1,400 cases per day. this, of course, includes camden, the counties around the philadelphia metro and wilmington. and in the baltimore and washington, d.c. area, 15% zero positivity and 500 cases per day and 200 cases per day in baltimore. this is how we're looking at it, county by county, metro by metro, rural region by rural region to make sure we don't miss anything and we're triangulating testing data with the attack rates, with the hospitalization, with the number of cases and really creating a mosaic of who needs what when to ensure every american is served well. i had a great call today with a group of pediatricians, the head of the american academy of pediatrics and with the american college of obstetrics and gynecology. behind the scenes and working every day are the pediatricians fielding those phone calls from every concerned mother and

grandmothers like myself and protecting our children every day to ensure they have access to the medical care that they need while this is happening. and to every pregnant woman out there, i was very reassured hearing from the american college of obstetrics and guy kolg. they have put amazing things in place to protect every pregnant woman. they have been social distancing in their offices. they have increased all of the disinfecting, lengthened the times to every pregnant woman, don't miss your appointments. if your ob thinks you need to be there, you should go. please note on the labor and delivery wards, they're doing everything to protect you and their babies. they're committed to you. they're absolutely committed to you having a good experience. make sure if your physician believes you should be in the hospital for your delivery, make sure you're following their guidance. we don't want any pregnant woman

to suffer a bad outcome during this time. again, i just want to conclude by thanking the american people and recognizing the number of people we're losing per day is serious to all of us, and it could be so much worse, but our frontline health care providers and the way they're talking to each other about how to improve care for every individual that they serve, you see them on the tv, you see them in the emergency room, you see what they're up against. this is how we can honor them is to make sure we continue to put, as dr. fauci always says, put your foot on the gas and make sure we continue to strongly mitigate and really protect those with pre-existing conditions. finally, those pre-existing conditions we know now include asthma. so asthma, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, any of these conditions, renal disease, no matter what age, please make sure you're following the

guidelines to protect those individuals in your household. we know they are more susceptible to a worse outcome. we don't think that everyone is more susceptible to getting infected. i want to make sure everyone understands everybody is susceptible to getting infected. this virus is very transmittable as we well know. but we need to protect those who need our protection the most. thank you for what you're doing to get the message out to ensure we continue to protect each other during this very difficult time. >> dr. fauci, please. >> thank you, mr. vice president. just to follow up and underscore what dr. birx has said, as i have said many times from this podium, the spectrum from going to infection to getting ill to require hospitalization to intensive care to death, and what is the most striking thing that obviously is so sobering to us is when we see the number of deaths, we know now for sure that the mitigation we've been

doing is having a positive effect. but you don't see it until weeks later. remember, this past weekend when all of us got up in front of this podium and mentioned this was going to be a really bad week, at the same time we were saying we hope we would start to see a little bit of a change in the daily hospitalizations, intensive care and interbugss and new york is starting to see that. so i say that but i drop back a bit, don't get complacent about that. because what's going to happen 2 1/2 weeks from now is really what's going to happen to the people getting new infections. as dr. birx said, everybody is almost certainly as susceptible as anybody else to getting infected. it's what happens to you after you get infected. again to keep emphasizing, we need to keep mitigating. we know this is something that is a strain on the american public. but it's just something we have

not only the only tool, it's the best tool. to just shift a bit to what we said yesterday regarding the african-american community, it is very painful to see -- and i've seen it throughout my entire medical career, that the health disparities and minority community but particularly the african-american community, puts them at risk apart from coronavirus issues, puts them at risk for diseases much more so than the general population. the double whammy that you suffer now is when you have this terrible virus, which essentially preys in its ultimate deleterious effects on people with those underlying conditions. and since that is more predominant in the african-american population, we want to double down and say to the young people, to the elderly people in that community to please try as best as you can to protect yourself if you're a

younger person and to please protect the people who are susceptible. your grandmother, your grandfather, elder uncle, people who have these underlying conditions. because we are not going to solve the issues of health disparities this month or next month. this is something that we should commit ourselves for years to do. but what we can do now today is to prevent people who are put at higher risk because of the demographic group from getting into a situation which is much, much more deleterious than the general population. so i plead with all of us in the population but particularly for those of us, our brothers and sisters in the african-american community because we know that mitigation does work. the reason we know it works is the question that was asked about the numbers, why they came down, the projections. because remember, what you do with data will always outstrip a

model. you redo your models depending upon your data. and our data is telling us that mitigation is working. so, again, as dr. birx said, keep your foot on the accelerator because that's what's going to get us through this. >> dr. redfield. >> thank you, mr. vice president. i just wanted to follow up one of the most important things we can do is keep our critical workforce working. and i think you heard it said that we have many different critical workforce industries in this country. obviously first responders, health care workers, but as you heard, there's also individuals who help maintain our food supply, et cetera. so what the cdc has done is we really looked at the essential workforce and how to maintain that workforce, particularly at this time as we begin to get ready to reopen and have confidence in bringing our

