hello to our viewers in the united states and around the world. i'm john king in washington. this is cnn's continuing coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. the global coronavirus ripple still spreading this hour. in tokyo a record spike in cases, prompting new government issues on movement. and case number one in yemen thursday. here in the united states more tragedy but also some hope. the numbers are sobering. 470,000 confirmed cases, nearly 17,000 americans dead. remember how we started the week, with talk of this generation's pearl harbor

moment. >> this is going to be it is hardest and the saddest week of most americans' lives, quite frankly. this is going to be our pearl harbor moment, our 9/11 moment, but it's not going to be localized, it's going to be happening all over the country. i want america to understand that. >> we are struggling to get it under control and that's the issue that's at hand right now. >> the surgeon general and the president's top infectious disease specialist, they were right, the numbers are bleak. the projection is that the peak of the deaths here in the united states will come on easter sunday. but a look at the numbers does offer a prayer that while the pandemic will stay with us for a long time, the worst could be behind us. let's look at the numbers. new york state alone has more cases than the top two countries in europe with cases, more than spain, more than italy just in new york state, the epicenter here in the united states. those numbers are stunning. the timeline of the cases here in the united states, you see it if you go back to the middle of march, and up we go. the question is what's the number today?

will it keep climbing? that is the expectation. we'll watch as the numbers come in today, and the sad part is the deaths also. you go back through the last couple of weeks, this is today. we'll get a count as the day goes on. the expectation is the coronavirus peak in the united states, the projections say, anyway, this coming weekend, easter sunday. if you look at the cases added in the united states, this is the key question. this number, you see it peaking here, 33,000 back on april 4th. the last two days down just a little. does it plateau, does it go back up, does it start to come down? that's what the experts are looking for as they have debates of more testing, as the president weighs to reopen the government, does it go up, does it start to curve down? if you look at some of the key states and hot spots, louisiana, tuesday, wednesday and thursday, is that a plateau? is it starting to come down? you need several days to see that. new jersey, still going up. neighboring new york, still have a problem there. maybe that's a flat line, but that's a high number.

in michigan, another state devastated. you see here down a little bit from tuesday to thursday. the question is, does it keep going down? is this a temporary blip or have they flattened the curve in the state of michigan? that's the big question now. the president wants to reopen the economy. his restrictions stay in place for 20 more days. his top expert on the subject says the coronavirus will determine whether or not it's time to reopen. >> the virus kind of decides whether or not it's going to be appropriate to open or not. what we're seeing right now are some favorable signs, particularly in new york. we're starting to see a flattening and a turning around. we would want to see -- i would want to see a clear indication that you are very, very clearly and strongly going in the right direction. it was really the way we pred t predicted that the deaths would clearly lag behind the favorable parameters of what's going on. >> a key part of putting american life back to normal, or the new normal, anyway, is antibody testing. dr. anthony fauci you just heard there, he says these tests will

come online starting next week. our chief medical correspondent dr. sanjay gupta joins us now. sanjay, what are these tests? does that sound right to you? >> first of all, with regard to the tests, these are different than the virus tests. there are the swabs we've heard a lot about, john. that's basically finding the presence of the virus in your body at the time you're actively infected even if you're not having symptoms. the antibody test is sort of the contrails, the things you see after a plane, and if you have these antibodies, the theory is you should have protection from getting the virus again. have i been exposed to the coronavirus? have you? i haven't been tested, i haven't really had any symptoms, but it's possible i've been exposed. this antibody testing could help answer that question for you, for me or anybody else in that

same position. that's how you start to get an idea of surveillance. i think they rushed it the last few weeks. they really wanted to get these antibody tests out there. they loosened the antibody regulations on testing, and i think that's why it subsequent didn't really pass validation. what dr. fauci was talking about, john, as he mentioned, by next week he thinks there will be enough validation in place that these tests should become more widely available. i trust what he's saying. we'll have to see, though, right? we've heard these messages about all kinds of testing for a while. we have to actually see it to believe it. >> see it to believe it is a good way to put it. sanjay, i want to play a moment of last night's town hall. you asked the on the town hall with you last night, and you asked about a drug repeatedly brought up in the white houbriefings. >> i'm in a position, and people ask me, frankly, i don't know because there isn't data. i would want data. you're a doctor.

