continues. host:

for more on the corona virus response we are joined by the chief medical officer for the national association of committee health centers. before we talk rotavirus, just remind us first, what community health centers are, how many there are the nine states?t: steam at centers are really the comprehensive care, ambulatory care centers across the united states. their 1400 organizations, each has a multiple sites averaging eight to nine so there is about 12000 committee health center sites.tr around the nation they are very strategically placed in every state, territory, the district of columbia, and also puerto rico. we offer comprehensive care which includes primary care medical care, dental oral health, disorders, and many other things that we do. we are the connection to relate the safety net. we have 49% medicaid patients, we have 23% uninsured, we are

the ones on the front lines providing primary care to the communities that really need it. >> those uninsured, what happens with those folks? how much i paid back your services? >> it is a great benefit, we have a great relationship with the bureau of healthcare. they administer the public health 330 grants, which includes the community health centers. about 60% of each budget goes to that. it enables us to take care of people that 23% that have no health insurance. so we had a sliding fee according to their family size and their annual income. so they can afford to commit and see us. >> for funding you just saw the congress and the president sign $8.3 billion supplemental what's in there for the committee health centers? >> therees is $100 million for committee health centers and they are still working out the details of how that will be distributed and dispersed. and what it is to be used for. i believe it will primarily be

first surprise, personal protective equipment, and to support the health centers sttheir response. >> is that enough? >> no, we can always use more. it is a start. and we appreciate the bipartisan support, as you saw it was unanimously voted in and signed in by president trump on friday. we have enjoyed that bipartisan support and we need more. we have a lot of potential and we will get to as we discussed things today. >> personal protective equipment. are there places and pockets we were running out already andce committee health centers? >> yes john, we had a webinar on friday in conjunction with the cdc. i think we had 1900 people registered on that. we heard from two health centers on the west coast which is seattle and asian health nurses in oakland. some of them are getting close, they are not completely out. they are running close. so we are seeing that, depending on the community they serve and the population, if there are a lot more

international people, asian pacific islanders they are using it up a lot faster. we are trying to keep track of it. i don't think we are at the critical level yet but we are watching very closely. >> should they be using their ppp already should they using it up too soon? >> there trying to file the cdcow guidelines and all the other equipment. so i would say they are doing their best. but according to the education we are doing, we are trying to teach the patients, that's where the challenges. a lot of them are shifting into a cohort group where they examine one personal goal and an exam in a group of people rather than a one-on-one situation. they are using less ppe but the cbc is very good at lying out all these angles to take when you have just regular surprise, when you're stressed a little bit, and when you are in a critical situation. they have laid that out and they are following those rules. so what he wanted teach the patient's customer. >> i think with the teaching pages is important. heardha the news of the cdc and

the nih, to really come in at the rightat time. if you can call ahead to discuss with your clinician or provider is it necessary to commend? have you had that exposure history? maybe you don't know. are you having the right symptoms? are you elderly? you have underlying conditions? those of the y questions that need to be asked. but they are looking at alternative ways to communicate with their patients such as international committee health centers in seattle and asian health services, they are looking towards going towards texting, phone calls, whatever they can do to communicate with their patients prior to coming in. >> in terms of questions that need to be asked, if you need to ask your question in the segment though eastern are centrally nice aids 2,027,488,000 if you're in the mountain or specific 2,027,488,001, special and set aside for medical professionals 2,027,488,002. in our gas under a gas is a

chief medical officer at community health centers. let's talk about texting kits. -- testing kits. 1.1 are supposed to be available as of now. 640,000 are supposed to be distributed today and 4 million more by the end of the week. it is following closely, one of my health center colleague simeon article that talks about quest diagnostics see his mate lab core made it available for ambulatory care facilities. also a request came on later in the week, those will be able to be done directly at the health centers. up to this point you've had to go to special labs, public health labs are academic labs. the challenge now is to actually see that too into place. that's what we are waiting for, how to actually get the test kit, how do we send those in? what's the turnaround time?

