Transcripts For FOXNEWSW The Daily Briefing With Dana Perino

200 licensed labs in the state of new york. With have 28 labs this is not the official terms but toptier labs in essence that the department of health works with. Well go to the 28 labs first and contracting with those 28 labs. What about outside the state . No. We did contract with bio reference, which is in northern new jersey. That was the announcement the governor made yesterday. They be doing tests with us. Were working with labcorps and quests. Because their facilities are so far away, that creates a threefourday lag on turn around. I stand corrected. Im Trace Gallagher in for dana perino. Lets go to Bernie Sanders speaking about coronavirus. Listen. A medical and economic crisis likes of which we have not seen in generations. We must prepare for this response in an unprecedented way making sure our government responds effectively and protects the interests of all of our people regardless of their income or where they live. In other words, this is not just about giving tax breaks to large corporations, but it is about remembering the people today who do not have much money, who are very nervous about their economic futures and about their healthcare prospects. Needless to say, we must massively increase the availability of test kits for the coronavirus and the speed in which theyre processed. We need to anticipate significant increases in hospital admissions, which means that we will need more icu units and ventilators, well need more doctor and nurses and medical personnel of all kinds. We must make sure that these frontline personnel are wellprotected from the diseases they are treating. Ill have talked to nurses recently who worry very much about whether theyre getting the kind of knowledge they need and the equipment that they need to make sure that they do not get sick. We need to significantly improve our communications and collaboration in other countries to assure that we are learning everything that we can about the successes and failures other countries are encountering as they deal with this crisis and furthermore, we must be honest with the American People and communicate as effectively and directly as we can with all of the scientific information that we can provide. Further and perhaps most importantly, our response for this entire crisis must be guided by decisions of doctors, scientists and researchers, not politicians. But as we struggle with this crisis, it is also important that was Bernie Sanders here and now nancy pelosi talking about the coronavirus. Watch. The accelerating challenge, one that tests our compassion, and resolve. Sadly weve learned 41 americans have died. The American People expect and deserve a coordinated signbased and whole of government response to keep them and their loved ones safe. A response that puts Families First to stimulate the economy. To put Families First last week, the house passed a strong bipartisan 8. 3 billion emergency funding package of entirely new funds. We made a wellfunded evidencebased investment in Public Health. Developing treatments and the vaccine available to all and prevention and preparedness response and helping state, local and tribal and hospital sixes and supporting impacted Small Businesses with sba loans and helping families by extending Tele Medicine Services no matter where they list. Democrats swift action to pass this emergency funding was essential to our nations long overdue response. Next, Chuck Schumer and i called for further action to put Families First. Today we are passing a bill that does just that. The Families First Coronavirus Response act. Which is focused directly on providing support for americas families who must be our first priority. The three most important parts of this bill are testing, testing, testing. This legislation facilitates free coronavirus testing for everyone who needs a test, including the uninsured. We can only defeat this outbreak if we have an accurate determination of its scale and scope so that we can pursue the precise sciencebased response that is necessary. To put Families First, our legislation secures paid leave with two weeks of paid sick leave and family and medical leave for those affected by the virus. And for those that lose their jobs, were strengthening Unemployment Insurance, a critical step to protect workers economic security. Putting Families First, our legislation protects our children. Particularly the tens of middles of middle children that rely on the free or reduced price lunch at school for their security. As schools are being closed, each child will be deprived of meals. We strengthen Food Security initiatives as well as snap, senior meals and food banks. We continue to listen to and benefit from the expertise of scientists, healthcare professionals, Public Health officials and Community Leaders so we can craft the most effective evidencebased response. Our great nation has faced crises before. Every time thanks to the courage and perseverance of the American People, we have prevailed. Now working together we will once again prevail and well come out stronger than before. God bless you and god bless america. Thank you. There you have nancy pelosi not answering any questions at all. Shes talking about the Families First Coronavirus Response act, which does a couple of things. Once, it free coronavirus testing kits for everybody. It increases paid emergency leave meaning you can quarantine if need be for 14 days. On top of that you get an additional three months of paid family leave. It would also enhance unemployment benefits. Thats for people that Unemployment Insurance ran out recently and the