>> announcer: this is cnn breaking news. hello, everyone, i'm kate baldwin, thank you for joining us. the united states just hit a milestone that people may have seen coming but it is hard to believe and stomach as the number of coronavirus cases in the country now tops 1 million. and the u.s. now accounting for a third of the world's coronavirus cases. doubling in just over two weeks. and some additional very sad perspective on all of this, the current u.s. death toll now over 57,000 is about to pass the number of americans killed in the vietnam war. that is three months compared to two decades of violent conflict. at the very same time there is a change from the cdc. now highlighting seven covid models on the website. one of which nearly doubling the death toll projections between now and august. another model often cited by the white house has now raised the projected u.s. death toll to

74,000 by august in part because of all of the signs we've seen out there that people are heading back out into public. the sobering numbers are just one reason the top doctor behind the model cited by the white house tells cnn right now is not the time to be reopening. and dr. fauci seems to share that concern in a new interview just this morning. listen. >> if we are unsuccessful or prematurely try to open up, and we have additional outbreaks that are out of control, it could be much more than that. it could be a rebound to get us right back in the same boat that we were in a few weeks ago. >> a few weeks ago was not a good place. let's get to florida. rosa flores in miami. rosa, florida governor ron desantis was just meeting with the president at the white house and talking about his reopening plans for florida, for the

state. what are you hearing about those plans? >> reporter: you know, what we heard from the oval office is that governor ron desantis will be announcing the reopening plan for the state of florida sometime tomorrow. now he did not give any details. he did not tell us exactly what is going to happen. what we did hear, though, is a lot of the same things that we hear during press conferences related to covid-19 here and that is a lot of patting himself on the back for the successes of the state. take a listen. >> the most draconian orders issued in some of the states and compare florida in terms of our hospitalizations per 100,000, in term of our fatalities per 100,000. you go from d.c., maryland, new jersey, new york, connecticut, massachusetts, michigan, indiana, ohio, illinois, you name it, florida has done better and i'm not criticizing those states but everyone in the media said florida would be like new york or italy and that has not happened because we understood

we have a big diverse state and we understood the outbreak was not uniform throughout the state. >> reporter: now what governor desantis has not provided details about the reopening plan. sarasota county have reopened beaches and here where i am, miami-dade county is expecting to reopen parks, waterways and golf courses starting tomorrow with some restrictions. kate. >> rosa, thank you. so the white house is also right now facing pushback today over its latest strategy on the single most important aspect of getting the country open safely again. which is testing. the white house unveiled new guidelines and new testing targets yesterday in a rose garden event. the president saying pretty boldly at one point that testing is not going to be a problem at all. but it largely, the strategy, it leaves states to shoulder most of the responsibility, designating the federal

government as a quote/unquote supplier of last resort. a white house hovel told cnn that the goal is to test 2% of people in each state per month. a target that a wide range of experts says is not nearly enough. >> that's 7 million a month. that's way too little. just to put a number on it, it would take four years to test every american. you would think everybody at the white house would be focused on this 24/7. they keep low balling it. i don't get it. it is fundamental to getting our lives back. >> fundamental to getting our lives back. joining me now is drew griffin who is looking into this. talk about the white house strategy and why it is facing the criticism so quickly? >> reporter: well, because it was a blueprint for change is what it was billed at but not much change at all. one governor telling our dana bash it is a plan to have a plan. not really a plan itself.

and palty murray from washington state trashed this plan as nothing more than the white house kind of patting itself on the back. if you look at the plan, the plan for the white house is to dump everything on the states. i don't know how to put it. that includes getting the supplies, which have been the most problematic, kate. the federal government would enable innovation and provide strategic guidance but look at what the state and the private sector needs to do. formulate and implement the testing plans and on the private sector to meet the supplies of the states. when the white house put out its actual testing plan, look at the first thing they say. acting as a supplier of last resort. the supplies is what is holding everybody back. states, labs, they can't get these supplies. they were looking for federal guidance to try to have some kind of oversight. the american association of medical colleges sent dr. birx a letter saying just this, we don't have the supplies, saying