workforces back to work. so we put out a new guidance for essential health care workers who have been exposed to the coronavirus. these are individuals that have been within six feet of a confirmed case or suspected case so that they can under certain circumstances, they can go back to work if they're asymptomatic as the vice president said. they can go back to work if they do efrl things, as we say here. take their temperature before they go to work, wear a face mask at all times, and practice social distancing when they're at work. what we ask them not to do while they're at work, we want them to stay at home if they're sick. we want them not to share objects, that would be touching their face, and not to congregate in break rooms, lunch rooms and crowded places. in the second slide, if we're talking to the employers of

these critical industries, we would ask those employers to take the employees' temperature and assess their symptoms before starting them back to work. if the employee does become sick, we want them to be sent home immediately. we would like them to increase air exchange in the buildings and increase the frequency of how they clean common surfaces, and really begin to get these workers back into the critical workforce. so that we won't have, woulder shortage in these critical industries. so that's the new guidelines the cdc will be posting today. >> and those will be available at cdc.gov. and thank you, dr. redfield. and questions for anyone on the panel, please. >> just a couple things to clarify. the 500 million masks the president mentioned that are being developed, are those for health care workers? or are you planning to hand out masks to the american public?

>> i think the focus has been to make sure that our health care workers and our health care system has the supply. and with regard to what we're gathering from literally around the world and from manufacturers in the united states is first being deployed to states and to hospital systems but i must tell you that whether it be the hasn'ts company or other companies, we are seeing manufacturers in america that are recognizing the growing demand for masks by the american people. and are spinning up production literally by the hour. but our focus, our continuing focus, is on making sure health care workers have the personal protective equipment to do their job safely and provide the level of care every one of us would want. >> thank you, mr. vice president. kansas governor said she put in

seven requests from fema for supplies from the stockpile and those have not been fulfilled. so will she be getting ventilators, because she requested ventilators, and does she need to call the white house instead? have you spoken to her directly? >> i have not spoken to the governor directly but i will reach out this evening certainly. in our conference call with governors this week, we spoke to them about the approach that we are taking. traditionally, governors are accustom to -- when a hurricane strikes the gulf coast, when wildfires strike out west, when flooding or and troods htornado places like indiana, you have a emergency of declaration approved and resources flow from fema. in this system as we deal with a nationwide declaration and

pandemic, what we've explained to governors is what president trump has directed is that we leave no stone unturned to find resources around the country and around would the rlworld, including ventilators. we make sure as the coronavirus pandemic impacts individual areas that the health care workers and families and patients impacted have what they need when they need it. what i would say to the people of kansas is we're looking at their numbers every day just as in the case of every state in the country. and we're going to work our hearts out to make sure that as the coronavirus cases emerge and we hope that through the great work that kansas has done on social distancing and mitigation, the people of kansas have done a remarkable job, we may well be to a place where their existing resources and capacities are present but we want people to know that taking

the counsel of dr. birx and our entire health care team, we're focusing just as we did first in seattle, california and now in new york, new jersey, connecticut, louisiana, the detroit area, chicago area, we're going to make sure those resources go in that order. >> you brought up social distancing and the work kansas has done. there's actually a controversy right now over her order to dwindle the number of people in religious gatherings to ten people. should states be telling religious institutions how many people can gather if it's to stop the spread of the coronavirus? >> the president has coronavirus guidelines for america. ask every american to avoid any gathering of more than ten people. and that's on the advice of all of our best scientific experts as a way that we can slow the spread. but as we made clear to every governor, we defer to our

governors in what they believe is the best and appropriate practice in their states and will support those local decisions. >> thank you. the president said there were ten drugs that are now in clinical trials. with hydroxychloroquine be one of those? >> well, i can speak to that, and then i will invite dr. birx, dr. fauci to come forward. we do have, i believe, we will have roughly four separate clinical trials under way studying hydroxychloroquine. but it's important to remember that as the president's made the point many times, the fda has approved what's called off-label use. so in consulting with your physician, if your physician determines it's appropriate to write a prescription for hydroxychloroquine, we're working today to make that available across the country. it's broadly available today as an anti-malaria medication but we're working around the country

and internationally to increase that supply. but we are studying it in at least four different clinical trials. dr. fauci can speak to that. >> so the easiest -- thank you for that question. the easiest way to find out is just go clinicaltrials.gov, and it will tell you everything that's there. there are a number of different clinical trials, some of which are randomized control trials. which as i said many times from this podium is to me the on the up way to determine ultimately if something is safe and effective and works. but there are a lot of different ways that it's being looked at. it's being looked at against a placebo. it's being part of an multi arm trial, comparing it to others. there was a trial recently started actually in prophylaxis among health care workers. there are several of these. in addition to that there are just what was mentioned thousand any physician in consultation with their patient and back and forth can make the decision to use the drug on an off-label. so we have two things that are

simultaneously going on. we're having actual formal clinical trials and the off-label use. >> next, please. >> i want to turn back to the question of coronavirus, dr. fauci you were saying people with underlying health issues were most at risk. but if we knew blacks disproportionately have fallen into that category, why wasn't the cdc prepared to gather this data in realtime to work to fight this? >> i'm not sure, but we have the director of the cdc here that could answer that question. but let me try to take it from a different perspective. 9 health disparities that exist are not anything that started with coronavirus. they were there. so there isn't much you can do about the disparity. the thing you can do is make an extra-special effort he to protect people who have the

