tv CNN Newsroom Live CNN April 12, 2020 1:00am-2:00am PDT
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♪ welcome to our viewers here in the united states and all around the world. i'm natalie allen coming to you live from cnn world headquarters. this is "cnn newsroom." thank you for joining us. easter is supposed to be a day of hope. it's also the day president trump said last month he wanted the u.s. economy reopened. instead, the u.s. enters the holiday with more reported covid-19 deaths than anyone else -- anywhere else on the planet. johns hopkins university says
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more than 20,000 people have lost their lives. 1,800 new deaths were reported in the u.s. saturday alone. a brutal figure but a slight dropoff after more than 2,000 deaths reported on friday. it is raising a slim hope that the virus in the u.s. may have peaked w. the addition of wyoming on saturday, all 50 u.s. states are now under disaster declarations. that's the first time in history for this country. you have also probably heard donald trump repeatedly claim no one could have seen this pandemic coming. but a new report in the "new york times" outlines just how untrue that actually is. it details how administration officials were sounding the alarm as early as january. not only was he reportededly aware of those warnings, he largely ignored them for weeks.
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mr. trump continued to downplay the threat publicly until mid-march. health officials had wanted that implemented weeks yearly. jeremy diamond has more on this report from the white house. >> 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 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. the experts decided they should brief him in person when he returned. but that flight from india to washington was a momentous one. the president grew furious watching the stock market crashed when he was warned there would be severe disruptions to daily life. instead of that briefing that the president was set to receive
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upon his return from india, the president held a news conference putting vice president mike pence in charge of the coronavirus efforts and 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. now, we also know that beyond that briefing and beyond those conclusions by those public health experts, there were warnings inside the trump administration in january as well as in february. we reported of course on the memo by peter navarro in late january warning of trillions of dollars in economic losses and millions of americans could be infected with this virus. the alarm was also sounded back in january for the potential of a global pandemic. the president meanwhile though, while we know exactly what he was thinking at the time because he was telling the public, the
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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. let's take a closer look at one of those warnings that went unheeded. the "new york times" reports that on january 28th, a senior medical adviser sent an email about the virus which read in part, any way you cut it, this is going to be bad. the projected size of the outbreak already seems hard to believe, end quote. just how early did the administration know it should be acti acting divisively but didn't? one of the authors of the story spoke with cnn. >> that quote came from an email we obtained who had been written by the chief medical officer of the veterans affairs administration or agency and he,
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of course, has long experience in dealing with these kind 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. of course they did. they even ran exercises in the situation room of what this would look like. the second thing he said, i knew it would be a pandemic all along. why didn't he act on it? and then the third thing he said is you know i wanted to be a cheerleader for the country. it's fine to be a cheerleader for the country. but if you think something that's coming that's going to kill a good part of your
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populous. you need to do things to protect them. >> let's talk with the professor of governor at the university of essex. good morning to you. >> good morning. >> the bottom line from this report, it seems, is that president trump ignored warnings, he claimed there weren't warnings, actually, there were and then was slow to act. what is your takeaway on this report? >> right, the "new york times" has been doing some excellent reporting and this is really a summation of a lot of these reports and it goes into deeper detail about the extent to which trump was aware of this virus. a lot of the warnings came in january from the secretary of health, from intelligence reports and also from his own trade adviser peter in a var na. they made it clear that this is an aggressive virus and the u.s. is going to need to respond
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immediately and in a very forceful way. he didn't pay attention to this. as the report mentioned, by mid to late february, everyone in his own administration believed it was going to be pretty dangerous, but it took them another three weeks to convince them to act. as a result there's been complete chaos and confusion and total lack of coordination. >> right. we want to read an excerpt from the "new york times" report and this refers to the plane ride home from india when mr. trump visited there a few weeks ago. here it is here on the 18-hour plane ride home, mr. trump fumed as he watched the stock market crash of cdc's official comments. this official commenting on the dangers americans could face. he was furious. he called the health and human services secretary when he landed february 26th raging that the official had scared people
