recovered patients to sort of arranging this. >> hopefully this is something that will work. and i know for those three patients, i'm sure they and their families were very grateful they could get that from you. jason, thank you so much. >> no problem. >> and thanks to all of you for joining us. ac 360 starts now. >> good evening, everyone. there is a lot to get to tonight. some potentially positive signs in new york. the epicenter of the fight to save infected people and plenty of continued warnings about difficult days and deaths ahead. we're going to get to all of that. the white house coronavirus press briefing ended a while ago. if you tuned in hoping to hear from the country's top scientists you were disappointed. what we mostly heard was the president. what we saw was a hijacking of the task force press conference by a president determined to rewrite the history of his early and irresponsible response to this virus. what the president showed us

today is what the nation's top scientists have to deal with every day, a president who now uses these briefings as a reelection platform, an opportunity to lie, to deflect, to attack, to bully, and cover up his own deadly dismissals of the virus for crucial weeks. according to the president today, all governors are getting everything they need and testing is now and always has been great. reporters who asked fair questions but didn't kowtow or suck up to this president were attacked and belittled and a special convenient i am was reserved for career official at hhs who he doesn't even know who released a non-political study with extensive interviews with doctors and hospitals across the country describing the lack of the supplies and insufficient testing, and mixed messages they've budget getting from the federal government, all things that have been reported on. i just have to point out this is not normal. and it matters because this is life and death. if you look at the chart, by the way, that the white house showed to show the extensiveness of the testing, you'll notice their

statistics do not begin until march 5th. february was a lost month, and people died because of that. and the numbers tested do not begin to appreciably rise on their own chart until more than halfway through the month of march. that's how late it was. nonetheless, this is the victory the administration is repeatedly claiming. this is what the president is clinging to, claiming that testing always has been great. it hasn't. still not. hospitalization rates and fatalities expected to increase dramatically from the coronavirus. president trump, however, spoke again today of light at the end of the tunnel. no word of how long that tunnel may be or how dim the light currently is. there are some positive trends, but as new jersey's governor today said, this is no time to take our foot off the gas. the number of dead in this country passed the 10,000 mark today. the current number, 10,781. the number of cases, 364,723. even if a peak is reached and passed in one area, the

administration said it expects rolling peaks at least through next month. just tonight los angeles county health officials urge residents to not go grocery shopping this week if they can. one reason the president can even speak of a light at the end of the tunnel, social distancing and the stay-at-home orders most states have implemented, another stated to issued a stay-at-home order. south carolina. that brings the total number of americans under the order to 97% of the country. still, there are seven states that don't have an order in place. arkansas, iowa, north dakota, nebraska, south dakota, utah and wyoming. we should note dr. fauci said this evening iowa instituted orders similar to stay-at-home orders. the other threat to our front line defenders who tested positive for the virus and medical supplies multiple governors say they must outbid each other for. illinois's governor said what his state is getting from the strategic national stockpile is a, quote, mere fraction of what we asked for. other governors have made similar remarks. yet tonight president trump

paints a far different picture. everything states wants, he says, is already there for the most part. they're happy, every one of them. life according to the president. erica hill joins us now with the latest. erica? of >> reporter: anderson, good evening. i can tell you one thing that may make the governor of the state and other states happier is stricter social distancing. that has been hammered home as you pointed out. while we are seeing some glimmer of hope here in new york, what was made clear by this governor and several other officials today is that this threat is far from over. 250 beds at the meadow lands in new jersey. 2,500 each in chicago's mccormick place exposition center and new york's massive javits center where covid patients began arriving over the weekend. the navy hospital ship "comfort" now accepting covid patients as well. the two facilities acting as relief valves for the state's hospitals as new york's death toll continues to rise, though

more slowly. >> while none of this is good news, the flattening, possible flattening of the curve is better than the increases that we have seen. >> reporter: the cdc today warning the country's death toll could be higher because data is lagging by as much as two weeks. as a new york city council man tweets, the city may need to bury victims in parks because morgues and trailers outside of hospitals are reaching capacity. that's not happening at the moment. though mark lavine's staff said it is part of a contingency plan which seemed to catch the governor by surprise. >> i've heard a lot of wild rumors, but i have not heard anything about the city burying people in parks. >> reporter: around the country, communities adapting, and bracing for what the surgeon general cautions will be the hardest and saddest week yet. >> this is going to be our pearl harbor moment, our 9/11 moment

