tv CNN Newsroom CNN April 23, 2020 8:00am-9:00am PDT
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hello to our viewers in the united states and around the world. i'm john king at "newsroom." this is our coverage of the coronavirus. as germany eases some coronavirus restrictions, angela merkel warns, quote, they are on thin ice, that too much em bo emboldening will reverse the results of the coronavirus. this plays out on a very sad canvas, nearly 800,000 confirmed
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coronavirus cases, nearly 47,000 dead. president trump's instincts are to go now, but we have fabulous new reporting how he was persuaded to make clear that he thinks the state of georgia needs to slow down because of health and safety risks. we're also seeing some tensions between the president and his top scientist. he says it's not a sure thing coronavirus will be with us this fall when he faces his reelection test. the scientists say there is zero doubt about a coronavirus second wave. the only question to them is how big and how viral it will be when this new virus interacts with flu season. >> i was misquoted when it comes to this virus. totally misquoted. >> you were accurately quoted in the "washington post," correct? >> i am accurately kwoeltd in
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t -- quoted in the "washington post." >> it's possible it might not come back at all. >> we will have new coronavirus in the fall. >> new reports how coronavirus is also killing american jobs, by the millions. 26.5 million americans have filed for unemployment. it has put all of them out of work in just five weeks. there are some help on the way for those teetering on the edge of survival. they will pass another stimulus designed to help small businesses meet payroll. but the new numbers remind us tens of millions of dollars in new government spending not enough to stop the bleeding. get this. 4.4 million people filed for unemployment last week. and the total of 26.5 million, that is roughly the state
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population of giant texas. julia, the numbers again, it's not 6 million like it was last week, but 4.4. on top of everything else, the hole keeps getting deeper. >> it does. these claims are the economic fear gauge on a weekly basis now for the u.s. economy. when you're talking over 26 million people who have either lost their jobs, had their jobs furloughed or simply are afraid of what the future of their job looks like, you get a sense it's one in six u.s. workers that are in that situation and are facing that fear now on a daily basis. we have more than wiped out all the job gains that we saw since the financial crisis. this is millions of people now asking, when is the money going to come, when am i going to get my job back, and even if i try to get back into my job, am i going to be able to do this safely? we could be looking at an unemployment rate in this country now of up to 20%. you have to go back to the great depression to find something that compares in any way.
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it brings it right back to what you were saying there, john, about the need to get money flowing to the smallest businesses in this country. they represent half of employment. and the delay that's already been had, the lack of access for small businesses, is being played out on a weekly basis in these numbers. >> we'll see if the new money helps some small businesses keep their employees on the payroll. but more than 26 million americans in five weeks, it is sad and stunning. julia chatterley, thank you so much. of course, those are statistics. that means you, your neighbor, someone you know. a closer look at how this pain plays out across america. in detroit, thousands suddenly out of work. in michigan as a whole, 24%. 24% of the state labor force has applied for unemployment benefits in these past five weeks. cnn correspondent omar jimenez is in detroit with that story. omar, you've been talking to small business owners and workers. what are you hearing? i'm guessing it's not good.
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>> reporter: yeah, it's not great, john, but one thing i have heard from the many businesses and people i've spoken to here is they've been through a lot in the past decade and a half, and one thing they say they know how to do is survive, especially as the pandemic has had a huge impact on the economic way of life here from layoffs to newly uncertain futures for businesses. quiet downtown streets, economies grinding to a halt. all too common sights across america amid the coronavirus pandemic, and detroit is no different. the planning for a place like this takes years, and then here you are, weeks away from opening. >> yeah. we would have been ready to go at the end of march. >> reporter: now that timeline is up in the air while he navigates unemployment for the first time after also being laid off. >> things aren't great all the time, but we've always made it
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through. >> reporter: but for many, these are uncertain times. officials hope part of the solution is a better understanding of the present. detroit is the first major city in the country now opening coronavirus testing to all essential employees, regardless of symptoms. >> that was the thought behind it. those that are at the grocery stores, those at the pharmacies and the restaurants that are still operating with carryout service. how do you ensure they're safe and healthy and able to serve the public? >> they'll make their appointments beforehand, their information will get radioed to this tent here where these masked and gloved workers will direct them to one of 12 tents where their employees will get their actual coronavirus tests. >> reporter: detroit is trying to get back to work. thousands in the city are unemployed as are millions in the united states. michigan's overall unemployment rate soaring to 20%, even affecting companies doing lifesaving work.