"a three to four day turnaround. but then howow do we pay for it is very important. david mentioned these are essential benefits at her medicaid and medicare we want to seeth of that actually looks like, if we can bill for this and recoup the work we use for these tests. >> how many workers you have question for 21400 nationwide. there are over 2000 employees. so are they trained on giving these tests and going through all of the proper protocols customer. >> i think that is why the health i centers are very strategic in a unique partner and responses such as h1 n1, sars, now coronavirus is our staff is required to have emergency operations plan which is consistent with the sema rules and regulations. so we have a whole plan on mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery. so we have all of those in place already. we are required to have this. probably more the front line staff or office and clinical are trade in these. but it goes all of it out or

purchasing. they talk about how do you respond and you keep your business going? how do you recover once you've been in the battle of the epidemic. so we are well prepared to handle this. so what is your biggest concern right now? >> i want to see the test kids fleshed out. that's a big one. i think especially for uninsured patients resolve 23% of our population uninsured. sometimes we are not sure how that sliding fee coverage will work with this. so those are usually things you deal directly with the laboratory companies. so we need to work those eedetails out on how to get those people covered. my main concern right now is the testing so we can identify, isolate, and really contain and work with the cdc as partners. and as you mention the personaliv protective equipment could be an issue in we need to watch that closely. so went a few collars around the country. up first is susan here in washington d.c. gowa ahead. >> caller: hi, this is susan i am calling because i want to

find out what congress is going to do to re- authorizing howard and put pressure on them to do this? i feel like they are putting communities at risk by not passing funding weg. need long-term funding. what can you tell about this? >> guest: coronavirus funding, the 100 million but the long-term funding has been at risk on may 22 if congress does not act to reauthorize the community health center fund. along with teaching health centers and national core, this could really damage the response we are trying to mount against coronavirus. so this puts into question a lot of thea employees asking, are we going to be stable? especially through your programs, we have been getting two-year funding over and over. e this is not bringing stability to the program for training or for employment. so we would love for congress to do a longer-term funding. if not permanent. because things like these pandemics and responses are critical. health centers are uniquely

placed to respond to these with over 12000 locations around the country. >> host: what has been the numbers over the last decade or so? are we seeing health centers close for this funding reason? are they relatively stable? >> guest: we have been stable for the last 55 years. health centers, we've gone through continuing resolutions and we survived. i think the main thing is health centers are bar partisan supported. for over 55 years of pet ups and downs we have been there. i think they're very few programs when you look at the federal government that have survived over 55 years and health center program is one of those. >> host: if you are phone lines are originally 202,748,000 if you aren't eastern and central time zone (202)748-8001 in the pacific the doctor will be with us for the bottom of the hour about 930 eastern time this morning. when it comes to all of the other work you do a committee

health centers how much is coronavirus taking away from that other work? what percentage of your response right now is concerns. >> i think it goes by the geography in the country. i think the west coast has been dramatically more we are seeing more and more cases pop up each day. we are now on the east coast. we see that come in and the main thing in h those areas as we are having more patients call. people are coming in asking questions of this is where the education comes in we educate our patients very clearly, cdc guidelines and when to come in. and to use alternative ways are critical. it depends geographically whose getting pressed on this. overall the health centers are in good shape, but very

specific to location and where those pockets of cases are popping up. >> host: lay on twitter's as i spoke with my doctor new york city and she said all of the hospitals are overwhelmed now and i alreadydy knew that because my husband died to a lack of care at our hospital here. concerns about when health centers become overwhelmed is a win or miss at this point. >> guest: i am sorry for your loss right now it is a win. i think the health centers are trying to stay on top of it. the ones with the higher volume are trying those alternative ways to keep people out of the hospital. we don't overwhelm the emergency room and hospitals. that's for people who are having severe respiratory system symptoms and shortness of breath need to go. that is why the health centers are key in this response. just like h1 n1, a lot of the funds are put more towards the hospitals. when into even that out and put it towards primary care and the healthon center. we are on the front line, we

need to have the staffing, the ppe, the ability to testily get this under control. i think that is really important right now. >> host: tallahassee florida, shall be on the line for medical professionals. >> caller: the news with coronavirus may not show signs for many days. by the time the fever or cough reflects, then it will then be 50% within the lung capacity. i think we need a self check also a people taking a deep breath, perhaps and then holding the breath, and then if you experience some type of discomfort or coughing, then perhaps you couldin have some fibroids. in the lungs. but i wanted to speak about -- i have my three young people and we are retired doctors here. my husband and i are ten years

retired. in the eye want to talk what the hell centers. and i appreciate your service sir, you are very very knowledgeable about the residency component, where we only fun. on and i think most people don't realize community health centers fun, as i do a lot of work with community health outside as we refer and we try to fill in the gap. as the committee health centers are filling in the gaps. forty-five are uninsured population, here in florida particularly war we have in tallahassee a very wonderful combination. we have the medical school here, and we also have the pharmacy school, and we have theng nursing with our community college. very strong three integrated programs. so the residency, if you tell the country, we need with this finding that just came out with the new budget funding, i mean the new emergency funding

