tv CNN Newsroom CNN April 17, 2020 8:00am-9:00am PDT
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not happening now. >> they saw the news up there and knew what they were coming back to earth literally for, but now they see it. the group landed safely this morning on an already significant day for nasa. 15 years ago today, apollo returned after a crisis. now a crisis is happening on earth, a crisis we will get through together. thank you for being with us all week long. we'll see you back here monday morning. i'm poppy harlow. >> and i'm jim sciutto. we wish you all the best. "newsroom" with john king starts right now. 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 start of a global unwinding today of coronavirus restrictions. austria already reopening, denmark giving permission to courts, driving schools and hair salons to reopen. some essential businesses
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starting monday. here the test is to match state-by-state coronavirus numbers and trends up against president trump's new benchmarks. when you do that, it is clear undoing the great american shutdown is going to take months, especially in urban areas and the country's industrial heartland. a top medical group warning there still needs to be a giant leap in testing capacity before america reopens. the president consistently exaggerates the gains in testing, and he admits some states are ready to go now. >> you're talking about those states that are in great shape already. they will be able to go literally tomorrow, yes, because they met all the guide linlines you go back. you're going back 14 days, you're going back even a month. >> but facts should matter. and as of right now, there are zero states right now on a statewide basis that currently meet the 14-day criteria. zero. today the u.s. surgeon general got a very specific question about which states can reopen today, as the president said.
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the answer? very unspecific. >> the president was clear yesterday on the phone call with governors and i was on this call that we are not going to tell these states -- just to be honest with you, i don't want to say a state is ready because i don't want to put them on the spot, and i don't want to say a number of states are ready. >> the surgeon general is right about this being up to governors. with the new guidelines came a presidential about-face about who calls the shots. >> when somebody is the president of the united states, the authority is total. and that's the way it's got to be. it's going to be up to the governors. we're going to work with them, we're going to help them, but it's going to be up to the governors. >> let's take arkansas as an example of the challenge ahead. this look here does show us three consecutive daily drops. now let's pull back. this is a look at the last two weeks. you see some ups and downs. the guidelines provide a downward trajectory of documented cases over a 14-day period and a downward trajectory
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of positive coronavirus tests. but there are other factors, too, including a stable hospital system and a robust testing program. ohio's governor says his state is fortunate, the curve flattening. but they're not ready it open today and probably not next week. this is a look at michigan's five-day crisis. you do see a decline in a week to ten days. michigan's governor is waiting at least two weeks. >> i do hope to see some softenisoften ing on may 1st, but it's two weeks away, and the demographic is changing so rapidly it's hard to say where we'll be a week from now, much less two. each decision we make is supported by the science. >> john harwood is with us covering the white house. john, the interesting thing is you can go state-by-state, county by county. there will be, in the days
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ahead, a modest reopening, but when you look more largely at the scope, this great american reopening the president wanted to do like that is going to take months. >> reporter: absolutely. and when you look at the full range of gating criteria that you were outlining before, testing, hospital capacity as well as a 14-day decline, it's not clear that any state meets that criteria right now, and so for all the attention to may 1st and the president's desire to go to may 1st, the actual details of what he has put out -- and it's not long on detail but directionally, suggest that it is going to be very much a phased and data-driven reopening, and that's what public health authorities, that's what governors have said that they wanted. >> i want to put some of this up, john, so people can see it. let's talk through it a little bit. phase 1 is what you want to focus on most right now because that's the beginning of the
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reopening. groups ten or less, telework if possible, schools are still closed, strict social distancing. even when we get to the first reopening, we are staying in many ways where we are today. then you get to phase 2, you can see groups of 50 or less, moderate social distancing, schools can open. that's the question about the fall. we're talking about the fall there. the president in the end says, i'm in charge. he yields to the governors here. he wanted a quick reopen. he seems to, again, although having public tension with them, saying, the scientists are right. i'm going to take a methodical approach, even though it's not what i want. >> reporter: one of the things we need to remember and remind ourselves over and over about president trump is his words have a half life of a few seconds after he says them. it's kind of like a sand castle on the beach. the waves come over and wipe it out. the words "i have total authority," that's not grounded