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ditech engineering in the grand rapids area has been working in a kind of partnership with general motors to help make ventilators. the owner says even they had to lay off 20% of their staff. >> even though my guys are working and my company is still operating and we might be one of the least affected companies, well, nobody is safe. >> reporter: in detroit city officials have been working hard to make sure current climate doesn't become a permanent one. the detroit economic growth corporation and others have helped give out grants to over a thousand businesses, and the city of detroit is literally paying restaurants to help make food for first responders. >> we can bring it right to somebody and have no contact, okay? >> reporter: a jazz club is now a full-time kitchen for survival, emblematic of detroit. >> i don't think there will be anything greater, and i don't want anything greater than this challenge.
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but we are survivors and we will beat this. >> reporter: and moving forward, michigan governor gretchen when it -- whitmer says they're looking for ways to re-engage, re-evaluating the stay-at-home order. what exactly that will be, we're expecting that by the end of the week, john. >> out there is the "we will survive" attitude. the attitude and resilience of people is remarkable. you're on the ground in a city that is a big experiment. as people go back to work, the question is can we test more of them, can we figure out how asymptomatic they are. detroit is trying to test every asymptomatic employer? what are they learning? >> reporter: right, they're able to offer testing to all essential employees. you saw that scene in the fairgrounds a few minutes ago.
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that testing site was already a testing site before that testing began yesterday. before you had to be symptomatic to get that testing. now, whether you're symptomatic or not, you can sign up and make an appointment as they have made to go and get tested, and we understand from the officials that number is already over 9,000 for those who have signed up to make an appointment and go get themselves tested. they have the capability of testing around a thousand people a day at that site, so that total process is going to continue even as more people sign up to get tested. but it's being looked at around the country as a potential first step to trying to get the economy reinvigorated, having a baseline for who is positive and who isn't and then moving forward from there. >> omar jimenez for us from detroit. thank you for being on the ground reporting where it really matters in america. the devastating impacts are exhibit a, as the president pushes to reopen the economy
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asap. yet it isn't all full speed ahead. after calling georgia governor's brian kemp and offering support for the governor's plan, the president reversed course and said he could not support some elements of that plan, like opening tattoo parlors and massage parlors. john harwood covering this for us. take us inside that big decision by the president to pull back. >> reporter: john, what we've seen is another example of the president wavering back and forth depending on the pressure that he gets. as you mentioned, the immense economic pressure had led him to urge states to reopen as soon as possible, put pressure on democratic states and have that friendly phone call with brian kemp on tuesday, and you saw deborah birx at the podium saying that, well, i can't imagine that you could have tattoos safely with social distancing, but people are creative. it was a very accommodating briefing on tuesday. then you had wednesday come.
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the president had a second phone call after getting pressure from within his task force, and here's how he talked about kemp yesterday. >> i told the governor of georgia, brian kemp, that i disagree strongly with his decision to open certain facilities which are in violation of the phase 1 guidelines for the incredible people of georgia. but at the same time, he must do what he thinks is right. i want him to do what he thinks is right. but i disagree with him on what he's doing. >> reporter: he said he should do what he thinks is right, but nevertheless he did criticize the decision. you could see thereafter in the briefing where that pressure came from, because tony fauci, who had been absent from briefings for several days, came in. he said privately i can't defend this publicly, and at the briefing itself, he said, john,
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if i was advising governor kemp, i would tell him not to take this step. governor kemp has not said he is going to reverse this step, but it's thursday and it's scheduled to start the reopening tomorrow. >> the president taking the advice of tony fauci to take a softer approach. a top doctor in the administration, someone who works on vaccines, who you would think would be is being pushed back on now. dr. bright says he was saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, be careful, and he was shut out. what do we know? >> reporter: what we know is dr. bright put out a statement. he said, i believe this transfer was in response to my insistence that the government invest the
