impact of the pandemic on his district and add additional legislation he is sponsoring to provide economic relief for those impacted. ♪ u.s. covid-19 cases passing 600,000, states and federal officials planning a potential reopening of society, we are starting the program this morning asking your experience , a respiratory illness caused by the novel coronavirus. here's how to dial in this morning. if you have been personally infected by the coronavirus, that line is (202) 748-8000. if you know family members, friends, or colleagues who have had it, or who have passed, that line is (202) 748-8001.

once again this morning, for medical professionals we will use (202) 748-8002. if you would like to text us, that is (202) 748-8003. just make sure that you include your name and where you are texting from. on twitter we are at c-span wj. you can also post your comments on facebook. you may have seen a moment ago the tracker that we are following, the johns hop university tractor, cases at 609,000. confirmed deaths, 26,059. worldwide cases are just about 2 million now. the number that you see here, 7905 deaths in new york city, scott gottlieb tweeting this morning about that with a chart saying that the positivity rates of new daily tests in new york are showing signs of a gradual decline, but still very high. this is one data point to watch

to gauge the direction of the new york epidemic. a different with story, "the new york times," reporting that a review among passedk city deaths has 10,000, new york city, already a world epicenter of the coronavirus out rake, sharply increasing its death toll on tuesday after officials said that they were including people that never tested positive for the virus but were presumed to have died of it. host: the new york governor, andrew cuomo, yesterday, back to the issue of when states will open, spoke about his desire to work with president trump on reopening the state. [video clip] >> sometimes it takes more

strength, frankly, to walk away from a fight that engage with it . the president will have no fight with me. i will not engage in it. i have sat here every day for 44 years asking new yorkers to remember that this is not about .e, it's about we i understand you are personally inconvenienced. i understand you are frustrated, stressed, and anxious. think about we. get past yourself and think about society. think about your family. think about interconnection. actress on sulli for everyone else. this is no time for politics, it's no time to fight. totalmy hand out in partnership and cooperation with the president. if he wants a fight, he's not going to get it from me. the trunk news out of

briefing yesterday, the move to cut world health organization funding prompts world criticism as coronavirus toll mounts. he halted funding to the world health organization over the handling of the coronavirus endemic, prompting criticism from other countries

opening question this morning, your personal experience with covid-19. if you had it personally, the line .(202) 748-8000 if you know a family member, friend, work colleague, that line is (202) 748-8001. lets your from been in state college, pennsylvania. good morning. caller: good morning. before i make my comment, i don't want to minimalize the severity of the pandemic, i understand people have lost their lives and been made very sick. from my experience in western pennsylvania i have had three coworkers test positive and their symptoms have been mild. i know that's just three out of millions, but that being said i remember the president saying the queue or cannot be worse than the disease. we have all been laid off and are waiting on unemployment and from my personal perspective

from this point it has materialized. what is your sense of when you may personally get back to work, get back to "life as it was in the past. normal," as it was in the past. caller: i don't know, but my boss said to go ahead and file through mid-july, so i will be waiting. right, tim, flat rock, michigan. go ahead. caller: i have lost two people because of this. my friends mother died at 72, 2 weeks ago. my counselor, he died at 60 years old week ago. he was admitted not even 48 hours and within 20 four of those 48 hours he was placed on a ventilator and by the end of it, he passed away.

but i also wanted to touch on the protests in michigan, today. host: what's that all about? what's excuse me? host: the protest all about? caller: it's hosted by the michigan conservative coalition and michigan freedom fund, a devos family linked conservative group. more than 3000 facebook users have pledged to attend. organizers want traffic jams, honking horns, and flashing signs. we all know that when there are protests, people want to get out and really have voices heard. we definitely don't need protests right now at this time. we need michiganders to get together, you know, for our of --ors, and not think oh, i can't buy a thing of paint . you can easily order it online. you can buy seeds online.

but some people just don't understand that. i think that because it is in the store they can have access to it. that's their right. but in times like this, when the governor is putting in these andct measures for a reason people want to half and puff because they cannot buy a packet of seeds to grow some vegetables, but they can easily go online. there's a lot of misinformation. like the governor got backlash about a mom wanting to buy a car seat for her child and the walmart employee took the car seat because it wasn't an essential item. it took the governor to clarify that car seats for in -- for infants are a safety essential item. yeah, there are things he could have done better with this new rollout, clarifying better.

but you know, with this 3000 vehicle parade, i guess you want to call it, it's not really a protest. we don't need that right now. it's going to make us look dumb. you tellingreciate us, we will keep our eye on that story. janice, florida, on the line for friends, colleagues, family members who have had it. and if you have had it personally, the line is (202) 748-8000. janice, jacksonville, go ahead. do us a favor, mute your volume there and go ahead with your comment. caller: ok. my aunt, my mother's sister-in-law, 101 and a half, she is 101 and a half, she was born, she always tell me she was and her mother almost died

of the spanish flow but then almost 100. i just woke up and i thought this was worthy of telling and knowing about. she's remarkable. she lives totally alone. she has never had the flu. any kind ofr had flu. she doesn't get colds. she is just unbelievable. her strength and her ingenuity, can'terything, i just tell you. it didn't make the impact. issue living on her own, retirement home, assisted living facility? caller: totally on her own. she lives a pretty good distance

from me. it still consider jacksonville, but on the edge. i don't get to go there. she is trying to be very careful, even with her two sons. her immediate family. they revolve around her. she was going to the grocery store with her oldest son. you would think i'm making it up. unbelievable, she's stronger than any of us. host: this is your mom? caller: no, this is my mother's sister-in-law, my aunt. host: got you. inler: i lost my mother 2014. they were the same age. this is my aunt, who i think, type a private person thing, but i just feel like host: has she been diagnosed or is she ok? she's not, she's been

extremely careful, very intelligent, following all the guidelines and everything. her two sons, she doesn't have a daughter, her two sons make sure that she has whatever she needs, very carefully. she bakes cakes. i have asked her to send me the picture of the cake she has baked and a picture of her garden outside their. she said it's not really a garden, but she, i can't believe it. the fact now that i know that during spanish flu, saw it on a documentary on pbs, was just blown away. and that her mother almost died from it. kind of mentioned that. she's not one to boast or say you've got to listen to me. she's not like that. host: thank you for that. i hope your aunt stays strong there in jacksonville. janice is next in greenwich

will, connecticut. caller: good morning. let me thank you for your program. i used to never watch and now i'm addicted to it. i watch it every day, thank you for that. i work for a major airline as a flight crew member and i personally know three people, who i know right now are recovering, thank gosh. from the from the testing positive of covid-19 and i think that some people are lucky enough to be able to have, even though their situations were pretty serious, they are on the road to recovery. others are very, very at risk. that's me. i happen to take medication that makes me immunosuppressed. i can't go to work. host: what are they doing to help keep people safe? what sort of our adjustments or

work processes are they doing differently from before? well obviously now that loads are much lower on the aircraft unless you are coming from an area where people are trying to get away, for whatever reason. that it fills up. most of the planes right now remarkably empty, it's your he. the thing about it is it is an enclosed cabin with recirculated air. it is a thing that is potentially an incubation test tube. the concerns certainly, me. i know that all of the executive and the people in the health divisions of our company are tried to come up with mediation plans. much a concern. it's like being on a bus, a train, any other environment. you know said that three coworkers, have you been in touch with any of them? caller: directly. host: how are they doing?

recovering. some are worse than others. it takes, the loss of taste and smell has been consistent for all three. the desire not to eat, you put that in there. we are encouraging them to eat. recovering in different ways. the body aches for one, the fevers were very high. two of them live alone. that's a concern. host: none of them hospitalized? no, they are in their early 50's. they are younger. know, youngeryou than 80. host: appreciate that, i hope they get well. political news, yesterday, the former president barack obama endorsing his former vice president joe biden, and a video released. here's some of that. [video clip] >> if there is one thing that we have learned in this country in

moments of great crisis, the spirit of looking out for each other cannot be restricted to our homes are neighborhoods -- homes, neighborhoods, and houses of worship, it has to be reflected in the national government. the kind of leadership guided by knowledge and experience. honesty and humility. empathy and grace. that kind of leadership doesn't just belong in the state capitals and mayors offices. it belongs in the white house. am so proud to endorse joe biden for president of the united states. choosing joe to be my vice president was one of the best decisions i ever made and he became a close friend and i believe he has all the qualities that we need in a president right now. he is someone whose own life has taught him how to persevere. to bounce back when you have been knocked down. he talks with parents who have lost their jobs. we hear the son of a man who once knew the pain of having to

had his children that he lost his. when joe talks about opportunity for our kids, we hear the young father who took the train home each night so that he could tuck his children into bed. and we hear the influence of jill, the lifelong teacher. when joe talks to families who have lost a hero, we hear another parent of an american veteran, a kindred spirit. someone whose faith has into are the hardest loss there is. that's joe. through all his trials, he has never once forgotten the values or the moral fiber that his parents passed on to him and that made him who he is. faith in steals his god, america, and in all of us. coronavirus relief payments are set to come to households this week. some have already arrived. the front page story in "the washington post:

" , our topic this hour, your experience with covid-19. if you have personally had the illness, (202) 748-8000. if you know a friend or a family member or a friend who has had covid-19, (202) 748-8001. medical professionals, (202) 748-8002. and send us a text, (202) 748-8003. a couple of those here. the first one from kennesaw, georgia. a text from sheila.

thing, back to the relief checks. this is aps from the money and life section of "usa today." -- this is a piece from the money and life section of "usa today."

shirley and, henderson, nevada. my apologies. go ahead. caller: yes, good morning. i have several family members in michigan and south carolina who contracted covid-19. my daughter, her husband, my granddaughter, 15, asthmatic. her husband has cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, overweight. i received a call from her and she was terrified of taking them to the hospital in detroit because they were overcrowded and people were literally dying in the waiting rooms of the hallway. the problem is that when people are tested, they are not getting

treated. i have a cousin with copd, 77. she was tested on the 16th, sick in south carolina. her husband was sick. no treatment whatsoever. i called her and told her to start treating herself, use a nebulizer if you can't breathe. you need antivirals because your immune system is compromised. so, after treating people over the phone, we got into a rhythm the firstu need on pass. then there is a low and you feel a little bit better and suddenly the breathing distress problems hit. as soon as that happens, we started hitting people with an inhaler and then a nebulizer. we just got into the rhythm of treating folks. got sick.r's father he's in the hospital now on oxygen. any sense of the

commonality? was there an event that everyone went to? family members or close to each my son-in-law works at an auto plant. multiple members of that particular plant tested positive for covid-19. two of his coworkers are now on respirators. four of them died in like five days. he worked with those people for 20 years. do you feel comfortable telling us, do you know where it is? it'sr: yeah, it's just, right on the outskirts of detroit. i don't want to say specifically because they got into a big fight with the union. host: that's fine. caller: the big bosses wanted people to continue to work, even though they knew they were sick. still work.them to with my son-in-law having cancer, he was exposed. it was horrible. folks, hope they get

better. appreciate you calling in today. al, miami, says you have personal experience with covid-19? caller: i think i contracted it from a mixture of my daughters there was months ago a mixture of not going to work where you feel the pressure of making it for your family, you go to work, i thought it might be a fleeting cold. my daughters happened to be around me and i thought they had colds from school. they come home with nasties from school all the time. are one of the bigger transmitters of the virus. homeschooling for a good while should be the norm. use a lot of for cautions as they head back to school. have them wear masks and be alert of symptoms. it comes in waves. the first wave, it attacks your upper respiratory system.

