month. >> look forward to some of those weddings ahead, even if they're by zoom. thanks for joining us. we'll see you back here tomorrow morning. i'm poppy harlow. >> i'm jim sciutto. 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. greece appealing today to summer vacationers. we want you to come here. russia's prime minister said it's impossible to predict when coronavirus restrictions will end there, and france plans to divide itself into red or green zones. that color determines how quickly lockdown measures will go away. here in the united states, now 1 million plus confirmed cases. the u.s. coronavirus death toll now outpaces the number of american war dead in vietnam. >> look at the data from the past two weeks and the deaths are coming -- not coming down. at least not down consistently.

cdc data hints that 58,000 is likely an undercount because total deaths in some of the hardest hit states are 50% above typical levels. today, just wow numbers on the depth of the economic paralysis. the american economy shrunk in the first quarter by nearly 5%. it's the first contraction since 2014. the worst drop in gdp since the pits of the 2008 financial crisis, and we know the second quarter will be worse. those new numbers make clear the urgency of restarting the economy, but these new numbers tell us most americans want to go slow. and to put health and safety first. more than two thirds of americans say they're hesitant to go to sporting events, return to school, eat out at restaurants, or return to work. the president's top experts, dr. anthony fauci, says we may have to go without baseball this year, if we cannot guarantee safety. testing, of course, a key piece of the puzzle. there's also promising talk today of possible vaccine progress. deciding who you can trust is

critical when making big decisions in the middle of a pandemic. once again, the president spinning a much more optimistic take than his top expert. >> i think what happens is it's going to go away. this is going to go away. and whether it comes back in a modified form in the fall, we'll be able to handle it. we'll be able to put out spurts. >> if by that time we have put into place all of the countermeasures that you need to address this, we should do reasonably well. if we don't do that successfully, we could be in for a bad fall and a bad winter. >> let's get straight to our chief medical correspondent, dr. sanjay gupta. i want to start with this reporting from pfizer this morning. it says it's making progress on vaccine development. could have something ready this fall on an emergency basis. what do we make of that? >> well, you know, it sounds optimistic, john. it's not the first time we have heard that kind of enthusiasm

from one of these companies that are trying to develop a vaccine. there are seven of them now that are starting these trials. 80 more than are in pretrial sort of phase. we heard from oxford that they said as well they may have something by the fall. and even the nih, dr. korbut over there who is helping spearhead that trial said an emergency use of a vaccine for maybe health care workers, for example, could be by this fall, but there's a lot of ifs here. just to give you lalittle backg the type of vaccine they're talking about is a vaccine that has never been created observe. vaccines typically take ten years or so, using a little piece of the virus to stimulate an immune response. in this case, they're basically using a blue prnprint of a compt of the virus. they had a head start, a little bit, all these companies, because of the work on the sars vaccine and the mrs vaccine in

the past, but they were able to get through the safety data a little more quickly, but we have to see. we don't know if this is going to work. it has to be tested on a large population of people where the virus is actually circulating so you can get meaningful data. and we have to see what that shows. i would love it, you would love it, everybody would love it, but we have to temper expectations a little bit here, john. >> when you see these releases from thee companies york awant to say, wow, great, but that's just it. are they building up expectations in an unreasonable way. sanjay, you're spending a lot of time studying the testing issue. obviously critical anyway, even more critical as states begin to reopen. i want you to run through your numbers, but first, i want you to listen to jared kushner, who says on fox news today, things are good. >> dr. fauci and dr. birx gave the innovation team and admiral giroir goals they would like to hit on testing. we have been able to so far exceed those goals for the month of april. somebody asked me wi it took so

long? i said, you should look at how did we do this so quickly. >> every time i talk to a mayor or governor, public health expert, they're much less rosy than that. take us through your numbers. >> one thing to keep in mind as we look at these numbers, john, is that it matters that we're increasing testing. and we are. but we did get a late start here. i'm not trying to be unnecessarily critical, but it's not just the amount of testing. it's when you're able to start it. because we started late, there probably was a lot more widespread of this virus in the country, and that's just a fact. that's a public health fact. but let's take a look at the numbers. where are we now with testing? about 5 1/2, close to 6 million tests now have been performed. if you look at, for example, what the expectation is from the white house plan in terms of where they want to get, they talk about doing 2% a month of the country. that's about 6 million to 7 million people a month. but john, the delta in terms of what they're thinking about and what these various road maps