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billions of dollars for the pandemic into solutions, not drug drugs, vaccines and other technologies that lack scientific merit. i'm speaking out, because to combat this deadly virus, science, not politics or cronyism has to be the determination. we're still looking for details on what exactly he meant by cronyism, what he might be financing with respect to hydroxychloroquine. what we do know is we've had research in the past few days, not conclusive research but preliminary research, raising doubts about the effects of hydroxychloroquine, and the fact that some people died as a result of taking it, and we know that both the president and his fox news supporters who had been encouraging to tout that drug, they have stopped touting it. >> they have. it's very important to continue following, a, that research, but b, the paper trail of what happened to dr. bright inside
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the administration. we'll stay inside that story. john harwood, on both fronts appreciate the reporting at the white house. far more american cities were spreading the virus far earlier than we knew it was on american soil. hipping and no activation fees on our best new phone deals, like a samsung galaxy phone for just $0 a month. 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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we're giving refunds on auto insurance premiums, assisting customers with financial hardships, and our foundation is contributing millions of dollars to charities helping with covid-19 relief. keeping our promise to be on your side. let's get to big medical developments now, including officials saying they're not sure when you'll be able to get out of the house, let alone planning a summer vacation. according to the "new york times," a northeastern university model looked at
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hidden outbreaks in chicago and seattle back in early february. let's go to elizabeth cohen in atlanta. elizabeth, take us inside what was said and why it matters. >> reporter: let's go to the survey or modeling found. this is according to the "new york times." on march 1st, if you look all the way at the left at that tiny little bar, according to the cdc, there were 23 cases. nearly all of those were people who had traveled to wuhan. what this model says is, look, when we look backwards at what was going on, our model our, ou estimate, our guess is that in boston and seattle each there were 21 cases, seattle 3100, san francisco 9300 and new york 10,700. this is a model, right, john, and you and i have talked about models before, they are educated
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guesses. looking at what we know now, this is what they think happened. again, this is march 1st. according to the cdc, the first case of transmission, in other words, not a traveler to wuhan coming back and getting his wife sick, but getting sick out in the community was february 26th. so this does not mesh at all with what the cdc says. what this says is, hey, community spread was happening on a very large scale much earlier than what the cdc thought. >> and let's try to rewind the tape, if you will n t, in the s that every day we're learning something new. yes, it's a model, but if you meet somewhere in the middle, it's a lot more than anyone thought at the time. take us back, then. northeastern, this model says there were a lot of cases especially in these urban areas starting to spread out. community spread was already in existence. what were officials saying back then? >> reporter: you know, around this time, i was actually pressing federal officials, how
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do we know this isn't all over the place? how do we know there isn't large scale community spread and people are getting sick and dying, and we're thinking it's the flu? it was the middle of a very bad flu season, how do we know this isn't happening? they were pretty confident, john. they said, no, no, that's not happening. maybe a few cases here and there, but we don't think this is spreading undetected. they were quite confident about this. and i think at the end of the day when the history of this outbreak is written, i think one of the things that's going to be talked about is that there was an overconfidence at this point that somehow we were catching nearly every single case, because according to this modeling, as well as all this data coming out about autopsies that are being done on people who died in february is that they weren't catching every single case, not even close. >> it's a great poichbnt. we're learning more and more. what we know today versus yesterday, when we pull it all together, i think we'll know
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more about the coronavirus. thank you for your great reporting. you all hear from the experts. they say we need more testing of asymptomatic americans just to get a better understanding of how widespread the virus really is. >> testing asymptomatics will be key. the asymptomatic piece may be the tip of the iceberg. in fact, it would be the iceberg underneath the surface. we think it's fundamental both for right now and going through the fall, because that will be our early alert if any of the covid virus reappears. >> let's discuss why that matters so much and other developments. joining me now, former acting director of the cdc, right now president and ceo of the robert levine situation. dr. besser, let me start with you. when you hear dr. birx, especially out of the reporting we just heard from elizabeth cohen that, there is a northeastern model that says there were hundreds of cases well before anybody thought there was community spread or a significant number of cases, why is it so critical now as we try
