tv CNN Newsroom Live CNN April 11, 2020 9:00pm-9:59pm PDT
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eman rated pg. let's party people! ♪ one more time coronavirus just in time to celebrate his 104th birthday. take a look.is daughter had to maintain proper distance. incidentally, william is not only a coronavirus survivor, he's old enough that he lived through the contracted the disease in march. not only was he aft mattic he had type 1 diabetes, he later had a fever, trouble breathing. he knew he had toalute in place handshake. >> that's a good one.
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then there's jeneba wood, 90 years old, recovering from a stroke. resident of the lifecare center in kirkland, washington site of america's first major deadly outbreak. hit with the virus her lungs filled with fluid. she thought she was at the end of her life. she convinced physicians to let her family gather around her for one last time. with such little oxygen in her lungs she had difficulty talking. she was later transferred to a hospital where she began to recover. she told cnn she was glad to be home so she could give her grown children "a hug or a kiss or whatever they needed." her message to others with the disease is don't give up and keep fighting. >> and last tonight, a congratulations to shawn and dawn clancy of ohio and their newborn. >> my goodness. >> eli. less than two weeks after young eli's birthday he and his father shawn were both diagnosed with covid-19. dawn says her son was lethargic and that "his eyes weren't really opening." according to cleveland tv station wews, both of them are back home now, recovering,
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resting. congratulations to all three of you. >> congratulations. >> and i know, anderson, a lot of people also ask about how they can help. it's a common question we get. you can go to cnn.com/coronavirus, figure out how to help there. there are categories to search for however you want to contribute and what you can do to help medical workers to senior citizens to supporting restaurant and service workers and mental health resources. you can also go to cnn.com/impact as well, find more there. >> sanjay, thanks so much. i want to thank everybody who wrote in with your questions and who joined us for this town hall. the news continues here on cnn. motor? nope. not motor? it's pronounced "motaur." for those who were born to ride, there's progressive.
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any country on the planet. more than 20,000 people. and the number of infections is well north of half a million. using johns hopkins' figures that means the u.s. accounts for around a third of the world's reported cases. for the first time in the nation's history every state is under a disaster declaration at the same time. in los angeles it is now mandatory for employees and customers of essential businesses to wear face coverings. and in the pandemic's american epicenter, new york, the governor says the curve is continuing to flatten but the number of deaths is still staggering. >> terrible news is the number of lives lost. 783 yesterday. that is not an all-time high. and you can see that the number's? what stabilizing but it is stabilizing at an horrific rate.
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>> and a short time ago president donald trump was asked about a timetable for easing back restrictions and reopening the country. here was his response. >> we have to bring our country back. and so i'll be making a decision reasonably soon. we're setting up a council now of some of the most distinguished leaders in virtually every field including politics and business. and medical. and we'll be making that decision fairly soon. >> but the question would mr. trump listen to any of the advice given to him. a comprehensive and damning report in the "new york times" reveals how the president downplayed or flat out ignored warnings about the virus and what should be done to prepare for it. cnn's jeremy diamond breaks it down for us. >> reporter: according to the "new york times" it was the third week of february when the government's top public health experts concluded that aggressive social distancing
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measures would need to be implemented in order to slow the spread of the coronavirus. but when that decision was made by those public health experts the president was traveling in india and so the experts decided they should brief him in person when he returned. but that flight from india back to washington was a momentous one. during that flight the president grew furious at watching the stock market crash after dr. nancy messonier one of the country's top public health experts warned there would be severe disruptions to daily life. instead of that briefing the president was set to receive upon his return from india to implement the social distancing guidelines the president held a news conference putting vice president mike pence in charge of the coronavirus efforts. and from there we know that the white house's response began to shift, focusing especially on public messaging, trying to assure the american people that they had the response under control. we also know that beyond that briefing and beyond those conclusions by those public health experts there were
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warnings inside the trump administration in january as well as in february. we reported of course on the memo by peter navarro, the president's trade adviser, in late january warning of trillions of dollars in economic losses and that millions of americans could be infected with this virus. we also know that the deputy national security adviser matt pottinger, he was also sounding the alarm back in january about the potential for a global pandemic. the president, meanwhile, though, we know exactly what he was thinking at the time because he was telling the public. the president in january and in february repeatedly downplaying the threat of this coronavirus pandemic, insisting that he had it under control. jeremy diamond, cnn, the white house. >> and joining me now is cnn security analyst david sanger. he is also the national security correspondent for the "new york times" and co-author of this extraordinary reporting. really remarkable, david. so much detail.
