In some form of quarantine after possible exposure inside the white house. My guests this morning, Infectious Disease specialist Michael Osterholm and jeffrey shaman, and Lamar Alexander of tennessee. Also historic unemployment disaster. Unemployment numbers not seen since the great depression. Im going to be homeless if i dont open my business back up. Im trying to make a living. My conversation with billionaire businessman and philanthropist robert f. Smith on making sure no one is left out. We have to reinvest so when we come back from the pandemic were in a better position. And the latest in the Michael Flynn and tara reade stories. Joining me for insight are kristen welker, richard haass, president of the council on Foreign Relations and wall street journal columnist peggy noonan. Welcome to sunday. Its meet the press and our continuing coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. Announcer from nbc news in washington, the longest running show in television history, this is meet the press with chuck todd. Good sunday morning, and a happy mothers day to all the moms out there. President trump is making it clear hes moving away from fighting the coronavirus to cheerleading an economic recovery. On tuesday, mr. Trump announced he was winding down the White House Task force. Then a day later, undid the undoing while continuing to urge the reopening of the country in defiance of even his own task force guidelines. He chose also not to wear a mask at a mask making factory because the a. P. Reported he believes it would send the message hes more concerned with health than with the economy. Meanwhile, three Top Health Officials have begun a partial or full quarantine after two people working in the white house became infected, indicating just how hard it is to keep the virus out of even the most testing and secure workplaces in this country. All this in a week where the confirmed cases in the United States passed 1. 3 million and the death toll is approaching 80,000 now. Its not partisan to say the administrations response to the pandemic has been confused and confusing, and it raises troubling questions. Whats the plan for testing and Contact Tracing . Or does the federal government think thats just too hard to do without a breakthrough . Whats the plan for maintaining social distancing as States Reopen . Whats the plan for making people feel confident about returning to work when even the white house cant keep the virus out . And whats the plan for treating this pandemic as our greatest National Crisis since the Second World War . In other words, whats the plan . People want to come back. I think everybody in this room realizes we have to come back. Facing a pandemic that shows no signs of containment, the president is making it clear he is not willing to wait for a national decline in cases or deaths, instead pushing states to reopen now. There will be more death. But the virus will pass. I used to say 65,000. And now im saying 80,000 or 90,000, and it goes up. We may be talking about 95,000 people ultimately. We may be talking about something more than that. The white house is sidelining scientists, delaying the cdcs attempts at issuing detailed guidelines, reportedly out of fear they were too stringent. I respect the governors and i have given them great discretion. I have given leeway to the governors. Do you find the cdc protocols to be an impediment to opening up the country . Which protocols . The recommended guidelines that have been no, because im relying on the governors. The administration distances itself from a report predicting an uptick in new coronavirus cases and 3,000 deaths a day by june 1st. And the president announced the White House Task force was off. Were now looking at a little bit of a different form. Before declaring it on again after public pushback. Were keeping the task force for a period of time. And dismissing the consensus of Health Experts that wide spread testing is a necessary step. We make ourselves look bad. Repeating his claim the virus will disappear on its own. I feel about vaccines like i feel about tests. This is going to go away without a vaccine. The president s skepticism of Public Health guidance is now being echoed by many governors who support him. These models have been so wrong since day one. The models keep changing so really theyre not very good. Because we did so much more testing, we have more cases. We were going to the hot spot and testing so of course our positive cases are going to increase. You have to be warriors. We cant keep our country closed down for years. We cant keep our economy shut down forever. But 68 of americans continue to say they are more concerned that state governments will lift restrictions too quickly than that they may take too long. Still, with the Unemployment Rate now 14. 7 , pressure is growing and the president is accusing democrats of slowing reopening to damage his politically. They think theyre doing it because it will hurt me the longer it takes it will hurt me in the election the longer it takes to open up. And joining me now are two Infectious Disease experts. Michael osterholm from the university of minnesota, and columbia universitys jeffrey shaman. Gentlemen, welcome to meet the press. Dr. Osterholm, let me start with you. Simple question, are we ready to reopen the economy . Well, first of all, let me say what do we mean by opening the economy, thats really unclear. We cant stay locked down for 18 months, but at the same time, when you have cases increasing, deaths increasing, Health Care Without adequate protective equipment and were suddenly going back to what once was our normal lives, thats not a safe place to be. We cant do that and not expect to see a major increase in cases. Jeffrey shaman, have we squandered the eight weeks in lockdown in that are we either rushing the reopening in that we dont have