afford the medications they need. >> this is the first time in 51 years that prices have actually gone down for soup -- for prescription drugs. that's quite an achievement. >> the first thing i will do day one as president is defend the affordable care act and the second thing is i will bring down the cost of prescription drugs. >> you can watch each winning studentcam documentary online at studentcam.org. florida representative and theer hhs secretary on how coronavirus is impacting her south florida district and the rest of her state. at 8:00 a.m. eastern philip the impact ofses coronavirus on u.s. agriculture and supply chains. haddock dr. allison

discusses the coronavirus response. house5 am, daniel ober discusses how the u.s. power grid is responding to the pandemic. ♪ host: good morning, it is wednesday, april 1, 2020. president trump in the task force released new estimates projecting the deadly virus 100,000-240,000 americans even under the current efforts. he warns those numbers could be much higher if they don't follow the guidelines aimed at keeping the virus from spreading. this morning on"washington journal" we get reaction to the projections.

also, you could send us a text this morning. you do, please include your name and where you are from. on social media and twitter it is @cspanwj. very good wednesday morning to you. you could start calling in now. some of the front pages coming off of president trump's coronavirus task force briefing yesterday. this is "washington post." dire, thetoll is front page of the "new york and this from the front page of the "washington times. " i want everymp: american to be prepared for the hard days that lies ahead. we will go through a tough two weeks.

arefully as the experts predicting, as a lot of us are predicting after having studied it so hard we will start seeing some real light at the end of the tunnel. this will be a very painful two weeks. nightou look and see at the kind of death that has been ,aused by this invisible enemy it is incredible. i was watching last night, governor murphy of new jersey say 29 people died today, meaning yesterday. others talking about numbers far greater. i know new jersey so well. 29 people. hundreds another location. we face a difficult few weeks.

it is going to be like a burst of light. strength will be tested and endurance will be tried. america will answer with love and courage. all is the time for americans to come together and do our part. trumpthat was president yesterday evening at his white house coronavirus task force briefing. getting your reactions in the wake of those latest projections from the white house. 100,000-200 40,000 americans could die from coronavirus in the coming weeks and months. taking your calls on the phone lines. we were just talking about the projected numbers. here are numbers as they stand

today. the total confirmed coronavirus cases in the united states from the johns hopkins university 189,632rus dashboard, confirmed cases. total deaths just over 4000. yesterday at this time that number was just over 3000. the number on the far right is the good number, 7136 is the number recovered from the coronavirus in the united states. that is the latest from johns hopkins university. up first. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. know, is wilbert ross is still sec. of commerce? who is? from the seen anybody secretary of commerce.

host: why do you want to hear from the secretary of commerce? caller: isn't he one of the big economic guys? anyway, if the 2% death rate, and we expect 100,000 deaths, that means 5 million people will get this virus. how many percentage of those people need to go on a respirator? even if it is 10% that means you need 500,000 respirators. i don't get the math on a lot of these things. nobody is considering the math. i don't know of c-span knows but there was a statement that america only has 160,000 ventilators for 300 million people. that seems awful low.

is that percentage the same worldwide? host: for a couple of your , his last wilbur ross appearance we aired on c-span was march 5 testifying on the president's 2021 budget. ,ou could watch all the videos over 40 videos with the secretary of commerce on our website at c-span.org. wanting toking about hear from the secretary of commerce at this time. do you feel like steven mnuchin has been somebody who has given you confidence in the economic situation? patrick. wanda is up next in california, good morning. caller: good morning. as far as the numbers go, they cannot put a number on it because they do not know what the number is going to be. knower thing, how do they

where this virus came from? you have americans over there in china. how do to know americans didn't bring it to china? what kind of proof to have that it came from china? he says it like he is definite. like he knows for sure. what proved us he have? host: on the numbers issued you think it makes sense to prepare americans for that potential? it makes sense that they cannot put a number on it because they do not know. host: this is dr. anthony fauci speaking with reporters again about that number in these projections. should americans be prepared for the likelihood that there will be 100,000 americans die?ayak -- who

yes.auci: the answer is a sobering of a number as it is, we should prepare for it. will be that much? i hope not. the more we push on the mitigation the less likely it would be that number. being realistic, we need to prepare ourselves that this is a possibility. reporter: can the country handle such a short period of time? dr. fauci: it would be difficult. nobody is denying the fact that we are going through a difficult time right now. we are seeing what is happening in new york. that is really tough. if you extrapolate that to the nation, that would be really tough. that is what it is. we will have to be compared to that. >> that is based and heavily laden by the data that has come

in from new york, new jersey, and connecticut. peakcan skew to a higher and more significant mortality. if all of the other states and metro areas are able to hold , then it number down is a very different picture. dataave to predict on the you have, which is heavily skewed to new york and new jersey. that is an important slide. the cluster of other cities that are not new york and not new jersey, if we can suppress that from a spike, the numbers could be significantly lower than what we are talking about. my plea at the end of my remarks here that now is the time to put your foot on the accelerator. dr. anthony fauci along

with dr. deborah birx, the coronavirus task force coordinator. speaking alongside the president yesterday. thoseg your reaction to numbers released yesterday that the president spoke about. there's one more quote from the president. "this could be a hell of a bad two weeks," is their headline. caller: good morning, thank you for for taking our call. i think donald trump has given us good numbers. wife had some kind of virus real bad and it went on for probably about a month. we fought it, before it really ever came out. wondering if that was

what we had. they were doing tests for anti-bodies that people can donate blood to help other people. we have a friend that his daughter worked in a nursing home. there something about those antibodies? also, i wanted to remind people that they can go to www. shepperdschapel.com and go to church. toes chapter five tells you use the prayer. scott is up next out of california. good morning. know if anyone realizes this or even thought about it, it should be obvious to most of us that destructive donald doesn't want any real

covid-19 testing. he is only showing limited help to hide his actual intention. that may sound like a strong statement. the best thing for his reelection would be a steep curve in cases. although it would result in more deaths, it would peak the virus earlier than the flatten the curve. a flattened curve would drag on for months. trump doesn't want to take a chance on it. if you look at the graphs they often show on tv, a steep curve benefits trump in two ways, it gives the people the pandemic over much more quickly. toesn't help anyone come out and talk about numbers like that? is that a benefit of any sort of electoral benefit? we are talking about 100,000-2 earn 40,000 people dying.

the more overall deaths could actually benefit trump. will be able to say look deaths pandemic, 200,000 and i conquered it. no president has conquered a pandemic as big as i have. got your point. keith is in richmond, virginia. caller: good morning and i'm glad you allowed me to talk to you all in the nation this morning. about the dead right now. we have to realize that we just need to realize there are a lot of people that are hurting out there. a lot of people, a lot of going through things because a loved one has been taken away.

it doesn't matter if they are democrat or republican. they deserve respect and dignity. but we are doing as a nation is we are dividing ourselves further. you and yourto ask producers to give us information , about 10 seconds for a moment of silence. so we could remember the dead for a moment. would you just allow 10 seconds of silence for a moment have a blessed day everybody. host: you don't have to ask, i will give you that 10 seconds.

don is in michigan, good morning. morning.ood we have to work together as republicans and democrats. republicans are doing just the opposite. bill to poison the year -- air more. insident obama put standards, trump will destroy them. he is putting judges in the have vowed to destroy health care. that last caller talking about trump,bers, waiting for it could lose for trump if the red states death toll is greater than blue states. trouble use the higher death rates among the red states and blamed blue states for taking health care. trump is a divider, a hater, he is destroying this country. aboutcould you talk

michigan and the impact of coronavirus there? caller: about a month ago, sandy patti came to do a concert and she helped spread the virus in particular there. it is a strong evangelical community which voted strongly for trump. trump is at war and the republicans against michigan. he has told governor whitmer you have to find your own stuff because you disrespected me or didn't talk nice to me. three weeks ago, front-page infiltratingere michigan teachers union. host: we will stick to the numbers and projections that came out of the white house

yesterday. 100,000-240,000 deaths. white house warning those numbers could jump up higher if the mitigation and the distancing did not happen. from other models out there, this from the new york times. at the devised university of washington predicted coronavirus deaths nationwide would soar to almost 60,000 in the month of april. the study suggest the devastation would slow with a total of about 84,000 deaths by august. let's talk about those numbers today and with those numbers coming out of the white house from yesterday's task force briefing. just want to get your thoughts. caller: how are you doing? i live in santa maria, california, santa barbara county. they tell us they don't have

enough people to go around and check what businesses are working that shouldn't. we have a legal vendors and candy trucks going around while we are quarantined in our homes. a lot of people can't work and go to therapy. we need all hands on deck. we need a system that will support us. together toto pull get this thing straight. people are running around like there is no problem. host: can you tell me more about the illegal food vendors? caller: they have illegal food carts here that sell corn and whatever to kids, anybody. they go around all the time. the mayor of santa maria knows about it. , and the of police health department knows about

this illegal food sale. it is a bad habit. wouldn't even take our calls if we see it. here we are quarantined looking out the window at it. host: when people are worried about the food supply, are there efforts to try to make that legal? caller: this has been going on before that. people in a treat for the neighborhood. there are plenty of stores here. there are stores all around here. the kids are getting food from the school. they are giving out food for the people. they are starting to get towels and toilet paper. we have to have people support

us. going to quarantine down and maintain it we have to have the support from the police and the health department. we will just say it is a bad habit. host: we will be talking more , u.s.the u.s. food supply agriculture industry coming up at our 8:00 a.m. eastern our. we will be joined by philip brasher for that discussion. stick around for that conversation coming up in about 40 minutes. sean is next, gilbert arizona. i want to talk about

these masks. the n95 masks. the numbers basically our worst case scenario. that is all i have to say about that. host: what the white house was saying yesterday was that the numbers are projected to be 100,000-200 and 40,000, even with the mitigation efforts. we certainly hope those numbers are high. the worst case an area they are saying without mitigation and then those numbers get into the millions. caller: true but they are doing the mitigation right now. they are basing what you are talking about on how affected new york's and other places close to new york. that is correct. spoke to thatrx yesterday. finish your comment. caller: in regards to the n95

masks, they will protect you. they will protect anyone from getting this virus. only good the surgical masks will do is they will prevent you from giving the virus to someone else. there is a serious misunderstanding in regards to that. the n95 masks as long as they are properly fitted and you don't have a beard or anything cause you to have some type of opening where the virus could get to you, the n95 mask is the only mask that will protect you from getting the virus. on the surgical masks, are you saying you think it is worthless for people to have those? today'sn entire page of "new york times" on how surgical step-by-steph

instructions and the schematics on what that surgical mask should look like. caller: they have their uses. the uses are if you're wearing it to prevent yourself from infecting someone else. fromwill not protect you getting coronavirus. the droplets are big. if they are big, they are only protect -- your only protection will be the n95 mask. host: thank you for the call. to the numbers you are speaking about and the projections, what they are being based on, want to show dr. deborah birx of the coronavirus task force talking about the new york-new jersey anders and the projections what those numbers could mean for the rest of the united

states. birx: this light is all 50 states and the district of columbia. it shows a stark reality the difference between new york and new jersey and other states with similar populations and urban areas. our goal over the next 30 days is to ensure the 48 across the bottom maintain this lower level of new cases. with the hope that we don't have significant outbreaks in other states and other metro areas. as the community comes together to work together and ensure the health care providers around the globe and in the united states are strengthened by our resolve to continue to mitigate community by community. this is done community by community. we all know people are in states and in communities.