it's a decision between doctor and patient. would you recommend it to a patient? >> yeah, i'm not going to recommend it and not going to not recommend it. cdc is an organization, as you know, you and i have talked about it before, we're not an opinion organization, we're a science-based data-driven organization. >> that's an interesting answer. the president gives a very, very different answer than his cdc director. >> that was an interesting answer. he started by saying, i would not recommend it. i thought he was going to end there, john, but he kept going by saying, i would not not recommend it. they're in a tough spot, john. i think they're trying to balance, you know, the public health scientific sort of recommendations, which i think would be pretty clear for someone like dr. redfield, who i've known for some time. you want the evidence before you recommend it. you want to know that it's safe, it's not going to harm somebody and you want to know that it's effective. i think the challenge, john, and this has been really interesting to observe as a reporter, but

this idea that if you ask for that evidence, then you're somehow thought of as somebody who doesn't want a therapeutic, that you're too pessimistic. that's not the case. i think everyone wants a therapeutic, everyone on the planet given this is a pandemic. but the idea this could potentially be harmful to somebody, we don't know the dosing, we don't know how long someone should be taking this. someone with underlying heart conditions could be affected by this. i think that's what his answer was reflecting. >> i think it was also reflecting that he understands sometimes he's at a briefing standing before the president of the united states who says something very different. sanjay gupta, appreciate that today. the white house guidelines, of course, for social distancing are in effect for 20 more days. dr. anthony fauci would like to say the virus decides whether it goes into may. in some conversations with allies wondering if he has to wait until next month. cnn correspondent dana bash joined us now.

dana, the president extended them to 30 days after originally being at two weeks. he said he's listening to the experts like dr. birx and dr. fauci. the question is, if they ask for more time, will he listen again? >> that is the question, and i've been doing reporting this morning, and a source close to the president says he more and more has been getting phone calls from people who are not doctors, who are not from inside the white house or the administration but people who are kind of on his call list. friends, old friends, hedge fund managers, people on wall street, people who very much have an economic background and an economic stake in whether or not the government reopens, and these people are telling the president, come on, get on with it, really pushing him for a date certain to do so earlier, perhaps, than what he has now or at least some more certainty than what is there. so, you know, this has been, in many ways, understandably so, but it is really more clear now

that there is the tug, the push and pull, between the economists and what is good for the economy and what is the reality of the unknown on the science side and on the medical and health side. and that is what the president is dealing with, but again, right now, i'm told that he is hearing more and more agitation from people who want to get the economy back up and running because -- for obvious reasons. the economy is in a recession and he had a lot to crow about just about a month ago, and that is gone right now. >> and he's listening to friends at wall street. he's also looking at an election calendar. he's running for reelection, you do not want the president of the united states in a recession as you do that. the most fascinating thing to watch has been at times the president embraces dr. birx and dr. fauci. he says one thing and then will walk up to the podium and say we

need to reopen the country. the president's favorite drug, hydroxychloroquine, he said he would not recommend it, would not recommend it against it. here's the scientists speaking a little different than the president. >> what we would be doing in the very near future is going to certain areas of our country and do massive testily. do y -- testing. do you need it? no. is it a nice thing to do? yes. we're talking about 3 million people, and that's not going to happen. >> i think there needs to be an expansion in testing. if we have a continued flu-like illness, then massive testing will be necessary. if we have limited flu-like illness, then i would argue it's the case identification, the isolation and the contact tracing. >> hopefully we're going to be opening up, opening very, very soon, i hope. >> it's not going to be one size fits all. it's going to be using the data we have from surveillance to

really understand where it is, the most important places for us to begin to reopen and get prepared for next year, which will be another challenging time. >> in both of dr. redfield's comments there, he mentions you need expansive testing. the president says there won't be massive testing. maybe there is a nuance in the separation of those words. when he talks about reopening, he says you need surveillance, which is testing. we are not at the point, most of the scientists say, and most believe we can't get there the next 20 days to ramp up testing where they would be comfortable understanding the universe of people out there who have symptoms, who are asymptomatic, et cetera. >> i think what you just created in the back and forth of those sound bites is a pretty good illustration of the conversation and debate that's going on behind the scenes inside the task force. and it's a debate that we as americans want them to be having, how is this going to work, and it has become pretty tense, my understanding, in

