host: the caller is in luck. according to congress.gov, hr 5383 is sponsored by a congressman who will be joining us by phone and about 45 minutes this morning. i will certainly follow up with the caller and ask the congressman about his new way forward act. jason dick of roll call newspaper, thank you so much for your time. stay safe. thank you for what you and your reporters do. live at the white house for the update from the white house coronavirus task force. we are just hearing that the briefing has been pushed back a bit until 5:45 p.m. eastern. we will have that live once a get underway here on c-span --

once it gets underway here on c-span. with the news that the briefing has been pushed back another 15 minutes, we will have it live here on c-span when it starts. we will show you some more from today's washington journal. host: he serves as president of the international association of chiefs of police. when it comes to law enforcement in the age of coronavirus, how much has policing had to change? guest: thank you for having me. we have completely changed the way we do business on a daily basis. we have civilian personnel

working remotely from home. we conduct our daily briefings either outside or we conduct a briefings electronically. we are taking more police reports over the phone. stopped all of our classroom training. we are really changing the way we do business. officersng a lot of back to uniform patrol to fill in for those positions who are being -- that are being vacated because officers are sick. host: how do you -- how to the officers keep safe themselves during the crisis? guest: it is the largest and oldest law enforcement leadership organization in the world.

andave over 31,000 members 165 countries and we are not to -- just chiefs of police. best to provide good guidance and information to all of our law enforcement members all over the globe. host: here is a headline from the new york times. officers is out sick. it is even worse than that. that is a great example. we have officers being infected or they are under the investigation of being infected. they have to be quarantined. nypd had over 1400 officers who tested positive.

detroit is similar, over 600 , more than a fifth of their agency. they have had officers who have died. similar with chicago. chicago has 600 officers quarantined. in two officers have died. this is a serious scenario for law enforcement. because unlike other people, we cannot work from home. we cannot work remotely. police officers have to continue to be out there every day to protect and serve our public. merely by the nature of our job, it is very difficult to practice social distancing, especially in a scenario where we have to come into contact with people. some of the information we are providing is we want to make sure all member agencies have enough ppe, which clearly has been a problem in some areas of the country.

the difficulty for some agencies that have been contacting me is they are not able to gather information from their state or county health departments on addresses within their communities where the health apartment knows people have already tested positive. that would be great information for first responders to know before they go to these households. and since they are not getting these information, they are forced to use ppe on every call for service, and ppe is getting hard to come by in some agencies. host: policing in the age of coronavirus is our topic until the end of the program. steven casstevens is with us. he heads up the international association of chiefs of police. (202) 748-8000 if you live in eastern or central time zones and want to call in. (202) 748-8001 if you are in the mountain or pacific regions.

a special line set aside for law enforcement in this segment, (202) 748-8002. your calls in a second. chief casstevens, what do we know about crime rates right now? guest: well, that is interesting. i read reports of crime rates going down, but certain crimes are going up as well. first thing we have to make sure, when we are talking crime rates. there are crime rates and there are police calls for service. police calls for service are 911 calls, whether emergency or not emergency, that requires a police response. crime has gone down in many communities. total police calls for service have gone down even more. a lot of those are self initiated things, like officers making traffic stops that may result in a drug arrest or a suspended or revoked license

arrest. most agencies are reducing or totally ceasing these kinds of personal contact with the public to try to maintain the social distancing that everybody else's trying to do. host: gary out of newport, kentucky. caller: i would like to thank you for our first responders are always there. people complain a lot, but you are the first ones they always call. i just want to tell you that, from the bottom of my heart, everybody in kentucky, and i know, the nation. that is about what i had to say. thank you. guest: thank you. we appreciate that. it is something a lot of law-enforcement agencies do not hear enough of. we know the public appreciates

what we do. again, we are in difficult times and ask for patience from residents and our jurisdictions. it is not business as usual. they may be used to see police officers walking the beat or police officers in two-person cars in their neighborhoods or police officers always coming to their home, no matter what crime they are reporting. and right now, we are asking them to handle these incidents in a much different manner. we ask for their patience. host: to madison, illinois. richard. caller: thank you for taking the call. i call in reference to the officers, firefighters, first responders, when they get calls to these different homes or wherever, they are going into hazardous incidents. i think they should be told upfront, if it is known it is a possible infection.

it should supersede the hipaa responsibility. i have a relative now that works at a nursing facility, and they lied to the people, told them they did not have any active cases, to get those people to come to work, only to find out, later, there were, indeed, active cases. now about 15 of them are quarantined. host: go ahead. finish your comment. caller: about 15 of them are being quarantined, which infects even my household, because my relative lives with me. also, are we considering what the impact of the activity of bugs will have on corona. as they become more active, they could possibly be a carrier. host: thank you for your story. guest: that is a great question. depending where you are in the country, there are a lot of law

enforcement agencies struggling with exactly that issue. to try to wrap up that question, in illinois, the attorney general made a statement that protected health information under hipaa does not apply in this type of emergency situation. but law enforcement and first responders are not looking for everybody's name and date of birth and social security number and all this information. all we are looking for is for our health departments to share the information with our public answering points, our police dispatchers, of just the addresses of people who are known to have tested positive or have tested and are under investigation to see if they are positive. if they can share those

addresses, with police dispatchers, and those dispatchers can just alert police or fire personnel responding to a call, whether it is a medical call, domestic violence or any other call, to let us know in advance, you are helping to protect our officers. the issue is, in some states, the attorney general has said, yes, you can release information to law enforcement. the local and state health departments, in many cases, are saying, no, it is still protected information. it is still a battle of trying to get important information to first responders. without that important information, first responders naturally have two assume any pres. trump: thank you very much. this week america continues our aggressive effort to defeat the virus as we enter a crucial and difficult e