we are very dependent on each person in the united states doing the same thing. following the presidential guidelines to a t. i know it is a lot to ask. if you can show the next slide, please. this is what gives us a lot of hope. this is the case finding in italy. are beginningthey to turn the corner in new cases. they are entering their fourth week of full mitigation. they are showing what is possible when we work together as a community, as a country, to change the course of this pandemic together. is this graphic and the graphic of many of the states that give us hope of what is possible with continuing for another 30 days. i must say that like we warned about detroit and chicago, we

start to see changes in massachusetts area new orleans continues to be a problem of new cases. it really shows the depth of dedication of the american people of the health care providers. you could see the strain this puts on it. together toking stem this tide of unrelenting sick people coming to their doors. yesterdaydeborah birx at the white house talking about projected numbers, 100,000-2 hundred 40,000 u.s. coronavirus coming out of the task force briefing. that is what we are talking about to you on the phone lines. you can keep calling in, we will get back to your phone calls in just a second. want to bring in congresswoman

shalala. the time this morning. your reaction to those numbers yesterday out of the white house? guest: i think the numbers are still horrifying. we don't have a treatment. even though the projections are that we can study this down over a period of time, what we are basically trying to do is to starve the virus by staying at home. transmission the is not coming from people who have full-blown coronavirus but people that aren't showing the symptoms right now. dangerousvery situation. we just have to find a treatment. congress has put tremendous resources into the international search for treatment.

trying to make people whole economically. we are rolling out those programs right now. hopefully a health care safety net. i am in miami-dade county. our governor just has not issued a stay in place. host: do you think he may in the briefing -- in the wake of the briefing yesterday? are you chatting with him? every elected official is telling him he must. -- saveant to stay lives in florida you must issue the stay-at-home order. participate ino staying at home, social

distancing, washing our hands. that is the only thing that will slow the virus down and begin to starve it until we get a treatment and eventually a vaccine. oft: is miami ready in terms its hospitals and medical systems? this is an area of hurricanes. plan always had emergency surge capacity in our hospitals. never on this scale. of abusinghe process public spaces for the possibility of needing more hospital auxiliary. workforce and making sure we get supplies. it is not easy to get supplies. masks, all sorts of

machines like ventilators have been in short supply. the supply chain is the states are competing with each other to buy these supplies. some of those states are searching the world for these supplies. hospitals, idual worry about our hospitals that are in the process of losing millions of dollars. they cancel non-essential operations. they are in fact the way in which hospitals in this country make money. they are really essential at some point. they are bleeding now. they need to make a deep investment in our health care system.

the cost of treatment for those of whom who will not cover it. host: you are talking about a fourth coronavirus response by congress? when could we see that? what is congresses schedule, when you expect to get her to vote on something like that? democrats in the house are working on the fourth coronavirus, still. the republicans have indicated they want to wait. we are not going to wait. we have been told that after april 20 we have to keep our schedule flexible. up at a minute's notice.

those of us who are able to go up with the vote will of course go up and pass another bill. the leadership has the package together. are saying we have got to do some health care -- some things for the health care system. protecting people financially when they have to going to the hospital to be treated. host: congresswoman donna shalala joining us. i know there are cruise ships right now with infected passengers in discussions about whether they would be able to enter a florida or miami dock. where are we on that? guest: i have not been in those discussions. to uset they are trying is not the big miami port. in fort lauderdale, the

everglades ports. the issue is not whether they could dock. and happens to be patients employees on that ship? to isolatestrategy them to make sure they get the proper treatment? to make sure they don't add infections into the community. it is a planning process as far as i'm concerned. of course there is a fear factor. that while we fear the coronavirus, fear itself is a virus. that takes hold them we don't have proper planning and authoritative figures telling us what the best science is. they will land someplace. there will be a plan for the people on board. the most important thing is first to protect the people on board including the workers on board and the people they are

going to go into. can devote that kind of resources. for longhem offshore periods of time is quite dangerous. it is the humanitarian thing to do. it does involve a certain amount of planning. your thoughts on the information coming out of the task force during these daily briefings? -- how alec is doing his job doing hisis job? guest: i think the scientists have been extraordinary. burks and the infectious

who we have all known time,ght long period of dr. fauci. alex has his hand full. i'm worried about dr. fauci. the idea of pulling him out there every day for the briefing. i think the scientists are doing fine. --hink the political leaders the president keeps stepping on the messages. once in a while he is disciplined, the way he was the other day. himselfill focusing on and on his reelection. you can see that. that is very unfortunate. haverats and republicans to come together. the country wants them to come together. the voice that reflects the public health information that we have in the scientific information we have.

the fact that the president is nonverballyned, disciplined, personally disciplined, and periodically isfuses us with his messages unfortunate and dangerous. it is reckless. i said the other day i thought the president was a danger to our health. he never knew what was going to come out of his mouth that was inconsistent with what the scientists were saying. both in this state and at the national level it is clear, consistent, and reflects good information. host: former hhs secretary and congresswoman donna shalala. thank you so much for your time this morning. stay safe.

back to your phone calls. phone lines split regionally here. if you are in the eastern or central united states, (202) 748-8000, mountain or pacific regions is (202) 748-8001. we were talking with the congresswoman about dr. fauci, here is a column in today's "washington post" focusing on him. when america most needs a second opinion, dr. fauci is there. back to your phone calls. mike in oak grove, missouri. morning, john. how's the democrat hoax treating you? i'm totally beside myself over this thing. reported our intelligence agency reported on this two months before it reached us.

donald trump hid that fact instead of letting us get ready. i'm very angry about this. donald trump called this a hoax. gate -- matt gaetz played it off by wearing a respirator on the senate floor. closeor kelly of kansas school's and the republicans moved to hogtie her, saying next she will be coming for her guns. ron desantis let spring breakers go crazy for two weeks and then go home and spread it across the country. devon nunez went on youtube to say now is a great time to go to a movie or dinner, the lines are short. this is anything but a democrat hoax. anybody that can vote republican

while this is going on is out of their mind. anyone who has lost a loved one to this should be able to walk up and slapped donald trump in his face. int: stephen is next illinois. good morning. about four days ago i about thedocumentary and how it started. it started in november, 2019. fromst expanded from their china. the way china killed it was having people spray down sidewalks, do everything they

could. they were building hospitals and everything else. cctv.ogram was on host: looking for your text messages your tweets as well when it comes to this discussion. this is michael in portland, oregon. those mortality estimates are indeed horrifying. the first time in any living -- from celebrities, newscasters, studio camera operators, everyone is at mortal risk. for the first time no one can be sure that they or anyone else will be here next year at this

time. we areh carolina, hearing myrtle beach is experiencing a huge influx of visitors from new york and new jersey. asking what are people thinking? ray north carolina says it will be tough but i don't believe the numbers will be that high. numbers that raise referring to were out of -- ray is referring to are the white house numbers 240,000 deaths00- even with mitigation efforts. things.i just have two the second one is more important than the first one. that person from missouri that called and said that trump thought it was a hoax, he didn't think the virus was a hoax. if you thought the virus was a hoax he wouldn't have spent $2 trillion to get rid of these

problems. the second thing i want to say is we got some people going on in the media. theis choosing not to show daily updates for the response to this virus. americans need to know the latest updates. cnn refuses to run it. they say it is part of trump's trying to win the election. he has given vital information. the president's government doctors are some of the best people to handle this. not donna shalala. she wants you guys to all vote for senile biden and just throw trump out of office. that is ed in georgia talking about the media. pope francis very early this morning also talk about the media.

this was his tweet. just after 3:00 a.m. eastern time. that is prayed together for all who work in the media, who worked to communicate to inform us so people are not isolated into educate children. we pray for all of those helping us during this time of isolation. caller: thanks, c-span. sad but true times. when he fired all of the generals, the generals do these biological weapons are out there. it is kind of weird that it happened during the tariffs. had thetary probably best advice but he fired them all. it is a sad situation in that sense. let's pray for this country. it is here and we will have to deal with it. less america and bless the

world. you may have heard about this yesterday, the captain of an american aircraft carrier has pleaded with the pentagon for more help with the coronavirus outbreak aboard his ship. dozens of sailors have been infected. in a four page letter, the captain laid out a dire situation unfolding aboard the warship theodore roosevelt, which has more than 4000 crewmembers. he described what he said was the navy's failure to provide him with that proper resources by moving sailors off the vessel. we are not at war, sailors do not need to die. if we do not act now we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset. the carrier is currently docked in guam. mobley, told cnn in an

interview that the navy was working to move this sailors off the ship but there were not enough beds in guam to accommodate the crew. recommended offloading his entire crew and then quarantining and testing them while the ship was professionally cleaned. you could read more on that in the new york times today. that story widely reported in other newspapers and news sites. good morning. i saw part of the presentation yesterday. i don't see how we will mitigate the curve at this point. wyndham doesn't have testing kits yet. that is one example. market is going to have gyrations. to really mitigate the curve, it

is going to be an economic disaster. bind. in a real it is really hard to see the future. deaths, i don't know if that is the middle range number or the high-end, that is a lot of people. a real bind blowing number. i'm beside myself. curve andending the mitigation efforts. here's more from yesterday's coronavirus task force briefing with dr. anthony fauci. dr. fauci: virus, if left to its own the voices we will have that curve that dr. birx showed you. the other dynamic force is what we are doing, trying to do, and will do in the form of mitigation. these are very revealing bits of data.