you get massive headaches. you start getting the fevers. then you feel the pressure in your chest with the bronchitis and pneumonia. the most is relentless. it's painful. you lose tons of weight. if you feel that you are getting body aches and a fever, you more than likely have it. host: sounds like you spent time in the hospital, right? no, i self medicated. i traveled across the country and people were saying i have this thing, i don't know what it is, it's the worst dealing i ever had. it's like a cold, but more horrible. i have a little bit of medical research in my background. i'm like yes, it takes over yourselves. it feels like something is taking over you and doesn't want to let you go. article and ian

don't have it in front of me, probably talk about it later, that says one of the side effects has been it affects the brain. people who had it report seeing hallucinations. things like that. or a loss of memory, things like that. have you had any emotional or mental issues with that? caller: absolutely. mental fog. low-level anxiety. you get depressed. diethink you are going to at all moments. i basically just started using a bunch of home remedies. especially afrin. if you can find that, take that to avoid congested your upper respiratory system. a lot of the feeling of the x vaporub and water that has been steamed, covering the head. it's very beneficial. take a large amount with honey and horseradish. a little bit of what sabe -- wasabi paste.

host: you are obviously on the upswing. what time frame are we talking? when did you first notice symptoms? caller: before i answer that somethingthere is called sessa lacks in that my mother gave me. laxin that my mother gave me edit ramp things up. i got sick on thanksgiving day last year and i didn't recover until february the third. of this year. have been tested positive of covid-19? caller: they haven't been able to test me because the lines are so long. every time i go to test its two hours of weight minimum. every time that i go and i see that massive amount, more than 400 and i have to park in the

, ie like seven miles away just cease and desist. but all the symptoms and how i felt and a whole bunch of people got sick, when i describe it they have never had this before, more than likely i had it. appreciate you calling in this morning. john in bloomfield, michigan with a personal experience. tell us about that, john. yes, good morning. i thought it would be helpful to share my experience. i had mild symptoms for four days solid, just under 100 degrees. that i experienced chest pressure for a good week. didn't have any, i just had this lethargic feeling. a not aof took me into depression state, but a very a low function state.

i tried to get myself tested at the local hospital. they said they wouldn't test me unless my fever exceeded 100 degrees. which i thought was interesting. the building business, a client of mine was a nurse at this main hospital, called beaumont. very large hospital. they wouldn't test her and she said she had to come to work as long as her fever did not exceed 100 degrees, which i thought was interesting as well. host: so you haven't been tested, but you showed all the sign. like i asked her the other guy, where did this start and where are you now? caller: it was really about a month ago. i lost all taste and smell. that is one of the key indicators. do you feel now, john? caller: totally fine. i mean i did have the mental fog

for weeks. that was notable. i had to have had it. seems like all the indicators are there. any kind ofget knowledge. it would be helpful to know that so that i could return to normality. absolutely, keep getting better there, john. coronavirus outbreak at virginia nursing home spirals out of control, 45 died. that's from "the new york times co. kathleen, good morning. caller: good morning. i have a cousin that is in the icu. ok.lieve she's doing i got three sentences. she does not live in a privileged community like i do. the same zip code as a

robert kraft and as everybody knows, he had the jet go to china. onot an email from the mayor the chestnut hill newton side, brookline. we are privileged. test, walk over, get a and also robert kraft is friends with donald trump. i'm concerned about poor people. i'm very liberal. this is going to be selective. it makes me angry. that we areangry going to probably in massachusetts, they have a very high rate. governor baker is a republican. he's wonderful. i listen to these horrendous calls every day.

the aspiration. we are sitting here like we are ok. -- i want to say, my mother is 101. she doesn't live in this community. think they should do testing on these elderly people. my mother never gets the flu. her and i can get a cold at the same time. have it for three weeks. my mother will be over it quickly. the other thing, my mother has had a very disciplined lifestyle. she stopped working on the treadmill at 93. she's not kind of normal. but i help, i hope you have a representative come on to discuss what's going on in their community. then i have one question. i have never seen a senator,

c-span. it's always a representative. do you know if you have ever had one senator that has come on to c-span? i'm not sure, why are they so privileged? host: do you mean during the crisis? is that what you are talking about? caller: i would like to here's especially from the brick -- republican senators and governors who are not following the rules. host: appreciate your calling in. the answer to your question is yes we have had senators and republican governors on this program and on our prime time program. tell you about tonight's guest and just a bit. to our text line, (202) 748-8003 , this from mike in orlando.

host: the line for medical professionals, (202) 748-8002. this is jonathan from brandenburg, kentucky. caller: good morning, how are you? host: fine, thanks. caller: i'm actually a veterinarian here in kentucky and i was just going to call and follow up on a few things that some people have said. icon a two, had a pretty good sickness in late january and february. typical symptoms that everyone else described. tingling in my trait yet and felt like i probably had covid-19. as it everyone else in my household. folks who have called obviously this morning have said they felt they had it but were not able to get the test. how about you? caller: i don't know of anybody

around here that is actually pulling blood in doing antibody tests. when i went in initially to the doctor, they get a flu test for b influenza, and there was a negative strep test. at that time there was no coronavirus testing. host: thank you for that, jonathan. mark, fort lauderdale. you have had the test. tell us the results. caller: yes, i have. you have to forgive me, i'm still not completely over it. winded. hello? air. you are on the take as much time as you need. caller: i had a very strange run of symptoms. i didn't have a fever. i didn't even have a cough or anything like that. in my case, my stomach went crazy on me.

i couldn't eat. did he came out and a bad way. finally, after a number of days, my wife insisted on taking me to the emergency room. thank goodness. at the emergency room, they diagnosed me with pneumonia. they gave me some antibiotics and sent me home. they didn't do the test there. a couple of days later i got the confirmation that i indeed had it. and since then it has been laying in bed, watching c-span. thank goodness i am weak. during that time, i would have been tempted to throw my shoe at and i wanted to

call. host: sergey here you are weak, i'm glad he didn't throw your shoe at the television. how long have you had it? caller: i went to the emergency room on april the first. host: you are two weeks in. look, take care of yourself. i don't want to get you more winded, but we really appreciate you calling in and sharing your story. let's hear from bert, next, columbus, georgia. caller: yeah, how you doing? host: doing fine. how are you? let me takeg ok, you off the speaker. still hear me? host: yes we can. caller: february, i thought i had the flu. but it was strange. it was kind of like when i coughed it was bad in my throat. my tongue turned purple. i really had these bad sensations of fevers and stuff

like that. i thought i had the flu. ,hen i would take this medicine you would take it to get the fluid off your lungs. i spit up a lot of mucus and stuff like that. it felt like the flu but it didn't. i was going to the doctor and my insurance wouldn't approve it. they said i wasn't sick enough to go to the doctor so they didn't approve me going to the doctor. so i started going home when i got to feeling better. i don't know if it was covid-19 or not, but it sure didn't feel like regular flu. i was short of breath and i had a person in my household that i had to stay away from for a few minutes, a few days, to make sure i didn't have it. couldn't understand why my insurance wouldn't pay for me to go to the doctor for the flu. they just wouldn't pay. affordable health care that is not very

affordable. let me tell you, you try to go to the doctor or something, they turn down the mri, and then they call you and ask you if you have taken your blood pressure medicine. takeask you if you diabetes medicine, but they don't want to do things like if won'tve a problem, they approve it. then if you do go to the doctor, they will say the doctor wasn't in the network. it's kind of catch-22, if you do or don't. somebody needs to deal with these insurance companies that won't approve things like this. it's a time of need for people. host: why couldn't you get tested for covid-19? caller: they said i wasn't experiencing the symptoms. i said well, i don't know if i am or not. but this is back when they first started doing it, you know? ofst of february, and january.

it was a strange, strange flu. i don't know if i'm over it or not. but i can't get the insurance to cover me. host: it sounds like you need to get the antibody test to see if you have had it. presumably that would be covered, wouldn't it? to the doctor,go they will tell you before you go to make sure that the doctor is in the network. and then i have been to the doctor before for other things and if the doctor wasn't in the network, they wouldn't cover it. .ost: keep getting better, bert health care workers, sick by the thousands is the lead headline in "usa today." "more than 9000 health care workers contracted covid-19 as of last week and at least 27 have died, according to a report released on tuesday."

rich, hickory bill, illinois. taking myanks for call. i believe i contracted this virus early on, and like january of this year. i went to the doctor and they like, you know, they told me it was bronchitis and they gave me antibiotics to treat the symptoms, you know? for me it was sort of, you know, what struck me strange about it was they didn't do any kind of testing other than listen to my lungs, take my temperature. that was the test. it seemed like there was a lot going around at the time. so, they tell you yet it's a fluke, but you develop bronchitis or whatever. the other thing is it's sort of on, later on, as things go now we are talking about this great flu that everyone is going

to die from, it just, it struck me as strange that we weren't in front of this kind of a problem. usually the government would be telling you yeah, there was something going around. practice social distancing. you would get that before we turned it into a pandemic. you know? it was like that was the thing ,hat to me, the administration you know, it seemed like they were, there was no concern for the general public, you know? it wasn't treated like something .hat needed to be treated now it's national news and has to be treated. it's interesting to hear your experience, the one caller who said they believed they started feeling this way as early as thanksgiving, he said.

cases like yours and his, with a couple of other people, it ton't send alarm bells medical professionals nationwide that something was happening out there. caller: your last call, medical insurance, that's money. they don't want to cover expenses if you don't have the right kind of insurance, like with the obama care. it's like people don't have the so the people with qualified insurance, it won't treat what you have. it's a money kind of thing. like with the medical profession, they try to, mine was going to go through insurance.

so if you don't have good insurance, they are not going to be doing these tests. the money. consequently. i didn't know if it was because of money or, it just seems strange to me that, because at the time there were a lot of people that were sick with it. you knew other people who had similar sort of symptoms? my wife had it, my daughter got it. so like, my daughter, she wound up going to the doctor and them telling her something different than my wife. she went to the doctor, same thing. there was a testing that was -- you know, you got the flu, whatever. clear, none of your family got tested for it? caller: no, no one was tested for it and everyone went to see a doctor at that time. host: rich, illinois, appreciate

you calling in. -- this the front a of " is the front page of "the washington times: who. will stop funding during evaluation of crisis management." the president spoke yesterday about reopening the u.s. here's what he had to say. [video clip] >> the plans to reopen the country are close to being finalized. we will soon be sharing details and new guidelines with everybody. i will be speaking to all 50 and iors very shortly. will then be authorizing each individual governor of each individual state to implement a and a very powerful reopening plan of their state at a time and in a manner as most

appropriate. very close. be because certain states, as you know, are in much different condition and in a much different place than other states. it's going to be very, very close. maybe even before the date of may 1. so, that will be for some states. there are actually over 20 in extremely good shape. we think we will be able to get them open fairly quickly. and then others will follow. the federal government will be watching them very closely. to help,ll be there there to help in many different ways. where we have built hospital beds at a number that no one has ever seen before. when we did the ventilators we just discussed, no one can even believe it. countries, even

powerful countries can't believe what we were able to do with ventilators. big, powerful countries. big, producing countries can't believe what we were able to do. we will hold the governors accountable. but again, we will be working with them to make sure it works really well. host: from that briefing, trump drop, blamesumbers who for virus. "for weeks trump has faced relentless criticism for what has been perceived as a slow and --

host: in response our capitol hill producer, craig kaplan, reporting that patrick leahy said that withholding funds for who in the midst of a world -- the worse pandemic in a century makes as much sense as cutting up ammunition to an ally as the enemy closes in." and on the house side, the oversight chair, maloney, with stephen lynch, writing to president trump on this host: that from our capitol hill producer, craig kaplan. joan, new york. some personal experience with covid-19.

