ways can't come soon enough, wolf. we have been talking about that for some time. >> and why do they believe it is going to spread more rapidly than influenza? >> well, it is, you know, it seems to be pretty contagious. they are starting to do the modeling and looking at how likely the virus has been in the area, and how many people are infected as a result, and as a result, how contagious it is. and typically, you are thinking of the flu as going from one person to maybe one or two people, and with coronavirus, it is going from one person to two or three people. itarly on and they have to do more modeling, but you could have more patients with this coronavirus than influenza within a few weeks. >> what are you going to be linsing for in this news conferen conference? >> well, keeping in mind what to expect with the numbers increasing and we expect they will as we will see with the new testing coming in, and are we ready is the question. there is modeling coming from the federal government, itself, and so it is sort of gives an idea of how many people are likely to be sick and how many will need hospitalization be it on the intensive care unit and the breathing machine. we have the numbers, and wolf, when you apply it to what we have in the country right now, we don't matchup, and we are short quite a bit. maybe 100,000 icu beds short. this hospital system is not built for surge capacity and what do you do when there is a certain surge of patients, and that is one of the things that i want to address with the vice president. >> i know you will be asking questions in the upcoming news conference. we will get back to you, dr. sanjay gupta. and our chief correspondent jim acosta is also there for the briefing. jim, what do you anticipate that we will hear from the vice president and the others who will show up? >> right. wolf, we will hear from the vice president mike pence, and deborah burks who is the global aids director of the administration and also lending her expertise to combat the spread of the coronavirus. one thing that we should point out is that the president was meeting behind closed doors and a brief spray with the press that we could listen in on some of it where he was meeting with the heads of the pharmaceutical industry and also vaccine experts who are sort of getting the president up to speed as to the challenge that it is going to be before they can get some sort of coronavirus vaccine on the market. one thing that we should point out, wolf, is that during the meeting several of the experts in the pharmaceutical industry ceos had to explain to the president time and again that they cannot necessarily rush a vaccine on to the market. the president was sort of asking as he was going around the room, well, how quickly can we get a vaccine out on the market, and do it in three or four months and at one point dr. tony fauchi who is the infectious disease expert for the administration at one point told the president, no, it is still going to be about a year, and the experts and the pharmaceutical ceos were explaining to the president that there needs to be a vigorous testing process for the vaccines before you can put a vaccine out on the market. obviously, you can't put one out on the market for coronavirus if it has not been adequately tested and they had to explain it for the president time and again, and so you have a sense, wolf, there is an urgency on his part to address the issues. it is not an instant gratification type of problem that we are dealing with that this administration is dealing with right now. one thing that the president did say when the reporters were in the room is that, yes, he is considering new travel restrictions, but he did not get into specifically where the travel restriction might happen, but it is certainly on his mind. and as he was leaving for the rally in north carolina this evening, he was touting what happened on wall street, the big recovery on the wall street, and so the president is at least getting some kind of good news in a good bill of health temporarily for the stock market after that steep slide that we saw yesterday, wolf. >> very impressive rebound today and almost 1300 points on the dow jones industrial average. jim acosta, i know that you questions for the vice president and others who are there and we will get back to you as we are standing by for the press conference that the vice president is going to be coming out moment tear arily, and we w bring in our experts dr. zeke emanuel with us, and dr. james philips who practices emergency medicine here in washington at george washington hospital a few blocks away from the hospital, and our chief political analyst gloria borger is with us, and over at the white house is our chief medical correspondent dr. sanjay gupta who is monitoring this as well. so what do you think that we need to hear from the vice president and the team and dr. fauchi and others i assume will be there with him. >> and it is important for people to have confidence and honesty. and filtering crisis communications is a mistake. the more we can get the physicians and the scientists at the podium and having consistency so that everyday the american public is getting the same people to get the message and knowing when the message is coming again it is imperative to instill confidence. >> it is that they are doing the briefings in the white house briefing room and they have not done that over the past several month, and it is important to have the american public to know what is going on. >> necessary but not enough. it is going to be worse before it is bert and we will see more cases and probably doubling everyday and more deaths. we'd like to hear the plan. you just heard from sanjay something that i have been saying for days and days and days now, that we need surge capacity, and you are hearing from seattle to rent a motel to isolate people instead of a hospital, and using mobile homes and other items. that is a surge capacity -- >> what to you mean, sir, by surge capacity? >> as sanjay said 95,000 intensive unit beds in the entire country. those include burn units and pediatric intensive care units, and so if you have a lot of people on the respirator, they have to be in the intensive