coronavirus and no less extent. saving lives our task force actually believes mr president that if we continue these mitigation efforts in the days ahead as states implement their policies including phased reopening that will preserve those gains we do believe by early summer we could be in a much better place as a nation with with much of this corona virus epidemic behind us. earlier today we also had a conference call led by secretary ben carson and leaders from about the president's announcement yesterday that he is repurpose ing the white house opportunity and revitalization council to focus on the impact of the coronavirus on minority communities secretary carson will convene the council tomorrow and will be reporting tomorrow afternoon on their progress we want to thank more than 270 leaders of organizations dedicated to housing homelessness and improving the lives

of people across our urban communities not only for being with us today for the way they have partnered with our ministration and partnered with state and local officials to put the health of all of their constituencies 1st as the president mentioned will you receive a report that our task force received to formally this week from bill bryan of the science and technology directorate at the department of homeland security he will outline as the president said encouraging news about the impact that heat and sunlight have on the corona virus which will increase the confidence that we feel about the coming summer on the subject of testing at the present moment we have reports 'd of 4930000 tests having been performed across america and encouraging news as 'd states have been engaging commercial labs at a higher level across the country yesterday our commercial lab system did more than 100000. yes in

a single day so we're beginning to activate all 'd of the capacity and tomorrow at the president's direction our task force will convene a conference call with all of the nation's governors to talk about their progress that they are making on testing in we're going to hear from governors about the practices the methods that they are employing to significantly increase testing following our briefing about capacity in laboratories this past monday for instance governor mike de wine just announced that ohio's testing has been greatly expanded after the f.d.a. approved thermal fischer's new extraction agent as saying in his words that the action quote probably doubled maybe even tripled testing in ohio 'd virtually overnight governor tim waltz of minnesota announced along with the state's health care system the mayo clinic in the university of minnesota what he described as a breakthrough for rapid widespread testing they've been able to test more than 20000 people using their letting their an america that is the message from the u.s.

vice president as well as the u.s. president donald trump standing alongside him there giving their daily briefing on the coronavirus pandemic just a few moments ago president trump was citing statistics that seem to suggest according to him that the u.s. is making some progress against the virus but he also did encourage people to keep following the guidelines he said reopening the states is quote very exciting but it does not mean we are letting down our guard and he also began the press conference by saying that the aid bill has now been approved by the u.s. house and that aid bill is going to help save many small businesses so just a reminder on bought aid bill a wide margin of members in the u.s. house of representatives have now back as you've been hearing they've backed the 484 $1000000000.00 aid bill for small businesses and hospitals that's his record numbers if americans lose their. jobs 26400000 people have filed for unemployment

since the end of march last sounds have shut down production and they've led to mass furloughs of more than 15 percent of the u.s. workforce here's our white house correspondent kimberly with more record highs and expected to keep climbing because the reason that we don't believe we're at the peak in terms of filings yet is that this is just an older system throughout the united states that was never set up for this abundance of claims to be filed so we expect the numbers are going to continue to climb for at least a few more weeks you know the projections of gone as high as 46000000 in terms of the number of americans that lost their job overnight now this we've seen this sort of manifest in a number of ways we've seen very long lines at food banks we've seen people wondering how they're going to pay their bills of course they some americans did get checks in part of $1.00 of those rescue packages from the u.s.

congress but many americans a single individuals got just $1200.00 and the cost of rent plus you know just a week's worth of groceries could easily go far beyond that so many americans wondering how they're going to make ends meet we've seen protests across the country as many are protesting these stay at home orders wanting to get back to work but the reality is that these shutdowns have occurred all across the sectors of the economy in the united states whether it be the hospitality industry or even now we're starting to see it in the white collar industry as well given the fact that many companies just can't afford to stay close for this long and keep their employees on the payroll and moving away from the u.s. the world health organization's europe directress has up to half the continent's debts could end up being from care homes dr hans clue called it an unimaginable human tragedy. this but they make a sport like overlook the undeveloped oversight of the region.