that not one of these components in terms of supplies is readily available in sufficient quantities to each and every lab that needs them. i don't see anything in this blue print for change that changes that and that is what we are reporting today. many states, many health departments just do not have those swabs, vials, re-agents we've been talking about over and over again for weeks now. >> and continues to pit states against states trying to get to the supplies which is exactly what we've heard for weeks now. thank you, drew. joining me now for more on this is dr. amish dalla from john's hopkins center for health security. we've talked about testing so many times. i want to get your reaction to the white house's testing target here of at least 2% and putting the line at 2% each month. if that is as much as the white house can and is hoping for, what does that say to you? >> so you're not right sizing

this response because there may be places where you have to do more than 2% and there are places where 2% is okay. this is not a homogenous outbreak and you want to do testing to get to a point where they're confident in reopening and having hospitals praoperate a way so we want to not set a specific ceiling and that is different in different places and we want to get to a point where doctors could order the tests without worrying about reagent or nasal swab or having any problems with the supply and we're not there in many parts of the country. >> daeft not there. and the white house testing are also -- i'll play it for you said this today about testing on abc. >> the tests are absolutely important. they're critical. they will be expanded dramatically as we reopen but it is not the only tool we have in the tool box. >> but we have been told all along, doctor, that testing is essentially the whole ball game

of getting people back in public safely. so what do you make of that statement? can you just remind folks why testing is really the linchpin to getting this right. >> because we really need to know who is infected and who isn't and tie that to public health interventions like the case finding and the case int interviewing as we move to the next stage, that is contingent upon a positive test. so this is something that you can't understate. and it is one part of the tool box. but it is a major part of the tool box. and itly needs to be robust and it should not have anything that is compromising the ablility to test. if you can't do the testing, all of the rest of that will basically fall. >> and what you're saying is a reminder of just why it seems governors, doctors, everybody seems to be banging their head against the wall on this. because the white house is now making clear that from its

position the federal government as they've said should be considered the suppliers of last resort, for getting the things that we're talking about. is that the right strategy? >> no. we need federal coordination. you don't want states bidding against each other and doing international deals that the federal government should be doing. we've heard about maryland getting 9 million tests from south korea. we want there to be a coordinated response just like ventilators because the federal government has the ability to coordinate if they choose to do so and that is where we want to to see. right now everybody is out there on our own, all 50 states and within the states we have counties and hospital systems all on their own. they want to have it much more smoother because we can't be like this forever. >> this is consistent testing. this is not one test and done. this is consisting testing to make sure things are working and these policies put in place, that people are doing it right. doctor, thank you so much. >> thank you.

i want to get back to what dr. fauci was talking about today. his concern that if states open too quickly, the virus could rebound to where the country was a few weeks ago. there is new data out that backs that up. from a study of 200 counties across the country and joining me is a director of policy lab at children's hospital of philadelphia dr. david ruben creating this model that i'm talking about. it is good to see you. >> thanks for having me. >> thank you. your model is taking a look at the county level of the impact that social distancing and other factors are having on the spread of covid but how reopening, say, in midmay could impact that and it looks like there is good news and bad news when it comes to rural counties versus urban counties. can you explain. >> yeah. it is a mixed picture. i think national and state models don't pick up how different areas of the state are having different outbreaks with

the covid epidemic. what we chose to do here at policy lab and visit the policy at polly lab.chop.edu and as we look across counts in the country we want to give the experience of what would happen if they tried to reopen and so by using models that were much more refinded for local areas we've been able to see some places may be able to ready to reopen and others like the large cities are not yet ready. >> in the densely urban areas, from the model that you're seeing, how bad could it get if the stay at home restrictions and social distancing is lifting too soon. >> to me the clearest -- the clearest checkpoint that these areas need to pass, if you will, is that they need to degrade the number of cases in the area. so even if you have the same

risk of transmission, it matter whether you start with five cases that double to ten or 500 cases that double to a thousand. and these large densely populated cities, they don't have a lot of margin for error. now that said, we have new scenario models that will be out later this week which is if they delay just a little bit and give themselves time to erode the cases, if you will, in terms of new cases and if they go more cautiously around mitigation strategies, i think you could find it would have significant impacts. >> finding that sweet spot is everything at this moment. i read in an interview that you were more optimistic before you started doing this modeling. why is that? what did you see here that is troubling you so much? >> well, i think we learned sort of fairly quickly over the last few weeks that the mortality rate, we continue to fluctuate in terms of what is the true estimate of mortality here and i think i began to learn as we did this model that not only were we