joan, new york, go ahead. high.: i called because, i was tested positive. i didn't have the typical symptoms that they said. had happened was that i very bad diarrhea. i had fainted. it was suggested that i go to the hospital. i went to the hospital. there they were checking me out. i hit my head. there, they asked me different questions and i was answering them and i explained to them that i thought something was terribly wrong and that i wanted to be tested. they said that i didn't show the symptoms.

so, they weren't going to test me. but they were going to do a cat scan. saidthe doctor came in and that she would test me. she tested me. i was released from the hospital. they said i probably had it. and to go home and i would hear from them. two days later they called to say that i had it. on, youymptoms were not know, i didn't had what they had on their checklist. of theo you had none other upper respiratory, the loss of appetite, the hard cough , things like that? after -- i got that after. it's weird. i got that after i was diagnosed. my cough wasn't too bad.

other family members who also ended up going and getting tested. they both came back positive. all three of us have had different symptoms to the virus. when did you first go into the emergency room when you fainted? i went in, i fainted on march 16. i got the diagnosis march 18. host: you have been home since then question mark caller: yes -- then? caller: yes. host: how do you feel now? not 100%.feel better, i suffer from shortness of breath at times. and the aches and pains from it. who got the respiratory part of it, he has .sthma

he still has a cough. my son who got it never once showed a symptom. because you had it, they got tested as well? exactly, that's what happened. as soon as i was positive, my husband and son were sent home from work. locally, to a medical facility and were tested the next day. and then they found out a week later that they had it. but all three of us had it. with all different symptoms. say, we wants to you to feel better, so get well. thanks for calling, appreciate that. illinois, bob, good morning. caller: good morning, thank you for c-span.

host: glad to have you on. my wife and i got tested in illinois. i caught it when i was out in california on a vacation. i was on a tram that goes up and 8000 foot mountain right next to pound -- palm springs. ?ost: mount sani cento the one that goes up there? i know where you're talking about, right, right. anyways, it was small and there were about 30 people on each one, cramped. i think i got it there. but i didn't show any signs until i got on the airplane coming home. then i had a really, i almost fainted. i lost my appetite. i lost 15 pounds in the next two weeks. host: wow. caller: i went to the clinic

when i got home. host: what data are we talking about, bob? i think i got it the 12th of february. i get home the 16th and i went to the clinic. they said i had the flu and they gave me z-pak, they call it. send me home. five days later i was at the emergency room in arlington heights and they admitted me. took them five days to figure out it was the covid-19. thought i just had the flu and they were giving me all kinds of tests. of course, i was really the first patient at the hospital that had it. out i had they found it, boy, they did a lot of tests . the hospital staff, they went back to the clinic and did everybody there. i still have a little shortness of breath.

it has been a month and a half since i got out of the hospital. host: how is your wife doing? she had no symptoms. she tested positive. was with us, he never tested positive, they give him lots of tests. we live in a regular house. well, sorry you get the distinction of being among the first patients there in illinois . hope you get better, thanks for calling in. caller: thank you. host: want to remind you about our evening program during coronavirus pandemic, "washington journal primetime." tonight we will have a doctor on to talk about the importance of .etrics and data we will also hear from the washington state republican congressman dan newhouse on the

response in his district. that's tonight on "washington journal" prime time. adrian, michigan, go ahead. to talkyes, i wanted about having had the symptoms and the symptoms that i had were there he similar to most of the symptoms most of the other people have had. insymptoms started back november, like the person from florida said. originally thought it was the flu and so forth. medical people and so forth. my lab work was all normal. but i kept having these symptoms.

becausegot tested everything was just below the radar. was essentially screened out from being tested. but i'm convinced i had it because of the type of symptoms that people have talked about. on your show today. and the range of symptoms. .t's a very strange feeling like with the sensations that you have in terms of your lungs. it feels like it's not just a pressure, you feel like there is a paralysis taken place. and it's scary. it's scary. now i have very few symptoms. i feel a lot better.

the only thing that is still lingering is i still have a chronic cough. so. what do they give you for that? caller: i wasn't given any medication from the medical community. i just started taking some stuff over the counter. host: right, right. it was set up, if you read the criteria, essentially i was told don't come in unless you have such and such and so and so. they wanted to see the most severe cases. some comments here from twitter --

investigative report this morning published by the associated press, "china didn't warn public of likely pandemic for 60 days. connie, marietta, georgia. good morning. caller: i kind of discovered it myself, i had few symptoms, only a severe loss of smell and taste that occurred pretty much overnight. i called my doctor the next morning because i thought it was heart, she bless her got me into be tested the next positive. was i still have lots of smell and taste and it has been almost a

month. .o headache, no fever, nothing the people around me as far as i know did not contract it. but all of those people out there that taste, don't think it is just the pollen, which we do here. there iture sign, and is. i appreciate your calling in as well. more "washington journal" ahead. we will talk about coronavirus science and policy with dr. howard bauchner of the journal of the american medical association. later we will speak with dr. joseph kvedar, the president-elect of the telemedicine association about the role of telehealth. we will show you lots of briefings on the c-span network over the past several weeks. including yesterday, mark milley gave an update on the covid cases on navy ships.

one of the tr's reporting significant amounts of covid, we did have a single sailor, one sailor on the nimitz testing positive, but he was out of state, not yet on the nimitz, and he remains to this day out-of-state. a second stale or -- a second sailor displayed symptoms and was placed in isolation and is not on the ship. that is the nimitz. all the other ships at sea are reporting zero at this time. interestingly, too, the cruiser crew that wase with the tr, somebody asked earlier, the crew that was with the tr in danang, they reported zero as well. we are confident right now, but let me also mention that what the navy is doing to implement, for future deployment. crews, the subn. cru

fleet, especially the triad piece of that, all those crews are being tested as tests become available. we are doing the same thing with other critical components of the bomber force, the high-end tier one forces, and some of our rapid deployment reserve forces. prioritization of the force, for testing and quarantine to assure that we have adequate capability and readiness to rapidly deploy if we need to for any even contingency. "washington journal" continues. host: from chicago, where joined by dr. howard bauchner, editor-in-chief of the journal for the american medical association. thanks for being here. guest: thanks for the

invitation, bill. host: let me ask you about j ama. outside of the coronavirus, what are the typical monthly articles and their regular articles that your journal publishes online? jama is the official publication of the american medical association. the journal, for many important reasons, has editorial independence from the ama. it is been round for 175 years, along with a few other journals, kind of called the grand weeklies. i would say up to 10 to 15 years ago we did publish weekly. more currently, we are publishing almost daily. but in print, we had been publishing weekly consecutively for well over 150 years. now our reach is very different because of the digital age. 1.5 million about people each day or week with our content through social media,

electronic table of contents, podcasts, videos. the majority of the readers are physicians from around the world. 50% or 55 percent are contacts from outside the united states. our content comes in three or four buckets. the first is original research, which what is that what has always defined jama for decades. then we have opinion pieces, and then critical material, which is very important. there are about one million physicians in the u.s., and about 900,000 are practitioners. we think it is important to ensure that we have good clinical content. the has always championed narrow aspects of medicine, through peace of mind, artan medicine, and poetry. host: give us an idea, since the outbreak of the coronavirus and the first news of it, the stories you are trying to regularly focus on. guest: they have come in two or

three different areas. first was just the initial articles that we had. one was a viewpoint by tony dr. fauci:, which was -- by tony , covid-19, more than a cold. was, as is often the case, wise in his comments. that was quickly followed by a fair number of epidemiologic studies, which is how the disease was affecting different populations. china a large report from of about 73,000 or 74,000 cases. changedemiology has not since late february. there has been various scientific reports. we published one of the reports on asymptomatic transmission, which has become quite important. other reports around therapies, convalescent plasma.

the content is bucketing in areas of research, clinical material, and opinion. recently, there has been a substantial shift. i would say through the month of february, virtually all of the content that was submitted came from china. that has changed dramatically over the last few weeks with content coming from around the world, particularly europe, italy, france, and the united kingdom, and over the last week or 10 days, much, much more research has been submitted within the united states. headline -- "d a china didn't warn public of likely pandemic for 60 days." tell us about your experience, the journal's experience in reporting from china and getting reports on this virus from china . what were you seeing early on? early on, as with most

journals, we were seeing small case series, which is very common in an early pandemic or epidemic. few weeks for more sophisticated types of research to be presented. originally we were seeing case series of 200 patients, five patients, 20 patients. that really defined the early submissions from china. more recently, they have become much more sophisticated in the type of research we have been receiving from them. last friday we published probably the best analysis of the different approaches that china took. it is a collaboration between harvard investigators and chinese investigators, and it is a very sophisticated analysis about which intervention worked and how quickly. host: in your experience as the , have in chief of jama you ever seen an epidemic like this?

jama. not at i have lived through one. i started my career in the 1980's, and i appreciate for much of the public and many clinicians, this epidemic, pandemic, will define their lives. but people who lived through the early years of hiv aids will remember that being just as frightening, in the sense of the mortality rate, the early mortality rate in the early 1990's. currently, this pandemic in the united states has killed somewhere around -- i think the number this morning is around 25,000, 26,000 people. at the heart of the -- at the height of the hiv aids crisis, around 45,000 people a year were dying. i do remember that. i was a younger physician at that time. i think older physicians will recall those years.

that was confined to a much more narrow portion of the population. the: our guest, editor-in-chief of the journal of the american medical association, dr. howard bauchner. call.n time zones, in the first hour, we heard from a number of people who, if they did not get tested positive for covid-19, certainly showed symptoms. thought,s far back, he as november. are you getting any research or reporting on the symptoms that were popping up early on this that may have gone undetected? you are asking two different questions. i think it would be unusual for someone to have been diagnosed

or to have covid-19 in november. i think the earliest cases really probably did not come to the united states until sometime in january. i think one of your callers -- and we are about to publish a research letter about this, and this has been very prominent in social media and some medical journals -- what appears to be a change in smell and taste among a number of patients who have been diagnosed with covid-19. that has been a very interesting presentation that i think clinicians and patients have gotten more aware of. that you weree suggesting was the issue of testing. testing has become more complicated just in the last week or so. people are well aware of the long delays and the problematic issues around testing in the united states that has caused substantial logistic and

organizational nightmares for hospitals, clinics, skilled nursing homes, nursing homes. the other issue that has come up over the last week is whether or not we are going to be able to test to know if someone had been infected or has developed immunity. testing has evolved just over the last week. you think thato effort has to be, testing for immunity, the antibody test, or whatever? guest: i think it is really clear that for the united states and other countries to begin to normalcy,some form of and i have chosen the end of the summer. this pandemic will continue certainly for the next few months. hopefully it will not flare in different states. then we come to summer vacation, and then at the end of summer vacation come as college, school again, businesses are more -- i thinkhe fall

two types of testing need to rapidly be developed and come available. firstly, people want to know if they are currently infected with covid-19. it has really put a strain on people's relationships with family members when they travel between states and visit. they quarantine themselves. was readily available and inexpensive, they would not have to quarantine themselves for two weeks. obviously testing for hospitals, clinics, nursing homes is critical, and we are just not there. by testing, i mean results back in a few hours, not a few days. the other type of testing people have been talking about at length is trying not to stand -- one percent of the population appears to have been affected -- a serum test that detects antibodies, igg and i gm. there considering neutralizing

antibodies to the disease. virtually all people who are infected will develop an immunologic response, and that should be maintained for months to years. but we need additional data to understand to know if that is true. host: we have got several calls waiting. jama published a study on the loss of taste and smell. can you give us topline findings from that report? guest: it was a survey. we have gotten about 502 months, bit of workte a l for her. we will publish it next week. i believe 20% to 30% of patients are reporting very unusual taste and smell, a loss of taste and smell. host: let's hear from our callers. patrick is first up in lebanon junction, kentucky. good morning. caller: yes, sir.

