>> if you miss any of our live coverage of the response to the coronavirus outbreak, watch it any time at c-span.org/coronavirus. from daily briefings by the president and white house task force to update from governors of the hardest hit states. use the charts and maps to track the spread and confirm cases in the u.s., county by county. our coronavirus webpage is your fast and easy way to watch c-span's unfiltered covered of this pandemic. up in an hour, national conference of state legislatures executive director tim story on what the $2 trillion coronavirus a package means for the states and the states' response to the crisis.

of -- on.m., a doctor the latest developments in u.s. efforts to combat the coronavirus pandemic. ♪ good morning. it's tuesday, march 31, 2020. president trump is set to hold another coronavirus task force briefing in the white house at 5 p.m. eastern. daysmes as they mark 20 since the virus was officially declared a global pandemic. talking about the u.s. responsiveness this morning, we are asking you to tell us who has had the biggest impact. if you think it has been the federal government, the number to call this morning is (202) 748-8000. if you think state government, (202) 748-8001.

if you think it is local government, (202) 748-8002. and if you think the private sector has had the biggest impact on coronavirus response, (202) 748-8003. you can also catch up with us on .ocial media this morning, you can start calling in now. we begin with an image of the federal response. this is the united states navy in newmfort arriving york on monday. that thousand bed navy ship described today in "the new york times" as a gleaming white the can of hope." navy officials point out that they don't plan on treating people with coronavirus aboard the comfort. the mission is to take on the patients with other medical problems and relieve the overrun new york medical hospitals. on the front page of "the new

york times," a story about state response, the entire d.c. area order to stay home. imposing severe restrictions on residents. joining a growing number of states that have had near total lockdowns in response to the escalating coronavirus outbreak. "the new york times" with the map on states that have coronavirus orders. the story notes that 261 million states, 821 counties, 18 cities and the district of columbia, puerto rico as well, are being urged to stay at home. when it comes to local government responses, a couple of stores on that front. from npr, this story from yesterday morning, local governments race to administer coronavirus tests and secure supplies. from the dallas morning news, updates on local government responses looking at a fiction notices in texas being halted.

the story there noting that to deal with jails ahead of the coronavirus outbreak, trying to limit the population in jails. one more story on the private sector response this morning. this one, general electric is teaming up with the ford motor company to build tens of thousands of ventilators. host: asking you who you think has had the biggest impact when it comes to coronavirus response. if you think it is the federal government, (202) 748-8000 is

the number. state governments, (202) 748-8001. local governments, (202) 748-8002. if you think it is the private sector, (202) 748-8003. lastr way, you can use the line to send us a text message -- by the way, you can use the last line to send us a text message, (202) 748-8003. george's up first out of new jersey. caller: great question. the federal government, by far, is doing this testing. a money grab, what a scam this full thing is. the federal governments of all the world have developed this virus to tamp down the population, separate us even further with social distancing. this is all a mind game, the big boys are playing. they are going to make so much money on these ventilators. george in new jersey. richard, wyoming, who do you think who has had the biggest

response? ago brian lambs gave an interview to gina, about pandemic. i approached her book and it was an eye-opener. i have been preparing for this for quite a while. but it's right there in the icon, your files. host: how have you been preparing, richard? caller: i have been staying, you know, keeping away from, you know, big crowds, activities and things like that. for years already. when you have swine flu's and animals, it comes around every year. host: that's richard in wyoming. susan in youngstown thinks that state governments have had the biggest impact so far. don't only understand,

hello, i didn't really understand the gravity of this until i heard governor cuomo. i live in ohio but it wasn't until i heard the numbers with governor cuomo explaining what the emergency was. so, i didn't take it seriously until i heard him. i would say state government. but i think a crucial point is not being understood. the lack of testing kits in the -- no accident, it was more insidious than that. the trump administration received the briefings, they understood how serious this was. the lack of testing kits was a deliberate trump strategy to conceal the numbers. trump used covid-19 as a political prop for himself and not a health crisis for the american people. he had months to prepare and he didn't. he wanted, it's like you assume that he would be like you and wants to save lives, but he

doesn't care about that. the first part of your comment, why didn't you take it seriously until governor cuomo talked about it? the numbersave us and showed us that the hospitals would be overwhelmed. from cap saying it was a hoax, it was going to go away. i still have a sister who doesn't believe it and i'm desperately calling her to tell her it is real [sobbing] she has underlying health conditions. i mean, you know, it's like you , wely have to understand have to ignore everything that trump says. until you listen to the doctors, the scientists, the governors who are trying to save the lives of people and not just trying to -- remember, he did this, remember how he didn't want the people on the ship to come back? remember, he did the same thing

in puerto rico. speaking of governor cuomo, on the same front page of "the washington times" that we thisd you this morning," headline, cuomo steady hand .ills national vote -- void [video clip] things for do good my state and you are a good partner, i will be the first one to say you are a good partner. and i have. i went to the ship comfort today. i said thank you, mr. president. we opened up the javits center. i said thank you to the army. they did a great job, the army corps of engineers. when you help my state, i will say thank you. when i believe that new york is not being served, the federal legislation that they passed, i will say that, to. sometimes it's simple. just tell the truth, right?

i mean that's where we are. tell the truth. if you are doing the right thing by new york, i will say it. if he is doing the wrong thing by new york, or the rest of the country, i will say it. but i'm not going to engage in politics. tanglet i'm unwilling to , but because i think it is inappropriate and counterproductive and anti-american. forget the politics. forget the politics. we have a national crisis. we are at war. there is no red and blue, there is red, white, and blue. let's get over it and lead by example. host: governor cuomo during his press briefing yesterday. this morning we are asking your thoughts, who had the biggest impact when it came to coronavirus response? if you think it is the federal government, (202) 748-8000. state governments, (202) 748-8001.

if you think it is local government, (202) 748-8002. if you think it has been the private sector, (202) 748-8003. a couple of our callers already this morning bringing up the idea of testing in this country. president trump at his press briefing yesterday talked about state, and local ability to test for coronavirus. here is the president from the white house, yesterday. [video clip] >> more americans have been tested in this country than any other country by far. tested accurately. i would like to ask secretary a czar, who has done a fantastic job, to come up and say a few words but the fact that we reached substantially now more than one million tests. please. thank you, alex.

>> well, thank you mr. president for your leadership and mulcher -- in marshaling all the resources we need for this unprecedented testing effort. thank you mr. vice president for leading the whole economy approach to testing. as the president mentioned, the united states hit more than one million samples tested, a number that no other country has reached. we are now testing nearly 100,000 samples a day. also a level that no other country has reached. that from the white house coronavirus task force briefing yesterday. going to be another one today that is scheduled to take place at 5 p.m. eastern that's more than a million testing numbers, touted yesterday at the white house. here are some of the other numbers in the united states right now. this map familiar to c-span viewers, the johns hopkins coronavirus dashboard.

confirmed coronavirus cases in the united states, the total deaths in the united states now over 3000. the number on the right, the green number ticking up, as we have seen in recent days. that number has been recovered close to 6000 in the united states. taking your phone call on the phone lines, split up a bit differently this morning. william called in an online without that state governments had the biggest impact. newport, arkansas, good morning. caller: how are you today? host: doing all right. aller: changing the subject bit if i may, come november we will have an election and what i'm struggling with is how we hold an election if all of the people who have run the election are sick or ill, or have perished, ok? for generations deep. who has ever participated in holding a vote, how do i do that? how do i certify a vote? stick around, at the 8:00

eastern hour we will be talking with tim story of the national conference of state legislatures . this is one of the issues they are dealing with when it comes to holding elections, states primaries,ut back that coming back to our original question this morning, you think that state governments have had the biggest impact. why? caller: all government is local government, ok? if the secretary of state assistant, wehe go four deep, who certifies the state elections? times 50. who does that? host: all right, that's william in arkansas. vivian, fredericksburg, local government. why? good morning, john. good marketing, c-span.

local and state. the mayor had his own lockdown yesterday, which should have been several weeks ago, because this is serious. is thatres me the most people don't believe it. they still think it is a hoax. people are dying every day. people see it -- soon to be released. it's beautiful. i knew it was a pandemic before it was a pandemic. the tests are beautiful. .e are doing a wonderful job people are dying in an alarming way. when are these people going to wake up? my mama always told us that you can't fix stupid. but when stupid is killing people? we need to try to fix it. this is crazy. how, canyon country, , canyonia copper -- al

country, california. saying federal government. caller: i never call this early in the morning, but they are drinking the kool-aid very early this morning. i don't know what they are talking about, that local governments are doing the best. the federal government through trump is doing an amazing job. an amazing job. who the heck would ever think that something like this would happen. in such a short time you see the country coming together like it did in world war ii. it's amazing. his leadership, his administration, people are coming together more and more and more under private businesses. cuomo attacking the president when he had 30,000 of these in alators in a warehouse hospital and he only came out recently with it and he hit it, he said well, we need that. we need it for some reason if something should happen. wentime, he kept on saying

need 30,000. he already had 30,000. host: what about your governor in california? he's doing ank great job, even though he's a democrat he's not bringing politics into it. politics into it just like his brother, every day. i'm an independent, i see what's going on. i'm a vietnam vet, 73 years old, i'm looking at it a logical way and i tell you, sir, the government is doing a fantastic job. we will learn by this, we will come out of it, but we can't trust china. host: a few comments from twitter and text message when it comes to governor cuomo --

host: here is that image again on the front page of "the wall street journal" this morning. the uss comfort moving past the statue of liberty docked in new supply monday, there to hospital beds for non-covid-19 patients to help the overwhelmed hospitals there in new york. this, yesterday, from california governor gavin newsom, announcing the creation of a new program to help find medical workers to assist in the outbreak. now beyondoing out the regulatory changes to make sure that we have the adequate

workforce. looking for mental health experts, looking for more emts, more pharmacists. more phlebotomists. looking for more experts in respiratory care and the like. technicians, administrators, doctors, nurses. we are calling on you to step up, step in and meet this moment. we have more licensed health care professionals in the state of california than any state in the nation. professionals in the state of california. we estimate we have the capacity to increase our ranks by an additional 37,000 professionals that are in that time of life where they again may have just recently retired or are in the process of getting their license and their degrees. so, we are very, very hopeful with this effort that we will to besurge of individuals

paid and compensated to andicipate in the workforce distributed throughout the care delivery system around the state of california. governor gavin newsom yesterday. taking your phone calls today, asking you who has had the least impact when it comes to coronavirus response. federal governments, local governments, the private sector? we have phone lines for each. bill, says federal government. riverton, illinois. go ahead. theer: it's got to be federal government. these governors, all they do is sit and cry about everything. they can't do nothing on their own. hospitals don't back stack a bunch of ventilators. in the united states we always bitch about the costs of medicine. you can't do that for the situation. this is unprecedented. trump has done everything he could. trumps not a politician.

all of the politicians lie out of their ass. ,ost: bob out of michigan saying state governments. why do you think that? would like to start out, john, by making an appeal my state representatives and senators, and the governor who started out pretty strong cool byow kind of going god over the last couple of weeks. we lost a lot of ground. host: what specifically about your governor? ya'dr: she just kum bai this whole thing because she's not a firm person. but this is true of the governor and our state legislators. michigan is a powerhouse industrial place. we need our workers healthy. the trend that i'm seeing, it's also a vacation state.

