Transcripts For CSPAN White House Coronavirus Task Force Briefing 20240713

Washington journal live at 7 00 eastern thursday morning. Join the discussion. Tonight on cspan, President Trump gives an update on the coronavirus outbreak. That is followed by canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and british Prime Minister Boris Johnson on how their countries are responding to the global pandemic. And later, the World Health Organization provides the latest numbers on confirmed coronavirus cases. In response to the coronavirus outbreak, President Trump announced he was invoking defense production act to have American Industries start manufacturing medical equipment but is in short supply. The administration also announced the suspension of foreclosures and evictions until the end of april, and a temporary ban on nonessential travel at the u. S. Canada border. I would like to begin by announcing some important developments in our war against the chinese virus. The chinese virus. We will be invoking the defense production act just in case we need it. In other words i think you all , know what it is. It can do a lot of good things if we need it. We will have it all completed. Signing it in just a little while right after i am finished with this conference. I will be signing it. It is prepared to go. So we will be invoking the defense production act. And which activated femas National Response coordination center. Fema now is fully engaged at the highest levels. Today, fema is activated in every region. We are at level one, level one being the highest level, which we will work with. We have been working with fema. I have done a lot of work with fema. They are incredible. It has always been on hurricanes or tornadoes. They are right now in tennessee. A large group working in tennessee. Been incredible, the tragic event. Alabama last year. Also a tornado. And then obviously, the numerous hurricanes in different locations that were in some cases very devastating, and in every case, fema came through. This is a very different kind of work for fema, but they will come through as they always do. We have tremendous people. Tremendous talent in fema. Request,nding, upon the hospital ships. Two they are being prepared right now. They are massive ships. They are the big white ships with the red cross on the sides. One is called the mercy. The other is called the comfort. They are in tiptop shape. They soon will be. They are getting ready to come up to new york. I spoke with Governor Cuomo about it. He is excited about it. We have not made the final determinations as to where it is going to go to the west coast. The comfort is located now in san diego. And it is going to be picking the destination very shortly. Those two ships are being prepared to go. They can be launched over the next week or so depending on need. Earlier this week, the first Clinical Trial of the vaccine candidate for the virus began in washington state, as you probably know. The genetic sequence of the virus was First Published in january. Thanks to the Unprecedented Partnership between the fda, nih and the private sector, we have reached human trials for the vaccine just eight weeks later. That is a record by many, many months. It used to take years to do this. Now we did it in just a short while. That is the fastest development in history of what we are doing with regard to the vaccine. We are making very, very big progress. Today i can announce further steps to expand testing capacity. We are working with groups to develop a selfswab test. A much easier process than the current process that is not very nice. I can tell you because i did it. We have a current process that is a little bit difficult. Done, the groups are working on determining if a selfswab by an individual is as effective as the other. The other is very effective and accurate. We are going to see if we can do a selfswab which would be a lot more popular, i can tell you that. That would be administered by a health official. It would be a lot easier to do. The fact is that the Health Professionals it would free up a lot is what it is. You do it yourself. The other has to be issued by a health professional. And it is something that is quite difficult. We think it is working out for the self swab. If you test positive, they do what they have to do. We think it is probably working out. I have asked the fda to cut through the red tape and reduce regulatory barriers. We are looking at some very exciting things. Im going to be holding a second News Conference today. We are going to be talking about the fda. Some things are happening that are quite exciting. We are going to be doing that either later today or tomorrow fairly early tomorrow. So we will see what happens. But the fda, my instructions i have been working very, very hard on a number of developments. We will be discussing them with you later today or tomorrow. And this afternoon, i will be meeting with nurses on the front lines in the battle against the virus. Shirley american heroes. Truly american heroes. They are incredible people. We are going to be meeting with nurses. I actually look forward to that. Very brave. They are taking a lot of risk. We have done an incredible job and they never complain. Today i am also announcing the department of housing and urban development is providing immediate relief to renters and homeowners by suspending all foreclosures and evictions until the end of april. So we are working very closely with dr. Ben carson and everybody from hud. Every generation of americans has been called to make shared sacrifices for the good of the nation. In world war ii, young people in their teenage years volunteered to fight. They wanted to fight so badly because they loved our country. Workers refused to go home and slept on factory floors to keep Assembly Lines running. The numbers of ships they built during world war ii, to this day, nothing like that has ever been equaled. They were doing ships literally on a daily basis. Nobody has ever seen anything like it. To this day, nobody has seen anything like what they were able to do during world war ii. And now it is our time. We must sacrifice together. Because we are all in this together. We will come through together. It is the invisible enemy. That is always the toughest enemy, the invisible enemy. We are going to defeat the invisible enemy. I