down the line and spread out workers. Even those still working are putting out less product. The biggest example, of course, submitfield foods in sioux falls, south dakota. Thats why this report from the cdc is going to be so crucial. Because that team is charged with going in and trying to find out what is a safe way to open this place up back for business. How far do employees need to be spaced . In some cases that can be a bellwether for the other plants dealing with the same situation, chuck. Yeah. For all we know, theyre going to have to reconfigure all of these Meat Processing plants around the country for the foreseeable future. Blayne alexander, terrific reporting on this today and all week long. Thank you. Italy begins to open back up. But what can we learn from their approach . Something weve all been curious about. Weve been just following italy, a week behind where they are. Lets see where they are. Well check it out after the break. These days, its anything but business as usual. Thats why working together is more important than ever. At t is committed to keeping you connected. So you can keep your patients cared for. Your customers served. Your students inspired. And your employees closer than ever. Our network is resilient. Our people are strong. Our job is to keep your business connected. Its what weve always done. Its what well always do. At philof cream cheese. W what makes the perfect schmear you need only the freshest milk and cream. That one and the worlds best, and possibly only, schmelier. Philadelphia. Schmear perfection. What do you look for when i want free access to research. Yep, td ameritrades got that. Free access to every platform. Mhm, yeah, that too. I dont want any trade minimums. Yeah, i totally agree, they dont have any of those. I want to know what im paying upfront. Yes, absolutely. Do you just say yes to everything . Hm. Well i say no to kale. Mm. Yeah, they say if you blanch it its better, but that seems like a lot of work. Now offering zero commissions on online trades. We charge you less so you have more to invest. Welcome back. As we count down to the start of todays White House Briefing where we expect President Trump to once again express his eagerness to reopen the economy, its worth looking at italy, because they have been taking measures to slowly restart their economy. Even as the Company Remains in lockdown through the end of the month, earlier this month the Italian Government aloud specific industry, including book stores and stationary shops, first of some nonessential type stores to reopen under strict guidelines as a very cautious economic restart. Also included in the next phase, the development of an app for Contact Tracing and increased Antibody Testing to see who may already have some immunity. Nbc Foreign Correspondent matt bradley has been in rome for quite some time where he has been reporting on italys efforts to reopen their country. Reporter yeah, chuck, its tempting to look at italy as kind of the test case with whats happening with americas reopening, but thats not necessarily the case. The problem is italy doesnt really is a plan right now. They have a task force, a committee that has been appointed by the Prime Ministers Office to try to engineer the gradual reopening of the economy. And we saw the first sightings of that this week. They opened up a curious list of businesses, stationery shop, booksto bookstores, Childrens Clothing thank you so muches and this was a curated list meant to open shops that wouldnt attract a flood of people all of the sudden. But its also a test case. Theyre trying to see whether or not this opening a couple of shops will actually start the respreading of the virus again. But the debate here is kind of interesting. Its following along the very familiar fault lines. Big industry and industry, the socalled made in italy businesses like the major fashion brands, the luxury car industry, those are the things that italian manufacturers are trying to preserve. And theyre worried because the longer that those businesses stay shut, the more of a chance that buyers are going to be going to countries like germany and sourcing their materials, their fashion labels, their cars in places like that rather than here in italy. That could be a major blow to the few industries that this country can claim as their own. Now on the side of the labor union, theyre the ones who are butting up against the major industries. Theyre saying that they need to wait to reopen the industries, that the workers dont have the adequate protection, and that all of this is being done with too much speed and cynical decisions about whether or not workers can be protected when they go back to work. I spoke with an italian epidemiologist. He said that all of this is wrong, basically. He said this is as if you were planning for dday back in world war ii, and all the generals were talking about was the date of the invasion, not the soldiers, the guns or the ships. Everyone here is obsessed with the date of the reopening. And he was frustrated that theyre not actually talking about the actual mechanisms that could be put in place to reopen the economy while at the same time protecting workers, doing things like offering more adequate testing, ensuring social distancing in the workplace, preventing and providing for more people to be able to work from home. This he said isnt part of the conversation, and it really should be. Chuck . Love the dday reference there, matt bradley. That was matt bradley in rome. Thank you and thank you for being with us this hour. And remember, if its sunday, its meet the press on nbc. Were going continue our coverage of the coronavirus. Among my guests will be the Vice President , mike pence, plus a couple of governors, governor dewine and governor witmer. Ill also be back after this break for more coverage of the coronavirus pandemic and our coverage of the task force briefing, which we expect to start some time in the next few minutes. Well see you in a bit. 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