big thanks to michael phelps, doctors, we want to thank all of you who wrote in with your questions. if you didn't get your questions answered tonight the conversation continues at cnn.com/coronavirus answers. the news continues right now with chris cuomo. all right. thank you, anderson. i am chris cuomo. welcome to "primetime." we had assumed the president was refusing to help us with testing because he was making a political calculation, but, regrettably, we may have been wrong. today this president gave us reason to believe that his judgment may not just be bad. it may be impaired. did you hear this? >> he is going to do things that nobody would ever, would ever think even possible. take away your guns, destroy your second amendment, no

religion, no anything, hurt the bible, hurt god. he's against god. >> those are the rantings of someone shouting at the sky and hoping for spare change. a man responsible for your and my family really believes that a political opponent is trying to hurt god and hurt the bible? whatever that means? i mean, do you find that wisdom in that 2 corinthian part of the book that he made up? if trump wants devoutness to be a measure remember what he knows about the bible. >> 2 corinthians right? 2 corinthians 3:17. that's the whole ball game. where the spirit of the lord, right, where the spirit of the lord is, there is liberty and here there is liberty college, liberty university. but it is so true.

you know, when you think, that's really -- is that the one? is that the one you like? >> he's always looking for what you like. but he's the only christian i've ever known who says he's never needed god's forgiveness. he's the only christian i know who's almost never been seen attending a service. but the time has come to look past his faith. it is time to look at this man's behavior through the lens not just of a man who simply lacks moral agency but, perhaps, basic cogency. this man wants to talk about hurting god when he gassed americans exercising their first amendment rights to protest in justice in america. remember, the head of the joint chiefs had to apologize for even being there for that scene. they were protesting injustice that is anemetha to jesus'

message, that trump denies even exists in this country. remember why he did it. for a photo op. holding a bible, which he was asked about and answered this way. >> is that your bible? >> it's a bible. >> i mean, is this about being devout or just dumb? he doesn't know whose it is. he doesn't know what's in it. he certainly doesn't know how to live by the message. but he wants to talk about being a good christian? a man who puts kids in cages because he likes the message it sends? i don't think, though, this is just about faith. i really believe it is time to take a look at his fortitude. listen to this attack on biden. >> did you ever watch biden? where he's always saying the wrong state. it's great to be in florida. florida. no.

it's ohio! i love the state of iowa. sir, sir, it's idaho. he does it all the time. there's something going on. >> something going on. he looks like he's melting. that's what's going on. i mean, if he really wants to apply that standard, if that's what you want to do, let's do it to him. this is from today. >> and to avoid liability, shifting production to thigh land and vietnam. >> thigh land? hooked on phonics much? the "th" goes "t" as in thailand. maybe a freudian slip. i don't know if it's phonics or basic brain function. i give him a pass. yeah. thai can be kind of tricky if it were one. but this man messes up words more than any sober talker i've ever heard. look at this. >> when they gaze upon yosemites

towering sequoyahs. >> you talk about the whole ball game, corinthians, 3:17? yo-semites? are you kidding me? twice? did he really just declare yosemite a park only for jewish people? at least he is embracing a minority. let me ask is yosemite park found in thailand? when he does say a place correctly should it matter that when he says the place it is not where he thinks it is? >> i love concorde. oh, concorde. you know, famous concorde is concorde. that's the same concorde we read about all the time right? concorde. i love concorde. >> people behind him, hey, yeah!

huh? he's in manchester. i mean, is there something going on? i mean, has he awakened to reality here by saying it about biden, is he really revealing something about himself? this is the man who congratulated the kansas city chiefs on their super bowl win for representing the great state of kansas. also known as missouri. that's okay. i can still be president. look, the question, why is this happening with him? is it what he puts on his hair and face? is it seeping into his brain devouring his intellect taking reason prisoner? and those oranges. that was a tart one. >> and i hope that this investigation now, which is finished, totally finished, no collusion, no obstruction, i hope they now go and take a look

at the oranges, the oranges of the investigation, the beginnings. >> origins. origins. oranges? origins. should the president of the united states know the difference? should he see the spelling of thailand and know it's not thigh land? should he know that a very famous park is not yo-semite? i think they're pretty fair questions. certainly the president does. if this comes down to a battle with biden about mental acuity, i don't know that's a race he wants to run. there very well could be something going on here even though this president is desperately trying to prove there isn't and this is desperate. >> then you go person, woman,