only it's not going to be localized. it's going to be happening all over the country. >> reporter: in new orleans, mortuaries and morgues are at capacity. louisiana's governor said they could run out of ventilators and beds by the end of the week. officials in new york warn they may have even less time and resources. >> the numbers that we're really watching is still the number of hospital admissions, the numbers that are going into the icu and eventually on ventilators. and we're not seeing a decrease in those numbers yet. those are the numbers that are really going to strain our health care system. >> reporter: meantime, a new government watch dog report finds, quote, severe widespread shortages of critical supplies across the country, adding to the strain. and the report says, those shortages are making it harder for hospitals to test and protect their staff. the government adding new travel restrictions for all cruise ship passengers and crew arriving in the u.s. no longer allowed on commercial flights and subject to a

mandatory 14-day quarantine. a third passenger from the quarrel princess now docked in miami has died. in new jersey, a mother and icu doctor is recovering from the virus, anxious to hold the children she wasn't sure she'd see again. dr. julie john even made them a good-bye video. >> i just wanted to tell my kids that they are the most important thing in the world to me. i love you and i want to be there, but i can't. but be amazing. be nice. and i just -- that's the most important thing, right. when you can't breathe, i thought of my children and how i can say good-bye in the best way. >> what's the latest update from governor cuomo on the amount of ventilators the state has? >> reporter: when he was asked about that today, anderson, everybody is running low. some are at capacity, some are

splitting ventilators. what he did say is no one who came to him said, i'm at a critical need and need ventilators, has not gotten one. 82 were sent to new york city. that number was based on what he was told was needed and those were shipped in for the 11 public hospitals here. he also said the flex surge, questionnaire they've been doing with hospitals around the state every night to figure out what's needed hasn't really helped and they've been shifting around the state has needed. >> erica hill, thanks very much. we'll get to the politics in a moment. we want to get to the fight in the virus. we want to bring in dr. sanjay gupta. life as we knew it may never again and certainly not before there is a vaccine, be back to normal. that's his job, give the public an unvarnished accounting regardless of what the president is saying. i wonder what you make of what he said. >> yeah, i mean that's a bit jarring to hear for sure. i think the question was

specifically as you pointed out, anderson, could life return to normal before a vaccine came out. you know, i think the point that dr. fauci was making was that there is going to be a lot of sort of hangover effect from this whole thing in terms of how people may be a little cautious if the virus is still circulating to some extent. i think as we get therapies that are proven to be effective, everybody on the planet is hoping that we find therapies like that which would come a lot faster than the vaccine, that it will start to, you know, return to a more normal sort of sense of what we are experiencing several months ago. but, you know, anderson, as we talked about, there's going to be no sort of all-clear flag that is waved around this, you know. it's going to be a slow sort of roll back into life. people -- there is still going to be a fair amount of psychological effect aside from the physical effect. it's something dr. fauci has talked about for a while. look, you and i have covered a

lot of stories, nothing quite like this. it is amazing to me how quickly people do move on ultimately. as tough as this has been right now, i have to say, not to disagree at all with dr. fauci, of course, but i do think people do ultimately bounce back and i think that will happen here as well. >> on saturday, governor cuomo said in his opinion, people will be able to start to go back to work when there is a testing program that can be, in his words, brought to scale. is the united states even close to that? >> no, i don't think we're close to that. you know, the sort of test that governor cuomo was talking about, as you know, anderson, is this serology test or also known as an antibody test. it's looking for the cells in your body that are generated in response to your exposure to the virus. so when you fight the virus, you make these antibodies, you can test for those antibodies. we're not at scale yet. there is an emergency authorization that was put in

