Louisiana, georgia, and florida. But the epicenter, the new ground zero, as i said, is here in new york city. Hospital officials and everyone who makes them run are telling anyone wholl listen theyre approaching the breaking point. Low on supplies. Theyre reusing masks, doubling up patients on ventilators. In a moment well be joined by a doctor working at one of the citys biggest and busiest e. R. S. But the from the president of the United States today seemed at odds with what doctors and governors are telling us, what theyre seeing. Today the president of the United States stood a few feet in front of the his scientific advisers but was really miles away from them in his stunningly rosy assessment of what is happening and how his administration has responded to it. The president said, and i quote, we begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I just want to repeat that. The president of the United States today said we begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Perhaps if the president had actually served in vietnam instead of getting deferments he might remember another white house eager for a war to end that talked about lights at the end of the tunnel. That was in 1967. Half a million americans were then fighting in vietnam, and the claims made by the generals and the white house about the light at the end of the tunnel turned out to be very wrong indeed. It turned out to be a very long and deadly tunnel. Saigon finally fell in 1975. Despite the more somber tone of his scientific advisers the president again signaling he wants to ease restrictions on the country sooner rather than later. Task force member deborah birx laid out the breaking news. To everyone who has left new york, offer the last few days, because of the rate of the number of cases you may have been exposed before you left new york, and i think like Governor Desantis has put out today, everybody who was in new york should be selfquarantining for the next 14 days to ensure that the virus doesnt spread to others no matter where they have gone, whether its florida, North Carolina or out to far reaches of long island. We are starting to see new cases across long island that suggest people have left the city. So this will be very critical that those individuals do selfquarantine in their homes over these next 14 days to make sure they dont pass the virus to others. Based on the time that they left new york. So now we checked with the cdc and the white house website for any signs of what dr. Birx laid out. There werent any. Which only adds to the confusion about whether this was a mandate, part of the president s guidelines, which he mentioned a few sentences prior, or something else. The president was asked as he was leaving the room by Cnns Kaitlan Collins whether he gave new yorks Governor Andrew Cuomo a headsup this was coming. He didnt answer that question. He did point to measures the administration was taking to help the state and the city but opened his remarks and kept returning to the notion that were nearing the end of this instead of being in what experts suggest is still the early days. Theres tremendous hope as we look forward and we begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Ultimately the goal is to ease the guidelines and open things up to very large sections of our country as we near the end of our historic battle with the invisible enemy. It could go on for a while but we win and win. I said earlier today that i hope we can do this by easter. I think that would be a great thing for our country. And were all working very hard to make that a reality. As we learned during katrina, hope is not a plan. At the briefing the president did underscore that his decisions would be based on hard facts and data, which is a bit of a softening of what he said just a few hours before. Listen to what he said on fox news. So i think Easter Sunday and youll have packed churches all over our country. I think it would be a beautiful time. And its just about the timeline that i think is right. It gives us more chance to work on what were doing, and im not sure thats going to be today but i would love to aim it right at Easter Sunday so were open for Church Service and services generally on Easter Sunday. That would be a beautiful thing. That also may be the last thing you want to do even at the tail end of an outbreak if in fact its the tail end of an outbreak. Which theres no sign it is. Let alone where the experts worry we might actually be come easter. Were going to discuss this of course tonight with medical professionals. We start with cnns jim acosta. Jim, hows the white house squaring the president s call for packed churches on Easter Sunday with the reality of the pandemic . Talking about a light at the end of the tunnel is im not sure what tunnel hes looking at. Yeah, anderson, it was kind of a medical Mission Accomplished moment for the president. He was talking about the country being near the end of an historic battle. But for many doctors, nurses, hospitals, governors and mayors the battle has just begun. The president also said during this briefing that was a lot shorter than the ones weve seen in recent days that hes going to be listening to the expertise of people like dr. Deborah birx and dr. Anthony fauci, the two doctors on his Coronavirus Task force. Well, dr. Fauci told reporters earlier this evening that the president and the administration need to be very flexible, as he put it, in terms of this easter timeline. Anderson, we also have not gotten any kind of sense as to what the battle plan is, which parts of the country are going to be opened up first. Which states is he leaning towards in terms of opening up those states being back to normal once again. One other thing, anderson, i think we need to reflect on, and that is something i heard from a source close to the Coronavirus Task force earlier today, and that is we could be in a situation, anderson, where we open things back up and find cases spiking and then have to shut things back down. In the words of this