man, camera, tv. they say, that's amazing. how did you do that? i do it because i have like a good memory because i'm cognitively there. >> biden has confirmed he hasn't taken a cognitive test along the lines of what they give people to see whether they are suffering from alzheimer's. here is his response. >> no, i haven't taken a test. why the hell would i take a test? come on, man. >> look, the president has raised a really important issue. i had assumed that he wasn't doing what is so obvious in this pandemic, what is being told him by the people around him on the task force, health and human services, department of homeland security, people coming to him

saying, rapid testing. i need more help with rapid testing. that's going to be the future. seeing the uk. they're not doing great i know but apples to apples on speed of testing they're ahead of us. i had assumed that it was about a political calculation, but what if the truth is this president doesn't have the ability to calculate? looking through that lens, maybe that's why all this crazy talk comes out of his face. maybe that's the answer. let's bring in senior political commentator jennifer granholm to be the judge. when you think about it, governor, are we dealing with somebody who is just bad at the game, or maybe not on their game? >> well, i think he is not -- he has such a deficit of mental

acuity. you can see this in his political strategy. >> yo-semite? >> in his covid strategy. yes. he just -- at some point in his life was he able to understand the difference between yo-semite and yosemite? maybe. but it's just not there now. and the fact, i mean, chris, you started out by saying he just threw this up, this thing about, you know, that biden is going to hurt god or something crazy like that. that's so crazy. stuff like that politically is dynamite, because it ends up back firing. >> if joe biden said, yo-semite park or -- >> oh, my gosh. >> or thigh land, you know, his favorite part of the chicken, he would be done with you guys. you would put him through the wringer. you would make him pick three vp

to go with him. expand it somehow. >> all you have to do -- i mean, everybody saw that axios interview two days ago. i mean, he can't even understand dishonest charts. he can't understand that, yeah. we have the highest death rate in the world with the percentage of population. he doesn't understand. i don't know. does he not understand or is he just willfully blind? he is not willfully -- >> can he not understand? you know, i mean, you and i are in different worlds here in terms of surrounding the white house but i have to tell you. when i talk to people about, you know, hey, did you prep him for this? who wrote that for him? you know? he was reading it that time. they consistently say, listen. we tell him what is and what isn't. we know what the information is. they'll get mad. they'll be like i don't need you to tell me what the case count is, chris.

i'll say yeah but he just said -- and they always go quiet. i think it is a legitimate question. whether it should be part of your guys campaign that he, it is not just that he is not good at the job. maybe he's not up to the job. >> well, it is a classic case, another example of projection. we know that he's got mental problems in terms of his narcissism. it clouds everything and obviously he's got some deficiencies as well that have been brought on maybe by age, maybe by pressure. i tell you one thing, chris. this, today, i'm kind of grateful that he went over the top like that about joe biden, because it gives joe biden's camp the ability to talk about joe biden's faith. i mean, anybody who knows him knows that he is a life long practicing catholic, and that he is deeply faithful. in many ways he reminds me of your father and the ability to

pull faith into policy and caring for the least of these. joe biden walks the talk. he carries a rosary with him every day. it's just part of his dna. so the fact that trump would raise this as, in sort of this flailing -- i can't imagine that this was part of his written script that he's just trying as hard as he possibly can -- >> or he is delusional. my concern is, i got two issues here. i had always just assumed he was lying, defying reality, and denying it for his own benefit. but maybe he doesn't have a grasp of it. maybe he really does think he is religious. maybe he really does think these things that he says. i think your problem for joe biden is not i don't think he is faithful. it's that you lefties, this will be the argument, you have turned -- i don't care what his faith is -- you guys want to kill all the babies. i don't care what his faith is. you guys want people to be able to marry anything they want whenever they want and decide their gender whenever they want. and that's not what god wants. those are the christians that