as often being needed like it but it should not be this way we have inherited do you to be the right an opportunity that the fine. big generation that came before to emotion get bored of it is. no one behind the death of an european union leaders have held their 4th video summit on the coronavirus outbreak but while they appear to have agreed on the need to work together on an economic way out of the crisis they were less united on what that should look like this pushes ahead with the search for a vaccine so you're going to go reports. in this laboratory in oxford a glimmer of hope shimon trials have now begun here with a vaccine. researches are confident that it could take just months before they know

if it would work and manufacturing it on a large scale could take much longer but hopefully this will give us some good data and hopefully in a couple of months or maybe a year or so we were able to be able to protect more people with us. in germany the 1st day back at school but nothing like these people's could have imagined the partial reopening the older people's only carries many restrictions social distancing is tightly in force between their designated desks the usual hive of energy replaced by a more careful serious mood. despite having the 5th largest number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the world germany is slowly relaxing its lockdown but a desire for things to return to normal as well as fears over the economic impact of the pandemic have come with a warning from the chancellor angela merkel it's not been that's not guns often targeted but i will therefore tell you quite frankly that i fully support the

decisions taken by the federal and state governments on wednesday last week but the implementation since then worries me in part it seems to me very brisk some of it seems to me to be quite brisk if not to say to praise. for the european union the full extent of the damage the pandemic has caused the block won't be revealed for months but it is preparing for a slump the like of which has not been seen since world war 2 the european commission has suggested a $325000000000.00 recovery fund for its forthcoming budget as well as borrowing another $350000000000.00 from the capital markets for the spending they really have to miss to because even if it's difficult even for dollars difference in cities in europe and goes into the surprise there is a very strong pull to to really to work together and to succeed to build compromises. on the political strains are already evident wealthier countries such

as france will remain under pressure to provide aid to the blocs less well off members as a test of solidarity that could define the very future of the union itself sony vaio. south africa nation wide lockdown will be gradually is from the beginning of next month south africans have been under some of the strictest measures across africa with reservists drafted in to help troops and police enforce the lockdown president cyril ramaphosa says some economic activity will be allowed to resume from may the 1st he says the measures will be lifted slowly to reduce the risk of a spike in infractions. beyond thursday the 30th of april we should begin a gradual and phased recovery of economic activity we will implement. what we call a risk adjusted strategy through which we take

a deliberate and cautious approach to the easing of current lock down institutions from either miller and johannesburg has more on what the measures will mean for south africans the president to use the sadrist to outline 5 key phases of a lockdown or a reopening of economic activity and an easing of restrictions and moving from level 5 ways of africa is now which is you know at the end of that spectrum the the harshest restrictions so far south africa would move to level 4 which the president has said would then still include some pretty tough restrictions for south africans but i think the key difference would be the reopening of economic activity and even then companies would be forced to only allow a 3rd of their workforce at the places of employment at any given time now

borders in south africa will remain closed besides repacked rating south africans will be no travelling between individual provinces for south africa all gatherings will remain prohibited by the government but sides funerals so there is some change but i think not the kind of relief millions of south africans were hoping for given that's all that rick is now entering the 5th the week of a very strict lockdown. yes of her branching is a social activist in pretoria and he says the government's next focus must be on providing food aid to those affected by the restrictions we have millions of people living in so-called checked sex settlements in informal settlements we having a major on the crisis in the levels of poverty the level of hunger is the worst ever seen in south africa people don't know where their next meal is coming from with no government in 95 i'm going to tell you in

a raid back each doing algo the need over the coming weeks but yes a lot of work still needs to be done in the long run his largely been a good bike and little education needs to be done to the public secondly we've even found that the crime wave will generally give on down because of the you creased police brazenly increase members of the certificate national defense force out of the price if going to be the next retreat to address during this lockdown so that's the situation in south africa let's now get more on the situation across latin america bring in john home and he's joining us from mexico city what new restrictions are being imposed specifically where you are john. well there's been a restriction on metro stations now 20 percent of the big close to mexico city and there's been a lot of images of those metro stations just being absolutely crowded with people so that might have some sort of impact there's also been restrictions on the amount

of cars they're going to be on the road here in mexico city and interesting lee president and that is manuel lopez obrador also raise the economic stimulus package by about 10 times what it was going to be being quite frugal he still is according to a lot of analysts saying that it might be too little too late there's a lot of help now for small companies saying that those who stay close to solidarity but haven't laid off their workers will get credits in the next few days that will be a continuous of the social programs but there won't be any bailouts for the big companies and any sort of help in that way for the economy so the jury's out really when he's done enough to get there or not but that's still a long way off in terms of talking about economic recovery just hit the red zone with this at the moment the government saying that they're expecting throughout make to really reach the people the infection something that's interesting about