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unnecessarily. it did seem that the president continued to downplay the severity of what this country was about to face and you got to wonder why. >> right. and what the reporting was insinuating was this was because he was really eyeing what was going to happen to him in 2020 and everything was banking on having a robust economy with full levels of employment. this was going to really wreck havoc on the economy because nothing is worse than uncertainty. a pandemic is going to cause great levels of uncertainty. he didn't what to project an image that would cause fear and confusion. by doing so, he downplayed the threat and refused to act. mentioned many times in this report, that ended up causing all kinds of coordination delays when they needed to be procuring protective equipment for hospital workers, when they needed to be procuring ventilators, ensuring there were
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enough hospital beds and he decided he wanted to downplay it because he was worried that this would then affect his chances in 2020. >> right. he reportedly fixated on the stock market, of course, very concerning about the economy. but the "new york times" reports that a national security adviser said in the oval office meeting, the economy would be destroyed by the pandemic regardless of whether the white house stepped up to take strict measures. the indications are the president was focused on the stock market and perhaps that kept him from looking at the health consequences that would lead to what americans are now facing. >> right. and, remember, this is a president that hasn't tended to believe in science. he uses his gut. that was illustrated throughout the "new york times" article, that his use of gut decision-making makes it difficult to respond to a
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pandemic. we know there's controversies over who disbanded the pandemic office, but it made it very difficult for this administration to respond quickly and understand the severity of these types of crises. the economies are going to face a severe recession. there's no way around it. but the point is to try to save lives and ensure that we have fewer deaths than we could have and he didn't act quickly enough. that's what the report was indicating. >> how will the president's handling or mishandling of this crisis, plus the economy affect his presidency and his hopes for re-election. it's hard to focus on the election when so many people are suffering. but it is coming. >> right. so some of the polls that were taken by gallop a couple weeks ago indicated that he did have a bump. he never got above 50%, but his
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approval rating was 49%. 80% of the public did believe he was doing a good job. there have been so many lies by his administration and there's efforts by republicans to keep him away from doing these nightly briefings that go on for hours because he contradicts himself and he gets caught in a web of lies. we know in february he said that the virus would be like a miracle, it would disappear and then weeks later he's saying, he knew it was going to be a pandemic. these types of statements don't look good. his base is supportive of him. they like the fact that he is always trying to keep them calm and telling them it's going to be fine. but you're going to see more and more people really questioning as their own people have been affected by this questioning that there's no -- there hasn't been a coordinated federal response and it has actually really caused many, many lives. >> and we're still playing catchup and we're about to talk
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about that next. we appreciate your insights. thank you. >> thanks for having me. >> well, again, new york remains the worst-hit u.s. state for covid-19 with more than 180,000 cases and 8,600 deaths. that's more than four times the number of fatalities in the second-most affected state, neighboring new jersey. new york state and city governments have said they need help fighting the pandemic but there are however now signs of hope. here was new york governor andrew cuomo on saturday. >> good news is the curve of the increase is continuing to flatten. the number of hospitalizations appears to have hit an apex and the apex appears to be a plateau which is what many of the models predicted that it wasn't going to be a straight up and straight down. it was going to be a straight up. you hit the top number and you
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plateau for a period of time and that looks like what we are doing, the hospitalization rate is down and that's important. we have more people getting infected still. we have more people going to the hospitals but we have a lower number. that's all this is saying. >> let's look closuer at the situation with a global expert. hi, peter. thanks for coming on. >> good morning. >> good to see you again. the governor there, as he has most days, chilling remarks about the deaths, the horrific number of deaths that new york has seen, but it does seem the curve continues to flatten. how significant is this. >> it's important and of course the daily news is still grim because hundreds of people just in new york state are dying everyday. but what we know is when we put in place an intervention like
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social distancing, it's not going to take effect for several weeks. we expect the first thing we'll see is a leveling off in the number of new cases followed a couple weeks later in a leveling off of the number of hospitalizations. and deaths is going to be the most lagging indicator. what we're seeing now with the reports of leveling off and a decline in the number of hospitalizations suggest that new york is at its peak and we may see again deaths lagging for a little bit but we hope we're getting to the point where the worst is behind us. that's assuming we keep all of the social distancing measures in place for some time further. >> right. that was my next question. this is the time when no one -- i think dr. fauci said, needs to hit the accelerator at all. it appears to be working and it needs to continue and that might get more and more difficult as time goes on and people remain