trump is going for. >> how many times did jesus say the word gay and how many times did jesus say the word abortion? zero. zero on both. and so this policy of being able to care for the least of these -- and joe biden's theme about restoring the soul of america is evocotive of his own faith. when asked about a scripture, joe biden can easily say, the 25th chapter of matthew. what does donald trump say when asked about his scripture preference? he can't find one. or if he does much later he says, an eye for an eye, which is something jesus revoked in matthew when he said turn the other cheek. so, i mean, this notion about evangelicals following donald trump because of abortion or gays, i mean, those are not people who are going to be voting for joe biden and joe biden being pro choice, but i can tell you this. people who care about joe biden's authentic faith and who can see him this morning he was

speaking to the -- a baptist convention just as donald trump was saying that he wants to hurt god. i think you're right that donald trump has lost it. he's lost it. now he is going over the top in his desperation. that's what we're seeing. >> that still assumes there is an intentionality there that is a function of intelligence. this sound, i wanted to use it earlier in the piece, but he gave us too much to work with. but remember this moment with this president? >> and finally, i asked the leaders of the region, political and religious, israeli and palestinian, jewish and christian animus lid muslim, tos in the noble quest of lasting peace. thank you. god bless you. god bless israel. god bless the palestinians. and god bless the united states. thank you very much.

>> i had concerns then that i didn't understand where he -- why he sounded like that. you know, it sounded like he couldn't speak. and then another time we heard him speak not long thereafter and he was like sniffing every four seconds. we couldn't figure it out. look, if he wants to make, hey, joe biden is too old, hey, joe biden has had problems, hey, joe biden doesn't want to put out his medical records which by the way should be an issue for both of these guys. i think you should have some kind of independent body looking at anybody over 60 or so when they run for public office but i don't make the rules. i wonder if this is something joe biden should make an issue. like hey. you want to talk about which one of us is sound of mind. let's do it. >> yeah. i think if trump continues to do this it is a good idea but the reason donald trump went dark ad wise over the past week is because he had been trying that tack, mental acuity, you know, all of that, and it hadn't worked. and so now his strategy is to

try to yoke joe biden to the far left. that is the new strategy. however, today while he talked about second amendments and guns and god and so that would have been on message, he also raised this issue of joe biden's mental acuity, too. that, i mean, it's just not a winner. what trump is doing is going deep into his base rather than wide. and how deep you can go and get enough votes is really a question. even the evangelical, even the christian community think in many places, not all places, but in many places is having second thoughts not just about his mental acuity but about his policy acuity. >> i got to tell you, talk about deep into the base, he's got to be careful about getting into deep, deep trouble with these questions, because his health is another thing that he's played with. it's another thing where he brought up the doctors and the guy now running for congress

saying all these wild things without showing us real data and then when they did show data it showed there are issues to be looked at with his heart. if he wants to play this game about who's more sound of mind i don't know how it's going to play out for him especially after performances like today. the question is how can your side figure out how to capitalize. jennifer granholm, gov, always good to see you. >> always great to see you, chris. thanks. now as if we needed more proof that the pandemic is a problem, we have another congressman testing positive for coronavirus. makes three in one week. we have the governor of ohio who was just on last night, he is now positive for the virus. i wish him well and his family. i hope the governor is largely asymptomatic and whatever he does have he gets through quickly. the people there need him at his best. up next gop representative rodney davis is here to talk about his own diagnosis. what he makes of what he's up against and what we're all up against, next. if you're 55 and up,

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for the third time in the last week, a member of congress tested positive for coronavirus. this time it's representative rodney davis, republican from illinois. the congressman joins us now. i'm glad to see you're able to join. just tell us, how you doing? your wife is also tested and she is negative, thank god. for now. you know, that can change. you have to be careful around her. i'm sure the doctors are telling you that. how are you doing? >> i'm doing great, chris. i feel fine. no symptoms. my temperature actually dropped. i'm looking forward to hearing what you went through so i can know what to possibly expect. >> no, no, no. god forbid you go through what i did. hopefully you have symptoms on the lighter scale. some people get it. how long did you have the fever?