mexico is the fact that this country she has a 70 percent of adults clinically obese also one in 7 people have died bts so it's got a sort of population that if the core of coronavirus hits according to scientists those are 2 very vulnerable groups. that's. the way to resettle an american snow white boy situation that's going that it's going to. and john i know you're keeping an eye out on the situation over brazil of course one of the hardest hit countries in latin america and we're hearing now that another minister from boston iris cabinet has resigned what more can you tell us. yes that's news that was reported by a brazilian newspaper but it hasn't been confirmed either by the government. that

the ministry questioned himself actually the justice minister so that at the moment it's not confirmed that he's resigning well we just newsagency say is that. i think might be tools president to. secure the justice minister will be seen. is that the federal police chief is going to present. our john apologies i'll have to let you go just a little windy from mexico city. home and giving us the update from mexico you're watching al-jazeera coming up in just a moment after years of conflict drove forms of locusts how so malia is coping with the coronavirus that's coming up and international anger grows over is really plans to an ex-parte of the occupied west bank a top u.n. envoy calls it a dangerous and devastating wounds. but

1st to syrian men have gone on trial in germany accused of crimes against humanity one was a prominent member of president bashar assad's forces at the start of the war and is accused of complicity in acts of torture as dominic cain reports it's the 1st time any official has been brought to court for war crimes by the syrian government . they came to germany claiming to be refugees from syria's civil war now it's claimed they committed crimes against humanity jury it specifically multiple murder torture and all the serious offenses and. that's the last time it needed to be defendants are accused of having been members of syria's general secret service the accused is believed to have been head of an investigation unit which was responsible for. the break out of the report to

take you back to the us president donald trump speaking at the coronavirus taskforce briefing let's listen and he goes away very quickly it dies very quickly with the senate. oh you said yesterday you know we're going to start on a suggestion for a while and stand sort of our bankruptcy versus the yeah i will look into it and i have been looking into it i've been talking to a lot of the different senators but i don't want to talk about it now there was a very interesting there's invasion go ahead you want everybody to talk about mcconnell suggestion to the states amounts to i just told you not to interfere to look about it later if you like i mean for me it's more of just to please mr bryan because yes you. think you when you started your presentation you described this from the emerging results this just means your state is conclusive and is there more work to do we're going to move it for example on the earth all side you know as the figures were 20 percent humidity we're

looking at higher humidity levels would expect that we would have a greater impact on the virus we're looking at other types of disinfectants. and so we're this is a we're as a scientific community we're continuing to study the virus to understand its characteristics even if i think you're right i don't think you mean while some hot coffee seem to make us are hot and humid like new orleans for example. let me explain if you look at the corona virus as a chain with many links. what we've done through our study is we've identified. some of the weak links in that chain that the virus transmission of the virus depends upon we identify that heat and humidity is a weakness in that chain we've identified that sunlight sort of light u.v. rays the weakness in that chain that doesn't take away the other activists the guidance from the white house guidance from the c.d.c. and others on the actions and steps of people need to take to protect themselves this is just another another tool in our tool belt and another another weapon in the fight that we can add to it and in the summer we know that summer like

conditions are going to create an environment where the transmission can be decreased and that's an opportunity for us to get ahead with this very topic that the president over in your view a clear leader is a program on. there's no serious the. earth is there you know i think i'm here to talk about 5 that we haven't study we don't do that within that lab our labs. are similar in many groups much. later sterilization of an area maybe it works maybe it doesn't work but it certainly has a big effect if it's on station because that run over simplified you must find something to be better with the warmer weather in the sun coming out more and more people outside the side their home pati. it would be irresponsible for us to say that we feel that the summer is just going to totally kill the virus and that it's a free for all and that people ignore those gods that is not the case we we have an

opportunity though to get ahead with what we know now and factor that into this issue makings for what open the look of the city's resurfaces the hot summer and whatever the conditions your video like of humanity is that that would have an effect so that on surfaces where it can be picked up it will die fairly quickly in the summer whereas in the winter it wouldn't back so yes mispresent when it's exposed to u.v. rays take a playground equipment for example. the u.v. rays hitting a piece of playground equipment will 'd kill the virus when it hits when it hits on a playground but underneath where the sun does not get if someone touched that it had it on their hands it could still be there right it has been directed by the u.v. rays and ready for the right to just run sometimes they strike as they have to touch their faces or they explode in the sun it'll tell but if they're outside right and they hands are exposed to this will that kill it as though it were

