>> follow the federal response to the coronavirus at c-span.org/coronavirus. you can find white house briefings, hearings with key public health officials and interviews with public health specialists, review the latest event at any time. . yi. remind us what community health centers are and how many there are in the u.s. guest: community health centers are the primary ambulatory care centers across the u.s. 12,000 community health center sites around the nation. they are strategically placed in every state, territory, the

district of columbia and rico. care, dentalary care, mental health and substance abuse disorders. we are really the safety net. we have 49% medicaid patients. 23% uninsured. we provide primary care to the communities that need it. host: for those uninsured, what happens with those folks? guest: we have a great relationship with the bureau of primary health care. they administer the public health grant which includes community health centers. it enables us to take care of people that have no health insurance. we have a sliding fee according annualr family size and

income. for funding, we just saw the president and congress sign a $.3 billion in emergency supplemental. there is $100 million for emergency health centers. it will primarily be for supplies for personal protective equipment and to support centers. host: is that enough? guest: we can always use more. it is a start. we appreciate the bipartisan support. we have enjoyed that bipartisan support, and we need more. i think we have a lot of potential, which we will get to today. host: personal protective equipment, are there places where you are running out already in community health centers? guest: yes. we had a webinar on friday.

we had 1900 people registered on that. we heard from to health centers on the west coast, seattle and oakland. some of them are getting close. they are not completely out. depending on the community they serve in the population, if there are a lot more international people, asian and pacific islanders, they are using their ppe a lot faster. we are not to the critical level yet. host: should they be using it already? guest: they are trying to follow the cdc guidelines in using masks and other equipment. they are doing their best. according to the education they are doing, we are trying to teach the patients. a lot of them are shifting to cohort groups where they examine a group of people rather than a one-on-one situation.

they are using less ppe. the cdc is good at playing out all these bangles to take. the health centers are seeking to follow that. host: what do you want to teach the patients? guest: teaching the patients is important. you have heard it all over the news from the cdc. come in at the right time. call ahead to discuss with your provider if it is necessary to come in. have you had that exposure history? are you having the right symptoms? are you elderly? do you have underlying conditions? health centers are looking at alternative ways to communicate with their patients such as asian health services. they are looking to go to texting and phone calls to communicate with patients.

host: in terms of questions that need to be asked, phone lines are open. if you are in the eastern or central u.s., (202) 748-8000. if you are in the mountain or pacific regions, (202) 748-8001. special line for medical professionals, (202) 748-8002. theguest is dr. ronald yi, chief medical officer for the national association of community health centers. believeight now i don't i have gotten any reports of health centers doing any direct testing. 1.1 million 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 one of my colleagues sent me an article that without court made

made itb core available. those will be able to be done directly at the health centers. up to this point, you had to go to special labs. the challenge is to see that come into place. that is what we are waiting for, how we get the test kits and how we send those in. how do we pay for it is really important. these are the benefits under medicaid and medicare. we want to see what that looks like. host: how many employees do you have at these? 1400 nationwide. host: are they trained on giving these test and going through all the proper protocols? thet: i think that is why community health centers our strategic partners.

our staff is required to have an emergency operations plan consistent with fema rules and regulations we have a plan on mitigation preparedness, response, and recovery. we have all those in place already. probably more of the frontline staff are trained in these. it goes all the way down to purchasing. they talk about how you respond and keep your business going and recover once you get through the epidemic. we are well prepared to handle this. i want to see the test kits fleshed out. that is a big one, especially for our uninsured patients sometimes we are not sure how that sliding the coverage will work with this. those are usually things you deal directly with the laboratory company. outeed to work the details of how we get people covered.

my main concern is the testing so we can i, isolate, and contain as we work with the cdc and other federal partners. the personal protective equipment could be an issue. first, susan in washington, go ahead. caller: this is susan. i am calling because i wanted to find out what congress is doing to reauthorize. i feel like they are putting communities at risk by not passing funding. fundinghe coronavirus is one thing. long-term funding for health centers has been at risk if congress does not act to reactivate the health center fund. this could really damage the response we are trying to mount against coronavirus. this brings into question a lot of the employees asking are we

going to be stable? we have been getting two-year funding over and over erie -- over. we have been waiting for congress to do longer-term funding. things like the pandemics and responses are critical. 12,000 locations around the country. numbersat have been the over the past decade? have they been relatively stable? guest: we have gone through continuing resolutions and sequestration, and we survived. the main thing is that health centers are bipartisan. over 55 years, we have had ups and downs. there are very few programs when you look at the role government that have survived over 55 years.

if you are 748-8002 a medical professional. (202) 748-8000 if you are in the eastern central time zones. (202) 748-8001 if you are in the mountain or pacific time zones. us ronald yi will be with until the bottom of the hour. when it comes to all the other work you do at community health centers, how much is coronavirus taking away from that other work? of your response is concerns about the coronavirus? guest: it varies by geography in the country. is impacted more dramatically because of the cases that have been popping up. we have seen more cases pop up every day. we are seeing that come in. in those areas they are having more patience call.