underlying conditions. so it's the same way as we see the elderly and those with underlying conditions. unfortunately, the african-american community has a much greater proportion population for population of these underlying conditions. so the best weapon we have right now is what i said in my opening remarks, is to do whatever we can to get them to realize what we need to do is protect them from getting infected and also protect them from inadvertently and innocently bringing the infection to people who have these underlying conditions. >> you've been listening to the coronavirus task force briefing, the very latest update in the pandemic. there you were just listening to dr. fauci but also, of course, vice president, dr. birx, chairman of the cdc, dr. redfield and president trump also. and this comes on the same day the united states reports more than 14,500 deaths related to coronavirus. the white house coronavirus task

force is bracing for new hot spots tonight and they were going through some of those, talking about specific areas. obviously the new york city meant area, including new jersey and connecticut and rhode island, along with philadelphia, baltimore, washington, d.c. they're talking about a spike in cases in those areas as well. the warning comes as there are sobering new numbers out of new york and new jersey. the deaths, 779 in new york, 275 in new jersey in just the past 24 hours. i want to go now to our panel, john king, kaitlan collins, daniel dale and dr. sanjay gupta. thanks to all. look, we were taking a lot of the questions and answers there. the president, of course, was there for a time answering questions as well. john, and you noticed a difference in the way he was -- sort of interacting and addressing the members of the press in the room? >> i thought it was quite remarkable how measured, eeven the president was. yes, he was reckless in

suggesting mail-in fraud, and yes, he exaggerated where the united states is on this day when it comes to coronavirus wild scale testing. but think back to recent days and weeks, he's almost been coming out of his suit and agitating to reopen the country, pushing forward, publicly disagreeing at times or jumping in saying we need to reopen when dr. fauci or dr. birx says something. think about how measurely cautious tonight the president himself said we have to be careful. the projections are down, not 100,000 americans or 80,000 americans but still 60,000 americans. that's still a big number. make no mistake at the numbers, white house is hoping in three weeks to open the economy at least in a limited basis. the president understands because he's listening to dr. birx and fauci, but that depends, how will it be when philadelphia gets the spike and d.c. and others spike? to see the president speaking in concert with the advisers, keep

your foot on the gas, keep honoring the revelations, let's be careful? quite striking because we've seen so many times the contrary. >> incredibly so as we talk about 61,000 is the estimate. these are all estimates, and i think we all know that, right, based on the inputs you have. it could change dramatically one way or another. that's a number a few weeks ago even the president, the first thing he said is that would have been the same as the flu and downplayed it. and he's doing oppositep to the. and on that front, when he was specifically about the death toll and new model projections, is he wasn't very specific at all about wanting to open the economy. what did you make of that answer? >> no, he wasn't, and i think it's pretty clear why. the last time he set a date of easter for reopening the economy, of course, they blew through that date. the president now realized he was just saying there that could be the come-down after they hit the peak, though it's not clear yet that will be that date. he knows it's risky to pick a

date without having data and science to back it up. that's not something he had last time to pick a date. he said he did not want to say any day, he didn't want to do that but base it on what the models were telling him and health care advisers were telling him. but as we look ahead what the date is going to be, also to look back to see when the administration first started responding to this. the president was asked about the abc report that showed there was a military intelligence report in november, they said, that warned about this contagion that was sweeping through the wuhan area. the president was asked about that, he was asked about the navarro memos we talked about yesterday. he was asked when did he first learn of just how serious this was going to be? he said he realized the gravity right around the time he imposed the travel restrictions on china. that was january 30th, one day after the memo from peter navarro was dated addressing the president. though the president said he did not see them, was not briefed on them because navarro sends a lot of memos.

it raises questions because that was right around the same time the president formed the coronavirus task force. as we read the memos, they pretty much detailed specifically what we are seeing play out now in the united states. >> so you also have, sanjay, the president talking again about the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine, and when that's paired with a z-pack. you heard dr. fauci go through they're allowing it to be done off-label because that's allowed to be done and also saying there's four trials, including one on it being given to the head of infection at hospital employees. what do you make of that and where they are on there, the president touting it coming on the same day the cardiology group issuing a severe warning about the damage that can do to somebody with heart issues, known and unknown issues. >> yes, this is a little more clarity on this for the first time really to separate this

out. we knew a lot of these treatments, a lot of the doses of these drugs were going to various cases but it wasn't clear to me and i have been making lots of calls on this whether all of these institutions were treating these medications as part of the clinical trial or they were primarily just using them off-label. i guess you know what dr. fauci was saying how you described it, erin, is it's both now. it is going to make it confusing because those patients who are receiving an off-label are not really part of the trial. they're going to be these anecdotal reports, i'm sure. but we know it will be a trial with health care workers as a p prophylactic drug and different stages of the disease, mild, moderate and more severe. it is interesting because it's a medication that suppresses the immune system. may work to prevent the virus from getting in the cells in the first place. when you look at those things, it does sort of make you ask, when would it be most effective perhaps? most studies thus far we've seen

