Feeling the strain. Donald trump, a ratings and numbers obsessed president , now leads the country with the unwelcomed distinction of having the highest number of coronavirus cases in the world and its due in large part to his administrations ongoing failure to implement widespread and reliable testing and a refusal to call for a uniform nationwide lockdown. For his part today donald trump is sharpening his assault on states like new york that are asking for more medical supplies like ventilators and masks, saying they are, quote, never satisfied, and adding, quote, the complainers should have stocked up and been ready long before the crisis hit. Its important to note that what trump is implying in that tweet is at the very moment he was saying coronavirus cases would go from 15 to zero and disappear miraculously, the nations governors should have been stockpiling ventilators. The president s blame game is playing out as the shortage of ventilators in new york meets the real, imminent, life or death consequences that Governor Andrew Cuomo has been warning about. In a press conference said cuomos pleas taking on a dire sense of urgency as he says his state is on track to run out of ventilators completely in less than a week. If a person comes in and needs a ventilator and you dont have a ventilator, the person dies. Thats the blunt equation here. Right now we have a burn rate that would suggest we have about six days in the stockpile. The shortage of ventilators and masks has also become a lifethreatening crisis for the Health Care Workers on the front lines. The first emergency room doctor has died, dr. Frank gabrin from east orange hospital in new jersey and he died yesterday of covid19. In a statement the American College of Emergency Physicians mourned the loss of their colleague and added this morning, quote, Emergency Physicians understand that sometimes in our efforts to save your life, we may end up sacrificing our own. We know the risks of the job we signed up for, but we are on the front lines in this historic war against covid19 with insufficient protection. On the administrations failure to provide adequate equipment, the New York Times reports today, quote, the u. S. Government has nearly emptied its emergency stockpile of protective medical supplies like masks, gowns and gloves, a senior official said. Some states receiving desperately needed ventilators from the federal government discovered that the machines did not work. And an even more ominous sign from Vice President mike pence and dr. Anthony fauci in a pair of recent interviews about where we are heading in this country in this crisis, both men suggesting that we are on the same trajectory as italy, europes hardest hit country with more than 13,000 deaths and a National Lockdown that so far has not stopped the spread. They call it modeling, wolf, where they look at whats happened around the world. We think italy may be the most comparable area to the United States at this point for a variety of reasons and so weve built that modeling. If you look at the curves of the acceleration of cases, hospitalizations and deaths, its superimposed corrected for population. Its a really serious issue. Italy got hit very hard and its very clear that we are getting hit very hard. Right now the epicenter of it in the United States is new york city, but as you see, its not going to be confined to new york city. Were going to be seeing this kind of thing in other large cities. Its a very difficult situation. Thats where we start today with some of our favorite reporters and friends. Ron chain, former white house Ebola Response coordinator, now an adviser to joe biden. Dr. Lena wen who previously 16d as baltimores Health Commissioner is back, and White House Correspondent yamiche alcindor. Let me start with you, dr. Wen. Talk about the ventilator shortage and how we and we think a lot of things about ourselves but we dont often think of ourselves as a country that would run out of the kind of medical equipment that could make the difference between life and death in a crisis like this. What is a shortage of ventilators meaning for people who are very sick with covid . A shortage of ventilators means that doctors and nurses and those on the front lines are going to have to make these heart wrenching choices that we never could have imagined happening in our country. If theres only one ventilator left and ten patients, then somebody has to make the decision of who gets that last ventilator. And i just cannot believe that were still discussing this. Weve seen that this is coming our way weeks ago, maybe months ago or years ago by the federal governments own projections. And look, i dont want to point fingers and talk about who should have done what sooner, but now that we know this problem is here, shouldnt we be looking for solutions . Now that we know that the stockpile, the National Stockpile is nearly empty, shouldnt we now be saying, well, heres how many ventilators we need. Heres what were going to do to get up to capacity. And we also not just need ventilators, we need personal protective equipment. We cannot build doctors and nurses if doctors and nurses are dying in large numbers. We cant just build them like a machine and thats whats going to happen. Our Health Care Workers are going to be decimated if we cant get something as basic as supplies to those on the front lines. Ron, dr. Wen doesnt want to point fingers but donald trump didnt hesitate to point fingers and call the governors asking for ventilators, quote, complainers who are, quote, never satisfied. How did we get here . We got here because the Trump Administration failed to heed the warning