finding that the sars covid virus was more contagious but some indications in the densely populated areas that being in close crowded conditions could increase theino oculus. and that is sobering. and that is extra reason why these large densely populated cities have to be very careful, consider waiting that extra week or two is really important in those areas. and also going more cautiously. we shouldn't underestimate the value as people come out of their homes and come out of confinement that they're going to be wearing masks in indoor locations, that there is strong workplace safety rules, to assure that people working on a factory floor are protected, protected both employees and the consumers alike. >> it is a really fascinating look on the county level. i appreciate it. thanks, doctor. >> you're welcome. >> coming up, most vaccines take

over a year to develop for sure. but could one group of scientists working on a coronavirus vaccine have something a touch sooner. we'll get the very latest on the vaccines being tested right now. and later president trump suggested that disinfectant could treat covid-19, that thing he said on thursday. now poison control in one state is reporting a dramatic up tick involving cleaning chemicals.

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right now researchers around the world are in a race to come up with a vaccine for the coronavirus. it is the one thing that everyone is poin-- pointed to ae sure fire way to turn the tide on the horrible virus.

the world health organization said seven teams, three in china, three in the u.s. and one in the u.k. are in human clinical trials right now. so what does that mean for getting a vaccine to the public? cnn medical correspondent list beth cohen is joining me now. where do things stand? where do things stand with trials and research? >> you know, it is interesting, kate, to look backwards, it is amazing that we've come as far as we have just in the past couple of months. this virus didn't exist at the end of last year. so let's take a look at where we're headed. seb are underway. there are 82 more in the works. so seven are giving the vaccines to real life human beings. 82 are preparing to. they are still in the labs. most of these will fail. and that is okay. because the world does not need 89 vaccines against coronavirus. it is good to have this competition to see which will work the best and also some might work better for older people than younger people. there are all sorts of variations that could happen.

but certainly most will fail and keep that in mind when we hear exuberant talk about any one vaccine. >> and of course the timeline is all along been 12 to 18 months and it seems to be as quick -- as quick as it could possibly be. when a vaccine is approved, is there a protocol already in place for who would get it first? >> it is interesting, there is not a protocol per se and there is concern that developed countries with more money will sort of grab them up and that is interesting to see what they do. another interesting point is that before it's approved, it is possible that high risk people like health care providers on the fron line, they may be able to get access by being a part of the clinical trial. so some people might get access to it even before it is approved. >> good to see you, elizabeth, thank you so much. still ahead, president trump is telling governors to, in his words, seriously consider opening schools back up before the school year is out.

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43 states have announced that they have ordered or recommended that public schools remain closed and in their state for the rest of the school year. but apparently don't tell that to trump. during a call with governors yesterday the president pressed them to consider sending kids back to school before the school year is out because, quote, young children have done very well in this disaster. the president then said this in the rose garden. >> i think you're seeing that. you're seeing a lot of governors get out and they want to open it up. many are thinking about their school system, not a long way to go into the school system for the season, for the year but i think you'll see schools open up for a very short period of time. i think it is a good thing. >> a good thing. and one of the people that has to make the tough call. michael hinojosa from the dallas independent school district in texas. great to see you. thank you for being here.

we heard from the president. he thinks it is a good thing if schools could open up before the school year is out. what do you say to that right now? >> well, kate, thanks for having me. first of all, we're thankful that our governor has decided to shut down for the rest of the school year and made that very public. whether this first started we knew things were changing by the hour so it is in the best interest that we finish the year the way we are doing, virtual education and then start planning for next year. >> and that plan is something that everyone is wondering what is it going to look like in the fall. and i read that you were considering a split schedule of sorts potentially for the fall. half of the students attending school in person monday and wednesday, and half then attending tuesdays and thursdays. honestly, michael, right now, what do you think school in dallas is going to look like? >> well, we've got plan a. that everybody shows up under no restrictions but it is very