of taste andloss smell back in september. there were lots of flu cases back at that same time at my workplace. they did the antibody test and proved that this was in the country earlier. couldn't we then go back to work earlier? that's all i've got to say. thank you. guest: firstly, i think it would have been unusual had you been infected in december since the first reports really developed in very late december from china. ofre is an enormous amount travel from china to the united states, so i would not be surprised if there were cases in the united states in january. this man officially could have serology to know if he has had antibodies and at that point could go back to work. he returned to work and school has become complicated. the cdc has released a number of updated guidelines about their recommendations.

again, i think we are going to have to know more broadly about what percent of the u.s. population seems to have developed immunity over the last 4, 5, 6 months. host: we hear next from cornelius, calling from alexandria, louisiana. caller: hello, c-span, and thank you for this. i wanted to ask the doctor if he had heard about a federal correction institute, seven or eight inmates have died and steph have been infected. the u.s. roosevelt, with the captain, he did the best thing for his crew. so it seems like it is affecting people in the nursing homes and crowds and stuff like that. i just want to know, are we going to do something for our correctional staff and those sailors and shipmates on the roads -- sailing on the nimitz and stuff? i will take my answer off the air. host: the question is, what additional as well could we due for populations like that?

guest: this gentleman brings up an enormously important issue. we know that crowding is one of the key is to spread this virus. skilled nursing homes, nursing homes, correctional facilities, -- it detention centers is critical that testing be available, and that when people get ill, the test result is immediately available so people can be appropriately cohort it. ofpoke to mitch katz, ceo health and hospitals in new york yesterday, and he commented that what they are trying to do, for example, at rikers island is more distancing between inmates. i think that is going to have to become standard for correctional facilities, nursing homes, skilled nursing homes. i cannot speak for the military,

but they are certainly going to have to think this through. but the key to being able to appropriately triage people is immediately available testing results. up, max,t mechanicsville, maryland. you are on with howard bauchner. caller: yes, good morning. can you hear me? host: yes, we can. caller: i have two questions. first being, i have heard that this virus doesn't get into the bloodstream, which i thought was strange because now with the talks of the testing with antibodies. now secondly, i know going forward now, we are looking at the high numbers of infections in the united states compared to several eastern countries. people are starting to point fingers of blame, whether or not people have responsibility for the negligence and the time it took, a lot of fingers are being pointed. do you think that maybe we are missing the big picture, like

say russia is colluding in the election, or ukraine is colluding in the election. who do you think took their eye off the ball? guest: thanks, bill. i will take the second question first. ande will be many months years to sort through what we could have done better. there is no doubt about that. i think it has been widely reported that a number of issues occurred in the united states that really delayed our response . the first, because of a series of unfortunate mistakes and errors, widespread testing was very, very delayed in the united states. and i think everyone agrees in hindsight that if we had been

able to test sooner, it would have created far less complications for health care facilities in the united states. much more availability of testing far earlier. also, there has been some robust discussion about social distancing and whether it took too long in the united states. by social distancing, i also mean the recognition of asymptomatic carriage. ama published an article in late february indicating that there was likely asymptomatic transmission of disease. london,s like new york, and paris, it meant that you had a factor -- the subway, the underground, the metro -- with people who likely had asymptomatic disease and potentially were spreading it.

i think we will have many, many months and years to talk about what we could have done better. but i would focus on the issue ,f testing, and then of course when we instituted social distancing. other countries, for example, korea, hong kong, singapore, taiwan, which is part of china, have had a much more aggressive testing, tracking, tracing quarantine approach. i know dr. fauci has discussed this with me as well as with a number of his media events. such a we could develop response is unclear. those are very small countries, the united states is 325 million people. and it would take a very different type of effort than we have ever launched before. ,aking the first question whether or not the virus enters the bloodstream -- i have not

seen any reports on it, but i am certainly not an expert in that area. host: a question for you on are jama- "what recommendations for doctors fighting this on the front lines in the absence of clinical trials? is there a methodology for sharing observations in pursuit of improved outcomes?" guest: this comes up all the time. any professional societies have commented on this. the infectious disease society of america, the american medical association, the two critical care societies, one in europe, one in the united states -- i am editor in chief of the journal that champions clinical investigation. so for us, the science and evidence, evidence and science. ofare awaiting the results various clinical trials. i am assuming max is referring to much of the chatter about

chloroquine. answer is that we do need the results of clinical trials. it is the only way we will know in the coming months and years whether or not something was effective. when experimental drugs are given outside of a clinical trial, if the patient does well, you generally assume they did well because they received that drug. if they do poorly, you make the assumption, you make the assumption that they did poorly because the disease, where it is quite possible that the drug may have complicated that disease and contributed to potentially the death. that forly recognize clinicians taking care of patients, nurses, respiratory therapists, they want to save lives. that is what clinicians want to do. so i appreciate the tension,

that the notion of layering critical -- clinical trials on top of a pandemic complicates the lives of clinicians and patients. host: we will hear from carolyn next, joining us from atlanta, georgia. caller: yes, hello? host: you are on the air. caller: yes, good morning. i am noticing in georgia that quite a few of my friends may have come down with the corona, -- they seem are to be doing good now. they came down sort of at the and we haveary, been following the president's guidelines very carefully down here in georgia. i do believe having this big airport, people coming into the city and moving around, we are, to me, doing pretty good. there are people with the

asymmetric symptoms, and the asymmetric, and people with, what is this quarantine going about? quarantine, aren't they supposed to be doing better? and people keeping from passing on are not getting anything. so quarantine does mean something. we are following the president's guidelines, and also the people that -- my question would be the people that are dying as of today -- i know some people may have had this, maybe three or four weeks ago. they are not just coming down -- the people who are dying today had it sometime ago. to the new people experiencing it and the new cases, i have been -- i have heard that these new cases are cases that may have happened some weeks ago. so it is declining, so i want to know what is this about a quarantine? does it mean something for all

of us? host: thanks for your observations, carolyn. howard bauchner? guest: the color brings up a number of different issues. the first is, it is very, very clear that the disease, from an epidemiologic standpoint, is really quite variable. states. consists of 50 the district of columbia, puerto rico. it is not the same disease in every state. york,very clear that new boston, detroit, a few areas in georgia, some in florida, have had substantially more disease than other parts of the country. whether those other parts of the country will ultimately see the acceleration in disease is unclear. that is why so many of the governors, as well as the executive branch, began to institute so-called social distancing about a month ago.

i think we are about a month into it. and now the debate, the discussion is, how long should discontinue -- another two weeks, another four weeks, another six weeks? i think that will get settled over the next week or two. the issue of quarantine is so that the individuals who potentially are infected do not infect other individuals. now, what is important for people to know is if they get ill and they decide to quarantine themselves, if they become more ill, and what do i mean by that? they develop a fever, or they develop respiratory distress and have difficulty breathing. it is critical, critically important that they contact their clinician. so it can be determined whether or not they need to seek care. host: during his briefing yesterday, president trump announced that the u.s. will be halting funding to the world health organization howard bauchner, i want to play the comments and further explanation

of the president on his decision and get your thoughts on it. here is president trump. [video clip] pres. trump: had the w.h.o. done its job to get medical experts into china effectively, to assess the situation on the ground and to call out china's lack of transparency, the outbreak could have been contained at a source with very little death, very little death, and certainly very little death by comparison. this would have saved thousands of lives and avoided wide economic damage. instead, the w.h.o. willingly took china's assurances to face value come and they took it just at face value and defended the actions of the chinese government, even praising china for its so-called transparency. i don't think so. the w.h.o. pushed china's misinformation about the virus, saying it was not communicable, and there was no need for travel ban's. put on ours when we

very strong travel ban, there was no need to do it. don't do it, they actually fought us. the w.h.o.'s reliance on china separate disclosures likely caused a 20 fold increase in cases worldwide, and it may be much more than that. the w.h.o. has not addressed a single one of these concerns nor provided a serious explanation that acknowledges its own mistakes, of which there were many. [end video clip] bauchner, whatd will be your comments? will be morements scientific and less on politics. important --rly without it, you cannot develop a vaccine, you cannot develop testing. so i think that was one of the

great transparencies of modern science, and the investigators who release does genetic code are to be congratulated. that is first. second, the assumptions about what would have occurred or not have occurred, it is unclear to me that they are based on substantial evidence or science. we have denigrate deal of modeling in the united states. jama has been asked to publish modeling papers, and we have published none. many of the models have been shown to be incorrect. i am uncertain where the president is obtaining the data that he cites in his comments. and the last thing i would say have struggled with the world health organization at times. but it seems like if you want to improve the way the world health organization operates and works with countries around the world, you would rather be at the table discussing it with them.

if you withdraw your support, that is not possible. hear from don next in paradise, pennsylvania. good morning -- caller: good morning from lancaster county, pennsylvania. i was almost sure i had covid-19 because i had many of the signs. isn't it true that 85% to 95% of the people who get it will have a mild reaction, as in other flu and other corunna viruses -- other coronaviruses? if we have 85% to 95% of the people having mild reaction, couldn't we simply use a wristband or a -- some other outward sign that would show immune to the disease and then go about our work? 320 million people in this country, 95% could get back to

work. thanks for your question, don. guest: don brings up one of the most complicated cases that has to be resolved in the next few months. that is, has been infected and who has not been infected? can does that mean, and those individuals return to work? recently don't know what percent of the population in the united states has been infected because of the lack of testing. better serology tests, we will have a better sense of the u.s. population that has been infected. how that information is used is more complicated than people fully recognize. would some people be able to go to work, others not be able to go to work? would social distancing need to be put in place? these issues need to be carefully thought through. but he raises many, many complicated issues. the last i would say is, because

of the way testing has been done, which has generally been hospital-based -- we really don't know very much about what has occurred in the population level. we have a line for medical professionals, and we welcome your participation. 202-748-8002. joel is on that line in davidson, north carolina. caller: good morning and thank you for the opportunity to discuss this issue. please explain the autopsy results of patients who died of covid-19, to explain the pathology of why people die of this disease, and what inhibits that event. guest: i think joel probably knows that there are many different clinical trials on, and they work in very different ways. antiviral trials, an

antibiotic for viruses, so that would stop the replication of the virus and presumably improve outcomes. that is first. the second now, and this alludes , is that whenn people become very, very ill, with covid-19, they develop respiratory disease. ofery substantial percentage them are having a very, very large inflammatory response. it is called the inflammatory cascade. so now there is a great deal of interest in trials that block that cascade. the terminal event for most patients is not yet clear to me, although it is clear that the majority are dying following developing acute lung injury. host: you have kind of answered the second part of this question asks,ufus on text -- he