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what sort of stands out to me, bluntly, the president downplaying the risks, risks that it seems he knew about or should have known about as early as january. >> well, that's right. i mean, what we learned in the course of our reporting was that the national security council, part of the white house of course, was so intent on this initiate january, they were holding daily meetings about it. by january 27th they held a meeting of what's called the deputies, sort of the number twos in all of the different departments. but it was such a big issue that everybody else crowded into the room. and of course within a few days the president did do the ban of chinese nationals and others who had been in wuhan from coming into the united states. but that had huge holes in it. first of all, american citizens were able to come back in and they weren't particularly vigorously tested. but secondly and perhaps most
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importantly, if that bought him a few weeks to prepare, he didn't do the preparation. and he didn't get out and tell people there's something coming at us we have to be prepared for and pray it doesn't show up. he didn't use the time to order the ventilators or the personal protective gear or anything else. >> well, in fact yeah. and in fact quiets the opposite. there was one quote. i'll read a senior medical adviser in an e-mail on january 28th i think it was. and he says this quote, "any way you count it this is going to be bad. the projected size of the outbreak already seems hard to believe." and yet the president, the administration, kept on playing it down, saying it would go away, a miracle, cases would be down to zero and on and on and on. so just how early did the administration know it should be acting decisively yet did not? and by administration i mean the president. >> well, that quote came from an e-mail we obtained that had been
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written by carter mecher, who was the -- is the chief medical officer of the veterans affairs administration, agency. and he of course has long experience in dealing with these kinds of pandemics. but by the third week of february, just three weeks later, this was pretty much the widely held view inside the white house, the full medical community, and so forth. and yet it took them three weeks until the middle of march to convince the president. and the president said three contradictory things here. first he said no one could imagine this happening. well, of course they did. they even ran exercises in the situation room of what this would look like. the second thing he said was i knew it would be a pandemic all along. well, then why didn't he act on it? and the third thing he said is you know, i wanted to be a cheerleader for the country.
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well, it's fine to be a cheerleader for the country. but if you think something's coming that's going to kill a good part of your populace, before you're a cheerleader you have to get up there and do? warning about the preparations that need to be made. >> yeah, being a cheerleader while keeping the public in the dark about something he knew was coming, it beggars belief. another quote was that the president was slow to absorb the scale of the risk and act accordingly, focusing instead on controlling the message, protecting gains in the economy and batting away warnings from senior officials. it is hard to believe these delays did not cost lives, a lost month, at least a month. >> it's hard to believe they didn't. it will be impossible to assess, i suspect, what might have been. this is a president who's always been driven more by what the stock market does than anything else. his first big moment of rage here came on his way back from his trip to india. which he took in february.