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to get people back to work to have wider, broader, deeper, better testing of asymptomatic people? >> i think this makes it really clear. one of the real challenges with this virus is that it doesn't spread just from people who have symptoms. so right now in america, most health care facilities are testing people with severe symptoms. so they're testing them to see do they need to be hospitalized, are we concerned that they could be an individual who is going to need specialized care? in america right now, about 20% of all tests are positive. the world health organization says you really need to be doing testing to the level where that percentage is below 10%. which means having the capability to test people with even mild symptoms, as we move from an approach where everyone is hunkering down at home to the next phase where we start to open the economy, you want to be able to identify every person
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with symptoms who may have the coronavirus so they can be isolated, you can identify the people they may have infected and provide everybody with the opportunity to safely isolate or quarantine. >> so, dr. levine, you're trying to do this in your state. one in 50 starting to walk up to this experience when and how quickly to reopen. a, i know you want more testing there trying to do best you can. we also have debate playing out. someone in your profession has to advise a governor what to do. we move into may, then june and july. there is a big debate over what we're going to have when we get to september and october. i want you to listen here. the president has one view, his experts a little different. >> it might not come back at all. we're going to be watching for it. but it's also possible it doesn't come back at all. >> we will have coronavirus in the fall. i am convinced of that because
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of the degree of tra transmissibility it has in the global nature. what happens with that depends how well we're able to contain it when it occurs. >> i'm going to guess, dr. levine, you're more with dr. fauci than the president that the coronavirus will be with us come fall, the question is just at what scale. in that context, what do you have to do as a state health director to say this is the challenge today that builds toward being ready for august, september, october? >> well, i think that testing is really a big, strong component of all of this, and having the right strategies in place so that you have the capacity to test, your population has that ability to access testing, and that you begin to broaden the amount of testing you're doing in populations you couldn't do previously because you didn't have capacity. so in vermont, we're clearly looking at strategies right now to expand testing to a variety
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of populations, some of them high risk, some of them more average risk. as we start to try to reopen the economy in have the in our restart vermont program, which we're very much on a graduated basis trying to make happen at this point in time, a very phased approach. testing is a core component to that approach. it will need to be really accelerated as will the contact tracing part of the testing, isolating and contact tracing paradigm dictates. >> and if we look at a map right now, to both of the doctors, this is the imhe modelliing as when it thinks states should consider reopening. if you look closer to home, it says nobody is ready today, and some states already moving forward now should wait weeks. those governors are going to make their own decisions. this is the republican governor of vermont, phil scott here. listen to governor scott here making the case. like it or not, he's going to
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watch what's happening in georgia, watch what's happening in florida and elsewhere and maybe learn some lessons chl. >> i'm going to continue to make decisions based on what is best for the health of vermont. we'll see what happens when states open too quickly. i think there is a bit of an experiment going on in georgia as we speak. and we'll see how they benefit over the next three to four weeks or not. >> dr. besser, from a public health perspective, if you were sitting back at the cdc or if you were in dr. levine's chair as a health director, you may disagree with what the governor of the state of georgia is doing, what the governor of the state of florida is doing. okay, they're doing this, and you need to track, is this going to work or is this a disaster? >> john, there is so much information we're still lacking. if you look at the data we're getting from states and cities that are able to look at it, certain populations are getting
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slammed by this. black americans and latinos are dying by about twice the race they should based on population. we need to see how this is playing out in each community and have the ability to test thoroughly and protect citizens before we think about opening up. at this point we're nowhere near that. we don't have the capacity in health care broadly, we don't have the availability of personal protective equipment beyond the health care setting, and there it's in short supply. we have so many people who are working in essential occupations who aren't being provided with what they need to do that safely. you need to have those pieces in place. then the contact tracing piece that dr. levine was referring to and others around the country are talking about, that requires training up a public health force nationally that may be in the hundreds of thousands. until you have those pieces in place, it really is a dangerous move to unleash the economy. >> some of those pieces clearly will not be in place as some of
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these states start. we'll watch the experiment play out. i appreciate your opinions, dr. levine. you can join anderson cooper and dr. sanjay gupta tonight for a coronavirus town hall, "coronavirus facts and fears" at 8:00 p.m. right here on cnn. clearly the german chancellor is worried about opening up her country too fast. at bayer, we make medicine like aleve that provides strong,