"what cells does the virus attack, and can you explain the process as to how the virus affects the lungs. to his first point, what cells does the virus attack. guest: it would be mostly the pulmonary or the lung rank ella -- it is largely a pulmonary process, and that then accompanies this -- that is accompanied by the slammer tory cascade. i think there is additional work now being done on whether or not the acute lung injury comes in two different forms. we have actually solicited an opinion piece, a clinical review by two of the leading intensivists who work in this area and we hope to publish it next week. they believe there are two different types of pulmonary processes. the reason this is important to try to understand is there are many different ways to provide respiratory support for individuals, so if we can

understand the underlying pathophysiology, we may be able to improve the way and type of respiratory support that we provide. host: i want to remind our viewers and listeners, our guest theditor in chief of journal of the american medical association, and some of your early reporting on coronavirus in january of this year, just a piece from one of your reporters , one of your research papers on coronavirus, says this -- "while the trajectory of this outbreak is impossible to predict, an effective response provides prompt action from the standpoint of the public health strategies to the timely development implementation of effective countermeasures. the emergence of yet another outbreak of human disease caused by a pathogen from a viral to be formerly thought relatively benign underscores the perpetual challenge of emerging infectious diseases and the importance of sustained preparedness. that is available online at jama

network.com. our next caller is from pennsylvania. harrisburg. caller: thank you for taking my call. a couple things i would like to get to -- first of all, we know the president had full warning on the situation. and what happened with the dismantling of the disease control apparatus that was in place when barack obama was in office. inad a son that visited china in november, and he came home and he was sick for about three weeks. so i think we need to caution ourselves on when this first hit our shores. because until we do that testing, until we can do that medical surveillance to find out who was infected, when they were infected, and tests for those antibodies that can tell us who was out of the country, who came

back, when they came back, to give us some variance on when they develop to these antibodies. even though they might not have known it was corunna -- corona, they were thinking it was the flu. some thought it was maybe just the regular -- our son thought it was maybe the regular flu. he had been in china for about seven weeks, so we cannot just dismiss the fact that it did not happen in november because a lot of people were on vacation in their country, doing last thanksgiving day season. host: thanks for that. i think the caller is correct. it is clear that people in january and february had developed flu. it was an active winter season for the flu. the cdc released some numbers a few weeks ago, about 400,000

travelers, back and forth between china and the u.s. between january and february. i suspect many people or a number of people who were sick in january and february actually probably did have covid-19 come and we will not know that until serology is available. with respect to how to respond clearandemic, it is quite that many people have predicted for years that there would be a worldwide infectious agent that caused the pandemic. it is not clear to me that disbanding or having the wouldic committee necessarily improve the response. have many weeks, months, and years to discuss this. i do think it is very clear that went something like this occurs, a scientist with a committee surrounding him or her needs to

be put in charge. and that individual needs to have broad responsibility to try to help all of the federal agencies, state and local agencies, to prepare for what may happen. i think it is very important that a single individual scientist headline that effort. host: richard is next in quinlan, texas. caller: yes, thank you for taking the call. notd a question, whether or human breast milk can be used in a nasal spray. capsid on the terminal and, the virus may have -- on the terminal end, the virus may be affected. orst: we probably receive 50 75 suggestions for different

treatments, and i think we have only published one or two. that would entirely be hypothesis. that would have to be tested. my sense from what i understand about biology is that that is not likely to be effective because not enough neutralizing antibodies would pass theoretically from an infected mother through breast milk, so i doubt that that would be effective. host: it headline in "the observer," "five months on -- what scientists now know about the coronavirus what have we learned, dr. bauchner, since the outbreak of this virus? guest: thanks, bill. i was hoping to where going to ask that question. some things have been well defined, and there are a number of important political questions. first we know there is asymptomatic spread. we know there is a coronavirus.

we are testing different types of therapies. we know largely it creates pulmonary lung disease. we know the incubation period is about two weeks. we believe that people, once they are well for three or four days, can likely return to work. some early preliminary data suggests that people do have an immunologic response to develop some protection. we also know that the general riskmiology -- who has at -- who is at risk? older individuals, some of the larger at risk groups are in confined spaces. very disturbing data in the last few weeks, that it appears as though african-americans in the united states are at far greater risk for serious disease and death. but there are many unknowns, and that is where research will help us. how long does an airborne and one of the-

most intriguing questions -- i am a pediatrician. it, why do struck by children not develop serious disease? either they are not being infected, or if they are infected, they do not develop serious disease. this is very, very different from flu. i could go on, but i feel like there should be other questions. we simply do not know what will happen over the summer months in the fall. there will be a great deal of speculation. it will all be speculation. we can use older information, older data and make some guesses, but they are simply guesses. host: you mentioned earlier in the discussion your sense of the reopening of the country is more toward the end of the summer. is that your take? guest: no, i suspect that you will begin to see some forms of businesses opening sometime in late may, june, or july, but i will let the politicians make that decision.

the only other thing i wanted to mention -- we, like virtually every other journal, has made all of our content free. i want to emphasize that both first physicians, clinicians, other clinicians, and the public. jama and virtually all of the medical journals have their content free. host: our next call is from alexandria, virginia. caller: thank you for taking my call. -- test in trying to find each and every cell in the human isy, i feel like pcr virus is because the never added to it to determine -- i am thinking people are perhaps overlooking the damage that is created by microwave

which is 2.4 per 80 gigahertz. across the world. italy it is -- and there is damage just from , with an 80 gigahertz microwave frequency, all over the world. ama be correlating the covid-19?om this not for the number of tests. 80% came offases -- host: margaret, i will get a response from auctor howard bauchner. thank you. guest: there were two different

points that caller was making, starting with microwave. there has been a great deal of speculation about what may have covid-19vid id -- pandemic. those ideas have crossed my desk without substantial evidence to support them, and so chosen not to publish them. it is no different from various therapies that lack substantial evidence. so i think if we saw credible evidence about that issue, we would consider publishing it. but we have not seen credible evidence, so we have not published it. the other issue is about pcr, which is the traditional approach to diagnosis for acute image. it is time-honored, very effective. there has been some issues about the sensitivity of the test,

early when people develop symptoms. the general feeling is that the sensitivity, if 100 people have the disease, how many of them will be so-called pcr positive? it is well into the 90's. if you test earlier in the disease, it may be slightly lower. but it is well into the 90's. that remains the time-honored approach to the diagnosis. host: our guest is dr. howard bauchner, the editor in chief of the "journal of the american medical association." joining us this morning from chicago. thanks so much. guest: thanks, bill. stay healthy. host: coming up on "washington journal," a discussion on telemedicine with dr. joseph kvedar. he will join us next. coming up next, we will show you the comments of oregon governor kate brown, who talks about the money oregon is receiving from the cares act. the moneystion is, is

adequate, the $1.6 billion? i don't know for sure that that is the total. it is roughly that figure, and some of that is going to be distributed to our counties and cities. and are the resources adequate? i think the issue for governors thess the state is that thatng that was put in cares package, the 1.6 for us, usedly -- is -- cannot be to replace lost revenue. so the challenge for a state like oregon, because we are an -- we arein comebacks state, wetax based cannot use that to backfill revenue we have lost because i shutter the economy to stop the spread of the disease. and flatten the curve.

so that is a frustration, i would say, shared by governors around the country, that we cannot use that, those resources, to replace those dollars. will there be other cost-cutting measures? on, earlierrking dirk asked about the measures we have taken. obviously a hiring freeze, but it is obviously agency dependent. for example, the employment departed -- the employment department, we have seen 250000 an unemployment claims in the lt three weeks. they started with 100 people, they are now ramping up to 800 people to process roughly 8000 claims a day. obviously there are specific needs in our human resource toety net that we continue need to meet. the tools that we normally use when we are short on resources

are not necessarily effective here. i just use the employment department situation, but the other situation is we have a lot of state employees working from home, working remotely, and that has required additional technology assistance, computers for those employees at their at-home locations. so in terms of we are obviously freezing, we are obviously doing non-essential travel, and obviously combing through budgets to look for where we can drive efficiencies in the budget. announcer: "washington journal" continues. and: and with us next -- with us next on "washington journal" is dr. joseph kvedar, the president elect of the american telemedicine association. dr. kvedar, thank you for being with us. tell us the mission of your association and the members you serve. guest: i am delighted to be on with you this morning for such

an important topic at such an important time. the ata was formed almost i think 27 years ago, and really the mission is to both educate and advocate, really, for a new model of care delivery, which is enabled by communications technologies. i'm sure we will talk about what that means. the members are from a variety of sectors. folkse a robust group of who supply technologies and services to the industry. we have a number of -- quite a few health care provider organizations like my own partners health care, mass general at women's in boston. some of the health plans and folks at the payment industry as well. thatis largely the groups encumber our membership. kvedar, joining us

this morning to talk about telemedicine, telehealth, use of the association. explosionever seen an and interest in your field like you are now. quite extraordinary from many perspectives. yes, it is our time to show the world what we can do, and the concepts themselves really are not new. my predecessors at the mass general in the late 1960's were some of the first to do this work out of necessity. using a microwave link to connect the hospital with a clinic at the logan airport at that time. and coining the term telemedicine in the late 1960's. of course, it was largely a curiosity for many, many years, or something that we studied. we studied how it could impact care delivery, we started how it could impact the financial aspects of care. obviously -- well, maybe not

obviously, but there is an enormous opportunity to extend access with this approach to this kind of care. that is not new, but it is more apparent because everybody set -- everybody has to stay at home. host: perhaps one of the most obvious methods of telemedicine are like we are doing this morning, speaking by video, perhaps telephone, with your doctor, with your health care professional. what are some of the areas that -- term telemedical evidence integrally with the pandemic under -- particularly with the pandemic underway, what has it moved into? the ability to deliver care when the patient and the doctor are not in the room at the same time -- that can be a video. it could certainly be a telephone call.

pandemic, all of our telephone calls were done as part of routine care and not thought of as extra service. during the pandemic, we are doing phone calls as visits. the exchange of information, the way i like to -- the analogy i like to use is an email versus a phone call. you and i are talking real time. we are both tied up in time. we are separated in space, but there is some value in that. there is also valuable -- there is also value if we were going to change us just exchange messages through text or email. we do not do text or email for the patience because it is not secure, but we do exchange messages over patient portals and other secure platforms, and that is part of telehealth for sure. i am a dermatologist, so you could send me an image of a skin lesion. i have a couple patients later this morning that i will do visits that way with. i look at the image and i

respond. and then there is this two other things i would mention. one is the idea you have monitoring chronic illness patients with sensors, things like blood pressure cuffs, weight scales, in some cases activity trackers, that are all internet, backhe to the electronic record so that the doctor and the patient have a constant history of the person's -- how the person's illness is responding to treatment. that can be extreme the powerful. and then there really are a fourth segment of -- which is more up-and-coming, things like chat bots, which i don't really like the term because it sounds very foreign. but these automated chats you can get into with software, and it turns out with screening for a coronavirus for instance, it to anery minimal algorithmic series of questions

that you might ask anyone driven by software. starting by you having interaction with software, something that looks like a chat, and then if you have certain answer -- if you answer certain questions certain way, you could get triaged to a human being quickly. --ngs like that -- sorry artificial intelligence falls under the same rubric. we maybe will not talk about that today. that is pretty cutting edge come up with the idea of using artificial intelligence to guide health care delivery could be part of telehealth. host: i have seen that chat but in health insurance. they say they actually sent out a link where you could engage too, as program online you said, scan for coronavirus patients. our guest is dr. joseph kvedar, a harvard professor at the medical school there, the president elect, the american