>> it was just yesterday. i take my temperature every morning and every night with the same thermometer. it always registers me a little bit low around 97 max. yesterday just before i got up i wanted to go work out and i took my temperature and it was 99. and i called my wife. i said, something's up. 9 the wou 99 would get me into any medical facility or government building and would be fine but for me it was different. i had a bunch of public events planned yesterday and tomorrow. i wanted to be sure. i went to a facility, got tested, and shockingly came back positive. >> good. look. that is perfect. god willing it stays that way and your wife doesn't get it and we're done. hopefully you have the antibodies. you know, they don't fade too fast because you didn't have that strong a case. now it goes to what we learn from this. your ability to get a test back quickly means everything. my biggest concern right now is we're lost in this morass of math about testing. it is not how many tests.

it's how you test and how quickly you get the responsement don't you think this country should be going all out on a national level to get people test results as quickly as you got them? >> you know, i like that comment you just made, the morass of the math of testing. that's what i think confuses a lot of people. there are rapid scan machines like i was able to use because walgreens invested in a facility in my district near my house that i was able to go in and get a test and get results the same day. so many areas don't have that. we've got to expand those opportunities. instead, what happens is you have people wanting to be nay-sayers on certain types of technology. let's get the testing modalities out to everyone. that is one reason why i tried to make sure we led in bringing testing to capitol hill. not just for members of congress but for the staff, for the essential workers, for the media that are roaming around the capitol giving news every day. this has to be done and it's

been held up by the democrats in the house of representatives unfortunately. but today i hear there might be some movement just reading news stories and i hope that's the case. >> listen, i don't want to go down a political rabbit hole. i don't think it should have to do with congress other than you guys being outraged and calling for it. this is something that the federal government can do without you guys. this is what the executive branch is in charge of. we haven't even heard the president say what you just said. he has never said we need to have rapid testing capabilities to get quick turn-around everywhere in this country and i'm going to make it happen. should he? >> i'll be honest with you. we've worked with the white house. they offered rapid scan testing capabilities to capitol hill for the capitol police, for the architect of the capitol police. >> but not for the rest of the country. >> you know what? he is using those rapid scan machines and i certainly, i know that the white house and the

folks in the federal government, they're using those machines and it is diagnosing members of congress who are about to get on airforce one with the president >> i know. >> those modalities ought to be expanded elsewhere. >> why doesn't he try to make it happen? it could win him the election, rodney. if he were to put his arms around this and say what you are saying right now, i've given the states a chance. illinois, decent state. big problems in chicago. they're not getting it done. i am going to make it happen for the whole country. what rodney davis got, what we do for the people in d.c., everybody is going to get access. i'll give money to the companies, use the emergency production act. this is maga action. why won't he say it let alone do it? >> maybe he will. i would like to see more production. we can't just talk about testing for diagnoses either. we've expanded testing under this president's leadership, in the working with the administration, working with our state leaders. we've been able to see testing capabilities for diagnoses,

expand exponentially. we've also got to begin to plan for as you said earlier, testing for antibody presence or testing for at least the presence of covid in those who may never have known that they were infected. and i'll tell you this, chris. if i wouldn't have taken my temperature yesterday morning, i never would have gone in because my temperature dropped to 98.6. >> that is exactly right. that happens. it drops. it goes up and down and people don't want to wait. you know the problem in illinois. you have people and i'm not just blaming illinois. you guys are not special. new york, every state i talk about. and i ask and i report on, they have waiting anywhere from one day, two days, to ten days, 12 days, 14 days. it is not a death sentence necessarily. but it is a death sentence for reopening. and i don't think it is going to get done, congressman, if you guys don't start calling for it, not left and right, reasonable, from the white house and the executive. they can make it happen fastest. >> well, i certainly hope we can

continue to increase our testing capacity. i like the rapid scan test. it made me able to keep people safe that i would have gone and seen personally and instead during my open office hours yesterday and today i did it virtually. i certainly hope abbott and other rapid scan testing companies are able to continue to expand. >> i'm with you but we both know hope is not a plan. the president hasn't even said what you've said in this interview. hey, look. good for you for saying it. i know it's tough times in partisan politics. and i know that testing has become some kind of bogey man for this administration. but if he would at least say what they're doing in the uk i'm going to get it done here. six, eight weeks. we'll figure it out. i'll get those rapid tests. then our kids can go to school. people can go to work the right way because you'll have data on a daily basis by the hour, by an hour and a half. he hasn't even said it. will you call for him to say more? >> i certainly hope we can expand a rapid testing but, chris, we can't stop with just