recent days for the reasons we just talked about. and they are discussing options like, you know, maybe keeping the most at-risk population quarantined, opening up in areas where they feel comfortable that people have gotten the virus, that people have the antibodies. but the latter part of what i just said, as we just heard from the cdc director, the only way you could do that is with testing. and so there is such a contradiction in the desire and the reality, and that continues. and i also think, you know, i don't think it's overstating it to say that as big of a decision it was on a federal level and it continues to be on a state and local level to effectively close the economy, it will be a bigger decision when they reopen it. because they are going to have to be incredibly comfortable that this thing is not going to, you know, kind of spike again and get us in a situation where they make it worse. so when it comes to a leadership

question and a leadership decision, it is probably the biggest that the president is going to have to make. >> and there are 20 days. a lot of time. we'll see where the numbers take us in 20 days. some of those governors may disagree, too, depending on their states. we'll see if we get more on this. dana bash, appreciate it. for americans out of work, unable to go many places at all, there are a few escapes from the coronavirus dysfunction. sports have stopped, of course. the first live sporting event from any of the major extensive sports leagues since the pause is set for saturday night. the event? a local game of horse between basketball stars. last night the nba legend "magic" johnson said on the cnn town hall, we need sports to get through this, but health and safety must come first. >> i think sports will come back, it's just a matter of when

will we make sure that this virus has not affected -- is level and it's not affecting the whole country anymore. america and all of us who live in this great country that we live in, we need sports, especially in a time like this. but only if everybody is safe. now, the key is, i think sports will come back probably without fans first. >> the pandemic is disproportionately affecting african-americans, michigan among the states with new efforts to better understand this disparity. the state's governor is leading that, and he joins me next, live. it was one month ago on this day that president trump assured the american people that coronavirus will be gone before we know it. >> i guess we're at 26 deaths, and if you look at the flu, the flu for this year, we're looking at 8,000 deaths. and, you know, hundreds of thousands of cases, but we have

8,000 deaths. you have 8,000 versus 26 deaths at this time. we're prepared and we're doing a great job with it, and it will go away, just stay calm. it will go away.

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causes. governor kildee joins me live. governor, thank you for being with us. we know especially in detroit where you've seen the spike in these african-american deaths, you have more density. we know that things like obesity, diabetes are more prevalent to the african-american community. is that it, health disparity, or is there more to it? >> there may be more to it, because these disparities have existed for decades and covid-19 shows why this is prevalent to this pandemic. i've lost 15 lives here in detroit. we're pulling on expertise from professional health directors and leaders so we can respond to this immediately and people can recover from the coronavirus. >> i just want to put on the screen, 14% of the population, 33% of the cases, 40% of the deaths. i want people to look at the

graphic and just see it. this is 33% of your cases are african-americans. if we can move to the next one, 40% of michigan are african-americans, 33% of the cases, 40% are deaths. the reason i want to look at the graph, governor gilchrist, is you know what happens. we have a crisis, then the crisis passes. we went through this with katrina and new orleans after. in the case of your state, you'll come out of this. you know what's happening. you're not getting any money. you're not getting income taxes right now, you're not getting business taxes right now. well-intentioned people like yourself will come to the governor. i know your own governor, your partner, will do the right thing. does she have the money for these issues? >> the government will have to work with states like michigan

to work to issues that go beyond what covid-19 means to the state. we need money for human services, we need more access to health care, we need support. that will be particularly important in the black community of the city of detroit where i'm speaking to you from right now. if we get those resources, we'll be able to respond to this, but we also want to respond to the disparities that exist beyond covid-19. we need to look at those issues as well. poverty is a problem. lack of access to the health care system is a problem. when we solve those, we'll get out ahead of these disparities. >> my doctor here in d.c., my personal doctor, she is big on working with the african-american community here in d.c. she highlighted this issue to say, yes, there are health care disparities. she also talked about access to food, access to health care. do you believe that has to be part of what you're doing? >> always, and one of the reasons we're taking such strong action on things like access to