telemedicine association. we welcome your calls, your comments, especially if you are interacting with your medical professional, your doctor this way during the pandemic. line for theis the eastern and central time zones. mountain and pacific, it is 202-748-8001. and for medical professionals, that line is 202-748-8002. another thing i have noticed, dr. kvedar, is my own medical practice, my medical professional is regularly sending out now chats online, zoom chats with professionals, other doctors in that practice talking about not just the pandemic but other things revolving around until health, safety, and things like that that we certainly did not see before from a practice like that. and wewell, it is true, talked a little bit earlier about telemedicine being very clinical and very specific to delivery. health care

but the term telehealth was coined probably around 25 years ago when people realized the same technologies could have other uses in health delivery, such as education, such as other ways of using the same tools. telehealth is a broader term ist we pretty much now -- it the term that we use. and indeed, we can use these p t video platforms for these sorts of things. the other revelation we find -- and it is really not a video platform that we use, but through our electronic record, we have the opportunity for specialists to guide our primary care providers at our organization as they -- it is what we call tele-triage for short. the primary care provider could put in, say, an image or a data point and a certain image history about the patient, and a specialist will answer that usually within 24 hours, guiding them about where they need to get the care, and of course

before the pandemic, it was largely a triage -- do you need to come in the office or not? now we have broadened that quite toward tools that deliver care. that use of technology has been extraordinary for us. we have been able to avoid about 25,000 specialist visits because of that triage function, and those patients are cared for right in the context of their own primary care provider, which is of course the more convenient for them. the quality of care is high, so everyone wins on that sort of use of the tool. for: could you see a role telemedicine in a broader national triage in terms of determining testing or who needs priority in testing for either the coronavirus or the antibody test, the immunity test? guest: absolutely. you could see that. one of the things that has happened since the cares act was

passed -- and you asked a bit earlier about the ata's position -- one of our threads is advocacy, and person who is very involved in these efforts. we were very happy with what came out in the cures act -- cares act. among those things was the idea that state licensing laws are being relaxed. many states are now saying it is ok if a doctor from a state next to you is caring for one of your patients because we are in dire times. of easter think of a more national -- if you start to think of a more national network being available and as i stressed, we talked earlier about screening for the virus being algorithmic. in many cases we haven't implemented. we simply have questions a

health care provider can ask you over phone or video and if your , we can are not severe pretty much do the screening over the phone. we can guide you to whether you need to get tested or not. that is easily done over telehealth. for those who test positive but don't get very sick, they can be followed at home by the team -- by the same toolset. most of the follow-up is largely asking questions about your health which is very beneficial to this tool. you mentioned mental health and i want to put a plug in for mental health because even before the pandemic it was by far the biggest user of these services. if you think about the physical exam and a mental-health encounter, talking to the patient and seeing the patient, then you can do that very well over video capabilities. almostfore the pandemic,

half of health care professionals were using telehealth in some way for their practice and to -- and thank goodness for that because there is so much stress, so much need for mental health services in this time. host: let's go to calls. we will hear first from gordon in washington. caller: good morning. you so much for your show because most of the time you are not biased. doctor is ifor the believe you already answered it and that is i do not own a computer and i was wondering if i am going to be getting the same adequate information from my phone. that is one question. host: do you have another one? go ahead. is,er: my other comment when you are asked questions that start with if, should,

would, could, is there any positive attitude that can help in the epidemic taking place? guest: let's go over both of those. question one, an important lead-in to talk about -- talking about what is required to do high-quality health care. before we had these tools, whether they be telephone, exchange of information by the internet, we brought people into offices because it was the most efficient and easy way to get to the most patients during unit of time -- during a unit of time. way back when, by hospital was founded at a time when people who had needs were cared for at their homes and doctors visited you in your home. nowadays the most efficient way has been to come to the office. during that time when you visit your doctor, he or she is getting all kinds of information from you that it enables the

doctor to make a diagnosis, apply some judgment and then help you with a care plan. the answer to your question about the telephone is if you know your clinician and have a good relationship and your clinician knows about your care, and most of what he or she needs to do to help you is about asking and answering questions, you are in good shape as your telephone will do a fine job with that. if her instance you need to send a picture, that is going to be harder without a computer. it all depends. we want to deliver the best possible care to his many people as we can. we want to keep people safe in their homes. we don't want to deliver terrible quality care. in terms of the second question, i like where you are going with that and i would say a theme we have seen not just in health care, but i see it on the news practically every night about

how people are rising to this occasion to be kinder and better to others. we are trying to do that in health care delivery. we are bringing hundreds of thousands of doctors onto this platform. a lot of them were skeptics and now they are turning into advocates. a lot of patients are saying i , inot sure i am comfortable would rather visit my doctor but i have to stay in hort -- i have to stay indoors. i think both would rather come in but they are being respectful of the fact that they need to be cared for and will provide high-quality care to them. is we are getting to try out something new and different in terms of care delivery. we feel good about how it is going and we are quite confident that when this craziness is over and we get back to some level of normalcy, health care delivery will not be this unidimensional thing.

you can come to the office or get care by telephone or video, etc. , virusirtual visits spurs explosive growth of long lagging telemedicine. we go to rebecca in ohio. go ahead. you are on the air. thisr: i was wondering, telemedicine, a lot of people don't have computers or smartphones but the ones that do, who pays for it? does the insurance company reimburse the doctors for talking to the patient like they do when you go to the office? thank you for the answer. guest: great question and thank you for bringing it up. everyone needs to make a living and businesses only function if there is revenue to support the cost of running the business. every practicing physician is a small business, so in that

context, one of the other things that the recent legislation we are championing provided was reimbursement restriction so that now for the time of the pandemic anyway, the government is paying for telephone, information exchange, video at the same level they would pay us if you came to the office. private payers are variably doing that and it is a state-by-state checkerboard. that is the beauty and the downside of being in the u.s.. the states have a lot of power. massachusetts, we have to be paid at the same rate we would if you came into the office. happens after the dust

settles? we are very keen to make sure that patients who have a good experience tell their health plans or if they are employed, tell their benefits people that we don't want to go back to this one-dimensional way of delivering care. it is need it at home, very convenient and high-quality. if you are a medicare recipient, talk to your congressman and let them know you had a good experience and you think it should continue. host: on twitter we are @cspanw j. privacyon asks how does figure into this? how do i know there is no one else in the room when i am talking to my doc? guest: it is a really important question. what i start by saying is that we in health care, i think i can say this with confidence, we in health care care more about your

privacy than any other service that you consume. as you probably know, we are required by law to keep your information private in a way that almost no other industry is and we take it. very seriously. health care is -- and we take it very seriously. some would say it is even more private than your financial information. we have electronic records and they are on systems that are very buttoned down from a privacy perspective. all the documentation of your visit with your doctor, whether it be by video, phone or over the portal will be documented the same way as if you were in the office, and a secure electronic record. the video calls themselves, by and large those platforms are very secure and the chance of having a video call or telephone --l hacked our infant small

infinitesimally small. news has been a lot of about certain video calls, particularly alcoholics anonymous and narcotics anonymous meetings being what bombed by people who are mean. i think those links are posted to public sites. as much as i would call that behavior deplorable, i would not call it hacking if the link was public. if you are having an exchange with your doctor as our colleagues from washington journal sent me a link this morning, private links sent privately, it is a different kind of level of security. it is a long-winded answer but an important one to know about how much we care about your privacy and that we feel very

strongly that these platforms minimize the risk of a hack. host: we will go to new mexico next and say hello to rick. caller: hello. my question is, have there been any studies done projecting the impact of telemedicine on the supply of physicians and if so, do the study show positive or negative results? -- do the studies show positive or negative results? guest: that is a good question. there has been literature on this but i must confess i am not up to date on the most recent literature but i can say anecdotally, as i have studied almost 30 years in my career, and looked at these, it really depends -- the answer to your question is a fine one because for instance, if they -- if i as

a dermatologist in reviewing history, i talked earlier about this feature we have for a primary doctor can send me a short history and a couple pictures of something they are concerned about in their patient. if i am doing those, that is pretty efficient. i can do a number of those, maybe eight or 10 an hour depending on how complex they are. in the office if i see more or for -- more than four or five patients in an hour, i am eroding the quality of care. so it is almost doubling the efficiency. the answer is complicated because if we are able to call out those interactions that we can be more efficient with, we should be able to deliver more care with the same workforce. one thing i would say and i wrote about this in a book i published a couple years ago called the new mobile age which is a book about health technology and aging. one of the things that is

important to mention in this -- wet is we have already already have too few health care providers to care for the amount of illness coming through the system. ways that arein disturbing to all of us. it shows up in your life as a long wait to see your doctor, a long wait in the waiting room, a hurried visit, maybe you get seven to 10 minutes to discuss chronic problems. life, it showss up as being tired and frustrated at the end of the day and not feeling like they got any work done, having to go home and do notes in the evening on the electronic chart and it is simply because we have so much chronic illness in our system and we haven't been able to effectively train more doctors and nurses but i will say it again that all of that is really dependent on if the only way we

deliver care is you come to see me in the office, if we can do more of these tools like i mentioned, remote monitoring of ournic illnesses, we have home care nurses monitoring about 100 patients per nurse with heart failure because they are sending in vital signs. when the patient needs care, they get care because we can see their data but when they don't, we leave them happy and healthy in their homes. there are various ways we can use the tools to be more efficient to extend our workforce. many. that one to most of the time, health care providers are thinking one to one in the big leap we have made in the last few weeks is we have gone from one to one in the office to one to one over video but in the future we will have to do more of those one to many.

host: our next caller is from ohio. caller: what up? ands my first time calling i watch c-span not every morning it this topic came up and now have an appointment today with and it is kind of crazy how it has come on like this but i have all the ,quipment to give my doctor pressure, the little gadget you put the two fingers on. my doctor doesn't want me to virus so he of the i'm going to talk to

you on the phone and i think it is fantastic. host: and he will be able to see your data? caller: yes. i will send the data to him. him and i will give him my temperature and my blood pressure and my e.g. or whatever it is -- my ege or whatever it is and be done with it. he doesn't want me to drive. guest: that is -- host: that is great news. thanks for calling in with your experience. dr. kvedar. guest: that is a perfect example of what i was saying in terms of high quality care that is convenient for the patient. when this all settles you need to call your representative or senator and tell them that you want to have this service available to you so you don't have to drive every time. of course it is going to be your

doctor's judgment. maybe he wants to see you every other time. we will see how it goes. i would say that getting our patient voice out there is very important. host: a question for you on text and it gets to other digital areas, places that don't have the best internet service available. peter in texas, has anyone approached elon musk about deploying his satellite system to small rural hospitals and remote underserved areas? guest: i don't know the answer to that. it is a fabulous idea and the way musk works, anything is possible. someone perhaps should do that. i don't know if that conversation has happened. host: certainly the further expansion of the use of telemedicine relies on a robust internet system nationwide correct? guest: that is true.

these days as i eluded to earlier, we are bringing on hundreds of thousands of doctors and corresponding patients to these interactions and sometimes the infrastructure does get a bit burdened for sure during those times. we need better infrastructure. we certainly need better broadband, no question there are places where broadband is lacking. host: let's hear from thomas calling from michigan. caller: my concern about telemedicine is that the health care providers are required to use a unique video chatting tool that they develop. i live in royal oak, michigan andoman is our hospital

they have their own video chatting tool which does not work very well. i don't understand why these health care providers don't just use like google duo or skype or toolother video chatting that people already know. and --nto end encrypted it is end to end encrypted and hippo compliant -- and hippa compliant. these doctors are not computer science developers. guest: thank you for bringing that up. it is a wonderful comment and i am pleased to hear you bring it up. just to start, during the time of the pandemic, because of the legislation, a large part of ata had a lot to do with this. there is a relaxation of the types of platforms that can be used and they include skype, facetime, zoom, google.