i'm appealing to both parties to get with the governor and shut the borders down. someone has to do it first, john. wish you get is uniquely positioned to do this. shut the border to all out-of-state traffic other than going in andhicles out to supply the u.s. with the things that we make that we will need. from this round of the virus and the next one that's coming. you: bob, bob, who are trying to keep out in michigan by doing that? you are saying people who are trying to flee from other parts of the country where the outbreak is worst? -- worse? caller: summer homes, colleges, they think that by coming here won't panacea, that they get sick. statistics say that basically you are jumping out of a frying pan into a fire. case i'm just telling

you that this is easily doable. we are geographically positioned for a shutdown of the border. our workers can't afford to get sick in the state. what i am saying to you folks is that i'm seeing the trend out of new york and seattle. a red state. it's ridiculous. this is happening. people, if you are thinking of .oing this, you are not welcome you are not welcome in michigan. we can't afford and don't have much. you come here, you are jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire and we can't afford our people to get sick. one last thing, two months ago, john, you were the moderator, there was a guy, an epidemiologist that came on. this was right after the first outbreak in that nursing home in seattle. you might remember that, he was

on. he brought over marburg and ebola. just to his extrapolation out of those 12 cases, i remember drinking coffee, i watch it every morning, i was half asleep knowing -- boring, you know? just out of those 12 cases, when he turned the virus, he called it problematic. scientists talk. in the end his projections were that if we did a pretty good job million, 96 million people would probably come down with the virus. if we could keep the decimated at 1%, that is why i kind of, my eyes opened and i went home i god.

this was just based on his characteristics of being basically untraceable. he termed it a slow moving fast virus. i don't know if you remember the kind. this was right just after the first cases were discovered in a nursing home in seattle. host: the nice thing about the c-span archives is you can always go back and find those interviews, those segments. all available at our website, c-span.org. if viewers want to go find that. we are keeping all of our coronavirus response and federal legislation dealing with coronavirus available on a special page in our website as well. c-span.org is where you want to go. that idea of closing down michigan by the congressman from , paul mitchell is going to be joining us in about five

or 10 minutes or so and i will ask him about it. one more thing about michigan, this from the op-ed page of today's quote washington post," co-byline by governor larry hogan of maryland and governor gretchen whitmer of michigan, saying what governors need. reinforcing the health care system, shoring up state budgets , allowing the maximum flexibility for spending aid, preparing federal unemployment insurance for the surge and keeping mission-critical workers , you can read the joint column today in "the washington post." joy from montana says state governments. why is that, joy? yesterday governor bullock was on the phone call with governors. he told trump that we need testing very, very bad.

we have started to break out all over the state. he was trying to trace where was coming from, but if he didn't get tests you wouldn't be able to and gallatin county, in bozeman, has the most cases. trump said what i haven't heard from anybody else who needs testing and blew him off. that is joy, montana. stephen, ulster park says the government has had the biggest impact. caller: a few callers ago a man from california said that the governor is doing a great job testing one million people. there are 327 million people in this country. testing one million out of 327 million and calling the virus a

hoax is getting people killed. the federal government is vital and must serious up. my point about c-span is the man from california said new york at 30,000 ventilators and was courting them. new york needs 30,000 onlylators and was given 4000. yes, they are holding them until they are needed, but incorrect callers must be corrected. false information right about now gets people killed because they don't take it seriously. thank you, everybody. have a good day. host: you said the federal government needs to get serious. how do they do that? they need to stop vacillating. come out on easter to pack the churches? that's insane, that will get many killed. they need one serious message.

trump has to back off of these press conferences that he's doing. the one yesterday had no scientists. it doesn't make any sense at all. they have to get serious. that is stephen in new york. deb, texas. there have been a lot of good calls this morning. texas is impacted. i take a little statement -- exception to the statement about negative or positive. we don't have a cuomo here. we have a zealotry-based government and it's a big problem for us here. as you know, reagan wanted to shrink government down and drown it in the bathtub. apparently that is what we are in the process of doing. our institutions are hollowed out. we have some government states that are going to do good and some bad. that is what -- why national

leadership matters. we need a strong leader that will put something out to guideline the country but instead we are treating this like it's super tuesday. with each state going to the board and we will follow each state and, you know, people are going to go state to state. i'm in texas, my neighbor came down from new york. we have people come from egypt and go to atlanta. virus is goinghe to put us all over. in our case here we have governors where you can't buy food online with your step card. we are one of the handful of states that doesn't allow it. we have been trying to get that done since hurricane harvey. yesterday the government came out and said they would let us use it at mcdonald's and fast food. that we can't buy produce and online. all of the things that have been done since harvey.

the digital divide, people don't have devices or wi-fi. you have all of this haven't have not, which is odd because now the stimulus is the great equalizer. everyone will have to get something but the poor people will still have the brunt. we need national meet leadership and it is a real shame because we don't have it in trump. . host: a few more calm -- trump. from a few more comments twitter and text message --

host: asking for your thoughts about biggest impact on coronavirus in the united states. (202) 748-8000 if you get is the federal government. (202) 748-8001 if you get his state government. (202) 748-8002 if you think it is local government. (202) 748-8003 if you think it is the private sector. you can continue to call in as , bringing zoom now you congressman paul mitchell from the 10th district of michigan. congressman, good morning to you, sir. tell us about the coronavirus in your corner of michigan. how is the 10th district this morning? >> we are in very good shape. michigan as a whole has become a real metropolitan hotspot. we have a fair number of cases and unfortunately some of them are going to the bad, negative outcome.

we are working hard to have control. , thenk, i would suggest basis of the question you are posing today, there's a role for state, local, federal, and the private sector to beat coronavirus. they have to work together. we saw some of those outcomes yesterday, as well as with the other things going forward. the ventilators eating made by ford motors. we see the private sector, the federal government, all working together. the extent to which we can do that, get through this in a better shape. where are the places that you think they could be working better together right now? >> they are working well together in most cases, not all. we have to step back from politics, sometimes i see that get in the way. i heard some of the conversation with your guests earlier. there will be plenty of time one way or the other whether or not

something moved quick enough. right now we need to focus on what moves us forward as a nation. saving the whole you could have done this better discussion later. that will happen, you and i both know that. let's focus on trying to keep them healthy and minimize damage to the economy. host: i promise bob i would ask him about his suggestion. he wants to close down michigan to non-essential outside visitors. people perhaps fleeing from other parts of the country where the outbreak is worse, people who have vacation homes in michigan. he says shut it down, you are not welcome in michigan. that's his comment. guest: we are a nation, the united states, i'm not sure that's constitutional. florida has been checking the health of people coming in. ok. there are rules to made on that. but should the federal

government provide guidance? absolutely. the president has been extending social distancing and cdc guidelines. but that is a state-by-state decision in terms of whether people stay home. down state closing borders is something that ultimately we have to decide, whether or not it is constitutional or even appropriate, people need to do the right thing. unless it's essential that they do something in particular, they stay home. i don't understand why that is so difficult understand. most people would do that and it's the best you can get out of that outcome. governor whitmer with a column in today's "washington post," i don't know if you had a chance to look at that. , shesk of washington co-bylined it with larry hogan from maryland, among the things she's asking for is reinforcing the health care system, shoring up state budgets, allowing maximum flexibility for spending

aid. she writes that in a rapidly public health emergency, the government needs more flexibility to quickly adapt as circumstances change and demand for resources shift. passing the treasury secretary for broad discretion on how to spend relief funds. is that some thing you support? flexible withty guidelines and those need to be adhered to. if there is a change, we will make it. but we don't advocate money to states to figure out what they will do and i think we have done a good job with that. we passed it last week, the $2 trillion legislation, the largest disaster assistance we have ever had administered in the nation. on account of shoring up the health system, that's appropriate. you have to remember that the reality is the strategical destitute of national stockpile

was never designed to deal with a nationwide disaster pandemic. flu episode swine had used some of that strategic stockpile, we were behind the eight ball on that one. the result is that we are now catching up, doing a good job catching up, but still not adequate. it is going to be a slog, it truly is. i think we need to see what else we need to do before we decide to throw money out there to decide that it works. that's not a good answer. host: on that point, do you think it is likely that there will be a fourth stimulus bill? at this point what are some things that might be considered in the fourth bill? i think there will be a fourth bill, but we need to take time to see the impact.

to just do something is not a good answer. my background in washington was mostly businessman. the reality is that we need to take a bit of time to see what happens in the economy, what gaps are there. i am concerned about some of the community banks and the impact it has on their viability. rural communities, like in mind, that is one thing to pay attention to. i think there will be others that will continue to have problems. maybe change some of the small business programs we have in place to allow for more time for them to come back on their feet. we are guessing as to when the economy can come back to life. let's not guess with more money and just hope that it works. host: last year you announce that you wouldn't be running again for congress. you said at the time that you

were tired of the rhetoric and the vitriolic in washington. has this crisis tamped that down? guest: we had a rough ten-day seer here, unfortunately. the governor and the administration decided to trade political barbs. conversations with people saying guys, we have a job to do. it's not about who we can blame. there's plenty of time for that later. we can do more by working together. that has gotten much better and i appreciate that. it didn't go away entirely and i hope it gets better. interesting 3.5 years, that's for sure. it certainly has been. an active member of the problem solvers caucus. we are working on a strict economy plan. it will have specific recommendations in there about

the things we do for the economy. things we do to have continuous operations for congress. after 9/11 and the swine flu there were a lot of discussions about making sure that congress functions and what we need to do with a variety of things. like many things in washington, nothing was done besides talk. we are trying to work on that on-the-fly. these are things that the problem solvers will propose to the bipartisan group in the house. we are trying to find solutions and i have enjoyed that a great deal. is remote voting a solution? guest: some version of it, if you can go through a legislative process. congress, as you know, they don't just vote. there are motions on the floor, amendments that are offered. oversight hearings on legislation. all of those things have to happen.

congress doesn't just -- to call a vote is not eating a member of congress. we need to deal with that holistically. not just say remote voting and therefore we are above water. we are going to have to deal with something that allows for voting when you can't get to washington or one place. we don't have that in place. we need to have that function so that they can have a conversation about legislation. people who can hear experts talk about an issue. all of those things need to be in place. i know that they are working on some of that. the problem solvers, part of what we put forward will be some us to be anble effective legislative group as part of the constitution. keeping the country moving forward, we need to innovate little bit here. can you talk to us about life as a congressman in the age of coronavirus? guest: the biggest part of the job is communication and being a

resource. i work with some health care providers in terms of when they have critical needs that need to be addressed. particularly on testing issues that arose. struggling with getting better, it's a national challenge. i have a series of webinars today with the chambers of congress on what it means for small business in particular, for individuals and for communities. think we have scheduled one for local media on wednesday to go through as well, where we understand the bill. communication is i think the biggest role right now. let's be honest, there are days of frustration trying to help with a problem weather is no easy solution to it. of that is working our way through. what i'm doing with my family is look -- take it a week at a time. we are through this week.

people are healthy, most are. how do we move forward as a family, as a community. looking at 30 days, it's daunting. taking it a week at a time, how do we assess where we are going, what do we do to make it better and assess how the work is going forward? we have to accept that there will be changes in terms of how the nation functions. i don't think we know it all yet, but we haven't seen it. host: we appreciate you start your day with us. paul mitchell of michigan, 10th district, stay safe out there. guest: used a call. -- you take care. continuing without question, who has had the biggest impact when it comes to coronavirus impact? federal, state, local, or private sector, you can call in on any of those. jerry tar heel says federal government. why is that?