have either been in the lab or in mild patients, erin. we have to see what the data shows. i'm glad the trials are being done. it sounds like some are being done in a randomized fashion. that should be good data some time soon. >> obviously, the big question, will it save lives or not? improving the outcome in someone with a mild case, okay, that's nice and important, but obviously, you're looking here for something much more significant and dramatic and that's the game-changer the president said it would be. >> you're right. and keep in mind -- sorry, i was just going to say keep in mind again, most patients with mild disease will improve on their own. that's why it's been so challenging to look at these studies on mild patients because you just don't know, would they have improved on their own anyway or not? >> daniel, watching the president when he was out there answering questions, what stood out to you? there was one exchange i know with our jim acosta when they were talking about the lines that we all saw voting yesterday

in wisconsin, the pouring rain, people standing for 2 1/2 hours waiting in line to vote. the president again repeated his claim that mail-in voting is fraught with fraud, putting aside he himself votes by mail, what are the facts behind that? >> the fact is this president has lined throughout his presidency about the except of voter fraud in this country, and he did so tonight, even generally and specifically. the general lie is he said there was a lot of fraudulent general voting in this country. everyone said voter fraud is rare. when he was asked specifically about the extent of fraud with mail-in voting, he said evidence is being compiled. we will get some to you. he had a voter fraud commission that was disbanded without producing any such evidence. this is complete nonsense. erin, the specific lie was about a california settlement with a conservative group called judicial watch. >> he said a million ballots or something like that. >> yeah, he said that settlement showed -- it was california

admitting that a million people had voted illegally. that's not what that settlement said. that settlement was about more than a million inactive voters who were still on the rolls. it said nothing at all about any of those people actually voting illegally. they were basically dormant registrations that california agreed to get rid of. california made no admission about voter fraud at all. so this was completely inaccurate. >> which i think is a really important point because that was exactly the point he was making, all of those million people tried to vote. john king, what do you make of here the other point, when the president was talking about -- and there was a lot of pushback from reporters in terms of the sense of the numbers coming down in the model, they're now saying possibly only 61,000 americans may die and putting an only in front of that is, you know, awful to even contemplate because these are 61,000 lives but they originally said 140 to 200,000. but the president refusing to talk about the data that goes in

that. those numbers, at least as far as i understand them, are a projected death toll in this country until august or up until august. so built in from somewhere is some kind of assumption about no return to normal life, a full return to normal life, or something in between in terms of social distancing. and they simply have not been clear to anyone about that, have they? >> i think you're raising a critical question, here, erin, about the next couple of weeks. the president was more moderate or cautious in his tone today about this. he doesn't like to talk about americans dyeing, no president does, standing with cameras staring at him in the white house briefing room. he prefers to go to the numbers and gets to it later in the question-and-answer session. but this is a model where the president see the numbers going down and the president is hoping this is a much less depressing story. there's nothing to cite here but he's hoping it's a less depressing story going forward. behind the scenes he's pushing to have a plan in place to

reopen the economy as quickly as possible. that would be in his view at the end of april. however, the models project the social distancing guidelines staying in place at least through the month of may, some of them even longer than that. there's a lot of tension behind the scenes. you can see the president. if you watch him on sean hannity, a different tone than the briefing room, he has a bit of i told you so to him. they didn't need as many ventilators, did they? they didn't need as many hospitals, did they? but the way he said it in the briefing room was much calmer and in your face, if he will, than speaking to the choir on fox news or in past settings. i think the president knows he's at this delicate moment. the death toll will still go up. this will be an ugly week in america so you don't want to seem to be happy. at the same time i think he knows behind the scenes and kaitlin knows the dialogue in the white house better than i do, he wants to get birx and

fauci on board three weeks from now when he wants to open the economy at least some. if i fights with them every day in the briefing room, he's much less likely -- the president gets politics. he gets behind-the-scene politics. you can see he spars with them sometimes. today he made a conscious effort, keep things down. i have a goal in place. it's three weeks down the road. i'm going to eat my peas until then and then we will see. >> kaitlin, does that jive with what you're hearing that he's trying to, to put it in laymen's terms, butter them up? >> i think he's very conscience when he disagrees with them and they break. and we are seeing two things, even when they're standing right next to each other. someone like a dr. fauci is blunt when he gives multiple interviews, the president knows people listen to dr. electric fauci. that's why he has him come to most of the briefings because he gets asked when fauci is not there where he is. that's something mr. president has remarked on several occasions privately. so this will be what the

guidance will be because they have not said what they think should happen at the end of april. there's no plan currently for what it will look like after that. of course, things change quickly. it was not that long ago the president was hoping for the easter deadline. he seemed pretty dead set on it where officials had to go and show him what the numbers were looking like that they had. i'm not sure they have gotten the data that this is what we can do x, y and z on this day. that is something dr. fauci said they're working for very late into the night. but one thing we do not have an indication when it will be yet is dr. fauci said they will in the next few days put out guidelines on how to return to american life for normalcy. i think people are clamoring what those guidelines will be and how it ends up the president and his economic team and health experts are all on the same page on that. >> sanjay, it would sound like if they're going to be having some -- the question is what is built into this number up until august? are we building in by the end of

may it's back to normal and bars are full and restaurants are full and beaches full and conferences and concerts are going on? that doesn't seem plausible but you tell me, what does normal mean? >> i think we got a little bit of a glimpse of it today because they started talking from the cdc, dr. redfield talked about giving some give -- getting some of these workers back to work and what that might look like. this is for more essential workers but i think it's a little bit of a glimpse. some of the things he talked about were basically people taking their temperature every day before they go to work, and employers taking temperatures of employees when they arrive at work. people wearing masks at work for a period of time, no congregating in break rooms and things like that. employers creating a better air circulation in these buildings, making sure there's deeper cleaning within workplaces, things like that. now, that's more sort of for these essential workers.