what i have been advising patients to do when they call their doctor's office or go to their doctor's website to find out what services might be available is to ask if the doctor's office can use the platform you are comfortable with. they may say no. in your case, i think what you are saying preceded the pandemic and there are a lot of reasons that we as clinicians like to have these tools integrated. it is much easier for me if i can launch that video call from my electronic record while i have your record in front of me. it is much more efficient for care delivery. doctors don't like going to multiple screens at once and we do feel like there is just a hair better security if we do it in the context of the electronic records. that is the ideal for us. you are right, it is a little bit of pioneering, a little bit

of early days and sometimes they don't work as well and i hear you when you say doctors are not computer scientists. i identify with that. say,g these times i would speak up, ask to have them use the platform you use. maybe they will. weeep saying this, but after get back to some level of normalcy, make noise with your elected representatives that you want to keep those restrictions lifted because it is easier for the patient. host: we will hear next from gene in virginia. caller: yes. i would just hope that the and do as they see you the video chat or videoconference that they don't take on more workloads in the office because routine advocate for am an

getting in video chat. i got my copy and we go over that and everything is good, saving the time of having to go in and allows that freedom of the doctor to deal with more difficult situations. health care for all would be a good approach to that as well. ont are your thoughts aromatherapy or herbalist approaches to coronavirus such as steaming for clearing the lungs and herbs and essential oils like each tree for the clearing and building of your support and immune system? a little off the topic but if you want to respond either of those. guest: well the first thing i would say is thank you for thinking of us providers not

taking on more work. the way this is happening right now is very much aimed to your wish as people are taking on more work, they were only so many hours in the day, so we are balancing in a course there aren't as many people coming into the office by far right now but thank you for that. in terms of aromatherapy and oils, i don't have a comment on that. i am not an epidemiologist or infectious disease expert so i would say that everyone should be incredibly careful about theirucing anything into environment if they have symptoms, if they tested positive. this is a virus we are learning about every day. in general i would be concerned about it but i don't have a specific comment. host: how do you see telemedicine aging or improving

the collection of health records for individuals? guest: that is a great question. there is a lot underway. before the pandemic, around empowering consumers and patients to get more access to higher-quality information. most folks were aware that on your apple iphone, you can get a download of your medical record. there are various companies, one that i was on the board of called be well connected, a great example of a company that is aggregating information and enabling you as a consumer to be in the driver seat of moving health care forward because you have access to more information and information, usually knowledge is power. i don't know that telehealth itself is the driver but certainly what we call digital health, everything is now digitized.

is getting patients and consumers more in the driver seat for their records and knowledge. host: we will go to our medical professionals line next in west virginia. caller: hi. thanks for taking my call. who a retired physician worked in a government organization providing health care and i worked in the field of hepatology. we did telehealth and rural health with treating hepatitis c and it went very well. we were able to have points where patients came in and had some 150 work done and miles away could talk to them about their treatment. it does require a lot of support. at the site where they came, we didn't do it in their home but at the site they came to we had pharmacists available to help and some nurses or other

providers to make sure we had vital signs but it works beautifully and people didn't have to drive four hours to come see us. the other thing i wanted to e cion was the econ -- the onsult. one of the most frustrating things that i am not sure primary care providers understand is if you put a consult in with little information, it takes a whole lot of time to look at those that either answer questions or not answer questions. sometimes they are not well-thought-out. sometimes they are more of a triage which takes more of our time and delays people getting into cu. in to see getting you.

-- and did the follow-up and it was a great way to get initial theydone that by the time came to the clinic, you really could get more accomplished at the clinic visit. host: thanks for sharing your experience. dr. kvedar. guest: thank you for not only sharing your experience for all the hard work you have done over your career. are a veryssistants powerful role and we are just doing better and better with that profession. i think both of your comments are quite thoughtful and valid and i will address the e-consult one because i am a provider of those services as well. there is always tension between primary care and the specialists because they are both visit -- they are both busy people and they want to get things done. yes we sometimes get not enough

information from our -- in our case because it is always the same record, we can sort of spend a lot of time pulling from this file and that file and it is much easier if they package it all up for us. so itould say i am busy, tends to work. sometimes there is some tension but i think overall it is incredibly useful and most of the time a very efficient way to deliver care. host: one more call from deborah in missouri. caller: yes. i have a question. could the telemedicine be used to do a nationwide test study of covid where their doctors prescribe a test and have it delivered through the mail and then analyzed by a big research team like the cdc? guest: thank you for that.

that is very thoughtful. i think it could. i am not sure that is the most efficient way to get that done because having everyone tested as a public health initiative should be something we collective -- collectively decide is a good idea we probably don't need a telehealth visit to move that forward. when i was a kid, we all went in and got our vaccinations, lining up at school. something a little more regimented like that. great thought and i love the people are calling in with questions about the utilization because there are more and more utilize this wonderful toolset. i know we are getting short on time, it has to be high quality. you have to feel cared for. your doctor may want you to come in because maybe this is information she can't get by telehealth.

. that isn't a defeat that is them -- that isn't a defeat, that is them providing high-quality care. when the dust settles and we are back to normal -- back to a normal way of life, make noise about this if you had a good experience. let your representatives know and let your health plan no that you don't want to go back -- let your health plan know that you don't want to go back. host: we appreciate your time, dr. joseph kvedar. congratulations on your election. guest: thanks so much. host: thanks her being with us this morning. -- thanks for being with us this morning. morehead here on "washington journal." openingoing back to our conversation asking about your experience with covid-19. have you personally been affected by the virus? that line is (202)-748-8000. if you know a family member or

friend or colleague suffering from it, that is (202)-748-8001 and as before, medical professionals, the line for you is (202)-748-8002. show you theill comments, we read the news of president trump announcing the u.s. decision to temporarily halt funding for the world health organization. [video clip] job tothe who done its get medical experts into china who objectively assess -- to objectively assess the situation and call out china's lack of transparency, the outbreak could have been contained at its source with very little death and certainly very little death by comparison. this would have saved thousands of lives and avoided worldwide economic damage. instead the who willingly took china's assurances at face value and they took it just at face value and defended the actions of the chinese government, even

praising china for its so-called transparency. i don't think so. into --pushed china's misinformation about the virus, saying it was not communicable and there was no need for a travel ban. they told us when we put on our travel ban, there was no need to do it. they actually thought us. on china'seliance disclosures likely caused a 20 fold increase in cases worldwide and it may be much more than that. the who has not addressed a single one of these concerns nor provided a serious explanation that acknowledges its own mistakes, of which there were many. america and the world have chosen to rely on the who for accurate, timely and independent -- independent information to make public health recommendations and decisions. if we cannot trust that, this is

what we will receive from the country will be forced to find other ways to work with other nations to achieve public health goals. ies are now experiencing -- you look all of the world, tremendous death and economic devastation because those tasked with protecting us by being truthful or transparent failed to do so. it would have been so easy to be truthful and so much death has been caused by their mistakes. we will continue to engage with the who to see if it can make meaningful reforms. of the time being we will redirect global health -- for the time being we will redirect global health and work directly with others. all of the aid we send will be

discussed at very powerful level letter -- very powerful letters and with very powerful and influential groups and smart groups, medically, politically and every other way and we will be discussing it with other countries and global health partners, what we do with all that money. >> "washington journal" continues. host: some reaction to the president's announcement yesterday on the world health organization. bill gates tweeting this this morning. halting funding for the world health organization during a world health crisis is as dangerous as it sounds. their work is slowing the spread of covid-19 and if that work is stopped, no other -- no other organization can replace them. the world needs the world health organization now more than ever. former president barack obama endorsing joe biden as the 2020 democratic presidential candidate. to more endorsements just within the hour. senator elizabeth warren and her

and her endorsement, saying it is more important than ever for effective government and i have seen joe biden help our nation and today i am proud to endorse joe biden as president of the united states. michigan senator gary peters. throughout his primary, i have said the democrat party needs to put michigan and the issues that matter to our state first. i am supporting joe biden because i believe he is the person to do just that. back to our topic. what is your experience with covid-19? if you had or have it personally, (202)-748-8000. if you have a family -- if you have a friend, colleague or family member who has it, (202)-748-8001. we go to georgia first up. caller: i was wondering, wouldn't it be cheaper and less time-consuming if we were to treat the population as if

everybody was infected and just have them take the medication that is appropriate? i am concerned that the other ones having issues are having complications but as far as the general population, wouldn't it just be easier to have everybody treated as if they were infected -- i would think that that would be the easiest way to go and then wait for the results, why not just treat the -- i amon as infected just wondering if that is not the best way to go. host: let's hear from chris next in alabama. caller: yes. host: tell us about your experience. caller: i have had it and i am still struggling.

i am trying to get over it. my mom went in the hospital back in february and she has a brain i stayed at the hospital with her for a couple days and she had all the symptoms of it and they kept signs on the doors. you had to put a gallon on and a own on and a mask. host: did she have it first? caller: they were treating her for a lot of it. i got her back home and then two days later my sinuses got screwed up and i started bleeding profusely out of my nose. it looked like a murder scene. time i did not even get back

to the house because asserted bleeding and they put this thing up your nose to pump it up with air to stop the bleeding. they tested me for the flu and strep throat. host: did they ask or did you ask if they wanted to test you for covid-19? caller: i didn't know to ask for it. is they sent me gok home and then i had to octor sinus infection d and none of them helped me. host: do you have other symptoms related to coronavirus? caller: i still don't have no appetite. i might eat a little bit here or little but there. of sense of smell, the sense taste, nothing tastes right and you can't smell nothing and it has been this way -- this was

back in february, around the 15th. it started with my mom around the first of february. governor,ama's state one of the many briefings recovered around the country in reaction to the coronavirus and the state reaction. here is the briefing from yesterday on reopening that state. [video clip] >> president trump recently said he has total authority over when states can open up their economies. what are your thoughts on that? does the president have total authority or will you guys, will you lead the charge on allowing alabama to open up? >> we certainly want to work cooperatively with our governors across the nation and with the trump administration but what works in alabama works in alabama so we may have some

ideas they have not thought of and they may have some ideas we have not thought of but we will certainly work together and cooperate but we are doing what we believe to be in the best interest of alabamians to get back to work in a reasonable and orderly manner. host: back to your calls. in west new york, our next caller. caller: how is it going? host: good, thanks. caller: i have two roommates all could regularly go to new york city, but not anymore. sick for about two weeks with some symptoms after that. i still don't have a sense of smell. i can go right up to anything and not smell anything. none of us were able to be tested.