place last thursday to allow one company to start doing this. the ambassador came out today and said, hey, look, there is a lot of basically bad companies out there as well. my colleague elizabeth cone was reporting on that today as well saying be aware a little bit. there's going to be a lot of people saying, we have the antibody test. there is not really one out there besides this one under emergency authorization. we're absolutely not there yet, but we will get there. and i will tell you, anderson, i think the antibody test is a big deal. just for the same reasons we were talking about. once people have some confidence that they have these antibodies, they have some confidence that they may be protected, we don't know how long they'll be protected yet. but i think it's going to go a long way not only towards the physical part of this, but again, the psychological part of this which is something that we need to be talking about more and more. just the anxiety around this that's preventing people from doing things. when you get a test result like that, hey, i was exposed, i didn't even really know it, i didn't get that sick, but now i'm inoculated or essentially i

am nightly newsed againimmunize. people will get back to work. >> do we know for a fact once you've had it, you are essentially inoculated against it? >> that's a fair point, anderson. we don't know that yet for sure. i mean, dr. fauci has said he's basically convinced that's the case. but you know, until we can actually -- we're 3 1/2 months into this. until we can actually look at this data a little bit more long term, we won't know for sure. but this is a coronavirus. if it bazemoehaves like other coronaviruses have in the past, and other viruses for that matter, once you're exposed you should have some protection. unlike the flu virus, anderson, which has what's called antigenic drift, mutates essentially a little bit every year which is why you need a new flu shot every year, so far this novel coronavirus that causes

covid-19 seems to be relatively stable. so that's good. so if you get exposed to it, you should have those antibodies that protect you against that virus that is staying stable. >> sanjay, stay with us. i want to bring in white house correspondent kaitlan collins. kaitlan, the president was asked this evening about test results and availability. i want to play some of what he said. >> when can hospitals expect to receive a quick turn around of the test results? >> are you ready? hospitals can do their own testing also. states can do their own testing. states are supposed to be doing testing. hospitals are supposed to be doing testing. do you understand that? we're the federal government. listen -- we're the federal government. we're not supposed to stand on street corners doing testing. they go to doctors. they go to hospitals. they go to the state. the state is a more localized government. you have 50 of them. and they can go -- you also have territories, as you know. they do the testing. and if you look at the chart, if

you take a look -- did they put it up? yeah. just take a look. these are testing, and the results are now coming in very quickly. initially speaking, the tests were old, obsolete, and not really prepared. we have a brand-new testing system that we developed very quickly and that's your result. and you should say, congratulations, great job, instead of being so horrid in the way you ask a question. >> first of all, it's not a reporter's job to say congratulations to any politician. but when it came to testing, this is what he said when he was visiting the cdc just last month. i want to play this. >> anybody that wants a test can get a test. >> so which is it? >> reporter: the testing has been the number one failure of the response to this so far. if the president knows that, his aides know that, they do not make any secret of that. it's something that is well

known inside the white house. you're seeing today the president insisting that testing is fine. it's something he's been saying for a few days now. they are going pretty far by saying it's the state's responsibilities to make sure they can test people, even though, of course, the federal government has played such a large role in this. of course, we do know testing has ramped up. we've seen these rapid tests. abbott labs can give you one 15 minutes or less start to come out. you're still seeing health care providers saying as testing is ramping up, an issue is backlog in getting the results. that causes more problems because there is a shortage of ppe, the protective gear they're wearing. but when people come into hospitals they think they could have coronavirus, they still haven't gotten the results back. they're still treating those people like they could potentially have coronavirus. still dressing as they would. the other thing we're hearing from hospital providers is they're saying they're also running low on the supplies they need to actually test people. so it is very far from the truth to say that testing is fine and

adequate at this point. and state officials have made clear and so have people inside the administration to the president that it's still something they're working on. >> kaitlan, i know the answer to this question, but is there anybody around the president who has suggested that maybe he either should not take part in the coronavirus task force briefings? he could have his own separate briefings? there are a lot of people tuning in wanting to hear from scientists and wanting scientific information that can help them and their families be healthy and stay alive and get a sense of what's coming down the pike, or even have the president not try to use this as a platform for reelection. but it's incredibly frustrating i think for a lot of people watching this the way the president is using this and hijacking this coronavirus task force briefing every day. >> reporter: i'm sure there are people inside the administration who would prefer the president did not spend an hour at the lectern answering questions. often it's the president's