care unit. so you might need in a certain community more beds than you have in your intensive care unit and how are you going to handle those people? for every medical staff to support them, you need protective personal equipment and not just the masks, and they have talked about tens of millions of masks but what about the gloves and the gowns and you have to change it every time you go to different patients. so this is a big logistical issue, and you need to address it. in addition, you need separate entries for the emergency areas so these people are not waiting and potentially coughing on other people. that is part of the plan. you need to hear what is the plan. how are we going to get all of the communities in one, with one voice. here is just another issue, are we going to close the schools? sporting events? shopping? what is the trig foger for that? has anyone defined that? we want the white house to have a clear plan about that and we have heard none of it. >> so you are concerned about that, but gloria, they do have a responsibility the vice president and the team that he has assembled and the president as well to reassure the american public that they know what they are doing. >> what is reassuring from the american public is hearing from the scientists and hearing from doctors and hearing from the people who are on the front line and less and less from the politicians. i mean, it is clear from what jim acosta is saying to rush the vaccine and all right, get a vaccine in place and we will take care of it, and it can't happen, and the public needs to understand why that can't happen, and how they are trying, but you just don't rush a vaccine into place when it is not ready for use with the american public. they do want to hear about the dislocation that this is going to cause their lives, and a trigger as you point out would be something that would be good for the american public to know. so they want to be reassured. i understand that, but the reassurance comes from knowledge and not from a lack of knowledge and knowledge that comes from those who know, and those who understand rather than those who have gotten involved in this late in the game and who are political. so i sort of understand the vice president is leading up this charge which is showing the american public how serious it is, and that is a good thing, but in the end, if the decisions really do need to come from the medical professionals. that is what the public would like to hear. they would also like to hear to give us a briefing everyday and at 10:00 in the morning and 5:00 at night. let us know. >> i think that sanjay can still hear me. are you there? >> got you, wolf. >> we know that you are in the briefing room waiting for the conference with the vice president, and do we know for sure with six deaths in seattle, washington, area, and how the coronavirus virus wound up there to begin with? >> it is an interesting question, wolf wolf. the first patient diagnosed was january 20th, and that is the first time that it was diagnosed and found to be in the state of washington. possible that the virus had been there, but what is interesting is that the new steady over the last couple of days showed that virus from january 20th, matches or similar to the virus that has now caused the most recent infections, and remember that the virus is mutating, and so the fact that it is similar suggests that the same virus from january 20th has been circulating in that area for some six weeks now. so when they talk about community spread, that may have been where it started, and we don't know for sure, but when you are talking about the virus circulating for six weeks, according to the modeling done, up to 500 people or so could have been exposed to the virus. the testing, the lack of testing because of that, we don't know. maybe when we have this enhanced testing over the next few days we will have a better idea, but this virus has been likely circulating for some time and that how the people got it, wolf. >> let me ask dr. phillips if it is circulating in the seattle, washington, area for six weeks what does it tell you? >> that there is a virus in every state in the united states. >> how can you make that conclusion? >> it is based because with we have seen other viruses like this and how quickly they spread and sporadic cases popping up in both coasts and the south. every reason to believe that containment was not a part of this to begin with. the chinese did their best and took extraordinary measures that are not possible in other countries and the virus had gotten out, and we know it is here. if you are talking to the average emergency physician, it is here and we are prepared for et, and we have been preparing for it our whole careers, and this is not two weeks of preparation watching the news or two months of reading journals out of china, but 20 years of preparation from previous epidemics and for thosef who have chosen a career in disaster protection, while this surge is important, we do it on a daily basis and plan for it and written plans in the hospitals for it. it is difficult to think that on the national level undoubtedly, but in our hospitals on the front lines where those of us are going to be treating the patients with the coughs and the fevers, we are prepared for this. >> and george washington university hospital, the hospital here in the nation's capital and are you ready here in the emergency room for this? >> i think that we are. i am not an official representative of george washington university hospital in that capacity, but i would say that we have multiple meetings and we should have multidisciplinary committees and task forces about what to do about the coronavirus and revising the plans that are in place and developing them if they are not in place, and we have to meet the surge capacity the best we can and to minimize the patients that are in the emergency department and in the hospitals that we may need to try to find space. so whaen it is ken it comes to and this is a long term disaster, there are three things that you alluded to -- space, staff, stuff. the president and the administration have talked about the stuff we will get, and the strategic national stockpile of the masks