people are coming in and asking questions. is where the education comes in for us to educate our patients clearly. i would say it depends geographically on who is getting pressed on this. areall the health centers in shape. host: lee said all the hospitals are overwhelmed now. she says her husband died due to a lack of care. when do health centers become overwhelmed? guest: sorry for your loss. right now, it is when. health centers are trying to stay on top of it. overwhelm theto

emergency rooms and hospital. that is for people who are having severe respiratory symptoms and shortness of breath. that is why the health centers are so key in this response. a lot of the funds were put more towards the hospitals. we need to even that out. we are on the front line. we need to be the ones that have testtaffing and ability to so that we can get this under control. i think that is really important right now. caller: good morning. the new coronavirus may not show signs of infection for many days. fever or thef the cost, it will be 55% of the loan capacity.

we need people taking a deep breath and holding the breath. if you experience some type of discomfort or coughing, perhaps. i wanted to speak about the residency. i have my three young people. we are retired doctors. i wanted to talk about the health centers. i appreciate your service. you are very knowledgeable of intersecting the residency component. ammunity health centers fund lot of work with community health. gap.y to fill in the population here in florida. have a very wonderful

combination in tallahassee. we have the medical school and the pharmacy school. we have the nursing with our community college integrated programs. need the new, we budget funding that just came out. the residency program comes through the medicaid. i just had my son and daughter coming out of harvard and do. duke. john's wife is down at miami hospital. i am linked into the context of what we need in the pipeline. familyt sounds like it very much in the profession. guest: thank you for your service on the frontline and also your interest in graduate medical education.

the teaching health center program is critical for what we are trying to produce erie we have seen that physicians trained in health centers, 50% or more are going back. is verywe practice different and very holistic. when residents have a chance to work in a health center, that is when they understand our mission and our patients and population. health centers are the excellent place to train. our hope is they would stay afterwards. do, isding they can critical to what we do. that is the whole pathway that you mentioned his once we train them, we would love to be able to help them pay off loans.

the average medical student has $200,000 in debt when they get out. host: what is the service life of this virus? guest: right now they do not know yet. i have heard up to nine days. using the regular sanitation methodology of the cdc saying you need to wait an hour before anyone else uses the room. they are looking at it. host: what are the main treatments once you officially have coronavirus and when are you consider recovered? guest: right now we do not have any specific treatments. moneys what some of that is going towards, understanding .hat eri

right now it is supportive care and perspectives are the first thing, eating right, sleeping, exercising, not exposing yourself. basics.e the basic hygiene. if you are diagnosed for coronavirus, it is like having the flu. you need supportive care. you need to be well hydrated. give them medications for the cost and the fever. you have to walk them through that. until we have a specific treatment, that is what we have it is the ones that are in between and the 20% that end up hospitalized. host: florida, marcia, good morning.

caller: in florida, the pharmacist are allowed to do the vaccines every year erie i was wondering why we could not make it so that the pharmacist could also do the tests? as i understand it, it is more of a mouth swab? guest: good question. pharmacists have always been our allies. most health centers have pharmacists. the pharmacist, when we have a vaccine, it would be great if they could do that. this is going to be a regulation issue if they could do the testing. out what iscan find going on with our community and monitor that, if we can identify, isolate, and contain, that will be the key.

i just have a couple of ideas. i have never seen so many different ways to wash her hands. if you don't cut your fingernails, it is going to help. cut your fingernails if you are worried. optics, they have these small wipes that are individually packaged that contain alcohol. wash your hands real well. then you pick your phone up. what good is it? use those individually packaged wipes. you can get a hundred in a box for next to nothing. that's all i have to say. we can do, weg don't want to cause panic. we want to be reasonable. if you are sick, you should be

wiping your services down. this is like the flu. we need to be prudent. i agree with you. we need to clean everything we have. the president saying the best decision made was the toughest of them all, which saved many lives, the early decision to stop travel to many parts of the world. guest: whatever the reasoning, the u.s. is in a much better situation than other countries. with the number of cases we have, we will have more. people are in the process of being tested. we will find more cases. overall we are in pretty good shape right now. we will just have to see if this could turn in a day. prepared on the frontlines of the health centers whatever happens. if we run into a full on

emergency situation, we will be prepared to address that. we will be out there in the frontlines communicating with video,s through texting, chat, whatever it takes to take care of them. right now we are in decent shape. this could change any day. national community health centers, if folks are trying to figure out where their community health center is, where can they do that? guest: they can go online. put in your zip code or address for the closest one. host: talking about the response among community health centers, tony is in st. paul, minnesota. good morning. i was just going to touch on a few aims.