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an effortless transaction- all without leaving the comfort- and safety of your home. that's the power of sanctuary. and for a little extra help, receive 0% apr financing and defer your first payment up to 120 days on the purchase of a new lincoln. the global race of the pandemic vaccine is gaining ground. there were tests done at university of oxford. it is based on the common cold virus found in chimpanzees. here's more on the big global developments. >> reporter: here in germany, angela merkel warns that the country risks the gains it's made in combatting covid-19. they have loosened restrictions
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that have taken place since the number of new infections continue to decline for several days. now the german chancellor says she believes state authorities might be too lax in enforcing the measures that are still supposed to be in place. this comes as the number dead from the novel coronavirus has now topped 5,000 in this country. that number is still fairly low considering the number of infections here in germany. angela merkel also taking a swipe at president trump. president trump recently criticized the world health organization and stopped u.s. payments to the body. angela merkel today said germany still views the w.h.o. as very important and will continue to support it. fred pleitgen, cnn, berlin. >> here in hong kong i'm monitoring the growing war of words between beijing and washington over china's wildlife markets. the u.s. secretary of state mike pompeo has called on china to close all of these markets that are believed to be hundreds of
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them, maybing up a multi-billion-dollar industry in mainland china. that's because there is some scientific evidence suggesting that the coronavirus and other deadly diseases, like sars, jumped from wild animals that are sold for food and traditional medicine in these markets, jumped from the animals to humans. the chinese foreign ministry says that the wildlife trade is banned, and anybody who does it will be prosecuted. they then introduced a temporary ban at the end of february. the fact is that the pandemic, as it continues to claim lives, is becoming an increasingly political and contentious issue between the u.s. and chinese governments, between these two rival powers. ivan watson, cnn, hong kong. >> here in wuhan, china, the original epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, there is a slow start of resuming life here
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for many of the businesses in particular. as you look around the u.s. and in parts of europe, there is an attempt to start to reopen. here, after what was the most severe of lockdowns, arguablarg in the world, a 76-day sealing off of many communities, they're trying to figure out how to navigate this new normal. many businesses remain closed, and some tell us they will not open. they simply financially could not weather the storm of the lockdown. others have found new ways to operate, and that includes moving their stores to the front of the storefront. so pretty much outside of their stores, that way they keep people from going in, customers from coming inside. they limit the exposure, potential exposure of this virus, and they increase social distancing. it's their way of trying to continue on with business in this post-lockdown era. david culver, cnn, wuhan, china.
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here in mexico, government officials tell cnn they have uncovered 44 attacks, these workers endurine ining everythim having bleach thrown on them to being in close quarters. rumors spreading in mexico that it's actually health care workers that are responsible for spreading the virus throughout this country. this is not to say it's the majority opinion here in mexico. most people, i think, would tell you they support and appreciate health care workers, but that doesn't change the fact that doctors and nurses are scared. i talked to one doctor who said she won't wear her medical scrubs in public anymore, she goes to work in her street clothes and changes when she gets there because she feels the scrubs make her a target. she says all she wants to do is help fight this pandemic without fearing an attack. matt rivers, cnn, mexico city.
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>> back here in the united states, tyson foods closing -- sorry, the governor of new york in his daily briefing. this is in albany. >> when we started this, i said the best thing i can do is give people the truth and give people the facts separate from an opinion, separate from my spin, separate from what i would like to believe, what i hoped. just facts. and the reason i do that is because everything we're doing is basically voluntary on behalf of people, right? state government, local government, federal government doesn't have the power to enforce stay-at-home orders if 19 million people said, i'm going out today. they would go out. but the belief is if they have the facts, if they understand the facts, they'll act prudently in connection with the facts. now, some of the facts have been disturbing, some of the facts
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have been ugly, but those are the facts, and that's my job, is to present the facts as facts. if i have an editorial comment on the facts, i'd give it to you, but i want you to know that's my editorial comment versus what data or science will say. also our muslim brothers and sisters begin ramadan today, and we wish them all the best. the hospitalization rate is down again, so that is good news. overall, if you project the curve, everybody is looking at curves nowadays, if you look at the curve, the curve continues to go down. that's also in the total hospitalization number. it bounces up and down a little bit but it's clearly down. the number of intubations bounces a little bit, but it's