think we are going to do it even faster than we thought. It will be a complete victory. It will be a total victory. So we will have a second conference, again having to do with the fda. I think it is going to be potentially a very exciting News Conference. We will do it as quickly as we can, so whether it is today or tomorrow. With that i will ask mike pence , to say a few words. Thank you very much. Thank you, mr. President. The White House Coronavirus task force met this morning. Now that we have cases in all 50 states, we are continuing to move out on the president s call to bring the full resources of the federal government, the full partnership with every state and territory, the full power of the American Economy to support businesses. As the president says, to us and every day, we will do whatever it takes. We are all in this together. Yesterday, the president that met with tourism executives and had an engaging discussion with all of the Top Companies in our industrial and medical supply chain. The president as you all are aware, announced today by mutual consent, the northern border to canada will be closed to nonessential travel. This does not include essential travel or the transit of goods, but it was through mutual discussion that took place this morning between the president and Prime Minister ofdeau, and the Department Homeland security will be effectuating that decision. The president spoke with some of the top Business Leaders today again to speak about the supply chain in the country. And for our first we are going to be conducting a Conference Call later today with state and local Health Officials to renew our ongoing commitment of cooperation and collaboration. As the president said last week in signing the stafford act, he stood up the National Response coordination center. And today at the president s direction, fema has gone to level 1. Femas mission is to support disasters that are locally executed, state managed and federally supported. Tomorrow, the president will be hosting all the nations governors from a Video Conference at fema to ensure that they have a full connection to all of the activated regions for fema going forward. With regard to testing, i am pleased to report we are increasing the number of tests being performed by the thousands every day thanks to the Publicprivate Partnership that President Trump forged with commercial laboratories around the country. Our Health Experts tell us to remind every americans it is important to remember people without symptoms should not get tested. We want to make sure the supply of testing is there for those that need it most or are symptomatic or in the vulnerable population. Dr. Deborah birx will address the progress were making on testing. As well as some important new findings about the impact on you that we are gaining from data that is coming in from europe. It will be important to every american. On the subject of supplies, the president has our task force extremely focused. As the president mentioned, that he is invoking the defense production act today. Secretary esper in a few moments will discuss the efforts the department of defense is taking. To make medical resources available. Secretary Robert Wilkie will announce decisions the v. A. Has made to expand Hospital Capacity within their system. With regard to medical personnel, hhs is issuing a regulation today that will allow all doctors and medical professionals to practice across state lines to meet the needs of hospitals that may arise in adjoining areas. In addition to that, we are again today asking every american and our medical Community Leaders and hospitals to partner with us in delaying elective procedures across the country in our Health Care System to ensure that medical supplies and medical capacity go to where they are needed most. This person will describe guidance they will be issuing on that front. Finally, i want to remind every american of the president s 15 day guidance to slow the spread. We are grateful for members of the media and the general public who are adhering to these, sharing them with neighbors and friends. All of our experts continue to believe that if every american continue to do their part and put in practice these principles, that we can significantly limit the reach of the coronavirus in the weeks and months ahead. Dr birx thank you mr. President , and mr. Vice president. We continue to look at data every single day. There are concerning reports coming out of france and italy about some young people getting seriously ill and very seriously ill in the icu. We think part of this may be that people heeded the early data coming out of china and coming out of south korea, that the elderly or those with preexisting medical conditions were at particular risk. It may have been that the millennial generation, our largest generation, our future generation that will carry us through for the next multiple decades there may be disproportional number of infections among that group. And so even if it is a rare occurrence, it may be seen more frequently in that group. And be evident now. We are looking at that information very carefully. We have not seen any significant mortality in the children. But we are concerned about the early reports coming out of italy and france. So again im going to call on , that generation that is part of that group that brought us particularly throughout all of their ability to look around corners and skip through games i always went level by level. I did not realize you could go from level three to level seven. That is what they have taught us. They look for things that we do not see. We need them to be healthy. Calling on youly to heed what is in the guidance, and to ensure that each and everyone of you are protecting each other. We cannot have these large gatherings that continue to occur throughout the country for people who are off work to then be socializing in large groups and spreading the virus. You have the potential then to spread it to someone who does have a condition none of us knew about and cause them to have a disastrous outcome. Finally on the testing piece and what we are learning, i know you know last week in bringing the private sector, what has been exciting to me is to see the administration harness the full capacity of the private sector. Understanding that a lot of our solutions that we need to