have to get us sort of back to a path of reopening are just wildly different. i mean, they say, the harvard road map says 5 million tests a day by june. a couple months from now. and 20 million tests a day. now, to be clear, if you're doing 20 million tests a day for a month, that's 600 million tests, close to double the population of the united states. that doesn't mean -- that could be many tests for some people, right? it's maybe regular testing for a certain segment of the population to get them back to work, to give them the confidence they don't have the virus, and they're not spreading it to others. those are the numbers. john, one point i want to make and i think this will be a critical point we should stay on is there's been some real concerns even about the accuracy of these diagnostic tests. dr. michael osterholm wrote a great article about it yesterday. if you look at these tests and we can't take our eye off the ball on this, there's a 15% false negative rate on some of these tests. if it's that high. you're going to start to lose confidence in people actually

being able to trust these tests. they have to get more accurate and more widespread. >> a continuing issue. as always, appreciate your insights. a deep look at the new horrible economic numbers. the gdp shrank by nearly 5% last quarter. that's just the tip of the iceberg in the economic blow. here with me, christine romans and gina smile, a reporter. gdp down 5%, that's wow. that's been a long time since we have contracted, but we also know that's the last quarter, the one we're in right now is likely to be even worse. >> good-bye to the longest economic expansion in american history, and officially hello to the coronavirus recession. these numbers, i'm sure, are going to be revised even lower. you know, the government even said in its technical note that they couldn't even capture all the data in the last couple weeks that are going to animate these numbers. and the forecast for the third quarter, john, 20%, 30%, 40%

contraction in the u.s. economy. those are depression-level numbers. the difference between a recession becoming a depression is how washington rescues it and whether they can get the aid where it needs to go quickly. >> interesting point there. and gina, let's look at the numbers. over the last five weeks, 26.5 million americans filing for unemployment. retail spending down 9% almost in march. home sales down 21% in march. the federal reserve meeting again today. the federal reserve has even created some new weapons here to do some unpres dntded things. interest rates are about as low as they can go. to christine's point about what can washington do, what can the fed do if it can do more to try to at least keep a foundation under this sputtering economy? >> i think that's the critical question right now. you know, when you talk to fed officials, when you hear from them publicly, they'll often say what they can't do is spending. they can only do lending. what they have been setting up is a series of programs meant to keep credit flowing into the economy. that's useful, and it certainly

helps, and it can help with the rebound. the issue is it's somewhat limited at a juncture like this where what you really have is households going without income, people are not pulling in paychecks. unemployment is likely to be in the 20%, 21% in the coming report, and so in that instance, it's not super helpful to take on more debt. what these people really need is more money, so the fed is doing what it can. those tools may be limited at this point. >> christine, a lot of people have never been here in the sense that it's so bad, not just a financial crisis like we had in 2008. this is everywhere, and it's global. the ford ceo saying this on an earnings call. there is no future if we don't have an economic system that's always on. we didn't realize there was an off switch. i never had a business plan that was called pandemic. so you have all these companies trying to figure out, hey, when can we go back to work, how do we make the workplace more safe? the prognosis looking ahead, uncertain at best? >> uncertain at best because

you're starting to see these tiny steps into the economy, whether it's a mall company or the automakers trying to restart some lines. but when you survey americans, they're like, i'm not ready to go back yet. the majority are not ready to go out there as they were before. we're talking about a new kind of maybe american austerity in the next couple quarters until people feel comfortable on the health front of this, that switch metaphor is so interesting because we did flip the switch off, but you can't flip it back on. it's a dial, and that dial is controlled by the american consumer, and the american employee who wants to go shopping and go back to work. and that's the challenge. >> and you see it in the numbers, the hesitation to do that. christine and jeanna, appreciate your insights. we'll bring you back to talk about it. >> missouri lifting its stay-at-home order on monday, but one important piece of the state not ready to go along. the mayor of st. louis says the case count is not dropping fast enough to ease restrictions in the city, and officials in st. louis county, a separate suburban area, now taking the

same position. st. louis county has just shy of 3,000 confirmed coronavirus cases and 159 deaths. those deaths, nearly half of the state death total. dr. sam page is an anesthesiologist and a county executive. thanks for being with us. in your part of the state, obviously hardest hit, the governor wants to reopen. you say we need to wait. how deep is the resistance from the business community? i understand some people are even saying they may go to court. >> well, we expect some opposition. it is a little bit confusing. certainly when the governor has made a decision for the rest of the state. but he's also recognized that st. louis county is very different. we have, as you mentioned, almost half of the cases in the state. we had 20 deaths reported yesterday wrr yesterday, and we're not out of the woods yet. we took very aggressive action early on in st. louis county, one of the first jurisdictions in the country to initiate a stay-at-home order and we're in a pretty good spot as long as we don't come out of the stay-at-home order too soon.