water in the state of michigan to make sure water systems are not cutting off people's water and utilities, because you need that in order to wash hands while you're at home to stay safe and save people's lives. this is a comprehensive challenge, the disparities are manifold. we want to stand up and be creative and take a leadership role because not many states have done this, even though we're seeing issues in new orleans, in chicago. i've talked with partners in my states to develop a partnership with the federal government to deal with these racial disparities. >> if you're having a problem months from now getting attention, call us. i promise you you can come right back here and talk to us if people decide this is in the rearview mirror and let it fade. i want to talk about your state's effort to combat the effects of the coronavirus. the governor has a new order prohibiting travel between new residences, effectively saying if your aunt lives down the street, she doesn't want you going from one house to another

house. some people would argue, that's my family. why is that so important? >> it's important because people are safest where they are. we need people to stay safe and stay put, because even just a little bit of travel, a little bit of unnecessary interaction can lead to the spreading of this virus. people who don't have symptoms may still be spreading the virus. we need to limit the contact. call your auntie on the phone, have a video conference or facetime, but right now you need to stay home so we can keep our community safe. >> lieutenant governor gilchrist, i appreciate your time of best of luck with the coronavirus and the broader fight. >> thank you very much. everyone stay safe. >> please come back and keep us posted. we're waiting now to hear from the new york governor andrew cuomo. his daily briefing will be in a few minutes. we'll take you there live. up next, though, our economy will get worse before it gets better. our top economists say we're already in a recession and will remain in one for at least the

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president talking about gains this week and predicting a big bounce for the economy once the coronavirus is behind us. perhaps, but the current reality is beyond painful. a survey of 35 economists finds the economy is now in a recession and they predict things will get worse in the months ahead. business correspondent christine romans is here. christine, this is a pretty bleak prediction. >> it really is and what we were all fearing would happen in the last couple weeks. they say the fed ration of social economics say you'll see a first quarter down, the second quarter down something like 25%, the worst we've seen in decades. look at that second quarter, 26.5%. before bouncing back by the end of the year, and they see a 12% jobless rate middle of the year. that's actually conservative of what we've been hearing.

you have jp morni prkp morgan 2. the question about when and how to reopen has really come into focus here the last few days, and there are a lot of concerns among economists that if you shatter confidence by the american consumer, american workers by coming back too early and having a false start in the economy with some kind of outbreak, then you could have dangerous, dangerous territory for the u.s. economy heading into next year. so a very careful moment we are in, even as the president is very optimistic about getting rid of this invisible enemy. i'll point out the last time the president was optimistic about the economy, turning over the stock market, turning over the quarter on february 29th, the numbers were 24%. >> christine romans, appreciate that very much. recession is not a word any president wants to hear, especially in an election year. >> i think our country, from an

economic standpoint, will end up being stronger than ever. we have tremendous stimulus, we have tremendous stimulus plans, we have things in the works that are going to really, i think, fire up the country. i think what's going to happen is we're going to have a big bounce rather than a small bounce, but we will be back. >> back when is the big question. the president is pushing to get americans out of the house and back to work next month, and his treasury secretary, steve mnuchin, says he thinks that is a realistic target. our white house correspondent john hall is with us now. john, we understand, any president, especially a president in an election year, wants to get people back to work, wants to put the recession in the rearview mirror, but is he going to listen to the political advisers and his economic friends or the scientists when we get to the end of the month? >> reporter: he certainly needs to listen to both, john. look, as you know, jimmy carter was the last president to seek reelection during a recession. he got hammered by ronald reagan. the challenge here is that

trying to restart the economy prematurely, if people aren't ready for it, is simply going to backfire. it's only partially in the president's control. he can call for guidelines to be lifted, but these are mostly state restrictions that have been put in place, and even if states leave their restrictions, if people don't feel comfortable about resuming normal economic activity, if business doesn't have the confidence to invest, it isn't going to pay any dividends. in our cnn poll this week, we showed 60% of the american people said they would not feel comfortable resuming their regular routines if the guidelines were lifted at the end of april. so it's a difficult calibration that the white house is about to make. everybody is concerned when you've got 16 million people going on unemployment the last couple of weeks, but you could make things worse if you go back too quick. >> you could make things worse if you go back too quick. clearly, john, the president

thinks that. a tweet from a few minutes ago, the enemy will soon be in retreat. you want to convince the country we will beat this, but you talk about the delicate balance. if tony fauci, dr. birx, for example, at the end of the month says, can you give us two more weeks, and the economic people are saying, no, let's go on the 1st of may, the president is going to have a tough call to make. >> he made that tough call a couple weeks ago when he was speculating about reopening by easter. it was easier for him to make that call when conditions were deteriorating than it will be now when some people see light at the end of the tunnel. that produces rising expectations -- >> sorry, john, i need to talk to the governor of new york, andrew cuomo. my apologies to john harwood. let's take you to albany. >> the secretary to the left of her, robert hamika.