yolanda to coide idea to come out there. he picks who is going to be going out to the briefings. yesterday, of course, you saw dr. fauci, dr. birx out there alongside the president. he moved the briefing originally scheduled to 4:30. the president wanted it moved to primetime. they had it at 6:00 when the president finally came out. he is viewing these things as you would expect the president to view these things, through the lens of ratings and whatnot, seeing these briefings. he's even talked about that on twitter. it's not always a channel of information for the president to try to get out the latest developments there because often you see him come out like he did today, repeat things we've heard him say before. he takes a few questions then he leaves the room and lets the vice-president and the doctors and the admiral answer questions about stocks, shortages, test being, things of that nature and what's going on there. >> the president was bullying,

belittling, combative. i want to play another exchange when he was asked about the inspector general's report from the hhs department, health and human services. let's watch. >> how long has that person been in government? >> they did serve in the previous administration. >> oh, you didn't tell me that. oh, i see. you didn't tell me that, john. you didn't tell me that. did serve in the -- you mean the obama administration. thank you for telling me that. see, there's a typical fake news deal. look -- >> i told you when she was appointed. >> you're a third rate reporter. what you just said is a disgrace, okay. you asked me, you said, sir, just got appointed. take a look at what you said. when did this person -- how long in government? well, it was appointed in the obama administration. thank you very much, john. thank you very much. you will never make it. go ahead, please. >> first of all, she wasn't appointed in the obama administration. it was actually 1999 apparently

when this person's career started. he's waiting for jonathan karl to inform him about a top official at hhs. he doesn't even know who these people are. >> reporter: yeah, and the question before that had been asking about this report and instead of responding to the report and what it found about these shortages in hospitals, it interviewed hundreds of hospitals across 46 states, the president asked who the inspector general was, not what the report said or how they would respond. anderson, when you read the report, you see the beginning they stress to say this isn't a criticism of the handling so far. it's basically a tool so you can help handle this better as you move forward. if you read it, it's a devastating step. some hospitals are going to nail salons or auto body shops to scrounge up materials they need because of shortages. the president's combative tone, the admiral got up, he's been streamlining the shortages and supplies and what's going on. he was talking about only testing, saying the inspector

general should have come to him about that because they ramped up testing when they were conducting these surveys in the hospitals. anderson, it's not just about testing. it's talking about a lack of protective gear, a lack of hospital beds, staffing shortages, logistical challenges, things of nature. the reason the president was agitated about the question by the inspector general, he fired the intelligence inspector general because that's the person that turned over the whistle-blower complaint to congress that led to his impeachment. >> it is an opportunity for vengeance. we'll watch and see wlapz to th what happens to this official from hhs. kaitlan, thank you. we talked with someone involved with the study earlier today. it was a very specific set amount of time. as kaitlan said they did hundreds of interviews with doctors and hospitals across the country. it wasn't some political study. just ahead i'll speak with minority leader chuck schumer about what the president said and his take on the response to the crisis. later an update from london

where boris johnson has been moved to intensive care as he fights coronavirus.

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senator schumer was to blame for not being aware. he called you lightweight, disgrace, disputing facts, rewriting history. where does it tell you where he is on this? >> his attacks don't phase me, anderson. i'm trying to get something done. i hear from so many different new yorkers how they can't get the protective materials, the ppes, the gloves, the masks, the test even still, the ventilators that they need. i hear from hospital executives who are spending hours of their time hunting and pecking, calling private companies, calling foreign countries to try and get the stuff they need. so what i did two weeks ago, i called the president and i said, why don't you invoke the defense production act. that's an act that was passed in the truman administration during the korean war to allow the president to invoke having the factories take over the supply chain and distribute them where

needed. i said we needed a strong military person to do that, someone with a lot of experience, that knows command and control, that knows logistics. >> he attacked you about that again today. he said you wanted a military person. he has plenty military people around. >> that's the point, you don't need plenty. you need one person. they're trying their best. you have many people in many different directions. nobody knows who exactly to listen to. anderson, the proof of the pudding is on the ground. not just me. the president said governors are happy with them. the front page of "the new york times" had the governors criticizing him. the inspector general put out a report saying how bad it is. the facts are it's bad. i'm trying to improve their system in a way most experts who have looked at this say it will work. it will get the materials where they're needed on time, and, you know, as the crisis -- in new york, we're in crisis now.