.ou saw what happened in italy you make the turn around the curve and you go. that doesn't happen all at once. steps, which ie will, you will see why we are really convinced that mitigation is going to be doing the trick for us. what you have is increase in new cases at a certain rate. with the increase in new cases, when it begins to level off, the secondary effect is less hospitalization. the next effect is less intensive care. the next is less deaths. the deaths and the intensive care and hospitalization always indicationthe early that there are less new cases per day. the way you saw in italy and the way we will likely see -- i don't want to jump the gun, we are seeing inklings of this right now in new york.

see, weare going to have to brace ourselves in the next several days to a week or so, we will continue to see things go up. we cannot be discouraged by that. is actuallyon working and will work. whereide dr. birx showed you sign new york, new jersey, our goal which i believe we can the new york's, new jersey's, help them get around that curve. importantly, to prevent clusters of areas that have not yet gone to that spike to prevent them from getting to that spike. the answer to that is mitigation. had clearly have had an effect. although it is tough to quantitate because of those

imposing forces, the reason we feel so strongly about the necessity of the additional 30 days is that now is the time whenever you are having an effect not to take your foot off the accelerator but to just press it down on the accelerator. i know what i hope and we can do over the next 30 days. host: dr. anthony fauci at the white house yesterday. there is another briefing scheduled for today. we will bring it to you on c-span. good morning. host: go ahead with your comment. caller: i'm calling with concerned about the 500 kids that were kidnapped, if they were still alive at the border of california.

get a chance to see the relatives. this illness have themselves, just inches away from each other. someone should be concerned about that. talking about those in immigration custody? caller: right. host: a story on that from the "washington times" today. immigration activist stepping up campaign to force ice to release migrants amid the coronavirus crisis. taking the streets of california and a drive-by protest demanding the emergency shutdown order for federal detention facilities in the state of california. in washington, the congressional saying thoseus being held by customs enforcement be released, and

those being processed at the border should be immediately released as well. there may be some exceptions for dangerous, illegal immigrants. most doing held should be freed according to the caucus leaders statement. time for a few more calls in this first segment of "washington journal." caller: good morning. that was great timing. to finally hear from one of the open border liberal democrats calling concerned about the illegal criminal aliens trying to come across the border. we need to renew that conversation. it is ironic right now. states with the coronavirus are two sanctuary states, new york and new jersey.

pro-open borders, let anybody in, let's talk about that now. i want to put aside this whole mess blaming president trump and our experts. not hearing anything about the open borders. that is why these states are peaking. a topic we will talk about in our next segment has to do with immigration and legal visas. the visas for immigrant workers, especially amid concerns about the food supply and how you keep those folks safe. it is time to close our borders and protect our country against everything. it is to vet and make sure we

are not imposing risks into our country. host: do you think immigrant laborers should be let in? should we shutdown the visa program? we need toporarily, shut down all immigration. especially the illegal immigration. this, the left has gone silent on this issue. nothing like this coronavirus has come along to show the and obvious harm for being a sanctuary state and embracing illegal immigration. you cannot check to see if they are diseased when they come across the border. also we want to give them our taxpayer money. not even citizens. we need to use that money to protect our citizens against diseases, pandemics, and other problems. we need to have a secure country

input america first. we have not been doing that. instead, mortgaging our future and our grandkids future and exacerbate impact of pandemics and even worse. in southt is dandy carolina, this is dave in florida. on the line we reserved for medical professionals. what kind of work do you do? caller: i'm a cardiologist. host: your thoughts this morning on the numbers? the briefing that trump gave the other day was nothing friend whoor his donated $6 million to his campaign. trump has been lying all along. he started off with this story about how there would only be 15 cases and it would just go away like a miracle. as it turns out, it is becoming a huge disaster. he never really did close down the border from china.

to entire time he claimed have close down entrance to the chinese, people that were citizens of the united states were coming and going from china constantly. that is another one of his big lies. again, trump told us who he was from the beginning. he told us he could shoot somebody in the middle of fifth avenue and his more on followers would still vote for him. it just proved that the gop isn't even a political organization anymore. it is a psychiatric diagnosis. are you being called in to help respond to this? it is turningrse, into a nightmare scenario that not even a stephen king or steven spielberg could have imagined. it is a horror movie. if we had competent leadership from the beginning -- in my

opinion if there was a civics test before they handed out voter registration cards we wouldn't have this problem. trump would not be the president. host: villas next out of middleton, new york. live about 30 miles north of new york city. when i go to the grocery store, maybe one other person in the entire grocery store would be wearing a mask. they wouldn't be observing social distancing. likeof the people acted nothing had changed. host: have things change now? caller: i don't know, i haven't been to the store. people were not observing social distancing. is finding people because they are not staying apart. it should be obvious to

everybody that lives here, the reason these people are in the hospital, the reason the curve is so high is because they are not hunkering down. thank god for donald trump is what i have to say. have a good day. our next callers from florida, good morning. caller: how are you this morning? host: i'm all right. caller: you are doing a very good job as far as keeping the callers on point. i appreciate it. is -- suggestion rather, i heard dr. ron paul, medical doctor on his show the a 30-40 year member of congress who knows how government works. they were talking about a different approach as far as testing. a random testing, maybe take

1000 people and get more accurate numbers. a more representative take on this virus thing. also, don't take this the wrong way please, but i have mentioned this to c-span. you can hear a lot of the callers. they politicize everything. i think that has hurt our country as far as resolving issues that affect us all. i like tie you divided the calls this morning on pacific versus eastern, central. god bless those folks on the coast getting up at 4:00 in the morning. give them a fair share of the calls. i think we would actually get a more representative take on things. do you think the country has come together in the past

couple weeks? in what is expected to be a very rough few weeks ahead that the country will come together more? to answer that, no, i don't believe it has. you could judge that on the calls. even when you don't have democrat and republican line, they are still politicizing democrats versus. it is talking points. it is not real opinions i don't fully whether they know it or not. they are earned on cable channels of choice the night or. msnbc, fox, or whatever. far aser thing is as gauging the economy, they are using the stock market. i think people should just take a look around at their neighbors. is leftestroying what of the middle class. mom and pop businesses are being killed. i don't believe they are going to survive this.

told onhat we are being the box in the living room, let's go back to using our own minds again. byeally believe c-span can way keeping the calls away from democrat republican and do what you are doing. you can still have three lines and divide it like you have been with the regions and it might be more fair to the folks on the west coast who are getting up at 4:00 in the morning to do it that way. i like where you are going with the beard. it's gonna be good. host: that's phil in port orange, florida. one other story to mention in this opening segment this morning. shalala, ao donna story about one of her colleagues on capitol hill out of new york, freshman democrat announced he was going to be deployed to the national guard to assist in the city coronavirus response.

it cap in the army national guard and decorated combat veteran in afghanistan who represents staten island and parts of southern brooklyn and chose to deploy to do my small part to combat the pandemic and will help out hospitals in staten island and other parts of new york. that's gonna do it for this segment of the washington journal this morning but stick around, plenty more to talk about including up next we will brasher on theil impact of coronavirus on the u.s. agriculture sector and later we will be joined by dr. allison hajek, an emergency medical doctor to discuss the latest on the u.s. response and how it is impacting emergency rooms. agriculture secretary sonny perdue has sent this video message to america's agriculture sector and he pinned tweet on his twitter page.

[video clip] >> this morning i want to speak from my heart to all you folks out there working on the frontline of our food supply chain. america,oiled in you've provide such abundant healthy, wholesome, affordable label food that we take you for granted. for all you people from the people who were stocking the shelves, people who were driving the truck to get the food to us who are processing the food and the people who grow the food and all the vendors that supply our farmers to help them grow the food whether it's fertilizer, feed or seed or any other input, thank you so much for what you are doing. i know these are uncertain times but i want to tell you from my heart as an american citizen i am so grateful for what you are doing and i want to thank you for doing that.

i know there's a lot of confusion about teleworking and all that. you have jobs that can't telework and we know that. we have inspection workers in the front lines day in and day out to make sure food is safe. ii, we hadr agricultural deferments caused by food supply chains was so important and that's what you are doing. farmers, the farmers to go day in and day out the produce this food in this packaging. in the stocking of the shelves. checking out people, you are vital to our economy and the needs of having a food supply. you probably heard me say before it's due right and feed everyone. we can't do that alone in the usda but you are doing it. i want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for what you're doing day in and day out. stay in the job, make sure the

america -- america knows that they depend on you. you're the one for can make that happen. bless you, stay safe and god bless america. >> washington journal continues. host: the focus on coronavirus and u.s. agriculture with philip brasher. for people who are right now seeing nothing but sold-out grocery store aisles, what is going on in the agriculture industry when it comes to the impact of coronavirus, what are people seeing behind those aisles. guest: a lot is going on. disruption of the last couple of weeks have been. primarily, you have a lot of people courting and buying lots of food. a lot of other things.

the supply chain is not set up for a surge like that so it takes a little while to get caught up. cattle lots of hens and and pigs in this country, they are set to move through the system at a certain pace. the other really big thing that's happening is you have a massive shift for restaurants, in some casesail that's different products, different types of products, different types of produce, the bulk of that has to be shifted to retail. unfortunately some of this may go to waste. particular the fresh produce. just -- thisis is is created all sorts of logistical challenges and otherwise, this whole shift and the rush to supermarkets.

there is plenty of food to go around. >> in today's new york times asked the question will the coronavirus threaten our food, the questionnaire. if it does, where would the strain happen first? what should we be watching for to keep that from happening? chain all along the food have been working on this furiously for the last couple of weeks working with government agencies including agriculture department in the food and drug administration and the epa. transportation departments, there's been a lot going on behind-the-scenes. but to your question, they're all sorts of different points, you have to make sure you have an adequate number of truck drivers, make sure you have the workers staying healthy. one of the big concerns is federal inspections and that's because you can't -- packing

plants cannot operate and slaughter animals and moving through the system unless there federal inspectors on site. a big concern early on anyway to continue concern is those inspectors stay healthy until someone gets sick as our backup personnel, usda which is responsible for inspecting meet has been working on that, we will see how well they've done and one some problems cropped up. there are a number of places along the food chain where you have disruptions. it could have an impact primarily on prices initially. host: philip brasher is our guest. easy enough to find. segmentcall in on this as we talk about u.s.

agriculture and food supply chain in the phone line split up in the eastern or central united states. if you're in the mountain or pacific regions. a special those who work in the agricultural industry, we would like to hear from you. -- 202-748-8002. want to talk about that to truly know the stimulus package in any of that will help a bit of a breakdown from the usda on the money that was included in that package. 14 billion dollars to replenish the commodity credit corporation , who have been impacted. specifically by the virus. tother to expand access broadband in rural america. start with the biggest number they are and what is the

commodity credit corporation. use that toable to have the commodity programs, the commodity payments in congress replenishes it, they've also used it for the last couple of years to make trade assistance payments. about $14.5 was billion. making the payments to compensate farmers for the impact primarily with china. -- the tariff or with china. they provided another $14 billion for that account presumably usda will be doing another round of those direct payments to farmers but they should have somewhere close to enough money for that. the other big one you mentioned aside $9.5 billion set

for livestock producers, what's called specialty crops that produce vegetables, that's the produce industry which is been disruptionrd by this and a lot of growers and shippers in the produce that they can't sell. also local systems, farmers markets, farmers to sell into those farmers markets and csa's and so forth. they could give for that as well. philip brasher joining us. in an age of coronavirus. the special phone line for those who work in the agricultural industry, 202-748-8002. other line split up regionally as we have done in recent days and weeks here.