confront this virus rely on the private sector. Bringing the private sector commercial labs was critical into this process. We are now beginning to see they have spread out in a prioritized way because we asked them to prioritize the regions that were mostly affected. And so you still may have difficulty getting tests in areas that do not have significant cases. Diagnostic percent remember i told you south korea was under 4 . So 96 of people were negative . The last report we have seen from the laboratories have about a 7 plus positivity rate. Still 93 plus or 92 are negative, i think that is encouraging to me personally that we are prioritizing appropriately to those areas that have the greatest need. Today and yesterday, Thermo Fisher pushed out most of their Laboratory Testing capacity. That will dramatically increase the platform and the ability to run additional tests in addition to roche. I appreciate everybodys attention to these numbers. I am excited to have prioritized where the greatest. Please follow the guidance. Please make sure in every report you are putting out that you are talking about the president ial guidance to actually stop the spread of this virus. Thank you. Pres. Trump thank you, deborah, very much. Thank you, mr. President. Good afternoon, everyone. I want to provide an update on dods coronavirus efforts. As we continue to focus on our priorities. That is first of all protecting our families and personnel and supporting and third of course supporting the administrations whole of government approach. First of all i do want to assure the American People the United States military remains ready and capable of defending the country and our interests abroad. Now with that, the department is leaning forward in our response to covid19. We have issued international and Domestic Travel restrictions to all dod personnel and families. That should dramatically reduce potential exposure to the virus. Those have been in place for some time. As i announced yesterday, the department of defense will make available up to 5 million n95 respirator masks and other personal protective equipment from our own strategic reserves. The first one Million Masks will be available immediately. We are also prepared to distribute to hhs up to 2000 operational deployable , ventilators for use as needed. Yesterday, i was at fort dietrich, maryland, which is probably the militarys premier research institute, where i got updated on the incredible work people are doing to work on vaccines. They are making great progress. We have also announced we have certified our 16th lab. We will soon certify our 16th lab to help with processing tests from across the country. Additionally i have directed as the president mentioned that the hospital ships mercy and comfort be prepared to deploy to increase the nations medical capacity. We have incremented a variety of field and expeditionary hospitals to deploy as well based on the direction of the commanderinchief. Today leadership from the army corps of engineers is in new york meeting with Governor Cuomo and his team. I spoke with Governor Cuomo yesterday. I will be speaking to more governors in the coming days to make sure they know what dod can provide to address their needs. In my conversations with the governors and members of congress about dods resources, i made it clear it will continue to support the administrations comprehensive efforts while ensuring our nations security remains the priority. I want to conclude by thanking all of our Service Members and families who have been affected. They are all great heroes. We are continuing to support them throughout this. We are all in this together. Thank you very much. Pres. Trump thank you very much. Thank you. Yesterday, the president made a very important announcement about telehealth. And this is allowing our 62 million seniors to be able to get some medical services from the safety of their home, reducing the risk and without any copays. We are also making sure the Health Care System is prepared and those on the front lines have the support that they need. The reality is stakes are high, and we need to preserve personal protective equipment for those that are on the front lines of the fight. We have put out guidelines over the last two weeks to expand the types of masks that can be used in routine care and saving those n95s to the most risky situations. Conserving personal protective equipment is also essential to combat the virus. Today cms will announce details recommendations to further promote this needed conservation, specifically by limiting nonessential elective medical and surgical procedures including dental procedures. We believe that these recommendations will help surgeons, patients and hospitals prioritize what is essential while leaving the ultimate decision in the hands of state and local Health Officials and those clinicians that have direct responsibility to their patients. We urge providers and clinicians and patients to seriously consider these recommendations. They will not only preserve equipment, but it will also allow doctors and nurses to help those that are on the front lines. It will protect patients from unnecessary exposure to the virus. Unnecessary exposure to the virus. We appreciate this will have a major impact on the Health Care System. The shared sacrifice is essential to help those on the front lines. I went to the medical society such as the American Dental Association took a proactive approach and already posted these recommendations. We have already talked to the american medical association. They have fully indicated their support. We now invite the entire Health Care Community to join us in this effort. Thank you. Thank you, mr. President. My instructions from the president were very clear. I was to do everything imaginable and as aggressively as possible to protect the nine 9. 