>> they are the ones on the top every day with donald trump and the administration telling how things going on with the virus. , outside ofoblem is a whole lot not being truthful, it's the blame game. host: jerry, who do you trust? caller: i try to put faith in the truth. we don't know who is telling us the truth. [indiscernible] was jerry. rick out of idaho says the private sector has the greatest impact. rick, good morning.

caller: i have a couple of positive things i would like to bring to light. grocery stores, i sent out the idea about two days ago that the uphiers, if they should put lexi glass shields for customers, away and means of protecting the community's from the cashiers and customers and i went to the grocery store the next day and sure enough they isles, thosethe were 22 inches wide by eight inches long. this is a positive means of protecting the cashier from the customer and the customer from the cashier. something positive that i think they will all, that all grocery stores should follow. it's a practical way of doing things. we don't have to wait for the government to step in to tell us

how to do things. if you have a mom-and-pop idea, bring it to light, share it with america. anything we can do to help prevent the spread of coronavirus. and there's another country , the ceo hadf all diagnostics where they started to do the test kits for thc for marijuana smokers. police officers were going to use it as a test but when they came out for the coronavirus they today decided they would be pumping out 50,000 tests for the united states of america. this was invented by this small by a diagnostic company and it is the one that you can take the test in five minutes. these are positives, ladies and gentlemen. no matter what we do, we have got to sit together. if you have an idea, step up to the plate, say something good. it's not the fault president trump for the republicans.

this is something we inherited from china. host: are we focusing enough on the positive? caller: yes, we are. yes, we are. we crossed our fingers for my granddaughter, she had a fever, , and we were days in lockdown, kids. it was the best thing we could do. look for ideas to create a positive outcome. if you have got a mom and pop idea out there, bring it to light. i know my time is up, i appreciate your hospitality. god bless president trump trying to make america safe. thank you, c-span. host: james out of west virginia says the federal government has set the biggest impact. go ahead. >> i believe it is the federal government and the reason is they have a big responsibility.

some 300 million people in the united states and our president ain't just thinking about us, but he's thinking about others. at a time like this it's a big thing. people are scared, they are afraid and stuff like that, but they need to keep in mind, and i'm not talking religion, but god has the power to do everything and everything. a can bring these things to stop immediately. why these things are happening? we don't know. why people are dying? we don't know. government ishe doing everything it can to try to help the people and it's a hard burden. it is just like a war. you have your general and then you have got your captains, colonels and stuff. it's the same way you got the government. you've got your governors. officers. first responders. with the agree

congressman, congressman michel who joined us earlier, saying that each one had a role to play and they could play the role together and work together? caller: yes, sir. that's what, you know, we need. we shouldn't fight each other. we need to come together as one. that's what built the great nation. ,f you look at the dollar bill it says in god we trust. why are we trusting god? -- aren't we trusting god? twitterfew more from and our text messaging service. this room california --

left inout 10 minutes this segment. just asking you whether you think the federal government, state government, local government has had the biggest impact so far. tell us what is happening in your part of the country. this is thomas out of colonial heights, virginia. good morning. caller: good morning. john, thank you. this is an easy call, because you have to look no further than new york. governor cuomo is acting very presidential.

i feel like i am qualified to say that if federal government and did what they are capable of doing, we could get a handle on it. i spent 20 years on active duty. i know the power of what the federal government can do. if we organize and work together. the problem is we have a person in the white house that don't know anything about government and how government is supposed to work, really. the presidentk has surrounded himself with the right people when it comes to coronavirus response? we see these task force briefings, dr. fauci at the briefings, he's one name that often comes up in discussion. dr. fauci is doing an outstanding job. but the other people, in my

opinion? they are there to praise the president. if they say anything that he doesn't agree with, it's obvious. host: this from yesterday's coronavirus task force reefing. he was asked about the possibility of coronavirus coming back in the fall as a part of a seasonal illness. this is what he said. [video clip] >> the possibility that this could be a seasonal, cyclical virus. maybe both of you could comment on this. are you prepared for this to strike again? say in the fall? all the efforts taking place right now to contain this, to be proactive -- >> i hope it doesn't happen. dr., would you like to say some thing about that? i hope it doesn't happen but we are certainly prepared. caller: i would anticipate that

anticipate that happening because of the degree of transmissibility. but if it comes back in the fall it will be a totally different ballgame from when we first got hit with it this year. several things will be different. our ability to go out, identify, test, isolate, and contact trace will be orders of magnitude than what it was just a couple of months ago. in addition we have a number of clinical trials looking at a variety of therapeutic interventions and we hope that one or more of them will be available. importantly, as i mentioned to you many times that these briefings, we have a vaccine on track with multiple other candidates. i would anticipate that in a year and a half, we could do another emergency use if we see an efficacy signal in the next season. things are going to be very, very different. what we are going through now is

more than just lessons learned, it will be things that we have available to us that we didn't have before. that was yesterday's coronavirus task force briefings. there will be another one today. it's scheduled for 5 p.m. eastern according to the white house that these -- daily schedule. ralph thinks the federal government has had the biggest impact. why is that? caller: yes, i believe they had the biggest impact in the reason i'm saying that is the federal president, the hello? host: i'm listening, go ahead. federalif the government in the president, instead of patting themselves on the back, they would have given

the $500 million to the first and people that were going into this epidemic your this time. this is where i have my biggest concern. then they could have went back. they are supposed to have accrued money. this.for a situation like why they had to come back all of , it would cause me a lot more. but there are a lot of things where i see this going on, the federal government, if you care about the people [indiscernible] ralph in georgia. this is matthew. raleigh, saying local

government. give me an example. i wanted to say local governments other ones -- by the way, good morning. i apologize. host: that's all right, go ahead. caller: local governments are ,aving the biggest impacts piloting, like new york is screaming and crying, you know, that they need this all of this equipment. but they are stockpiling, really. what have you seen? kind of like the guys on the side of the mountain. it's propaganda. it's something that gets -- i was on your show a couple of talking about the bloomberg ceo and i told you about the my pillow guy. what is the propaganda you are seeing? caller: i'm going to tell you something. take a minute this weekend and

look at the 80's movies. .ook back at those movies it was the mom-and-pop generation. those were the people that were actually keeping our country alive. it's gone now. it's bloomberg ceo's. it's fear mongering between politics. are you there? host: i'm listening, finish your comment. caller: i just wanted to make sure that america knows one thing. mighty, the i am, is the man the controls everything in this world. you take -- host: got your point. chicago, local government, daniel, go ahead. the federal response is that ridiculous. of thathe same numbers

from south korea. we all of these apple products and trendy technology and we are not tracking anything. if we had tested from the beginning and track from the beginning, we could have had this wiped out. the president is a joke. listen to this man, followed him from the beginning, he's setting us up to die. here's a story from the local level out of miami. this is "the new york times" reporting on it. before the pastor of the pentecostal mega-church in florida held to church services on sunday, each filled with hundreds of parishioners, lawyers from the sheriff's office and local government pleaded with him. the pastor ignored them and proceeded with services at the river tampa bay church and provided bus transportation for members the needed a ride on monday. saidheriff of hillsboro

that he had obtained a arrest warrant for the -- intentionally and repeatedly defying emergency orders demanding that people social distance and stay at home and said that this regard for human life but hundreds at risk and thousands of residents may interact with them this week and put themselves in danger as well. chris is on the line for those that say that the private sector has had the biggest impact so far, out of massachusetts. why do you say that, chris? what companies are you saying that about? caller: i didn't really get into that the thinking about the question in the greater boston government has the biggest impact right now. something i observed that they , a jobe doing better that they could pick up on, i haven't seen this mentioned in

any of the guidelines, it has to do with grocery stores. we all know that when we go and we will touch things and pick them up, the produce department is something special. we touch our produce a lot and no one seems to be observing that. you could put employees there with the bags to bag up the produce for the people without contact. something that some supermarkets and grocery stores might want to think about , adopting the old-style european way of picking out the produce for the buyer. maybe cut down on some contact. chris, thank you for the call. that was our last call her this morning but stay tuned come up next he will be joined by tim story of state legislatures and how states are responding to the coronavirus pandemic. first, governor ron desantis yesterday give an update on testing and >> we have deployed the first

rapid covid-19 test to south florida. this is a 45 minute rapid test. we have sent 17 502 broward. 500 to also sent northern florida and we hope to have very soon an agreement to bring in the five-minute tests. we have asked for a lot of those tests. as soon as we get them, we will deploy those strategically in the fight against covid-19. if you look at florida's numbers, we have seen an increase in testing. we are going to continue that. we have worked on this hard rock site here in miami-dade. we did another site in conjunction with memorial health care. we are going to tomorrow open a site with the national guard in palm beach county. palm beach county is a distant third in infections behind miami

and broward but they have not had the same level of testing. we think it is important to flood palm beach with testing. this site will be a drive-through site where a lot of residents can go through it a timely manner. once we get rapid tests -- unfortunately am a we still have to send swabs to the laboratory, but we have done a lot in terms of testing. updates with the travel into cdc issued a travel advisory for new york city about traveling. that is something we were seeing last week after the stay in place was issued by the governor. we have a system where people are coming in, they are screened, information is taken, they provide the residence where they will be isolating. i 10e also doing it on

coming in from the panhandle for potential new orleans exit us, and 19 south from georgia. another issue we are monitoring is the cruise ship coming through the panama canal. bethink it is a mistake to putting people in southern florida giving what we are dealing with. we would like to have medical personnel dispatched to that ship, and the cruise lines can hopefully arrange for that, tend to the folks who need attention. we want to make sure we have the beds available for the folks here in florida. announcer: washington journal continues. host: a focus now on state response. tim storey, director of the national conference for state legislatures. we want to remind viewers with the nc sls. -- and csl is. guest: the national conference of state legislatures is an

stateation of the 50 legislatures as well as territorial legislatures. we were founded in the 1970's. we provide an opportunity for legislators and legislative staff to share best practices about policies they are looking at, policies they turn into law as well as best practices. 7, 33 legislators in the states as well as puerto rico, guam, the district of columbia. about 25,000 legislative staff we count as members. we provide them with information and opportunities to get together and share ideas. the federal government both the congress and the administration to go after public policy problems and challenges together.