coming through, the residence program comes to the medicaid. i just had my son and daughter come out of harvard and duke one is a radiologist added to the other harvard ob/gyn, john's wife is down there in miami hospital. so i am very much linkedin to the context of what we need in the pipeline, sir,. >> host: shelby it certainly sounds like with the family very much in the profession. doctor but would you try math? >> i thank you for your interest the health center program, the teaching program is critical for what we try to protas and we've seen physicians are trained in health centers, 50% or more actually go back. we are fulfilling our goal of exposing them to the mission. the way we practice is very different and very holistic. when residents have a chance to work in a health center,

that's when they really understand our mission and they understand our patients and their population they understand these. health centers are excellent places to train and our hope is they would stay "after words". so any funding we could do, and i mentioned at the top of the health center program in teaching at the national atrvice corps are critical to what we do. we would appreciate congress to continue to fund those. that's the whole pathway i mention. once we train them, we would love to be able to offer them automatically service core dollars to help pay off those loans. the average medical student has to do thousand dollars and that when they get out. can you imagine trying to deal that? it's the one a couple coronavirus specific with what is the service life of this virus? >> guest: right now they are looking at if you look at nih and the cdc, they don't know yet. i heard up tord nine days.

we are using the regular sanitation methodology at the cdc is saying you need to wipe surfaces down, white and hour before anybody else uses the room. they don't know specifically yet but they are looking at it. >> and others question from one of our first callers earlier today. once you officially have coronavirus and when are you considered recovered? >> guest: right now we don't have any specific treatments. nih and cdc are all looking at that. that's of some of the 8.3 billion is going towards understanding that. >> host: so all the symptoms that come from this until their body can do it? >> guest: right now it'sfi supportive care. preventive is the first thing. eating right, sleeping, exercising. not exposing yourself, social distancing especially for elderly and have underlying dictation spread hygiene, washing her hands, cover your cough, those of the main ways

to do it. if you are diagnosed with coronavirus it's like having the flu. you need supportive care. o e proceedings to be isolated, well hydrated, good nutrition, give medications for the bodyaches in headaches and fevers. you have to just walk them through that. but until we have a specific treatment, that is what we have. 80% of the people have a mild illness. it is the ones that are in between, the 20% they get hospitalized. and sadly some of them do die. >> host: inglewood florida marsha, goodod morning. >> caller: i was wondering, in florida i don't know if this is across the nation, but in florida, the pharmacists are allowed to do flu vaccines every year, i was wondering why we couldn't make it so that the pharmacist could also do the test. as i understand it it's more like a mouth swab.

>> guest: nasal swab, yes. pharmacists have always been our allies and they have pharmacies in-house. i would love to see everybody get into help out on this. a farmer system we have the vaccine it would be great if they could do that. if they were allowed, and this is going to be a rule and regulation issue. if they could do the testing, that would help us so much. anyplace we can find out what is going on with our community and monitor that, as i said earlier we can identify, isolate, and contain, that is going to the keeper is getting this under control. >> host: del texas mark, good morning. >> caller: i have a couple app ideas i like to throughout their breed of never seen so many different ways to wash her hands and how you have to do to certain way. if you don't get under your finails is not going to do a lot of good. but cutback your fingernails if you are really worried. number two, for optics, like

binoculars and eyeglasses they have these small wipes there individually packaged and they contain alcohol. okay, you wash your hands really well, then you pick your phone right back up. now what good is it? use as little wipes, there individually packaged and you can get a hundred in a box for next to nothing. wipe your phones down. that's all it got to say. god blesses. >> host: thanks mark i think anything we can do, we don't want to cause panic and want to be reasonable about it. if you are around sick people are sick yourself you should be washing services down. it's just like the flu leads be wise and prudent. need to wipe things down, our cell phones, binoculars and everything we c have. >> host: do you want to weigh in on the president's suite from not too long ago? the president saying the best decision made was the toughest of the mall which saved many lives. our very early decision to

stop travel to and fromiv certain parts of the world. >> guest: i think whatever the reasoning, john, the united states is in a much better situation than other countries. with the number of cases that they have. more people are in the process of being tested and we will find more cases for a think overall we are in pretty good shape right now and we will just have to see, as doctor found she says, this could turn in a day. so i think we are prepared on the front lines of the health centers to approach this whatever happens. if we run into a full on an emergency situation we will be prepared to address that if it's more in the mitigation stageng begin to see her patients, communicating with them, texting, video, chat whatever it takes to take care of them. right now we are in decent shape, but this cdc and nih said this could change any day.