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he was at that time incredibly upset that the head of the centers for disease control had given a pretty blunt statement about how americans are going to have to prepare for something that could change their lives out here for a while and certainly their habits. and so when he landed from india he called the secretary of health and human services and chewed him out for the way the head of the cdc had described this. well, of course it turned out she was exactly right. and that became the message that the administration turned out, but only three weeks later. and you can imagine how many more people were infected in the interim. >> thousands. tends of thousands. more. the president is notoriously suspicious of what he likes to call the deep state. but in this very situation what he sees as the deep state are in fact long-time government experts, scientists, medical professionals. >> well, you know, this combines
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two characteristics the president has. one, as you point out, is he doesn't like the deep state and he went into this year of course beginning with impeachment determined he was going to rout out the deep state loyalists who he thought were trying to bring him down. and that was a theme both during and after impeachment. you saw it in what he did with the state department officials. you saw what he did with the inspectors general. but there's also a deep and abiding mistrust of experts, scientists, data-driven decisions that he can't particularly manipulate or spin. and i think that made him even more suspicious of the doctors and scientists here. and he did not have a whole lot of experience in thinking about epidemiology before. so he was learning on the way as well. as we all have been in the course of the past few months. >> yeah, unfortunately a suspicion of things like the deep state can be political in
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other situations. in this situation a matter of life and death. got to leave it there, david. thank you, david sanger. terrific reporting, you and the team. >> thank you. great to be with you. >> well, every day u.s. medical workers of course are putting their lives on the line to care for corona virus patients. they battled through long hours, staffing issues and of course shortages in protective equipment. and as they come in contact with infected patients, many of them are paying the ultimate price. so scientists are looking for any sign that the pandemic has turned the corner. joining me now is dr. amy compton phillips, cnn medical analyst and chief clinical officer of providence health system. and dr. compton-phillips also oversees clinical care at 51 hospitals including the one near seattle where the first u.s. covid patient was treated. so it's great to have you back, doctor. let's start with what you were seeing in terms of trends in the
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u.s. the president has been sounding a very optimistic note but is it too early for that kind of talk? >> i think we really are seeing glimmers of hope. we're starting to see -- here in seattle we actually think we're past the peak. in new york we think we're on the flat part of the curve. in other parts of the country we're starting to see a slowdown. so we really think we're starting to see benefits from social distancing. that said, that doesn't mean you get to immediately turn on the economy and make everything go back to normal. >> yeah. a lot of people think, well, i think "the new york times" analyst said it would be 200,000 within a few minutes. speaking of the "new york times," there's a report out showing that the warnings given and concerns raised were brushed off or ignored by the white house. cnn does confirm that includes an agreement by the government's top public health officials in the third week of february that mitigation like aggressive social distancing should happen. it did not happen, as we know. how might delays like that have
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impacted what has subsequently happened in the u.s.? >> you know, there was a great article in national geographic a couple of weeks ago looking at what happened in the 1918 flu pandemic. and there they found that in cities that had sooner and longer social distancing many, many lives were saved, that place that's did social distancing later after the infection had gotten a toe hold in a community, a lot more lives were lost. and so the longer we went without having social distancing, without closing the schools and impacting the economy, the more people were affected by this virus. >> yeah. quite literally it would have cost lives. i wanted to ask you about the testing issue because everybody's talking about that still despite what we hear from the white house. it does appear to be still woefully inadequate. in terms of testing enough people, those who are asymptomatic but spreading. in order to be able to properly -- identify, isolate contact trace. is that still a concern for you?
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>> it's absolutely a concern. and it's going to be how we get the economy back moving again. not only do we have to get the number of infections way down to a handful but we have to have the testing capacity once we are able to start ratcheting up our ability to go out of our house again and get back to our lives. we have to be able to start testing and isolating anybody who does have the virus. which means we have to have much broader access to testing than is available today because despite what's promoted at times from various quarters across the u.s. it definitely -- there are bottlenecks in terms of getting everybody who need the testing. >> it certainly seems to be the case. i wanted to ask you sort of a broader question. we have an international audience. i certainly grew up in a universal health care country, lived in a couple of others. health care in the u.s. is by and large an employee benefit. in most cases if you don't have a job, you don't have insurance or the ability to buy your own. i'm curious with a pandemic like
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this what heals perhaps in the u.s. health care system are being exposed. >> many holes unfortunately. and it may come up in several different ways. one is if people are uninsured, if they're homeless, they have no papers, they're not here in the country legally, they don't have access to health care insurance. and right now if people like that don't feel the capacity to come in and get tested but they have a fever and a cough they're out in the community infecting others. so the fact we don't have universal access to care can actually make this epidemic go longer and be worse. it is time to start looking at our health care system and understanding what we can do to patch those holes. >> yeah. good points as always. dr. amy compton-phillips, thanks so much. it's great to have you on. >> thank you. we're going to take a short break. americans waiting on your stimulus checks. we'll tell you when you might expect yours to arrive. also, food banks around the
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u.s. are serving communities in record numbers. we'll speak with the head of an austin, texas-based food bank, next. not ebest batteryetitor's can match the power of energizer. because energizer ultimate lithium is the longest lasting aa battery in the world. [confetti cannon popping] energizer. backed by science. matched by no one.