a piece of metal or something not i don't want to say it will have the same rate because it's an amp or service but we do know what we do know is that we looked at the worst case scenario and the virus lives longer non-porous surfaces so porous surfaces it doesn't look quite as long so in theory what you said is correct this is the same. case right yes miss for her you are enough well you know this is the right to do this i don't need a way really. know how to governors who are opening their states working on that one corporation their findings in this study. i would leave that up to the governors this is a this is a decision this factors into their decision process as i mentioned with that knowing this knowledge and having this knowledge as we continue to study and further know what the virus doesn't heart reacts it could impact the way a governor will look at what he opens in his state how he opens it in what environments these things are opened up but i leave that up to the governors to make that decision how the money goes. overseas but the advice is to have it by the

summer could we be flipping out and saying be much better off being outside the u.v. rays are all that you need to the bush brews you know because. i would not go contrary to the guys that have been issued right now i think though to tell you that if i if i'm having an affair with my family i'm doing it in the driveway or in the backyard not inside the house with my children brought down for us it's going to happen now it's a very interesting person to see ok with her house or be certain. how much hard time to take. these teams at the mercy we we 1st were able to receive the virus back in february is when we started testing and it is a science based approach science is a process of the doctor can attest to that it doesn't serve a line up with goals and targets and other things it is what it is but we are now starting to get results and we're every week or 2 weeks we're starting to find out something new and something different and in talking to the to do the task force

and the vice president he's already asked us to come to him every time we come up with some new discoveries that we could be that we could share to the public. go yes sir have you come here you know secure our hearts in our foreign governments or in private industry you might have been studying the same thing and do their findings show the same resolve that you found here we have we do have a very good partner ship with a lot of our allies we work closely with them on this particular topic we actually authored a document called the master questions list if you go to d.h.s.s. and his website we've already had about 17000 hits on this document it actually outlines what all the countries in the world are doing to fill the certain gaps of knowledge that don't exist within the virus and what we do know and that is really what targets and drives the science community what don't we know now so we don't duplicate what other people have done so we've champion that document it's well referenced and i would encourage you to look at that. and we are working with other countries on vaccines. that as it is this summer and this

well with the federal government need to do to take advantage of that time period as the ceiling if there is a summer's through with this virus what would the federal government need to do to take advantage of that time to be better prepared for a resurgence in the fall that you are the person with the one thing i think a lot of people are going to go outside all of a sudden people that didn't want to go outside they'll be good to me this is very it's really a very interesting live covered in great detail and. these are incredible people at that we could call it a laboratory because that's essentially what it is it's a super laboratory it's a lot of things going on at that lebrecht jury a lot of very interesting things going on but leverage or you know human other areas the government needs do you want testing for or other things like how to be prepared to change how you know how do you take advantage of summer. it's actually very good question and something the task force already has begun discussing that

we are if a combination of factors let me say again and states put into practice at the guidelines open up america. implement a safe and responsible flans to open up their economies along the lines that the president unveiled a week ago today as people continue to properly exercise shows or distancing as as recommended in each phase that in combination with some of these findings. could well give us some respite from the coronavirus and our team is already speaking about working on a continuous basis through this summer every single day we're increasing testing every single day fairbridge flights are coming into the country there i can promise you at the president's direction there will be no letting up on making sure that our hospitals have the equipment. the personal protective supplies for medical

personnel will be no letting up on the development of therapeutics by our great pharmaceutical companies are driving toward a vaccine as soon as it is possible to make available to the public and the be no letting up on continuing to scale testing already more than anyone in the world but next fall will have a broad range of testing a variety of different means and that's why we say with confidence that should the coronavirus reemerge at any point next fall or next winter we will be prepared to deal with it identify it do the contact tracing in isolation to ensure that we deal with this epidemic in the manner that we that we deal with infectious diseases. for president on the subject of medical research why don't you stop promoting i dropped sick or as i was your audience will