>> host: medical officer from that committee health centers nac hc.org people are trying to figure out where their closest community health center is, how did they do that question expect just get on the internet google health center -- find a health center putting your zip code or address and i'll take you to the closest one. >> host: another response cospecifically among committee health centers. tony is waiting in st. paul minnesota on that line for medical professionals. good morning. >> caller: i was just going to touch on a few things and thank you for taking my call. i was at target yesterday, i just got off of work one hour ago, not even an hour it'd been 51 minutes ago since i clocked out of the emergency department. one thing i wanted to touch on was going to target yesterday morning. everyone is rushing out of the door with hand sanitizer which makes no sense to me if there's no food. that's where the shortage would be if you're going to be

coordinated home with water and other resources. touching back in the healthcare field is ppe supplies and the sales online that don't correspondence related back to a financial benefit for certain individuals. and then i look at the government charging people literally to be quarantined or be secured to not expose other people. why are these tests free? there facilities set up outside of the hospital that people can go to because if you diminish the front line of the emergency department and where people are being rushedd into, what does that really benefit t for? the people are going to have to call in sick of your most talented staff typically. another thing i wanted to? touch on was also with nursing homes and the senior care. i can go into an eight nursing home in minnesota and before i

get fully through the door, i am going to smell urine i am going to smell a substance that shows it's not being properly cleaned and sterilized so that those individuals aren't affected are most vulnerable right now. i want to give this dr. a chance to respond to them. >> guest: i think they are using the funds to look closely at the extended care places so i think their main focus right now is all of the infection control that's one of the focus your earlier points on being overloaded, that underscores the need for the health centers to be fully supported and for them to be seen as the frontline response to thisan pandemic. we are the ones i can sort to those cases and some of the ones that are really necessary to go to the emergency room or hospital, that is critical. i have your time is well spent

not being overloaded with unnecessary cases. we really need to sort through those and use our resources the best ways possible including the emergency room and hospital. >> host: in the nursing home specifically in the washington times they challenge nursing homes here are some of the numbers of the story. they're about 2.5 million people united states to live in long-term care i facilities. we talked about the 566 confirmed cases in the united states, it's up to 22 deaths at this .16 have been linked to one seattle area nursing on. if you want to read more on the specific challenge, to nursing home, kelly kennedy and adrian gomez linking and today's washington times as we hear from marie in california. >> caller: good morning i have a question about workforce within the health centers paired with health centers having funding, are you hearing about any health centers facing difficulties recruiting their clinical staff especially in light of

recent hospital closures? >> guest: this is always a challenge for us in the health center world is challenging because health centers are some of those difficult places rural, urban poor communities and unless you really understand what the health center mission is about a newer train for primary care, it's difficult to recruit clinicians to this areas. that's why the national service corn teaching health centers are so critical to what we do.. the teaching health centers get them in our site so they understand how we do primaryar care and the mission that we have.on and then the national service score helps us keep people trained and others that show the mission those two programs are really critical for us again the long-term funding is very important for us that we can keep our staff and maintain that workforce. this is an ongoing challenge for us in terms of training people, finding good clinicians in keeping them. we also work for nurse practitioner residency programs, wework with paa

programs, through the university and we just started a new program to train physician assistants and health centers coming from the communities and keep them, which is called college for helping committees and the underserved. >> host: less than five minutes left in the segment. a couple text questions if you had the flu vaccine, dissent make you less susceptible to getting covid-19? >> up to this point they don't know for sure with the crossover rate is. but what it does help us with, if you get the vaccine that helpskn you to prevent you from getting the flu and the first place and then it keeps you out of the health center or thinking you may be sick. i would recommend anybody, even now if you have not got near flu vaccine you should get that because it helps us sort through and really rule out people who may have covid-19. so please do that, we don't know the crossover yet, but is still a good thing to do. simon and then linda and new hampshire speaking a little bit toea the point you're talking about earlier, there been reports of people being

tested and then later charged as much is $9000 if the test is notot made free to all linda says, a lot of people will not get tested. >> guest: we are in that in between phases i mentioned earlier, and i stated that we will have more tests out this week i think we need it down to the nitty-gritty frontline, is the whole billing procedure and who pays for it. we have heard from cms that it will be covered as an essential item under care and when you are in the between phase you have to work that out and really do the paperwork and understand how to do that so your patients don't get these 9000-dollar bills. >> host: to leslie in tampa florida, good morning. >> caller: i was calling to find out if that virus can be carried by someone without showing any symptoms like we see with many other diseases a kid can go to school, combat, bring it home, never really get sick, but another person