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also clearly down. the number of new covid cases walking in the door or being diagnosed is relatively flat. that is not great news. we'd like to see that going down, but it's not going up, either. the number of lives lost is still breathtakingly tragic, 438. that number is not coming down as fast as we would like to see that number come down. and what we're looking at at this point is, okay, we're on the down side of the curve, the numbers are trending down. do they continue to trend down, or do they pop back up? if they continue to trend down, how fast is the decline and how low will the decline go? in other words, if 1,300 people,
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or about that number, keep walking in the door, then you're going to have a hospitalization rate proportionate with the number of people walking in the door. so we want to see the number of people walking in the door reduced, the number of new infections reduced, so we hit a low plateau, if you will, but we don't know what that is and we don't know when it is. and if you look at the number of incoming cases, it's been remarkably flat for the past several days. so that's the best indicator of how containment is working and how the close-down policies are working. and over the past few days, we basically flattened at 1,300 new cases a day, which is not great. we'd like to see those new cases reducing even more, and we'd like to see them reducing
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faster. you then have other long-term questions. is there a second wave of the virus? we talked about the 1918 pandemic. it came in three waves. is there a second wave? does the virus mutate and come back? the federal officials are starting to talk about the fall and potential issues in the fall. they're worried about the virus waning somewhat during the summer. remember, that talk will go away when the weather gets warm. nobody is really saying it will go away when the weather gets warm in the summer, but there's still a theory that the virus could slow during the summer but then come back in the fall. if it comes back in the fall, then it comes back with a normal flu season. that's then problematic because you are then, quote, unquote, testing for the flu and you're testing for covid on top of all
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the other tested you do. that could be a possible overwhelming of the testing system. if people could have the flu or could have covid in the fall and they don't know which it is, they could get nervous and start going into the health care system which could then bring back a capacity issue in the health care system. that's something we have to worry about and watch. nursing homes, they are a top priority. they have been from day one. remember how the nursing home system works. they are private facilities. they get paid to provide a service. they get regulated by the state government. there are certain rules and regulations that they must follow, and we put in additional rules and regulations on nursing homes in the midst of this crisis. staff must have appropriate ppe. they must have their temperatures checked before they come in to the facility. there are no visitors who are coming into the facility, which
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is a tremendous hardship, but it's necessary to protect public health. if they have a covid-positive person in the facility, that person has to be in quarantine. they have to have separate staff for the covid residents versus the non-covid residents. if they can't care for the person in the facility, they have to transfer the person to another facility. the nursing home is responsible for providing appropriate care. if they cannot provide that care, then they have to transfer the person to another facility. they have to notify residents and family members within 24 hours if any resident tests positive for covid, or if any resident suffers a covid-related death. that is a regulation that they have to follow. and they have to readmit
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covid-positive residents, but only if they have the ability to provide the adequate level of care under department of health ncdc guidelines. if they do not have the ability to provide the appropriate level of care, then they have to transfer that patient, or they call the department of health and the department of health will transfer that patient, right? that is how the relationship works. the state has very strict guidelines on privately run facilities. they get paid to take care of a resident. that resident, that patient, must have a state-directed level of care. if they cannot provide that, they can't have the resident in their facility, period. those are the rules. we're going to undertake an investigation of nursing homes now to make sure they're
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following the rules. it's going to be a joint department of health and attorney general investigation. but noticthose are the rules. they get fpaid to take care of resident and they have to do it in accordance with state rules, and if they don't, we will take appropriate action. and the state department of health and the attorney general are going to be commencing an investigation to make sure all those policies are in place and being followed. if they're not being followed, they can be subjected to a fine or they can lose their license. it's that simple. testing is going to be a major operation that happens from now until the situation is over. it's new, it's technical, it's complex, it's a political football. but testing does a number of things for us.