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450-degree oven, to box, to you, know that from our it's our policy that your pizza is never touched once it comes out of the oven. and we're taking extra steps, like no contact delivery, to ensure it. sprinting past every leak in our softest, smoothest fabric. she's confident, protected, her strength respected. depend. the only thing stronger than us, is you. shand healthcare troopsted, weand first responders are. on the front line fighting it every day. let's join the fight, by staying home. staying home is not a retreat, it's the most brave and aggressive weapon we have against this enemy. because when we do stay at home, we help prevent overwhelming our hospitals,
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welcome back. as the unemployment rate in america soars little help is coming in the way of those stimulus checks. the internal revenue service sent out the first wave to americans on saturday. deposits will continue in the days ahead, starting with people who have filed tax returns for 2018 or 2019 and authorized direct deposit. the distribution's a part of the $2.2 trillion economic relief package passed by congress in
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march. now, of course around the world hunger is a problem. the coronavirus pandemic only making matters worse for the poor. but it is also prompting international acts of kindness. many are taking it upon themselves to help feed the hungry. a mobile baker in france handing out bread or paramilitary troops in india helping feed migrant workers. the stories go on and on. now, in america thousands of people, many working poor, are sitting in lines for hours at a time to pick up boxes of donated food. joining me now from austin, texas to talk more about the push to feed the hungry is derek chubz. he's the president and ceo of the central texas food bank. thanks for being with us. some of those stories we're hearing from striking. i mean, one man talked of 12 hours in a line waiting for food assistance, said peanut butter and crackers was his last meal. that's shocking to hear, but how common are stories like that
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when it comes to food in the wealthiest nation in the world? >> well, and thank you for the opportunity, michael, to tell the story. normally here in central texas, if you want to call it normal, we distribute food to about 50,000 central texans every single week. and that's normally. but what we've been seeing based on the covid-19 virus is just in the month of march alone we saw an increase of well over 207% of those that were seeking our services. and it's the pandemic itself has caused major disruptions in our supply chain, reduced food donations from our grocery stores which we depend heavily upon, having to purchase more food and causing the entire food bank network across the country to have to reinvent our distribution models. >> is there any way of knowing just how many people in the u.s. are in need of food at this time
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in particular? >> oh, at this particular time i can speak pretty much for here in central texas, but from the u.s. perspective we're seeing 1.4 million on the average. here in central texas we're seeing some more than 400,000 in our area alone. and during the month of march we saw an increase of over 22,000, something that is simply unprecedented here in the austin area, and the other 20 counties that we serve. >> that is extraordinary. and really sad. i mean, 4 in 10 american adults do not have the savings or other resources to cover an unexpected $400 bill. that was before this happened. now you've got millions added to the employment queue -- the unemployment queue in the last few weeks, losing income, adding to those already struggling to
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feed themselves before this. >> yes. usually, when we speak of the working poor, something that we like to say here in austin is that the face of hunger isn't what you think. it isn't necessarily homeless. it isn't automatically unemployed. what we typically see on the average is the working poor. and what food banks do across the country is provide that extra week of assistance where a family won't have to make the decision as to whether or not they have to buy food. let them focus on health care for their children or getting their utilities paid. but now so many -- they and so many others are all unemployed. and that's one of the things that's driving our numbers up. so that family who typically may only come to see us once a week, now they're coming to see us every single week. and that's in addition to the others that's on top of that.