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by any legal analysis, that's not in the constitution, it's something he said at the moment because it makes him sound powerful. it is encouraging that deborah birx and anthony fauci along with a range of other professionals have been making a case, and the president's guidelines have yielded to that case. we're hoping later today to get a little bit more detail on something the president has also given short shrift to, and that's the need for federal assistance on testing. it is plain that the states cannot get this testing up and running any time soon on their own. the federal government is going to have to help. and i think we expect later today when we get to that briefing the president or the administration is going to lay out some of the details of how the feds help them get there, and also what exactly the 14-day drop that we're talking about actually means. you know, to say that it's declining, that's simply a directional statement. but how far does it have to drop? we're going to get some more numbers, some more science-driven criteria later
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today. >> the details are important, particularly on the testing issue. the developments change every day. the one constant is states, public health professionals saying we need more help with testing and we need it yesterday. john harwood covering the white house for us. john, appreciate that very much. we'll look for more details today. pennsylvania is another case study in the complexity of this reopening debate. they are now the fifth highest number in the country. nearly 850 pennsylvanians have died of coronavirus. governor tom wolf says he's not ready to extend the state's stay-at-home order past november 30th. t -- past may 30th. he says he wants to watch the next two weeks. with us is lieutenant governor tom fetterman. your governor is being cautious, which is probably a nice place to be. may 30th is still two weeks
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away, i'm going to wait. when you see the president's guidelines, and you see your trend going down, does your governor believe that two weeks from now, on may 1st, you will be able to have at least a step toward reopening? >> well, i'd like to point out that the governor follows experts and scientists, as we all should. the virus doesn't have a calendar. the virus isn't saying, i have to wrap this up by may 1st. the virus is going to direct us. our number for today that will be released in a few hours is actually going to show an uptick of a couple hundred cases. so clearly pennsylvania does not meet the criteria that the president issued yesterday with respect to the 14 consecutive days. we are what appears to be on a plateau, but we have not seen a decline, certainly not over the span of 14 days. >> so you have one of the larger states landwise in the country, so you're going to have a debate. if it's done respectfully it's the right debate. when you have your issues
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greater in the philadelphia area, urban area in pittsburgh, a lot of rural area in the middle, your republican senator pat toomey says younger and healthier people with some reasonable precautions really could go back to work quite safely. we're not in a sustainable place right now where the government is attempting to be a substitute for an economy. that is part of the understandable agitation. let's try to get at least some people back to work. do you see any possibility of a regional approach in pennsylvania, or is it the administration's view, we have to do this statewide because we just can't worry about people crossing back and forth? >> the bottom line of this is that everybody agrees on one thing in pennsylvania, and i suspect nationally, that we all want to open up and get back to normal as quickly as possible. right now the science doesn't support that. now, the governor has consistently maintained an evolving set of conditions here in pennsylvania. he responds to the circumstances on the ground, to his credit. and our hospital system has not
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been anywhere near overwhelmed. our available ventilator capacity remains steady at 70%. so it's working, what we're doing in pennsylvania. how and when we reopen is going to be careful consideration and it's going to be directed by science and the experts, quite frankly. the governor isn't convinced, from what he said, that we are on a firm downward trajectory. that's the hope. and whatever refinements and openings that make sense from a public safety standpoint and economically speaking, particularly in areas where it's not a hard hit, but remember, all of this started with one case. so this idea that just because there is not an outbreak there right now doesn't mean that can't change. we have to be guided by science in all of this. we cannot afford to politicize this virus. it doesn't check your party affiliation before it infects you. it wants to spread, and what we've done in pennsylvania with the governor's aggressive
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stay-at-home orders has really stopped that and i believe we've plateaued. but we are weeks away from any kind of major announcement opening, if at all. >> lieutenant governor fetterman, i appreciate your insights today. good luck with the disparities we see in how this virus is hitting certain communities. we'll keep in touch. thank you, sir. >> thank you. the federal government is now out of money. no deal to fund -- the small business administration is now out of money. no deal to fund it in sight. plus, you'll also get a $100 prepaid mastercard when you switch online. stay healthy and visit sprint.com to get the services you need. for people with hearing loss, visit sprintrelay.com
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because of high demand, and the white house and congressional democrats so far are unable to reach a deal to add some $250 billion to the program. the president tweeted this morning saying people started losing their jobs because of nancy pelosi. e congress should come home. end your endless vacation, he says. the president with understandable anger. we could take the critical nicknames out, but he's mad. democrats say they want to get this done, but. >> yeah, look, i think this has been an impasse that has now last aid weed a week. i think there is surprise the impasse has lasted as long as it has. the reason why is the program the democrats are trying to move
