You know what i thought made him take it seriously . The stock market. 10 drop in the stock market because thats what he pays attention to. And the second piece of it is his inclination to think that this is a foreign disease. He said it in his oval office speech, he continue to make references to china and europe and italy. At some point its a Public Health issue, just deal with it. Its here on your shores. New york, oregon, texas, florida. The idea of foreigners as dirty, germ ridden all that stuff, thats as old as the hills. Can you stick around . I will as always. I want to say good morning to all of you and welcome you to a. M. Joy. And there is no mincing words this morning as weve just discussed. We are in the midst of a Global Pandemic that shows no signs of slowing down. World wide there have been a total of 147,000 confirmed cases and more than 5,000 deaths according to John Hopkins Center for system science and engineering. Here in the u. S. There are now more than 2,200 known cases and 50 deaths according to nbc news numbers. That number is likely to grow significantly because we are simply not testing at the rate that other developed countries are. And the cases of Community Transmission, meaning transmission between people here, not people traveling here, those will continue to climb. Its also important to understand that while it has symptoms similar to the flu and people are consistently comparing it to the flu, the Novel Coronavirus or covid19 is more contagious and more likely to be fatal than the seasonal flu according to the experts. We have to face forthrightly that the Health Threat and the mass disruption that were all facing is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. And the fact that this country is far behind the rest of the world in reckoning with that, and doing something about it is because of the decisions and frankly the ineptitude of the Trump Administration. It did not have to be this way. It should not be so difficult in a developed country like the United States to obtain a coronavirus test that yields valid results. Other countries have managed to do it. So what happened . According to politico, by the end of february the World Health Organization had shipped test kits to nearly 60 countries. The u. S. Is not one of them. Instead the Trump Administration shunned those test kits and instead ordered the cdc to manufacture their own, america first. But lo and behold, those tests proved to be faulty in quote almost every way imaginable. And so now were scrambling. The lack of available testing led revered immunenologist to say this on thursday. The system does not is not really geared to what we need right now. What you are asking for. That is a failing. A failing, yes. It is a failing. Lets admit it. The idea of anybody getting it easily the way people in other country are doing it, were not set up for that. Do i think we should be . Yes. But were not. And availability of the test, people getting the test is not the only factor. Contributing to what could only be called mismanagement, the total mismanagement of the Coronavirus Crisis here. There are questions about whether the requirements for testing are too strict. As the New York Times wrote on thursday, some have been rejected because they had no symptoms even though they had been in proximity to someone who tested positive. Others were told no because they had not traveled to a hot spot abroad even though they had fevers and hacking coughs and lived in cities with growing outbreaks. Still others were told a bitter truth, there simply were not enough tests to go around. And theres the even more disturbing reporting that the lack of testing is due in part to the president of the United States obsession with keeping the numbers of u. S. Cases low. And this isnt just speculation. Heres trump saying it when a ship containing sick americans passengers was forced to dock off the coast of california last week because the president didnt want those people to come to shore. They would like to have the people come off. Id rather have them stay, but id go with them. I told them to make the final decision. I dont need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasnt our fault. I dont need to have the numbers double. And politico reports that experts inside the administration who know we have been more testing have been reluctant to tell the president. As the outbreak as grown trump has become attached to the daily count of coronavirus cases and how the United States compares to other nations reiterating that he wants u. S. Numbers kept as low as possible. Health officials have found ways to oblige him by highlighting the most optimistic outcomes in briefings and their agencies have tamped down on promised transparency. Its a clearly difficult situation when the top wants to hear certain answers says one former official whose briefed the white house. That can make it difficult for folks to express their true assessment even the most experienced and independent minds. Whats equally confounding is that some people have been able to get tested, people like nba stars and at least one member of congress. Congresswoman cortez summed up what a lot of people have been thinking during a recent appearance on fox news. I did say fox news. It is just that kind of time. It almost seems like the more wealthy and powerful you are, the more able you are to access a test but the more, you know, the rougher road youve got here, its going to be a lot more difficult for you to Access Health care. Thats exactly the recipe for disaster. Donald trump declared