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in a city like austin that's very energetic from an entertainment perspective, with restaurants and bars, music, now we have those -- now that they're all closed, we have everything from restaurant workers to musicians in our lines to get food. >> i mean, the work you do is just so extraordinarily important. have you come across -- i'm sure you have. the issue of undocumented workers who won't even benefit from government assistance at the moment. are you seeing an increase in suffering there as well? >> well, we don't ask a lot of questions in certain cases. most of us distribute food through a group of partner agencies. here in central texas we have approximately 250 of them that help us distribute the food. across the 21 counties that we serve, which is an area about twice the size of the state of massachusetts.
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so we're -- it's safe to assume that there is a spike in hunger all across the board and everyone involved and this pandemic is literally unprecedented and unseen. nothing like we've ever seen in our lifetimes. >> the work you do is important to so many. derek chubbs, the president and ceo of the central texas food bank. thank you so much. appreciate it. >> thank you for having us, michael. as the pandemic continues, undocumented immigrants in the u.s. face increased uncertainty, as we were just discussing there. largely ignored when it comes to that federal assistance we were talking about. many families now shouldering even more pressure than usual. cnn's paul vercammen reports from los angeles. >> reporter: irma and miguel, undocumented immigrants from guatemala with three children. they drove to a free cookout from the los angeles dodgers to ease the family's burdens in the
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covid-19 era. >> they're closing all the businesses and these are jobs that we need. >> reporter: the couple's cleaning work vanished with countless other jobs in l.a. county. it is more than 900,000 undocumented residents according to recent estimates. >> many times they don't qualify for a lot of the federal protections that are being issued out right now. >> reporter: isaac cuevas battles for immigrant rights in the 4.3 million parishioners catholic archdiocese of los angeles. so many are latino immigrants praying for help. >> with our help and social services and social justice we're pushing to make sure that they don't get evicted, that they have food on the table, and that spiritually they're sound. >> reporter: cuevas says the church mediated with landlords who tried not to honor the l.a. moratorium on evictions for renters who cannot pay due to coronavirus circumstances. immigrants' advocates say too many of their clients won't
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speak up or apply for aid during the covid-19 crisis because they believe it will raise red flags that will lead to deportation. or if they have green card legal resident status they fear their citizenship application will be stalled. but l.a. offers many programs available to undocument kd and illegal immigrants including my health l.a. or l.a. care if they qualify. it's the largely publicly operated health plan in the u.s. the ceo of l.a. care encourages immigrants to apply and fill out their census forms because he believes that will help them when l.a. exits the pandemic recession. >> they're going to be eligible for medicaid. and we need to know how many there are because it will determine how much funding flows to any state, whether it's california or somewhere else in the country. >> reporter: no health care, no jobs, but irma and miguel found food. >> [ speaking spanish ]. >> we're very grateful. >> dodger dogs and snacks.
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a virtual feast during a pandemic. paul vercammen, cnn, los angeles. the u.s. president wants to send americans back to work and jumpstart the economy. but is that his call to even make? we'll discuss, next. at papa john's, we want you to know that from our 450-degree oven, to box, to you, it's our policy that your pizza is never touched once it comes out of the oven. and we're taking extra steps, like no contact delivery, to ensure it.