5 million veterans who are part of the department of veterans affairs. Last month, we established 19 Emergency Operations Centers Across the country. We began to limit the number of visitors who entered our facilities. We began the first system we were the first system to begin triaging across the country. The entrants of anyone into our facility without being questioned or tested. We expanded those restrictions to those in our 135 Community Living centers, which have about 7800 veterans who are in acute conditions to make sure they were protected. We also took the next step and made sure we limited the dental surgeries we provided. We have cut back by one third the number of routine appointments we have had. We have canceled elective surgeries. These were all part of the president s directive to be as aggressive in a Public Health sense as we could be. I think we have set the pace for the entire country. I will say we have often said we work the most Noble Mission in the federal government. Our veterans have been in the toughest spots in the world. They have been put in conditions that are unimaginable to most americans. They have responded clearly. They have responded with passion. The 400,000 members of our department who are out there on the front lines, the last thing i will say is you have heard a lot about the Fourth Mission the v. A. Has. Our First Three Missions are health care, benefits and memorial affairs. Our Fourth Mission is to support the federal government in times of natural disasters and pandemics. We are the buttress force in case fema or hhs calls on us to deploy medical professionals across the country to meet crises. We plan for that everyday. We are gaming out preparedness scenarios. We stand ready when the president needs us to expand our mission. Thank you. Pres. Trump any questions . Two questions if i may. Your treasury secretary on capitol hill talking about the potential for what could come. He said unemployment could skyrocket to 20 . That could rival the great depression. Are we looking at that . Pres. Trump i do not agree with that. That is a total worstcase scenario. But no, we do not look at that. Or nowhere near it. Why do you keep calling this the chinese virus . There are reports of dozens of incidents of bias against chineseamericans in this country. Your own aid says he does not use this term. Ethnicity does not cause the virus. Why do you keep using this yucca why do you keep using this . Pres. Trump that comes from china. It is not racist at all. It comes from china. That is why. I want to be accurate. Are you concerned about chineseamericans . Pres. Trump i have great love for all of the people from our country. As you know, china tried to say at one point maybe they stopped now that it was caused by american soldiers. That cannot happen. Its not going to happen as long as i am president. It comes from china. Two questions if i could. You are invoking the act today. Senator schumer said on the floor that it urgently needs to be put into action to produce medical supplies particularly ventilators. Do you have some targets you would like to see immediately . Pres. Trump we have tremendous numbers of ventilators. There has never been an instance like this where no matter what you have, it is not enough. It is being signed. I am going to sign it in just a little while. If we need to use it, we will use it at full speed ahead. You said urgently it needs to be used. Pres. Trump we are going to know whether or not urgent. We have targets for certain pieces of equipment. Have targets for masks. The number of masks are incredible. We have ordered millions, but we need millions more. This kind of thing has never been requested. We never had to think in terms of these numbers. We need millions of masks. We need respirators. We need ventilators is a big thing because it is a complex piece of equipment. Have a lot of ventilators, but we are going to be ordering more. What size will the checks be that will be sent out . Pres. Trump to be determined. We are working with the senate right now, with everybody on capitol hill. With some exceptions because it is always the way it is. They have been getting along very well, republicans and democrats. Very bipartisan. Would you like to see more than 1000 . Pres. Trump i do not want to get into that right now. We are looking at different numbers. Were looking at timing that would be different. We are looking at a lot of different things. It has not been determined yet, it will shortly be determined. Everyone seems to want to go big. They want to get to the recovery. The big thing we can do is get rid of this horrible i call it the unseen enemy. There are 1000 different terms for it. It snuck up on us. It did 128 countries. Something like that very close. It spreads violently. It is very contagious. A very contagious virus. Do you consider america to be on a wartime footing . Pres. Trump i do. The big thing we did was a very early stoppage of people coming in that could be heavily infected. That was a good move. It was very early. When most people some professionals did not want us to do it. But that saved a lot of lives. I look at it as it is like a wartime president. That is what we are fighting. It is a very tough situation. You have to do things, you have to close parts of the economy that six weeks ago were the best they have ever been. We had the best economy we have ever had. Then one day you must close it in order to defeat this enemy. But we are doing it. And we are doing it well. The American People have been incredible. For the most part, they have been really incredible. I will start with you. You said that there is a tremendous number of ventilators. But for weeks, hospitals have warned about a critical shortage. That they say we are not prepared for it. So why did it take so long to invoke the defense production act . Pres. Trump hospitals are supposed to have ventilators. When we have thousands, it sounds like a lot, but this is an unforeseen thing. Nobody ever saw numbers like this. Even with regard to testing. Normally we would not be doing testing. But they decided to do it. Very hard to ramp up. Now we are getting highly sophisticated tests and it is going well. Nobody heard of testing in the quantities you are talking about it. They said for weeks we needed more ventilators, why did it take so long . Pres. Trump it depends on how it goes. The worstcase, absolutely. In the best case, not at all. We will have to see where it goes. We are ordering thousands and thousands of ventilators. And they are complex. These are complex machines. But we are ordering them. Does anybody have a number . Please. Do you know the number . Vice pres. Pence we have a specific number of ventilators in the stockpile in excess of 10,000. And you heard the announcement from the department of defense, they will be adding several more thousand. The