a National Emergency on friday, and he said his administration was working with the private sector to make testing more widely available. But even that announcement was marred by confusion and false statements. There is some potential good news this morning in the form of a bill passed late last night by the house. The Families FirstCoronavirus Response ability negotiated by Speaker Pelosi and House Democrats with Steve Mnuchin representing the administration. It could make more tests available for free and the president does say that he will sign the bill. But first it would have to pass the senate which much mcconnell dismissed this weekend instead of keeping senators in washington to get this urgent extremely urgent work done. Joining me now to discuss that legislation, where we go from here is Senate Democratic whip of illinois. Thank you so much for being here this morning. Glad to be with you. Lets first talk about the testing piece of it because i think what is shocking, i mean, i live in new york city, part of the time and this is you know, the most modern, best city in the world. Right . Modern city. It is almost impossible to get a test here. Can a member of congress get a test . Can you get a test if you want one . I dont know because i havent asked but ill tell you the state of illinois is not much different than new york. We have about 13 Million People in this state. We are testing about 300 to 350 a day. That is totally inadequate. The testing to this point has been a disappointment and unfortunately has made this situation worse. And okay. So the testing is a problem. Thats part of it. One of the challenges is that we could have had a test. The World Health Organization approved a test thats made in germany by a company that is used by almost every medical lab in the country im told. Hes very familiar with this company. They made a test. The administration rejected that test, wanted one made our own. Could the United States congress, could the senate and the house pass a bill saying we just want to buy that test we just want the United States to have the w. H. O. Test. Im not sure. I would support any effort to put together a credible medical test that can be used in volume in the United States to really survey the number of people really infected to find out if there are clusters of those people and to make sure we do everything we can to mitigate any spread, but i will tell you, at this point we have lost three to four weeks of testing. Is that important . Well, think of this for a moment. The first case of coronavirus was diagnosed in italy on january 31st. Five months later they had closed down 25 of the Italian Economy six weeks after that first case they closed down the entire Italian Economy. So six weeks from the first diagnosis to the decision to basically quarantine a nation, so three weeks lost on the front end of this does not make it any easier for us to contain it in the United States. Lets talk about the bill that was passed in the house late last night overnight. Is that bill going to come to the senate floor when Mitch Mcconnell decides to end the long weekend that hes given the United States snatenate . I hope it comes immediately and senator mcconnell has within his own power to convene the senate and ask that that measure pass even before all the senators return and all the staff return to the Capitol Building. This is an extraordinary time. Yesterday we closed down the schools in the state of illinois. We closed down the court system in chicago. Its an exceptional time and i wish senator mcconnell would get into the spirit of this effort, this National Bipartisan effort to deal with it. If he said im going to ask for unanimous consent so that all the senators and all the staff people dont have to return to this Capitol Building it would mean wed get moving more quickly. Hats off to nancy pelosi, but the democrats said the highest priorities are testing and the families who are going to need the test and this bill, not the last bill by any means but this moves us in the direction of guaranteeing free or at least affordable testing through every mechanism in the United States and a paid family leave and medical leave for the employees who are sick and should stay home. I think a lot of people were alarmed to watch the fed pump, you know, a trillion dollars almost instantly into the banks into the financial system. Can Democratic Senators guarantee that no bill will be allowed to get on the floor, pass in the United States senate that gives any money that could trickle back down to Donald TrumpsHotel Industries that could pay off the Banking Industry or the Shale Oil Industry which he thinks for some reason ought to get paid. Will democrats ensure that those industries, no those super rich do not get paid off of any bill that passes to help ordinary people . I could not speak for a guarantee what senator mcconnell and his Republican Senate caucus is in favor of or opposes at this point but i do trust Speaker Pelosi and the House Democrats to make sure that this doesnt turn out to be some sort of windfall for certain industries, the favorites of the white house. Lets make no mistake about it. This is going to take its toll on the economy. When Delta Airlines announced yesterday they were going to reduce their flights by 40 , that means idling a lot of planes, a lot of pilots and a lot of workers in every level and thats going to happen in a number of industries that are affected by this pandemic in the United States. I want to make sure we get this economy back on its feet in a sensible way. We