i was at target yesterday. i just got off of work one hour ago. it has been about 51 minutes since i clocked out. going to target yesterday morning, everyone was rushing out of the door with toilet paper in hand sanitizer. touching on the health care of ppe supplies in the sales online related to a financial benefit for certain individuals. i look at the government charging people to be exposeined to not other people. freeren't these facilities set up outside of the hospital?

if you diminish the frontline of the emergency department, what does that benefit for the people that are going to have to call in sick that are your most talented staff? with nursing homes, i can go into any nursing home in with nursingminnesota and befort through the door, i am going to that shows it is not being properly clean and sterilized. those individuals are the most vulnerable. host: you bring up a couple of good points. i want to give dr. yi a chance to respond. funds they are using the to look closely at extended care. ther main focus is all infection control.

i think again that underscores the need for health centers to be fully reported and seen as the frontline response to this pandemic. we can search through those cases and send the ones that are necessary to the emergency room at hospital. i hope your time is well spent and not loaded with unnecessary case is. host: the story in today's washington times on the challenges in nursing homes, about 2.5 million people in the u.s. live in long-term care facilities. we talk about the 566 confirmed cases in the u.s. to one been linked seattle area nursing home.

and adrian gomez lincoln in today's washington times discuss that. caller: good morning. i have a question about the workforce with health centers. are you hearing about any health centers facing difficulty recruiting clinical staff? guest: this is always a challenge in the health world. unless you really understand what the health center mission difficult tois recruit a lot of clinicians. that is why it is so critical to what we do. teaching health centers help them understand how we do primary care and the mission that we have. corpsational service

helps us keep people that are trained. the long-term funding is very important for us so that we can keep our staff and maintain that work force. this is an ongoing challenge in terms of training people. nurseo work with practitioner residency programs. started a new program to inin position assistance health centers coming from their .ommunities if you have had the flu vaccine, does that make you less susceptible to getting covid-19? guest: up to this point, they do it know the cross over rate keeps you out of the health

center. i would recommend anybody who has not gotten flu vaccine, please get that. it helps to rule out people who may have covid-19. we do not know for sure the cross over yet. it is still a good thing to do. host: linda in new hampshire speaking to a point you were talking about earlier. people have been tested and charged as much as $9,000. a lot of people may not get tested. guest: we are in that in between phase. we will have more tests this week. when you get down to the frontline, the billing procedure and who pays for it. we have heard from cms that it will be covered as an essential item. out and do work that the paperwork and understand how

to do that so your patience don't get these $9,000 bills. i was calling to find carriedhe virus can be by someone without showing any symptoms like we see with many other diseases. another person in the household gets sick. guest: we don't have the science for it. there are cases where they have not identified the source area right now we don't have that evidence yet eerie if you are having any symptoms, keep yourself healthy and well-nourished. exercise sleep and use your regular handwashing techniques. that is the best thing you can do.

be a much higher rate if they are coughing and having symptoms. we don't have the science yet. wayne in new jersey. caller: good morning. why aren't we using ultraviolet lighting? it seems to be that is a really good technology that could be mass-produced quicker than any studies and tests. we are looking for any way possible to this disease. they have not put out any recommendations for ultraviolet light. we are open to whatever they say. they are taking the lead. we are the frontline people. we are the implementation scientists. host: in terms of new technology, how much money is

to diagnosecine people before they get inside the community health centers how many of your patience have the ability to use telemedicine? guest: they have not specifically said how the $100 will be dispersed and what it will be used for. they have asked us what we thought about that. telemedicine,se it would be most useful if we could use different ways to communicate. right now we are working through telemedicine in general. if they could broaden that this case, it would be helpful. if we can do texting or facebook, anything that keeps people out of the health center. host: good morning, deborah.

caller: thank you for taking my call. i was hoping you could help me understand how singapore gets these test equipment out so quickly to people that have been subjected to it. understand what the weight is for us here in america. guest: good question. we are really looking forward this week to 1.1 million available right now and another 640,000 coming out today at another 4 million later this week. handsd those tools in our so we can identify isolate and contain your that is where we are today. i'm looking forward to getting those tools in our hands. we have relatively few cases in

singapore. host: last call is linda. caller: for the people on the ships and stuff that they are going to ship around here and there, don't you think they should keep them in one spot and isolate them? it does not show up for 14 days. they have already been around people on the ship. that is how it is spreading. guest: being in such a concentrated area, we don't know how long this virus survives on in animated -- o animate objects. i would not want to be cooped up on a ship for weeks. 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 very they can watch these people closely and look at the comfort and support for these people. host: we hope in the next segment to speak with one of these people on the grand princess. thank >> the national league of cities will hold a news conference on the response to the coronavirus outbreak and other issues as part of their annual conference. we will have that live as soon as it starts. today on "washington journal," we spoke with a passenger on the grand princess cruise ship.