to our friends celebrating good friday today. i wish them a good friday. to our friends celebrating passover, i wish them the best. let's give you an update on where we are. to use an overused term, we are cautiously optimistic that we are slowing the infection rate. that's what the numbers say, that's what the data suggests to us. change in total hospitalizations is down not relative to yesterday, but the three-day average on the hospitalizations, you see a dramatic decline in those numbers, and that's obviously very good news. change in icu admissions is actually a negative number for the first time since we started this intense journey. that means there are fewer people in the intensive care units statewide than there were, and again, that's the first time we've seen a negative number, so that's good. the three-day average of that is

down. a change in sbuintubations is a tick higher than it's been the last few days, but it's overall down. the three-day average is also down. the bad news is we continue to lose a tremendous number of lives and endure great pain as the state, 777 lives lost. i understand intellectually why it's happening. it doesn't make it any easier to accept. what's happening is the number of people who came in two weeks ago when we had those very high hospitalization rates, either you get treated and get better and get discharged or you stay in the hospital and probably wind up on a ventilator, and the longer you're on a ventilator, the less likely you will come off the ventilator.

and that's what's happening now. these lives lost are people who came in at that height hospitalization period, and we're losing them. the numbers are lower than yesterday for those who can take solace in that fact, as someone who searches for solace in all this grief, the leveling off of the number of lives lost is a somewhat hopeful sign. the number of total lives lost, 7,844. four people, just to put this in perspective, i lived through 9/11, as many new yorkers did, at somewhat of an advanced age, and i believe 9/11 was the worst situation i was going to deal

with in my lifetime. to put it in perspective, 2,753 people lost their lives in 9/11 where now it's 7,844. this has exceed mid expectatied expectations, to tell you the truth. and now in other areas across the state, like in rockland, that seems to have stabilized. overall we've been very aggressive in the suburban communities in jumping on those hot spots, and the percentage of growth in upstate new york and the suburban areas around new york city has basically been

stabilized and flat, so that's good news, too. overall new york is flattening the curve, and we have to flatten the curve because when they showed us the projection models of what the statisticians projected the curve would do, we have no capacity to meet those projections. in other words, columbia university, who is projecting the highest caseload, said we needed 136,000 hospital beds in new york city when we started. it was just several weeks ago. 136,000 hospital beds in new york city. we only have about 33 to 36,000 hospital beds in new york city. so that was obviously distressing, to say the least. mckenzie had projected we would need 110,000 hospital beds.

they had a second scenario which they considered their moderate scenario, which was 55,000 hospital beds statewide, and again, we didn't have that capacity even on the moderate scenario. the gates-funded ihme suggested we needed 73,000 beds. we didn't have that, either. so none of these projections were in any way comforting to us. the actual curve is much, much lower than any of them projected, and what's the variance? how do you come up with an actual curve that is so much different than what those experts predicted? first, in fairness to the experts, nobody has been here before, nobody. so everyone is trying to figure it out the best they can.

there is no model to track against. second, the big variable was, what policies do you put in place? and the bigger variable was, does anybody listen to the policies you put in place, right? i'm governor of the state of new york. you can announce a policy. that doesn't mean anyone is going to follow it. you can announce a policy, we're going to close down all businesses, everybody must stay home. and if people don't follow it or they don't take it seriously or they believe you're being premature or you're being political, they wouldn't follow it. and then what do we do? what, do we arrest 19 million people or ticket 19 million people? so the big variable was, what policies do you put in place, and the bigger variable, does anybody care and does anyone follow it? and all these social distancing stay-at-home, nobody has ever done this before. so the statisticians had to come