that is what we are doing now. this has been an opportunity to work across the various lines of federalism. the american system has local government, state government and the federal government. all with different roles, but much of their work crosses over. partnered in an extraordinary way with the federal government as well as local governments. do then opportunity to best that government can to do with the pandemic and the crisis. host: in this new world of trying to run a state amid a pandemic, what are a few best practices you find are being shared? guest: legislatures typically are in session during the first half of the year. there are 10 that are essentially in session during the entire year. it is important that states have good policies. the number one thing

legislatures have to do in partnership with governments is enact budgets. prisons andon, fund health care, roads, transportation. these are all critical things that the states are part -- are responsible for in terms of funding and setting broad policy. the legislatures -- this crisis hit at a interesting time. 18 or so states, legislators had -- legislatures had already adjourned. they had passed their 2021 budgets. postponed,ates have or delayed their sessions. they have let the state capitals at suspended back sessions. some of those, before doing so, were trying to pass emergency legislation to fund some of the

activities, combat the terrible spread of the virus throughout the u.s. funding toassing help public health systems and they had to do with, in many cases through extraordinary measures. remote voting or meeting remotely, coming together in extraordinary ways. hadstate of arkansas something i had never seen. i have been active with legislatures for over 30 years. everything seems unprecedented right now. analog in anys no of our collective histories. and in most cases, the history of the states. the state of arkansas, they convened their legislature in a basketball arena. they had each member of the arkansas house sit multiple seats apart.

rostrum on the floor of the basketball court so that everybody could keep a safe social distance so that they could pass emergency legislation to keep that state on top of the virus. held -- allowed remote voting for floor sessions. they can from outside the capital. these are complicated issues. states are doing this to respond to the crisis, but legislatures are committed to transparency. they have systems that are designed for public input, making sure that laws, policies that are passed -- the public is aware and able to have a voice in that process. the legislator horse are making tough decisions about complying with their own health and the

health of people who work in and around legislatures with the need for transparency and constitutional openness. there is a clash there that has surfaced. some states have enacted new rules to allow them to vote remotely, meet remotely. these are all temporary. obviously once this crisis is over, hopefully when they come back into session, they will be able to meet in a regular way. host: we should viewers of this map from the new york times. where in orange are staying home -- stay-at-home orders have been issued. are wherer straps there are stay-at-home orders in parts of the state. states in white, there are not orders. ordersy-at-home considered best practices at this point? understand even three

or four more states enacted stay-at-home orders. those have typically been executive actions with governors execute -- exercising their executive powers. governors have acted. cases haves in many gone in and enacted a framework for these stay-at-home orders. they have the power of statute as well as the executive order of the governors. over three fourths of americans are living in a state that has a stay-at-home order. host: according to the new york times, 261 million people in 31 states, 18 cities, the district of columbia, puerto rico as well. also, virginia, maryland and arizona. about theking response to coronavirus

pandemic. tim storey is our guest of the national conference of state legislatures. if you want to join the conversation, the phone lines are split up. eastern time zone, (202) 748-8000. mountain or pacific, (202) 748-8001. first from sewall, new jersey. what is your question? caller: a couple of comments i want to make and i have a question. the question is, even in new york we have this state in order, yet when cuomo was asked about letting people fly out of state, he refused to do that. i am not understanding the purpose. thing, when they were talking about the order of how this goes, i look at these governors standing there -- is asking theally

federal government for help. and i am notng -- minimizing it, but all he is doing is saying how much equipment he needs, how many masks he needs. he is not doing anything without trump. when i hear people saying he looks presidential, my thing is -- the other day he was talking about spaghetti and meatballs. tim storey on those questions there. first, in terms of the order the governor had and how d to travel, i will say every one of these orders is uniquely different. you can't look at the stay-at-home's many governors have issued -- no two are exactly alike. they are all customized for the situation in that state at that time.

our states are very different. a muchii, you have got different situation than new york. the outbreak is on a different trajectory in different states. in terms of the governor's request, working with the federal government, it is a whole of government approach -- we have been on a number of calls with intergovernmental staff and the white house, i have to give them a lot of credit. they have been responsive to state and local governments. office of government relations and that entire team there has been doing an extraordinary job making sure the governors, legislatures, city and county officials, sheriff's, altering kinds of state and local officials are up-to-date on what is going on. one thing the federal government can do is provide resources. that is part of what happened

with congress enacted the third piece of legislation to respond to the crisis last week. billion ford $150 state and local governments. the majority of that is directly for coronavirus response. of course, that bill had a lot , butimulus for the economy probably half of the $2 trillion -- bridges extraordinary -- hard to -- which is extraordinary. about half of it is directly to combat coronavirus. roughly half of it is economic stimulus. that is where the states are working in partnership with the federal government. one thing the federal government can do that states cannot do is borrow money. the federal government, by providing these funds are in -- statesdoing that

can only really bound to do project or they can't borrow money the same way the federal government can. states have to balance budgets, they cannot run deficits. it is a different issue, but where the states have been working with the federal government in terms of the amount of resources they can bring -- and frankly local governments is the frontline. they are trying to figure out do they have enough ambulances. host: focusing on those resources, i want to show viewers this graphic. it talks about the $150 billion for states for coronavirus relief. i want you to talk to the distribution process. noting for viewers, the graphic is based on population. no state will receive a payment of less than one point -- $1.25 billion. can you talk about that more?

guest: our states ok with that? that is an open question. we are moving in the dark. become cliche -- it is uncharted waters in terms of what the economy is going to do. let me talk about the distribution of the hundred $50 billion, that will go in out in a formula based on population. 8 billion of that goes to tribal governments. you take a billion out of 150, and then another -- goes to territories and the district of columbia. i think that leaves $139 billion. that gets distributed to states. states can a percent of that they can spend on coronavirus related expenses. they can't replace general fund money they were spending for roads, it has to be related to coronavirus.

coronavirus expenses are in almost any area. education funding, health care -- so, the 55% the states use there. 1.25 billion guarantee into regardless of population. i think there are 18 states getting the minimum amount. wyoming, of course. into the middle populations. california obviously getting the most. i am doing this from memory, i want to say it is around $18 billion for california. governmentsto local over population of 500,000. 130hly 40 cities above, and of the 3300 counties meet that population threshold. by theill be transferred

u.s. department of treasury to state general funds in two or three weeks. withtates will then work -- to get the money to them as fast as possible. host: focusing on coronavirus response in the states. if you have a question about that process, now would be a great time to call in. tim storey with the national conference of state legislators, he will be with us this morning. bill from syracuse, new york. concerned president that hede a remark would cooperate with those who would cooperate with him. he would not cooperate with states that were not with him. we have a democratic governor who is critical of the president. how much power does the president -- the executive have

in giving out money and supplies? we are very low on medical supplies and that is an important thing to me. guest: thank you. that is a good question. i would say the legislation passed last week by congress and signed by the president is very clear about the amount of money and how it gets transferred to the states. billion -- i'm sorry $150 billion in flexible spending money to the states. roughly $31o billion to education programs. billions of dollars for health care to shore up hospital systems to combat the virus around the country. the presidential politics will not play into that. that money will be distributed by the agencies, the departments. -- ourwe have worked

organization and other organizations like ours, the national governors association, the association of counties, league of cities have been working very closely with officials within the departments that will be distributing this money. in terms of that funding for equipment, offsetting the extreme costs of running the public health system well past , that won't beed affected by any kind of politics. i want to talk about what you are seeing when it comes to this concern of states competing for resources. how jimbo from bakersfield, california puts it in his question. getting ppe and ventilators to areas in need and to stop states from bidding against each other, should the states formed their own

consortium to complete this task since the federal government is unwilling or unable to do that?" i am nothn, i confess, qualified to answer that question. i am not familiar with how the ppe is literally being transferred. it is an interesting idea. majority ofe vast officials both at the federal, state and local level are at. -- are operating in good faith to make sure supplies are getting out as fast as they can to every corner of the united states. way, let me put it this governor whitmer out of michigan put out an appeal on twitter asking for doctors around the country to come to michigan. our state legislatures concerned , whetherpetition here

it is medical professionals or equipment? guest: i have not heard that concern. i also heard governor cuomo make the same appeal yesterday or the day before. i think they are all in triage mode. they are so in the moment, as the crisis escalates so rapidly. i have not caught any sense of competing against other states. lives are atople's stake and americans are dying. it is a situation with gravity unlike anything we have seen. arernors, legislatures going to do what they can for the people, but i have not seen that kind of competition. i do not expect that. of dunn, north carolina. caller: good morning per day

have a quick question. coronavirus started, we closed down restaurants here. i have recently got laid off. however, i was having a house built -- they stopped construction so i've been having to stay in a local motel. however, my funds have run out. it is going to be two or three weeks until an employment kicks between -- kicks in. in north carolina, the motels are not listed on non-addiction. -- not even action. of 50 to 60 people here in the area that do not have funds to stay in motels. another they have put the 5:00 curfew in effect, if you're caught out it is $500-$1000.

what are these people supposed to do? i am one of them. at 11:00 today i will be out on the curb. host: take you for sharing your story. a couple of issues kathy brings up there. guest: kathy, my heart goes out to you. you are like tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of americans who are being devastated by not just the virus and its health effects, and the people we know contracting the virus, but the economic impact of this, which is fear. we are in absolute uncharted waters. sailing along, and to the wind stopped. the seap is floating on at the whims of the current.

it is a heartbreaking story and i think it is one that is happening around the country. -- i do know that there are masses of federal money put into the stimulus bill as well as the coronavirus response -- sort of a combination -- including direct payments to american taxpayers. taxes in either 2018 or 2019, even if she hasn't and she can request this. the irs does not have a process for people who have not filed in the past couple of years, but they are expected to have that soon. this direct payment should be deposited in bank accounts where the irs has the account numbers. within the next week or so. that is going to happen fairly

quickly. the unemployment extension was part of the second piece of legislation passed. on employment benefits will be extended from three to four months. there is help on the way, but what kathy describes is a personal situation that is very difficult and challenging. , i'm sureresources there are county resources and hopefully she can get a hold of some of the. -- somebody. host: 20 minutes left with tim storey. states responsible for running their own elections. i wonder, what is considered best practices right now when it comes to us being in an election year amid this pandemic echo -- amid this pandemic? guest: that is a interesting

question. there are still roughly 20 states who have not held their primaries. many have delayed. june 2 has become a second super tuesday because i think seven states have pushed their primaries off to the early june -- june 2. even that is in question. no public official wants to change election dates probably just because of -- they want to make sure there is consistency and transparency about when and how elections are held. this is uncharted waters once again in terms of how the united states -- again, the states run the election. a number of states are exploring more mail-in voting. essentially, most states either voting excuse absentee

or excused absentee voting. if you combine the five states that do all election by a male, that was one state 10 years ago, we now have five. including the state of colorado, where i am today. states,om those five the vast majority of other states are either no excuse absentee -- so you can request an absentee ballot from your election official, or you can do an excused absentee ballot and just saying that because of coronavirus you are requesting an absentee ballot. i think many of these are going ail in.t to all m, congress put $400 million into the cares act that passed to help states change how they run elections. -in voting. mail

i think states will be exploring that in a widespread way. mail inas been doing voting for 25 years or more. some states have been able to do it effectively. one other observation, elections are more complicated than just showing up. one of the biggest challenges and states that have not had their primaries, -- to qualify for a primary ballot you typically have to get signatures. let's say to run for state senate you have to get 1000 signatures. 500 signatures, depending on the state. the localbe out at supermarket collecting signatures are going to your friend's and having campaign events. are exploring reducing the number of signatures to put your name on the ballots for certain offices. extending thering

filing period so that people who want to run for office have an opportunity to do that. another interesting effect is because you can't gather signatures, there are 24 states that allow what is called the citizen initiative. you cancollect -- propose a law. collect signatures to put that on the ballot. i think you will see a sharp decline in ballot measures because proponents of these measures won't be able to get the signatures. the inability of people -- to get people together. onre are a number of effects elections that are playing out in real time and we don't know exactly how it is going to wind up. host: a little bit of time, a lot of collars. patrick in naples, florida.