it's going to spread to other places. and the lack of a single command and control organization to get the place -- to get the materials where they're needed is going to get -- it's going to make the situation even worse. >> i read that you reached out to the new chief of staff mark meadows, but given the president's comments today, it doesn't seem like he's inclined to appoint somebody to be a czar on getting supplies. >> well, anderson, this is sort of life and death. and so i'm going to keep trying. i've spoken to the vice-president. he was very respectful. i spoke to the chief of staff several times. he was respectful and listened to what i had to say. you know, hope springs eternal. maybe in private moments in the white house they can convince the president this is needed. a, it isn't working, b, you have too many people in charge. c, most of the experts say this is what's need. what they're doing is not working. >> testing, which the president

says is perfect and everything's great, that remains incredibly important. not just testing to see who may have the virus, but also it's going to become testing to see who had the virus and that potentially may be able to go back to work, may have antibodies that can help other people. >> antibodies, yeah. >> that whole system needs to be ramped up. >> exactly. >> as much a part of recovery as it was supposed to be part of the early days of this. >> you scant have a giant scavenger hunt where people are looking for the same supplies and bidding against each other. you need command and control. you need a czar in charge, i think a military person would be the right person. in fact, i gave to mark meadows last night three names of people who had done this extremely well in the military. they're non-political people. if the president would choose one of them and say, get this done, you have my full backing, i think the system would improve. but so far all i can do is keep trying and keep going forward because i think it's so important that it's the right

thing to do, as do many governors, as does the inspector general as do most of the experts. >> the other frustrating thing is nobody can give you a clear answer on, okay, fine, there is not enough masks. by this date there's going to be this number of masks done. by this date there's going to be this number of, you know, face shields available. there's no sense -- they'll endlessly tell you details this factory is going to make 2000 over here and we talked to other people who are going to do this. where's the time line? where's the schedule? >> that's why you need a central figure in command and control, because they don't have a time line. it's a little too much ad hoc. it's gotten a little better, but it's got a long way to go and the situation as we get more crises, cities and centers in the country, it's going to get worse. so all i can do is try to get something done because i think it affects health. it affects lives. it affects the well-being of my 20 million new york constituents and 300 some odd million

americans. >> senator schumer, appreciate your time. thank you. >> thank you. appreciate you very much. >> up next we're going to get the latest from london where british prime minister boris johnson gets moved to intensive care as his coronavirus symptoms worsen. old spice fiji? dad, i'm an old spice body and face wash kinda guy. hmm, moisturizing.

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earlier today president trump offered his best wishes to british prime minister boris johnson who was moved to icu today after his coronavirus symptoms worsened. back to discuss is dr. gupta and nick robinson. he entered the hospital after ten days of having the virus? >> reporter: he did. it's a very serious situation

right now, anderson. there's no doubt about it. people in this country are genuinely concerned. some of the prime minister's staunchest political rivals have been sending messages of support wishing him well. what we know in the last update we have is six hours or so ago when officials at downing street said that the prime minister was conscious when he was taken into the icu. he was taken in as a precautionary measure in case he needed to be intubated and put on a ventilator. but i think people also are a little concerned because they don't feel that downing street has been offering perhaps full clarity on the situation because it was only 24 hours ago when he was taken to hospital, then they said it wasn't an emergency, that he was going in for routine tests, that it was a precautionary step. then even just a couple hours before the announcement that he had been moved into icu, senior government officials weren't giving a direct accounting of what was happening to the prime minister. you wouldn't expect medical

