and the stages states are taking to reopen. a look at how the coronavirus compares to past pandemics with dr. howard markel, director for the center of the history of medicine at the university of michigan. ♪ a look at president trump yesterday in phoenix, arizona touring a plant manufacturing n95 masks. it was his first trip outside of washington in over a month. the president promoting reopening american businesses and ending the white house coronavirus task force. fors washington journal wednesday, may 6, 2020. in this first hour of the program we will ask you about the president leadership on the coronavirus pandemic. do you generally support or oppose administration efforts? (202) 748-8000 if

you support the handling. the number if you oppose is (202) 748-8001. .end us a text (202) 748-8003 nwj.witter we are @cspa we welcome your posts on facebook. for some perspective on the coronavirus task force established by the white house on january the 29th. the health and human services secretary originally leading that group and mice president -- vice president pence was put in charge of the efforts at the end of february. they are reporting on the proposed ending of the task force. the wall street journal online saying that the white house is discussing phasing out coronavirus task force. .ack to that visit to phoenix the front page of the washington times with a photo of the president at the plant along with his chief of staff.

trump promises to build -- yearg he opened up a new -- vowing to rebuild and economy devastated by the coronavirus in the six months left before he faces voters judgment. on the work of the task force, here is what the president said. >> we can't keep our country closed for the next five years. you can say there might be a recurrence, and there might be. most doctors say it will happen. it will be a flame and we will put the flameout. we have learned a lot about the coronavirus. we have learned about this hidden enemy. it's a dangerous enemy. it's a bad enemy. you see what it does. especially for people over a certain age and people that have an infirmity. if you have a diabetes or bad heart because after you, it is

vicious. we are saying that people that are over 60, 65 stay back for a while. we recommend you stay back. young same time, with children and children we would like to see the schools open early next season. host: president trump yesterday in phoenix. ofing you about the handling the coronavirus pandemic by this administration. .f you support (202) 748-8000 if you oppose (202) 748-8001. story, a vaccine expert says he was punished for raising concerns about trump's coronavirus response nepotism. of themer head biomedical research and development authority has filed a formal whistleblower complaint alleging that he was involuntarily transferred to a

position because he raised concern about trump's covid-19 response and nepotism in the department of health and human services. the most explosive accusation, he alleges he was pressured by the hhs secretary alex azar to allow distribution of hydroxychloroquine, and malaria drug unproven as a covid-19 treatment championed by president trump. according to the complaint, bright worked frantically alongside a top food and drug administration official to resist a plan to distribute the drug widely. a politicond that report this morning says that mr. bright will testify before a house committee next thursday. we will could be a posted on any popular plans. a whistleblower complaint last night on msnbc. here is the speaker of the house. i am saddened by

the testimony of dr. bright. chaired bye hearings frank pallone of new jersey. that will happen i believe next week. to bring before congress the testimony of dr. bright area the thing is, this points to the larger issue, the ethics in all of this. we are so excited about the bill we are putting forth because it is about ethics. thes ethical for us to have test that we need so that everyone is tested and certain communities are not left behind because they did not have enough or did not have the right thing. drugwe have a vaccine or a as dr. bright is referencing, that it be available to everyone. it can't be available to everyone unless we have the

supply chain or the ingredients. system toe delivery deliver it to everybody so that nobody is left behind. this is not a market opportunity for business. it is a moral imperative for public health in our country. testimony hear the that is presented. is last thing we need political resistance to science because science is our key. science is the way to unlock the lock out. guest: -- reporting on the president's trip to arizona. the task force may wind down. trump team says agencies will take a lead but critics say it is too soon to disband. your thoughts on the handling of the pandemic? andre in maryland. go ahead. caller: good morning.

of all the leaders in the world this has hand -- that have handled this virus, donald trump is last. he is last because he knows where it came from. remember this, donald trump as president has access to the nation's most dark and deadly secrets. we have to assume he is using our weapons against us. take a look at pompeo. where did he go when he first came in? they sent him down to langley and then he went to the state department. we need to look at that. look at his handling. he has been on the others of the table with all the medical experts. he knows what this came from. -- when he is talking about something he is describing -- he said the virus came along -- somebody has found out how to use this --

we are fighting the enemy inside the white house. caroline in annapolis, maryland. go ahead. caller: good morning. he is just plain not well. in the last two weeks he has msnbc,d president obama, he compares himself in a delusional way to abraham lincoln, attacking female reporters. give me a break. another female reporter a third-rate lapdog. we have to get rid of him. nextnnot wait until january. unfortunately, politically it is not going to happen by the 25th amendment and that is the only

thing that we have access to that won't work. we will have to grin and bear it and make sure that a human being in this country today that is qualified never votes for another republican again. host: according to the president -- brian is next. good morning from virginia. caller: how are you? host: fine thanks. caller: i think he is doing the best he can. i don't see why everybody is trying to go against him. look, there is nobody else that can handle it the way he is. host: do you think the task force is needed or the indication is the president is going to turn that roll back over to the lead agencies in charge? caller: i don't think he will turn it over right now.