benefits would be reinstated for a certain amount of time. She talked about Food Security meaning food stamps, student meals. They would be robustly backed up. Finally she talked about putting more money into medicaid. Lets bring in our chief white house correspondent, john roberts. Hes live on the north lawn. John . Good afternoon to you. President trump will be taking some significant steps this afternoon. He has a press conference scheduled in the rose garden for 3 00. The president will also be declaring emergencies under the auspices of two different provisions in federal law. One is the National Emergencies act and the other is under the stafford act. Under the stafford act, what the president can do is tap the Disaster Relief fund at fema, which stands in balance about 42 billion. Some money of that has already been allocated. So hes got about 35 billion there with which he can do an awful lot and then under the National Emergencies act, that will waive certain requirement that hhs has with medicare, medicaid and the s chip plan to allow really what this is all aimed at increasing hospital capacity, making it easier or for people to get care, for example, if a medicaid funded hospital needs to increase the number of beds temporarily. They can do that without losing funding. If a hospital needs to shift patients to another hospital, it cuts through the red tape and the ability to do that. The same thing with children who are under the s chip program. So a lot of money to be tapped under fema, trace and cutting through the bureaucratic red tape in terms of the response to the coronavirus when it comes to the federal programs of medicare and medicaid and s chip. Trace . Thanks, john. Back to you with breaking news. The president speaks at 3 00. Well bring that to you live. John talking about hospital beds there. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo talked about the pressing problems of icu beds where he said italy ran into a huge problem there. So you have several states, texas, new york, california now pushing their hospitals to increase their capacity to put people in these intensive care units if they have severe breathing problems brought on by coronavirus. I want to bring in the Congressional Correspondent chad pergram. We mentioned nancy pelosi was talking about the Families First Coronavirus Response act. What else is going up on capitol hill, chad . The House Majority leader steny hoyer said they will vote on a bill no matter what. Something that the speaker of the house said earlier today and intimated earlier. She didnt say there was an agreement with the administration. She didnt say that there was an agreement with democrats. The democrats had a bill you might remember about 24, 36 hours ago and they wanted to work with republicans. Kevin mccarthy, the House Minority leader has just come back to the capitol in the past hour after meeting with the president. They need to get republicans on board to pass the bill. We expect that later this afternoon. Chad pergram live on capitol hill. This is Florida Governor ron desantis. Lets watch. This is a virus that has had a negative impact on folks that are older, have an underlying medical condition. With that in mind, we issued access to assisted living facilities. But because we had the 11 cases, we now have 11 cases in Broward County. Im directing jared moscowicz to expand all visitation to nursing homes, adult family care homes, longterm care facilities and Adult Group Homes in Broward County for the next 30 days. Beyond that order, i directed the secretary for healthcare administration, secretary mayhue to aggressively connect with these facilities in person, by phone, whatever you need to do to ensure theyre following appropriate protocols in place. So far the team has visited overed 260 facilities in person. So we appreciate that. As i said yesterday, were committed to expanding testing capabilities in the state of florida. We all know there was cdc tests and everything. You know, i wanted to make sure florida was acting on its own to do this. So i directed director moscowicz to purchase 2,500 testing kits that will give laps the capacity to conduct tests for up to 625,000 individuals. Each kit has 500 tests. The tests have to be done properly. Ive also directed our Surgeon General to strategically distribute the testing kits to 50 certified labs throughout the state starting with hospitals so testing can be completed closer to the patients. Hospitals have concerns of people in the hospitals. They have a lab that can do it. They can do it there without having to send the sample everywhere. That would mean they would get the results back quicker. So far we received 1,000 of the 2,500 kits weve ordered, this is a display. Theyre not in there. Theyre being refrigerated or kept at a certain temperature. So we do have 1,000 kits now and im directing the directors to distribute all of these 1,000 test kits that are here to laboratory and hospitals that request and can use them as soon as possible. The tests will be distributed with priority to hospitals in counties with the highest need starting with Broward County based on their increased number of cases. So to give you a since of where the state is in terms of testing capability, none of the folks referred for test have not been able to get a test. Weve had capacity up to this point. Right now the department of health at the three labs in tampa, jacksonville and miami can do it combined. 