a topic that came up in our last segment this morning was immigration and the concern about there being another -- enough immigrant workers to secure the food supply. can you talk about that concern on that front? >> another issue that cropped up quickly and that's because this is the time of year when the state department and the labor department are working to approve applications for foreign workers to command to work in agriculture instead of a spec -- that's a's special visa program. these workers often require interviews of consulates and embassies primarily in mexico but in a few other countries including south africa, central america, guatemala. is that theens state department essentially is starting to shut down practical

purposes these embassies and consuls in mexico. great concern among agriculture groups about their ability to get these workers into the thetry in time for springfield to work with planning. very important for vegetables. but other sectors as well. scrambling to do something about that. last week the state department came out and said they would waive these interviews for a large percentage of these a greatts and so that's part of the way towards dealing with that issue, still concern the process goes forward for some lingering concerns about farmers coming from south africa and some other countries. >> some reaction to that state department decision last week you were referring to with the american farm bureau, a

statement from their president from last week, we applaud the administration for recognizing contributions of those workers that they make two farms across this country to ensure americans have access to healthy affordable food acknowledging the critical role of immigrant farm laborers by expanding the number of eligible while ensuring families continue to have access to stable food sources. workers in the program represent 20% of the workforce so the contributions are necessary as winter a critical time in the planting season. our guest, phil brasher, phone lines up for you. lynn is up first of hawthorne, go ahead. i'm a senior and i can transportation is dependent upon my mother.

and we only get out for necessary things like food and other things, i live in putnam county, florida and there's a paper factory at georgia-pacific in our county i can't understand the 17 different stores in one week and have not been able to find toilet paper and also rubbing alcohol. i understand hospitals probably need those but i'm a diabetic and i need rubbing alcohol. wondered why they weren't supplying the stores. host: philip brasher on supply chain issues. guest: it's important for people to hear because when you buy more than you need, you make it difficult for people who either can't afford to buy a large supply or are having trouble getting to the stores and that's

a lot of folks these days. it is difficult for the supply chain to deal with this, this is a real issue that consumers need to think about. need.t you the stores will still be open, their essential infrastructure that are exempt from all the stay-at-home order's when you buy more than you need, you make it tougher for someone who is not in a position to go shopping and buy large quantities. host: the economist who wrote asking questions with the will threaten our food, he notes domestic production is not the only problem. united states relies on foreign supplies from us 20% of its food. in thomas 25% american cheese comes from italy, those imports are at risk, number -- another

threat is those nations and others will take steps to protect their own food supplies, a major exporter of flour. the suspended exports of those products. our foodspending supply in united states to countries abroad? and that are not something the united states government has been opposed to. you create all sorts of problems when you do that. with other countries not to do the same things. havet happens when you large spikes in prices. you see these sort of bands cropping up, i think one of the issues we are watching for is to the extent to which we have disruptions, we certainly have that in china early on with

covid-19's first was raging over difficultmade it very to move product into and within china, we have not seen that here but things aren't slowing down, the good thing is for the united states is for the most part we produce way more than we can use. much of our agricultural relies heavily on exports because we produce with such prodigious production. host: a comment from tammy in new mexico the our text message service. food pantries are desperate, why don't they donate the produce, the producers were talking about especially time sensitive ones. guest: they are trying to do that. it's a challenge, one of the things they are asking the usda to do is to the federal for reading programs, there is

definitely an effort to do that. , they are working for just that very thing. challenge andical it takes time. host: if there ever was a better time to do with spring around the corner, at least you might have something to eat. i planted my potatoes yesterday. this is out of lexington, south carolina, good morning. you are on board -- on. caller: thank you for taking my call. i was amazed by how quickly things can dry up in the markets and it seems to be the mainstream media is hell-bent on creating a panic and making people rush the store. i want to help the food supply. panic.le really

now where we point could lose everything. much,ple panicked too they would have to go out and get other people's food, you have to suspend the constitution and create martial law. estimates on food supplies drying up? guest: again, we have plenty of food. what happens is you create these backlogs in the food supply. the other thing that happens is you create volatility in prices and have the shortages. that's really been happening in the meat sector of the last couple of weeks. that's because we have this tremendous surge in panic buying really a couple weeks ago now, people emptied the shelves. we have plenty of production, it

just takes several days to catch up. to herres that we go pretty well-stocked now. -- the most part and adjust it creates disruptions to catch up. volatility and a lot of volatility in prices. washington state, brian works in the agriculture sector. caller: i work in farm processing. processing the facility. farm raised the product. what is your question or comment today?

caller: bottom line is the first one that concerns me is across united states here on the first of november from the west coast to east coast and back and when i broke the middle of the country and got towards the east coast i was appalled at how many flooded crop fields i was seeing. i was seeing beat feels that had circle for but -- circle pivots with four feet of standing water on irrigated fields. that has to be a major issue there for inventory. but aside from that my buddy's work in the produce warehouses, one sells and one buys in one -- and one hauls. i asked how business is going and they were saying they were concerned about the loss of their sales to the school food

program inventory that those were being eased by the irregular retail consumption due to customer over stocking or extra purchasing or hoarding. and it was like a 30% number there that those school programs were responsible for their warehouse inventory but they were being made up for just by the retail customer extra buying or hoarding. guest: we had an incredible amount of flooding in the middle class. there was a believe in roughly speaking the didn't get planted, primarily there some other crops. we still have plenty of

supplies. wellnot forecasted as below the ground is so saturated. but we are on track to have what looks like a good planning season. as far as those disruptions, that is what's happened. the closing of schools is a big issue because the food was going to schools needs to go somewhere else. take those half-point cartons of milk. you don't buy those of the grocery store. where do they go. it creates other issues. products that are sold in the schools are not necessarily with , as which bind the retail very easy transition there. the the think schools are doing for low income students is making grab and go meals. , those are schools

different than what they would be selling preparing in the school cafeteria. there are changes you have to work through. talking about possible waste. this is rick from our text messaging service saying i work at a large farm greenhouse establishment in southern virginia. spring and fall i work three to four days a week. i'm afraid on two fronts. that we may not be allowed to supply that we depend on in the second, the waste involved that we might face with a surplus of produce that we cannot move. this is out of georgetown, texas. good morning. i'm 81 years old, from california. my husband worked for pan american airlines as supervisor. time preparing frozen meals for the passengers and

then they took over. i understand summer assistance, getting food to people. but what concerns me is when i see these arenas that are being converted for what looks like 1000 beds. i'm thinking the logistics of how you deal with this many people under one roof. challenges isajor getting food to them. my mind thinks of the -- someone is going to have to do the work to fix on this. because it will break down i think. host: as you are talking about that you also talk about efforts to increase the supplemental nutrition assistance program because it plays in to this issue here.

>> all these little things that you don't really think about, a lot of people do after think about them. intendede of that food can address -- can be used for the issue that she brings up. in terms of foodstamp programs. ,utrition assistance programs the -- this to trillion dollar stimulus bill the president past and the president signed on another $15.5d billion for the additional demand that's expected for snap benefits. millions at work. we are going to have another , high priority for democrats and house speaker

nancy pelosi is to have a temporary increase in snap benefits. in the amount that a person or family can get. temporarilywas thatg that great recession benefit eventually snapped back to the normal standard level. it's been there. democrats are pushing to get an increase of about 15%. host: good morning. caller: yes. store, i a grocery stock right now. concerned because we have a few people international chain and locally who have been tested whative for the virus and is the problem, my concern is pushing the virus around through

the system and handling that ,tuff and getting it to people that really concerns me because i understand that can happen and this is kind of new for us. being -- happy trump supporter day. that's all. host: on the first part of the comment. guest: that is an issue, the workers i mentioned that this is concerned having workers have to quarantine, having to plant anywhere along the chain you create disruption worse comes to worse you have to shut down because of an outbreak, it hasn't happened that i'm aware of. of food getting

you cant i'm seeing is leave the virus on service -- surfaces. that's good reason to keep washing your hands. a lot of recommendations when you bring stuff to make sure you clean it off. a virus is on the surface. host: last call from march in michigan. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. just a question regarding the foreign and visa worker program. why couldn't we get the education department and make some kind of program for the college students that are not attending school at the moment and work out a deal where the students could go ahead and work in agriculture and help repay their debts. thank you. guest: interesting suggestion. supposedly these college

students are taking online courses. once that i know are, the ones the teachers and professors i know are teaching these courses. but on the bigger issue of getting people to work in agriculture, it is extremely difficult to talk to anybody, often they will work for a short amount of time and then take off and that's an other sectors as well. particularly in agriculture, it is extremely difficult, i come from texas and it's extremely , it's hard work, it's to work in the fields in the summer. brasher, on twitter you can find them at agri pulse

as well. appreciate your time this morning. joined by we will be an emergency room doctor alyson hannigan. on the about much needed front -- what's needed on the front lines in the battle against the coronavirus pandemic. later a discussion on how the electric grid is holding up with daniel of wired magazine. west virginia governor responded to a question about the aclu of west virginia constitutional concerns over his executive order requiring visitors from to self-quarantine for days when they enter the state. [video clip] >> we want to be respectful constitutional right. people are dying all over this country right and left. what allbeyond belief

of us are trying to deal with. we are dealing with an absolute pandemic and people are dying all over the place and i'm trying to do everything i possibly can to protect our people and i will do that. i'm couldn't do that to the fullest extent that i possibly can. and from the standpoint of people coming in from new york or wherever, italy, china, wherever they are coming from, the have to quarantine themselves for 14 days. i won't take the time issue with it. i'm gonna try and protect our people. and right now we don't want people coming in from any state, but especially want the people to know the people coming in here from new york, new jersey, connecticut. we expect them to self-quarantine for 14 days. if they don't do it, we will do it quickly. it ween if they don't do

will see them being obstructing justice and a real issue. yorkve the people from new and connecticut and new jersey. one of my best friends growing up my whole life, mike and i play golf and did everything together. and he's atogether surgeon in connecticut. but we can have mike here right now. that's understood. these can have to quarantine himself and that's a simple as that. >> if you miss any live coverage of the government's response the coronavirus out break. watch at any time at c-span.org/coronavirus. from daily briefings by the president of the white house task force to updates from governors of the hardest hit states. it's all there. use the charts and maps to track the global spread and confirmed cases the u.s.. county by county. coronavirus webpages your fast and easy way to watch c-span's

unfiltered coverage of the pandemic. washington journal continues. host: a view from the front lines of the coronavirus fight. she is board member with the american college of emergency physicians. dr. haddock, you first just described what your days are like these days of the hospital and how you are spending them. guest: it is a busy time around the country, we are seeing the number of covid patients we are seeing escalate every day. harris county currently has 563 cases and it's a change in our workflow in this new age the pandemic. job on theis your front lines? guest: i see anyone who comes in the door for any problem they might be having medically. whether that's related to covid or the traditional things we would see like abdominal pain or

toe infection. in this era of covid one of the challenges we have is trying to sort out those who are more likely to have covid and that requires a high level of protection for those caring for them. reset the other patients. >> how do you do that when sorting out. guest: the main thing we do is ask about symptoms. at the beginning we were asking about travel history, had you been to an area where you're more likely to be exposed to the virus. we we know is widespread throughout the united states. have you had fever or cost and then -- cough and or other symptoms that can still represent covid like diarrhea for example. seen byet them only health-care workers were wearing all the proper protective equipment to prevent transmission. are doing tou

sorting, what you wearing? describe your ppe, that's the phrase, what that looks like. when any emergency physician is seeing patient suspected to have covid, they need to be wearing maximum protection so that includes a mask, the american college of emergency physician recommends that an n95 mask is worn when dealing with the physical exam on our patients. whether it's the heart of their lungs, cough or breathe heavily, that could expose us to the virus or droplets. so those masks, you have to be professional -- fit for them. they are very specialized fibers in them. filtering out all the viral particles that could be entering. when of scouting up to see -- i'm wearing that mask and goggles or face shield to protect my eyes and nose for many droplets of virus the patient to transmit.