>> define too soon? what do you think you need, two more weeks, three more weeks, don't know? >> we need the same variables to make that decision. we need a strong robust testing environment, good contact tracing in place, and we need to demonstrate that our hospitals have the capacity to handle new patients. >> i want to look at the demographics of your county. i love that area. there's st. louis city, then you move out to st. louis county. about 67%, 66% white, 20% african-american, 4% asian. is one community in your county being hit harder than others, and do you understand why the county seems to be disproportionate, if you look at the state-wide numbers, is it just population density or something else? >> it's population density, but certainly, our african-american community in the st. louis region has been hit hard, as you would expect. any community that has limited access to health care and high prevalence of chronic medical conditions is going to get hit

hard by the covid-19 virus. and this virus really has shined a spotlight on what we have known for decades, is we have serious health care disparities in the african-american community. >> dr. page, really appreciate your insights. best of luck in the days ahead. we'll check back to see if the numbers are going down. appreciate your time. >> thank you. >> thank you, sir. coming up for us, president trump orders meat packing plants to stay open. first, one business owner we introduced you to last week said reopening hasn't been what he hoped. >> we had over 40 locations across north america, and atlanta was the first location we opened up. unfortunately, it did not go according to plan. we had a total of two customers that came throughout the door the whole weekend, and i think that points to a bigger macroeconomic problem we have. atlanta is serving as the canary in the cole mine that is able to warn us and give us an indication of what customer sentiments are going to be as the closures happen.

so you can keep your patients cared for. your customers served. your students inspired. and your employees closer than ever. our network is resilient. our people are strong. our job is to keep your business connected . it's what we've always done. it's what we'll always do. navigators of the turf and keepers of the green. to the rural ramblers, back to the landers, head turners and stripe burners. run with us on a john deere mower. because this is more than just grass. it's home. search john deere mowers for more. since 1926, nationwide we've been there in person, during trying times.

today, being on your side means staying home... "nationwide office of customer advocacy." ...but we can still support you and the heroes who are with you. 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. and let me tell you something, rodeo... i wouldn't be here if i thought reverse mortgages took advantage of any american senior, or worse, that it was some way to take your home. it's just a loan designed for older homeowners, and, it's helped over a million americans. a reverse mortgage loan isn't some kind of trick to take your home. it's a loan, like any other. big difference is how you pay it back. find out how reverse mortgages really work with aag's free,

no-obligation reverse mortgage guide. eliminate monthly mortgage payments, pay bills, medical costs, and more. call now and get your free info kit. other mortgages are paid each month, but with a reverse mortgage, you can pay whatever you can, when it works for you, or, you can wait, and pay it off in one lump sum when you leave your home. discover the option that's best for you. call today and find out more in aag's free, no-obligation reverse mortgage loan guide. access tax-free cash and stay in the home you love. you've probably been investing in your home for years... making monthly mortgage payments... doing the right thing... and it's become your family's heart and soul... well, that investment can give you tax-free cash just when you need it. learn how homeowners are strategically using a reverse mortgage loan to cover expenses, pay for healthcare, preserve your portfolio, and so much more.

look, reverse mortgages aren't for everyone but i think i've been 'round long enough to know what's what. i'm proud to be a part of aag, i trust 'em, i think you can too. trust aag for the best reverse mortgage solutions. so you can... retire better.

president trump meeting this morning with agriculture leaders. that in the wake of his executive order demanding meat processing plants stay open even as they deal with big spikes in coronavirus among the workers. more than 20 of these facilities have closed because of major outbreaks. one of it largest, the tyson food plant in waterloo, iowa. omar jimenez is in green bay, wisconsin, home to another one of those closed meat plants. the president says you is to keep the food supply chain open. workers say we need to be safe. >> that's right, and look, when you look at just the three major meat packing plants in the green bay area alone, they now account for more than half of all the confirmed coronavirus cases in

this entire county. including at one, jbs, that closed over the weekend, they have more than 250 employees alone that have tested positive, along with 79 cases. and as we tried to get in touch with many of these employees, we understand it's a heavily hispanic population that has been affected here. many of them undocumented that we're told as well, so many of them are fearful to come forward with potential conditions at many of these places. now, to be fair to the three that are in operation here, they did pass cdc, state, and county inspections last week over coronavirus prevention methods, but with this executive order compelling them to keep open, if we see these numbers go up, as we have seen in many clusters across this country, the stakes of that rise even more. now, one of the major fears in this as well has been the effects on the food chain. as we have seen, as you mentioned, more than 20 closures of meat packing plants across this country, and that ripple