diagnose -- diagnostic tests. we have got to get a true, statistical analysis of the impact of this disease. if the cdc is stating that there are tens of millions of more people who have likely had covid-19 but had no idea, we've got to figure out a way to get them tested to understand what the true impact of covid is on our country. >> but that is rapid testing, too. >> we need the media to begin asking for that type of testing capability and we need investment at all levels of government to make that happen. >> but you know that the biggest pocket and the most power is on the federal level. nobody can make it happen faster in illinois, your state, than the president. your governor can't get it done. they don't have the money. they don't have the logistics. they don't have the buying power. they can't even go to these manufacturers and say, i'll give you an output contract. let me get all the tests you

make. they'll say no. it is too expensive. we have a hard time getting the reagent. that is why the governors are getting together because of the absence of leadership. i really believe, you talked about the house and the democrats. i blame all of you. you guys should be shouting at the top of your lungs and thank god your lungs are good because you weren't as sick as i was that we need rapid testing. mr. president, make this happen for us. he'll be a hero. >> well, i will tell you, thank you for standing up with kevin mccarthy, tom cole, and i, and many who have asked for testing capabilities on capitol hill. i think it's a travesty we have so many people even when congress isn't in session that don't have access to what i have and my constituents have here in illinois. >> i'm with you. you guys have to ask for it to happen. i haven't heard about any democrat not wanting rapid testing. you've never heard kevin mccarthy say anything about this or some really ham fis ted horrible defenses of the

president's performance in this pandemic. my feeling is i don't want to look at the past. i want to look at now and going forward. if my kids can't get back in school because we can't get anything near real time data we'll lose another generation when they could be moving ahead they'll be moving back >> i fear what is -- if we're going to do remote learning across this nation how is that impacting students being able to get to the next grade level along with mental health issues? >> big problems. big problem. you know, i don't know where you are in the kid game but with my kids, i would never -- i can't send them to a school if nobody can give me any assurance they'll tell me who is sick and who isn't. i just can't do it in good conscience. i don't care if it is two days a week, one day every other week. if you can't tell me the situation there i don't know how i get my mind around doing that. the difference is rapid testing. you tell your friend kevin mccarthy if he wants to come on the show and call for rapid testing for everybody i'll give him a half hour to do it >> i appreciate that but i certainly will get you the letters we sent months ago

offering assistance not just from the white house who has offered assistance and this isn't just about members of congress. this is about the essential workers in and around capitol hill and making sure they have the same access. >> i'm sure they did. you guys definitely took care of yourselves in d.c. i'm talking about the rest of the country. >> there is no testing. we need to make sure that testing is available for the media, the staff, and the essential workers around capitol hill. they deserve the same access that all of us have in our districts like i was able to get access to just like all of my constituents can do. thank you to walgreens for opening up that testing facility in springfield, illinois. >> well, congressman, look. we'll agree on this. there is a lot more that could be done and if the president leads the way we'll get there a heck of a lot faster. i am happy your fever is gone. brother i hope you stay healthy and your wife never gets near it. >> me too. thank you very much, chris. >> take care. congressman rodney davis, illinois. all right. now another story of covid. this one i know very, very well.

you know my next guest very well. alyssa milano. she and i are friends. you've seen her here on the show. but alyssa milano found out something that she has believed was true for months but she couldn't get a medical answer. so many people were in alyssa's position. they think they had it. the tests don't make sense. they can't get the test. they can't figure it out. we lived it together and she finally found out that she was right. she has antibodies. she did have coronavirus. they kept telling her she didn't. she couldn't breathe. everything hurt. i mean, she took it a lot better than i did which, you know, was a point of no source of pride while i was going through it. but two coronavirus tests later both negative, look at her. have you ever seen anybody go through covid and look like that? look at me look at her. those are the faces of the two different realities of this covid. but what she went through and what she now knows and what questions it raises for her. next.