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number one, it reduces the spread of the virus by finding people who are positive, tracing their contacts and isolating them. that's a function of testing. testing also, what they call antibody testing, you test people to find out if they have the antibodies. why? because if they have the antibodies, they can donate blood for convalescent plasma which is one of the therapeutic treatments. so you want to find people who had it so you can identify them to donate for convalescent plasma. the testing also can tell you the infection rate in the population where it's higher, where it's lower to inform you on a reopening strategy and then when you start reopening, you
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can watch that infection rate to see if it's going up, and if it's going up, slow down on the reopening strategy, okay? so there are different forms of testing for different purposes. all of them are important. it was vital for any state, i believe, to first get a baseline study of where you are on the infection rate. all we know to date is the hospitalization rate. how many people are coming into hospitals? that is all we have been tracking. that's all we know. and then from that, you've had all sorts of anecdotal extrapolations on the hospitalization rate saying, i think the infection rate is this, i think the infection rate is that. i said, i want to have the infection rate. so we have undertaken the largest, most comprehensive
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study of new york state to find out what is the infection rate. and that we started a few days ago, sample size so far of 3,000 people statewide. let's find out what the infection rate is. we have preliminary data on phase 1 and this is going to be ongoing. i want to see snapshots of what's happening with that rate, is it going up or flat or going down. we did 3,000 surveys in about 19 counties and 40 localities across the stay. the surveys collected from grocery stores and box stores and etcetera, that is important because that means you are
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testing people who by definition are out of the home and not at work. what does it mean? i don't know. these people are out and about shopping. they were not people in their homes or isolated. they're not people who are quarantined or who you would argue have a lower rate of infection because they would not come out the house. these people were not at work so they are not essential workers. that has to be calibrated. 13.9% tested positive for having the antibodies.
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what does it mean? these are the people that accepted and developed the antibodies to fight the infection. they were infected three weeks ago and four weeks ago and five weeks ago or six weeks ago. they have the virus and they developed the antibodies and they are recovered, just about 14%. male close to 50% and female 52%. regionally, long island at 16.7%. this is what we have been seeing
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antidotal antidotally. the rest of the state, 3.6. 70% of the cases we had in the state. west chester/rockland we had a significant problem. west chester had the hottest cases at one time. long island is 16.7, it is not far behind new york city. it is significantly worse than west chester/rockland. there is variations by numbers. by race.
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asian 11.7%. black of 22.1%. this reflects the regional break down. african-american and latinos are in this survey disproportionately from new york city. new york city is at 21%. latino number is 22%. upstate white which is 9%, 3.6 in the survey. by age, nothing extraordinary here. we did not survey anyone under 18. so it starts at 18 years old. 45-54 is 16%.
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75 plus 13%. it is a small percentage of the total. again, how many 75 years old shopping and about. that's the group that's supposed to be isolating. 55-64 also. that's a distribution. the sample were people who were outside the home, we had to isolate that. what does it do to the numbers? if the infection rate is 13.9% then it changes the cheeritheor what the death rate is if you get infected. 50% of the population is about 2.7 million people who had been infected.
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if you look at what we have now which is the death total. first, it is preliminary data, it is only 3,000. 3,000 is a significant data set. it is still preliminary. when we say there are 15,500 deaths. that number is going to go up. those deaths are hospitalizations in nursing homes deaths. those are not at-home deaths. these does not include people dying in their home. we have to compile all that data. the at home deaths, you have to find out what was the cause of
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those at home deaths and add them to the number of deaths connected to covid. it is complicated because in california they're now finding deaths that go back to last december or january that they believe were covid-19 related and people didn't know about covid at that time. if you go back to december and january and start to look at the number number of deaths and check them for a covid-related death, i don't know how you will do that. you will see that total number of deaths going up. that 15,500 is not an accurate total number of deaths in my opinion. well, it is not an accurate number of deaths because it does
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not count at-home deaths. it is not accurate because there has been many other deaths that's not tested for covid. with those caveats, that's what we see in the survey. it supports the decision that we talk about to have a regional analysis and decision making. upstate new york. what you do in a place of 21% is not the same thing necessarily that you would do in a place with 3.6%. it is just not. it is the same theory that some states open now and new york does not because the facts should dictate the action and if the facts dictate the action, we heard different action. when we talk about a regional analysis on reopening, that's
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exactly right because look at the facts in that area. what you do in a region still has to be coordinated because you have demand in the whole tri-state area where one region opens up for business, you can see people coming in from the tri-state area and overwhelming that region. we try to rationalize with connecticut and new jersey because there had been facilities in connecticut that were open a. yes, region analysis but understand that regional analysis that you still exist in the tri-state area where
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millions of people who are looking at something to do to get out of the house and put the kids in the car and go. so that has to be factored in. we have to do more to get testing in the african-american, latino community. we talked about disparity, this state does not have that disparity that we have seen in the state. there could be a number of factor where you can have higher percentages of positives, health disparities and under lying illness and diabetes and etc. i believe you have a greater percent percentage of many who are african-american and latino
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