effect extends all the way even up to farmers who would be selling to these meat packing facilities. we spoke to one farmer in indiana who described to us what her outlook is right now amid this pandemic. >> you know, right now, our top priority is taking care of our pigs and making sure that there is pork for all of us to eat, and you know y think a lot of changes, you know, we're going to have to look at things in our farm in the future. right noul, we're definitely in survival mode and let's get through this, and then i think strategically. >> and for jbs here, they closed their facility at this location. it was their fourth location they had to close. but now, two of them reopened and we'll see if this executive order plays into the others getting online as well. >> omar jimenez, appreciate the reporting. uncertainty in the food chain, from the farmers, from the

workers. just to follow up on his point, take a look at these hot spots. 84% of the cases in southd dakoa in the home of the major smithfield plant. weld county, colorado, has 11% of the state's cases. the jbs plant there has seen more than 100 cases and 5 deaths. kim cordova is the president of the united food and commercial workers union, local chapter 7, covering colorado and wyoming, also the international union's vice president. thank you for being with us today. so the president has an executive order that says, no, we need to keep the food supply chain up and running. therefore, the plants need to stay open. you would say what? >> that he is putting the workers at risk. this is reckless and irresponsible of him to do this. these workers are the critical link to the food supply chain. they need to have the

protections that they need, and by not allowing these plants to close to properly sanitize when there's an outbreak, or to make sure that these workers have priority testing and that sick workers are not allowed to go back to work, you're going to -- they're actually, he is going to accelerate the break of the chain if they don't take care of their workforce. >> the white house says it reached out to tyson, some of the companies, as it drafted the executive order. did it reach out to the union and say what do you guys need? >> no. in fact, you know, they have tried to stifle the workers' voice. you know, they're the important part. nobody has asked them what they needed. you know, how they felt about this. workers are sick. they're human beings. they have no control over whether or not they're working in an environment with asymptomatic employees. if you force them to go back to work, because they're keeping these plants open, then there's

going to be a lot of harm and maybe more deaths happening in the plant. we had five workers die already at the jbs plant in colorado, and they reopened that plant without testing. so we still have workers that are asymptomatic. in fact, we had 20 workers just over the weekend test positive. so if you bring them back into the plant, you just start the system instead of doing what you have to do to mitigate it. and protect the workers. they're the essential part of -- they're absolutely critical and essential to the food supply chain, but you have to protect them. >> to me -- >> we need stronger laws that are enforceable. >> i'm sorry, to me, it's a fascinating debate, number one, from what we see right now, the safety of your workers. number two, is all these governors now decide we're going to send more people back to work when the people that we know like your essential workers are

getting sick. 22 plants closed at some point. 5,000 meat packer workers impacted. 1500 food prossing workers impa impacted, 20 deaths. you say in the greeley case, they're not even testing. are any of these companies deciding, okay, we need to spread people out, maybe we need to bring in some partitions? we need to do testing? we need to spread out the break areas, or are they just saying come back to work? >> no, this is why closing the plant was, you know, it was important. while the plant was closed, jbs did go in and they have put in some plexiglass dividers. they have made some structural changes to help mitigate, you know, the problem with social distancing, but the biggest problem is that allowing a workforce to go back to work without companywide testing, that's a problem. because it's almost impossible in some areas of those plants to

social distance. and if you don't know that you have the symptoms, you know, are you going to work in the same way you would, you know, and not be careful about how close you got to somebody? there's a lot of fear with workers. and if you have an unhealthy workforce, you can't be as productive. it is -- you know, our workers, our members are not irreplaceable or disposable objects. >> kim cordova, appreciate your insights. please stay in touch as the conversation continues and this debate continues about whether workers are safe as the president says go back to work. thanks again very much. >> back here in washington, president trump pushing states to reopen, meeting this hour with a governor taking a slower proosz. louisiana governor john bel edwards just extended his stay-at-home order through mid-may. we'll bring you there if there is news. it comes amid a white house messaging reshuffling.

the president frustrated with the coronavirus task force briefings, looking for other ways to communicate. you could say it's been a rough experience so far. in february, the president predicted we would be down to zero cases soon, and that the virus would disappear in april. you see the numbers on your screen. we have more than a million cases and more than 50,000 americans died so far in april. yet the president somehow insisting yesterday he called it right. >> it will go down to zero ultimately, and you have to understand, when it comes to cases, we do much more testing than anybody else, so we can go to some of these other about countries, for example, china, if you test, you're going to show more cases. we're doing more testing than any other country by far, and at the appropriate time, it will be down to zero like we said. >> let's discuss with two great white house reporters. "washington post" correspondent tola oranima, and tamara keith. the president can't erase the things he said in february, but he continues to try.