300 patients per day of samples. We also have the capacity to do another 100 tests per day with a clea certified labs throughout the state. The goal is to have 50 of these certified labs throughout the state processing about 100 per day. So that would be a good increase in our capacity should that be necessary. You also have the private sector that is stepping up efforts, quest and labcorps. They dont take the samples for the tests, but they process the tests and come up with results. So those are collected, shipped out every night. They test all through the night and theyre trying to get the results back within a 24hour period. By the end of next week, both companies will be doing about 20,000 samples a day nationwide. Obviously florida will be a part of that. So that is something that will be beneficial as well. I also want to stress if youre somebody who is experiencing symptoms of covid19, fever, shortness of breath and you speak to a physician and you think you should be tested, we have opportunities to do that via the department of health, your doctor, via some of the hospitals. So get it done if you need to. The cdc initially when this came out weeks ago had linked it to different travel and certain countries. Obviously if you have done that that is still something that could be very significant. All the cases in florida, the overwhelming are all still linked to international travel. Some of the other investigations are ongoing. You dont have to have traveled. If you have the symptoms and a doctor recommends it, then you can receive a test. We want folks to be doing that if theyre experiencing the symptoms. Im also directing dr. Ripke to settle up targeting and sentinel testing of individuals so we have better data on covid19 impact particularly mildly symptomatic populations. The tests are great. We put out the numbers. I hope helpful for folks to see that. Certainly people out there in our state and throughout the country that have very mild symptoms that may have a cough for a few days and theyre not thinking about calling a physician or getting a test. Theyre just trying to go about their life. Fortunately with this virus, for the vast majority of people, thats probably the type of symptoms that they get. But we want to try to figure out if we can identify how much more prevalent it is among some of these populations which are not exhibiting very significant symptoms. Those are younger populations and healthier populations. But i think this is a good effort to as this goes more we knew we would have more cases this week. More cases next week. Thats what happening in the social distancing that is being done with reducing the gatherings, some of the other things that have been implemented. Its important. It will help. Just from the contacts based on the cases so far, youre anticipating more. So we want to make sure that we have the increased Testing Capacity and wait for anybody else to do it. Incidentally when we spoke to the manufacturer of the test kits, they told us florida has purchased more than any of the other states combined. I appreciate director moscowicz getting on that issue and getting them out. Im also announcing we will be in probably over the next 24 hours activating certain components of the Florida National guard to assist in our efforts to support our local communities that are affected by covid19. Were working on the shape and scope of that. If you mobilize a figures on this, probably not good to take them out of that fight. Its not just physicians. They have nurses, they have medics a lot of people that could help us. And we think that if we have National Guard support, that they could help augment medical staff shortages, potentially get help, expand testing resources and even potentially setting up a field Medical Clinic if that were needed to be the case. So if you look at the last few days, you have sporting events cancelled, all this stuff. I think its something that is people are erring on the side of caution. I understand that and think that that makes a lot of sense in many results. I also think this is something that well be able to get through, you know, we have to do this for the foreseeable future but something that the people of florida will get through. So i know its frustrating to see an event cancelled or the inconveniences. I think that Everyone Wants to up and down the state, the local officials i talked to, the medical professionals, the private businesses, they want a healthy environment in florida. We want to do our best to make sure that this virus is not allowed to run unchecked throughout our society. If you want more information, our website is floridahealth. Gov. They have the updated guidance on covid19. I want to thank the Surgeon General. I dont think hes rested very much over the last however many weeks and months. We appreciate his help. Im going to let him say a few words and happy to take some questions. Thank you, governor. Good afternoon. First, i want to begin by thanking the governor, Lieutenant Governor for their incredible you have a new conference going on in tallahassee. Governor ron desantis what youll hear a lot in the coupling days, its about testing, testing. We heard it from the texas governor, andrew cuomo was talking about it in new york. None Governor Ron Desantis said theyre trying to get the labs online to get the tests processed. Thats the key for the foreseeable future. Florida has 42 coronavirus cases, two deaths. They are anticipating more cases as is every state coming up. I want to bring in dr. Farik, the former assistant hhs secretary of health and also the Bipartisan Policy Center chief medical adviser. Earlier in his hhs career, he played key roles in emergency repairedness efforts related to pandemics and bioterrorism. Hes been there, hes done that. I want your take on this, doctor, if you would. We