signs, and not just the Early Warning signs which they clearly failed to heed but middle warning signs in february when the president just a little over a month ago was still telling people this was going to go away like a miracle but evening the warning signs two or three weeks ago where people were calling on the president to invoke the defense production act and command the full force of the u. S. Manufacturing capability to start to produce these. The president demured on that. I agree with dr. Wen, its not about pointing fingers but if the conduct of the Trump Administration doesnt change, this disaster is going to get worse and worse and worse. So im not trying to point a finger but im trying to urgently wave both of my arms to say its time to do Something Different and the different thing is for the president to step up and invoke the defense production act and command the full force of the u. S. Manufacturing base to do this. Its time to really treat this like the crisis that it is as opposed to, as you say, the finger pointing thats going on from the white house to the governors. Thats ridiculous. Its insane. Yamiche, you have personally and you and the White House Press corps collectively have been pressing on this specific topic. It has invoked the rage of the president at you personally on this line of questioning about ventilators. Why do you think that is . I think the president in some ways is having to backtrack on some of the misleading information that was put out there. Dr. Wen made a great point which is that we cant build new doctors and nurses and Health Care Professionals but what the president was doing was openly questioning whether or not what they said they needed they actually needed. That goes for a tweet today where you point out, nicolle, that hes talking about insatiable appetites and some are complainers when the people were hearing from are emergency room doctors, nurses. The president has to deal with the fact that very early on he was saying this was like the flu and then yesterday and a few days ago decided to say, its worse than the flu, its vicious. I think what the president is really dealing with is the fact that he was trying to down play this virus and hope for the best and he said he was trying to be positive, his description, but at the end of the day he downplayed the Worst Health Care and economic crisis americans have faced and he has to deal with that every day as he tries to now get people to really believe that hes telling them the truth this time around. You know, dr. Wen, i dont want to let some of this slide. I mean, what possible motive would a governor speaking on behalf of his or her states hospitals have for hoarding medical supplies . This is, as you said, i think the first emergency room doctor died in new jersey yesterday as we mentioned. This is life and death for doctors, nurses, people in hospitals, people driving ambulances, people on the front lines. It seems like i remember president obama promised an end to childish things. It would seem like the buildings on fire and donald trump is still sending out mean tweets. What more can the medical community do with their state leaders to bring a sense of urgency to this shortage . There is this huge disconnect somewhere. We all see whats happening. Im hearing from my colleagues all across the country who are begging for supplies in these unimaginable positions where theyre asking relatives to cut out garbage bags so they can wear them as gowns and theyre reusing masks for days at a time. People are going into their shifts knowing that they probably have been exposed multiple times already and are likely going to be carrying coronavirus back to their families. Its just insulting to hear any political leader much less our president accuse somehow doctors and nurses of making things up or hoarding masks somewhere when actually what theyre asking for is the most reasonable thing of all which is in the duty to fulfill their obligation as Health Care Providers to save patients lives, we as a society owe them the basic protections in order to keep them safe and their patients safe. You know, ron, theres a bit of trump sound that i want to read to you to just save the step of playing it. Donald trump said last night, just in this vain of doubting and being suspicious of governors and hospitals, trump said when you look at these hospitals, the amount that they order, you almost say how could they possibly use so much, whether its masks or the protective gear, but we are supplying a tremendous amount. You ran a white house operation to address ebola and we were both in administrations that had to plan for bird flu and swine flu. Its so detached from how a normal president conducts himself in terms of supplying basic things like gowns and scrubs and masks. How do you turn these kind of accusations around in the middle of a crisis . Lets help the president with some basic math. A hospital that was using 15,000 masks a week before was using that because about 1 in 20 patients was a respiratory patient with these kinds of problems. Right now 20 out of 20 patients are that so theyre using 20 times more. Thats exactly why the weekly count in hospitals have gone from 15,000 masks to 300,000 masks. Its not because doctors are hoarding masks. Its not because doctors are stealing masks. Its because theyre using them to save lives, period, end of story. To build on something dr. Wen said, of course we should do this because we owe it to our doctors and our nurses to be with them, but we owe it to ourselves also. In the ebola epidemic in west africa, 1 out of every 10 deaths was a Health Care Worker. Thats a tragedy for the Health