but i think that might sort of trickle into other workers as well as they start to return to work. i think it's going to be very gradual in some ways, erin. i think in some ways we have a very short attention span. this has been a whole eye unique story but having covered other similar stories, be we will divert at some point and this will -- it won't be a sudden change but i think it might be faster than a lot of people anticipate. but i think we're starting to get a little bit of an idea what these things might look like. there are specific numbers and things that people want to see in place before we can bring people back to work. hospitals have to be ready for potential surges. there has to be a really robust testing in place so people can be isolated and their contacts can be traced. if you talk to chris murray at the university of washington, he even puts a number on it. he said there has to be futer than 60 deaths per day in the united states. like you, erin, no amount of death you can talk about that seems reasonable, but having to

put a number on it is what he did. he said 60 is a reasonable number, at which point that's a low enough background sort of level that i think we can start to return people to work. >> all here, thank you very much. and now to more on the federal response to the pandemic, which also just came up in that briefing. frustrated governors in need of supplies are asking who's in charge? you may have heard one of the questions there regarding kansas. who is in charge? is it the administrator of fema? is it the president's son-in-law, jared kushner? laila santiago is out front. >> the states have been told you're on your own, it's the wild, wild west. >> we are running dangerously low on ppe. >> those supplies are being diverted by the federal government. >> literally a month after president trump declared covid-19 a national emergency, states are still sounding the alarm on supply shortages. and there's another frustration mounting amongst states, understanding who's taking charge of the federal response. fema has taken the lead

coordinating role but with fema's administrator pete gainer largely out of the public view, one congressional aide tells cnn no one really knows who's in charge, who's making decisions. >> when we were briefing the president earlier, he asked me to come out and talk a little bit. >> reporter: trump's senior adviser jared kushner has taken a more senior role. at times unapologetically. >> i got a call from the president that he was wearing from his friends in new york that the new york public hospital system was running lee on critical supply. i called the admiral, make sure we had the inventory, we went to the president today and earlier the president called mayor de blasio to inform him he would send a month of supply. >> reporter: in a letter to fema's administrator, the house oversight committee is now questioning kushner's involvement stating in part, it appears mr. kushner is unclear about basic facts regarding the purpose of the strategic national stockpile.

kushner is one of many stepping in to respond to the unprecedented pandemic, including others like vice president pence, rear admiral poe lev check and fema administrator gainer. fema provided this video showing how they chartered in more than a dozen overseas flights with supplies secured by prior u.s. companies, half of it goes to prioritize hot spots, they tell us. the other half goes to the private market. now a source of frustration for states competing with others for the same supplies. >> what's happening we're having to secure, hopefully, if we are able to get our hands on product from china, australia, whether it's ventilators or ppe and paying six to seven times the price that we would. >> reporter: as some states compete, others have turned to each other. california governor gavin newsom sending 500 ventilators to fellow states including new york, new jersey, illinois. it's relief for some, progress for others. but with such uncertainty ahead, states continue to say it's not enough.

erin, let's talk about this prioritized hot spots, deemed priorities by hhs and fema, based on data. fema, however, has not been very clear in giving those details as to exactly what supplies are going to what hot spots when it comes to the supplies coming in from overseas on those flights. that just makes me think about the conversation i had with a louisiana state official who said, look, it's not that fema is not engaged. we're very much engaged with them, have a long-standing relationship. remember, this is louisiana. they went through katrina together. and on a regional level, they are engaged and working. but he pointed out that decisions aren't being made on a regional level. it's much higher. and as a state, getting those supplies is frustrating, confusing and the decision making, he says, lacks a lot of transparency. >> that's a big issue.

leyla, thank you very much. i want to go to janet poll tannio, former secretary of homeland security and former governor of arizona. secretary, you have been on both sides of this, federal side as well as state side. but when laila was talking about the lack of vans parnsy, adding to the confusion, the son-in-law of the president, jared kushner, he does not have relevant experience in this sort of thing. he's been basically getting involved directly, directing fema and hh officials to prioritize requests from people he spoke to. you heard him say he gets a call, goes in and gets that supply for that particular place. what do you make of that? >> i think it's chaos out there. and i think the reason jared kushner has been deployed to this is to fill a gap that shouldn't have existed in the first place.