president , even this morning and yesterday afternoon, was speaking with the Largest Companies in the supply chain. We are hearing a tremendous spirit among Industry Leaders who are ready to step in and add to that volume. The stockpiles do not count all of the ventilators that exist in the marketplace and Health Care Facilities around the country, but the president has given us a directive to make sure that our stockpile, just as importantly working with Industry Leaders that we are securing the increase in ventilators, increase in masks, gloves, eye protective care, the garments on necessary to lean forward. Were confident we will be able to accomplish that with the incredible cooperation of the supply chain that exists in america today. Do we have any stat numbers for nationwide how many ventilators, the exact number . Pres. Trump we can give you the exact number, but we are ordering more. One question for the secretary. Pres. Trump one moment, we will do it in a second. Two questions. On the canadian border, what was the Tipping Point . Friday we talked about it. Monday you said you were not considering it. Pres. Trump i spoke with the Prime Minister, trudeau, very good relationship. Relationship between our two countries. And no Tipping Point, it is just that we want to isolate from the standpoint we do not want people coming into contact because that is how well win this war. That is so important. Now, it is not affecting trade. It is nonessential crossings. It wont affect trade. And it was something that we thought would be good for both countries. Second question, on trade how can you be sure that trade and everything thats being shipped pres. Trump they are doing it in a careful manner. You can only be vigilant and very professional. But we are not pretending. At this moment it is not affecting trade. The trillion dollar economic stimulus look like 50 billion for the airlines, 150 billion in loan guarantees, a payment directly to individuals. Another 250 billion payment on may 18, directly to individuals and as well 300 billion for Small Business loan guarantees. Is that what it looks like . Pres. Trump it could be. We are playing with a lot of big numbers, a lot of small numbers. We have to help everybody. It was nobodys fault that this happened. Some people could say it was somebodys fault, actually. But it was nobodys fault, and certainly none of these companies who all of a sudden had no passengers on the airplanes, on the cruise ships, all the things that have happened. I will say that they cannot be blamed. We want to keep those companies vibrant because there will be a comeback very, very quickly, as soon as this is solved. And it will be solved. We will win. There will be a comeback and it will take place quickly. 250 billion dollars. Give or take 300 million americans or so, do the math and it is 750 a person, a family of four would be about 3000. Which, if that was the case pres. Trump we will not say that because these are moving pieces. Every number, yes, we talked about those numbers, we are also moving the numbers in both directions. We will let you know. It is moving along fast. Again, there is a great bipartisan effort going on that i have not really seen before to this extent. Mr. President , on the health squad that you mentioned, has the fda approved that test . Pres. Trump they are looking at it seriously. I think it would be a great thing, because to use a nice word it is very inconvenient from the others. It is very tough. You tweeted this morning about your Approval Rating amongst republicans, you say you give yourself a 10 in terms of handling the crisis. How do you reassure americans at home, who do not trust you to handle a crisis of this magnitude . Pres. Trump we are doing a good job. We started with a termination of the border. Those people coming from china where this all started. I took it very seriously. When i use the word calm, that does not mean im not taking it seriously, that means we should be extremely calm. But yeah, 95 within the Republican Party and over 50 and i also have we have very great approval numbers. People like the job we are doing. And when you compare this to other epidemics or if if you want to use a different term, you can, but look at what has happened over the years, this is being handled very professionally. We have the greatest professionals in the world. Nobody has ever been swamped like this. Nothing has been so contagious. The level of contagion has been incredible. Nobody has seen anything like this. If federal officials have shipped millions of tests, as you and your colleagues have said, why has the federal government said only 59,000 tests been processed to this point . We just heard from the atlanta Public Health director saying they have fewer than 50 test kits for more than 900,000 citizens. Where are the tests . Pres. Trump i will let mike answer that. That is a critical question. Thank you for asking. The test kits we put out last week through that rapid movement, at the meeting that President Trump called less than two weeks ago, that has resolved bringing the private sector to the table. The tests in the platform that was out there could only run between four and 12 tests per platform per day. We have now moved into platforms that can run basically tens of thousands of tests per day. The reason i am grateful for the question is because it allows me to point out that there was backlog. There were individuals who had been tested who had not had their specimen run because of the slow throughput. It is now in a highspeed platform. So we will see the number of people diagnosed dramatically increase over the next four or five days. I know that some of you will use that to raise an alarm that we are worse then italy because of the slope of our curve. To every american out there, it will be five or six days worth of tests being run in 2448 hours. So our curve will not be stable until sometime next week. The reason i talked about Thermo Fisher yesterday is because their platform is in 2000 laboratories. They are the ones that are putting out the millions of tests this week that will solve the issue that atlanta and others have brought up. I want to be clear, we prioritized the areas. We do county by county analyses. Based on those analyses, on what counties have more than 50 cases, we prioritized the test kits we put out to 