up with a premise on how many would comply, and we've actually exceeded that. but we have to keep doing it, you know. people tend to think, well, this is a natural trajectory of the disease. there is no natural trajectory. the trajectory is the trajectory that we create by our actions. the natural trajectory would see that line continue to go up. it would continue to go up and up and up until you develop herd immunity whether you would see many more infections. so we did that. we are doing that. and that's why we have to stay the course. i said to someone this morning, you tell me how we behave today and i will tell you the infection rate two days from today or three days from today. what we do today will determine

the infection rate two or three days from now. so what we're doing is working to stay with it even though it is a grind and even though it is difficult. we have to stay with it. we have to stay with it operationally on our hospital system where we're coordinating statewide in what we call the surge and flex system. we have 50% additional capacity on our hospital system. we're sharing equipment all across the system. we have to continue helping people who are struggling every day. food assistance is a real issue for people. rear going to add $200 million to provide more than 700,000 low-income households, more funding for food, basic food. continue to help our medical workers who are the front line soldiers in this battle and have done a phenomenal job. i know i say it all the time,

but every day they're out there doing truly the lord's work. we're going to provide additional housing. i want to thank all the companies that have come forward to be part of this effort. airbnb is contributing funding to provide housing for our health care workers, 1199 icu are providing their members with additional benefits. we have hotels that are coming forward and offering free hotel rooms, so we thank them all very much. last night as a signal of our thanks to the workers who are out there every day, we lit up our landmarks in the new york city area and in niagara falls blue in their honor, and that's a nice symbolic tribute.

what's even better is to take action that shows our gratitude. saying it is nice, doing it is even better. and after 9/11, congress created a victims compensation fund. i've been working with our congressional delegation. we think the federal government should set up a heroes compensation fund to compensate our health care and other front line workers for what they did here. saying thanks is nice. actually providing assistance is even better. the big question is going to turn to when do we reopen, especially in places like new york, where we're going to see the numbers now starting to change. the natural trajectory, the human movement is going to be, okay, now let's reopen. i need to get out of my house. i've been cooped up, cabin fever, i need funds, i have to work. and that's going to be the next

question that's issued that we have to deal with. what i say on that question, again, none of us have been here before, so let's learn from what has happened so far, and let's learn from what we have been seeing over these past few months so it informs what we're doing going forward. first of all, the key to reopening is going to be testing. i've said that from day one. it's not going to be a light switch where you flip this economy like you flip a light switch. it's not going to be everybody goes back next thursday. it's not going to happen that way. it's going to be a gradual phased process and it's going to be reliant on testing, testing of antibodies, testing for diagnostic results, and testing on a scale that we have not done

before. now, new york state has been very aggressive on testing. and our state lab has been very aggressive on testing. our state lab is now developing an antibody test, which is a fast and not invasive test. right now the state department of health can do 300 tests a day. by next friday they'll be able to do 1,000 tests, 2,000 tests the following week. that's great. sounds like a lot. but 2,000 tests are still a drop in the bucket. and i'm proud of how new york is advanced on testing. you look at how quickly new york state has moved on testing and how many tests we have done, we've done a higher percentage of tests in new york state than other countries have done. and new york state far exceeds what this nation as a whole is doing on testing.

even with our high capacity and high-performance performance o it's still not enough. it's not enough if you want to reopen on a meaningful scale and reopen quickly. so the testing front is going to be a challenge for us. well, why can't new york just develop more tests and do more testing? how do we get new york state department of health to scale? that's an issue that we've been working on. it's harder than it sounds. you need certain reagents so you can do the testing, you need certain materials so you can do the testing, and it's very hard to get these reagents. you're in a situation where countries all across the globe are trying to do the same thing. federal government has something called the defense production act, dpa, they call it, which i've been saying from day one is a very powerful tool for the

federal government to use when they need to secure a product in the defense of this nation. this is in the defense of this nation. the federal government has used it effectively, they've used it in this situation more as a point of leverage than anything else, basically saying to a company, we need you to do this, we do have the defense production act that we could use, but we need an unprecedented mobilization where government can produce these tests in the millions. new york state department of health is doing several thousand. we have 9 million people we want to get back to work. you need more than several thousand tests per week if this is going to happen any time soon. private sector companies on

their own i don't believe will be able to come to scale. we're working with the private sector companies. they have the tests but they don't have the capacity to come to scale. you're going to need government intervention to make that happen. and the federal government is in the best position to do that. we do have the largest number of cases in new york. new york is an economic ending. i can't do it as a state. if i had a defense production act in the state, i would use it. i would use it. i don't have that tool. the federal government does. any way we can partner with the federal government to get these tests up sto scale, we are full.

