Task force. Thats expected to happen at 11 30. Well take you there live when that happens. Around the same time, though, we are expecting to get an update from new york gov know andrew cuomo, all of this coming as we have seen a surge in the number of cases in this country over the past day or so. At this hour there are some 6,300 known cases in the United States of america. Thats nearly 2,000 cases since this time yesterday. Of course, just last hour President Trump announcing for the first time in the history of this country the border with our northern neighbor is going to be closed for the foreseeable future. Im here hold up in connecticut. But Chris Jansing is there at 30 rock. Always great to see you. Before i let you go for this little bit of break and youll be coming back, we want to know how youre doing and how your family is dealing with this new reality which has hit you different than for most of us . Im great. No signs or symptoms. The same is true for my wife lindsey and our kids. Were just hear out of an abundance of caution. It is one of those things, chris, where your heart goes out to a lot of folks who are not as good right now on a number of different levels. But doing great. I have a newfound respect for teachers. Ive been part of the home schooling effort at the house. This is a lot easier than that. Were glad youre feeling well, glad they get to see daddy a little more. Well see you again in a few minutes. Thank you very much. As craig just mentioned, we are expecting the briefing at this hour with the Coronavirus Task force. Lets go to Nbcs Kelly Odonnell at the white house. Weve learned that 59,000 americans have been tested. I guess we would get an update on that. Its been six weeks since the u. S. Reported its first confirmed case of covid19. What are we expecting today. Do we have any clues what well get . Reporter we know the president has spoken to airline executives, set to talk to physicians and nurses today. We got hint from mark short chief of staff to the Vice President who is the head of the task force saying we might learn more about what the department of defense will be doing today. There will be a wide range of questions to get to. Among them, the availability of testing. The number you quoted is from yesterday. It stands to reason there would be a higher number today for the availability of americans who have been tested. Again, what officials have been saying is it is not meant to be a surveillance or screening test, but meant for those who show active symptoms. One of the Big Questions is how do people find that, going through their doctors is one method. The white house talked about having a website which would help people go through symptoms and be directed to some of the newly established, about to be put up and running drivethrough sites. How will people actually do that remains a question. So many of the aspects of what the administration resons is, working with states and so forth, are areas that are newly turned on elements of government, partnership with private sector and so forth. So theres been a lag this things like testing, a willing in getting information out. At the same time the administration is talking to the interested stakeholders and different parts of this whole package, whether it is personal health, Public Health, business, finance, the economy, all these different sectors that are so dramatically affected. A big question will be how do you get help to people quickly. Congress, of course, is looking quickly at an aid package. The white house is embracing the yietd of infusing a payment to americans to help cover some of their bills and have money in their pockets in this interim period where we dont know what the employment picture will look like. These briefings ironically from a white house that had done away with a lot of briefings, putting the experts and in this case the president saying he will participate as well to respond to some of the questions. One of the big headlines is the decision to close the u. S. Canada border. Kelly, well have that briefing when it lives. For now i want to turn to j. Ahish ja. Weve seen long lines for mobile testing. We have pictures i think from alabama. Look at this. The line stretches all the way down the highway. The Coronavirus Task force said tuesday 59,000 americans have been screened since january by government and private industry labs. Doctor, is that anywhere close to where we should be and need to be at this point . Good morning, chris. Thanks for having me on. I think your question really answer it and those line answer it. Lets look at the bright side. This whole thing has been a fiasco. We all know that, but in the last four or five days, ive started seeing glimmers of hope, starting to see more testing getting done. Im hoping were finally on the road to being able to test everybody who needs to be tested. The u. S. Surgeon general jerome adams was on this morning and i want to play what he said about testing. I feel like weve turned the corner on testing. Its important to know, the cdc stood up a test for this in a week. But the cdc was never equipped, set up or staffed to provide testing for hundreds of millions of people. We were always going to rely on the commercial industry. With the fda emergency use authorization for a highspeed test last week, youre seeing testing increase. You said before we played that youre hoping were heading in the right direction essentially. Have we turned the corner . How high is your confidence is the question . I think were doing better this week than last week. Its a low bar. Last week was a mess. This week were doing better. Im pretty confident next week will be better than next week. My estimate is we probably should be doing 100,000 tests a day. So 