ultimately, it would be down to zero, he says. what's your take so far, the president has decided i don't like those briefings, i'm going to do more press conferences, get away from dr. fauci and dr. birx to a degree. how is it going? >> well, what they're trying to do is push out a positive message, which is why you have what you had yesterday, where they're pushing the idea that ppp has been successful in bringing forward some success stories. what they're trying to do is go on the offense with their message, and they're trying to shift the focus. whether they will actually succeed at shifting the focus, you know, the white house, the president, is ready to move on to the economic recovery phase. and wants to find positive stories, but i moon, look at gdp today, and that was based on basically two weeks of coronavirus shutdowns. so as much as the white house is going to try to push forward a new story, the old public health story, the public health crisis

isn't gone yet. >> no, not at all gone. and this has been a bit of inconsistency sometimes. maybe some is understandable, but last week, the president is telling the governor of georgia, slow down, you're doing too much too soon. of late, he's leaning in, pushing states to recover. there's a reason why, the economy is in tatters, it's an election year. i'm noticing message dissonance. this is the president yesterday being rather optimistic. >> i think what happens is it's going to go away. this is going to go away. whether it comes back in a modified form in the fall will be able to handle it, we'll be able to put out spurts, and we're very prepared to handle it. >> what i have found interesting, listen here, this is dr. fauci and dr. birx. now that they're not on the same stage with the president and they tend to be doing more individual interviews, to me, tell me if you think i'm right, they're starting to sound much more cautious, not as optimistic as the president. >> if we are unsuccessful or

prematurely try to open up, it could be a rebound to get us right back in the same boat. it's not going to disappear from the planet. >> social distancing will be with us through the summer. to really insure that we protect one another. >> do you agree with that, that they sound a bit more less optimistic, i guess, than they do when they have to stand right next to the president? >> i do agree. i do think they're starting to sort of talk past the president, past the white house, down to the governors, down to the american people and telling them, even if the president is trying to cheerlead the country and say all these positive messaging about how things are going to be back to normal and we have heard similar messages from the vice president saying look to memorial day, we have heard jared kushner say by june orjuly, everything will be back to normal, the health experts are saying it's not going to be a snap back to normalcy.

it's a situation where we have to continue social distancing, the president's idea that it all disappears and it won't come back in the fall is based on a fallacy, and they're really trying to distance themselves from some of the messages the president has put up, in part because not being on the same stage, they're able to contradict the president, maybe hope he doesn't see some of the interviews, and sort of not have that awkward situation where the president is proposing something like, you know, injecting bleach into the body and having them have to figure out a way to sort of massage that message and make it sound not as bad as it actually is. when they're independent, when they're speaking directly to the american people on their own, they can put that much more disciplined and much more sort of hard medicine type of message in which we're going to have to stick with social distancing for quite a while, and there's a potential this virus comes back in the fall. >> and tamara, one of the things we see in public opinion poll, two things, number one, the american people, this is a consumer driven economy, and they're reluctant. you see americans across the

board saying slow down. my governor says reopen, the president wants to reopen, i'm not ready to reopen. i'm not ready to go into a restaurant, to ease the social distancing guidelines. another thing we see in this npr/maris poll, is the president's disapproval when it comes to handling the coronavirus is up. approval rating, still 44% in both april and march, but look at the disapproval rating in april, jumping up to 55% from 49%. that has to be a number that 30s president, has to sting him and his staff because they know they're in the middle of a pandemic. they're also in the middle of a re-election year. >> they absolutely are in the middle of a re-election year. and what you're seeing in some of these numbers with public opinion about social distancing is you're starting to see a little bit of a partisan divide in there. where republicans in part because president trump is the leader of the republican party, and his messaging is all about we have to get back, republicans are a little more eager to return, but overwhelmingly, the american public is afraid. yeah, i interviewed governor

dewine of ohio somewhat recently, and he was saying, you know, it doesn't matter what i say. it doesn't matter what the president says. what matters is whether people, consumers, are willing to go into restaurants, as you say, willing to go to sporting events. it doesn't matter if it's available, if they're scared, if they can't be reassured, then there's a problem. people won't go back out there. so it continues to be an issue where the president, the public health officials need to come up with a plan that makes people feel comfortable if you're going to be able to see an economic recovery too. >> and the president has to come up with a plan about how he wants to communicate, and it's been a bit shattershot. uncharted territory, but one of the fascinating things is the president's own political team and republicans across washington trying to get the message to the president, you mentioned maybe we can just have

some -- some sunlight inside the body or somehow inject disinfectants in the body. the president says he was musing aloud. they can try to explain it away. it's reckless medical advice from the podium. a lot of messaging has been, and the president likes to control things, he likes to control the message. he likes to control the media, if you will, his appearances. but the incoming has been please dial it back. you're hurting yourself. >> yeah, we have heard from top republicans that they would rather hear from the medical experts, and they have sort of hinted to the president that the american people, the potential voters in the november election, would rather hear more from dr. fauci and dr. birx and some of the medical experts than having the president speak for the majority of the time in the briefings. that has not squared well with the president who is sort of addicted to the media spotlight. he likeathize rating his briefings get, even after tweeting over the weekend, what's the point of the briefings, and a lot of reporting he was going to scale the briefings back.