and the vent lays or the and-- ventilators around th country, but i have concern about the staff. it is important to protect the staff and vulnerable staff, and we have plenty of doctors over the age of 60 with co-morbidities that are more at risk than those under 30. so with science, when i am sick and i will get sick from this and when i am sick from this, when i can come back to work and when do i get back in the fight, because i am going to be crazy at home in quarantine as will my other colleagues wondering when can i get back. >> you believe, dr. emanuel, that it is only a amount of time that these coronavirus emerge in all 50 states? >> yes, most physicians who have experience with this think that it is in the community. you have seen it in florida. you have community spread. you are seeing it in lots of places and it is a matter of time and we assume it is in the community now, and we have not detected it or tested the people and how prevalent or frequent or how many people have it. so i think that is a problem, because you have people walking around asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic who are spreading it, and that is a concern more generally, and i do think that, that's going to be, you know, a problem. i would also point out as the intro ran, and you have four firefighters, and i think it is four firefighters or half of the fire department out in kirkland who are quarantined because they went to the nursing home and are testing positive. that is a problem if you have a lot of people around who are positive coming into the emergency rooms and infecting the nurses and doctors and this is the medical staff that you just heard that could be threatened because they may need to be quarantined. >> and now, we are standing by to hear from the vice president mike pence who is meeting with the top officials of the cdc and the national institutes ohealth and others from department of homeland security, and department of health and human resources are going to be coming out to preef the brief the repo live coverage of that. as we are awaiting the news conference, we will go next to the epicenter of all of this in the united states, the city of kirkland. and a state, washington state, where the death toll has now risen from two to six. later on this super tuesday eve, joe biden's big boost as another democratic presidential candidate drops 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symbicort is right for you. if you can't afford your medication, astrazeneca may be able to help. and your mother told me all her life that i should fix it. and now it reminds me of her. i'm just glad i never fixed it. listen, you don't need to go anywhere dad. meet christine, she's going to help you around the house. the best home to be in is your own. from personal care and memory care, to help around the house, home instead offers personalized in-home services for your loved ones. home instead senior care. to us, it's personal. as we await the vice president mike pence, he is getting ready to brief the american public on the administration's response to the coronavirus epidemic, we are also following the breaking news out of the seattle,ing wi washi area where the authorities have announced the death toll there is to six. we have the nursing facility there, omar, it is clearly at the epicenter of what is going on there. a update the viewers. >> that is right, wolf. this is where the investigators are honing in and investigating it as an outbreak. looking at the six deaths that we have total across the state. five of them from this county, and of the five, four of them stem from this life care center nursing facility, and of the 18 cases statewide, eight of them stem from this particular facility and why both at the state and the federal level they are looking at this place as an outbreak. and also tied to this, you have the first responders who came here. and 37 in total had been quarantined and all of them stemming from responding to this particular facility, and just about a quarter of the fire department here in kirkland and important to note that quarantining is one thing and precautionary measure for people who were exposed to see if they do get sick, and as we are learning 19 of the 37 are now moved to isolation which means they are likely showing symptoms, wolf. >> omar, what are you learning about the high school student who tested positive in everett, washingto washington? >> wolf, across the state, it is a schools that are a concern for officials. 48 schools are closed today or tomorrow, and that particular school in everett, a student who tested positive for the coronavirus late last week and he had no relevant travel history to put him in the major infection zone. he was set to go to class on friday and he learned of the test results right before being able to attend classes, i should say, and then he was moved to isolation. some of the few students that this student interacted were placed in quarantine. again, as precautionary measure. in that particular school jackson high school in the county to the north here in seattle, it was closed today and expected to be so over the course of the next few days to get the deep cleaning in again as a major precautionary measure here in the state, wolf. >> omar on the scene there and we will get back to you and to get more on the school situation there is the school superintendent there in everett, washington, and also joining us is dave peters the high school principal there. and so, mr. peters when you got the call that one of the students came down with the coronavirus, it must have been a shock, and i can certainly anticipate that. had the student been feeling better and returned to school and he didn't know that he had been tested for coronavirus and how did that all unfold? >> right. so we understand that he was not feeling well and went to the doctor and got checked out. he started feeling better and he had not received any results, and so he attempted to come back on campus and he did not attend any classes by the time he had received the word that the test results had come back presumptively positive. so at that point he came directly home. >> any idea how this student got coronavirus? >> no. >> nope. >> i