the testing and tracing program in place yet or have we just squandered the eight weeks . We have not used the eight weeks as well as we could have, unfortunately. It would have been benefitted enormously from consistent messaging and a concerted, consolidated plan of attack for actually aggressively and proactively dealing with this virus. At this point, however, we have to pick ourselves up where we are and we need to start taking those measures. We need to look at some of the countries that have been very successful in quashing the virus down. I would point to korea, south korea, and germany, and maybe even new zealand and taiwan. These are cases, particularly in the case of germany and south korea that had enormous outbreaks. They flattened them, crushed them down, and they did this because they tested so aggressively and used Contact Tracing and they were able to quarantine who were becoming infectious before they spread to other people. Its a very powerful measure. It requires real investment, but we already have models that show that it can work. And once you have done that, then youre in this position of strength where reopening the economy is not going to lead necessarily to the rebound in cases that im expecting giving this patchwork response we have right now and the reopenings taking place in some states. Michael osterholm, is there it seems as if the federal government is sitting, waiting for a testing breakthrough before beginning. Waiting to see if there could be a faster Testing Program before they commit to essentially a national Testing Program. Youre going to hear a guest in a minute say that. We have heard dr. Birx say this. I think we all want a Tech Breakthrough. What do you do before then . Well, we have to understand that were riding this tiger, not directing it. This virus is going do what its going to do. What we can do is only nibble at the edges, and i think its not a good message to send to the public that we can control this virus in a meaningful way. What i mean by that, even though, as jeffrey just said, some countries have been able to suppress this somewhat, korea has now got a major outbreak problem occurring. Germany has had an increase in cases. What we have to tell people honestly, what they want to hear, they dont want it sugar coated or coated in fear, but somewhere between now and tomorrow, next year, were going to see 60 to 70 of americans affected with this virus. What we have to do is figure out not just how to die with the virus but also how to live with it. Were not having that discussion. As Lewis Carroll said, if you dont know where youre going, any road will get you there. We dont want a false sense of security, but we also have to figure out how to live with this virus, and thats what were not doing. One of the reasons why you hear, you heard it in our opening piece there, there are a lot of people that dont a lot of these governors are feeling as if the models let them down for some reason. Maybe they were reading them for a specific that a model wasnt intended to give them, but no matter what, theres been some skepticism about the various models out there. First of all, what do the models show is going to happen by the end of the month due to this reopening . And what are the how do you know if a model is reliable . Those are really important questions. Firstly, the models cant forecast things. Theyre not prognostic in that way. So what is the point of running them into the future then . We have to do that because we want to get a sense of what may happen in the future. And the projections that we make with these models have to have baked into them on top of a lot of other uncertainties scenarios as to what were going to do. So if a number of states now in the 30s are going to reopen, we dont know what the impact of those loosening restrictions really is going to be. Governors can open and say businesses are open, but it doesnt mean that all restaurants and businesses will open. And it also doesnt mean that the public will actually frequent those businesses. As you quoted, 68 of the public is really concerned about the virus and considers that a greater priority than the economy. Many people actually wont go out and use them to the degree they did prepandemic. As a result of all these uncertainties its very difficult to know whats going to happen, how thats going to affect the transmission dynamics of the virus. Whether its going to accelerate and rebound and at what time scales. That said, in a lot of states in which theyre loosening restrictions, theyre barely hanging on. In some of them, they already have growth of the virus taking place. One would imagine that any loosening of restrictions there is only going to accelerate the growth of the virus. For the projections that we see, youre going to see a range of outcomes, and they have, as i said, all this uncertainty in them, and theyre going to change as we come to realize, well, we actually did this and not this in terms of social distancing. And it has these consequences upon the infection. What i think we are probably going to see over the coming weeks towards the end of the month is were just going to start to see a growth in cases. Its not going to happen over the next week or two. Its going to come in with a lag because there are lags in the system. That is the people who get infected today, we dont see them as confirmed cases for another couple weeks. That builtin delay means any changes we do to social distancing because of reopening were not going to realize for a couple weeks until were already into some period of growth. Michael osterholm, i want you to respond to something the president said about the whole concept of testing. Let me play it again for the audience. Heres what he said earlier this week. This is why the whole concept of tests arent necessarily great. The tests are perfect, but