he's still gone out and spoken to reporters, spoken to the public, spoken in front of the cameras for the majority of this week and spoken much more at the briefings than any of the medical experts. it seems like he's taking more control while his advisers and republicans are saying allow the medical experts to seize the spotlight. >> he trusts his gut and trusts his instincts. it did work for him in 2016. we'll see if it works for him again. appreciate the reporting and insights. we're standing by to hear from the new york governor, andrew cuomo. we'll take you there live when it happens.

i'm jo ann jenkins with aarp. in these challenging times, we need each other more than ever. we may be apart, but we're not alone. use aarp community connections to find or create a mutual aid group near you. stay connected and help those in need.

to find or cwho've got their a mutueczema under control.rs, with less eczema, you can show more skin. so roll up those sleeves. and help heal your skin from within with dupixent. dupixent is the first treatment of its kind that continuously treats moderate-to-severe eczema, or atopic dermatitis, even between flare ups. everybody knows joe friday, my daughters tell me that nobody knows him, and nobody knows what i'm talking about. but that's okay. because what he would say is just the facts, ma'am. just the facts, ma'am. very droll, dry. because people want to give their editorial comments, what i think this, i think this. no, no, no. let's just start with the facts. just the facts, ma'am. that's what we do. joe friday. get to know him.

hospitalization rate ticks down. good news. net change down, that's good news. intubations down. that's good news. covid hospitalizations, new ones per day, just about flat. that's not great news. actually, up a tick. so that is not good news. what we're watching now is how fast the decline, how low does it go. we don't want to see 1,000 new cases every day. we would like to see that in the low hundreds ideally of new cases every day. death rate, terrible news. 330. you see the decline has been slow at best and still

disgustingly high. so we're making progress. that's for sure, but we're not out of the woods yet. and we're proceeding with caution. and there are caution signs out there that we should pay attention to. singapore is talking about a second wave with 900 new cases. this is after they controlled the beast. they were on the decline. they're now looking at new cases. germany is a situation that we should also watch and learn from. they relaxed and started to reopen. they're now seeing an increase. these are interesting. the rate of infection, which is what we watch, was at .7. one person infecting .7%. obviously, less than one person.

1% infection rate is one person infecting one person. they were at .7. they started to reopen. in ten days, they went up to a one on the infection rate. that's troubling. shows you how fast the infection rate can increase. if you don't do it right on the reopening. so proceed with caution. our reopening is different. we don't have a conceptual plan. we don't have an abstract plan. because there is no conceptual plan. there is no abstract plan. you have to have a plan that is based on facts, based on specifics. this is not about politics. this is not about spin. this is not about emotion. there are no conspiracy theories at work here. we outlined a 12-step plan that is factual, that is based on numbers, based on data.

and then it has a numerical circuit breaker that is not subject to personal emotion or desire but just checks and monitors that infection rate that we just saw in germany and is watching for those increases. and if there's an increase, circuit breaker stops the reopening at that point. some of the specifics we're looking at, you must have 30% of your hospital beds available. we can't go back to where we were, where we overwhelmed the hospital system. we have to have a 30% buffer. we have to have 30% of icu beds. we have to have that buffer before we start bumping up against total capacity. and we have to watch the hospitalization rate and the diagnostic testing rate, how many are positive, how many are

negative, which will take on a continuous basis. you see that number start going up, worry. but it's all based on the data and the numbers. i'm sorry. and the rate of transmission, rt, rate of transmission, rate of transmission has to be 1.1% or less. we just said germany is at .1. because 1.1, that is textbook outbreak. so watch the numbers and watch the transmission rate. and how do you do that? you do that with testing, right? and that's why everybody is talking about testing. the testing allows you to continually test sample how many people, how many people are positive, how many people are negative. you see the positives start to increase through your day-to-day testing. that is a pause sign.