60,000 over seven weeks doesnt give me confidence, but its starting to pick up and move in the right direction. Lets say im hopeful were going to be in much better shape over the next few days. A number of local governments have raised concerns not just about testing, doctor, but about hospital bed capacity. Your institute released a study that shows many parts of the United States will have far too few hospital beds if this continues, if coronavirus continues to spread widely and nothing is done to expantd capacity. Were showing this map. Its a moderate scenario were seeing on screen where we could see 40 of adults infected over 12 months. Your study found nearly all these regions would need to free up or add beds for patients with coronavirus. Right now were not anywhere near that, but can we get there and how quickly can we get there . I think we can get there. Its not going to be easy and its going to take a lot of work on the part of Hospital Executives and to beidoctors an workers, but also on the federal government. Lets say were able to free up beds, add new beds, we need to make sure our doctors and nurses are safe and healthy and able to take care of patients. The thing thats worrying me right now is we dont have enough personal equipment, masks, gloves and gowns. If our doctors and nurses start getting sick, theyre not of any use, the beds, without the doctors and nurses to staff them. We are seeing medical professionals testing positive for coronavirus. I want to ask you about a question we get a lot as members of the media, about a National Quarantine, mobilizing essentially everyone, all aspects in the federal government to implement it. What is your argument for people who say this is just way too drastic . So, first of all, i think we have tens of thousands of americans infected with coronavirus almost surely. We dont know because we havent been testing. Second, if we overreact on this, it wont be great for the economy, i get that. If we underreact, were going to pay for it with the lives of americans, and that i find to be much less acceptable. When i say National Quarantine, what i mean is, look, well still keep Grocery Stores and pharmacies and essential services open, but what we need right now is aing cross the country substantial social distancing, really slowing things down so we can get a grip of how many people are infected, where they are and we can probably relax some of those. Ashish, thank you so much for being with us. Craig, im going to send it back over to you. That was a fascinating conversation, chris. Thank you. Lots of folks, millions of folks right now in the same predicament that me and my family are in, staying at home, working from home. We wanted to spend some time talking about the best ways to stay healthy and safe. Lets bring in dr. Robert la heed da, the chair of the department of medicine at st. Josephs Health Care System. Doctor, you and i got the opportunity to spend some time together last week there in new york onset. Good to see you again. Good to see you, craig. Lets start with folks who are at home, who feel just fine, arent displaying any symptoms, no signs of the virus. What should they be doing . How should they be conducting themselves . What should they be on the lookout for . If youve been quarantined, craig, you know five days of incubation after five days up to 11 1 2 days we figured out you can manifest symptoms of the disease. Were talking about mitigation and suppression nationally. Were talking about the possibility of having a total nation quarantine. I dont know if thats necessary. But youre very healthy and im sure your family is very healthy, and the important thing is to keep a Healthy Lifestyle and avoid mixing with other people at this time. That applies to kids in school, students in college, et cetera. So you really have to understand that the elderly and the aged are at particular risk. If were going to do a suppression of people, that is, stay at home and not interact with other individuals, i think we would recommend first that the elderly and those with heart disease, various kinds of pulmonary diseases like copd or severe asthma or diabetes be quarantined and not interact with anybody else. Doctor, it sound like you dont think we necessary need a socalled National Quarantine right now. Is that accurate . I think the National Quarantine would be a suppressive effort and i dont think we need a National Quarantine at this time. We know this disease has already taken an amazing toll on the economy, on businesses, on people out of work. Were not sure where were going. Theres a widespread panic among the public. Im aware of that and im saying that anybody who has been exposed to somebody who has been proven to be positive should be kwau quarantined for 14 days. I expect there may be upwards of ten to 100,000 people out there that are infected that we dont know about. You heard from dr. Jha about the testing, inadequacies of the testing mechanisms. We are trying to produce a test based on immuno as says. But at the present time that doesnt happen. As we test people and find out there are more people infected, the mortality rate will naturally go down. Now, that doesnt affect or help us with regard to hospital beds, in particular icu beds. Were expecting 10 to 15 times a need for icu beds, thats intensive care unit beds. We dont have those beds. Thats what we as doctors are very concerned about. Dr. Lahita, forgive my ignorance here. If there are tens of thousands of people who have it and we think these people are Walking Around with coronavirus, if there was some sort of National Quarantine, even when that quarantine was lifted, if these people are back out in the general population, they still have coronavirus. Thats right, they