caller: thanks for taking my call. question and a comment. state legislators in the have any -- they could vote to override governor desantis? he didn't do anything with the spring breakers, now they are going to spread it around. he wouldn't close casinos until people were walking out of their dying. now he is talking about airplanes. i wonder if -- naples airport. are they going to have state patrol out there stopping hannity's jet when it flies in from new york? or, some of the other large gop donors when they fly across the country echo -- fly across the country? typically, constitutions

outline the ability of legislatures to enact laws, set policy. the florida legislature is not in session, so they would have to call themselves back, pass a law with a super majority. as you know, a lot law does not take effect until the governor signs it. if the governor vetoes it -- of course this is the case in florida -- it takes the supermajority to override a veto. is inclinedlature to do so and feels that the governor is not acting in a way that is in the best interest of floridians -- if they are in session and they have the ability to call themselves into session -- that varies. in some states the legislature can put itself into special session, but in some states the governor must call them into special session. host: this map we have been showing you about was that show which states are in session is

available for you to look at. stateal conference of legislatures are tim storey as our guest taking your calls. this is richard out of trenton, michigan. caller: good morning. i have a question about the distribution based on population. florida -- i believe both have passed new york and michigan by not having a state income tax -- which i just paid in michigan. moreieve they received money from the government then they send to the government. it seems unfair to send money to some states that don't cover themselves with the possibility of their own money. that's just doesn't seem right.

guest: i can't argue with the point necessarily guess i have to think it through. the federal government collects primarily revenues through personal income tax. that is the primary source of revenue. i was looking at my notes on how much each state is getting. , 18fornia gets the most billion -- i'm sorry, $15 billion. texas is the next largest state to receive, they get about $11 billion. $7.5 billion.out florida is $8.5 billion. his point about the distribution in terms of population is correct. terms ofplicated in the sources of revenue of the federal governor will -- federal government as well.

if you will allow me to talk about what is in some ways the second crisis, the economy and its ripple effects over what could be years to come. it could be months. the question is whether this will be a long downturn, medium downturn, could we have a sharp return to the strength of the economy as it was before? the states are being affected very differently. caller kind of alludes to it. in some states, they are reliant upon taxes from oil and gas. like oklahoma, texas, north dakota, alaska. these states base their fiscal year 20 -- 2021 budgets on oil closed at $20 a barrel. one of the lowest price in decades. those states are going to have tremendous challenges as far as

funding education, roads and transportation. health care and, highway patrol, prisons, those things. some states are tremendously reliant on sales taxes. those states are going to be devastated because many of those sales taxes come from restaurants, bars, retail places that are not currently operating. going to have a tremendous negative impact on the money that these states have to provide things that citizens need and want. oner states rely heavily personal income tax. some states rely heavily on corporate income as well. capital gains taxes, like california and new york. steep course with the decline in the stock market, capital gains revenues into the state are going to be dramatically affected.

there was a huge economic challenge coming for governments at all levels. state, local and u.s. host: one of the next -- one of the good things about the folks at the national conference of state legislators, they are good at showing their work. from your website, the estimated allocation by state. .org andcan go to ncsl look at the same members you are looking at there. id in union, washington. washington, estates that it's going to going to get about $3 billion. go ahead, you are on. caller: i just wanted to point out a few things. trivial with seem respect to the crisis, but our state is capitalizing on a

crisis. my county of mason county, washington has just yesterday roped up the recycling -- roped off the recycling containers at the trash depot. -- whyld he do this would they do this? i asked the cashier, she said they want to stop the flow of people coming in. am i cynical to think that what they are actually doing is making us pack up all of our recyclables in bags so they can charge us five dollars more? save the it, they costs of carting off those containers through private sector company here in mason county. the government is kicking a man while he is down. there is no logical reason for the government not to allow us to put recyclables in the bins. we are there dropping off conventional trash anyway.

why would it matter if you walked 10 feet to stick something in a recycling bin? tim storey, this idea of capitalizing on crisis? guest: i respectfully disagree. governments -- maybe in some cases out of an abundance of caution. depending on the situation it might appear that there could be all teary her motives. -- ulterior motives. are thousands of officials doing these things. unlikelyt is extremely . everything i have seen from legislator horse to governors, from county officials to city officials as they are doing what they truly believe is in the best interest. unlikely thatly this is motivating governments.

201 he do in cincinnati. -- two juanita. caller: i tested positive here in cincinnati. i am a democrat but our governor -- [indiscernible] listening to that woman from north carolina, i look at him and think to myself what he reminds me of. ago whened me of years mr. hooper said every chicken in the pot of prosperity. we know what happened, don't we? lamont is in overton,

texas. doing? how are you host: go ahead. ask a: i have needed to question, i need to know how social security recipients would be affected. the irs has accounts on file to direct those funds, but i wanted to know how social security recipients will be affected with this stimulus package? social security recipients would be eligible as well and should -- and should be receiving payments. host: bonnie out of casper, wyoming. caller: i have had some situations i have been curious

about. i have been talking to local senators. we have gotten such a low amount of testing supplies in wyoming. we are only testing those that come into hospitals critically ill enough to go on ventilators. where they can be hospitalized to that point. otherwise, we are unable to test those people because of how low of testing supplies we got. we are showing low numbers, but that is not true, it is because we can't test anybody. we are not testing anybody who has a high cough. they have to actually be over 104 degrees. host: you want to take that up one day after president trump touted over one million tests have been done so far in america and more numbers of testing by the day?

response isedical slightly out of my expertise. i can add a little bit. one, i think testing is major. everyone is aware of that. towill take a few days continue to wrap up the distribution of the tests. up theinue to ramp distribution of the tests. the caller is right. the positive tests are a fraction of the actual number of people who have contracted the virus. colorado, the governor said yesterday if you think you have the virus, it is likely you do. you should stay home if your symptoms are not severe. do not tax the medical system, put pressure on the system if

you are exhibiting relatively minor symptoms. ofre are tens of thousands people who likely have the virus to have not been confirmed. they are essentially presumptive confirmed. 80% to 90% of the cases are relatively mild. and this is true in other states, the governor is urging people with relatively mild symptoms to stay home. if the symptoms accelerate, seek medical attention. this leads me to another point about the legislation that passed congress last week which included a significant amount of money, tens of millions of dollars, for telehealth. one of the things you will see happen once we have cleared the level of emergency if you're going to see a new emphasis on

telehealth in rural areas. there was also funding in the access. more internet host: a few minutes left with tim storey. ask, a day after we some more stay-at-home order's issued in states. in d.c., we have seen members of the national guard deployed to help with closing off certain parts of the city. can you talk a little at the end here the issues when it comes to national guard deployment and the best practice issues that are being shared? the governors have called up the national guard in every state now. this is the first time in american history that every state has individually enacted

either a state of emergency, declared state of emergency or public health emergency. that is every state in the united states and the territories as well. cases, it is being used in many capacities, not just for security purposes, to help enforce social distancing and stay-at-home order's but they are also being used to build temporary hospitals. help with 911. 911 systems are overloaded. i think the national guard is stepping up, as we would expect. us,e are the best among these people who volunteer for this as well as the medical professionals. nohink most years, and you, know medical professionals

being asked to do an incredible amount of work. there is stress on them. if we don't truly appreciate that these are amazing people willing to go to extraordinary lengths to take care of their all -- we-- we know all need to do what we can to make sure they know we appreciate the efforts. understandingmy the national guard has been deployed to nearly every state. the president declared a national emergency, every state has declared a state emergency as well as a public health emergency as well as a public health emergency. it has nothing that it is nothing like we have never seen. .org. tim storey, ncsl we appreciate you stopping by c-span. guest: thank you and happy to help anytime.

be healthy, stay safe. i pray that you are well and safe. host: thanks so much. up next, we will turn to your medical questions. ,e are joined by dr. ira breite siriusxm's doctor radio. we will discuss the latest developments and efforts to combat coronavirus. first, gretchen wittner monday announced economic relief members for residents in her state. here's a portion of her comments. [video clip] will, 150 million dollars to combat covid-19. to date, the state has expended more than $80 million to begin than 20 million , 9ts, 2000 ventilators million ounces of hand sanitizer. gloves, 2.4s of million gallons -- gallons.

210,000 testing kits. 185 face shields. curtains of disinfectant wipes as well as other needed supplies. we have contracted for these things and it is our hope they all will get to michigan as -- this crisis requires all hands on deck. we are working together in an unprecedented way to fight this unprecedented enemy. i am proud of the leadership of our team, that is inclusive of everyone here. people across our state are stepping up. her time tousing clean up waterways while social distancing. lisa, who is taking care of

heard that her 90-year-old mother. working at home whenever possible and maintaining phone and internet services. marie, who is working to deliver food to families. zoomney, a teacher using to stay connected to her students. this challenge will require fortitude, strength and grace. our front-line care workers, they need more support. i were sick will lead were beds and care. our unemployed will need help. our businesses will need information. announcer: "washington journal" continues. -- heback to ira bright is host of siriusxm -- doctor radio channel. one of the things you have been doing a lot is what we do here, people call in and ask questions

they want to ask. since coronavirus has been declared a global pandemic, what is the most common question you are getting these days and what is your answer? guest: the most common question is, do i have it? we have been fielding a tremendous amount of telehealth calls, calls from friends, you name it. we have been hearing it. under normal circumstances, you could never tell your to -- he would never tell your doctor about. you ashately over time, winter flu symptoms -- a lot of what we have been seeing is a lot of people who have gotten pretty sick.

i am not in the hospital yet. in the hospital is swelling tremendously in new york city. at the moment, what i am doing is fielding telehealth calls disease,le with the assessing them on video which is a new skill, but something we are all getting killed at doing and trying to figure out if they are sick enough to go to the hospital. should we have some kind of antibiotic? i have been giving a lot of lessons to people and loved ones about how to open up their lungs, deep breath, banging on people's backs to help them clear out junk and doing our best to keep hospitals clear. host: if we were having one of those assessments now, how would it go. guest: in some ways it runs like a regular doctor's office visit.