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on lockdown. >> that's right. we know from places like italy, which are a little bit ahead of where new york is, is that rather than just being a peak and a quick dropoff, there's a plateau and a slow decline after that. all of our modeling suggests and experience suggests if we were to suddenly relax on adorabsoci distancing, we would almost see a very quick second spike in new infections that would have all the same risks in terms of overwhelming the health system. it's going to take probably several more weeks of extreme social or physical distancing and then hopefully we can put in place a smart plan for testing, isolation, and gradual easing of these measures in order to safely get the society back to work. >> i want to talk to you about testing. that is still such a huge issue. 1% of americans have been
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tested. do you expect we'll get to a place where there can be widespread testing because without tests, without diagnostics, how can you assess the future threat of the virus? >> that's right. it's so important. and have the answer is, we have to figure it out. the only way that we're going to come out of this safely is if we're able to do widespread testing. there's two kinds of tests, the tests we've mostly been talking about, diagnostic tests for active infection, and that's going to be important. if we want to ease lockdowns, we need to be able to test anybody and everybody who has symptoms and then also be able to trace their contacts and test them even before they have symptoms so we can identify every new infection and get them isolated and out of circulation as quickly as possible. that's how we prevent a second
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spike. that's going to be critically important and we're not at that point yet. the second kind of test are antibody tests. these are tests that show past infection that the body is starting to build up antibodies having been infected in the past. usually they come about four weeks after someone has been infected. this can serve two really important purposes, the first is, we can do surveys that are going to give us for the first time a real picture of how many people in a population have been infected. we don't know whether the reported cases are the tip of the iceberg and actually whether there are many, many, many people who had asymptomatic infections who may have some degree of protection. that's going to be important. the second thing is that antibodies, the presence of them, at least implies that there is a level of immunity in someone who has had a past infection. but we hope that will give us a means of understanding who may be safe to go back to work and
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particularly for health workers, that's going to be critically important. >> absolutely. antibodies, it's a word that the world is now paying attention to for sure and for good reason. doctor, we appreciate your expertise. thanks for coming on. >> my pleasure. how is the rest of the world handling this health crisis. we take a look at europe. it's been having as many deaths per day as italy and spain on their worst days, plus an update we'll have on the prime minister's health. spain is reopening some parts of its economy on monday, but the government warns the fight against the virus isn't over. we'll share the new guidelines there coming next. you're watching "cnn newsroom." road-trip companion.
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moving now to europe. many in the uk hope the government will roll back some of the restrictions. the country is nearing a tragic milestone. almost 10,000 people there have died from the virus as of now. and there are almost 80,000 confirmed cases. in her easter message, the queen urged people to stay home to
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stop the spread. >> this year, easter will be different for many of us. but by keeping apart, we keep others safe. but easter isn't canceled. indeed we need easter as much as ever. >> and spain is loosening up its nationwide lockdown amid encouraging signs in the country's fight against the virus. some people in sectors in construction or manufacturing will be allowed to go back to work on monday. health care workers are seen here using drones to spray disinfectant in public spaces and police and public safety workers will be handing out 10 million masks in the coming week. spain's health ministry says more than 11,000 people have recovered in the past three days. encouragement there.
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let's talk more about that. good morning to both of you, nick, i'll start with you because the prime minister continues to recover from the coronavirus. what's the latest on his situation? >> reporter: yeah, frankly a statement that sort of is short in which he thanks for the workers for the national health service, he says that he can't thank them enough and he owes them his life. that's the entirety of the statement. but it's the first we have heard from the prime minister since he was troublingly sent to the hospital behind me. then he was in intensive care for three nights and is said to be on the road to recovery. he's doing short walks around the ward. this hit him exceptionally hard and his gratitude there, short in words but clear in his sentiment, natalie.