Care Workers but it meant that at the time we needed as many as possible, we wound up with fewer on the job because they were getting sick and killed. So even if were callous about the human toll on Health Care Workers that the president s approach is taking, we should be selfinterested enough to understand that if we dont protect Health Care Workers, they cant save our lives when we get sick. So everyone should understand the crisis behind providing these brave men and women the masks and the protective gear they need. Their lives depend eon it. Our lives depend on it. Yamiche, i want to read you something from the New York Times. Its not just a shortage of ventilators but its the condition that the ventilators that are in the stockpile are in. The times reports a ventilator stockpile with one hitch. Thousands do not work. Officials in illinois said they asked for 4,000. They got 450. New jersey sought 2300, got 300. New mexico has only 370. Virginia requested 350 but has not received any ventilators. The governor of illinois asked Vice President mike pence for 4,000 and was told the state would not need that many. Theres more reporting that some that exist havent been maintained and do not work. Is there a white house plan for addressing not just the shortage but the lack of quality in what does exist . There doesnt, at this point, seem to be a clear answer from the white house as to why theyre sending ventilators that are not operational to states in the height of their crisis and need these ventilators right now. Governors have been sounding the alarm for weeks that they need these ventilators and the governor of new york, andrew cuomo, said this isnt the time for us to be building ventilators. He says hes still trying to purchase ventilators from china and other places. There still hasnt been a national act to say, look, the federal government is going to take over this. Were going to figure out the price point and distribute ventilators. You still have governors bidding against each other as of today. But one thing i want to underscore here apart from the ventilators which of course is the big one because you have President Trump openly wondering whether or not these states actually need it. You also have the president searching for a foil. Youve seen him be able to do it with democrats or with Hillary Clinton and with governors, reporters. At this point were seeing the president focused on Health Care Workers as a foil and wondering whether or not they are kind of a villain in all of this. Thats remarkable from this president because we know that Health Care Workers are the heart of this. Theyre the people that are going to get america through this. Theyre the people that are just asking for the bare minimum to do their job and the president is wondering if theyre the problem. I cant underscore that enough. Dr. Wen, yamiche is right. Of course the president needs a foil and hes picked Health Care Workers. I just never thought id hear those words come out of someones mouth covering an american president. I mean, someone died yesterday, an er doctor treating Covid Patients died of covid. What impact if they even have time to look up and know that thats the case, the dynamic yamiche just described, what impact does that have on the morale of americas Health Care Workers . Its demoralizing. I dont know that every Health Care Worker is looking to exactly what the president is saying but they are looking to see what the president is doing. Weve barely started in our response to this pandemic and every Health Care Worker knows that if were already running low on supplies and we dont know whats coming our way, then whats going to happen next . Ive talked to so many of my colleagues who have already intubated their friends and coworkers who are already seeing their fellow nurses and doctors in the er, in the icu, and potentially being the next person who will die. And yet, theyre going out there every single day on the front lines treating patients because thats the oath that we took. It would be heartening to hear nice words from the president but i think even more important is to see what is the action thats going to be taken because we know whats needed. Whats now preventing the president and the federal government from acting to get these supplies to people who are on the front lines trying to do their job every day. Not just undersupplied and underappreciated but suspected of wrongdoing. Its unbelievable. Yamiche, before i let you go i have to say theres a debate in our industry as you know about whether or not to take these press conferences from the white house. Theres no debate anywhere about the privilege that it is to watch you question this Coronavirus Task force and this president. Keep up the good work. Youre asking the questions that we all want answers to. Thank you, my friend. I really appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you. All right, dr. Wen and ron are staying put. When we come back after a very quick break, comparing whats happening here to whats happening in the hardest hit place on the planet. Why most Americans Still cant even imagine the scale of suffering ahead of us. Well go to rome when we come back for a live report. Also well check in on some of the states that have been slow to come around to those stayathome restrictions. A patchwork of quarantines but not everyone seems to be taking them seriously. Plus Congress Today announcing a new plan to hold the Trump Administration accountable. All those stories coming up. Admn accountable. L althose stories coming up. T m [female vo] restaurants are facing a crisis. 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