just on video. is withs a loved one them, sometimes they are alone. start with how's it going? ask about cough, ask about fever. is tog thing about this ask about the number of days you have had symptoms. what makes covid different is a lot of people have very mild flulike symptoms for week. fever, coughing, you feel cruddy. seven-dayaround day 12, they will have a downhill turn. all of a sudden they will really start coughing. it may become very difficult for them to breathe. you want to watch people at that point to see if they tip over the line. when you are doing telehealth, some of the very basic tools you have in your office, a blood pressure cuff, a finger thing to measure oxygen -- we don't have

those. little -- i amam a little like a doctor from the 19th century who goes house to house on a horse and carriage. is wee decide to do decide is it -- can you wait a day, or are you ok. i am doingents where what i call nonhospital. i am seeing them every day, checking on them, making sure their status is good enough to stay at home and not put them in the hospital. what --r folks who -- what does a day by? guest: if 70 does not have to be in the hospital, you will not have to have them there. new york now based on published reports, our hospitals are utterly overwhelmed. the hospital ship mercy is coming in. they are building a temporal --

temporary hospital in central park. i get updates from my hospital about how many units are being converted from normal hospital wards into covid wards. there is no more elective surgery, there is no anything except for taking care of covid. incredibly sick with other problems -- as an example, i had a patient with breast cancer recently diagnosed. normal circumstances, they would go to the oncologist, the breast surgeon, get this taken .are of in a timely manner not an emergency, but making haste. surgery hasrson's been delayed three months which is something in my career i have

never seen. even after 9/11. one thing we have not thought about yet which is true, a lot of the routine medical care that thatof us do day-to-day, medical care has gone to the wind and will be gone for months. -- is my assumption. how covid is going to hurt people, but we are spending so much effort taking care of covid patients, but we are pushing up -- pushing off stuff that in american health care we never pushed off before. is ourr. ira breite guest. if you go to his twitter, you will see a lot of what he does this -- these days is answer your questions about covid-19. that is what we are doing here. the phone lines are split, (202) 748-8000 in the eastern or

central time zone spirit mountain or pacific, (202) 748-8001. special line for medical professionals we have been , (202) 748-8002. city,e is up out of palm florida. caller: thanks. question, itbasic seems like south korea was able to get their kids out and they were testing about 10,000 people a day. in florida and upper kentucky months to, has taken get the test done. theyut out test kits, and couldn't get certified and they were getting false sin they were sent back. reason we do not have test kits on the shelf if

so, why didn't we have american airlines and boeing pay for these tests? i am drawing -- i am going to grocery stores and i do not know if people have been tested. walk into a grocery store or a drive through, i do not know if the person has been tested. i have annexed your neighbor who handles a lot of -- i have a next-door neighbor who handles money a lot and she has come down with it. it baffles me how south korea can come up with tests so fast. --t: guest: it is hard for me to comment specifically on manufacturing issues. it is clear there were problems and how we developed tests. thatf our problems now is hundreds --ave --

haveactice -- patients who clear symptoms, the number of people that have been tested here in new york, which is the center of this disease in the country at the moment. they basically are only getting tested if you are in the emergency room and they decide they need to test you or you or your actually admitted to the hospital. we no longer test people afterwards to see if they are better, even health-care workers. if you are a health care worker into have a fever, you are supposed to wait until you have no fever for three days, and then a week. in other words, seven days minimum and just returned to work. shoe -- thehis testing issue is huge. terms of why, there was this mistake as you said that was

made with the fda. when i speak to some of my lab colleagues, one of the problems even just from a production point of view. once we have the tests, that is great but you have to turn it from a simple test for people to a mass-produced test. there are shortages of the chemical they used to actually do the tests. the test is in multiple steps. there is a lot of complexity in the current testing. there is new testing coming out which should be more accurate, quicker to do and much easier in the sense that it will not require as many reagents to process. for a non-icu patient, if you take -- [indiscernible] if you're just joining us, our guest in this segment is dr.

ira breite. one of the hosts of the internal medicine show, siriusxm's "doctor radio." on thene question is expected death rates. expected to peak in the next two weeks or so. can you explain why that is when for the past couple weeks, the social distancing we've been talking about has been implemented around this country more stringently than ever. why are those rates expected to peak two weeks from now? covid is whenbout you think about how it gets transmitted, somebody with covid encounters another person. that person gets the virus within them. they will go anywhere from three to four days to up to two weeks without symptoms, then they will get symptoms. once they get symptoms, for many

people. there's not much that's going to happen. mild flu thing. given the sheer mass of people that are getting it, for the small percentage to get worse, most of them will get worse not immediately but somewhere down the line. day 11, day 12 of the disease. you start socially distancing, it can take two or three weeks to start seeing the results. one piece of good news that i did see in the new york times last night was that there is a company that is, a thermometer company and they check temperatures. they sort of load them online. they originally had done it to check for flu. now they see a decrease in the number of fevers in the country on people using their thermometers. so it's a small sign of hope.

that may be some evidence the social distancing we are doing is working. people as wed for are all cooped up to see how it works. works -- as they say, if it works really well, nothing happens. people -- nowion the district of columbia and puerto rico being urged to stay in home or under stay-at-home order's in their state. susan in new jersey. good morning. caller: good morning. i would like to ask dr. breite, what about emergency surgery like a first appendix? where would you go? -- burst appendix? where would you go? my mother is 103. she lives alone in the northern part of jersey. i'm in the central part.

i go up every other day to make sure she is fed and her place is clean and everything and sanitize everything and prepare meals and whatnot. make sure that she is well. so what do we do? should i wear a mask when i get there or on the way? we do take precaution as far as wearing rubber gloves in the house and everything. the first thing is emergencies. said, what we consider elective stuff. a lot of things that we would consider elective the people who have them would not consider elective like many cancer surgeries we are just putting off. we do not have the resources to do them. weneed the ventilators that would normally use it during your elective surgery to treat patients with. plus the hospital beds.

but we are still doing emergency surgery. burst, if youndix had a blockage that didn't resolve. if you had certain types of blood cancers which can spread and kill you almost instantly, we are treating that stuff. we absolutely are. but the problem is that the list of what we do treat has shrunk considerably. but yes, life-threatening emergencies we are still doing. severe trauma, all that sort of stuff. one of the good things about social distancing is fewer car accidents. emergencye who need care for that reason. in terms of elderly people, family members, this is really i think the hardest part for a lot of people. and i don't have a good answer. obviously if you have somebody who is elderly, who is in firm in your life and they are not living with you. if they are living with you it's much easier. but if you are sort of going to

them, it's tricky as to the right thing to do. if you yourself are socially and you're in firm relative is socially isolating, it's probably ok although i say that with some care. i would probably maintain a six foot distance as much as you could from that person in other words if they had several rooms in the house. all the precautions that you can take. on the other hand, it's very difficult to do particularly for our elderly population. they need help sometimes and we need to help them and finding the balance is incredibly difficult. the one thing that i really do try to emphasize is do the most

that you can both for yourself when you're not there because obviously if you are not having it, they are not having it. keep your distance even if they don't fully understand why you are refusing to give them a hug. is maryellen in sarasota, florida. caller: good morning. theess i wanted to ask at one thing that we've been struggling with. sincebeen in the house march 14. make two trips out. went to the pharmacy, the bank and the post office. we were able to get groceries delivered. but then i had to go to the grocery store because we did need extra supplies. and i guess the thing that struck me was that so many people have been careless and they haven't been staying at home. and when i went to the grocery

mask, i made a homemade and i wore disposable rubber gloves and i was very careful to maintain a clean barrier and keep my distance. what do you do about the people that just aren't taking this seriously? because they are putting the entire country at risk. how do you get through to people that don't realize that this is a crisis and we all have to do the right things and help each other? difficults been very for i think all of us to do. i'm a health care professional. i'm a doctor. i am not a government person. so i think about it in terms of as a physician would. things that i think sort ofe best is education as much as possible for people. and this is how i think of it.

cases,ber of covid newspapers you will see online that there are x number of covid cases. more cases than that. we know most people are going to be fine. that's not the problem. that's one of the things that people are like, it's going to be terrible for everybody. most people are going to be ok. the problem is capacity. if you have a large number of people who have a disease in the millions and a tiny percentage of that, even .1%. dying,dying -- end up that's 3 million people in this country. that is way too many for hospitals to handle so the death rate will go up simply because those people like in italy will be stuck at home. peopleo emphasize to

when they ask me that really what you're doing is protecting your grandmother. you're protecting your aunt. you're protecting loved ones in your life. and if somebody doesn't care about that, i think there's a reason we have laws to enforce the socialized relation as well as possible. i think a lot of it is just making people understand that really what they are doing is -- they are not protecting themselves per se. because if you get the disease, 95 times, 98 times, you will be fine. your protecting somebody who's older in your life. your protecting somebody who's got a medical problem you might know about. there are lots of young people walking around with immunocompromised diseases. and of course you don't know it. they are your buddies. and you are really doing it for them. i think this is something that we should come together as a country and do.

we've made sacrifices in this country before. i'm not going to lie and say this is awesome. it stinks. but i think it's actually a relatively small sacrifice to save a tremendous number of american lives. host: can we come back to the virtual visit you are having with somebody who is feeling symptoms? what advice do you give when you talk about somebody who should ,ake tylenol or advil acetaminophen versus ibuprofen? >> this has become one of the trickier questions that we get asked. erred on the side of caution. reporting that , takingdvil or motrin these drugs can somehow make the covid worse. it is weak evidence. i'm not here to say never do this.

but there's a little bit out there. for the most part i've been telling people to take tylenol even the choice and that's been my base. cane are other people who say it is safe to take the other medications. one of the things about this disease is that if you have fever and you don't feel too hot , but you're not having any significant respiratory symptoms , having the fever isn't going to make it worse in terms of your overall course. tylenol, motrin, advil. drugs like that make you feel better. they don't help the course of the disease. ,o if there is a small risk

ration tylenol for when you feel really lousy and then -- it's not going to change anything. it will just make you feel better. this is tennessee, darcy. good morning. you are on with dr. ira. caller: good morning. how are you doing this morning? >> i'm doing pretty well. caller: it's an interesting correlation of timeline considering it's the passover holiday and we have an invisible viral contaminant amongst us. what do you know or how do you feel about the prophylactic virus withkilling a heat so that you can break down the initial body of the virus and in the process of doing so, minimize the immunological beings obviously of contaminated and with that comes

the loading factor. if you are around somebody for example that is presenting with symptoms, the younger -- longer you stay proximal to that person the more viral load and you have. wouldn't it make sense to do some type of chamber? what are your thoughts? who aren'tome of us as familiar with some of those terms, can you walk us through that? >> as well as i can. this virusthings is is like all proteins, will be killed by heat. unfortunately the amount of heat that will kill the virus also tends to kill the people who have the virus. so i think this heat thing has been going around. i'm not sure there's a whole lot of stockinette. i will just leave it at that. interactionsust with other people, yes. obviously the longer you are with somebody the more likely

you are to have the virus. the more likely you are to get the virus yourself. that's one of the reasons that we talk about casual contact. maybe just passes by and doesn't touch you. that it's very unlikely that the virus will pass from that person to you or vice versa. in terms of other things, i think this is a good point to mention. one of the things that kills this virus extremely well is soap. the virus has a lipid capsule. so the virus itself is surrounded by this sort of fatty shell. and soap breaks that up. as much as it is good to use bleach or other products if you , good soap and water. soap and water on your hands will help kill the virus.

if you touch the virus to your hands but don't touch your face, you have a very good chance of not getting it. that's why we are so sort of obsessed with handwashing as well as not touching your face which i have to tell you has been very very difficult for me to do. host: about 15 minutes left with dr. ira breite on the siriusxm's doctor radio show. also with nyu langone health. is and explain what that what it's like right now? health is one of the large hospitals that's been in new york. it's two medical schools. it's multiple hospitals. many many offices scattered throughout the tri-state area.