400,000. That is why we are seeing a 7 plus positivity rate. We will be able to expand that platform and reprioritize based on the accessibility of the other tests. How are nonsystemic professional athletes getting tests whil others are waiting in line and cant get them . Do the well connected go to the front of the line . Pres. Trump you have to ask that question. I wouldnt say so, but perhaps thats the story of life, that does happen on occasion. I have noticed where some people have been tested fairly quickly. Look, we inherited a excuse me, excuse me, we inherited a very obsolete system. This was a system that was out of date, obsolete or a system that was never meant to take care of the kind of quantity, the number of people that were talking about, millions and millions of people. If you go back in years past, even recently with the flu, nobody had tests before, they did not test the entire nation to see whether or not they had the flu. They got the flu, they got better, hopefully they got better and that was it. All of a sudden, they do this very complex testing. What we have done, we have broken it down. We have broken down the system that was obsolete or you could say it was a system that was not meant to handle the kind of volume that you are talking about. We rebuilt it into a system that will be a good system in the future, if you want to go this route. But this was never done before. I would imagine it will be done in the future. We built it into a good system by using private companies, the great private companies. And i have to say that roche has done a very good job. They are doing a lot of work, a very good job. But this was an obsolete system, not a system meant to do anything near this. John . A couple things. A major trade coalition is calling on you to suspend tariffs with other countries as part of the response to the coronavirus. Pres. Trump who heads that group . Those countries do. It is American Free trade. Pres. Trump china is paying us billions and billions of dollars in tariffs. There is no reason to do that. They have not spoken to me about it. China has not asked me to do that. We are getting billions from tariffs from china and i cannot imagine americans asking for that. It could be that china will ask for a suspension, we will see what happens. China is having a very rough time. They had their worst year in 76 years as i understand it. They are having a very, very tough time. On top of it, this happened with the virus. But no, we are taking in billions a year in tariffs. This was caused by something unrelated to tariffs. Asylumseekers and people crossing the southern border illegally, are you planning to invoke 42 usc 65 which would allow you to prohibit entry of certain people. Pres. Trump yes. When would that happen . Pres. Trump very soon, probably today. On the border, what do you define as essential travel when it comes to the u. S. Canadian border . Pres. Trump essential travel is medical. We have military working together. We have industry working together. And it is not affecting trade. So things like that. But leisurely, lets go to a restaurant to have dinner, they come both ways, go in both directions. That kind of thing we have ended on a temporary basis. Go ahead. We are not going to close the border, but we are invoking a certain provision that will allow us great latitude as to what we do. Go ahead. I want to clarify something. Just a week ago, you all were standing here telling us, unless you had sustained contact with somebody who was symptomatic for covid19, you really didnt need to worry. The president , the Vice President , you took a photograph with somebody who had this. You didnt really need to worry. Several days later, we are in a situation where people are told dont leave their houses, there are curfews where you cannot go out at night after a certain time. Can you walk us through the dramatic swing, the dramatic disconnect from what we had before and now . We look at data all the time. I know you are looking at china and south korea data. When you look at their data and what china and south korea did, their curves are not only blunted outside of wuhan so chinese areas outside of wuhan blunted curve and south korea blunted curve. If you look at their curves today, they are already on the far end of their epidemic curve. Of course, none of those countries are fully back to work, so that is what we worry about too. Secondly, there was a series of scientific articles published, i know you have seen them, about surface contamination. I think none of us understood the level of surface piece. We are still working out how much of it is by human to human transmission and how much by surface. That is why these fundamental guidelines were put out that says, do not expose yourself to surfaces outside of the home. Basically what those guidelines are, dont expose yourself to an excess number of persons that could be asymptomatic and infected. Do not expose yourself to surfaces that could have had the virus on it for which, on hard surfaces, i know we had the cardboard issue with shipping, hard surfaces not shown in fabric as much or cardboard, but hard surface transmission. These are issues we have not had to deal with before with the level of respiratory infections. That is why we have the concern, that is why the president put out the guidelines. It is to cover both of those pieces. All new science, all new models. You have the imperial study available and you have looked at the impact of those. This is the first time those have been modeled as a comprehensive approach to mitigating an epidemic. Mr. President what about money . The wall street journal is reporting that the administration is looking at an executive order that would investigate a drug against the virus, but f. D. A. Scientists say this is taking a risk. Pres. Trump i have not seen the article. We are making a lot of progress therapeutically. I will say that. I have not seen the article, no. Pres. Trump go ahead. We have shut down nonessential travel to canada. Are you considering shutting down all travel to prevent the spread of the virus . And we have heard from the airlines, who are seeking relief. What other industries, or how exactly is your administration going to determine which industries and businesses get help . Pres. Trump there are Certain Industries that people know. Airlines would be