The coronavirus. Acts of kindness well take a look at how volunteers are helping people cope with the stress of the corona far. Less secure live now to the white house where President Donald Trump is giving an update on the coronavirus situation ill and very little meeting he said and from the financial this is a medical situation not a financial situation financial those are moving along very nicely i want to thank you for being here and update you on the progress weve made after a week of extraordinary mobilization in a war against a virus governors mayors the Businesses Charities and citizens are all working with their jency and speed toward one coming goal which is saving american lives. Were in communication with. Foreign countries its now at 148 Foreign Countries can you believe that 100 you talk about a spread you talk about a violence spread 148 countries not even believable theres been a week of National Action and of Great National solidarity people are getting along with getting along. With the. Republicans and democrats and independents and liberals and conservatives and actually its a very nice thing to say were all one beautiful big American Family and thats taking place right now last night approved a major disaster declaration for the state of new york that worked very closely with Governor Cuomo and it is the 1st time in our nations history that a presence use the stafford act to declare a major disaster in response to a Public Health crisis never happened before and considering other areas where we may or may not be doing that and im working very closely with gavin newsom the governor of california and others and we may be doing the same thing depending on their needs filling a what theyre asking for its been unprecedented action in new york and weve had a tremendous federal response all over the country and i want to thank all the people in the federal government and obviously in the state governments and local governments we are working hard everybody is working hard and the people standing alongside of me a working very hard that i can tell you. Weve also reached agreements with canada and mexico on new travel rules at our northern and southern borders to halt the entry of the chinese virus well continuing trade and commerce. And weve had very good talks safe with Prime Minister today and today this morning with president Lopez Obrador and we talked about joint measures that were taken to prevent the spread of the virus in our countries and to temporarily suspend nonessential travel. We had a great conversation this morning the president of mexico and our close cooperation with mexico and canada will keep our people healthy keep their people healthy keep everybody safe yesterday i had a call with 12000 Small Businesses representatives of these businesses thats the engine of our country people dont realize that you know you read all about the big ones but the the Small Business when you have them up together is really the engine economic engine of our country and i assure them that my administration is doing everything within its very considerable considerable power frankly to support them and their employees nobodys ever done what weve done likewise i had calls during the week with. All sorts of representatives and systems like the Hospital System we spoke to many of the Hospital Systems throughout the country nurses and doctors representatives representing hundreds of thousands of nurses and doctors airlines and cruise ship companies. The Business Roundtable which was fully attended and its all of the top c. E. O. s of of our country and beyond frankly the businessmen of. Really these a world a world styled business ben these are businessmen that control the Biggest Companies in the world many of them have taken hits and many of them are just you know Going Forward that theyve that have businesses have been have been great some of been very badly affected some havent been affected at all and frankly some are doing very well they continue to do very well its walmart as an example has been really helpful to us Doug Mcmillan that of walmart really helpful to us and i guess a assume that doing pretty well because we built a certainly by and by much more than even a clip at christmas by substantial numbers Pretty Amazing but theyre doing incredibly they put on tremendous extra staff you dont have empty shelves lot of things that happen that are very good restaurants fast food executives Grocery Stores all retailers literally all of them. In groups and we spoke with the g 7 leaders at length as you know probably know about that. Spoke to many of the governors spoke to almost all of the governors of Conference Calls and many of the governors individually. And very importantly very religious leaders we had a great conversation yesterday the Vice President and myself with the religious leaders of of our country many of the religious leaders and weve had a number of them during the course of the last 2 weeks actually but yesterday we had a very. Very significant call with the religious leaders of our country i signed legislation providing American Workers with paid sick leave unpaid family medical leave at no cost to employers and free testing for those who need it the testing is going very well and the admiral will speak to that along with tony. Were working quickly to pass additional legislation that will provide massive relief to Small Businesses and affected industries and give direct payments to our great workers and hardworking American Families is never been anything like were doing on the hill right now theyre negotiating Mitch Mcconnell chuck schumer. Theyre all up there Kevin Mccarthy and nancy pelosi theyre all they go shooting and everybodys working hard and they want to get to a solution thats the right solution i think were getting very close. Weve also announced that weve moved tax day from april 15th of july 15th which is a big deal giving businesses and individuals extra time to file and pay without interest or penalty so we move the date way back and so itll be july 15th and stead of your traditional april 15th and very importantly. You will have a lot of time but youre not going to have interest penalties or any kind of penalties by filing at that later date heard announced that foreclosures and evictions are suspended for Single Family home owners with f. H. A. Insured mortgages for the next 60 days and. A great head of hud lives with us today ben carson is going to say viewers in a moment the department of education will not enforce standardized testing which is another big deal requirements for students in elementary through high school for the Current School year not fair to do that so we will waiving that i mean for i would imagine its probably the 1st time ever thats been waived but i think its only fair to the students and to the parents of this that it is also waiving interest and other things that were discussing right now on federally held Student Loans and directed that borrowers be allowed to suspend their student loan payments without penalty for at least 60 days and well be talking about Student Loans that the students there are under a great burden right now so we will be talking about that further but were were waiving during this 60 day period various elements and very important elements on Student Loans big subject i signed an executive order invoking the defense production act as you all know giving us powerful new authorities to help states cities and hospitals with your needed supplies. Theres been a clear call to action to the private sector and the call is made right here its been really Pretty Amazing whats happened with the private sector they are really in 6th gear i think which is responded in full force helping to produce and supply much needed masks swabs sanitizes ventilators and Everything Else there is. Is a move on thats incredible right now and by way of example haynes Everybody Knows haynes Great Company great consumer Cotton Products Company is retrofitting its Manufacturing Capabilities in large sections of their plants to produce