unlikely that plan a. will ever happen so we have to plan for other things. public education is the one industry that never changes. you have the statement routine for school arrival and it is masses of bodies and the same routine for lunch and massive bodies and with the current restrictions we have to have an alternative. so that is why we're considering minimizing the number of students that come on certain days and also staggering the arrivals and then having lunch in the classrooms so that you don't have the situation, have one-way hallways. there are so many routines that we deal with every day that will protect our students under these conditions, we have to have multiple plans as to where we are in all of this. >> do you think that you'll have to have students and faculty wearing masks? >> i'm afraid at this current rate, probably. we're going to prepare for it and purchase and have everything secured ready to go. we prepare for the worst and expect the best. so we could have that

opportunity to pivot and go back to normal setting. we would much prefer to do that. but students need to be able to interact with teachers and classmates. and it is a bit restrictive with a mass but we're going to listen to the health professionals and if they say do it, we're going to do it. >> it is a big part of students' life, after-school activities. you're in texas. is there going to be football in the fall? >> well we have two sports, football and spring football. in all serious, we have volleyball and everything else. but football is king and it is a contact sport and there is a lot of issues with that. so we may have have to have an alternative or delay the season or do something differently. this is uncharted territory that we have to prepare for and friday night lights, fans that go to games and so there are things to be prepared for, no telling where we end up with the situation in a few short months. >> how scary is the proposition

of you bringing faculty and students back into school and then seeing the spike in the virus in your school system. >> well, we're very concerned about that. because parents will forgive us for a few things but they won't forgive us if something happens to the health of their students under our care, custody and control so we're going to take every precaution possible, we're going to have plans and back-up plans and safety measures but the students need to be back, the parents need to be at work. so we have to come up with multiple ways to make this work. but safety and health is going to be our trump card as it keeps us in line with what we should be doing. >> and you've got a love the competing pressures, right. when you have -- do you consider hearing from the white house and the president saying it would be good to open up sooner, do you -- does that feel like more pressure on you could hear that coming from the white house? >> well, it is an issue that we

have to pay attention to but we have to listen to our local businesses, our local leaders in how we work together here in dallas. every situation is different. we'll monitor the situation. but, yes, there is always that little ear that you have something in your ear about. we want everybody to come back because you're adding to the work force. that is one of the cogs in the wheel that makes america run. but safety is still primary for us. >> michael thank you for what you're doing. we're with you. and good luck. it is not an easy call no matter how it works out. but you'll look out for the best of your students so thank you. >> thank you so much for having me. still ahead for us, kansas health officials are reporting a big increase in cases involving cleaning chemicals. what is happening there. the state's health secretary joins us next. they are compelled to step forward.

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a book that you're ready to share with the world? get published now, call for your free publisher kit today! a 40% increase, that is what the poison control center in kansas said it was dealing with monday. a 40% increase in cases specifically involving cleaning chemicals days after the president of the united states made the ridiculous and dangerous suggestion that maybe injecting disinfectants into the human body to treat coronavirus and shu be studied. the health secretary of kansas saying at a news conference one case involved a man who drank a product because of the advice he received. joining me is that health care

specialist dr. lee norman. i have questions about what is happening on the ground in kansas in the fight against the coronavirus. but first just on this. the president shrugged off any questions about upticks in calls to poison control centers. what are you hearing in your state? >> well, we are seeing an uptick in the numbers. it is not entirely due to ingesting the substances, but we did get very specific calls of people that drank a substance, the one man you mentioned, there are others that called in and had the good sense to say i heard this is a do it yourself way to prevent the coronavirus and is this good and it was good to have the calls so the answer would be no. >> that is a good thing. everyone needs to take responsibility for what they're putting into their bodies. but dr. norman, do you think you would have gotten so many calls if the president hadn't said this from the white house? >> you know, there is always

accidental ingestions, kids that get into things so there is always x number of calls. maybe about 50 calls a month to the poison center for accidental or suicidal intent but the numbers clearly uptick. some of the increase is because the parents and adults are around more, kids are home from school. so there are just more kids in approximation. but the call is asking if they should be taken internally, that is the change from the usual. >> i would hope so. on the all important issue of testing, kansas ranks last in testing for the coronavirus. the governor saying the way that -- that you are nowhere where you need to be with testing supplies. why is that? >> we just haven't been allocated those. we bought as many test kits and everything that we have. we have a lot of testing platforms. but it takes a swab, it takes transport medium and takes the