think that what we know that he had not done any traveling himself. he had not at this point, the health district information to us is that he has not become available yet that he was in contact with anybody who had traveled overseas. >> dr. saltsman, the school was closed today to have what they described as deep cleaning. what does that entail? are the buses cleaned as well, and share with us what is going on. >> yes, sir, wolf, thank you. with e p-- when we found out we put the deep cleaning team out. that is a full clean event from every place to clean so that when the kids come back to school tuesday, it is going to be fully sanitized. >> any idea how the infected student came in contact with and are they being monitored right now? >> yes, so the snohomish health district identified four other students that they believed had been in direct contact and they were more at risk for exposure and so those students have been in quarantine at this time as well. >> what kind of the symptoms, dr. saltsman, did this student have and how sick is this person? >> all we know right now from the health district is that they had flu-like symptoms and the health district notified us and we put the plan into action. >> and mr. peters, what is the message to parents tonight, and many of who are concerned about sending their kids back to school tomorrow. >> right. >> yeah. >> understandably, too. we are following the recommendations of the health district which is that they have started with their patient zero and doing the forensic mapping they have identified the students that the other student has come into contact with and quarantined them, and so in other words, if you have not been contacted directly by the health district, it has not yet risen to the level of concern that they are at risk of exposure, and so all students and staff otherwise are planning to return to school tomorrow. >> and out of the abundance of caution, mr. peters, would you consider keeping the school closed fosh another fr another ? >> well, that is a question for dr. saltsman here. >> okay. go ahead, dr. saltsman. >> well, we are concerned like everybody else nationwide for this. and at this time, we will have school tuesday, but what we are doing is to communicating with the public, and with the community to just let them know every step of the way. but like everybody else in the nation, we are concerned with this. >> i am sure that you are. and what other, dr. saltsman, what other precautions are you taking to deal with this crisis? >> right now, what we are doing is to have a daily fact sheet that is running every few hours and talking about hygiene and working closely with the health district to keep us informed if they know anything, and they have done a great job to keep us informed but really to all of the community members and students and teachers and everybody who is living in everett, and just good, good hygiene, and if you are not feeling well, please call your doctor. please do that. >> and that is important advice. dr. ian saltzman and dave peters thank you very, very much. and zeke, let us get some analysis from what you have heard, and what do you think? >> they have done a right thing and deep clean to try to get the droplets out and identified the students, and what i am concerned about is that they identified the students before, and they went friday and thursday to be tested and what about the days before, because he was not testing positive at the flip of the switch thursday. so that is very important. i would say in response to your question what about keeping the school closed for a few more days is not going to do anything, keeping it closed for a few more days, but again, the communication with the families and telling them, listen, the coronavirus is spread by drop t droplets and we have cleaned the school so there are no droplets and it is not in the air or the air system. it is important to educating them that a few more days is not going to make a difference. so i think that's quite important. also, you have to be careful about, as i said, did he come into the contact with the staff or the teachers who might see all of the students, and that, again, that is where we are worrisome that someone critical who sees many more than a couple of people could become infected and distribute it much more widely. >> we are told with the news conference and the briefing that the white house is ready and the vice president and the others are going to be walking out momentarily, and we will have live coverage of that and dr. phillips, as you know, i asked the question of the superintendent out there, because in japan, all elementary, middle school and high schools are closed and throughout the country for a month. this entire month. >> and what a disruption that is not only to the students trying to get their education, but to the families now who have to find a way to get a parent home to take care of the children which is going to make the economy suffer. in our country where so many people are living paycheck to paycheck, we are running the risk of people going back to work when they are sick. so this virus more than anything is a lesson that we have a responsibility and every citizen has a responsibility whether it is the elected and appointed leadership for honest and clear communication and to get our hospitals money to fight this, but there is also a response frblt t responseability from the employers to the employees and have the positive measures like hand sanitizers and also letting people do telework from home, and guaranteeing if they are sick and quarantined that they will not lose their job and maybe advance pay choek checks can stay home and convalesce. we will see the downstream from this. >> and the doctors here, could we have been more prepared and i understand the budget cuts and the group that looks into the infectious disease was killed, but -- okay. we will answer that later. >> the team is walking out and the vice president is there, and so let's listen in. >> good afternoon. we have finished the monday meeting at the white house coronavirus task force. since the time that the president has established the task force here at the white house, it has literally