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well, the u.s. president eager to reopen the economy as soon as possible. as we know, his advisers urging to consider the deadly consequences of sending americans back to work too early. mr. trump says he'll weigh their advice but still isn't sure what choice he'll make. >> i'm going to have to make a decisions. and i only hope to god that it's the right decision. but i would say without question
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it's the biggest decision i've ever had to make. >> joining me now, catherine rampell, cnn economics commentator and "washington post" opinion columnist. thanks for being with us, catherine. a lot going on. we've been hearing the president on the subject of reopening the economy. he called it "the biggest decision i've ever had to make." first let's clarify this. it's not really his decision, is it? it's up to the governors, the mayors, individual business owners, right? >> right. if you look at who's actually been issuing the orders to shelter in place, to engage in social isolation, close down schools, businesses, that sort of thing, it's not the president. right? it's governors, it's mayors, other municipal officials who are making those kinds of decisions. so trump can issue guidance, i suppose, that could encourage these local and state leaders to reopen the economy. but it doesn't seem like it would have force of law at this point. and even if they decided to listen to him, of course, beyond
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that, just because businesses are allowed to operate does not necessarily mean that customers are going to feel comfortable going out and eating at restaurants or attending concerts or other things that continue to be high risk. >> yeah. i think 60% of americans think it's a good idea to stay indoors at the moment. it was interesting too, when the president was asked directly what metrics he would use in deciding whether to reopen the economy which we established isn't his decision, he just pointed to his head and he said that's the metrics there. and cnn reporting part of his consideration has been pressure from wall street. how much influence do you think they have on him in the middle of a public health emergency? >> i think he basically listens to the last person who was in his ear at any given time. so if that was a friend on wall street, if that was some sycophant in the white house,
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that is who he will be listening to, or people who tell him what he wants to hear. my concern of course about the advice being given by ceos is that they are not public health experts and we need to be listening to the public health experts about what we need to be doing policywise, guidancewise in order to mitigate the spread of this outbreak so that the economy can be on a better footing. because actually there is no tension between what economists think is good for the economy in the long run and what public health experts say is good for saving lives. what you need to do is to save those lives and get the spread of infection under control, hospitalizations down so that people can go about their normal economic activities, so that in the longer run the economy can normalize more quickly and there will be less damage. >> and without false starts, exactly. is there a sense from those
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you're in touch with that the president is in some ways willing to risk at least some element of public health in order to boost the economy in what let's face it is an election year? >> yes. i mean, he's been pretty clear about that. he has said essentially that we need to make sure that the cure is not worse that the problem, that the cure is not worse than the disease, referring explicitly to the fact that he's unhappy that economic activity has been shut down dp & people are out of work. and of course we don't want those things. we don't want to have record high numbers of people filing for unemployment, businesses going out of -- going out of business, you know, new filings for bankruptcies, things like that. we all want the economy to get back onto a solid footing. but again, there is no actual trade-off here. i think that trump seems to think that there's a trade-off here between doing what's best for public health and doing what's best for the economy. but economists are saying that's not the case. >> i think it's a third of
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american renters did not pay their april rent. that is a staggering number. even before this crisis also the federal reserve found that four in ten americans didn't have the savings or other resources to cover any unexpected $400 expense. millions of people just lost their jobs, in many cases health insurance as well. some of those relief checks are starting to arrive, but realistically it's not a lot of money, is it? i mean, i speak to the economic and social damage being done here. >> no. and people are suffering. again, we've seen record high unemployment claim filings. we do have these so-called stimulus checks starting to reach people's bank accounts but not coming quickly enough. it's going to be weeks if not months before the last group of people who are eligible for the checks gets them. and when they get them it's not going to be sufficient. we are doing in the united states, we're doing other things to beef up the safety net
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including expanding the number of people -- the types of people that can be eligible for unemployment insurance. but states are not equipped to ramp up quickly enough for all of that. so look, congress has done a few things to try to ease the pain. it's not sufficient. there's going to have to be another coronavirus relief bill of some sort even beyond the fact that we've already passed three rounds of relief at this point including a record $2 trillion -- it's been called stimulus but it's really not stimulus. it's just relief at this point. survival at this point. there's going to have to be more to be done. >> exactly. catherine rampell, always a pleasure. thanks for being on. >> thank you. still to come on the program, as japan battles a spike in coronavirus cases, the country's prime minister touts a drug he says could hold promise as a treatment. sound familiar? we'll be right back. at bayer, we make one-a-day prenatal vitamins