i have spoken to governor murphy and governor of vermont in connecticut, they'll join in a testing coalition. i asked the federal government if you are willing to step in and use the federal powers, york state and new jersey and connecticut will partner with the federal government and let's get the testing up to scale quickly so we can start to build that bridge to reopening the economy. second on opening you need the federal stimulus bill. you need a fair, federal stimulus bill. that's not a political pork barrel bid. you know where the cases are and where the need is.

i understand the political dynamics of the u.s. senate. this is not a time to be passing bills that really are to make sure your home state gets enough funding, that's not what this is about. this is about helping the country coming back to need. it is not just that i am advocating to new york. look at the needs and look at where the damages have been done. look at the chart on where the cases exist. look at the number of deaths and number of cases and hospitalizations and help those places come back and come back. that's what the stimulus bill is supposed to be doing.

there sha there are lessons we should be aware of. before we take a step forward, we make sure we know what we are stepping into. a question i had from day one, when you look back at this, where were the warnings that were triggered back in february or january. who was supposed to blow the whistle? the president asked this question and i think he's right. the president's answer is the wor world's health organization should have been blowing the whistle. i don't know enough to know if that's right or wrong but i know the question is right.

how did this happen? i want to know how this happened? the warning signs were there. if you don't know the answer, how do you know it is going to happen again, right? you go back to january and go back and look at the headlines in january and you see questions and you see warnings. now, they were all over the map we saw what was happening in asia and europe. where were the international experts saying well, this is happening there, this is what we

should expect to hatch happen in the united states. january and february, you still have sources in this country saying basically there is nothing to worry about. we need to be in the situation where united states whines up with a higher number of cases than the places that went before. we sat here and we watched china. china had 4,000 cases, we wound up having 474,000 cases. how did it happen? italy where we saw the collapse of the whole health system of 143,000 cases. i raise the question because the

answer again is more important than the question. before we move forward, let's make sure we are not repeating the same mistake that we made, right? i don't want to repeat what we just went through this past month. is there going to be a second time? let's look at the countries that have gone through the reopening process and what can we learn from them? let's look at what the other countries have done before us, what they did and what worked and what did not work? when you take just a cursory review, you see caution signs. hong kong appears to have the virus under control. they let their guards down, the virus came back.

hong kong reported of the biggest rises in cases in a new wave of infections. is that true? an article yesterday, italy has seen a bump in the number of cases. you know before we take a step, make sure we are more informed and aware than we were in the past. they're talking about a second wave of singapore. you go back and look at the 1918 flu epidemic, that was over ten months. there was a feirst wave and the second wave. the second wave was worse than the first wave because the virus mew tat mutated. is there any extrapolation than we are today. i don't know the answers.

it is not what i do and not what the state does. we know the question and we should have the questions answered before we take a step forward. yes, no one have been here before. these are covid uncharted waters. we do know that none of this is predetermined and it is all a function of our actions. what we do will affect literally life and death for hundreds of people. where we go from here? first, keep on doing what we are doing, stay home. that works. we are flattening the curve. we must continue to flatten the curve. we have to get tested to scale. that's an entirely new exercise. it is something that we have not

done well in this country. and we need both diagnostic testings and antibody testing and we need millions and millions of them. we need them in a matter of weeks. not months. we should never go through this scramble with other states competing with china. we certainly can not be here again. let's make sure we study the waters ahead and proceed with caution before we set off on the next journey let's study the data and look at what's happening around the world and how other countries are giving

us the best advise. how do we go forward? we stay new york tough. new york tough means nor than just tough, it means discipline, unified and loving and smart. now is the time to be smart. now more than ever. that's what it means to be new york tough and we are. questions? >> i am sorry. >> are hospitals currently being used to verify potentials and how long will they stay running? >> the temporary hospitals are in anov overflow capacity. i showed you the