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>> yeah, absolutely. nick paton walsh for us there. let's go to al in madrid. al, word that the country there is loosening up restrictions. talk to us about that. >> the numbers of deaths now more than 16 now in spain and the numbers of new cases, the percentage increases are getting small. and so the government says spain is not yet in the de-escalation phase. the lockdown continues at least until the end of april and the prime minister says he may have to extend it further into may. they're going to loosen the restrictions. on monday, construction workers and factory workers can go back to work. they've been forced to be off work for two weeks. and the police will be handing out masks at metro stations. the government is going to increase the frequency of trains and buses during the rush hours
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but they're testing the behavior, natalie, of these workers as a test to see how spaniards can act when they go back to work. so in a press conference on saturday, the health minister repeatedly said here is what these workers need to do, social distancing, at least a meter, maybe two meters is better. that's six feet. wash your hands frequently. practice hygiene, sneeze into your elbow area and your work clothes, take those in a bag at home, wash them in high temperatures. they really want to see if this first group of workers, construction workers and factory workers can practice the kinds of things the general population will need to practice if spain is to loosen up the restrictions. big tests ahead starting monday here in madrid. >> we'll be watching closely how it turns out. thank you. nick, bigger picture there in the uk, it still looks bleak for
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the number of cases. >> reporter: yeah, the drama of one man's fate here, the prime minister has taken a lot of the air time area from the bleak numbers. 900 people a day, roughly, at this point, are being reported dead. we may see that rise next week because there's a holiday period here for easter which may have slightly slowed some of the reporting of cases. but remember, two, these 900 or so a day, like plane disasters every single day. those are the numbers of people who are testing positive in the united kingdom and it's hard to get a test here as all. you have to show severe infection to get that testing. those are people who are reported dead who are tested first and die in hospital and there are according to some figures put out by the government possibly -- this is in the early stages, some of the
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numbers from this, as many people die of that reporting system. the exit strategy for the united kingdom is not good news either at this point because the lack of testing here, there's been a promise to get 100,000 a day done this month. the lack of testing means it's hard to know how many people have had it. and some of the modeling which is being put around suggests that maybe 3%, 4% of the uk population has been infected. the figures from spain were about 15%. it seems that the uk is significantly far behind in terms of the spread of the virus. that's good, of course, because it will have limited some of the deaths even though the numbers are catastrophic. it's hard to get in your head exactly what 900 dead a day equates too. but what comes next is complicated by the fact, frankly, the government policy so far has been big on gestures and plans but hasn't delivered
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in terms of mass testing. until they know who has it or who had it, they can't let them back to work and that means the restrictions, which are taking a toll on the economy, may have to be in place for longer, very difficult task for government officials dealing with this situation often sometimes sick, particularly in the case of the health secretary who tested positive for covid-19. the stark challenge is to work exactly how this exit strategy is formulated, what they need for it, and actually put that into place. while dealing with this staggering death toll. >> your analogy hits home. thank you both. the leader of a major world economy is touting an unproven drug in the fight against coronavirus. this time it's not donald trump. the japanese prime minister's
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unproven drug. for more on this, will ripley is in tokyo. you've been looking into this one for us. hello to you, will. what exactly is mr. abe touting? >> reporter: this drug is called abigon. it's an antiviral drug that is used to treat the flu. he's taken to the podium to say that this drug shows promise with limited clinical trials in japan. they're going to begin trials in the u.s. state of massachusetts, but there are risks associated, especially for women who might be expecting with this drug. >> as the world battles the novel coronavirus pandemic, u.s. president donald trump and japanese prime minister shinzo abe are touting different drugs.
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>> what do you have to lose? i'll say it again. >> for abe, it's the japanese drug avigan. we will expand the use for 2 million people. researchers point out key differences between the pills promoted by president trump and prime minister abe. >> is what shinzo abe doing any different from what president trump is doing. >> marginally different. this has been around for quite a while. and unlike hydroxychloroquine, it's been used on other viruses. >> reports in china do show it's been effective in treating coronavirus. but 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.