and those are the pieces of personal protective equipment you really need to care for a covid patient. host: jeff to change that with every patient? every patient. especially in emergency department we don't know the test results on every patient. we are seeing them may have symptoms but just because you have that you may not have covid. you want to -- if you've one patient did one who didn't, the personal protective equipment particularly gown and the gloves from one infected patient -- infected. >> worldwide there is a shortage of personal protective equipment. we know that these specialized masks take a lot of time to make and the rate at which we are using the personal protective equipment is unprecedented. we've never seen consumption of this equipment at this rate but it is absolutely necessary to

protect our frontline health care workers. haddock is ouron guest this morning. taking your questions and comments from the front lines of the coronavirus fight. phone lines a bit differently this morning. setting aside a special line for medical professionals. other byes2 regionally. eastern or central united states, 202-748-8000. in the nor pacific region, 202-748-8001. about thek, you talk american college for emergency physicians, folks who don't know what is that, you are a board member there, what has been your goal in the past weeks and this pandemic -- as this has spread? guest: the american college of emergency physicians as a professional organization. we have about 40,000 members who are largely emergency physicians

and emergency physicians in training. medical students will someday become emergency physicians. we want the highest quality emergency care to be delivered in the emergency departments across america. forre one of the leading that. when of the biggest issues has been making sure we were talking about earlier to protect health care workers and make sure we are able to continue providing that highest quality of care for patients. host: what we know about the rates of emergency physicians and some nurses catching this? guest: we don't have a lot of details yet. one of the challenges and difficulties is testing is definitely something we are tracking. we know even a few weeks ago there were several emergency physicians. one in the new york area and seattle area where they were hardest hit earliest who were in critical care being treated for covid infections. short on the supplies were talking about and what is

the follow-up on them? know emergency physicians around the country are trying to be very careful, trying to conserve the use of supplies is much as we can while still making sure that we are optimizing these. >> how can you reduce some of the supplies -- reuse some of the supplies? guest: the n95 is a one-time use item. but it's also been able to be used as a one-time use item because i would typically only see one or fewer patients needing a mask so in past years i've used primarily for seeing patients suspected of having or new had active tuberculosis because that's a disease that can be filtered out. now we are be using that for the entirety of our shifts routinely around the country and the cdc saying that should be safe. one of the challenges when you are moving that mask to go from patient room to patient room making sure you're not contaminating it and we are

looking at ways that those can be safely sterilized or be used for multiple ways because we know there's not enough global supply of those masks that provide the protection we need. host: what about what you are wearing in the rooms? the hazmat suits that we sometimes see pictures of in the news? >> that varies hospital to hospital. but the gowns are known to be safe as well for protecting you against the virus. host: taking your phone calls, we will start with evelyn out of connecticut. good morning. caller: good morning. i want to say thank you for being an emergency room doctor at this time and subjecting yourself to all that risk. i've had this idea i've been trying to put out there. machine,user of cpap mine is called --

usingifies my cpap mask an ozone or activated oxygen. he put the mask in the bag and turned the little machine on and 35 minutes later it sterilizers. i call the company and they have proof that it kills sars and hospitals know that have ozone machines where they will purify whole room. i'm just here to suggest that those simple, there's another one on television now and there's another one obviously using the one called so clean. you can put your mask in their and i'm pretty sure it takes about 35 minutes and then you have to let the one that i have, some of them are a lot shorter. host: unmask sterilization. guest: one of the things unmask sterilization is the n95 masks are made of more of a papery material instead of a plastic so

some of the techniques that are used to clean plastic may not be valid for them because they might degrade the quality of the mask so it sounds like something similar to what evelyn was describing which is a hydrogen that comeschine gently be used to sterilize the mask. i think we're going to need ideas like hers coming out to make sure we have enough for the frontline workers. timothy out of wisconsin. good morning on that line for medical professionals. what line of work are you in in the medical industry? caller: thank you for c-span. i'm an anesthesiology provider. we've been hearing about these new rapid coronavirus testing and it wanted to know how that will benefit treatment of patients and if you have any

insight on what the sensitivity and specificity of those tests will be? i don't know the details. i can say rapid coronavirus testing had enough -- for the viewers might not know what that means, will the test be positive if it's present. if we are testing in the emergency department and essentially going to downgrade the amount if the test is negative seems to be -- we need a very high sensitivity test. if we have one of those tests that would be hugely beneficial because we conserve ppe for those who have coronavirus and not use it for those who don't. lack of testing is been a huge challenge for us in terms of knowing who is infected and who is not. test,when you call for a how long does that process take and when do you know the results and what do you do with that person in the meantime? guest: the timeline is highly

varied, different labs have different turnaround times and we are seeing wait times in some cases and places around the country of up to a week so it's a very long time especially with patients admitted to the hospital. most of those tested around the releasedthe cdc has that for testing in the highest priority is for those second admitted to the hospital. imagine if we are waiting for a week for that test and it turns out to be negative, that means thea week in the hospital first -- the person cleaning the room, all those people have been using the maximal protective equipment which is what they need to do. but having a faster testing regimen would allow us to conserve ppe and provide better care. as a patient were anxious want to know if you have this or not and know how the outcome of the current symptoms will turn out and being able to know that is a

great benefit for the health care workers. caller: good morning. i have question about testing the end it's basically there's 80% of the people don't know that they've had this, don't know if they are contagious. the university of miami on our local news said there is a devised antibody test, a blood test that takes advantage -- the takes five minutes that everyone can take and you know whether you've had it or you haven't had , i can've had it already go back and help other people who haven't. so what of the unity about testing americans. guest: i think a lot of this research is still in its infancy. i agree with reviewer that there's a lot of benefit if we can test and discover people are immune to coronavirus that would allow them to potentially resume

their activity and in the meantime before we have that testing, emergency physicians really encourage everyone to stay home and stay safe. we don't know if we may have had a for sure, we don't know who may be in a symptomatic carrier which your viewer also alluded to. everyone needs to behave at all times right now. which means that six foot distance. in doing everything you can to limit your social contact with others to make sure we are minimizing transition. >> what do you do? emt firefighter, i've been in the medical school for quite a long time, but what i've been trying to do for the last three weeks probably is to get out there that for an

alternative, why not try the surgical gauze? we put it over the wound to keep the germs out and it's see-through enough for you can breathe through it so i put on like the surgical strips and put the adhesive waterproof table -- tape over it and that's much better i think where i spoke to the doctor last week and he said good idea, go to -- go to the cdc guidelines. aboutwhere you have having to use the masks over again from patient to patient and that didn't make sense to me with the same mask on because you could be spreading it further. my thoughts were even with the people trying to make those selling masks, why not put 4 x 4 youe inside of it or over

so that you can reuse that. that was where i'm trying to get it out there to the public and i didn't know who to go to. i went to the governor's office in ohio on the telephone, by the time i got back it was so misconstrued that you're an emt looking for masks. i was trying to tell you please try that because it's available everywhere especially since we are not doing elective surgeries. let's get it out there and give that a shot over a bandana because that's what the guidelines are. you might as well put your shirt up over your nose and cough into that. you for your service as a first responder. the m night -- the n95 mask in particular are difficult to replace with anything but n95 masks or respirators which are that seal cap that you put over your head.

that can filter out those particles. things like gauze may be acceptable as alternatives to this but really can't replace that micron filtration. i will say with those used from room to room, their are used with a face shield over them which is clean from room to room. the transmission should be not really possible. on twitter with this comment. i recently was at an er and don't recall seeing those. he mentioned doctors and nurses with first responders. first people came in contact with were those inquiring about insurance information. aren't ages vulnerable? guest: that's unsecured registration clerk he might be referring to. are getting up

close and physically touching doing physical maneuvers were at higher risk so there is different levels of equipment that are needed based on your level of exposure. i hope we are making sure everyone working at the hospital has an adequate level of protection but the closer you are to a patient, the closer contact is. >> i wonder if you have thoughts about the wearing of the surgical masks by the general public. the new york times today has a pattern printed out a full-page about how this -- how to sew a facemask and it's desperate -- step-by-step directions. guest: it sounds like they are recommending or suggesting offering instructions on how to do a home designed mask, probably made out of cloth or at least that of household items. i will say with surgical masks

being in short supply the most important thing is getting those into our frontline health care workers, paramedics, emts and others providing that frontline medical care. just therecommend public use those right now. on top of using cloth masks or homemade masks i think it's something that is evolving. caller: good morning. i've got a question and a comment, i would like to know ont the doctor's thoughts pinkeye. my wife is had pinkeye for three days and i have a videoconference call with my doctor and like 20 minutes to check her out. she has no symptoms are fever, just the pinkeye. host: are you concerned about coronavirus being a symptom?