shouldnt play favorites in doing it. Lets have first families take care of families and workers, the first victims of pandemic if we dont do this right and secondly to get the businesses back in a position where they have a future as well. Small businesses first. Yeah. Senator thank you very much. Appreciate your time this morning. Thanks, joy. Joining us now is the director of the Harvard Global health institute. Thank you so much for being here. Lets start im going to go back where i started from. Back to the beginning. On testing, can you explain, you know, why why it is so important that we be testing broad numbers of people . Yeah, good morning, joy. Thanks for having me on. Absolutely. Look, if you want to know whos got the infection because obviously if you have the infection you can spread it to others. Youve got to be able to test. The strategy that almost every other major country is now using is you test people, you identify them. If theyre infected you separate them, you and then you track everybody that they have been in contact with and you monitor them for symptoms. If they develop symptoms you test them. And this is how we bring epidemics under control. This has been the standard strategy for 100 years. It works. The lynch pin of that is the ability to test people. If you cant test them you cant take on this strategy and you cant know whos sick and whos not so its incredibly frustrating that we cant test the kind of patients that we need to be testing right now. Let me play you a sound bite i heard this morning and this was the governor of maryland. I want to let you respond to it. The real concern for us right now really isnt about testing. Its about stopping the spread, social distancing measure, preparing for the kinds of things we can do to stop and slow down the growth and quite frankly at some point were not going to be arguing about the testing. Were going to be worried about taking care of sick people. This seems to me a league way ahead, i am a layman, i am not a professional like yourself but we are testing in the United States 23 people per million and to compare, south korea is testing 3,692 people per million. How can a governor of a state thats got cases like so many states do say that test sg not a priority . Yeah, so its a really important point. Look, we should be our estimates are that we should be doing 150,000 tests a day in the United States. Were not even doing a tenth of that right now but thats probably the kind of numbers we need to be doing if were really going to wrap our arms around this. What the governor is saying and i disagree a little bit about the testing issue, but he does have one very important point. If you cant test, which is where we are right now, we cant test widely, then youve got to implement these very difficult social distancing stuff. Weve got to close every public school. Every school in america has got to close down right now. Thats where we are. Businesses need to be letting people work from home if they can. We should have no public events, no concerts, nobody should be going to museums. That is a strategy that you need to implement when you dont know how bad the infection is in the community and when you dont know because we cant test people. So i agree with social distancing as a critical strategy right now, but that doesnt to me diminish the need for testing. And so this is the other thing that i think bothers a lot of people. They dont understand, some people can get tests so we know that a utah jazz player has it because obviously somebody or people in the utah jazz players are getting tested. South korea has managed to test lots of people. Theyve just, you know, theyre prioritizing the most vulnerable people. The cdc has only tested 77 people this week and yet the jazz was able to test all 58 players in a matter of hours. How how are some people getting access to this . Yeah, look, the testing strategy right now is because the tests are not materializing from the federal government meaning we were promised by Vice President pence that wed have a million tests by the end of the week, that obviously didnt happen. Every state is taking its own approach and states are essentially rationing tests. And i actually think i have a lot of sympathy for state officials. Staitd officials are doing a fabulous job under difficult circumstances. How any one individual group got access to the test i dont know. What i know is that it was probably that state that made the decision to allow that group to be tested. But the bottom line here is we have put state officials behind the 8 ball. Theyre having to ration tests and theyre making difficult decisions and that means preventing doctors who need the test for some critically ill patients from being able to test those patients its a very tough situation. Its important to know that that utah jazz player was positive. I think thats important to know but there are probably also elderly people in utah, problem people compromised that could have used it too but if the rationing means you tutah jazz e can get it but regular people cant, thats a weird kind of rationing. Thats me. Im not going to put that on you. In a seattle nursing home unable to test 65 workers. Heres a great contrast to that previous story. They have symptoms, they cant be tested. I was filling in at the 10 00 and talking to a doctor who has five patients that are symptomat symptomatic. They cant be approved for it. How can it be that Health Care Workers cannot be part of this rationing of tests . We have such limiting testing capability and its worth understand