source close to the Coronavirus Task force, that would certainly complicate things. Anderson . I mean, even the few scientists who are talking about a more surgical way to do this and maybe letting younger people go back to work, even those people are saying we dont have enough data right now to even know when Something Like that might be possible. So the idea that the president has, you know, just picked randomly this easter date is kind of astounding. I mean, the president says, as he did today, that state governors need to treat his administration well because its a, quote, twoway street. Does he grasp what the federal governments role is supposed to be . Because it sounded like he basically was saying the governors need to be nice to the white house given that they control the sending of some supplies from the stockpile. Yeah, anderson, thats exactly what the president seems to be saying. Hes been sort of putting together a naughty and nice list for these governors, fanned out across the country. The problem is he has to work with these governors or else the outbreak, the pandemic is going to get worse. I will tell you, anderson, one thing that the president needs to be aware of is that he may need these governors when it comes to reopening in this economy. Obviously, the president could issue new guidelines next week saying people can go back to work, they can go back to school, or they can start loosening up on these social distancing guidelines, but he needs the governors to implement that. Im not so sure Governor Cuomo or Governor Newsom out in california, theyre going to be in the mood to follow the president s lead on this if they think hes leading them off the edge of a cliff. And so at this point, anderson, the president s rhetoric is just not in line with the reality at this point, and the white house, my sense of it is, is having a tough time reeling him in. Anderson. Jim accost papp joining us now cnns chief medical correspondent dr. Sanjay gupta, also cnns chief political analyst gloria borger. First of all, this guideline or this statement that we heard from the white house today from birx that anyone who was in new york needs to selfquarantine for 14 days if they left the city, does that make sense to you . Because the cdc, theyre not even saying people need to 14day quarantine anymore, right . Yeah. I mean, thats not part of the guidelines anymore. So that did surprise me, anderson, that theyre saying that anybody whos leaving new york city going somewhere else has to quarantine themselves for 14 days. I mean, look, i think the general recommendation for the country is that as much as possible you that stay home. Thats for everybody in the country. It is true new york has more cases. That in part reflects more testing. You know, obviously a densely populated city like that with Public Transportation youre going to have more cases. But you have a lot of cases in washington. You have a lot of cases in california. I just thought it was interesting that new york was sort of singled out like this. I think the general recommendation, in some ways theyre sort of stayathome recommendations for the whole country and people shouldnt be getting on planes for nonessential travel anyways, but i dont know where this specific 14day quarantine like this came from. And sagnier, on the one hand the cdc guidelines keep changing, which is certainly confusing. On the other hand, i guess its a fluid situation. Right. This is considered a hot spot, new york city. That was the case i think ambassador birx was making that youre more likely to be diagnosed with coronavirus after a test there than in other places even in the state of new york. But still i just right now the guidance is this. Stay home as much as possible. Everyone should do that. If you have symptoms you should definitely be doing that. Even if you dont, if you can be at home, thats the guidance. The idea to layer on top of that for people in new york if they go somewhere else to also quarantine, i guess maybe thats obvious. It was a little curious as to why new york specifically was being singled out here. Theres other states where this virus is circulating. As you know, anderson, weve been under testing so its probably much more widespread than people realize. Well, gloria, i dont think the scientists are political, but is this does politics have anything to do with it . Clearly the president when hes reading from a paper he says things are great with him and Governor Cuomo. Clearly Governor Cuomo has been very on top of this and very vocal in the needs of the city and clearly the president earlier today had a jibe against cuomo during a televised town hall. Well, if and there was no answer to kaitlan collinss question about whether cuomo got a headsup here, anderson. So well have to wait and hear about that. And well certainly hear from the governor tomorrow on this. But all of this today was a surprise. All of it. The sort of lets get this done by easter and go to church together. That was a surprise. And tony fauci alluded to a meeting in the oval office where he seems to me laid down the law to the president and said look, you need to be flexible because we have to see where we are depending on where the facts lead us and where the science leads us. And thats president kind of said okay, well, he wants to be guided by professionals and maybe we do sections of the country. But i think all of this is kind of stuntion. And you can just see the scientists twisting themselves into pretzels to not overtly contradict the president but put it out there that this just may not happen. And as for the governors, Governor Hogan of maryland called it im looking at my notes here. Called it an imaginary timeline. Well, sanjay, its just incredibly im sorry. It is just incredibly irresponsib irresponsible. Even if some people are able to go back to work, even if they figure out a way to and the president himself talked about you can social distance at work. Even if come april it is somehow magically dissipated, the idea that it would be