i think he knows how to handle it. go to west, now we plains , missouri and hear from justin. caller: i think president trump is doing an awesome job and he is handling this for the people. not for him, he is doing it for the people. host: fairfax, south dakota. doug, good morning. caller: you would have to be stupid not to realize that trump dropped the ball on this. we have 17 intelligence agencies and they didn't know anything about this or was it that trump did not want to hurt the stock market? i think it is more likely that trump did not want to hurt the stock market and played it down for the month of february. whenled in on march 2 there were two dads and pedro

asked if i thought it would get worse and i said it would get terrible. the virus wasence in china along time ago. obama -- when obama and biden were in there i went out becauseht new equipment soybeans were $14 a bushel and corn was $18 a bushel. corn and $2.70 for soybeans are eight dollars a bushel since trump posterity for . you have to be stupid not to realize that the taxpayers are paying the tariffs that are being given to the farmers. that is what you call socialism. biden's accuser needs to be looked into, but look into trump's 23 accusers. rump was accused of rape by

his wife. that's all i have been saved. dakota,g in south reaction on twitter and text. "trump is a disgrace on our country and anything he does is pure misinformation." his doctorsnt and are doing a good job, they have handled a great from the beginning. the left-wing media wants to like, smear, and destroy his presidency. continue to push fear mongering of a disease with a 98% recovery rate and rational people look around and realize they have been scammed. why should people so inept at a virus be put in charge of anything much less health care? ."

a virus tightens its deadly grip, they write in new york city the daily amount of deaths from the coronavirus has dropped to half of what it was. in chicago, a lakefront makeshift hospital is closing deemed no longer needed. in new orleans cases have dwindled to a handful, across america the signs of progress obscure a darker reality. the country is still in the firm grip of a pandemic with little hope of release. they know coronavirus in america now looks like this and more than a month has passed since there was a day with fewer than 1000 deaths from a virus. new cases5 thousand are identified each day, the with more thans. one million cases is expanding by between 2% and 4% daily. ryan is in newberg, oregon. go ahead. caller: i wanted to say,

personally i think trump did find on this from a people standpoint. if you look at what he did on the tech side -- in kentucky,as good morning thomas. i don't think he has done well handling it at all and i don't think biden would have done better. --ave heard walt is next from pittsburgh, pennsylvania. supporting the president's effort so far. caller: if you look at the time limit he had he had a great job. seeing all these news -- theys criticize him

are making out the new york governor like he is some kind of hero. is doing a great job. with schumer and pelosi, they are backing china. trusting a statist country like china or the united states. to me that is disgusting. these people calling in don't bring that up. they must listen to cnn and nbc because they are crackpots. nancy pelosi is a joke. talk to nancy pelosi and tell her to quit wiping hearse not on the podium when she is not wearing a mask. yesterday president trump was asked about dr. anthony found she. the white house said the administration is not providing dr. fauci to testify before a house committee.

here is what the president said. pres. trump: the house is a set up. the house is a bunch of trump haters. they put every trump hater on the committee. they want our situation to be unsuccessful which means death. which means death. our situation is going to be successful. the house will put on an oversight committee of maxine waters and the same people and it is just a set up. dr. fauci will be testifying in front of the senate and he looks forward to doing that. tell you, theill house they should be ashamed of themselves. democrats should be ashamed because they don't want us to succeed. they want us to fail which -- think of it. they do everything they can to make things as bad as possible, and right now the stock market is way up and everyone is

excited and going back to work. we are opening up our country again. this is what we are doing. the whole world is excited watching us. this first hour, do you support or oppose the president handling of the coronavirus pandemic? (202) 748-8000 if you support. (202) 748-8001 if you oppose. from murfreesboro, tennessee. james, go ahead. in tennessee, you are on. go ahead. ok. we will go to silver springs. hello. caller: how are you doing. doing at trump is fantastic job with what he has to work with. i think he's done a fantastic job since he got elected. this is nobody saw coming.

i think he did a fantastic job of trying. when he gets reelected we will be right back host: where we started. host:-- host: matt from new york, what are you thinking? caller: i support trump. he has an excellent team around him. i remember the democrats calling him a racist when he stopped to travel from china. it doesn't matter what he does, they will say it is bad. this the same lines with ap.it's a bunch of cr to buy he refused ventilators because they were too expensive. since 2016 he has given puerto rico over 100 million dollars in aid and cash.

i thought he was the governor of new york, not the governor of puerto rico. happened we were facing over $1 billion deficit because the dems control the section of the state. him crying poverty is a bunch of baloney. host: to kansas we go. this is brian who opposes the president's efforts. caller: thank you. just baffled to listen to people say he has done a great job. maybe we can put this in terms of golf and maybe he would understand that and maybe other people would. the person that has the lowest score unfortunately in this case score means deaths. the person that has the lowest score has done the best job.