and a leader in research and health care. we are just a system. it's just a hospital system in some ways. and what's been going on there, i'm mostly in the outpatient realm still. in myer words i am still office. i'm still seeing people in the office on an outpatient basis. i'm still doing telehealth. but one of the things that's happening there and every hospital system in new york is the converting of beds from one purpose to another. meaning that the orthopedics ward for example has become a covid ward. a hospital from renovation have become a covid ward. what's really happening there is an incredible mass of change as we convert over from basically a tertiary hospital system to a hospital system that is devoted to taking care of covid with a

very small section for those that don't have it or are still in the hospital. that's the biggest change. the other thing that's happening and this is very interesting is safer somebody like me. i was a medical resident and took care of hospitalized patients extensively in the 90's. but in recent years i've been an office-based physician as many of my colleagues are. up to be whatned they are calling assistant attendings. anding that if they need us they are going to need us because i know people who have been called in already. they are going to literally need somebody with a medical license who remembers, i know how to be a doctor, but to go in and actually take care of people in the hospital because between the overwhelming nature of the hospital itself plus the fact that many health-care workers are getting sick with the disease and have to be out.

there really is this incredible shortage of qualified doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists. the whole range of people who make a hospital go. the janitorial staff. all in credit limp. -- all incredibly important. host: we will read you one of the tweets. thank you dr. ira. and this is lorraine out of ithaca. good morning. caller: yes. good morning. question is about immunity. and after someone has completed a course of covid-19 and recovered, whether or not they have immunity. i remember that when i was a girl i had mono and apparently had a mild case and then had it a second time later and i also

remember mild cases of chickenpox where they ended up with a second outbreak of it later. so i'm wondering about the question of immunity after you've recovered from covid-19. excellent question and the single most important question we are going to have going forward. so here the deal. generally for most viruses once you get a particular type of the virus, you are immune. i will give an example. if you are going back to school, you need to prove you are allergic to measles, mumps and rubella if you are of my age or older. your pediatric records are, let's be honest, they are gone. so we can do a blood test and see that you have immunity to measles, mumps or rubella. it's a blood test. takes a day. not a big deal. we can do similar tests for covid.

i'm going to go back to the first point, can you get it again. we don't think so. there are obviously reports of people who seem to have a negative nasal swab test and then a positive nasal swab test again type of thing. it seems to be limited we don't know enough yet. i think the sort of national experts like dr. fauci are willing to say, if you have had it, you are cool. obviously we would like to get to that point. getting back to the testing. one of the problems with covid is it's a coronavirus. common cold,the diarrheal symptoms. all the sort of stuff of the winter, stuff of the fall. and one of the problems we have in trying to develop an immunity test for that to see what are you exposed to do you have it,

is that lab scientists are worried about the cross-reactive thing. that you had plain old garden covid some time ago and when you run the test for covid-19, that will cross-react and you will get across positive. in other words you haven't had the disease with the test says you have. through thating now. i'm not a laboratory expert but i have been talking to them a lot on my radio show. once they get to the point where they have a good, they call it an igg test. i think that will be a game changer in terms of getting people to go back to work and things like that. host: for folks who want to listen more to your radio show, how did they find it? siriusxm which is a wonderful service. is on 24/7.or radio there are many hosts talking about covid.

we also have a covid hotline you can call. everysonally i am on monday from 8:00 to 10:00 in the morning live. mostly i answer people's questions about the medical topic at all. a lot of times not about covid. and we sort of go. host: on twitter it is at dr. ira and the phone lines are split up originally this morning. (202) 748-8000 eastern and central. (202) 748-8001 mountain or pacific. medical8-8002 professionals. about 10 minutes left this morning. this is annie out of fairfax, california. good morning. caller: first i would like to give a shout out to the nurses and doctors out there. i'm sure they are a little bit tored and they just have know that people appreciate them

so much. what happened to me is i was talking to my friend who i very much respect. i told her that i was going back and forth to my boyfriends house which is about a block away from me and i was not maintaining a social distancing and she was just horrified. i wanted to ask the doctor. answered the question with the 103-year-old woman. maybe i could wear gloves. i wondered what his opinion was. he's like a family member. i just can't believe all the girlfriends and boyfriends out to not interact for weeks, months. i don't know what he would say. >> i'm going to tell you what i'm going to say. this is not an uncommon problem and in new york city with our tiny apartments, lack of bathrooms in set apartments and lots and lots of younger people, it's a huge issue. this is what i'm going to say. pick up place. you can stay with her boyfriend.

you cannot stay with your boyfriend. i don't care. it doesn't matter to me. you shouldn't go back and forth. we have this issue a lot now. people live with their parents. they have a person in their early 20's living with their parents. they have a boyfriend. you can't have both. i know this sounds like a terrible nasty thing to say, but you are going to spread it just on the back and forth potentially. and this is the type of sacrifice that we are asking people to make. boyfriend is fine. home is fined. say,y choose one and as we zoom everybody else. are: the doctors and nurses scared. are you scared? >> yeah. i'm not going to live. i keep thinking back in mid february. i see a lot of people with flulike symptoms. in february i felt lousy for a few weeks and i thought i had a sinus infection and is my little

talisman to myself. i must have had it. i have no way of knowing. but this gets me through my day even if it's like a false sense of hope. so i'm nervous. i'm nervous about going back into the hospital probably more because i'm nervous about the computer system in the hospital to be honest. but i'm nervous about the fact that there is no protective equipment. i have 1n95 mask. when it goes, i won't have one. the big problems for onehealth care providers, of the things i find about this, why the heck do we not have the protective equipment that we need? why are there not n95 masks for health-care workers, why are there not gowns? why are people literally reusing? aen you get inspected as

hospital or surgery center, they will scream at you if you don't throw out a glove the second you take it off. now they are like, you can use it whenever. that part is really terrifying to me. that we are not being adequately prepared. that we are basically soldiers thrown into a battle with shaky bullets and a gun that jams. host: this is from today's new york times. a picture of nurses at the jacoby medical center gathered on saturday to protest the shortage of protective equipment . one of the nurses holding a sign, will work for a new n95. we hear from rosalie in oregon. a question.ve i was supposed to go see my eye doctor tomorrow and get a shot in my eye. i have to do this about every month. and i was a little bit worried andt going over there

letting them give me a shot tomorrow because of this virus. and where this doctor comes from , he comes from a different area then where i live here. quite aderstand there's bit of that virus up his way. am i safe to go there or should i tell him no? what should i do? >> this has become a huge issue for people. i'm assuming you have some kind of retinal disease that they have to inject you once a month. caller: yeah. if i don't go, it starts swelling and hemorrhaging. >> and you can go blind. this is the issue. this is the quote unquote elective procedure. this is the downward drift of if the doctor had adequate protective equipment for himself and you, you would get the shot. it wouldn't be a big deal. now because everybody is worried about not having enough protective equipment, all of a

sudden we are risking people's sites. things like that. i can't tell you specifically what to do obviously. doctoran say that if the has a mask and if you at least cover your face and hopefully they have a face shield which literally looks like a plastic welders thing that we put over our face. if they have some kind of protection, it's a very quick procedure and you have to weigh the risks and benefits. is no good answer on this one. i don't think this is going anywhere where delaying it a week or two is going to make a whole heck of a difference. i understand your fear. i think it's fair to ask the doctor if they are going to have a mask and if you can somehow cover your face. for that shot they are literally an inch from your head doing

that thing. so i understand your fear. is if it were my patient, particularly if your eyes were bad, i would probably tell you to get it done. host: this is phil in pennsylvania. morning. caller: morning. i wanted to ask the doctor if any type of lighting, ultraviolet or any other source of lighting kills the virus, and if so, if you are incubated with a tube, why isn't that lighting directed down the tube into your lungs or up your nasal passages? and one more shout out to all the senators and the congressman that voted to outsource all of our stuff to other countries especially countries that hate us. i hope that weighs heavy on your mind because maybe usa means something. thank you very much and i will listen to my answer. >> there you go. let me comment on the ultraviolet part. yes. i have seen ultraviolet will

kill it. yes. ultraviolet light kills viruses. but not that quickly. if you are going to use it during a procedure by shining in ultraviolet light on your face to get it done is not going to kill the virus. you are not going to have a good result with that. thisputting a tube in somebod's throat or into somebody's nose to clear out secretions, it is not going to work. it is a cool idea, but in practice, not happening. time for one more question -- host: time for one more question. happy birthday to c-span -- caller: happy birthday to c-span. i tried to keep it right down to the ground here. copd,3, five years into and thank god i am a veteran so ahave a great -- access to

great va hospital. i am in omaha, nebraska. sioux city is my old address. with regards to analgesics, what if anything do we know about the relative impact of asa versus ibuprofen and what have you? number two, one of these days i will get 1 -- everyone has been sold out for weeks -- a simple basic thermometer, given the temperature parameter -- is there any way to differentiate quantitatively between a fever you might get with the common cold versus the sort of fever that might be indicative of covid-19? one of the things i would like to use it for, if i am on the right track, is whether or not i should even go to a hospital.

i am certain i have to run over there for shortness of breath, if you can give us any help. host: we are running out of time a little bit and went to give the doctor chance. is related to motrin. the question is whether it will make covid worse. if you are on aspirin at the direction of your physician, --y on it because number two in terms of the thermometer, temperature is temperature. although temperature is helpful for me to know, certainly in new york you probably have covid, but there is no way for me to differentiate and say "this is a covid fever."

it is very difficult to get thermometers nowadays. is ondr. ira breite sirius xm's dr. radio. coming up next, your phone calls. we are asking you who has had the biggest impact in terms of coronavirus response. if you think it is the federal government, call (202) 748-8000 . governments, (202) 748-8001. governments, (202) 748-8002. and if you think it is the (202) 748-8003. >> when it felt like all hope

was lost in great britain, he gave his first speech three days later and said become -- again quote i have nothing to offer but tears and sweat -- "i have nothing to offer but tears and sweat." what i wanted to use as a launching off point. look at this chart. what it is saying is if you have average social distancing compliance based on past epidemics or pandemics, you could reduce the peak of the .urve i-57 percent -- by 57%. if we had let this go unfettered , you are bringing it down to -- with an average relative to history, an average social distancing performance. relative to today

and i will focus on total hospital beds if it is ok with you, because it is the easiest chart to read, the difference between the blue chart on the right and the rend line going across is this -- redline going across is 17,000 beds. that is a relative to history performance on social distancing. i implored each of us -- we are not an average state. onere not an average million people -- 9 million people. this is jersey. how many times in the past have we done things that people said were impossible? we have lived a life put -- punching above our weight. we have lived a life defying the odds. no state has more attitude or character. no state has been smarter over figuring out the

impossible and achieving nonetheless. i ask each and every one of you watching to look at these charts and ask yourselves, are we average? or are we a lot better than average? place.a special we can crush the top of that curve if we act as one. >> washington journal continues. host: about 20 minutes left in our program today. who has had the biggest impact when it comes to coronavirus response. phone lines for those who think it is the federal government, those who think it is the state government, those who think it is the local government, and those who think it is the private sector. -- u.s. navyhip ships comfort arrived yesterday. that ship described by the new york times as a gleaming white

beacon of hope for the besieged city as it fights the coronavirus. officials not planning to treat coronavirus patients aboard the ship. patientson -- to take with other problems relieving new york hospitals. we plan to speak with the commanding officer of the comfort. us for that.oin he can tell you more about their mission. when it comes to state response, here is the washington times -- the entire d.c. area ordered to stay home. erland, virginia, and the district of columbia yesterday -- maryland, virginia, and the district of columbia yesterday announcing stay-at-home order's. when it comes to the private sector response, the wall street plc says itedtronic designs fory share

ventilators to allow other companies to explore producing it independently. we want to get your thoughts this morning in these last 20 minutes of the washington journal. sherry is in tampa, florida and thinks that should be -- thinks the federal government has had the biggest impact. why is that, sherry? caller: i have thought about it and i cannot see a difference between the mass murderers of history where hitler's is pushing people into ovens and showers and ice -- isis is flying into buildings and trump is withholding ppe. do you think -- host: do you think nazi comparisons help here? caller: i do not know if it helps. i think it is very similar, don't you?