something could happen between the test where its good and then something happens and all of a sudden she was tested very recently and tested negative. And then today, i guess, for some reason, she tested positive. Now, Michael Osterholm, the president seemed to indicate that was somehow a failure, but if youre doing a testing and Contact Tracing program, it sounds like what the white house is doing is a success story, no . Well, it is to the extent that theyre finding these cases. I think the point i want to come back to, though, chuck. This virus is going to keep transmitting whether or not whatever we do. We can nibble it at the edges, in some cases like new york and other cities did. You can surely shave off the top of the peak, but lets remember, this virus is on its own. In 1918, when influenza virus occurred, we had big peaks in the spring in several selected cities in the country and it went away for four months and came back with a vengeance. I worry right now more than anything if the virus suddenly starts to disappear because in fact what that may tell us is we are going to act like an influenza pandemic and come late summer, early fall, we could have a peak that made Everything Else we have done so far look mild. Contact tracing is important, but it wont stop that. What are the different scenarios that are going to get us from 5 to 15 of the u. S. Population as has currently been populated to 60 or 70 . We dont have a plan for that. Thats what we need a plan for. What is the likelihood, Michael Osterholm, that this testing situation can get ramped up without a Tech Breakthrough . Is this something that if we just, you know, sort of trench warfare, is it something we can do as a country . You know, its not. And its one that, again, were going to be putting a report out next week that will really go into detail. We have all been talking about reagents. Do you know were running all the test equipment right now 24 7 in ways it was never meant to be run. Imagine if you had a brand new car that could go 100 Miles Per Hour and you ran it nonstop for six weeks 24 hours a day, at the end of the time, it probably wouldnt work well. Were seeing the testing equipment break down. So testing is an important issue, but the infrastructure is just not there. You know, we cant do it. So what we have to do, again, is have that plan. What are we going to do for testing, to bring the economy . What are we going to do to deal with health care and their protections . What are we going to do with too many people in the hospital such that beds are no longer available . Thats what we need a plan for, and we dont have it. I cant say that enough times. We keep nibbling at the edges about whether a few people in the white house are infected or not. We need a plan. How we ended our opening monologue. Whats the plan . Michael osterholm of the university of minnesota, jeffrey shaman of columbia university, thank you for getting us started with your expertise in this. Much appreciated. Thank you. Thank you. And joining me now from maryville, tennessee, is senator Lamar Alexander, chair of the Senate Health and education committee, where dr. Fauci will be testifying on tuesday. Senator alexander, welcome back to meet the press, sir. Thank you, chuck. Good morning. Good morning. You have been a big proponent of this initiative at nih which you compare today the show shark tank to develop a rapid Screening Test that can be a game changer that will allow us to do Rapid Testing and quarantining of folks, be able to ramp up testing and Contact Tracing program. Dr. Birx on this program has said our solution to testing has to be a breakthrough. You are hoping for a technological breakthrough. Dr. Birx is hoping for a technological breakthrough. So are the rest of us. What do we do in between . What do we do right now . Well, heres what tennessee is doing. And the country is doing. You know, senator schumer was nice enough to quote half of what i said at our hearing last week on testing. I said what were doing is impressive. He left that out. But not nearly enough. Heres what the governor is doing today. Hes testing prisoners in every prison, every nursing home. Drivethrough testing on the weekends. Go to the local Public Health department and get a free test. His motto is, if in doubt, get a test. So as a result, tennessee has tested more than most states. So at about 3. 6 of the population. He hopes to be at 7 by the end of may. Look, that is what every state needs. I guess the question i have is, are you concerned that we have not ramped up testing and Contact Tracing in this eightweek period as high as we needed to in order to reopen . Well, what we have done is very impressive. I mean, according to johns hopkins, the United States has tested more than 8 million people. Thats twice as many as any country, more per capita than almost all countries including south korea. Enough to do what we need to do today to reopen but not enough, for example, when 35,000 kids and faculty show up on the university of tennessee campus show up in august. Thats why we need what dr. Birx called, what Francis Collins is working on, a breakthrough. For example, you might be able to put a lollipop in your mouth with a swab, take a picture of it with your cell phone, if it lights up, youre positive. Or you send the swab to a laboratory thats not too far away. And they use what they call gene sequencing machines which are already there, they can do tens of thousands of tests very quickly. What do you do let me ask you this philosophically about businesses. You can open an economy, but you cant force the return of demand. So whether youre an airline or youre a restaurant, we know demand is going to be down. At the same time, their demand is down through no fault of their own. How do you rescue those businesses, and how do you rescue those employees . Number one,