in the house will get sick. >> guest: right, we don't know yet, we don't have a science for there has been some cases where they have not identified the source, usually it is from someone who travels or on a cruise ship. so right now we don't have that evidence yet. i would say if you are having any symptomsom again, back to the preventative thing keep yourself healthy,ci well-nourished, exercise, sleep well, and usually regular hand washing techniques. that is the best thing you can do. i don't think we should go around suspecting ten when saying around you will spread it to you. it's gotta be a much higher rate if they are coughing and having symptoms than if there asymptomatic. again we don't have a they are looking at that. >> host: new jersey good morning. >> caller: thank you sees that what i like to ask your guest is wire using ultraviolet lighting? it seems to be that, that is a

really good technology right now that can be mass-produced quicker than any kind of studies and tests and test and test can you answer that question please? >> yes wade we are looking for anyway possible to help fight this disease. we have been going specifically by the cdc and nih recommendations bird they have not put out any recommendations yet for ultraviolet light. we are open to whatever they say. they are taking the lead, they are the technical experts buried we are the front-line people where the implementation scientist that take theirie guidelines and implement them. >> host: insert terms of new technologies the $100 billion how much of that is for telemedicine toic try to diagnose people before they get inside the committee health centers? and if you were to use that how many of your patients have the ability to use telemedicine? >> guest: right john, they have not specifically said how the $100 million will be dispersed yet and what it will be used for. we have had some conversations

with the growth climate healthcare about what they thought about that. that will be determined. but if we can't use it for telemedicine are most useful is if we could use it for ways to communicate. right now we are working through telemedicine in general, how to bill fort alba legal issues, who was on which end? if they could broaden that for this case i think it be very helpful if we can take texting, facebook, facetime, anyway we can communicate with someone to keep them out of thele health center, that would be so beneficial. if we can figure that out it would really help us a lot. >> host: deborah dayton ohio, good morning.. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. i was just wondering maybe you could help me understand how singapore and south korea, how they could get these s test equipment out so quickly to maybe subjected to it and we seem to have such a waiting time for i don't really understand what the weight is for us here in america?

>> guest: good question, i think as i mentioned earlier we are looking for this week it's going to be a turning point for us is doctor fouts she mentioned 1.1 is available another 4 million by the end of a the week. so i am looking for just figuring it out, that is going to be key to our response. we need those tools in our hands to identify, isolate, and contain prayed that is where we are at today. i am looking forward to moving forward to getting those tools in our hands. right nowou we have few cases relatively speaking when you compare it to south korea, singapore and other areas had been connected. we need to catch an early. >> host: from pennsylvania, good morning.on >> caller: the people on the ships they're going to ship them around here don't they think they should keep them in oneyo spot? and isolate them? it doesn't show up for 14 days

and they have already been around the people on thead ship. that's how it is spreading. >> guest: celinda i believe the reason is that they want to get them off the ship because being in such a concentrated area, again we this virushow long survives on inanimate objects. the goal is to bring them into a clean, sterile situation and to have proper ventilation for them, i would not want to be cooped up on a ship for weeks and weeks. so i think they are trying to be humane but also scientific about it where they can take care of these people much better on these military bases or they can really watch things closely, they can bring them the care they need and also the comfort and support they need after going through such a traumatic experience. >> host: linda stick around that shipyard referring to the grand princess, our hope is in this next half-hour of our program we are to chat with one of the passengers on the grand princess.

that interview coming up in thenext segment of "washington journal". chief medical officer national association of health centers, its nac hc.org, we appreciate the time. ♪ ♪ c-span's "washington journal" live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up tuesday morning, michigan republican representative. upton and california democratic representative discuss the federal response to the coronavirus outbreak. then we will preview tuesday's primary and caucuses in six states with the hills read wilson. watch c-span's "washington journal", live seven eastern tuesday morning. join the discussion. submit and transmit kennard 2020 coverage continues tonight we are standing live to get you out to detroit for get out to vote rally with former vice president joe biden and that scheduled to

get underway shortly and when that doesn't have live coverage for you. and the meantime let's take you over to capitol hill earlier today, senators discussing the coronavirus response. we will show you is much as we can until the joe biden event gets underway. >> our nation has continued to confront the public health challenge posed by the new coronavirus. right now, is doctor anthony fauci of the national health reminds us the riskre of any individual american will contract the disease remains low. this is not a time for fear. it is a time to continue calmly scaling up the series and turned serious and smart preparations that have already been underway. so the united states t can continue to block the slow and mitigate the spread within our borders. the most recent global health security