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a clean funding bill through, $250 billion, is a bipartisan program. both sides agreed to this program. they thought it was a well-constructed program to basically lend out money to small businesses to be able to maintain their payrolls even if their doors were shuttered, and those loans, if they were used for payroll, would then be forgiven. it seemed like a good program. $350 billion seemed like a lot of money at the time. here's the rub on this. one, the money is gone. the program is shuttered on i'm told hundreds of thousands of applications that are in limbo right now, people that couldn't get their applications through on time. democrats have made it clear that if they move any kind of small business funding, they need more money for hospitals, more money for states and local governments as well, also more money for testing. that's where the impasse basically lies. here's the dynamics of things where it currently stands. democratic staff, nancy pelosi and chuck schumer are trying to meet with steve mnuchin and his
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staff as well. they'll continue meeting through the weekend to try to reach an agreement going forward. the issue here, congressional leaders have not moved on the idea that this is something that needs to happen now, it needs to be clean and nothing can be added to it. the wild card, john, that you know well, everything has to be done unanimously if they want something to pass in the united states congress. all these different dynamics are at play, and i think the problem with all those different dynamics at play here, small businesses really need this money. people are really having issues right now. the disruption to the economy is something like we've never seen before. they need to figure it out and they need to figure it out fast. >> it sounds like from your perspective there is zero chance they'll figure it out today so it will carry into next week as businesses around the country are bleeding. phil, thank you for the update there. the lead scientist on one
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often-cited coronavirus model says his new numbers indicate the south will not be as hard hit as earlier projections suggested. >> there is being more social distancing across the country than i think we expected, even in some of the states that haven't had as hard as strong mandates. that's going to factor into our new estimates we'll come out with tomorrow. it looks like a number of states in the south, for example, will have smaller epidemics than we expected. >> tennessee's effort to reopen offers free testing beginning this weekend. joining me now, dr. millstone. he's a pulmonologist in franklin. take me to your state. the last time we talked, tennessee was looking up. you do see the blue line of
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tennessee if we put this graphic up there. it looks flat, but the count seems lower than any other states. are you encouraged in tennessee, and if there's been success, what's the reason? >> well, john, i think we are encouraged, and first, i just want to take a moment and thank the thousands of tennesseens who have been supporting literally thousands of health care workers who are speaking up for the well-being of their patients, their colleagues, their neighbors. the imhe report you just mentioned shows that the stay-at-home order we fought for is working. it's clear that physical separation mitigates the strain on our tennessee hospitals, on health care workers, and that we are saving lives in communities, but you have to keep in mind that these models are based on what we're doing today. physical separation, stay-at-home orders. if we change what we're doing today, then the model we predict also changes. in fact, the vanderbilt medical
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center just last week released a model that shows if you ease up on our stay-at-home mandate that you could predict thousands of hospitalizations in the month of may. so the bottom line is we have to keep what we're doing in place, and we have to reopen judiciously and methodically. >> some are following the president's lead and saying, let's open as quickly as possible. even the governor the louisiana says before we think about anything else, we need to have more testing. >> i've directed our unified command group to rapidly expand our covid-19 testing capacity all across tennessee. our clinical understanding of covid-19 is changing rapidly. >> we need to ramp up this capacity as quickly as possible, have more testing so we can find out sooner when someone has covid-19, then do the contact
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tracing necessary to isolate those individuals that they've come into contact with, and that's really how you can reopen the economy. >> this has been, dr. milstone, one of the giant questions. do you actually understand the scope of the infection in your state, or are you blind because of the lack of testing? are you in a better place now? >> i think that both governors are correct, that we really can only reopen the economy in these southern states when there is both acute testing, doing nasal pharyngeal swabs, but doing antibody testing to find out who is infected, who is not, who is actively infected, who is not actively infected, and until we have that wide field of testing, we are a little on the blindside. the problem with testing this weekend and doing testing over a weekend is that i may be negative today if i test today. but if i get sick tomorrow or on
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saturday or sunday, then, unfortunately, i may not know if i'm infected. and i think we also need to really work hard to protect our health care workers going forward. you saw the cdc report just a few days ago that showed over 9,000 health care workers have been infected with covid-19 and almost 30 have died. so we've got to do better than we are today. >> dr. milstone, appreciate your perspective. more importantly, appreciate the work of you and all your colleagues across the state and across the country helping keep us both informed and safe. it's critically important. thank you. >> thank you, john. tonight cnn takes a look at coronavirus in communities of color. join don lemon and van jones for a special conversation and messages of hope from sean "diddy" combs and others. up next, america's growing concerns over food supply. to give you the support you need...