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moan whi meanwhile the government touting a possible treatment. will ripley joins us live from tokyo. a record spike, third day in a row. >> reporter: yeah, actually the fifth day in a row. i've lost count as well, michael. it's been five days in a row that the numbers keep going up here in tokyo, which is certainly not the track they want to see. they're trying to flatten the curve, the exact opposite is happening here. the social distancing measures this week, not entirely effective. people are still going to work. they're still taking public transportation. i think tokyo is trying, but a lot of people, frankly, don't know what to do. their employers still want them to go to the office. they feel they don't have a choice. one thing japan is optimistic is about is this drug made by a japanese company, fuji film called avigan. shinzo abe is so confident he's giving away scores of it for free, and clinical trials are set to begin in the united
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states. as the world battles the novel coronavirus pandemic, u.s. president donald trump and japanese prime minister shinzo abe are peddling possible treatments. trump is touting malaria drug, hydroxychloroquine, despite slim evidence it's actually effective against the virus. >> what do you have to lose? i'll say it again. what do you have to lose? >> reporter: for abe, it's anti-flu drug, avigan. made by fuji film. we will triple the stockpile of avigan and expand the use for 2 million people, he says. researchers point out key differences between the pills promoted by president trump and prime minister abe. is what shinzo abe's doing any different from what president trump is doing? >> marginally different. avigan has been around for quite a while, and unlike hydroxychloroquine, it's been
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used to test effectiveness against viruses. >> reporter: research is limited. clinical trials are under way in japan and set to begin in the u.s. japan plans to provide the drug for free to 20 countries. there are potentially dangerous side effects. including birth douefects. if someone has coronavirus. >> yes. >> reporter: would you recommend they take this drug? >> this covid-19, that may kill people. life? or death? which do you choose? >> reporter: hydroxychloroquine can also have serious side effects like eye trouble and heart damage. researchers around the world are testing all kinds of drugs. they may be the only hope until a vaccine is developed, if a vaccine is developed. patients under quarantine, battling in their homes can feel depression and isolation.
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this tokyo apartment is full of supplies. she has to wait for up to ten days for her coronavirus test results. she is frustrated. >> japan hasn't set up any kind of computer system. even the test result will come in post. in letter. so not e-mail. that makes mow really get anxious. and getting test result as soon as possible is more important than stressing on using avigan at this stage. >> reporter: she wonders why her government is focussing on an unproven drug, instead of speeding up the testing process for patients in limbo. >> and will ripley, you know, japan's prime minister has been warning urban areas i think you've told me, under a state of emergency. they're not reducing human contact drastically enough. why are more people not staying home? >> reporter: that's a great question, michael. i think there are several different factors at play.
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one, some people just can't. because 8 0% of japanese companies aren't equipped to let people work from home. plus, the warnings reached a lot of people late, it was only after the olympic postponement that the government started to get serious and sound the alarm that the number of infections was rising. you also have a situation where the case number is still relatively low, even though it's going up compared to other countries. a lot of japanese look at the relatively low number of infections and think, okay, it's not that bad. the testing is extremely limited here in japan. 69,000 people have been tested so far, during this entire pandemic nationwide. and here in tokyo, the number's around 7,000 people. 7,000 people in a city of 13.5 million. so likely, there are asymptomatic people walking around who just don't know they have the illness. >> testing, testing, testing. it's the same everywhere around the world. will ripley, great reporting. good to see you, my friend. and thank you for watching "cnn
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newsroom." i'm michael holmes. i'll be back with more news in an hour. these days, it's anything but business as usual. that's why working together is more important than ever. at&t is committed to keeping you connected. so you can keep your patients cared for. your customers served. your students inspired. and your employees closer than ever. our network is resilient. our people are strong. our job is to keep your business connected . it's what we've always done. it's what we'll always do. subut when we realized she wasn hebattling sensitive skin, we switched to new tide plus downy free. it's gentle on her skin, and dermatologist recommended. new tide pods plus downy free. safe for sensitive skin with eczema and psoriasis. the worlwhat?miere of "trolls -what?tour"... oooo!!! is now in your home. pinky promise. ♪
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these bluetooth headphones for $20. i got these three suitcases for less than $40. and shipping is always free. go to dealdash.com today and see how much you can save. there are auctions going on right now, so what are you waiting for? this is cnn breaking news. >> welcome to our viewers here in the united states and around the world. i'm wolf blitzer in washington. this is a special edition of the situation room. the united states has now reported more deaths from the highly contagious and deadly coronavirus than any other country in the world. more than 20,000 people here in the united states have died since the first confirmed f
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