met daily and we are continuing the effort today. we have added the head of the center for medicaid and medicare services in the task force as well as robert wilkie with the v.a. and first a few baysic facts an then we will hear from others. at the present moment we have 43 cases of the coronavirus. and 48 cases of individuals who have returned to the united states. of the ghodomestic cases, 29 ofe 43 are either california or washington state. we have communities that are facing what the experts tell us could potentially tell us is a cluster in those communities. sadly, today there were four additional fatalities raising the number of six americans have lost their life to the coronavirus and on behalf of the president and all of the american people, we extend our deepest condolences and sympathies to the families of those that were lost. despite today's sad news, let's be clear, the risk to the american people of the coronavirus remains low, according to all of the experts that we are working with across the government. this president has said we are ready for anything, but this is an all hands on deck effort. today's activity really reflects the president's effort to bring the best minds of private industry together, the best leadership from around the country at every level. we had a good meeting this morning with the governors from 50 states and three territories. i was able to convey to them the gratitude that the president and our entire administration feels particularly for governors who are dealing with the coronavirus in their states, those who have taking repatriated personnel. what i am hearing from the governors, there is a seamless relationship between all of the agencies of the federal government and states thus far. and we are encouraged to hear that, but i told them that we are committed to a full partnership with state governments and to their health officials and to local health care providers going forward. we also met today with some of the top pharmaceutical companies in the country. the president spoke to them not just about vaccines which many of the companies are working on, and just as importantly, the development of therapeutics and it is remarkable to think that there may be well be a vaccine going to clinical trials within the next six weeks. the nature of the trials as the e e experts have explained to sus that the vaccine may not be available late this year or early next, but the therapeutics to give relief to the people who contract the coronavirus could be available by summer or early fall. the most encouraging news from the meeting is that the pharmaceutical companies which are recognized as the greatest in the world all have already formed a consortium to work together to share information in the development of therapeutics and vaccines. a quick update. yesterday we were fully implementing the new travel advisories for portions of italy and south korea and the implementation of screening of personnel from across those countries who are trying to take a direct flight to the united states of america. i was pleased in the white house task force meeting today to learn that within the next 12 hours, 100% screening of all direct flights of all airports across italy and south korea. the president has directed us to bring the full resources of the federal government and to bring the very best minds in the country to bear on this effort. finally, today, i am pleased to welcome to the white house team a world renowned global health official, a official, a official and a physician who is going to be my right arm as the president has tasked me to be the lead of the coronavirus. and i am pleased to announce dr. deborah burks is going to be on the team, and even on the first day, she has been contributing significantly to our discussions. dr. burks serves as the u.s. government's leader for combatting hiv/aids globally and developed an international reputation for that. she is a scientist, a physician and someone with three decades' health expertise and including the virulent diseases and vaccines and vast experience with interagency coordination and dr. burks and i have talked about the importance of bringing all of the entities together to bring about president trump's vision for a whole of government response to the coronavirus. so with that, i'd like to recognize dr. deborah burks for introductory remarks and thank you again for stepping up to serve our country. >> thank you, mr. vice president, it is a pleasure to be here. i arrived from south africa last night. everybody took care of me and i had computer and phone in record time and shows the efficiency and the expertise to get moving quickly here. it is clear that the early work of the president and both with the travel restrictions and the ability to quarantine has bought us this time and space to have this task force to be effective. i have never worked with such incredible scientists and thoughtful policy leaders. i got the spend the day with them. i am trying to get up to speed as fast as possible and i am looking forward to the days ahead to work together to end this epidemic, thank you. >> that is great. secretary azar. >> well, thank you, mr. vice president. i wanted to start out by saying that we are delighted that ambassador burks is going to be leading and coordinating the efforts across the government. dr. burks and i go way back. every leader at the department of health and human services go way back together, so we have established relationships, and maybe not too way back, right, but we have very established productive working relationships that are going to keep the intraagency process working incredibly smoothly and as the vice president has said dr. burks is asking all of the right questions and directing us to the policy matters that we need to focus on. i wanted to begin by recapping the situation with covid 19. as the vice president mentioned this morning, we have 43 confirmed or presumty cases in the united states excluding the repatriated cases. 