the moment that it was clear that the nation was confronting a pandemic, there should have been an immediate assessment of what was in the national stockpile and immediate assessment of what the states had in their respective stockpiles, what the needs were going to be. and a coordinated federal effort to procure the necessary masks and ppes, ventilators and so forth, so that the states had a place to go to buttress what they had in their own possession. so they weren't competing with each other and figure out who to call. having a disaster response procedure where you get supplies if you manage to reach the president's son-in-law is just not the way a government is structured to act. >> so, you know, president trump has said, secretary, repeatedly

that nobody knew there would be a pandemic of this magnitude. of course, we are learning he was warned repeatedly in april of 2019, so one year ago, health and human services secretary alex azar said the possibility of pandemic flu is what kept him up at night. in late november abc news is reporting intelligence officials compiled that report warning about the coronavirus and what could happen because of what they were seeing in wuhan, about their great fears. and in late january and february, of course, peter navarro wrote those memos talking about a full-blown pandemic. the president said he did not see those. during the time all of this was happening, all the way up until the end of february, this is how the president was talking -- >> looks like by april in theory when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away. >> you may ask about the coronavirus, which is very well under control in our country. we have it so well under control, i mean, we really have

done a very good job. >> so, secretary, i know it's easy to be a monday morning quarterback. the president's warned about a lot of dire possibilities on a daily basis, i'm sure. but, again, you've been there. you have been a part of these sorts of things. is it conceivable to you even with all of the warnings i just laid out, that the president did not know how grave the threat of coronavirus was to the united states? >> look, the president gets information on so many things on a daily basis, it may not have penetrated his consciousness, but this is where the kind of, you know, three-year process of management gaps running the government, which is a large complex organization, comes into play. if the president didn't personally know, there certainly should have been people in the agencies who saw the coming pandemic and who were prepared

and empowered to take appropriate action to make sure that the country was as prepared as it could be when the pandemic mast fested itself manifested itself on our shores. and there are just gaping holes in the administration now and there are consequences to that. good disaster response requires really good preparation. and we just didn't have that kind of preparation here. >> that was clear no one was empowered, to your point, didn't penetrate his consciousness, there was no supply-building going on, there was nothing that when the eight-bell alarm went off for what they needed to do. doctor, thank you very much. >> you're welcome. you heard them saying social distancing is working and warning americans it cannot stop, this isn't talking any time soon, not to be complacent. nick roy is out front.

>> a glimmer of hope, a model used by the white house now predicts the nationwide death tall is down about 20,000 largely due to social distancing, but -- >> today is a day in the state of new york with very mixed emotions. >> reporter: because day after day, the state is still seeing a rise in reported deaths, and -- >> the number of deaths will continue to rise as those hospitalized for a longer period of time pass away. >> reporter: it's very sobering to see the increase of deaths. it's going to be a bad week for deaths. >> reporter: and about 60,000 americans are still projected to die by early august. right now we're not even a quarter of the way to that grim total. and every number is a person, a story. sanovia shepherd's daughter alainy just died, age 27. >> my husband and i were both in

the room, and it was -- i want to hold my baby's hands for the last time and i wasn't able to hold her feet. it's my baby. >> reporter: the new modeling even highlights some regional disparity of projected deaths in new jersey doubled to over 5,200. projected deaths in california down from about 6,100 to about 1,600. >> we're looking very carefully at california and washington to really understand how they've been able as a community of americans to mitigate so well. >> reporter: a new cnn poll shows the majority of americans now think the federal government has done a poor job in preventing coronavirus spread. it's 55%, up 8 points in about a week. the administration also still watching hot spots popping up around the country. >> we are concerned about the metro area of washington and baltimore, and we're concerned

about the philadelphia area. >> reporter: some states now stockpiling a malarialia drug to treat covid-19 that's not proven to work, potentially dangerous. florida expecting a million doses today. georgia already given 200,000. >> i really think it's a great thing to try, just based on what i know. again, i'm not a doctor. >> reporter: adam jarrett is. >> we are using hydro chloroquine but we really don't know whether it works. >> reporter: still, we're told, there's not enough testing going on. >> a lot of lab directors can look in their laboratories, if they have an abbott m2000, if they can get that up and running, we can double the number of tests we're doing per day. right now about 80% of them are idled, over a million test kits sitting ready to be run. >> i hope that the federal government is doing more than speaking this at a press conference. this is a key to opening back up again, getting these tests

online. >> reporter: so or anti-botty tests. the white house says they will be ready inside two weeks. >> that is going to be the bridge from where we are today to the new economy, people who have been exposed and now are better, those are the people who can go to work. >> reporter: but for now still this must be our normal. >> we have to recognize the progress because people are doing the right thing. >> they're watching from jersey. please stay home. >> reporter: and for this more optimistic modeling to come true, we've got to keep on doing what we're doing through the end of may, proof that it's working well. santa clara county in california was one of the first places to it stay say home. they were seeing cases double every three days. now they say cases are doubling every two weeks, maybe longer. and they say that's because people are doing what they're told, doing what they have to do. erin? >> nick, thank you.