caller: yes because i'm seeing on the news that pinkeye could be a sign of corona. fever, wed, she is no feel well. but i want to know the doctors thoughts on that. ifst: if that pete -- host: that patient came in. guest: i can't comment on any specific patient of not seeing. i can't say it's a common symptom or illness caused by coronavirus but it's also really challenging because coronavirus can be asymptomatic. that's what i'm was saying earlier about the need for distancing. we can't see in the individual does or does not have it based on the symptoms of anytime without testing. i'm glad the caller has an appointment with telemedicine. that is something we are strongly encouraging as emergency physicians. that allows an opportunity for

physicians to evaluate patients and provide care to patients without increasing the risk of exposure by them walking through a lobby or getting into an office. everyone involved in that process. the more that we can use telemedicine to make sure people are safe and healthy, the better right now. spent much of your day doing this and how much is in the emergency room. >> i am not currently a provider of telehealth services but our numbers around the country are getting more and more gauge on the country. changes duringte the pandemic which are very appreciated by us that expand the use of telehealth to reach out. there's aple requirement that any patient is evaluated for a medical emergency and that's really an important part of our mission as emergency physicians that we are

seeing anyone coming in with any complaints regardless of their insurance status or anything like that. there has recently been a change in the regulations so that evaluation if needed can be performed by telehealth and that's an amazing change for us. to let us be able to optimally see patients while protecting them from protecting for -- another thing able to is as our workforce starts to have increased exposure to coronavirus and as physicians may be asked to be at home for the possible exposure and the possibility they could have coronavirus may be not be feeling terribly ill and be able to work. a physician was had an exposure to potentially work from home. to see patients in emergency department that they would normally see in person reserving was there in person to take care of that. which is a great opportunity for us. host: how much is the

administration reaching out to the american college of emergency physicians. how much did congress reach out as they were crafting the now three response bills. >> we have been in close contact from them and are excited about some of the changes we are seeing. there is always more being done. we seen a lot of positive movement. the telemedicine is a great example, another issue that's been big for us, in order to practice medicine in a particular hospital you have to be licensed by the state you are in and credentialed by the hospital you're practicing at. we've seen some pandemic relaxation which is really helpful because it lets emergency physicians who are less hard-hit areas potentially help out whether by telehealth or in person and areas hardest hit to make sure we are maintaining our emergency workforce. host: what are your thoughts on

governors making appeals to emergency physicians, nurses and other doctors to come to their coronavirus, we change these regulations in our state and we would love to have you here, is that creating some competition here? is not something i've been seeing a lot of. it's generally a lot of people willing to help wherever they are needed. the challenge is emergency physicians are very much needed at their home institutions, not just at the hard-hit areas. the typical disaster that we are used to, speaking from personal experience in houston with hurricane harvey, the rest of the country was affected by that. we had the potential to get health care workers in different areas to help us out here. and to keep the coronavirus while certain areas may be affected earlier or later, the point of this progression of pandemic we are going to see this in every county and so it's

important we have physicians everywhere. host: an emergency physician in houston and also a board member of the american college of emergency physicians. if you want to check them out online or you could call in. in the eastern or central time zones. if you're in the mountain or pacific time zones. and that special line for medical professionals. 202-748-8002 caller: this -- thank you for taking my call. systems where i cannot disinfectants like in aquariums and a hydroponics. what i used to disinfect is

ultraviolet light using just a band at low intensity. for disinfecting toothbrushes, shoes, and other places where you do not want to use chlorine or bleach. has anyone ever looked into using ultraviolet light with sc band towith the c disinfect n95 masks? guest: i have heard of that. there was a new york times article about them using that at the university of nebraska. the challenge with these technologies is to making sure the quality of the mask is not degraded. i am glad to see more effort being put into that. it is going to be important in making sure we have enough ppe for everyone. website that has been

put together by some of our divisions where they are trying to get donations of ppe and making sure they are being distributed so that they can be used by frontline health care workers. my organization supports their efforts. caller: how are they distributing that and what is the process for doing that? request know you can ppe from them. some of the challenge is not all the ppe being donated has the proper certification. masks allottedse to be used in health-care settings are so vital. if we can find ways to preserve them and disinfect them and disinfect them -- and preserve their use, that would be helpful. up --you said it was get

getup ppe.org. -- getusppe.org. janet, good morning. caller: a correction. i am from florida. it's a beautiful day. i am retired almost 30 years. the dg0 years ago we had s- d.r. jay's and wiest -- drj and we switched over to the hmo. if i want to go to new york, what i be covered under my health insurance, which is a ppo? it has gotten more complex in recent years.

figuring out who is in and out of network can be complicated. one thing we have been advocating for as emergency physicians is making sure that treatment related to covid-19 is covered so no one feels like they cannot access care. one of our biggest fears as emergency physicians is that people need us won't come into be seen because of the cost of care. we want to make sure anyone feeling short of breath, feeling like they have a medical emergency and is in need of care can come in. host: what are your thoughts about handling your shopping when you go out outside of the hospital? this is a comment from scott just down. i would like to know how we are going to stop the spread of the coronavirus when people are going through drive-through's to get food and handing cards and bags back and forth. he is saying i am an hour from

houston and i thank you for what you do. food handling is a challenge. we cannot stop eating during this pandemic, but we've got to make sure the kent -- the containers are out. and, ibring my groceries am wiping the down with a cloth to try to minimize the risk of infection. i am also very careful when i come home from work. the scrubs i wear a work do not come inside my house. i make sure i am wandering them immediately and showering immediately because we do know that this is a virus that can be transmitted in a droplet on surfaces. you touch that surface, touch your nose or i, that is away the virus can be transmitted. we had to take a lot of care with food, clothing. that is why staying at home is so important. host: joe, good morning.

caller: a couple of comments. mi on -- am i on? here are my comments. we have a model for this. that model goes back over a hundred years to the 1918-1919 spanish flu. 100,000 americans. mi i the only person that has thought here we are in 2020 and the world of modern medicine and what is the best way to fight this thing? the way they did it then -- quarantine. they quarantined cities and towns. they sent guards out to key people out of their -- to keep people out of their towns. that is exactly what we are doing now. from 1918 until now. over 100 years to get a handle on this and we still do not have a handle on it.

you parallel the numbers dinesh what -- the numbers. what was the population in 2019 -- in 1818 ? host: thanks for the comment. dr. haddock. caller: i hope we will see a successful treatment for this disease more quickly than we did in 1918. either the development of a vaccine to prevent you from being able to contract this virus as well as effective treatment so that if your infected, you can be treated and we see higher recovery rates and lower mortality rates and lower rates of needing hospitalization and we are seeing now. now -- vanare seeing we are seeing now. that is why it is so important to stay home.

you feel about receiving mail and newspapers at your home? this viewer from tampa, florida is asking if that is safe. guest: i am sometimes leaving my mail to sit for a little while if it does not look like it as emergency mail. it is not likely that the virus can continue to be on the mail for days. this is an unlikely source of transmission. a likely source of transmission is going to be social contacts, those droplets that can be in the air. even if you are handling your mail immediately, as long as you are washing your hands well, that's critical. making sure you get all the surfaces of your hands, waiting 20 seconds, those measures are critical. your house cannot be completely isolated from the virus. handwashing, avoidance of touching your face, could help her vent -- could help prevent

transmission. caller: good morning. you had a call earlier from a lady and that she suggested that using a 4 x 4 gauze over a regular surgical mask might be a good idea. and she was not trying to anpare it with and -- with m95 mask. we know that is the recommended mask. but i did not think i heard an answer to the question of the 4 x 4 gauze over a regular surgical mask. what do you think of that? not a comparison, but what do you think of the suggestion? byst: potentially using four four gauze and place of a regular surgical mask? is not reallynce

for the use of surgical masks. those are used for lower risk contact with patients who may have covid-19. we may be looking at all options we have for regenerating those masks, reusing those masks if we start to run out, but i would also say that those surgical masks are less complex than the masks we need, those n95 masks to filter out the virus. i am hopeful we will be able to, with proper action by industry and government, get those surgical masks into high levels of production that we need. supply of ppe being a concern, i wonder your thoughts on stories we are seeing of doctors being punished by hospitals for speaking out? guest: it is critically important that emergency physicians be able to advocate

for themselves, for a safe workplace, and to advocate for safe care of their patients. seen cases where physicians are being disciplined or taken out the schedule for speaking out about workplace conditions is concerning for me as an individual and to all of our emergency physicians. we want to make sure emergency physicians are able to wear ppe if the hospital supplies are becoming inadequate. one development we have seen is that the joint commission, which accredits hospitals, has released a statement saying they do not see a reason, from a regulatory perspective, why hospitals cannot allow people to bring in their own ppe to protect themselves. i think it is heartening to see that happen and i hope we continue to have that support. we are making sure all of our frontline health care workers are protected. host: a few more minutes with allison haddock from houston.

she is joining us from home. she is a member of the board of the american college of emergency physicians. this is dan out of el paso. -- diane out of el paso. i was associate dean of baylor college of medicine. my best friend is an hiv patient. he has been in prison since august and he gets out in a month. i don't know what to do when he gets out. what do you think? one of our concerns as whoicians has been those are in unstable or group housing. if anyone comes in with symptoms of covid or potentially symptoms of covid, we want to make sure we have a safe place to discharge them to where they

will not be transmitting covid to others and where they will be able to safely recover from their illness. so trying to make sure that your friend, when he is released, is in a place where he can, depending on the state of the pandemic at the time of his release, self-isolate properly to try and minimize transmission. it is going to be those stay home, stay safe measures yet ,gain to make sure patients particularly those who may be vulnerable to covid, are able to have the protection they need. asks a man from virginia if there are plans to begin drafting health care workers to support hospitals in cities that are becoming overwhelmed? guest: i've not heard of anything about drafting in particular. i know nurses and physicians are ready to help combat the

disease. i have seen a lot of bravery in the face of this illness that we know can be transmitted to health care workers. we have seen it being transmitted to help care workers at a very high rate, so i think we are seeing trent -- physicians who are willing to retirement and really step up voluntarily to take care of these patients. all americans -- and all americans at this time. are seeing pop-up tents medical facilities to deal with the influx. who are the doctors they get assigned to have to work in versus thes -- brick-and-mortar hospital setting? there is variability from city to city and how those are being run. the challenge is that this is an illness that is spreading everywhere so there aren't --

there are areas that are not as completely spared where you can pull positions from. -- and credentialing. one last call from robert in greenville, texas. you are on with dr. haddock. caller: thank you for all the work you do. ma'am, i would like to post a comment here for you and then a question regarding it. there is an excellent program i watched last night on pbs on the spanish flu. i would recommend it to anybody. go online and you can pull that up on pbs. regarding the spanish flu, it was looked it in great detail.

it swept through it swept through like this thing is. i'm wondering if the people should learn a little bit from that. -- warm people right from the beginning about the nature and severity of this virus, and the government response would have been far quicker. i would like you to comment. host: robert, we will take the question. i want to give dr. haddock the final minute here. go ahead. understanding the severity of the disease is important and that is why everyone needs to be sheltered in place right now, practicing social distancing, proper hand washing procedures, and doing what they can to minimize transmission of this illness, which has spread exponentially throughout the country. host: dr. allison haddock is a americanber at the

board of physicians. also an emergency physician in houston. appreciate your time. thank you for what you do. yorkhouston, we had to new -- we had to new york. we saw those images of the united states navy ship comfort gliding past the statue of liberty to dock in new york to help. we are joined onboard the comfort now by the commanding officer of that ship. captain, can you describe your mission? york: we are here in new to relieve pressure on the health systems here by taking care of non-covid-19 patients. host: how are you going to do that? how many can you take care of

and what is the process for getting them to you? guest: the ship was designed for major combat operations. handleup to 1000 beds to the casualties of war. what we are going to utilize it for would be medical patients that will be coordinated through the city of new york and fema to us. to 80l be able to take up icu patients. we have care beds within these words.- many of those beds are bunk beds. --in, this was to divined this was designed for combat operations. our overall goal is to maximize the capability of the ship and take on as many patients as appropriate and coordinated through the city of new york, fema. host: it looks like people can