still have coronavirus. And still just as contagious. What we need to do, and i talk about suppression. We need to curtail the epidemic itself. Youve heard of the curve. Were trying to keep people under the curve. Were not going to obliterate this virus in a couple of months. Were trying to contain it until a vaccine is available. I dont know if you know that dr. Fauci has announced that vaccines are in phase one which is quite experimental. Right now that is to see if the vaccine is safe. Number two is to see whether the vaccine will be effective. Thats the most important aspect. Even though there are hundreds of thousands of people who are infected, when we get a vaccine, we will be able to curtail and manage those infections and we will be able to handle the great numbers of patients who will be critically ill who really need our services. Doctor, good to see you my friend. Well talk soon. Thank you. Good luck to you. Thank you. Again, were keeping a close eye on two things. Governor andrew cuomo expected to preef the public around 11 30, around the same time President Trump and his Coronavirus Task force. This has become unfortunately a daily ritual. The experts will take some questions as well. Well go there live when that happens. We also want to bring you up to speed on something that were going to be doing here across the networks of nbc. Onehour broadcast including crucial realtime information about what viewers need to know about the virus, analysis, thats tomorrow 10 00, lester holt will live a lye primetime special report, tomorrow at 10 00 eastern on msnbc, nbc, the streaming service nbc news now as well. Well take a quick break on msnbc. But well be right back. But well be right back. And i dont count the wrinkles. But what i do count on is boost high protein. And now, introducing new boost women. With key nutrients to help support thyroid, bone, hair and skin health. All with great taste. New, boost women. Designed just for you. Or trips to mars. No commission. Delivery drones, or the latest phones. No commission. No matter what you trade, at fidelity youll pay no commission for online u. S. Equity trades. past them because she didnt sknow they were talking to her. G and she would just walk right deborah i just could not hear. 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One of the biggest has been communication, how to best answer the volumes of questions theyre getting and how to clarify what has often been conflicting information about coronavirus. Congresswoman chrissy houlahan, a pennsylvania democrat found a unique way to reach people in her district. Yesterday she held a telephone town hall on youtube. What safeguards are in place that people who need to get the test will get the test. Thank you for your question. Ill hand this over to commissioner moskowitz. I think the priority for everyone in these counties in the state is to test the priority testing are those with symptoms. The congresswoman joins me now from philadelphia. Thank you for doing this. As i was listening to what happened to you, we do a show very similar to that at 1 00, and i think we werent prepared for how many questions came our way. What is the response to your decision to have this tele town hall. Thank you for having me. This was our second virtual town hall, telephone town hall and the response has been enormous, unprecedented. We is had more than 4,000 people on the line this last one and so many questions that our processing wasnt able to handle all the questions. Were going back and calling all the people who had answers in the queue to make sure we can answer their questions. Were excited to provide real content with real experts, medical and also folks elected in our community or part of the Health Care System to make sure we could dispel myths and provide good and factual information to our community. There was a lot of criticism early on in the process about conflicting information that was coming out from government officials. How do you think theyre doing now and what do you say to your constituents who say to you, im so confused when i see on facebook, its conflicting, my friends tell me this is bogus. What are you saying to folks . Im telling them to check their sources and im telling them, not only as a member of congress and a leader of theirs, but also an engineer so im a factbased person, to make sure their information is coming from reputable sources and questioning authority. Thats why i think things like telephone town halls given by leadership, our representatives of our community and given by people who have expertise and experience are critical at this time. We saw the president come out yesterday and he said were going to get help to you and were going to get it to you now. Ive been getting the question when am i going to see a check . We have a lot of gig workers, a lot of people who live paycheck to paycheck. How soon do you expect well see federal assistance getting to those who need help most . What i heard on the telephone town hall that you just referencend and also one i had subsequently with Small Businesses, roughly a thousand Small Businesses on that one is the acute pain that people are in and the concern they have for immediate cash flow needs. Im very hopeful the senate will rush this through. Even though it may, i hope, be overclubbing, and i frankly dont think it is, we need to make sure were taking care of people and businesses every day basic needs to keep the economy going while be try to have the opportunity to test people and help people with the illness. Congresswoman chrissy houlahan, thank you. I appreciate you taking the time to talk to us. Ill hand it back over to you, craig. Chris, the congresswoman, as you just mentioned, parts of the economy especial