i want to go now and check in with an icu doctor who's been on the front lines of the pandemic, dr. lack shi swami. he's been talking to us throughout this crisis. doctor, i'm glad to have you back. the last time we spoke, you were talking about a tense and fearful fearful atmosphere at your hospital. how are you feeling now? >> you know -- thank you for having me back. it's hard to say this, but every week i think how could it get more tense? how can we get more scared, yet here we are. i was in the intense unit last night. i was taking care of the covid medical icu, a little over 30 patients, most of whom are on life support, ventilators, many. i spent most of the day going from one ventilator to another and trying to kind of tweak them a little bit to help people get a little more oxygen to help them get better. aside from that, it's hard

because we're still seeing so many young, young healthy people come in and get put on the ventilator. last night i was speaking with a young parent who could have been someone in my own family, and i had to tell them that we had to put the breathing tube in, and we all watched while they called their child at home and said, i love you so much, i love you so much, i love you so much, and, you know, that was it. it almost reminds -- this may not be appropriate but it almost reminded me of those calls from 9/11 where people are saying good-bye to their loved ones. obviously, we all hope we can get everyone better but that's the terror and that's the atmosphere we're seeing and that's room am roof am roof. >> so you say a couple things there that i want to follow up on. one of them is people know when you get hospitalized for this, it's serious.

they understand that. but obviously there are people in the hospital able to get out without going on a ventilator and then there are people who go on ventilators. we heard the studies out of the uk saying two-thirds of the people who go on a ventilator don't make it. in new york, some of the numbers out is that it could be as high as 80% do not make it. why is going on the ventilator such a severe step? >> you know, it's life support. in a way, it's just first of all a marker of how sick you really are, that you couldn't live without it. but beyond that, the problem is that the ventilator, it really takes a toll on you. so even a young, healthy person who goes on a ventilator for days or even more than a week, weeks, they're not going to come out of that the same as they were before. it will take a long time to sort of get over not just the physical trauma but really the psychological trauma too. so really it's critical care. >> and, you know, we also talk

about how young, the example you were giving, that example and, of course, everyone is hoping for that parent but just how young people are. there are young and healthy people coming in that need this icu ventilator care. and i think a lot of people may not still realize that but that's what you say you're seeing. >> you know, there's an understandably people are really fixed on the mortality, right? who's dyeing from this? how many people are dyeing? we don't want people to die, right? but it's not -- there's so much more to the picture than that. because i'm hoping that a lot of young people will not -- even if they become critically ill, i'm hoping they will survive and we're seeing that happen but it's a long course. and they get hit really, really hard. it was in the news up here that we had a young patient die who's relatively healthy. it shook our whole unit to the core. so it's happening.

>> dr. swamy, i appreciate talking to you again and you taking the time to share this with people around the country to know what this is really like. thank you again. >> no, we really appreciate it. we're here for we're seeing the disparities of care. that's so evident to us who is coming in our doors right now. i think we can fix those. i think we can fix disparities and fix social -- of health. we are here for you, whatever is happening out there. thank you. >> thank you, dr. swamy. and from the critical care, the icu, to reopening the economy, that is the big question facing this country, is if and when president trump is making it clear that he wants to end the shutdown as soon as he can. sources tell cnn, though, some white house aides are hoping to reopen the economy as early as may. out front now, dr. jonathan reiner who advised the medical

temperature under george w. bush continues a consultant for the white house medical unit for years and afterward austin goals by former economic advisor under president obama. austin, do you think may is possible to reopen the economy? and i guess your issue here will probably be on the definition of reopen. >> i would say i have two things on that. one is the administration has really undermined their credibility for the last eight or 12 weeks, consistently saying we think we're going to be able to open. first dismissing that it was a serious economic threat. and then saying we would open by easter. and then say open by may. i don't think timing wise is what you should base it on. what you should base it on is do we have sufficient testing that we can let people out of lockdown without fear that they're going to get the virus from people who don't know that they have it. we have successful model.

if you look in korea, if you look at taiwan, if you look at iceland, they've done enough testing that they can get out of lockdown. if we massively ramp up our testing effort, then that's when it would be realistic to come out. setting a date is the wrong way to do it. >> dr. reiner, another thing that i know a lot of people have been talking about is testing for antibodies. obviously there are questions as to, you know, what kind of antibody protection people really have and i know there is a small study indicating some people don't have as many antibodies as we would expect. but if antibody testing, mass testing to see who actually had it, which would then pickup all the asymptomatic people, is that the way to do this? so if you were able to check the box that you had it, you could fully go back into the economy? >> i think it's a confidence booster to the economy and to individuals to know that they've been exposed to the virus and they have protective antibodies. already in europe, antibody

testing is commercially available. in some countries, even at-home testing is available. very simple test using really tried and true technology such as what is used for home pregnancy tests that will allow people at home to essentially rick their finger and see in just a few minutes whether they have the antibodies. it's the kind of test that shows you whether you have antibodies that are produced early, about a week into the infection, and the later protective antibodies that come a couple weeks later. so that's going to come and that's going to be a big boost. but the notion we can flip the economy on like a light switch while may be aspirational is just not realistic. it's not going to happen. it's going to happen in patches in different places. the virus is going to lessen in frequency, but it's not going to go away completely. there are going to be hot spots and we're going to have to watch for flare-ups. so we're going to have to keep social distancing in place as well as masking is going to become a staple of the united

states. a lot of what has succeeded now, we're going to have to keep in place going forward. >> and i guess you know you're talking about for -- in that case, i would imagine, dr. reiner, many months, correct, until a vaccine? >> i think we're talking 18 months to 24 months. >> okay. so i think that's a pretty sobering for a lot of people. austin, there is also the question on the antibody issue, because you know you all mentioned iceland. they tested their citizens. and of those they tested, 5% of the population, 1% of them actually had the antibodies. the former fda commissioner scott gottleib was tweeting an imperial study from europe that was going through estimates. again, these are estimates, but this is what they think are the real infection rates, how many people had it. you had 1% in austria and denmark. two highs, anything basically over 1% and 3% was only italy and spain at 10% and 15%. to state the obvious, herd immunity doesn't kick in till

