there is c-span. our campaign 2020 programming differs from all other political coverage for one simple reason, c-span. we have brought you your unfiltered view of government every day since 1979. this year, we are bringing you an unfiltered view of the people looking to steer that government this november. in other words, your future. this election season, go deep, direct and unfiltered. see the biggest picture for yourself and make up your own mind. with c-span campaign 2020. brought to you as a public service by your television provider. president trump tweeted this morning, we will be by mutual consent, temporarily closing our northern border to canada to nonessential traffic. trade will not be affected. details to follow.

canadian prime minister justin trudeau will address that pandemic at 10:30 eastern. we will have that lie for you when it gets underway here on c-span. >> we are joined by michael thenberger, the director of university of maryland center for health and homeland security, a title which ties in -- really, both of the issues facing the u.s. and the world when it comes to the covid-19 coronavirus. what does your organization focus on? our organization was founded by the university of maryland president in the wake of the 9/11 attacks to deal, and the first instance in those days, with principally counterterrorism issues. we are about to celebrate our 18th anniversary on may 15, 2002. movedhe years, we have from counterterrorism, controlling, emerging infectious diseases, responding to

superstorm's like superstorm sandy, and also dealing with cybersecurity issues such as ransomware. >> certainly, since 9/11, the nation, the world has never seen an epidemic like this, but in your organization's experience in dealing with other viruses and health outbreaks, health concerns, and even the tabletop exercises your group may have done, what is your appraisal so far of how the u.s. has responded? the federal government, to the coronavirus outbreak? >> first of all, let me say this virus is more serious than anything we faced going all the way back to 2001. we have had anthrax, sars, mers, h1n1, h5n1, ebola, zika. this virusere today, presents the worst public health emergency that we have had.

i am afraid, as are other experts, that it is going to be very much like the 1918 spanish where somewhere between 20 million and 50 million people worldwide died from the flu. i don't know that that is when to happen, but this is a much more serious problem then we have ever seen before. in terms of the federal response, i, like many people, which it had started earlier. we are still having difficulty finding testing kits to determine who has the flu. andout this testing kits, moving as slowly as the u.s. is, it is very hard to develop a response. take, for example, medical personnel and hospitals. they could look at somebody, be dealing with somebody who has a bad allergy attack, a bad cold, the seasonal flu, or covid-19.

until we get a handle on what we are dealing with and who we have to deal with in terms of therapeutics, we are really behind the eight ball. i must say, south korea, which handled this and was testing tens of thousands of people a day, the u.s., even though we have now ramped up and made it easier to develop testing kits, we are still in the position of doing hundreds a day. handle precisely on what we are dealing with, it makes responding that much more difficult. >> i saw a headline this week that says "the coronavirus, a significant challenge to disaster agency" talking about the federal emergency management agency. do you see a clear chain of command on the federal level on who is taking the lead in response to the coronavirus?

>> in terms of the chain of --mand, i think that has usually, when you talk about the federal emergency management agency, or the stafford act, which they are in charge of ministering, you are really talking about something that is mostly a state response. for example, terrible hurricanes. wildfires, tornadoes. when you have a public health emergency, it calls into play not just the emergency management side of government, but also the public-health side of government. those two aspects of government have to work in harness. that as wetable speak now, that the federal government has got the chain of command in order. the other thing i would just emphasize, the president declared a national emergency on march 4. do. is an unusual thing to

usually, what happens is emergencies are declared state-by-state. that may still happen. in fact, it will still happen, but the fact that the federal government has declared this a national emergency, makes it much easier for states to get the president to agree with their assessment that they are dealing with an emergency or disaster within the state. the states, whatever the federal government does and whatever the federal government does is very important, but it is a supporting role as we are seeing all over the country. it is the state governors, 50 state governors and the mayor of the district of columbia, who really have the lead on all of this there at the mind face of dealing with dealing with this problem. almost every state -- it is not every state -- has declared a state emergency. and that is a very important

process because it frees the governor to take extraordinary actions within the state under state statutes and state case law. what we are seeing in new york and california, or in maryland, the governors are taking actions, closing bars, closing restaurants, limiting the assemblage of people. they have got support from the x hurts and the federal -- experts and federal government, but this is going to be viewed principally as a state response problem. the good news there is, because we work very closely with governors and state health agencies and state emergency management agencies, the states are pretty well greased to deal with this problem effectively. >> give us an idea of what your taskszation, the types of or things you have been asked by state governors to do to assist with. >> we have been asked by state

governors, state agencies, also, localities on their own, can declare their own emergencies and take roles. we have been advising a lot of large counties, for example, in maryland. montgomery and prince georges, which are right on the border with d.c. and are very populist. governments. we are advising them on day-to-day responses as issues come up on this. county,ard, howard which is between d.c. and baltimore and is a very prosperous, well-run county government, last friday, we ran goingetop exercise through what a coronavirus would call upon the public schools to do and testing public school

officers on how they would respond. we have other exercises we have been asked to do that are being lined up. that we have a lot of existing contracts with counties and state governments and cities that had asked us to do projects, which now, do not have the immediacy that coronavirus has. we have been essentially told, put the other things aside, throw your full weight behind dealing with the coronavirus. we will get back to those other issues when we can afford to do it. we are dealing with department of health, department of emergency management, hospitals, nonprofits, nursing homes, and trying to give them advice on how to respond within the confines of the emergencies that have been declared, and either the powers of the discretion they have to pursue public health ends.

>> joining as this morning up until 9:00 eastern is michael greenberger, our guest, the director of the university of maryland center for health and homeland security. welcome her comments and calls. in particular, we would like to hear what your states and localities are doing. michael greenberger, you mentioned the president declaring the national emergency, march 4. in particular, it invokes the stafford act. it allows a female to tap into nearly $43 billion in disaster relief funds, directing federal aid to the states hit by disasters and health crises. it instructs state governments to set up emergency operations it allows the health

and human services secretary to waive regulations that could hinder health professionals' response capabilities. how quickly does that money get to the states and localities? >> normally, and by the way, in this emergency, you can have public-health nonprofits may be entitled to a portion of that money. this, evennd all of though it is a national emergency, every state that has a serious problem will declare a state emergency, which is very, very important. fema to puten go to themselves in a situation to have additional funds sent into the state to cover work they do in responding to the coronavirus. the powers of governors where they declare these emergencies is extraordinary.

it is important the president did it. he did it both under the so-called national emergencies act and stafford act. also something called the public health services act which was put into motion on january 31 when we began to see people returning from china and possibly infected. all of those things allowed the federal government to waive requirements that might normally be in place in normal times. for example, somebody, a medical license person, can perform services outside of the area in which they are licensed under that waiver. the critical thing is going to be, and we are seeing this when we see the press conferences of the governor of new york, the governor of california and the governor of maryland. this allows the state, it paves the way for the states, one, to

tap the resources of federal funding available. they will have to do that with appropriate proof of what they have spent. , very important requirement the expenses you have so that when you turn around -- >> we are going to leave this "washington journal" conversation here. live now to canadian prime minister justin trudeau on the coronavirus and the ordered border closure between the u.s. and canada. few days, i'vet spoken to president trump about what we can do to slow the spread of covid-19. deputy prime minister freeland has been in touch with vice president pence and secretary pompeo. i just spoke to president trump again this morning. we have agreed that both canada and the united states will temporarily restrict all nonessential travel across the canada-u.s. border. i just talked to presid