we're about doing about 20,000 tests. we said we wanted to double that. we're now on average about 30,000 tests per day. which is a dramatic increase. not where we need to be, but a dramatic increase. where we are now, you should know, is new york state is doing more than most countries are doing. so we have been very aggressive in testing. and we have made great progress, and new yorkers should feel good about that, but we have more to do. on elective surgeries, we had canceled all elective surgeries so we could have increased capacity in the hospitals. when you cancel elective surgeries, hospitals feel a financial pinch because that's where they make their money, is on elective surgeries. so for areas that don't have a fear of a covid surge, we're going to allow elective

surgeries to begin. that's primarily in counties upstate, again, counties where we're still worried about a surge in the covid beds, we're not going to open it up to elective surgery until we know we're out of the woods on the covid virus. and this is a list of counties that are eligible now for elective surgeries. i'll do an executive order on that today. we have been worried about frontline worker because they are the heroes who are out there every day. so everybody else can stay home. somebody asked me yesterday on a radio interview, well, you know, you're out there every day. are you taking care of yourself. i'm out there every day. forget me. i'll tell you who's out there every day. the nurses who are in the emergency room, the doctors in the emergency room, the police officer who is going into homes and apartments because there's a domestic disturbance, the emts,

the fire department, the delivery worker who goes to 50 doors a day and gets paid. those people are out there every day. so they're the ones who are really doing the work. compared to them, what i do is de minimis. and they're doing it, not because they get paid a lot of money, not because people say thank you, god bless you. they're doing it because it's their value. and their honor, and their pride, and their dignity, and they show up. even when it's hard, they show up. my hat is off to them. but i want to make sure that we do what we need to do to protect them, that they have the equipment, they have the ppe, they have our respect, they have our gratitude, and i also want to make sure we're testing so we get them the results of tests so they can be taking care of themselves. i also want to see if we have a significant problem in any of those frontline workforces, so

we're doing testing. we have started with the new york city fire department and new york city police department. what we found so far, fire department, which also has the emts, tested 17% positive, nypd, 10% positive. number much higher in the fdny emts. we believe that's because the emt number is driving it up. but we have to do more numbers and more research to determine that. remember, the emts, they are the front line, the ones who are there assisting the person in the closest contact in many ways. fdny also. but we want to find out exactly what's going on. they compare to a downstate average of the general population of about 18%. and again, we'll do further

research, further surveys to look at it by race and gender also. we're also going to do the same thing with the transit workers, the people who drive the buses, the subways, who clean the buses and subways. without those buses and subways, the essential workers couldn't get to work. why didn't we just close down subways and buses? because you close down the subways and buses in new york city, don't expect the nurses and the doctors to be able to get to the hospital. don't expect the delivery worker to be able to deliver food when you ring on your telephone. so we need that public transportation to transport the essential workers. but those frontline workers are at risk. so we're going to do additional testing for the transport workers. i also commented yesterday, the daily news had pictures of things that are going on in the new york city subway system. where the cars were filthy, they

were disgusting. homeless people were there with all their belongings. and it was not just the daily news picture. it reflected what has been in the press and what people have been saying, which is the deterioration of the conditions in the subways. crime, some crimes are up in the subways, even though ridership is down 90%. i don't even know how mathematically that is possible. the trains are filled with homeless people, and you're not doing the homeless any favor. i worked with the homeless all my life. to let homeless people stay on the trains in the middle of a global health pandemic with no masks, no protective equipment, you're not helping the homeless. letting them endanger their own life and endanger lives of others and not helping anyone. so i told the mta yesterday, in two days, which means tomorrow,

i want a full plan how do we disinfect every train every night? period. any essential worker who shows up and gets on a train should know that that train was disinfected the night before. we want them to show up. we don't want them to stay home. we owe it to them to be able to say the train you ride, the bus you ride, has been disinfebldis and is clean. also, state and local funding, from washington is essential. this is now turning into a political brawl on state and local funding. more and more some of the elected officials in washington are saying they're against it. they're led by senator mitch mcconnell who leads the senate. who makes it blatantly

political. no blue state bailout. no blue state bailout. what is he trying to say? the states that have coronavirus are democratic states. and he's a republican, so he doesn't want to help the democratic states. he went so far as to say, well, he would be in favor of the states going bankrupt first. states have never gone bankrupt. states can't go bankrupt. there are serious constitutional questions about whether or not a state can go bankrupt. declare bankruptcy. and you need a federal law that would allow the states to declare bankruptcy. even if you got around the constitutional question on bankruptcy. so if he believed that, if it wasn't just political rhetoric, and personal vitriol, then pass

a law that allows states to declare bankruptcy. he would have to do that. and i dare him to do that and get that bill signed by the president. but to make it partisan but to make it partisan is what is most disturbing. and you can see it rallying the partisan troops. senator scott from florida says we're supposed to bail them out. we versus them. we're supposed to bail them out. it's we and it's them. that's not right. who is we and who is them? who is we? and who is them? them, the people who had coronavirus. they are the ones who had the coronavirus. we, without the virus, are supposed to bail out those