cartridges and chemicals to do the test. we've put in multiple different requests to fema and have had lots of promises. we put out millions of dollars worth of invoices to buy things but we've had overall a favorable death rate per capita, a fairly low death rate per capita and i think things are redirected from our state because of the fact that we've been doing pretty well despite the fact that we're down at the bottom in terms of testing per capita. >> going forward testing is everything. they want to be the suppliers of the last resort and testing is the responsibility of states. can you reach the level of testing that you need without federal help? >> no. and the reason is that a lot of supply clains have essentially been commandeers by fema and

others that buy the materials for their own supply chain. so they could be redirected. we've literally had semi-trucks heading toward kansas and have them been redirected before arriving at our warehouse facility. and it is not like we're hoarding them away for a rainy day. one good news i will say is that we do have enough -- we feel comfortable if people become ill we could test them but we want to do more population studies to find how much disease is out there in the population. >> that must be beyond frustrating when you have it coming your way in a semi and it is redirected just because. that must be beyond frustrating from your perspective. >> it is. and the same story with protective equipment. we feel uneasy with that. i think we eat our way through this particular bout with the covid-19. i'm sure we'll have a resurgence of it in the fall. so we're doing all sorts of

reprocessing and buying through supply chains and different channels. there is a lot of shady dealers trying to sell you junk that is not good and we don't go for it. so we have a very aggressive reprocessing plan in place and we'll be okay but not because of what we'll be able to buy on the open market. >> we'll continue to sound the alarm with you. thank you, dr. norman, for coming on. >> thank you. still ahead as businesses in some states begin to reopen, the chamber of commerce has a warning for the white house. what they want the president to consider. that's next.

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ordering meat processing plants to remain open. and doing this under the defense production act which the facilities under which, they will be declared part of the country's critical infrastructure as companies like tyson foods were warning that the food supply chain was breaking down as they were forced to close some plants because of the virus. the tyson spokesperson tells cnn the company hasn't seen the order so can't comment but adds that it is -- it's top priority is the safety of the community members and continuing to feed families across the country. that is a big thing to consider. also as states and businesses like tyson across the country are trying to prepare to reopen, a new warning is coming from a surprising source, the world's largest business organization, the u.s. chamber of commerce. in a letter to the white house, the chambers warning against new regulatory requirements on businesses but also warning to talk about more need for more consistency in the guidance from

state to state writing in part, a one side fits all regulatory approach is impossible when talking about adapting safety measures for the workplaces in the america and saying it is preference if the guidance was more uniform across the nation which will speed the safe reopening. joining me now is neal bradley from the u.s. chamber of commerce. good to see you. thank you. >> good to see you, kate. >> what is the main concern that you have that you will have about the overall strategy that you're seeing now from the white house to states. >> well, it is a two-fold concern. the first is not one that we're particularly concerned about from the administration. but we're seeing movements by activists to convert guidance into regulations. the idea that we could create a strict rule book, if you will, for all employers to follow as they take an unprecedented task of reopening the economy.

employers want to do the right thing, protect their employees and customers but every workplace is different and this is unprecedented and the idea that we'll have tape measures and rule books from washington telling people exactly how to do this isn't realistic when you're talking about millions of businesses. the second concern is that the giedsance that we're seeing and the leter that we sent was addressed to the president, to governors to the conference of mayors and to the county executives, we're seeing this proliferation of conflicting guidance at the federal, state and local level. one of the things we need to do to ease the transition into reopening and instill confidence in employees and krucustomers ae is to have a common benchmark and we think the work that the cdc and osha is doing applied through the states and down to the local level is a right way to have a guidance-based uniform approach. >> liability has been a big

question. the president said earlier today that he in this -- he's signing an executive order that could address the liability question for meat processors. but for every other company, if they have employees come back to work and the employees get sick, is the company liable. i hear that is a big concern of yours. is the employer liable. i hear that is a big concern of yours. have you gotten any answers from the white house on that? >> well, it is a bit concerning both on the ooeemployee and cus side. the fear is that they will do all of the right things that the public health officials them to do and then someone gets sick and contracted covid-19 and sues the employer and the employer is left trying to explain all of the right things that they did to follow the public health guidance. and so we've raised this concern both with the white house, but also with key members of congress. i think they