masks and theyre in that process right now. That in my direction the f. D. A. Has taken rapid steps to make these Items Available for medical use right now in most exciting lee to me is what the f. D. A. Has done in order to get. Possibly a very successful number its not just one or 2 number of. Therapeutics medicines that can help help people that are already sick help people not get sick and obviously you know about the vaccine and tony will discuss that over the later but the vaccine is moving along but this is something that right now for right down like this is what we really its incredible and what the f. D. A. Has done. And dr steven nonnews highly respected came as a just a highly respected man hes been fantastic hes only been here for a couple of months and nice hes gotten thrown into the swim of it and hes really standing up but the f. D. A. Has really moved mountains i said of this morning that move mountains to get approvals on things that. That maybe work well find out very soon well take along an example of the pair no record which is this is really an example where were repurpose ing alcohol they went out and repurpose their alcohol production capabilities in arkansas off kentucky texas and West Virginia to make Hand Sanitizer. Thats a big difference and theyve been unbelievable they really have a pro record. Their 1st delivery will be on tuesday its going to go to various states theyre going to start i think in new york and theyre going to work their way around they make in a tremendous amount of Hand Sanitizer in a very high level too by the way weve activated the National ResponseCoordination Center to level one the g. I. s level. Is the nerve center of all of our government response to crisis and its coordinated very closely with our nations governors our nations governors many of you are at the call yesterday with the governors and. I think you can see the relationship and weve had numerous calls with governors by the way but the relationships. Are Pretty Amazing theyre like theyre loving what were doing and the the coordination between the federal government and the governors states and even local has been pretty incredible fame administrator pete gaynor who is with us will soon be providing you with an update on the Centers Operations and fame has been incredible we got them involved last week very much involved and now they are involved nationwide weve dramatically expanded tele health so americans can see a doctor without leaving home something which more and more people are using and now theyre really using it and now the ones that are using it are loving it and i think were going to change the way our country functions medically and probably in other ways because of whats going on right now this will reduce the chance of infection and preserve Hospital Capacity so it solves a lot of problems every american has a role to play in defending our nation from this invisible horrible enemy. It really is its an invisible enemy and we will be successful very successful hopefully very much sooner than people would even think so we say stay at home and save lives theres a time of shared national sacrifice but its also a time to treasure our loved ones and to take stock of what is most important our faith our families our neighbors and our great country and i want to thank all of the incredible people of our country the citizens of our country that what youve done and the way youre responding has just been a very special something that we will never forget that the history books will never forget that were going to have a great victory were going to be celebrating a great victory in the not too distant future and i just want to thank everybody analysis ill introduce. Our Vice President mike pence whos led the task force and i will tell you this he has not slept much maybe a tiny bit maybe a little bit but not much and hes done an incredible job mike thank you please. Good afternoon off. And thank you mr president. The White House Coronavirus task force met today we briefed president on our latest recommendations we continue at the president s direction and to lead not a whole of government approach but a whole of america approach and you just heard the president describe one inspiring story after another of the way the American People are responding the way american businesses are responding religious communities across this country and the American People are coming together theyre responding with commonsense compassion and generosity people are heeding the advice of state and local authorities d and tens of millions of americans are putting into practice 15 days to slow the spread. We are we are officially mr president 6 days into our 15 days and as we look all across this country. While we we strongly support the decisions the governors in states where we have significant outbreak of taken we encourage every american to listen to the state and local authorities for every american this is what you can do to make a difference. Over the next week and a few days to protect your Health Protect your family so but most especially slow the spread and the potential for the coronavirus to impact the most vulnerable as the president said we weve been weve almost been overwhelmed at the outpouring of support from american businesses the president spoke yesterday to thousands of Small Businesses we spoke to manufacturers yesterday and in fact as the president indicated the f. D. A. In record time just approved one manufacturer of the reproducing millions of surgical masks in a matter of weeks for the American People the pastors we spoke to. We we want to thank all the religious leaders from every community of faith in the country making the hard choice to suspend services to have Online Services even while those ministries are continuing to support food banks and come alongside of the most vulnerable and of course the chorus of prayers that is coming up from communities of faith around the country is making the difference that it always has and the life of this nation one thing the president and i promise was to remind people that on the the weekends that youre not in the pews its still a good. Its still a good idea to if you can to go ahead and make that donation you did because all the ministries are continuing to play a vital role in our communities and we encourage your continued support the president and i are grateful that the American People are listening to state and local authorities and and putting into practice all of all of the recommendations of the president s coronavirus guidelines. And as you will hear in just a few moments from admiral go off. Testing is expanding rapidly across the United States of america state run drive through is our expanding across the country and as you will hear details this morning now more than 195000 americans and more who have been symptomatic have been tested that number does not include county hospitals for. Or health care labs around the nation some 15000 in number and among the number of the more than 195000 that have been tested its important to remember that only 1900003 143. 00 at this moment have tested positive for the year watching our desire it is 17 or 18 e. G. Am tool that is the u. S. Vice president mike payne say giving on some details about the Current Situation all one count trying to tackle coronavirus in the United States talking about the procedure. There is that people going through in order to be able to protect themselves from the virus and also saying that testing is expanding rapidly in the us just a few moments ago President Donald Trump said that the priority was saving american lives he talked about it having been a week of not National Solidarity he described it as one big beautiful American Family who said that he had reached agreements with canada and mexico on the border controls he did again refer to the corona virus as the chinese virus but he then went on to talk about the procedures and the raft of financial changes that are going to be brought into place to support the economy as well as support employees who