a good idea for people to gather in masses and in churches and all across the country in three weeks time is just ludicrous. Yeah, i mean, look, the real concern is all these efforts, all this sacrifice that people are making right now, you dont want it to be wasted. If you take your foot off the pedal and suddenly theres a dramatic increase in the number of cases and the pace at which theyre increasing goes up, thats obviously thats a terrible sort of outcome because youve sacrificed a great deal and then sort of took your eye off the ball and things got worse again. Nobody wants that. And look, easter would be a little more than 3 1 2 weeks from when this 15day pause started. But there are examples around the world now. You look at south korea and china and their sort of trajectory of curves is eight to ten weeks. So thats a better sort of time frame. We dont know how this is going to behave. At least some data to go by. Sanjay, gloria, thanks. Our next guest dr. Craig spencer comes straight from the front lines. First in west africa where he fought and contracted ebola. Now here in new york hes director of global medicine at Columbia University medical center. His hospital, one of the biggest and best in the world, is under siege. Hes been tweeting about it. Here are two post buggs his thoughts at the end of a shift. You reflect on the fact its hard to understand how bad this is and how bad its going to be if all you see are empty streets. Hospitals are nearing capacity. Were running out of ventilators. Ambulance sirens dont stop. Everyone we see today was infect a week ago or more. The numbers will undoubtedly skyrocket overnight as they have every night the past few days. More will come to the e. R. More will be stat notifications. More will be put on a ventilator. Dr. Spencer joins us now. Thanks for being with us, dr. Spencer. Do you in the hospital halls see light at the end of the tunnel as the president seems to . You know, quite honestly, look, im not here to talk politics. Im here to talk about patients. And the reality is that what were seeing right now in our Emergency Rooms is dire. Last week when i went to work we talked about the one or two patients amongst the dozens of others that might have been a covid or coronavirus patient. This week in my shift yesterday nearly every single patient that i took care of was coronavirus and many of them extremely severe. Many were put on breathing tubes. Many decompensated quite quickly. Theres a very Different Air this week than there was last week. And quite honestly think about the fact that our first new york city case was on march 1st. Thats just over three weeks ago. To think that well be in any place to lift these restrictionary measures by easter in just two or three weeks, for me seems completely magical thinking. What we know is that theres math and modeling that can tell us that the number of cases is going to continue to rise. Were really at the beginning of this outbreak. And you can feel that. You can sense it. Its palpable on the front lines at the emergency department. And in terms of supplies do you have all the supplies you need . Because i cant tell you how many messages im getting from nurses and doctors and hospitals all over new york with very specific examples of what they do not have. Yeah. The supply chain is extremely tight. One thing i tell people is when i worked in west africa for ebola the one thing i never worried about was having enough ppe, the personal protective equipment. Its something that my colleagues all over new york city are worried about right now. The number of ma kz that people are given, if and when some people are given one n95 respirator mask, thats the thicker one that helps prevent the virus from being inhaled by a provider, given one of those a week. And the cdc doesnt want you using those. People are given one surgical mask a shift. And everyone is doing everything they can to conserve supplies because we know were just at the beginning of this. And after new york well be new jersey, well be new mexico. This is going to be a marathon. We are not even at the beginning of this. Governor cuomo talked about experimental procedures, splitting one ventilator for two patients. Is that something that can work . Theres been a lot of really creative and thoughtful Engineering Solutions to how were going to manage the lack of ventilators. You may have heard from Governor Cuomo that we need 15,000, 20,000 ventilators. The reality is is that quite frankly the only thing that helps many of these patients is taking over their breathing. And we have to do it a lot sooner than we normally do. Unlike putting them on masks, like cpap masks that people may know, we cant do that. Those generate too many ars olz. It makes it too dangerous for other providers. So were intubating, putting people on breathing tubes a lot earlier. People decompensate quickly. Some hospitals are reporting intubating one to two patients an hour. And if you think about what thats going to add up to in the next couple days and the next couple weeks, were talking about tens of thousands of patients. Dr. Spencer, thank you for what you do and so many nurses and xray technicians and Lab Technicians and folks are doing to keep us all alive. Thank you. Coming up next, what its like around the world. Both the better and the very dire. Well get a live report from spain where an ice arena is now a makeshift morgue. And later, set against scenes like that, mark cuban with his thoughts on when this country should reopen for business and what he makes of the president s light at the end of the tunnel outlook. Guys, figuring out who counts in the 2020 census isnt complicated. Everyone living in your home on april 1st counts. My aunt and uncle who live with us, count. My best friend who sleeps over every friday night, doesnt count. laughs my new baby sister, she counts. My moms best friend, whos been living with us, she counts. The dog, mr. Bebe, should count, but he doesnt. Complete the census online, by phone, or by mail. Shape your fut