concern. most of this will have to be done through timely, targeted, and temporary changes in legislation. we're just trying to protect businesses who are doing the right thing. >> neal, thanks so much, we have to jump over to the white house. president trump is taking questions in the east room right now. let's listen in. >> -- predicted that the number of cases would go down to zero. how do we get from your prediction of zero to 1 million? >> well, it will go down to zero ultimately. you have to understand, when it comes to cases we do much more testing than anybody else. so we could go to some of these other countries, is an example, china. if you test, you're going to show many more cases. so we're testing, we're doing more testing than any other country in the world by far which we, uh, we just discussed over in the oval office. so we're going to show more cases because we're doing much, much more testing, double anybody else. somebody said if you add everybody else combined that would be a number.

and it will be -- at the appropriate time it will be down to zero. >> "the times" said the number of cases will go up, you'll have community spread. >> yeah, right. also experts, many very good experts, very good people too said this would never affect the united states, it wouldn't affect europe, it wouldn't affect anything outside of china. so we were listening to experts, we always will listen to experts. the experts got it wrong, a lot of people got it wrong, a lot of people had no idea it would be this serious. i listen to experts, uh, i'll tell you what, i did something that the experts thought i shouldn't have done. i closed down our country and our borders. i did a ban on china from coming in, other than u.s. citizens, and we did very strong checks on even our u.s. citizens. ron desantis was telling me before, when they came in, people were put into quarantine, people were checked. we're doing that now. we did something well ahead of schedule, the end of january, people were talking about this

wouldn't have an impact, as you know, even into march. i think we've done a great job in the sense that we were early. i think by banning china, by banning china and banning people coming in who would have been very heavily infected we probably saved hundreds of thousands of lives. so that i'm very proud. yeah, please. >> reporter: mr. president, secretary mnuchin as well, what about the idea of another round of stimulus payments to american taxpayers directly? democrats of course up on the hill are talking about the idea of a guaranteed income, which obviously could go on for months and months and months. what about another round of -- >> i like the idea of payroll tax consultuts, i liked that fr beginning, that's the thing i would love to see happen, a lot of economists would agree with me, a lot of people agree with me, and i think frankly it's simple. it's not the big distribution.

and it would really be an incentives for people to come back to work and for employers to high, the double tax on the company and on the person, that's what i like, something like that could happen. also i think you have to look, because a lot of people are talking -- i assume your next question will be about states. and, uh, steve and i talk about it, i talk about it with mitch and with kevin and with everybody. the problem with the states is we're not looking to recover 25 years of bad management and to give them the money that, uh, they lost, that's unfair to other states. now, if it's covid-related, i guess we can talking about abo. but we would want certain things also, including sanctuary city adjustments, because we have so many people in sanctuary cities, which i don't think are even popular even by radical left folks because what's happening is people are being protected that shouldn't be protected and a lot of bad things are happening with sanctuary cities but that's just standing up here, answering this question,

that's one of the things i think about. if we're going to do something for the states i think they probably want, uh, something having to do with sanctuary cities, something having to do with other points that we can discuss a little later on. uh, jeff, go ahead, please. >> reporter: mr. president, you're going to sign an executive order today about meat packaging plants. it affects liability for them. what efforts or measures are you looking at for liability for other industries and other businesses? >> well, we haven't been talked about, it hasn't been asked on other industries yet. with the meat packing and with the transportation, uh, we have had some difficulty where they're having a liability that's really unfair to them. and we're going to be doing that. i think, mark, we're going to be doing that fairly soon. it's getting -- it's getting drawn up. i should be signing that every the next hour or so, taking the liability, which frees up the entire system. and i fully understand it. not their fault. yeah, please, go ahead. over here first. >> reporter: mr. president, i just want to go back to what we discussed a little earlier