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tyson's beef plant in washington state and another one in idaho. this follows a cluster of cases at a pork processing plant in south dakota. d dianne gallagher joins me now. you're trying to trace the outbreaks. what more danger now to food processing plants? >> across the country follows that outbreak in south dakota. at least 148 people associated with that plant are infected, one person has died. but the government is really insistent on getting it back up and running again as soon as the cdc, who inspected the plant yesterday, allows. take a look at what she said. >> i've been working with the vice president and the secretary of agriculture in smithfield to make a plan to reopen. once we have the protective equipment for employees in place and sanitizing stations, we have those protective measures in place, and we also have given the employees a time to heal and
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be ready to come back to work, that plant will be up and running. >> yeah, but a lot of the unions around the country aren't so sure they're going to be able to make facilities like this safe during the age of the coronavirus. if you tay tke a look at just around the country, there are plants shutting down all across it. in columbus jurnnction, iowa, ty shut the tyson plant there. two people have died there. a few have died in the state of pennsylvania. one person died at the plant in pennsylvania. and in colorado, perhaps the case that really started all the attention to this was this jbs plant in greeley, colorado. there are now four deaths there, more than 100 associated cases. but john, here's the thing. at a nearby plant, the cargill plant, they have deaths associate with it but they haven't shut down. they're still working on this
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altered schedule. in camilla, georgia, three black women have died working at the tyson plant there. they still are working. they have not shut down. people are still going to that poultry-producing plant of single day. and that's a concern, john, because all these workers in these facilities that have rough conditions during a non-pandemic time are trying to work shoulder to shoulder, long hours, hard jobs, six days a week in some cases, and according to unions, at multiple plants across the country these companies are offering these bonuses that are incentives to not call out sick, to work every single day you're scheduled, extra hours, and they won't get paid until late may or june, which, of course, john, doesn't exactly tell people don't come to work if you're not sick. >> bonuses are great, but yes, temperature screenings and safety equipment would be greater, i would think, in the middle of this. dianne gallagher, thank you for staying on top of this important
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story for us. joining us to discuss in more detail, christine mccracken, a protein analyst. let me start with the safety issue. america is having a conversation about when we can reopen the broader economy, how we are seeing pieces of the economy that are essential and are open -- forgive me for interrupting here. i need to take you to albany, new york to governor andrew cuomo. >> -- reducing slightly from your point of view. a pessimist would say we're basically flat. an optimist would say i think we're starting to trend down. so it's a personality test. net change in total hospitalizations is undeniably on the decline. the three-day average, which is more accurate than any one-day number, also says the same thing. the icu admissions is down. that's not that telling to me because, as i said, the entire hospital is now basically an icu
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ward. but the number of intubations is down, and that is very good news. because intubations 80% of the time wind up in a person not recovering. so that's really good news. the reality and the count counternarrative, counterfact, the number of new cases, covid cases that walk in the door of the hospital is still about 2,000 a day, and that is still very high. so, yes, fewer people in the hospital, fewer people being intubated, but still 2,000 people walking in the door. if you'll notice, it's hovered about the same right for several weeks. it peaked, but 2,000, that's a very high number. number of deaths, unfortunately,
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refuses to come down dramatically. 6 630. that is still breathtaking in its pain and grief and tragedy. and basically flat again like many of the other numbers. just in terms of overall context, where are we, where are we going? everybody wants to ask that question every day, and i understand that. we have to get to tomorrow what is the final conclusion of this ugly chapter. i still believe it's when we have a vaccine, when people know that this virus is totally controlled. that's 12 to 18 months. hopefully it can be sooner. maybe there's a medical treatment in between. we hope, we pray. a lot of medical companies are working very hard on it right here in the state and across the
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country. that would totally change the trajectory. people who are looking for a quick fix, a quick answer. it would be a medical treatment. that would be the quick fix, and a vaccine would be a quick fix. in the meantime, it's going to be an incremental process between today and tomorrow. as much as people don't want to hear that, that's the truth. you're not going to hear any day soon it's over, the nightmare ends and we wake up. it's going to be incremental and we have to be smart as we do this. we can control the rate of infection as we do this. we also have work to do operationally with the health care system in terms of testing, which i'll talk about in a minute. the testing tracing is the guidepost through this, right?