-- it is not like people can walk up to the ship. it has to be through new york and fema? guest: more or less. this is a hospital to hospital transfer to make sure the patients that we do receive our covid-19 free. as we know, a ship is really close quarters. we have got to do what we can to protect the health professionals who are providing the care as well as the other patients we have on board. host: can you talk more about the testing process? everyone knows the stories of cruise ship's becoming a floating coronavirus outbreak spot. can you talk about what you are doing to protect your crew and the testing process? guest: it is incumbent upon the hospital system and the organizations previously mentioned, whether they are local, state, or federal. they will be tested within seven hours.s -- within 72

what we are doing on the ship, we call it a bubble. that is we do not allow anybody on the ship who has not been tested or appropriately screened. if we need a technician to come aboard or are taken stores arm -- takingy are tested stores on board, they are tested in accordance with the cdc guidelines. we will make sure they have a mask before they come aboard. we are making every effort to make sure we remain covid-19 free so we can conduct our mission and help the city of new york. host: your medical professionals, your crew, they are going to be staying on board the comfort drought the time they are there alongside the patients -- the comfort throughout the time they are there, alongside the patients? guest: yes.

no one leaves the ship to minimize contact with those who have covid-19. we will be here for the duration and aboard the ship. new york is a beautiful city and we would love to enjoy it, but the mission first. host: when you say the nate -- the patient's need to be appropriate for the ship, do you plan to have pediatric or eldercare on the ship, or is this targeted to adults of military age? guest: we are coordinating through the city, their health officials, and fema. we provided criteria that would be appropriate for the ship. we will not take pediatric patients. there are some populations we do not have the specialists on board for. but overall, from a health care

,erspective, we are equipped both from a personnel perspective and an equipment perspective, to take care of just about anything the city can send us as long as it is has been screened -- as long as it has been screened and is appropriate for this. bunk beds may not be appropriate for some populations. that may be a limiting factor, but right now we are just standing by, ready to take care of what they sent to us. host: before you go, when was the last time the comfort was deployed to a major city? guest: i would have to go back and look. it did respond to hurricane katrina and maria. it was in new york in 2001 after the attack there. this means a lot to all of us. we have traveled around the world and done all kinds of things on behalf of our nation and other nations, but nothing

is more important than taking care of our own, and that is the people of the -- the people of new york. host: are there other ships like the comfort? only two.re are that is the commanding officer of the comfort and we appreciate your time this morning, sir. doctors whofrom the operate the ventilators and the other medical machines to the issue of the electricity they keeps those machines running. joining us via zoom from new york is daniel oberhaus, who covers energy issues and the future of energy for wired magazine. you opened a recent story about america's energy grid during the coronavirus pandemic by talking

about what life is like for workers at the niagara falls powerplant. can you describe a typical day up in niagara falls -- day at the niagara falls powerplant? daniel, we will work on getting your sand going. -- work on getting your sound going. on the phone lines, if you want to talk about the energy grid and the impact of the coronavirus on the energy grid, it is (202) 748-8000 if you are in the eastern or central time zones. ares (202) 748-8001 if you in the mountain nor pacific time zones. we will be having this conversation about the energy grid this morning and tell our program ends at 10:00 a.m. eastern. we will get you back to daniel oberhaus and wired magazine as soon as we can, but you can

continue to call in this morning with your comments, specifically about the energy grid, but also those numbers released by the white house yesterday about potential coronavirus deaths in the united states. here are a few of the headlines this morning about those numbers. 100,000-240,000 in the numbers released by the white house coronavirus task force about potential deaths amid the outbreak. that headlight from the wall street journal quoting trump as saying, and this could be a hell of a bad two weeks. this is the headline from the front page of the washington times -- trump learns of a very painful two weeks. from the new york times -- total best case death toll is dyer, noting that trump

and his physicians putting that number out yesterday, a day after the new deaths in the united states topped over 800. those the numbers this morning. the numbers to call in and join if youin, (202) 748-8000 are in the eastern or central time zones, (202) 748-8001 now nor pacific. -- mountain or pacific. we will go back to daniel oberhaus. that niagara falls powerplant, what does a day in the life there look like right now? guest: the powerplant is run by the new york power authority which is the largest utility in the united states. it provides about 25% of new york's power. it is -- a lot of it is hydroelectric. ago, the a few days

power authority began to start checking workers when they came on site to screen them for coronavirus, which involves taking their temperature, a series of questions about travel, how they are feeling, and basically staggering the control room operators such that it limited contact between the two shifts. they operate on 12 hour shifts and so those were staggered between different control rooms to limit contact between workers and ensure there is always a full staff. in this case, it would be a minimal staff. only about four or five people in the operating room at a time to keep the lights on in new york city and new york state. host: in this age of working from home, how much can the energy sector actually do that and how many have to be in the control room pushing the buttons

and monitoring the power activity? of the critical employees and utilities and transmission organizations need to be on site. it is not something you can do remotely. you cannot going through a vpn or something to control the wires or the generators on site. that is a pretty small staff. it does not take more than a dozen or so people. the rest of the workforce is working from home. i spoke with people at various transmission organizations and utilities and they said the majority of their workforce is operating remotely at this point, but there is a handful of critical employees responsible for overseeing the generators that need to be physically on-site. host: the story we're focusing essayerica's electricity from the coronavirus for now.

the author that essay is here this morning. as people ares, calling in, you write in that story that it could come to a point where energy companies are employees to live and the power plants. how would that work and why? week: this happened last at the new york transmission operation. they started having employees living on site in trailers. there are a handful of employees doing that. they operate like they would do normally. the reason they do this is to limit the operators' contact with the outside world. these are specially trained individuals. they don't have a ton of them, so if one gets sick, that could be a major wrench in the operation of a utility. the idea is to have them live on

site. at this utility, there are two trailers. i am aware of any other transmission organizations that have taken the step. both utilities and transmission organizations -- should they ,eed to do this, for instance the new york power authority had to do this in the 2003 black out after hurricane sandy, so there well-versed in how to handle these situations, although this is the first time they would be doing this in response to a pandemic. host: what does it mean to be designated critical infrastructure? guest:. it is exactly what it sounds like. it is what the united states needs to keep running. sectorss one of 16 designated as critical to the united states. the other ones are dams, transportation, water, nuclear

plants. there's a wide range of sectors here that need to continue operating. if you do not have electricity, everything else grinds to halt. if the grid goes down, that is really bad news for hospitals and first responders. how many power companies are there connected to the grid? are nine a regional transmission operations that pipe power across state lines. they run the big transmission lines. overe other end, there are 3000 utilities, some state owned, some privately owned, so there is a lot of coordination need that needs to happen to board.re everyone is on host: whose job is it to ensure that coordination is happening?

electricity is an councilr coordination that has stood up a panel that interfaces with the department of energy. this kind of self organized group of utility operators has been getting together twice a week on the phone to discuss best practices with the department of energy and what they should be doing. they have a very detailed roadmap that is constantly being updated on their website about how utilities should respond, different actions that utilities can take. a lot of it is pretty baseline stuff that everyone should be practicing, such as washing hands, social distancing, and making sure that operators are being screened prior to arriving on site, so that they do not infect other people. other energyime,

regulatory organizations have also started taking actions in terms of giving utilities flexibility in how they operate the generators. than making, rather sure than -- making sure that employees have the highest training, one organization has said you can bring in on -- you can bring in unpaid employees that can step in -- on trade employees that can step in to make sure the light stay on. host: we are talking about the lights staying on amid coronavirus/ . taking your phone calls. steve is first out of decatur, georgia. caller: thank you for being on, daniel. -- i have >> thing

one thing i have to say to the callers. bynot bog the show down saying good morning back to the host. every second counts. host: that is all steve wanted to say. we will go to larry. good morning. are you with this? caller: yes. the --ern would be with with the power plant grid be able to keep up with the demand? that will be all. that is a great question and the answer is yes. compared to a lot of disasters and emergencies that utilities have to deal with, the coronavirus is i suppose one of the easier to handle on the demand side.

what countries such as italy and china have seen as the number of infected persons in the country grow, the demand for electricity is sharply decreasing. italy saw a 21% decrease in electricity demand compared to their peak from last year. similar numbers were seen in china. the reason for this is a lot of the load shifting from industrial manufacturing and commercial operations to -- as peoples can continue to work at home and plants are shut down. the u.s. has already started to see a decrease in demand, which gives utilities some breathing room in terms of how they are going to deal with this. for the foreseeable future, demand should not be a problem. host: you talk about the foreseeable future and your story. you note concerns about hurricanes and that knocking out

parts of the grid around the country and the concern about layered crises here. explain. guest: while reporting on this story, i had the opportunity to speak with john mcwilliams, a former doe official. his main concern was this idea of layered crises that the power sector by have to deal with. this is something i also heard from utilities and transmission operators. basically, this sector of the economy is very well prepared to handle emergencies. they have critical -- protocols in place for pandemics. there protocols in place to deal with natural disasters. they can deal with each of these fine and i think they have demonstrated this during the coronavirus. the electricity subsector has handled this phenomenally. the problem comes when you start having multiple calamities start piling on top of one another.

what john was saying was that right now the utilities are handling it fine. the problems start emerging during say wildfire season or hurricane season. if we have an active hurricane season, that means utilities are going to be stressed in terms of their ability to respond to grid outages as a result of the hurricane while also operating with a minimal staff. the hope is that the curve is flattened by then and utilities will be able to handle this or that we do not have a very active hurricane season. if we do, this could end up posing a major problem in terms of getting the number of citiesrs needed to keep online while dealing with multiple threats. ift: it is (202) 748-8000 you're living in central or eastern time zones. it is (202) 748-8001 in mountain or pacific time tones -- time

zones. good morning. good morning. i would like to say good morning to stephen georgia -- to steve in georgia. this is a data driven event. one thing i have not heard 240,000talk about is people potentially die and we have 320 7 million people in 327 million -- people in this country. .007%. less than i just wanted to get that point across. host: michael in maryland. good morning. i feel the same way as

the last caller. they are over blowing this pandemic. on my drive to work, i calculated 0.2%. it is a very low kind of -- host: how many people would need to die for you to think it is not overblown? plant: we have 7 billion -- 7 billion people on the planet. people die all the time. this is part of the natural order. people die from the flu. host: that is michael. we will try to steer back toward the energy grid. good morning. morning.ood -- whether or not the

placeents being put in for the coronavirus, whether they have backup generators in case something was to go down and people in place as far as electricians to organize this, etc. to -- incannot speak particular. but the ability to provide backup power is well-established. plenty of supply should the demand drastically increase for whatever reason. as for how individual users are going to be handling increase in electricity demand, that is going to be on a case-by-case basis. i would certainly hope that anyone dealing with emergency response has thought about how to deal with variations in electricity needs.