50% to 70%. so you don't seem at this point to have the antibodies anywhere to fully reopen the economy. >> that sounds right to me. and, look, at 1%, think of it this way. those people become the superheroes because let's say they're immune to the disease. 1% of the country is 3 million people. the normal work force is over 150 million people. so you've got to ask yourself, how much of our gdp can be restored if we have 3 million people who can go back to work. i think we've got to ramp up this testing. as i say, there are lessons in korea, taiwan, now new zealand, iceland, other places where they aren't in lockdown. korea, kids went back to school, but the critical thing, you've got to test, you have to track so that only the people who have the disease have to shut in. >> and, dr. reiner, quickly before we go, i mentioned a very small study. we don't know if it's true or not, but it did raise questions

about antibodies. maybe people who are asymptomatic or younger who had mild cases maybe don't have those antibodies, raising the question of reinfection. there's a lot we don't know. >> right, which is why we have to continue to study this in a very systematic way. i'm always wary about initial reports. as we acquire the data in this country, we'll have a much better sense for that. >> all right, thank you both so very much. i appreciate your time tonight. dr. reiner, austin. and this comes as the pandemic is forcing small businesses to shutdown across this country and many are not getting the help they need. diane gallagher is out front. >> it just feels really scary because it's so unknown, you know? >> reporter: lisa spooner and kevin clark have been growing home grown comfort food ten years in atlanta. the husband and wife team building up quite a following, counting even the late anthony bourdain as a fan. >> if you need a whole breakfast, though, old school full on, home grown in reynolds

town might be what you need. >> reporter: but across the country the coronavirus has crippled the restaurant industry. about two weeks ago, home grown had to temporarily layoff all 40 employees. >> the two hardest calls we've ever made were letting our employees go and locking the doors. >> america's small businesses are the backbone of our communitiesment >> reporter: the trump administration has touted the new paycheck protection program or ppp loan as a quick fix for businesses like home grown to weather the pandemic. the $350 billion government-backed low interest loan program is meant to cover rent, utilities and payroll. if they stick with the program, the loan becomes a grant, leaving only the interest to pay back. it's a sweet deal if you can get it. >> we haven't really heard anything other than, it's working. the money is getting out there, but who? i would love to talk to a business owner who is actually received some funds. and how they got it and how -- what time they put the application in. >> reporter: after filling out

multiple applications dealing with website crashes and lack of feedback, clark and spooner got disappointing news. wells fargo, the bank they've done business with the past decade, announced sunday it reached its $10 billion limit. there is no guarantee they'll ever get to home grown's application. wells fargo suggested trying a local community bank instead. clark says they are on the waiting list with a rural georgia bank now, but they don't know when or if they'll get the loan. >> we may lose our business. i mean, that's -- i mean, the worst part. but i mean, we could. >> reporter: as business owners battle one another for the first come, first serve loans in a world where any kind of delay could be the difference between surviving the next few weeks or going under for good, there have been plenty of problems for everyone. >> i want to assure all small businesses out there, we will not run out of money. >> reporter: on wednesday treasury secretary steve mnuchin noted there are now 3500 lenders

in the system and says more are signing up each day. the administration has said that it hopes congress will allocate additional funding this week. but for home grown, will it be in time? >> money is our only saving grace. we cannot make it on our hopes and dreams any more. it is going to take -- >> reporter: now, today wells fargo announced that it had received permission to increase its lending limits as it relates to those sba loans. and while the administration seems focused on getting more funding, if that happens, it's a big if, that will undoubtably help. but a lot of the problems with the rollout are actually related to issues between the lenders and the federal government rapidly changing guidelines and uncertainty, it made it tough for banks to walk the small business owners through the process. erin, i did just get a tiny bit of promising news. kevin clark said that small bank in southern georgia has started filing his ppp loan application.

>> all right. you take the good news as you can. so many questions out there. all right, diane, thank you very much. and thanks to all of you for joining us. ac 360 with anderson starts right now. >> erin, thanks very much. good evening, everybody. some cautiously optimistic news to report this evening. the white house coronavirus task force is talking about glimmers of hope. social distancing, they say, is working and lowering the projections for the number of dead and hospitalized. even as new york announced its highest death count for a single day. we are going to talk about the new projections in a moment. we'll also talk about how a reopening of the country, when it occurs, might occur. the president who is far more measured in his comments during the press briefing today said this evening he wants to reopen the country as quickly as possible, but would rely a lot on his medical experts in terms of how and when to do it. we have a new report on how the reopening of wuhan in china, the source of the virus, how that has been going. abc news is out with a new report that quotes a source who says u.s. intelligence was