17 of the cases are travel-related in one way or another. and 26 are believed to be person-to-person spread. because of the president's strong leadership and all of the hard work that the public officials have done at the local, the state and the federal level, the immediate risk to any individual american has been and does continue to be low. but the risk for people with possible exposure to identified cases can be high. what every one of the experts and the leards have been s s ls have been saying for more than a month now is true especially if we are seeing the sustained spread around the world which could qualify this disease as a pandemic. as dr. fauchi said this morning, we will see more cases of community spread in the united states. as we have emphasized for some time now, we all need to prepare for the potential need. prepare for the worst, hope for the best. in some places, we will have to use the range of the mitigation efforts and in fact, we are already working closely with santa clara county and the state of washington, and in particular king county, to assist them in thinking through some of the best practices from the pandemic action plan as well as learnings from singapore and hong kong around the most effective community mitigation efforts such adds temporary school closures or the more titrated responses that dr. shugutt has talked to you about such as fewer assemblies in school. and that why the government has taken a whole approach to protect the american people and including the steps in the last few days to radically expand and improve the testing that we have and improve the access to respirators needed by health care workers. the vice president dr. shookett of the cdc spoke with almost every governor of the states, and we greatly appreciate their cooperation with us. i also wanted to introduce an individual who i had the vice president join the task force, because the centers for medicare and medicaid services play a vital role, and $1.3 trillion of spending here in the united states providing health care to 60 million american seniors and as we have seen, this disease can have a disproportionate severity impact on the elderly as well as the medically frail. and so our administrator has a important responsibility in regard to the funding of the care whether it is therapeutics or vaccines or diagnostics for the senior citizens, but also a vital role that you may not know of in regulating the long term care facilities such as nursing homes and ther health care facilities that are a regulatory function. so i am delighted that administrator burrma is joining the task force and i will turn it over to seema. >> thank you, secretary azar. for hhs, the patients come first fort the health and safety of the america's patients and workforce is the highest priority. so let me start with what cms is and as the secretary said, we are the largest insurer covering 30 million americans between medicare, medicaid and the individual insurance market and some of these are the nation's most vulnerable populations, the eld elderly, children and so forth. currently, we have a regulatory responsibility for pretty much every health care institution in america, facilities such as hospitals, critical access hospitals, nursing homes, home health agencies and dialysis centers and the list goes on. that is a critical role for us in addressing the coronavirus. we are responsible for enforcing the quality guidelines based in part on information from partner agencies like the cdc. so let me stress that cms has long standing infectious disease policies in place that have been used effectively for other outbreaks such as influenza, and the health care facilities have the procedures in place and should be prepared for what they may see. we will continually proactively update the regulations and working with the cdc, and right now, like i said, those are already in place and it is our job to make sure that the health care facilities are effectively implementing those guidelines and we will work with the cdc to determine whether we need to update or change those. also, we are looking at what we cover and clarifying the types of the products and the services that our programs will be able to pay for in terms of the medicaid and medicare. and with that,ly tu li will tur over. >> thank you, seema. thank you for stepping up. i wanted to recognize a couple more members of the team. tony fauchi, national institutes of health. thank you, doctor. >> thank you very much, mr. vice president. i wanted to make three comments and points. first to underscore what the vice president and with secretary azar said, we had an extraordinary meeting with the ceos and variety of individuals in the pharmaceutical and biotech business and several in the room were people who are actually actively collaborating with and their enthusiasm of getting involved to helping us along with the development of the products and the availability of the products be it vaccines or the other therapeutics. it was satisfying. and i am also pleased that the president and the vice president will come to the cdc and show them in realtime the things that we are doing. and finally one comment about ambassador dr. burks, and a couple of people said that i go back a long time with dr. burks and nobody goes back as long as i go with ambassador burks. she was a fellow in my program as a trainee, and we knew that she was a star then and now what has happened over the years, she has become a super star, and together, we saw the first patients with hiv back in the early 1980s and we were involved in the vaccine trial that was the first successful trial with hiv and we have known each other through pepfar and we have had the honor of putting that together for president bush, and she was ambassador in charge of that program. so i can't tell you how excited i am to finally once again to get back to partner with debbie burks. >> thank you. great. thank you, dr. fauchi. and finally, dr. bob redfield, cdc. bob. >> thank you, mr. vice president. what i would like to do is to, is to recognize that cdc continues to work and provide support to really the backbone of the public health system in this nation which is a state, local, tribal and territory health departments and these teams continue to work to identify new cases, isolate and contact and trace these and to work together to try to limit the transmission of the coronavirus. working with the public health