you: one of the individuals interviewed and your story was a member of a trade group representing private utilities. this was his quote -- "we need to be treated like first responders p or -- first responders." are they? guest: yes. the federal regulatory thatssion sent a letter -- utility operators need to be treated as essential. i think i was to reiterate that should a multistep lockdown going to place or more stringent conditions on who can or cannot leave their homes that utility operators should be among those that can travel to and from their place of work. as far as i can tell, no one is challenging that. it is hard to imagine a scenario in which utility or operator --

in which utility terry -- in which utility operators are not allowed to do their job. they are being treated as essential personnel. the question is going to be more about getting ppe in sufficient numbers for these workers, which would be essential. this is where the electricity andector counsel comes in e.eir ability to -- the do utilityable these operators to do their jobs effectively and safely. saw congress pass and the president signed this to thision dollar stimulus -- stimulus. for the number in that

grid? guest: this counsel is making sure that enough money is allocated and resources just in general for utilities to be able to do their job. point, the utility subsector has a unique arrangement despite being competitors. these different utilities have a network of mutual groups such that if one utility cannot meet their needs, whether it is due to sick employees, not enough operators to run their plants, they can actually call upon other utilities and ask for assistance, which in this case could be lending operators to help them run their facilities. there is a robust support network for this. as to whether or not that will actually involve some sort of stimulus package remains to be seen. host: from woodstock, georgia.

hal.is how -- there: my question was if is a shortage of people to maintain the grid and there is a problem with the grid in the northeast, does the northwest have the ability to divert power from the northwest to the northeast, sort of like plug-in another part of the country because of a lack of people to maintain the grid in that part of the country where it is strained being sick? thank you. guest: that is a great question. the american grid is divvied up into a lot of sub grids based on region. there is power flowing between these regions. to that question, i think it depends on what this means by a grid disruption. if a power line goes down, utilities have the ability to

send out workers to handle physical disruptions to grid infrastructure at this point. they are still following best practices in terms of social distancing and ensuring that the workers are staying safe. you are outside for whatever reason. youpe you are not, but if are and see a utility worker working on a power line, they are asking people do not approach workers or that if a worker goes in your home that people continue to social distance as these operators do their jobs to make sure the grid infrastructure remains online. i hope that answers that question. first of all, i want to think c-span for taking my call. i am in florida. the coronavirus is very scary and i think people really need

rulesntain the cdc because hurricane season is coming up june 1. i was here during hurricane irma. i'm angel hospital was evacuated. -- a major hospital was evacuated. i was without power for seven days. it is important that we maintain the cdc rules and regulations that are issued by our government and that we pray that god gives us a gentle hurricane season. but i thank you for taking my call. host: daniel, your thoughts? more: i could not agree and that is what the former doe official was saying. we have to hope there is a really mild hurricane season this year because it is hard enough for the electricity subsector to deal with hurricanes when there is not a global pandemic going on.

when the number of operators is also reduced, that increases the challenges as it does for other institutions like hospitals as well. hopefully the hurricane season is mild. marilyn from pennsylvania. good morning. caller: there's a situation here at the limerick power station where 7000 workers were brought in from all over the nation for an exercise and one of our officials has expressed concern that they are not keeping within safe distance from one another and that they may not -- and that they might bring to the community virus. i wonder if that is of concern to others? guest: absolutely. funnily enough, this is an issue that the nuclear it -- nuclear industry is grappling with.

spring happens to be the time for refueling their power stations. it typically involves a scenario like you described. hundreds of contractors from all over the united states traveled to a particular nuclear power station where they stay for one or two months while they refueled the station. that creates a lot of problems. you have an influx of people from all around the u.s., and a huge increase in the number of people on site at the power plants. maintaining social distancing while performing this critical function, which is getting spent your rods out of the reactor and into a storage pool, becomes a major challenge. all of the nuclear power stations in the united states -- all but two of the nuclear power stations in the united states are scheduled for refueling. how nuclear power stations

handle this differs. for instance, a lot of stations in the midwest that were refueling in february and march have handle this -- handled this operation more or less the same with the additional pandemic protocols, such as more handwashing state -- handwashing stations. i do not know what is happening at this particular site, although i hope they are implementing screening procedures and continuing to follow best practices in terms of keeping the workers and community safe. host: from nuclear power plants to clean energy, can you talk about what is happening at solar power, wind power facilities around the country? is it different for them? is it less people involved? guest: the response that he utility or generation station has is going to be unique to their situation.

nuclear is a special case due to the nature of the fuel being used. they tend to have more people that they need on-site to maintain -- than to maintain a solar farm. however, there renewable industry has been very vocal over the past week about the problems and challenges that the coronavirus is creating for their industry. solar in particular is expecting a huge decrease in the number of panels that will be coming through china. there will be huge supply chain issues. there are also power generation tools that need to be installed by individuals. that creates a lot of problems in terms of how you get workers out in the field and keep them safe while continue to -- while continuing to install solar panels. there questions in the solar industry -- between individuals

in the solar industry and government officials about how to do it. the same thing is happening in the wind sector. they are seeing a decrease in investment because of all of fewerecause there are people that can go and install wind turbines. every industry is going to be impacted by this whether it is natural gas or clean energy. everyone is struggling. host: it may be a good time to show this chart from the u.s. energy information association. this is energy consumption in the united states by source for the year 2018. petroleum, 36%. coal, 13%. nuclear power, 8%. solar, 11%wind and back in 2018.

a few minutes left with daniel oberhaus. talking about the energy grid in the u.s. amid coronavirus. this is sheldon out of brownsville, california. undergroundoing with the grid part of the future of our electricity? guest: that is a great question and i think it is still an open one. going underground comes with a lot of advantages. it helps keep the system more robust as opposed to having hundreds of miles of these really thick transmission lines that can get caught in trees and create problems in terms of the -- in terms of how the infrastructure is protected. the elephant in the room is how to pay for this. and know when exactly once their backyard dug up to put the systems in place. i think it is going to depend on what we do in terms of upgrading our transmission system. the united states really is in

dire need of an overhaul of its transmission infrastructure. if we decide to heavily invest in that, going underground could be a great option in a lot of cases, especially in regions that are -- that experience a lot of outages or are vulnerable to infrastructure damage. this could be a great option. in places like florida, it does not make as much sense. there are ways to build stronger polls and plot out -- stronger poles and plot out the grid. i hope that they go underground more in the future, but it is very expensive to do that compared to draping them from pole to pole. host: do we know how much of the grid is underground? guest: i do not have those numbers on hand. host: but it is a lot more that

are above? guest: the vast majority. there are major projects, for instance in the midwest, where there is a major transmission line going underground into chicago. it was a multimillion dollar project. a very expensive proposition. texas. texas -- furman, your next. -- you are next. segmenti was watching a on 60 minutes about the hurricane that devastated the bahamas. they decided to go with more solar and put a lot of their transmission lines underground to offset the big winds. also responding to the other caller about the same thing, about more utilities underground

designig conduit-type where they have multiple utilities including gas lines and what have you and a little trolley that could run along and service various substations and stuff. that is pretty much where i was going with this underground idea. host: thanks for the call. guest: you bring up a good points. -- a good point. when i looked at what happened in puerto rico and the aftermath, a good portion of the island lost power in months for some cases -- for months in some cases. it creates a lot of hardship for people. what you saw in the aftermath was exactly what you said. you saw an uptick in the amount of residential and commercial solar installations.

puerto rico is going to end up leading the way for the rest of the u.s. and they are really .mbracing micro grids in the event of a major grid power can be supplied locally. people are beginning to embrace this idea of having a grid that is hyper-local that in the event of an outage they can still get power when they need it. after the wildfires in california last year, he saw an uptick in interest in microgrid ideas. pge was kind of going to lean more into that. moreare going to take conventional measures this wildfire season. but i think you're right. the trend right now is towards energycally distributed

resources to deal with everything from hurricanes to something like this pandemic. hear whenrm we often we are talking about the grid is ferc. what is it? guest: it is the federal energy regulatory commission? they oversee all the regulations that come to utilities. there is also an entity called nerc, the north american energy reliability council. they are not a government organization, but they work with government. is the entity within the department of industry responsible for creating regulatory guidelines for the electricity subsector. tallahassee, your next. -- you are next.

the inability of families to pay for utility have an effect on the cost of running the grid? still anthink that is open question. demand is going down for the greater grid. i think most americans are crunch a bit of a cash either due to being out of work or having reduced work. i do think that the ability to pay for these vital services such as electricity is going to be a major challenge that americans are going to have to deal with going forward. hopefully it is addressed in an equitable way by our representatives. host: last call. this is joseph and rockville,

maryland -- in rockville, maryland. my question goes back to the details of the hospital supplies. knowthe guest happen to whether there is enough spare power generation capacity among hospitals to cover the extra ventilators that people are saying might be necessary? guest: that is a great question. i do not have the exact numbers on hand, but i can say that oftentimes institutions that are vital -- like you cannot have a five-minute power outage at a hospital -- there are some of need powerthere that on all the time. hospitals are,

always well equipped with backup power generation. sometimes that is diesel generators, increasingly it is fuel cells. if the be amazed problems -- the problem hospitals it up facing is not being able to meet the energy demands of increased ventilators. if anything, it will be procuring the ventilators and other protective equipment they need to treat the influx of patients. host: daniel oberhaus is a staff writer for wired. andcan find him on twitter his work at wired.com. very much enjoy the conversation. guest: thank you for having me. host: that is going to do it for our program. we will be doing -- we will be back tomorrow morning. in the meantime, have a great and safe wednesday.

[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] any of ouriss coverage of the coronavirus outbreak, you can watch at any time on www.c-span.org/ coronavirus. there.l use the charts and maps to track the virus global spread and confirmed cases in the u.s. county by county. our coronavirus webpages your fast and easy way to watch c-span's unfiltered coverage of this pandemic. coming up next, new mexico governor michelle lujan grisham

will hold a coronavirus briefing. later today, california governor gavin newsom will give an update on the coronavirus pandemic in his state. that's starting at 3 p.m. and also today, the white house holds its daily briefing at 5 p.m. eastern. yesterday, president said there could be up to 240,000 deaths in the u.s. from the pens affect -- pandemic even if social distancing is maintained. this story from the new york times -- representative rose will help set up hospitals in a staten island district on the other parts of new york city. yesterday, new mexico governor shel lujan grisham held a briefing on her states coronavirus response. she was joined by members of her cabinet and a representative from the new mexico national guard.