sherry in florida. diana is in freeport, illinois. diana, good morning. caller: i wanted to say i believe our governor is doing a wonderful job. he gets up there, gives it information -- information then he steps aside and lets the great doctors talk. that is what we need. we need the information from the doctors and i think he is doing a wonderful job. host: julie is in houston test -- houston, texas, thinks state governments have done the best job. abbott put outr an executive order preventing other medical professionals from seeing patients until april 21. there are some really negative unintended consequences of that, namely patients who do have an emergency are unable to get an

appointment with a dentist. dentists are telling patients they will not see new patients, they wail -- will only see an established patient for what they consider to be an emergency. if someone broke tooth -- i know for example that persons dentist would not see the patient. there are some dental professionals who are also hurting businesswise because patients cannot treat -- they cannot treat the patients. now that president trump has extended the social distancing to the end of april, i am hoping that the timeframe for when this -- whensts can be dentists can be -- host: are you in the dental industry? caller: no, i need to see a cannot urgently, but i

because i am a new patient. host: we wanted to take a few minutes to talk about another industry -- the hospitality industry and the impact coronavirus has had on that. we are joined by dachshund via zoom by the-- via head of -- guest: we are a union of hospitality workers. stadiums, arenas, industrial cafeterias, university cafeterias. host: how many people are a part of your union? guest: we are about 300,000. host: how many of those folks are out of a job today? guest: 98%. only 2% of our workers are working now. host: how many of those workers

are assured a job on the others of this? guest: i don't know. taken thery has opportunity to have less workers every time we have a crisis like this. think ---- your what are you telling union members? guest: we are helping them obviously with filing for unemployment. it is not the easiest thing to do. we are talking to them and getting them into food banks. we are telling them how to apply for food stamps. they're working with them on health care and housing. we are trying to reach out in a newual way, which is a frontier for us. it is important. our members like most americans

are scared. how're very unsettled by the government has handled this. host: on the health insurance issue, how many have health benefits that are going to apply throughout this? the folks that do not do? our uniont of members, we have extended health care coverage through our contracts, but that is not the real problem because we represent x number of people that there are millions of people in the hospitality industry. $2 trillion package that was signed by the president -- it is a health care crisis that tomorrow many will lose their health care because we know for care,mployer-based health health care expires at the end of the month that you were fired.

that has to be addressed. right when people need health care the most, people are losing it. host: do think it will be addressed? there has been talk of another stimulus package. is that in the works? think that depends on -- that depends on the president and republicans. they have showed no appetite for it. the democrats are interested in that but it falls on the president of the united states who said that. we will see if he is up for that test. host: where are most of your union members based? i know you personally are in las vegas. guest: i'm in las vegas now because i am not traveling. we have members from miami to from taranto tesh toronto to san diego.

what it means is our members are out of work. it means in the hospitality bars,ry overall, with cafeterias shut, the kind of workers who are the backbone of the country are not working and they are scared. host: are there states or cities that are doing more to help hospitality workers? governors ink the many states have really tried to step up, whether it be in california, washington, new york. those are some examples. illinois. they cannot do it alone. it has to come from the federal government. it has to come from the white house and congress because the amount of money needed into the kind of compassion needed has to start from the top. the states into the municipalities are doing the best as possible.

we are trying to get protective gear for health care workers into ventilators so people live, but we also have an economic crisis hereto with people out of work into losing their health care. host: how does one run a union in the age of coronavirus? guest: well you are on the phone a lot, you do a lot of zoom, and you do everything possible to get people in a situation where you can give them as much security as possible with both stuff like unemployment and food stamps but also talk to them about their specific needs and you try to make a path forward individually, each one of those workers. our leaders across the country are doing that. it is challenging. the union, we tend to bring people together. they are interviewing on zoom right now. host: the international president of unite here.

org if youehere. want to check it out. back to your phone calls this morning. whore asking our viewers has had the biggest response -- impact on the grid of ours. if you think it is the federal government, (202) 748-8000. if you think it is a state government, (202) 748-8001. if you think it is local government, (202) 748-8002. if you think it is the private sector (202) 748-8003. puter: when president trump the travel ban on china, that had a great effect even though he does not get credit for it. i think everyone has an impact, local government and individually. we all have a responsibility.

one thing i would like to discuss is i have a daughter in the air force -- actually all of my children are in the military -- but she is on the front line on a military base. she istion to her was -- taking temperatures -- i asked her "are you changing gloves between each person?" she said no. i said, "well then how do you know if you're testing someone and they have it that you are not passing it on to the next person?" don't." " i is a drive through good idea? one.sonally wouldn't go to everyone seems to want these drive-in testing places and she said she has actually taken the temperature of people who have come up with the covid-19.

writesteve on twitter about the drive-through testing as well. in stony brook, he says they have been working for a week or more. most being tested are health care workers then they go home and self-quarantine and call a lab for re-results -- results. shelby, north carolina says it is the local governments who have had the most impact. why? actually, i am not on the local one. i am most definitely on the federal line. the response that we are getting from the federal government, i am watching the news, the testing lines like the lady mentioned before and there is a guy taking swab tests and he has a surgical mask on with full beard. no protection whatsoever if someone coughed in his face he

instantly would get it. airlines are still flying, state governments are piecemealin quarantines together. it seems to me that the federal response is totally lacking. television with ac/dc, they tell us not to touch on the television, they tell us not to touch our face. tell us not to touch our face. i'm not even going to approach the grocery stores. when i walk into the grocery store and there is a crowd of 50 people going in the door -- there is no response on the local and state level. billy in north carolina. this is what randy thinks in michigan. government our local

has made the biggest impact so far. they make it 3000 breakfasts and lunches to send to kids. drivers, janitors into the administration are all working together to -- to help feed the kids. it seems to me that media has the biggest impact on the public action. linda says it is the state governments who have had the biggest impact. caller: i have been very governor inth our new york state, governor cuomo, his daily sessions that he does in such a truthful and forward way. i really appreciate his action during this. been sick forad about 10 days with a terrible cough and i went to an urgent

care and they gave me the corona test, which like four days later came back negative. people's --w other how they are, but they gave me a chest x-ray. i had pneumonia. right at they's -- that same urgent care that gave me the test. i do not know how it is for other people adding the test but i had definite symptoms. iq. -- thank you. miracle is next out of miami beach, florida. miracle, tell us about it. caller: good morning. i have to say it is a negative impact, but allowing spring break to run riot day after day is unforgivable and for our

first responders at great risk, our police, our lifeguards, the residents -- i have been terrified for weeks. we had social unrest here due to spring rake and our local government did nothing. -- spring break and our local government did nothing. great riskof us at and the visitors too. it is unforgivable and it shall not be forgiven -- forgotten. in new orleans. they did us wrong. the information has been out there. our officials have done us wrong and it is up to us to be responsible. host: what were you doing in january to prep? bottlesi bought three

of alcohol, i read has many --icles on the transmission many articles on the transmission of the virus and one in particular caught my attention. laden food stars, water filters, battery charges -- chargers. host: what is the article that caught your attention? you're a member? -- do you remember? caller: early in the outbreak there was an epidemiology report about a man who infected an entire family on the first floor of an apartment building. it came through the vertical drainpipe. that meant it was in fecal matter and was being aerosolized when the family on the first floor flush their toilets. this information was on the internet in the middle of january. host: this is janice out of new

jersey, thinks the federal government has had the biggest impact so far. caller: good morning. i think the federal government has had the most negative effect because there was something in place from the previous administration about pandemics and when that was given to president trump when he came i amoffice, i believe correct, that he reduced the budget on data dramatically. you might check that out, i am not sure it is correct. autumn line, we should have -- bottom line, we should have had in place a lot of inventory for the upcoming pandemic. every scientist in the world will tell you, this could happen again. when these viruses mutate or whatever it is always a possibility. whitedo you watch the

house coronavirus task force briefings? caller: i do. host: do you find them helpful? caller: i. in the beginning if we had the testing -- i do. in the beginning if we had the testing we needed we could have kept the numbers down in our country. host: this is delaying in florida. thinks it is the state delayingts -- this is delane in florida. thinks it is the state governments that has had the most impact. southern part of florida like miami and broward counties, i have yet to see any testing centers pop up in those counties or st. petersburg. i believe that the state government is trying to do their

part but the federal government lacks. they lack because they had the information for three months. yeah, he stop the chinese from coming over here or whatever but he knew that the coronavirus was contaminated. offices, all of those jobs he cut. he cut all of those funding. host: got your points. saying lynn on twitter the state and local governments have had the most impact by opening stores for the elderly. i felt very safe. our next caller thinks it is the private sector. caller: thank you for taking my call. the reason i am calling is because it is impossible to get

the paper in the stores -- toilet paper in the stores. i am a senior citizen. i am 73. food by going to the store every two to three weeks. i have to go out of my house to the store multiple times a week to find toilet paper. i called proctor and gamble, i just get a message. charminant my shop -- to be available. host: that is patricia in florida. our last caller in this morning's washington journal. we will be back tomorrow 7:00 a.m. eastern. have a safe tuesday. ♪

> wanted any time at c-span. from daily briefings from the president into the white house task force the two updates from governors in the hardest hit states, it is all they are. use the charts and maps to track the viruses global spread and confirmed cases in the u.s. county by county. our webpages you're fast and easy way to watch c-span's unfiltered coverage of this pandemic. california governor gavin newsom announced plans yesterday tuning crease -- to increase

california's response. in 40 minutes secretary of state mike pompeo will hold a briefing on the coronavirus. live coverage here on c-span. we'll have live coverage at 3:30 eastern. with a reminder you can watch at of our coverage c-span.org or listen with the free c-span radio app. you from the or hill today. congressman mark meadows resigns congress, heads to the white house to be president trump's next chief of staff. this resignation letter to speaker pelosi. i write today to inform you i house of n from the representatives effective 5:00 p.m. monday, march 30. the letter goes on, serving the of north carolina's 11th congressional district for these last seven years has been the my life. i will forever be grateful for the opportunity. next, a news