see what happens we've had a lot of very good results had we had some results that perhaps aren't so good i don't know i just read about one but i also read many times good. so i haven't diddle and i'd say it's a great for malaria for lupus for other things and we'll see what it is but i guess deborah they have many many studies going on that there will flow be able to live. in fact i have no doubt harry says i have not seen the president one how over twice it's 1000000 new jobs claims over 5 weeks. off the vice president talked about this summer getting better about how well do your honest tell you about the hot it's going to take you in the us through the day i don't get a lot out economists' temperature of over well let me go the way we know the rest of the question right so i know a lot about economists and the answer is they have no idea i think i have as good an idea as anybody and i think our economy will start to pick up her substantially

as soon as the states get open and that's happening as we speak and it's actually very exciting and. people are just it's just thrilled to see it because our country has to get back to work they want to get back to work you see that whether it's a demonstration or just in talking to people they going to get back to work and they're going to get back to work very fast states are advanced i look at gavin newsome was do some was very nice today wrote a beautiful statement about we sent him a lot of a lot of things that he needed ok things different things that he needed we got we got it taken care of they've done very well in california as you know the doing really well in florida they're doing well in a lot of places new york and new jersey got hit very hard to doing very well i spoke again with governor cuomo with governor murphy they're doing they're doing a great job and here's a thing we have to see they got hit far everyone close together tighten people don't realize new jersey is very tight you realize that because you've been

covering it for a long time but very tight new york obviously is very tight they're doing a terrific job i think for the most part. i'll be able to tell you when it's all over but a lot of the governors have done a really terrific job some i don't think have to be honest but will be talking about the future yes good. i mean interview today with time magazine dr fallon she said the u.s. is not in a situation he can say we are we are going to be with regard to tests and possibly he said we need much more intense and capacity as well as to have so why do you keep saying we have a tremendous system capacity and do we have a national strategy that goes beyond tracking what states are doing the answer's yes and the answer is as you know and as i've said many times we're very advanced in testing other countries are calling us to find out what are we doing and by the

way within 2 weeks you'll see numbers and you'll see different forms of testing just like we came up with the abbott laboratories machine which has it in 5 minutes and everybody wants everybody's asking can we get that but you know we make them so fast but as you know we've done more testing than every other nation combined and that's a big statement and you know when they talk about different tests and different things we're also a bigger nation than most and so when they look at statistics because to say statistically we're doing phenomenally in terms of mortality in terms of all of the different elements and you can judge when you look germany in ourselves are doing very well. we are very accurate in the reporting of numbers in fact go a step further as you know in new york they actually added quite a few. deaths to a list that was done in new york and they added a number of deaths were very very. highly accurate and then you look at certain

lists of other countries some are so obvious just to look at where obviously the numbers are ridiculous in the form of low because they're not accurate k. . it's they're not even close to accurate counts in fact they're insulting to look at them so we've done very well again testing we're doing very well in testing we've tested far more than anybody else anywhere in the world and within a short period of time you'll be hearing about new tests that are coming out that are going to be incredible to see that we're just not there you know and agree with them of the no i think we're doing a great job interesting i don't agree if he said that i don't agree with the different ways to get into the ramp up production of that after. you know well they're doing it. that they're doing it. at a level that they've never done it before abbott is a great company it's a very big highly respected company they came up with this machine where you do it i've done it both ways i've done it this way and i didn't like it and i've done it the abbott way where you literally just touch and 5 minutes later you know the

answer and we use them in the woodhouse i think you folks have been given that opportunity which is much more pleasant than the 1st way that they looked at you right. we're making them hundreds of thousands of machines the advantage to the other tests in the laboratory test so we can get millions and millions of those tests and it takes a day or 2 days but you know because it's really a deliberate situation more than anything else the test itself goes quickly once it gets to the laboratory but as we have found and as we have i think show never got in the room we have many laboratories we have that we have so many laboratories nobody nobody a lot of the governors did not know that we had this capacity but we have many laboratories all over a country every state has laboratories and some have a lot of them so i think we will we will come up with things as time goes by again when i started we ended up we started with nothing essentially what we started with

a broken test a test that didn't work we started with a test it did very few people not millions of people the problem is if we did 350 if we did 350000000 tests one. for each person. the media would say oh you should have done 2 for each person no matter what you do it doesn't make any difference it's just like the ventilators i talk about it all the time nobody ever mentions ventilate is one of the hardest things of ental letters and that will make in thousands a week thousands of ventilators and they're calling from mexico they're calling from many countries i've received today for calls would it be possible to send ventilators a gift for call today i got 3 calls yesterday no country is equipped like we are we have 11 we have 11 different places making ventilators.