we did not have underlying conditions so we did not think we need to go to a hospital but i had a telemedicine appointment and the doctor i spoke to said treat it like you have it and call us if it gets any worse and that has been our experience here, not being able to get any kind of confirmation and also i would like to know, if i do have antibodies, can i be helpful by donating plasma and is it safer for me to go to be with my parents to not worry about getting them sick? host: in this conference with your doctor, he said treated like you've got it. with the test you if your symptoms got worse? caller: they didn't say so much they would test me but i imagine that that would have been the next step. and iid call us back

would have to come in if i was needing help and i imagine if i went in, they would have tested me but there was nothing available for somebody who was not feeling critical. but your biggest sensation was losing your sense of smell and you lost your sense of taste i assume? backr: my taste has come but i lost a sense of smell and we actually -- i had headaches every day like sinus headaches. my roommates had much more of a dry cough and it felt like they were having more of a breathing sore throats,had headaches and a loss of taste. host: you all get well in new jersey. nick is our next caller. caller: my daughter and my

son-in-law both believed that they had it. they called their individual doctors and explained their symptoms, loss of smell, fever and so forth and the ended up being told to just be cautious and be aware of what is happening over the next few days and if it gets worse, come in and we will address it or they will have to go somewhere. my question is how many of these people are not on the count of someone who received -- you had the disease? when we get these counts of how many people, those are only people who have been tested. how many more are there? host: that is a good question. the headline of the washington post, dismal retail and earnings data. u.s. stocks sinking at the opening with the dow jones industrial average falling more

than 500 points after that retail data. retail sales plunged 8.7% in march. the worst monthly decline ever as the coronavirus gutted consumer spending and force people to stay home. here is stephen illinois -- here is steve in illinois. caller: my mother died monday in a nursing home. host: i am sorry to hear that. caller: she had been there for a reason but the point is, i had -- i have heard that there is underreporting of the deaths in nursing homes. issuewas there a broader at the place where your mom was staying? caller: they shut that place down as far as visiting about the beginning of march. we had not been able to go see her and then we got the call monday, a couple days before that, she tested positive and then she died monday.

it seems like they are underreporting the deaths. host: how old was she? caller: 89. host: our condolences. thank you for calling in. our medical professional line, (202)-748-8002. caller: yes. thank you for taking my call and good morning to you. hasst wanted to ask, my son i am as and he is 28 and registered nurse for over 45 years. i asked if he is at home and has a fever, if there is anyway fire and rescue would get to him on , i hadd i was wondering asked a position for not only a years worth of kepra, which he had been on for years but

something to pull him out of a seizure. diazepam.ey use has -- even if he survives it, he would never survive a seizure. he just wouldn't. we had to do cpr on him twice. host: so is he living with you now? caller: he is not. he just had a baby as a matter of fact and that is why it came up. want tog of it is, i know if neurologists across the country realize that fire rescue won't ever show up on time to pull people out of a seizure and to be able to allow them to have diazepam or something similar to bring them out of a seizure, why

aren't they being allowed to do that? host: i appreciate you posing the question. i don't know the answer but good luck to your son. howard in phoenix, arizona. good morning. caller: hello. issue wide open here. most of of saying that the testing, almost all of the testing has been hospital-based and now we are into almost 12 january when you said that genetic code was shared with american scientists. how could there be such a gap without some kind of -- i hate to say it but almost a criminal kind of action on the part of

our leadership in the health field and political field in not getting tests out to the general population rapidly as has happened in south korea, germany and china? host: you are commenting on an earlier segment with dr. howard bochner, asking yorks -- we are asking your experience with covid-19. (202)-748-8000 if you have had personal experience with it. if you have a faint -- a friend or family member or colleague, (202)-748-8001. headline in the washington journal -- in the wall street journal, critics say the focus on immigration means funding was diverted, many jobs are vacant. line,al experience michael in dayton, ohio. caller: yes. callerned to a previous

speaking of his nose bleeding and i have had for the past , but weeks very soft stool nothing that i associated with this but then all of a sudden my nose started profusely bleeding and i am now a little concerned -- i doi don't have any have a slight cough. host: have you reached out to a doctor or other medical professional? caller: i had a teleconference with my doctor but at the time i did not bring this up with him because the nosebleed did not happen until about a week ago. i am on a fixed income, social

we need this stimulus package but i have not heard of anything -- i don't know if we are going to get any help on that but i need to be a little look into this and i am not sure exactly because the nose bleeding has stopped. it was very bad. host: did your doctor call back -- did your doctor tell you to call back if the symptoms got worse? caller: i did not explain the symptoms to him at the time because i did not know that they might have been related. host: it sounds like it is time to give him a call back. our next caller in massachusetts. aunt contracted the myus in a nursing home and about 38 or 39

years old has it but my question will asthma pumps help somewhat and could somebody come on and clarify that? host: we will put that out there. our line for medical professionals, (202)-748-8002. we go to georgia next. andrea, hello. my husband has a group of guys where he works. they had these same symptoms back in january and they are wondering if -- host: do us a favor and mute your volume and go ahead and ask your question. caller: my husband and a group

of guys where he works feel like they have had these same symptoms back in december and would there be a test to see if he has had at and if not, the way they've got employment, they will pay you if you had to be out with covid-19 but the way the medical system is, they will not test you unless you are seriously ill. host: what kind of work does your husband do? caller: he is a welder. host: is he still working or does he stay home? caller: he is still working. pay if theyey would come down with covid-19 but the way i understand it, they will

not test you unless you are in critical. host: we appreciate you calling in. as we have mentioned throughout the program, we continue to cover the updated governors across the country. you can follow all of it at c-span.org/coronavirus. among those we regularly feature is the governor of california, issuing a six-point plan yesterday for reopening the state. [video clip] >> it will not be normal at least until we have heard immunity and we have a vaccine because as someone like yourself looks forward to going back out and having dinner, as the doctors said, you may be having dinner with a waiter wearing dinnerand a facemask, where the menu is disposable, where half of the tables no longer appear, where your temperature is checked before

you walk in to the establishment. these are likely scenarios as we begin to process the next phase, the next iteration for businesses. the same opportunity and responsibility will allow for their employees to practice safe physical distancing which means they have to redesign those businesses. retailers have to redesign their protocols and procedures. host: to our line for medical professionals, marlene in pennsylvania. caller: hello. good morning everyone. taking theyone is governors seriously about wearing a mask. i experienced it myself about three weeks ago. i was in the pharmacy. i saw a woman coughing all over the woman that was taking the money and another lady standing next to her.

the woman that was coughing does i amthe coronavirus and just going to say please, take precautions everybody because i have been home now for several weeks to make sure i didn't breathe that air but at the time i was wearing a mask. my son was saying it is not airborne and i said viruses are. i did have a mask on. please, everyone take care. host: thanks for that. toya inhear from michigan. caller: how are you? host: fine, thanks. caller: my son got sick. he is 40. he got sick at the end of january and he was really sick for a couple weeks. is 45, sheghter who

was extremely sick with all the covid symptoms for weeks. she blew a blood vessel in her eye. then i caught it in the middle of february and all of us were son was sickgest for about a month and my -- i was sick for six weeks. this has been around a whole lot longer than anybody knew about. host: did any of you get tested? caller: my son did and he had it. he started it. i called the doctor and they told me to take it easy. i had problems breathing and the

coughing and the headaches and the no taste and no smell and a slight bit of vomiting. i had all of the other symptoms. host: they didn't order a test for you. caller: they did not. i have been trying to get in anybody's test because i know we have had it. my sister in texas got it from .ork she is an essential worker. itis all over the place and has been for a long time. host: we will go to colorado next. chuck, good morning. caller: i came down with it towards the last of december and have copd,-- i asthma and allergies.

it went to the bottom of my lungs and it was a productive costs -- so -- it was a productive cough but it was so hard to get anything. it really taxed my muscles. my muscles were really cramping up. host: when did you get your test and how did that happen? caller: i haven't had a test. i cannot get a test. host: why is that? caller: they are only giving tests out for high dollars here. you have to pay a lot of money to get a test and i don't have any insurance. the veterans administration is severely hampered now. host: they don't have the test at the va hospital? caller: they are short everything. they are short ppe and everything. i understand if you take an ace one inhibitor, which is for

heart, it makes it even harder the ace 2 attacks sites on your lungs. host: good luck with that. byare joined next congressman goossen colorado who represents from boulder all the way up to wyoming. tell us about the impact of the virus in your district. guest: thank you for having me. our state has certainly been hit hard. it is very trying circumstances in respect to the covid-19 pandemic. we have a number of hotspots throughout the state including in my district, home to wonderful communities where we have some of the highest per capita rates in the country --

in the state. -- we seem to be flatten the curve but again, it is a work in progress. more work should be done. we have to stick with enforcing that we ultimately do what we can to overcome the challenge. host: tell us about the situation with small businesses in your district. are some of them being able to take advantage of the money available from the cares act that congress passed? guest: some people are. the good news is the loans have started to be disturbing to and -- have started to be distributed and that is certainly a good thing in colorado. infancy.am is in its

it has been a struggle to get folks immediate relief they need. small businesses are hurting. across my district, i hear from business leaders, the between, e reality that we find ourselves in is it is hard. it will be important to increase as ppe program, as well making economic relief for colorado and of the country at large. host: you also proposed additional assistance for medium-size communities in your district, to the front line workers and first responders on this issue. do you think that will be included in an upcoming bill in congress? guest: i certainly hope our proposal that you referenced will be included, and we are working toward that end. far hasce an office so

myn guided by hearing for constituents and addressing local concerns and to solving local problems. in this case, we have heard from the county commissioners, mayors and officials about the reality of the property tax revenues -- that cities and local small counties are sustaining, particularly in rural america. there are parts of my district that are rural and have been hit hard. they are spending a good amount of resources to ensure that the police and firefighters are protecting our community. so congress needs to step up to the plate and allocate the resources so they can continue to operate in that fashion. the vast majority of americans live in cities that are smaller than 40,000 or 50,000 people, and many of those cities were

left out in terms of having direct benefits from the cares act. we are hoping for a bipartisan proposal, democrats and republicans coming together for $250 billion per cities, ensuring that we pay hazard pay to our nurses and doctors, the heroes on the front lines who are sacrificing their own health and safety to protect the lives of others. we should make sure we are compensating them appropriately. host: majority leader pushing back the return date for the house to may 4, is that a realistic deadline? guest: i am not sure. i suppose time will tell. i can say that we may be back in washington sooner than that, because ultimately we will have to make sure that we meet the urgency of this crisis, to the extent that our physical presence is needed to approve an

emergency package that we are working so hard on. i'm sure that others will be eager to return to get that done. inare of course working here our districts as well, doing everything we can to coordinate with our state officials as we address this crisis. host: we appreciate you being with us, congressman representing the second district in colorado. thanks for being here. thanks to all of you for joining us. "washington journal" tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern, as we are doing every weekday during the pandemic, and back here tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern. we hope you are too. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] ♪

announcer: a look at live coverage today. charlie baker answers questions at 11:00 about his estate's coronavirus response. then phil murphy will give an update on the covid-19 pandemic in new jersey. at five a copy them, the daily white house task force briefing with president trump. you can also watch of these events alive at c-span.org, or listen with the free c-span radio app. ♪ announcer: "washington journal" primetime, a special evening addition of the show on the federal response to the pandemic. doctor with the university of washington on the importance of metrics and data in tracking and slowing the spread of the coronavirus. and republican congressman dan

newhouse on the coronavirus response in his district. join the conversation tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. c-span has round-the-clock coverage of the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic, and it is all available on demand at c-span.org/coronavirus. watch white house briefings, updates from governors and state officials, track the spread throughout the u.s. and of world with interactive maps, watch atdemand anytime, unfiltered c-span.org/coronavirus. in response to the coronavirus pandemic, california governor gavin newsom announced a roadmap to modify the state 's stay-at-home order that would be less restrictive and more focused on individual

responsibility. he also warned that mass gatherings in the summer are still highly unlikely. this is one hour. gov. newsom: so we have gone through a series of what i would refer to as pandemic response shifts since we started this journey together late in january. the first strategy, as part of our strategy of containment, began when we started to repatriate those first flights coming from mainland china and elsewhere. the second phase was the mitigation phase. adopting strategies as we saw the first case of community spread to advanced stay-at-home orders for seniors, to begin the process of closing down our schools. and population-based strategies to mitigate spread, that