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there are potentially dangerous side effects including birth defects. >> if someone has coronavirus would you recommend that they take this drug? >> this covid-19, which do you choose? >> hydroxychloroquine can also have side effects. 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. patience under quarantine, isolated in their homes can battle loneliness and desperation. this woman's tokyo apartment is full of supplies. she has to wait up to ten days for her coronavirus test results. she is frustrated. >> japan hasn't set up any kind of a computer system.
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even the results will come in a letter. no email. that makes me anxious. and getting results as soon as possible is more than important than stressing avagan at this stage. >> she wonders why her government is promoting an unyou know drug rather than speeding up the test results. >> imagine if you're a patient and you're told you have to wait more than a week to get your tests in the mail, not an email. that's frustrating for a lot of people. but japan has a bigger issue on its hands. they want to expand the protection of the drug. but they have a surge of cases having right now. five days of spikes in cases. 714 new cases nationwide on saturday. 197 of those cases right here in tokyo. the numbers keep going up.
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last weekend it was around a hundred cases or so. so, natalie, the -- even if there is a potential treatment on the horizon, the immediate problem is getting people to stay inside especially in the seven japanese prefectures that under a state of emergency. but their employers are telling them that they have to go to work. 80% of japanese companies are not equipped to allow employees to work from home. people -- i'm hearing from people on social media that they're scared to get on crowded trains to go in but they feel they don't have a choice. and people who can, are now leaving tokyo. we're getting reports that the highways are full of cars with tokyo plates going to these rural prefectures to stay with relatives and get out of the city where cases are surging. the japanese government is trying to urge people not to do that because potentially these people, we know that because there's such limited testing, there's a large number of asymptomatic people walking around unaware they have this virus. if they leave tokyo and go to
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these rural areas with a high number of elderly people, well, we know that can be very dangerous and could spread the virus outside of the areas that are currently under a state of emergency. >> absolutely. many complicated situations there in japan. surprising that a high-tech country doesn't have the ability to have people work from home. great reporting there, will. we appreciate it. we'll see you again. will ripley for us. thanks. across the world, leaders hoping to stop the spread are encouraging their citizens to follow safety measures. but the presidents of three countries are strangely sending a different message. matt rivers shows us who they are. >> reporter: these three men, presidents of brazil, nicaragua and bell ruse, they'se three
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presidents are not. >> start in brazil where the president was out and about this week on thursday visiting a bakery, taking photos, draws crowds. the kind of stuff he's been doing in public for weeks now. brazil has recorded more than 1,000 deaths, nearly 20,000 cases. the health minister has urged lockdown measures be put in place, but the president has said he's more worried about the economy. you don't shut down a car factory because of car accidents, he said. further north in nicaragua, the president hasn't been seen in public since this military parade on february 21st. so the response to this outbreak has come from his wife, the vice president, who regularly says her country's fate is in god's hands. >> translator: we don't have community spread, she said on
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thursday, with thanks to god. >> reporter: the government lets life go on normally. websites are promoting holiday discounts this weekend at markets. and to belarus, more virus dismissal where the president played in a hockey game saying they were no viruses inside the rink, implying that it was too cold. >> it's better to die standing than to live on your knees. perhaps unsurprising, he has encouraged people to keep playing hockey. experts say prevention measures must be used to stop the virus's spread and we have seen country after country tell people to stay at home. but these three presidents seem to be doing the opposite. matt rivers, cnn. the money from congress is now on the way. americans have started receiving coronavirus help from the
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a nurse in florida wanted to throw a party for her son's seventh birthday, but that, of course, wasn't possible due to social distancing restrictions. so police and neighbors gave him the next-best thing. here's the story. >> reporter: it's a surprise birthday party that rolled in one police vehicle at a time. >> happy birthday, carter! >> reporter: all to celebrate carter's seventh birthday while exercising social distancing. >> happy birthday, carter! >> carter's mom is a nurse. she works at the hospital and
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she's on the front lines with this pandemic. she asked if we could shed some type of light on her son's birthday because she didn't want his birthday party not to be recognized. >> reporter: she's been julgiggg being a nurse and a mom. she works overnight so she can oversee her children's learning during the day. >> we can't keep social distance. we do our best to protect ourselves and when we come home we're not infecting our families. >> reporter: families, friends and neighborhoods joined the caravan. some wearing costumes but staying in their cars or wearing masks. and what's a party parade without a fire truck? the motorcycle squad and the big wheels of the s.w.a.t. team. it's something law enforcement is doing all over the country during the coronavirus pandemic.