people who have the virus. what an ugly sentiment. first of all, on the facts, it's not even close to right. and why they would even want to go down this road, when the facts damn everything they're saying. and they're still facts. i know it's hard to communicate facts in this environment. i know a lot of the filters don't communicate facts. they all communicate spin now. everybody has their own spin. but there are still facts that are not political theater, right? new york state bails them out every year. they're not bailing us out. we bail them out every year. new york state pays $29 billion

into that federal pot, $29 billion more every year that we never get back. our state contribution into the federal pot, the united states of america pot, every year we put in $29 billion more than we take out. on the other hand, they take out every year $37 billion more than they pay to the federal government! senator mitch mcconnell -- you are bailing out new york, when every year you take out more from the kitty, the federal pot, $37 billion more than you put in? who is bailing out whom? senator scott, florida, you're going to bail us out?

you take out $30 billion more every year than you pay in! how dare they? how dare they, when those are the facts? how long are you going to play the american people and assume they're stupid? they are not! and they can add. and they know facts. and i don't care what the news media tries to do to distort these facts, they are numbers and they are facts, and they can't be distorted. and this is every year. and look, what this is really about, it's the washington double speak. you look at the bills that they want to pass and who they want to help. they want to fund the hotels, the restaurants, the airlines, the big corporations. that's who they want to fund. well, who do state and local

governments fund? state and local governments fund police, firefighters, nurses, school teachers, food banks. that's who i want to fund. and that's what it means to fund a state and local government, and that's the choice that they're making. everybody applauds the health care workers. jets fly over in tribute to the health care workers. that's all nice. saying thank you is nice. how about actually rewarding them and making their life easier? how about giving them hazard pay? how about helping with their child care? how about helping families who can't feed their kids right now? how about helping the police and helping the firefighters and all the people who are out there right now killing themselves to make life easier for us? that's what this is really about.

they want to fund corporate america. that's who puts money in their pockets. and i say, let's fund working americans. that's the choice. bailout, us, them. no, it's just theater. it's just smoke and mirrors to avoid the american people seeing the reality, which is whose pocket they want to put money in versus whose pocket state and local governments want to fund. the reason it is so disturbing to me -- i'm not surprised by anything in politics. i've seen the good, the bad, and the ugly, for many, many years. i was in washington for eight years. i know what it's like. but if there was ever a time that one could reasonably believe you could put aside partisan politics, if there was

ever going to be a moment where we could say, you know what, let's just stop, just for one moment, the partisanship, the ugliness, the anger, the depression. let's just stop for one moment. if there was going to be one moment to hit the pause button, the moment would be now. you have human suffering. you have people dying. you can't stop the politics, even in this moment? even in this moment when people are dying all across the country, you still want to play your politics? that's what this is about, and that's why it is so disturbing on a fundamental level. politics. i'm getting up and i'm reading

that death toll number. i'm speaking to the widows and the brothers and the sisters and the children of people who died. and then we're going to play politics? with funding that's necessary to save people's lives? i mean, when does it stop? and the disconnect is between the political leadership and the people. because the american people, it's not them. they are principled, they are kind, they are better than what they are getting. the american instinct is to help each other in crisis. the american instinct is to be good neighbors. the american instinct was the farmer who sent me the one mask to help a new yorker when he only had five masks and a wife with one lung and underlying illness.

and he sends one of his five masks to new york. think about that generosity, that charity, that spirit. that's america. why? because we're good neighbors, because we care about one another. america was when i said we need help in our emergency rooms and hospitals and 95,000 nurses and doctors from across the nation said, "we will come to new york to help." we'll come into the emergency room. we'll come into the hospital. i understand it's covid. i'll leave my family and i'll come to help yours. that's america. that's who we are. and that's who we have shown ourselves to be in the middle of this crisis!

the crisis brings out the best and the worst. yes! and the best of america is beautiful, and that's what we've seen. because yes, we are tough. yes, we are smart. yes, we're disciplined. yes, we're united. yes, we're loving. loving. because we are americans. and that's who we are and how we are as americans. and i just hope the political leadership of this nation understands how good we are as a people. and the textbook says politicians lead, elected officials lead. no, sometimes the people lead and the politicians follow. and that's where we are today.

follow the american people. look at what they're doing. look at how they're reacting. and politicians, try to be half as good as the american people. i want to show you a self-portrait that was done by america people. this is a self-portrait of america, okay? that's a self-portrait of america. and you know what it spells? it spells love. that's what it spells. you have to look carefully, but that's what the american people are say iing. we receive thousands of masks from all across america.