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as we're working our way over the next several months, the testing, which is informing us as to who can go back to work, helping us isolate people, it's about testing. and testing is a totally new challenge. nobody has done this, what we need to do on testing. and then phasing the ramp-up of the economy to the new normal as we do this. again, in terms of perspective, i think of it this way. our whole response thus far basically has been a response to a crisis, right? and as the numbers start to come down and as people start to take a deep breath and people start to feel we can control the beast, which we can, and they take comfort in the fact that we can control the beast, which i do. i was afraid this thing was uncontrollable and that despite everything we did, the numbers were going to continue to go
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through the roof. by the way, nobody could tell you otherwise. but we proved we can control the beast. we can reduce the rate of infection. we did that by our response to the crisis. credit to all the new yorkers, all americans. they flattened the curve. nobody else, no government agency, no public health expert. people's actions flattened the curve. we responded to the crisis. that's sort of all in this first response, first phase. bring down that infection rate. the infection rate was one person infected 1.4 other people. that's when an epidemic breaks out. that's fire through dry grass, right? that's what we talked about yesterday. we had the infection rate down to .9. one person infects .9 other people. i've never met a .9 person, but the infection rate is less than
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1 to 1. that, then, sees the outbreak starting to subside, the numbers starting to come down, which is what we're seeing in the numbers. so we did that. this is all in our response to the crisis. and let's say it's from minute one to where we are today. this has all been crisis response. bring down the infection rate. we did that. bring up the hospital system to this projection level, which would have been impossible, but ramp up that hospital system so when you have all these infected people, you can handle it, you don't overwhelm the public health system, you don't have people dying in hallways, which is what we saw in italy on tv, right? that's all phase 1. that's critical response. hurry up, get it done, every day is vital, drastic measures taken
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quickly in a coordinated way. that's phase 1. we're still in that phase because you still have 2,000 people coming in the door every day. so don't get cocky, don't get arrogant, we're in control. no, you're not in crisis because you can control the beast, but you're only controlling the beast because of what you're doing. that's where we are. we're starting to transition to another place. what's the other place? it's going to be the second half of this situation, which is unpausing, right? the situation we're in now is unsustainable. people can't stay in their homes for this length of time. they can't stay out of work. you can't keep the economy closed forever, you just can't. society can't handle it. personally or economically. so now we're moving into another phase which is this reopening phase. how do you plan the reopening?
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nobody has ever done this before. and how do you plan a reopening of an economy and at the same time be cog ani of an economy and at the same time be cog anzant of the publi health crisis you're still in, right? we have the infection rate down to .9. one person is infecting .9%, less than a person. okay. the epidemic outbreak percentage is 1.2, one person infecting 1.2. you only have between .9 and 1.2 as a margin of error. we have to reopen, we have to reopen, we have to reopen. yeah. you only have a very slim margin to operate on. you open too fast, you bring people out too fast, you'll get to 1.2 in three days and we'll be right back to where we started. so that's the -- i wai want to
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of my house versus public health balance that we're talking about. how do you measure this? how do you calibrate it? you have to develop a testing capacity that does not now exist, and then you test people on a higher volume than ever before. you then trace them to find other positives and then you isolate them. in the meantime, we have to stabilize the state's finances. because we have a terrible economic deficit. we are spending money every day that we've never dreamed of spending. we're asking all these hospitals to do things, all these local governments to do things. we're paying. and we're paying when we're in a position where we don't have any money. which is also an unsustainable position in life. you can't keep writing checks if you have no balance in your account. it doesn't work long term.