partners, we continue to be able to identify new community cases as the secretary said we always anticipated. and use our public health assets to aggressively, again, confirm those cases, isolate and do contact tracing to use our public health tools to limit the spread of the virus. i wanted to echo what was said by the vice president and the secretary and despite seeing the new community cases that shows you that we have a public health community across the country in action that the risks to the american people is low. i also want to add my looking forward and i know that my entire agency is looking forward to the president and the vice president's and the secretary's visit to come the atlanta friday and get to meet and a lot of the wonderful people who form the backbone of this great agency. thank you. >> thank you, bob. we will take questions. steve holland, reuters. where are you, steve? >> based on what we have seen so far, how quickly do you expect the virus to spread throughout the united states? >> let me refer that to the experts. go ahead, bob. >> any details of the cluster in washington state that is showing us anything? >> well, the important thing is that the secretary has said that from the beginning, we have anticipated to see community cases pop up, and now we have a number of new community cases which the health departments are aggressively evaluating to see if they can understand the linkage, who are the contacts, how is this virus spreading. the american public should rest assured that we have one of the finest public health programs in the world when you are looking at the state and the local territorial, so we will continue to see the cases as a consequence of them doing their job and use the public health strategies to limit the transmission. with e should fo we should focus on that. we are working hard to contain the community outbreaks, but we are blending it with very strategic mitigation strategies. >> dr. fauchi? >> just to underscore something that we have said the other day about the aspects tof cases coming in and controlling the spread of what is coming in, and there are two things that are coming in, and the restrictions of the travel to the areas of the hotspots in the world, and just like the original inhibition of the travel to china is going to mitigate against the question of the wider spread and the contact tracing and the isolation that is aggressively going on, and we hope and you cannot predict 100% of anything, but what is going on right now with the cdc particularly with the state and the local health authorities is going to get us through this. >> mr. vice president -- >> steve, it is something that i learned al los angel e ed along we have cases that merge, the state and local is in the lead, but the cdc is on the ground immediately to identify how it might have originated with that individual and to find we know there will be more cases. the president initially took unprecedented action to do all that we could to prevent the coronavirus from coming into the country. and now we're focused on mitigation of the spread as well as treatment of the people that are affected. kristen fisher. kristen fisher here? she walked out. let me go with hallie jackson. >> thank you. two questions for you. number one, president trump hinted today at the potential for new travel restrictions on top of what we're already seeing. this includes italy, south korea, china, iran. can you elaborate on what countries you're looking at. is germany on the table? and a follow-up as well. >> the president was very clear, we're going to follow the facts and listen to the experts every step of the way. the action the president authorized this weekend raising the travel advisory, the american people should know that we are saying that they -- you should not travel to certain sections of italy or south korea. those advisories may expand, but we'll allow the case load in those countries to define that. in addition to that, by establishing the screening protocol, which will be in full force and effect within the next 12 hours in both countries, will insure that anyone traveling on a direct flight to the united states of america receives multiple screenings at all airports in italy and south korea. but to your point, the nature of the european union, as one doesn't require a passport to move around, so our task force spoke today about new cases, and there were some in several european countries. we're following that very closely, and again, we'll listen to the experts. we'll watch the cases, and i know the president will make the decisions with regard to both travel advisories or restrictions on the basis of those facts. >> my second question, just on the word pandemic. do you, do your experts behind you, consider this a pandemic in all but designation only? >> i would refer to the experts that our view is that that would be for the world health organization to define. our team, our task force team was in touch with the world health organization today. and let me let the secretary address that. but this isn't so much about semantics. i think our briefing today was, we're in more than 60 countries at this point. and so we're going to continue to focus on insuring that we do all we can to prevent people coming in to the country with the disease, to mitigate any spread of the disease once we identify cases, and of course, to provide treatment. did you want to speak to that? >> i spoke with doctors today, the incident manager for the world health organization, about this precise question because i wanted to get a sense of their thinking, how they're assessing the designation of pandemic status. at the moment, while we're seeing community spreading in multiple regions of the world, there's not -- there are many definitions people use around pandemic, and one issue that the w.h.o. is focused on is sheer magnitude. while we have had very large numbers of cases and spreading within china, the actual absolute number of cases outside of china, while reflecting community spreading, are not of the magnitude comparable to any other pandemics that have been declared before. for instance, even the h1n1 with you have billions of individuals infected across the world, so that's