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i want to be very quick about something here. kevin mccarthy the minority leader in the house. he never called for rapid testing for you. he called for it for people on capitol hill. we don't need them taking care of themselves. we need them taking care of you and getting rapid testing for the entire country. that is what he has to call for. he never has. i invite him on to this show to do so. i would be happy to hear. our president has never said what the republican congressman from illinois just said on this show. he has never said there should be rapid testing, quick turn around like the uk for everybody, and he is going to make it happen. he went out with show and tell once for rapid testing but never did anything about it. that's the truth.

all right. more truth. never told you this before. so i'm sick, right? and i'm in bed. and there were several people who reached out and really kind of changed my relationship with them. really kind of showed themselves to care about me at a time when i needed it. all right? now, one of them was taking care of me even though she was also taking care of herself at the same time and it was actress alyssa milano. all right? so i'm sick. she's sick. we talked to each other all the time during this period. she had all of the signs. okay? she had fever. she had aches. she had pains. her lungs. she had that thing on her face. all of the symptoms. they kept telling her she didn't have it. they shothought she was going bananas. i saw her like this. this is not a fake picture. how she was able to do all this stuff with the podcast and political activism and kids running all over the place i

don't know but she was able to balance it all. she was weeks sick. she had a machine helping her breathe. i'm telling you she was up against it. she was worse than i was. they kept saying negative. she took an antibody test. it was also negative. we could not figure it out. she kept saying it doesn't make any sense. how can we have the same experience and i don't have it and you do? guess what? the star just revealed she is positive for covid antibodies. so one thing has to be true, right? she had it. so now she is calling attention to the flaws in our testing system and the severity of this crisis and she joins me now on the show and i invited dr. william schaffner to help with the questions. i said this to you but i want everybody to know. when i appreciate somebody it is no secret. thank you for being such a good friend >> i love you, chris.

of course. >> even when you were sick. you know, i felt that you gratuitously had to out symptom me when we were both sick and at the time i thought you were faking it just because you're competitive. now you know that you had it >> i had every single symptom, chris. literally every symptom. i had in the beginning the tummy ache and a low grade fever. it never got really high like yours. i had a headache like i had never felt before. and i was able to get a test and that test at that time came back negative. it was a nasal swab. it was in the beginning. so i don't know when they were talking about the swabs being contaminated. i don't know if that was what was going on. i have no idea. then as you do with this illness, i start to feel better. and i'm not saying, like, i feel great. but i'm starting to feel a

little bit more human. and, you know, i'm like that for maybe three or four days. and then it hits me. i feel like there's an elephant sitting on my chest. i feel like my airways are closing in my throat. i just was so achy. my joints hurt. i had confusion. i had sadness. i had like these bouts of just crying. and it was a sick, like i have never felt before. i speak to my doctor again and i say i am not getting better. i am getting worse. i cannot breathe. he says, because at this time, this was march, he says, what do you have in the house? i said, what do you have in the house? he said, do you have an inhaler in the house? i said no. he said do you have a nebulizer in the house? i said yes because milo has asthma. my 8-year-old. so i did the nebulizer.

he said, i want to see you again. i want to check your lungs and blah, blah, blah. i went and got another nasal swab and he listened to my lungs. the test comes back negative. the diagnosis -- now mind you -- this is when california is in lockdown. thank god. because i know my mother. she is an italian mother. if both of those tests came back negative she would have been in my bed with me cooking for me, trying to make me feel better. she would have gotten sick. but we were locked down thank god. once i started -- that was about two weeks. you know we were talking. it was the scariest time of my life. and i bed share with my daughter so there was that going on in my mind like oh, my god have i exposed her? >> that was terrible. i could never curse every time i was talking to alyssa. she always had the kid there. i had to clean up the speech.

my only luxury was my ability to use profanity. go ahead. >> two negative tests. i start to feel better. i then go to the doctor and get the finger prick antibody test which we now know is incredibly faulty. that came back negative. in the middle of this my best friend, who i traveled with, i did a movie in portland and that is where i think i got this in march and he is sick. six tests. first he can't get a test because he has no fever. it was that time when you couldn't find tests. then he takes six tests all negative. he takes an antibody test. positive. then goes to florida to see his parents. takes another antibody test negative. then comes back here, antibody test positive. to me this is such an incredible, incredible failure

of leadership and how our government should be our communal care takers, our, i think they have this fiduciary commitment to take care of us and we have a communal responsibility to it do everything we can to not spread this. i am so -- i vacillate between anger, anxiety, and just complete sadness. because this was so hard and, chris, i have means -- i have things that -- people at my disposal that i can contact. and the whole time i'm thinking the people that don't have insurance, how are they going through this? the people that can't find tests, how are they going through this? the people in detention, the people who are incarcerated that have no masks or hand sanitizer. how are they going through this?