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at one point they come and knock on the door. i don't know who knocks on the door when you're a state government, but somebody is going to come knock on the door. so that's where we are overall. the next frontier is going to be testing. we don't have a testing system that can do this volume or that can be ramped up to do this volume. we don't have a public health testing system, by the way. it's deminimus if you look at what the public health system has. it's a relatively deminimus society. what's our testing capacity? that's relatively deminimus also. we're talking about labs that normally operate to do blood testing if you need a marriage license, if your child is sick, they send them for a strep test. the doctor says go take a blood
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test for allergies. you go and you go to a lab to have blood drawn. that's basically the system we're talking about. that system does not do large-scale covid testing. this covid testing first, in and of itself, is a very complicated new test. it's not as simple as drawing blood and getting it tested. this test in and of itself is complicated and expensive. and you don't have the network that does that. it does not exist. this is where we were with the hospitals. we came up with what we call surge and flex. what happened with the hospitals when this happened, we started seeing these much higher numbers that would overwhelm our hospital system. well, how do we ramp up the hospital system? you don't really have a public
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hospital system. downstate new york, you have about 100 hospitals. you only have about 15 of those 100 are public hospitals. the rest are all private hospitals. voluntary hospitals, but they're all private hospitals. we had to get those private hospitals to work with government in a coordinated way. never happened before. extraordinarily difficult. we did it, but it was a phenomenal undertaking. you now have 300 laboratories in hospitals across the state that do virology testing. how do we get 300 private labs in hospitals to become one system statewide to do testing for covid? and how do we get them all coordinated? this is something that has never been done before and is going to be a tremendous undertaking.
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also, to further complicate it, what they will tell you now, because we've been having the conversations, the labs, if they can get the test, which they have to purchase from private sector companies, the tests require certain chemical reagents to operate. so you take a sample and then you mix it with other chemicals. they can't get the chemicals that they need to mix to do the test. well, who has the chemicals? no one has the chemicals because everybody has been overrun with demand, and the chemicals come out of where? china! where everything has come from over the past 40 days. everything goes back to china. and china is now in a position where they're being asked globally for these reagent chemicals, and that is a piece of the equation that i can't
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figure out. and that's why the federal government has to be part of this approach and part of this answer. i can do what i can do on the state side, and i will. i'm going to issue an executive order that says the department of health will be coordinating those private sector labs which are private sector companies but they're licensed by the state of new york, they're permeated by the state of new york, and we need them to step up and work together. but the federal government cannot wipe their hands of this and say, oh, the states are responsible for testing. we cannot do it. we cannot do it without federal help. i'm willing to do what i can do and more, but i'm telling you, i don't do china relations, i don't do international supply chain, and that's where the federal government can help. also remember, the federal
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government at the same time is developing testing capacity. so we wind up in this bizarre situation that we were in last time. 50 states all competing for these precious resources. in this case it's testing and then the federal government comes in and says to those companies, i want to buy the tests also. this is mayhem. we need a coordinated approach between the federal government and the states. second thing that is of immediate concern is we have to stabilize the finances of the state. the federal government has passed three bills to address this crisis. of those three bills, the state governments have gotten precisely zero, zilch, nada in unrestricted aid. the state should this, the state should this, the state should this. yes. well, what support have you given the states? none. i mean, how can that even be?
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how is it even plausible as a strategy? it doesn't work. we need financial resources to stabilize the states because when you starve the state governments, you know, i still eat. dr. zucker still eats, but we can't fund schools, we can't fund hospitals, we can't fund small business, we can't fund all these extraordinary efforts we're undertaking. it makes no sense. we need to support the states because the states are the ones who are doing this. reopening is up to the states, right? that's the federal decree. it's up to the governors. the governors will decide. the states have to decide. everyone is in a different position and it's up to the states, which i agree. it also happens to be in the constitution, but put that aside. i also think it's the right approach. okay, it's up to the states. but then don't ask the states,
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don't give them this massive undertaking that has never been done before and then not give them any resources to do it. that's not how this is going to work. the expression "don't pass the buck without passing the bucks." a.j. parkinson. mark remembers him. don't ask the states to do this. it's up to the governors, up to the governors, up to the governors. okay, is there any funding so i can do these things that you want us to do? no. that is passing the buck without passing the bucks. patsing the buck, which is the opposite of "the buck stops here." the buck doesn't stop here. i'm passing the buck, and i'm not passing the bucks. i'm not giving the financial assistance to actually perform the responsibility.