today. are you considering asking airlines to test passengers on international flights or domestic flights? >> yeah, we're looking at doing it on the international flights coming out of areas that are heavily infected. as you know, brazil is getting to that category. i think they're going to be okay. i hope they're going to be okay. he's a very good friend of mine. but the -- the president. but i think we're going to look at it from the standpoint, i was discussing that with the governor of florida, with ron, a little while ago. we'll be looking at that coming in from other countries, frankly, but south america is one that seems to be talked about because they have so much business going into florida. with all that being said florida is doing very well and starting to open up very rapidly. we'll be looking at into that in the very near future, we're looking at it very strongly. either the airlines or government, one or the other. we're working with the airlines. maybe it's a combination of both 4 . kristen? >> reporter: some health experts

say the u.s. needs 5 million tests per day by june in order to safely reopen. you unveiled a plan yesterday that will increase testing but not by that much. why not, and can you get to that benchmark? >> well, it will increase it and it will increase it by much more than that in the very near future. we're away ahead of everyone on testing. we haven't been given the press in terms of i think fairness of the press but that's okay. and that's why i appreciated the, uh, statement before by yahoo!. we are way ahead on testing. we are the best in the world on testing. we've tested much more than anybody else times two. or every country combined. we've tested more than every country combined. and they keep talking about south korea, and i'm very friendly, as you know, with president moon who just had a great victory, a new victory, as we're very happy about. but he will tell you how well the united states has done on testing. and he told me that very strongly. the quality of our test is the best and the number is the best.

now, with all of that being said we will be going to an even higher number and it goes up exponentially. and i've told you that. we inherited a very broken test, a broken system and a broken test and within a short period of time we were setting records so we have set records. we've done more than the entire world combined. we've done more than any other country in the world. so i think we've done a really good job. now, with that being said, not everybody feels as strongly about testing as others. we have some governors that are very strong on testing. we have other governors frankly that aren't nearly as strong on testing. their test is, uh, much more modest. and their real test is when people stop getting sick and they'll be able to do that too and i understand both systems very well. but we're going to maximum testing even though some people won't even want to use it. >> reporter: you're confident you can surpass 5 million tests per day, is that -- >> we're going to be there very soon, uh, if you look at the numbers, it could be that we're getting very close. i don't have the exact numbers.

we would have had them if you asked me the same question a little while ago because people with these statistics were there. we're going to be there very soon. we're really -- we're really doing -- i mean, i watched you report on nbc today and it was an incorrect report because we're really doing a great job on testing. unfortunately the -- the administration, the people that work our government, hasn't been given the kind of credit that it deserves. uh, last month it was about ventilators. now we have so many that we're able to give them to italy, france, spain, other countries have been asking us for ventilators. we're making over 150,000. we've distributed thousands and thousands. new york is in great shape with what we've done, as you know. new jersey is in great shape. we spoke just recently, ivanka just spoke with the governor, and they're in very good shape with ventilators. everybody has -- and most of them have far more than they'll ever need. they're starting to send them back.

so nobody went without a ventilator. and yet if you read the media from a month and a half ago it was all about ventilators. and ventilators was a tough thing. but we should be very proud of our country, we took assembly lines and they converted from cars and other things into ventilators, and the job that we've seen has not been seen since world war ii. uh, what they have done, in terms of the manufacture of very high grade ventilators. so now we don't hear about that and i notice that the testing is starting to die down because we now have the best testing anywhere in the world by far and we have more. and that's a good thing, it's a very good thing, i'm happy about it. uh, we had a call yesterday with governors and i will say that, uh, i'm sure many of you were on that call. even though you shouldn't have been, they shouldn't have been, amy, but they were, i wonder how that happened. but you heard the, uh -- the governors were thrilled. now, the following day, if you'll get a democrat on the call they'll say, you know, i

saw some of them today, they were so thrilled yesterday on a call that they thought was a closed call, and today they were good but they weren't the same as they were yesterday because that's the business. they want to try and win on november 3. but we're doing a job the likes of which nobody has ever done. and i'm not talking about myself. i'm talking about people in the army corps of engineers where we built hospitals, where we built thousands and thousands of beds all over the country. new york, what we did was incredible. 2,900 beds in a matter of days, what they've done is so incredible, and fema, what they've done, and the doctors and the professionals and all of the people you see me with all the time, these are great people, and they've really done a great sxwljob and now our cou is opening up again and i think it's going to be very, very successful. i think that -- larry is