you know? and i listened to congressman -- and all of the congressmen are driving me nuts right now because this is not political. please. there is a public health crisis. one american is dying every eight seconds from covid-19. this isn't about individualism. this is about communal responsibility during a public health crisis. and, you know, i didn't want to make this interview political, but politics is personal. and i think it's worth pointing out that while republicans, since he was going to blame everything on the democrats, are unwilling to help people struggling who cannot work right now at $600 a week, they have no problem sending $2.2 trillion on tax cuts for wealthy families and large corporations and stock buybacks. so, you know, that should tell you where their priorities are. it's heart breaking.

it's heart breaking. there is no guidance. as you know. and i said to you yesterday, and i'm so glad you have a doctor here. hi, doctor. thank you for being here. >> we'll get to him after the commercial. go ahead and finish your point. >> i don't know what to do next. i don't know -- i still have symptoms. i still have heart palpitations and shortness of breath and rapid heart beat. my hair is falling out. >> let's do this. all hair that falls output in a bag because i want it as part of my donor pile. second of all we'll take a quick commercial. then let's put the questions you have about what to do next and why we got here to dr. schaffner because he knows this stuff as well as anybody does. that is why i wanted to bring him in tonight. my friend alyssa milano and i will be back right after the break with dr. schaffner to figure out why did this happen to her? how do we keep it from happening to somebody else? what does it say about where we are and where we need to go? next. ...so are we. prudential helps 25 million people with their financial needs.

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alyssa milano joins me, and dr. william schaffner. alyssa and i were covid cousins.

she was very good to me although she was sick herself. doctor, you heard her story. we were trying to figure it out in real time. how does somebody that sick test negative for the virus and anti-bodies and then test positive for anti-bodies so much later. >> chris, and ms. milano, it is good to be with you. i am sorry about your illness, i am glad that you are recovering. >> thank you, doctor. >> the answer is several thing. first, let's look at the timing. you can do timing, whether of the nasal swab test, or the blood test, and just miss either the virus with the nasal swab test for production of the anti-bodies if you test too early. so that's one thing. they would have to lock at the timing. another thing is that the early blood tests that were released in the united states by the food and drug administration were not very accurate. the fda has gotten much more

rigorous now, and the blood tests that are on the market now are much more rigorous and reliable. and then the other thing that you both have been talking about, which i agree with 1,000% is that we are not still anywhere near providing testing for all of our needs in the united states. we need to have them widely available. and we need the results to come back quickly so they can be useful both clinically, as in y'all's situation, and also for public health purposes, so we can trace the contacts and get them tested and in quarantine. so we clearly need a national testing strategy. we need a national strategy for all of the control of covid. and you know, we've been waiting for that for a long time. >> quick follow-up question, last question, to alyssa milano.

why isn't the issue the rapid testing. even if testing is 40 or 50% accurate, if she is tested every day, you have a better chance of catching it and the testing only takes a couple of hours, you have a better chance of catching it, don't you doctor? >> i would say yes. >> alyssa, what's your question for the doctor? there is no guidance on what to do once you recover. i don't know if i should get my heart checks, my lungs checked. there is concerns for the vascular system. do i need to get a panel for all of that? there is no guidance because this is all so new. i am wondering what you would advise for someone who has gone through this to do once they are starting to recover. >> well, mississippi lando you are correct. we are writing the text as we go along.

there is no plan that you can tell you. however, you still have symptoms. and i think you ought to be seeing your primary care physician on a reasonably regular basis. and you and he or she can decide what that appropriate interval is because there are indeed people who are in a long recovery phase. the virus is gone from their body, but the inflammationin their body is still working its way out. and it fuollows from some of yor symptoms that you are kind in that situation. >> get ready for the term sequelae, a latin word that means something that follows. because we don't know anything about that either. dr. schaffner, thank you very much. alyssa milano, you are family the he moo. you took care of me even while you were sick. that's why you get to ask questions on my show. thank you alyssa. thank you doctor. we'll be right back. what? i get cash back with almost everything i buy when i use rakuten. i used rakuten to get lisa's birthday present.

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