number one. If you look at what is going on. You look at having the best year they have ever had to having no passengers because of what we have had to do to win this war. Its a war. So basically, you know what many of the industries are. We want to make sure they stay together, so that after the war is won, we can immediately go back to where we were and even beyond. I think we will go beyond. A lot of people are saying tha we are poised to do that. We have to win the war first. Treasuries proposed 150 billion today for those industries, but the proposal does not detail which industries would get the money and how much. So aside from the airlines you mentioned, what about the cruise industry, the hotels, how much money do you see them getting . Pres. Trump were talking about all of it. Have not detailed it yet. We have detailed it to senators and to members of the house. We are coming up with numbers. We have not gotten there yet. But the hotel industry, the cruise ship industry, the airlines, they are prime candidates. What about the northern border pres. Trump which border . The northern border. When you say temporary, does that mean 30 days . Pres. Trump i would say 30 days. Hopefully at the end of that we will be in good shape. Jeff . I was struck by what the doctor said about millennials and others not taking the warnings as seriously as you would like. Some of those people often tend to be your supporters, and conservatives who may be quoting what you said at the beginning of this and comparing it to the flu. What is your message to them to really follow what you have been saying so far . And are you concerned that they are still maybe listening to your earlier comments, rather than your more recent ones . Pres. Trump my earlier comment was to be calm. We are going to win this. Its just a question of time. I want it to go quickly. Based on the fact i wanted it to go quickly, i hope they have been listening what we have been saying. We do not want to them gathering. I know they are gathering in beaches and at restaurants, young people. They do not realize it. They are feeling invincible. I dont know if you felt invincible when you were very young. They were feeling totally invincible and are feeling that way, but they do not realize they could be carrying bad things home to their grandmother and grandfather and even their parents. So we want them to heed the advice. And i think it is getting through. I do believe it is getting through. If they are watching i think that these people are watching. Pres. Trump heed the advice. I just said. Thank you. Mr. President , how long do you think pres. Trump we will get to you next. Talking about china, you have been clear about who you think is the origin to blame for the virus. Pres. Trump i do not think. I know where it came from. I dont know if you would say china is to blame. Certainly we didnt get an early run on it. It wouldve been helpful if we knew about it earlier. But it comes from china. It is not a question. Nobody is questioning that. Senator cotton is saying that they should be punished in so many words for inflicting this on the American People. Do you feel that way about it . Pres. Trump i have respect for tom cotton. And i know exactly what he has been saying. And there are those people that say that. We will see what happens. Thank you. Go ahead. Please. [crosstalk] pres. Trump you have had your hand up so nicely for a long time. It is your time. We have seen the Chinese Government kick out reporters from the wall street journal, the New York Times and washington post, what is your message to the chinese when it comes to transparency . Pres. Trump i am not happy to see it. I have my own disputes with all three of those media groups. I think you know that well. But i do not like seeing that. I am not happy about that at all. Yes . Do you believe that china is inflicting this upon our country . Pres. Trump no, i do not believe theyre inflicting it. I think they couldve given us earlier notice, absolutely. Please. Mr. President , your credibility ratings are low. There was a recent npr poll. Pres. Trump are you asking that question . I see that they are very high. 95 of the Republican Party. We just had a poll done by a very reputable group where i am beating Sleepy Joe Biden by a lot in florida, in the state of florida and in other states. So i do not really know who you are talking about. Jennifer, go ahead. Sir, can you give us an update on your conversation with the airline executives. Did you explain what was coming . What was their reaction . Pres. Trump they explained to me where they are coming from. They went from full airplanes, the best year they have had by far, to boom one day empty because of what we have to do to get rid of this, to win this war, or we would have a level of death like people have not seen before. So they have been fantastic. They have been great. But they went from being extremely happy to being people Running Companies that are going to need help. And we will help them. On the fda, can you give us an update on how that is going . We have seen reports of that counties have had difficulty getting pres. Trump there is a lot of influx to those loans. A lot of people are looking at it. We will be increasing funding. They are well prepared to do what they have to do. And the spca is doing a fantastic job. She is doing a really good job. The administrator. I have a question for dr. Birx, if i could. Dr. Birx, french researchers have had some luck with hydroxy in shorting the deterioration of the disease. Is that something in the arsenal here in the United States . We are exploring all of those issues. The president asked for a critical briefing on that today. He opened with that. It is more than that single drug. There are other drugs that individuals are looking at. Just to go back to what we talked about many times, there is things that look really good in cell culture against the virus that may look good in small animals and then dont have an impact in humans. And so those are the pieces we are looking at a very carefully. Of course, there is always anecdotal reports, and we are trying to figure out how many of those reports equal real scientific breakthrough. And second question are you , confident of the seasonality of the coronavirus . Birx all the can do is look at the past to inform the future. We know what sars