details, but the questions were, the prime minister is still in control of the country. that's the government's message. why is he taking up a bed in hospital? these beds are much needed. there's been a lot of scrutiny placed on that and a lot of questions asked. >> yeah. >> reporter: everyone now understands it's genuinely a serious situation, anderson. >> sanjay, what do you make of this? >> look, it does follow this pattern, anderson, we've seen, of people who are diagnosed i think some ten days went by and they're sort of -- they're doing okay, you know, have symptoms certainly, and then for some reason around this time period, nine, ten, 11 days they start to have a decline. typically shortness of breath and other breeathing problems. he was admitted to the hospital nick was talking about, they say for routine testing. that's a serious situation to admit someone to the hospital in the middle of a pandemic. hospital beds are premium, icu

beds harder and ventilators. someone sent to the icu there are a couple reasons why. one is for additional monitoring or this a buns danbundance of c which may be the case with the prime minister. typically they think there is a chance he will need breathing support with the ventilator. sometimes something to do with the heart as well, but, you know, there is no reason to necessarily suspect that here. so, you know, deciding to place the prime minister on a breathing machine obviously a big decision when people have been placed on these breathing machines. it's a time period they are going to be on these machines. in new york it's been 11, 12, days of needing breathing support. it it's a serious illness. they have to figure out what is going on. has the virus replicated so much causing the problems? is it the prime minister's own immune system that is causing these problems? you know, again, as nick mentioned, it is concerning no matter how you look at it.

>> sanjay, when somebody -- not talking about this case in particular, but are there figures of when somebody is placed on a ventilator how many people, you know, make it off the ventilator and survive? i'm trying to get a sense -- do you know? not related to this particular case. >> yeah, with the coronavirus in general, i mean, some of the -- there's been a lot of studies on this and i've been evaluating the studies and looking at them. some of them are pretty grim. i will tell you, suggesting even as few as 20% of people will come off ventilators. there have been several studies. what i will tell you is the range i've seen is anywhere from rou around 40 to 80% of people will, yeah, not be able to come off the ventilator. so it's significant. again, as you say, every case is going to be different so i'd hate to sort of suggest that about the prime minister in any way. >> of course. >> i think it's safe to say it's

a serious illness at that point. people develop a respiratory distress type symptom. the lungs sometimes as a result of different things happening in the body, they just become hard. it's like a dry sponge. think of it like that. you put some detergent on that dry sponge, you're able to squeeze and contract it well. if it's stiff, no matter how good the ventilator is, it's hard to make it do what you want it to do. >> sanjay, lets of hope the best for the prime minister and all the best for people in the hospital. nic robertson as well. up next, there's breaking news on where president trump is getting his medical advice. you might be surprised, but then again, you actually might not be. employees, and communities safe. during these uncertain times we want you to get great service without leaving the safety of your home. shop at sprint.com for free next day shipping and no activation fees on our best new phone deals, like the samsung galaxy s20 5g for just $0 a month. plus, you'll also get a $100

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there is breaking news from the "washington post," some inside on back door medical advice president trump is receiving about an antimalarial

drug he says can help with covid-19. others won't test it for this purpose. it can have serious side effects, though potentially can be promising. it is one of hundreds much medications being studied and looked at. there is no definitive testing. there is no definitive studies that say it works for coronavirus. the source in this is an anchor of his favorite news channel. here by phone to explain is one of the reporters who broke the story, washington white house reporter josh dawsey. explain what you learned about the president and hydroxychloroquine and how he's getting medical advice. >> sure, anderson. the president has heard from a number of right wing allies. rudy giuliani, friends in new york, some of his favorite hosts including laura ingraham in the white house on friday. she had doctors from the cabinet on television. the head of the fda steven hawn was summoned to the medical office when the president was giving the presentation on the

drug and why they thought it was useful. it was a sign the president was putting pressure on the fda because he was bringing more supporters and allies in to talk to fda officials about the drug that he is now touting to basically -- >> the president of the united states called the head of the fda in to listen and be briefed by two doctors who appear on laura ingraham's program about this? wow. and laura ingraham, too. >> this has been a fixation in conversation in recent days. he talked about this. reporting was rudy giuliani, doctors in new york who he knows -- >> do you know why he's pushing this drug so aggressively? there are hundreds of drugs being looked at by scientists. there are some studies on this which show some positive results, but they're really not peer reviewed. there was a control group in two of the studies. the other one was small and