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so last point is we go from today to tomorrow. but we talk about the new normal. this also has to be an opportunity where, after this horrendous period that we have gone after the personal pain of this and the death of this, this has to be one of most moments in time when we look back where we say society transformed. it was a learning and growth and transformati transformational period where growth and evolution was accelerated. yes, society took a terrible blow but it became a moment of reflection where all sorts of
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new reforms and innovations happen. that's what we have to do with this period they look back at it. so our goal let's not get up and turn the machine back on and keep going the way we were. how do you make the changes now that you have been talking about in some cases for years by the way. you never had the political will to do it or it is too hard or difficult. we talk about changes for assistance. it is to hard and controversial. now you have an opportunity in the window to make changes and improve things the way you have not. if you went through this pain and aggravation and suffering
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and you did not learn, well, then shame on us. shame on us. because there is so many lessons to learn. you come back better than you were. 9/11. new york took a terrible beating. 9/11 transformed the country. if i told you 9/11 you will take off your shoes before you can get on the airplane and they'll go through every bag. 9/11 said this is a different world. look at all the security measures that we had post 9/11 that we would never envision. hurricane sandy, we didn't built back what it was. we built back better than before. you take that lesson and you
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learn and you improve society. we have to do it here, we have to do it affirmatively. it just does not happen. you have to say, we pause. new york pause. you refle yo yo yo you reflect and you learn and you move forward. hospitals have the number of beds they needed to operate. what if in a case of emergency? there is no emergency capacities in hospitals. nobody had beds left empty. oh, that wing is in case of emergency then we'll use that wing. why not. well, that's not what we did. so how do you improve the public health system. how do you improve the emergency response? well, we never had to deal with
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a pandemic before. what is a pandemic? okay. now, we did. how are we going to be ready for the next situation like this? i don't know when it is. i don't know if this virus coming back in a second wave. there will be something. we have to be ready and better for it. and not just what you learn but what have we been talking about doing that we should be doing that this is now an opportunity to do it. we been talking about reimagining work and workplace. does everybody have to drive-in to the office everyday? or did we learn there are ways to telecommute and work from home where it is actually more efficient and effective. what do we do about our transit system. how do we make it safer?
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not just the way we have been talking about but from a public health point of view. how are we now smarter about public interactions? how many doctors now have come to me and said i have said for years that we should not be shaking hands. that's a way to transmit germs and viruses and etc. how do we take this moment since we are paused anyway and come back smarter. i also believe it will work. it is a moment of personal reflection. we have been in different circumstances. what have we learned during this heartbreak and crisis? i spent a lot of time with my kids.
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my interactions with my kids have gotten so superficial over the last few months. what do you need? that was the same conversation over and over. now i got time to sit with them and really in-depth conversations that i have not had in a long time. i will tell you one thing i learn is i was missing a lot. they're not seven or ten years old. they're grown up. they have complex lives and complex feelings and complex situations. you don't understand that or you get to see that. all you say is how is everything and what do you need?
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when will i see you again? i was busy. yes, except that's not an excuse. take a deeper reflection on what's important in life. you can't have a quality relationship with your child or another human being unless you take the time to get below that surface and really understand the person and take the time to talk about what's going on. people don't work that way. they don't open up in a four-minute conversation. so now we are up in a situation where i have a couple of hours to talk to one of my daughters. there is a whole person and life and nuance that's going on that frankly that i have been oblivious to. i am not going to let it happen again. i have not been able to see my
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mother. she's a little older and i see a lot of people exposing other people. i don't want to see my mother because she's in a vulnerable population and i am out and about a lot. we'll be ca it would be careless to see her now. i said to her, she's like can you come over for a cup of coffee. how many times i said yes for a cup of coffee and call back and said i can't do it today and next time. why? because something came up. i was busy and i didn't have the time. wrong. wrong. that was more important than anything else. sometimes you don't miss something that's been taken away. and it made me rethink what was
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important and what was what i had been missing. i have been missing a lot because of all this and we are all busy, we are all busy. what does it mean at the end of the day? what were you really busy with and did it matter? i know i have learned a lot. we may be distance. the key is to be connected individually and connected as a community. that's what we are going to do. questions. let's take this situation and reflect on it and find a better way. rather than everybody shouting, i will call on every person and
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ask a question and we'll go on so we don't have to to yell at each other. jesse. >> you are talking about additional funding of reopening and restarting the economy. do you have any idea of what that number is? what would you like to see come from washington? >> we know what we propose, right? all the governors are part of a national governor association democratic and republican. chairman larry hogan, republican chairman, i am the vice chairman on the democrat. we have publicly requested 500 billion for states, we have publicly done it. that's the number. that's public and that's put out in the press relief. that's what it is. >> for new york
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