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the bomb squad in new mexico used a robot to deliver gifts to this 4-year-old. multiple law enforcement agencies in indiana cheered for this 6-year-old. and in bakersfield, police surprised drew. back in florida -- >> thank you. >> reporter: -- even the k-9 unit made the party and his cousins joined in too. >> he says happy birthday. >> this was above and beyond what i wanted to surprise him with. >> reporter: rosa flores, cnn, florida. >> how about that one? that made my day. hats off to our mr. presidenpol departments. we'll take a quick break. at 1800petmeds
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started depositing stimulus payments into the bank accounts of many people on saturday. the cash, part of the $2.2 trillion economic relief package, the money is meant to help the economy and those struggling to make ends meet. now with those stimulus checks, individuals earning less than $75,000 a year can expect up to $1,200 from the government and that increases for couples or parents with children. but in places with a high cost of living like hawaii, that money is stretched thin pretty quick. we want to talk about it now with allison schaefer. she's the bureau chief for the honolulu star advertiser. thank you for coming on. how are you doing? >> my pleasure. hawaii's tourism economy has taken a huge hit. 100 of 140 hotels has closed.
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what is the impact on jobs? >> it's been really challenging for people. tourism is about 17% of our state's gdp. there's a lot of people out of work right now and struggling to get their unemployment. it's so bad right now. with the people out of work that last week we had something somebody run a food bank. we had a situation where the salvation army was giving away small bags of food. they had potatoes and bread, those types of things. and just for that little bit, we had more than two miles worth of lines wrapping around the stores. >> it's unreal how many people are hurting. give us the numbers as far as tourism. how many tourists does hawaii typically see in a day or a
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month and who is coming now or not coming. >> that's part of the reason our economy is struggling. we've had an almost complete and unprecedented tourism collapse. on any given day before the covid-19 concerns came, we would have had 250,000 visitors in hawaii. after march 1st and covid really hit in the tourism industry started to collapse, we put in a tourism quarantine march 26th, 14-day quarantine for all passengers and that continued to dampen tourism. normally at this time of year, we would have 30,000 passengers arriving daily. now we've got more in the neighborhood of 600 passengers arriving daily and about 100 of them are tourists, that's it. >> that's unbelievable.
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what a drop. the first government stimulus checks are going out. what impact could that have in helping the situation? people lined up for miles to get free food. have the checks gotten into people's hands? >> i'm not aware of the checks getting into people's hands yet. i know they're waiting for them. the issue. with the checks, though, it just really gives people a chance to take a break and get a little bit of a break from worrying at the time. because of the checks because of the high cost of living won't be enough even to pay the one month worth of rent. our typical rent is about 1,600 for a one bedroom, about 2,500 for a two-bedroom apartment. if you have a three-bedroom or a house, it's even beyond that. >> the outlook looks very bleak
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too for when people will be able to travel again. how long might it take, is there any idea, for hawaii to recover from this? >> hawaii typically lags any kind of recovery on the mainland as well. and so in this particular instance, i think it's going to take quite a number of months. even when the tourism industry is able to welcome guests back, there will be a -- the industry was staffed for a bustling industry. in january and february, we were expecting this year to surpass last year which last year we had 10.4 million visitor 10.4 million visitors. not everybody is going to need to be brought back, this will take months and months to unwind. >> it's going to be tough.
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at least you're in hawaii. the most beautiful state in the united states. we wish you all the very best and the people there. alliso allison schaefer, thank you so much for helping us out. >> thank you very much. >> thank you for watching this hour. i'm natalie allen. please stay right there. i'll be right back with another hour of news after a short break.
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