inconclusive, i believe. >> we don't know. we know if you talk to people around the president, they say he has heard anecdotal evidence the drugs work. people in new york say they work. i talked to the head of the hospital association, tracks closely across the city, he saysed jury is still out. they are not recommending against the drug. people are using them. there is not enough data. that's repeatedly what dr. fauci said in briefings in the white house. that's repeatedly what others have said. we don't know if it will be deleterious long term. there is not enough data. the president says, what do you have to lose. if you talk to others of his advisors, peter navarro, a advisor who has become a medical and coronavirus advisor during this period -- because we don't have time for testing. >> he's a social scientist, but he says that allows him to sort of opine, i guess, about medical science anyway. the thing is there are side effects to this. also there are patients who have lupus and there is a shortage

and difficult for them to get it. josh dawsey, i appreciate the reporting. someone fighting the pandemic on the front lines, president and c.e.o. of new york presbyterian hospital. there's been back and forth about hydroxychloroquine to treat patients with the virus. what do you make of this? >> i think just what you said, anderson. there is anecdotal evidence. it's not particularly persuasive. we need randomized clinical trials to determine which of these potential med additions are going to be effective. just giving it to patients and saying they got better does not mean that it's working. a patient can get better on his or her own. a patient can get worse if you're giving it at the wrong time during the course of the disease. i don't find it particularly helpful. many people are getting it prescribed because it's being -- it is fda approved and they're giving it for an off-label use. but we really need to study it. we need to understand what drugs are going to be effective against this. i don't think this is a silver

bullet by any stretch of the imagination. >> your hospital is one of the best hospitals in new york. i know people who work there. it's been all hands on deck. how are things? >> things have been rough the past few weeks. a lot of what the inspector general said are the things we're struggling with. but in particular, think of it this way. we have 4,000 beds in our system. we have usually 450 icu beds. we're now operating 750 icu beds and 650 of those 750 patients are covid. and they are universally intubated meaning they're on a mechanical ventilator. we are going to expand their icu capacity to a thousand beds, converting o.r.s into icus. anesthesia recoveries into icus. ambulatory operating rooms into icus. that puts an enormous stress on the ses tim and enormous stress on the staff. >> the president was attacking the health and human services

inspector general. the report says what we've been saying a long time. they talked about shortages and problems with testing and all the difficulties with supplies. do you think that report was wrong in any way? >> i don't. and as you know, we struggled as a country with testing early. that allowed for community spread to take place. that put us really behind the 8 ball. and then we had trouble getting the testing up and going. in my hospital system now we can test everybody coming into the hospital, but we can't universally test everybody in the country. then we ran into the ppe problem, particularly around the n95 masks. we were worried about the kn-95 masks. there were so many counterfeit. a number of those are being certified. that's now better. now we're running into a problem with gowns. in terms of the creation of capacity and having ventilators, the ventilators were an issue. we did not anticipate -- my

hospital system, the hospital system in general did not anticipate a pandemic of this magnitude. we can't make that mistake again. i know the next crisis will be different than this one, but let me just give you a statistic. pre-crisis, we were using 4,000 masks a day of all sorts. now we're using 90,000 masks a day. we never anticipated the need for that supply. so there's a lot of blame that can go around. but part of it is we've got to prepare differently. we have to have a different supply chain. we've got to think about ventilators differently. >> also, to be honest, there are worse possible pandemics that could be out there. i mean, there are -- bill gates pointed this out. there are ones that have a lot worse side effects. there are ones that are more easily transmissible, you know, someone leaves a room, you enter the room, you can get the virus. i mean, there's a lot of things that this could be worse that we

need to think about in the planning for whatever is down the pike in the future, no? >> we've got to wake up on this. we've got to look at our hospital beds per 100,000. we've got to look at the public health system. the fragility of the supply chain was astonishing to me. we've got to tyke a look at that. there's a lot of soul searching we're going to have to do once we get over the hump. year hoping now to see, in new york a flattening. but we're still really in the thick of it. >> one of the things bill gates is talked about is he did a tech talk in 2015. we talked to him three weeks ago. for tens of billions you can prepare for the next pandemic. the vaccines can be made quicker, things can be studied faster, which seems like a lot of money until you look at