what -- that's how they are thinking about this. and we're just going to keep working with them. we don't have a view as to whether they should designate it a pandemic or not a pandemic. i made that very clear. i just wanted to get a sense how they're thinking about it and assessing it. that's, i think, reflective of the current thinking. i asked if they could put out some points about how they're assessing this stuff. >> good answer. >> how about ben with abc? where are you, ben? go ahead. >> on screening passengers from italy and south korea, what exactly will that screening look like? is that people taking temperatures. is that every passenger who will be conducting it, and will it be expanded to other countries and how many tests have been conducted? last week, i believe secretary said there were 3600. what's an update on that? >> well, let me just -- our state department interagency group has worked out that arrangement with both italy and south korea. south korea actually about three hours ago fully implemented the screening on all direct flights, all airports, and as i mentioned, within the next 12 hours or so, italy will have implemented the same thing. it will be multiple temperature checks in the airports for people before they're boarding. and we're working very closely to assist them in implementing that. but let me speak about -- dr. hahn can speak to you about the status of tests because one of the things i heard from governors last week was the whole issue of test kits, the availability of testing. i really want to commend dr. hahn and the fda for very swift work, making many more tests available, more kits that include multiple tests, and also authorizing local testing, which will now make it more possible as our experts told us, to identify additional cases. as we find more cases, it will mean our health officials are doing their job in large part. and the availability of those tests will contribute to that. >> thank you. as you heard from the secretary and the vice president this weekend, we had the capacity and state public health labs to perform between 75,000 and 100,000 tests. on saturday, we issued new policy allowing us to have some flexibility around the tests. so academic centers, private companies can develop these tests, tell us that they validated those tests and begin to use them. they alert us of that and later on within 15 days we can look at the validation data. they're having the responsibility to show the validation of those tests. with this new policy, we have heard from multiple companies and multiple academic centers, and we expect to have a substantial increase in the number of tests this week, next week, and throughout the month. there will be -- the estimates we're getting from industry right now, by the end of this week, close to a million tests will be able to be performed. >> we're talking about risk. you guys came out and said the risk is low, but with so few tests being done, and the ink ubation rate being as high as two weeks, how can we accurately say the risk is low at this point? we haven't put out enough tests. >> if you talk about the entire country, the whole 360 million people in this country, the risk is a low risk. i think the point you're making is that since we haven't done yet but will happen really soon, the testing into the community, how do we know the risk is low? i would imagine it's still going to be low regardless of that. what happens in real time, which is the reason we do this so frequently is things can change. but right now, today, on this day, monday, if you look at the country as a whole, the risk is low. >> last question. >> one more. go right ahead. >> people across the country are worried about spring break. they're worried about spring break and wondering if they should book travel or cancel travel. two parts. what is the expert opinion from the task force on sort of spring break travel and even domestic travel. and secondly, would you yourself feel comfortable bringing your family right now, including your three grown children and their partners on a week-long trip to disney world? >> well, i can say there's been no recommendation about any limitations on travel within the united states of america. but let me let the experts speak to recommendations with regard to travel. >> would you feel comfortable bringing -- >> i travel across this country all the time. my kids live all over the country, and look, this is a time to use common sense. good time to wash your hands. but this time of year, that's always a good decision. as we said, the risk remains low. and while we have had a tragic loss, four today, the reality is, as i said, 29 of the 43 domestic cases are in california and in washington state, and are centered in very specific areas that we're working to identify the source on. but i don't -- i think people should just continue to use common sense this time of year. but with regard to international travel, let me yield to the expert. >> well, i just want to echo what the vice president said, that we want people to go about and live their normal lives in this nation right now. the secretary is right. even before the coronavirus, if you had asked cdc what you should do about preparedness, we would give that every individual should think ahead and prepare, whether it's a hurricane, those recommendations haven't changed. and i really want people to reflect that. in going to -- there's no travel restrictions in the united states. the cdc and the state department and task force have worked hard to recognize those areas where there's significant community transmission where we give you that we would recommend you not travel there. you know that china is that, we now have south korea as a level 3, italy, japan, and iran as level 3 travel advisories, which we would ask you to reconsider those travel plans. but in the united states, there's no travel restrictions. i want to echo again what everyone said. the risk to the american public at this point is low. we are going to increase substantially surveillance, similar to what we do for flu. we have multiple different surveillance systems. with dr. hahn and the fda getting more tests out, t

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