looked like. I know you can get this online, but look at the curve in china and look at the curve in south korea. Those curves were accomplished in still the winter season. Were very interested in the curves in italy because their different approach, and were following every single countrys curve. And so all we can do is look at prior coronavirus and prior respiratory infection rna viruses. These are rna viruses. When you look at flu in the northern hemisphere, when you look at parainfluenza in some of the cold viruses and if you look at sars, thats the way the peak normally occurs. But that is a november to april. We all started later, and so youre asking me to predict based on a letter start, and thats what were trying to really look at china and south korea to really inform that. Pres. Trump caitlin. A question for secretary wilkie, if you dont mind. How many veterans that need to be tested have been tested . Sec. Wilkie those that have needed to be tested, we believe we caught most of them. Right now we have 44 veterans who have tested positive. Sadly, one has passed in portland. We are working with state labs and private companies to make sure that testing is available. Because the president had us out aggressively early, we have we have been in a better place than most Healthcare Systems in the country. I cannot predict as dr. Birx said when the next surge will be, if it will be, but one of the things that we do at v. A. Is that we prepare for national emergencies, be they National Disasters or epidemics. We started preparing for this, we started stockpiling equipment. Our equipment is staple and that is in large part because of the instructions the president gave me. Do you have a number of how many were tested . Sec. Wilkie we tested several hundred. We tested several hundred, yes. I dont know exactly. 4400 veterans have the virus. Most of those are quarantined at home. Mr. President , im trying to understand what we its about the mortality rate. Yesterday we underlined the fact that we had reached 100 deaths, at 110. Ning we are within 12 hours, we by 10 . Is this something that we have on, a 10 from now increase, every 12 hours . Dr. Birx so very early on in each one of these cases, if you look at all of the countries to date, the mortality is higher at the beginning because youre diagnosing the sickest, the ones who came in quite ill. I just want to remind the American Public that still the majority, the risk for serious illness and the majority of americans are low, but that doesnt mean that you cant transmit it to one of those higher risk groups. And thats why were asking for all americans to take responsibility. Youre seeing mortality or deaths today from infections that occurred two to three weeks ago in general. The other thing that youre seeing is the dramatic and very difficult impact of this virus in nursing homes. And thats why very early on, the president and Vice President had us come out, and cms put those very strict rules in place, and everybody thought we were being too strict in keeping loved ones away from their family in nursing homes. If were going to solve this with a lower death rate, we have to protect the elderly because their percent is much higher in mortality than any other age group. Pres. Trump go ahead, please. They say the federal government has a plan that shows that this coronavirus outbreak might last as long as 18 months. Are you saying those numbers . Pres. Trump no. We are not seeing that at all. My second question is, there are some or at least one White House Health official that use the term kung flu saying it started in china. Is it acceptable, is it wrong that having this virus being talked about as a chinese virus . That that might pres. Trump i wonder who said that . Do you know who said that . Im not sure of the persons name. Pres. Trump say it again. A person at the white house used the term kung flu. Pres. Trump kung flu. My question is, is that wrong, kung flu and using the term chinese virus puts Asian Americans as targets . Pres. Trump no, i think they probably would agree with it 100 . It comes from china. How about the last question. Say it . Switching gears to a larger question here, we have seen that before the pandemic there were a lot of americans that were already alienated. We saw death and despair increasing through suicide and other things. Now with these individuals in rural parts of the country are selfisolating. What is your message to those individuals and what do you hope that individuals, communities, and churches will pres. Trump my message to all americans, but to those americans that are going through a lot. We love them, were with them and we will not let them down. Thank you all very much. [indiscernible] dr. Birx, do you believe that a chinese virus is ok to say . [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. This evening florida representative Mario Diazbalart became the first member of congress to test positive for the coronavirus. In a statement, the republican lawmaker says, i want everyone to know that i am feeling much better. However, it is important that everyone take this extremely seriously and follow cdc guidelines in order to avoid getting sick and mitigate the spread of this virus. We must continue to Work Together and emergeguidelines id getting stronger as i country during these trying times. Congressman is quarantined at his apartment in washington dc, according to his office. It is easy to follow the federal response to the coronavirus outbreak at cspan. Org coronavirus. Track the spread throughout the u. S. And the world with interactive maps and charts. Watch briefings and hearings with Public Health specialists, any, unfiltered, at cspan. Org coronavirus. Next, canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau talks about decision to temporarily stop all nonessential travel between the u. S. And canada as a result of the coronavirus outbreak. The announced an 82 billion he announced an 82 billion economic support package for families and businesses during the pandemic. The Prime Minister spoke from home in ottawa, where he has remained in isolation as a precaution after his wife tested positive for the coronavirus. [speaking french] translator thank you for being here today. Days, i have few spoken over the past few days, i have spoken with President Trump over what we can do to slow the