already what this has cost our country and the globe. suddenly tens of billions doesn't seem so much. >> no. this is a calamity. the millions that have lost their jobs, the recession we're going to go into. the overwhelming, in many aspects of what we thought was an adequate reserve in the health care system. i couldn't agree with you more. we've seen what can happen and we're going to have to prevent it from happening. interestingly in all the models around pandemics. and the sort of scenario planning you do, the first thing every model assumed was we would have early and ubiquitous testing. >> the last month of february, i appreciate all you're doing. still ahead, he ran a marathon in every continent, including

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tonight we've been talking about the harsh reality the victims, medical professionals are facing every day. they can strike even the healthiest of people. her cousin was 51 years old and worked for "the associated press" in new york. he was so healthy this past november he ran his 83rd marathon. he seemed improving until last week and then he had a setback and the next day, he died. teresa, i'm so sorry for your loss. i know your cousin, and i think there are six or seven but you're all like siblings to each other you're all that close. what kind of guy was nick? >> nick was the oldest of us and

he was the one our parents all told us, you know, we hope you grow up to be like nick. he's talented, really successful professionally. we're the first generation that was in america. our parents are all from thailand. he was our road map for the american dream. >> wow. nick seemed to be doing okay for a while, yeah? >> yeah, yeah. you know, he was following all the orders. at the time, he did not require hospitalization. he was well enough to go visit his doctor, who checked his vitals, his breathing, and lungs. then just a couple of days later, he experienced a setback and, within a day, he felt like he needed to go to the er and later on that evening, he passed away.

>> i understand you got a tweet or text message saying that -- what did it say? >> he was telling us, you know, i'm about to be put on a ventilator and he's like i'll be going to speak for who knows how long. i have a cable man coming. so, if you could cancel that appointment. he was prepared to be in the hospital. burt to come back. and we were -- we felt lucky that he was even getting a ventilator, from everything we heard. but he ended up not getting on it. he never made it. >> he never made it on at the ventilator? oh, my gosh. the pictures of 83 marathons. that's just incredible. what a life me led. i used to think it was over as a kid. my dad died at 50.

i'm 51. and 52 is now quite young. what a life he lived. >> and he came into running in his 30s. all 83 were in about 20 years. he always lived life to the fullest. and i think that's what we take away from him is that, you know, every fuopportunity he had to t something new or explore different part of the world or meet different people, he took it. he had nothing left on his bucket list. >> how long had he worked for the associated press? >> his entire professional career. so, after he graduated college. >> did he travel a lot for it 1234? >> he was based in pennsylvania, d.c. and new york. so, he did some travel for that. but in terms of literally all around the world, his marathons took him there. >> that's amazing. so, he ran all around the world. >> he hit all seven continents.

>> that's incredible. >> he said he took a -- some pit stops to check out the penguins. he wasn't running for time. that was it. he didn't run for time. he always brought a camera with him because he wanted to capture the people around him, spectators or -- it was all about absorbing the moment and remembering the moment. >> it's like a young man said, the journey is the destination. and it certainly was for him in this. i'm so sorry for your family. please give your family my thoughts and love. and i'm so sorry for your loss. >> thank you for the opportunity to share the story. we really appreciate it. >> thank you for talking about it. i wish i had met him. that's it for us. the news continues and want to

hand it over to chris for primetime. >> i'm doing well, better than i deserve. there's so much great human potential we're losing to the virus. it was so important to hear the story. so, we remember the need by realizing that people are getting taken so too soon. it's good to be back with you. welcome to "primetime." whether you look to holy week or passover. both are being interrupted by the pandemic present. the message of suffering remains every bit as resinant. a reality that requires as much collective conscience as any article of faith. we're going to see things this week that may suggest we're turning a corner. i argue we have to be vigilant not to play to false hope. we have to look at the reality of where we are in the curve, why does it look this way? can there be something false about flattening?

we're seeing it all over this country day and day again.