job.ve done the worst we have more deaths than anybody in the world. to say that we did not see this coming. in man had briefings january. he did not secure and he ventilators, annie ppe. the whole month of february he did nothing. january he did nothing. closede down travel -- down travel and then 40,000 more people came in. it was already here anyway. how can people say he has done a great job? we are losing. there will be over 100,000 people -- nobody in the world has lost more people but he has done a great job? host: some people are saying on

social media. on twitter, she says trump blewett from the beginning and then lied about it. from theblew it beginning and then lied about it. business as usual. trump took the opportunity to under thee public a guise of his coronavirus briefings. -- nobody could do better with an invisible enemy says marlene. trump will never take the virus seriously until it hits the villages in florida. then he will blame it on the governor and cry that everyone hates him. raymond says that president trump is doing great balancing health and safety with his legendary economy. back to business on capitol hill for the senate. forerday the senate hearing the director of national intelligence nominee, john

ratcliffe. congressman john ratcliffe of texas. ratcliff vows independence if confirmed as spy chief. forth withnd congressman ratcliff and senator tom cotton on the role of china in the pandemic. senator kotten: let me follow up on the questioning about if you have seen any intelligence about originating in a lab in wuhan. have you seen any intelligence that supports the claim that it originated in a seafood market in wuhan? >> no. >> i presume you are aware that the respected scientific journal published a study of chinese scientists in january that concluded that it did not originate in the market. >> i have. >> that more than a third of the original cases had no contact with the market including what they believe to be the first known case. >> i do not recall.

>> are you aware that to the best of our knowledge there is that the horseshoe bat was sold at the market. >> that is my understanding. >> it has been a while and through no one's fault -- i had an updated classified briefing regarding the coronavirus pandemic. >> everything we just discussed on collectedstine information or a national security secret, it is publicly supported -- publicly reported. much of what we know about the virus is the result of publicly reported information or social media evidence from wuhan in the early days and so forth. of thatical is the role

unclassified public information. >> one of the things we are seeing is open source intelligence is increasingly valuable and we need to find ways to make sure -- there were large sets of data that we need to be processing their so it is a challenge, but i tremendous -- by theld be utilized intelligence community going forward. host: like all of our coverage that hearing is available on our website. a couple of stories about china in the newspapers this morning. we will start with the wall street journal. the u.s. urges the eu to back a china probe. the trump administration pressing the european union to support an international inquiry of china's handling of the

coronavirus and handling of the pandemic as brussels's refuses to take aside over the responsibility of the crisis. the u.s. is seeking an international probe into whether beijing mishandled the contagion in its early stages. that is from the wall thre stret journal. a small piece in the new york times. beijing was slow to shift supplies. this spring beijing energetically increased exports of medical supplies and asked for and politicians to thank china publicly for shipments. a study released found that the shipments were slow to get started and by mid-march china was already pursuing mass diplomacy after an ambitious nationwide mobilization of medical supply production through february. the study cast doubt on whether the humanitarian aid took place since chinese exports were down in march.

the tonnage of net exports of respirators and surgical masks was down 5% in march from the same month a year earlier according to an analysis by a trade specialist at that she peterson institute for international economics in washington. back to your calls and comments on the president's leadership on the coronavirus pandemic. him, (202)ort 748-8000. if you oppose, (202) 748-8001. i think president trump has done a great job. i think if anyone wants to put the blame we need to put the for keeping this from not only the united states, but the world. i get tired of politics being brought into this. this virus does not care if you are a democrat, republican,

independent, what your race or religion is. it once a host and it has found a host. he has -- i think he has handled it well. our governor last week when he started opening things come i understand people have to go back to work. our governor says south carolina is about business. if you don't have human life and people are sick and dying and they don't have as misses. -- i think trump has handled this very well. we need to put the blame where the blame belongs and that starts with china and how long they knew about this and did not let it out until they had to tell the world about it. we go to north carolina next. this is anne from north carolina. caller: i think everybody who

says trump has done a good job, i don't think they know what good is. everyone who speaks against that man has spoken for me. he asked a question wants, why don't some people from the north, why don't they come here from the north like they are coming now in the form of a virus? is politico this morning. while trump touted reopening his team was sounding alarm. on may 1 trump posted that his success in responding to the coronavirus has made ventilator test kits and mask shortages a thing of the past and that much of the country is ready to send people quickly back to work. they have ensured a ventilator for everyone who needs one they claim. have solved every problem and quickly. politico writes his own health

and emergency management officials are privately warning states were still experiencing shortages of medical gear a quartering to a recording of an inter-agency eating -- meeting between fema and hhs officials in a conference call obtained by politico. trump's friend are a stay-at-home guidelines quietly expired leaving states to manage the pandemic as they saw fit. officials expressed concerns that governors moving to reopen their economies while cases were still prevalent threatened to plunge the nation into a new deadlier chapter of the outbreak. here is what some people are saying on text and tweet. this is from nathaniel in new jersey, saying the situation has been mishandled from the objectiveand any observer can see the administration did not take it serious. the president and his task force have gone a good job but he is his own worst enemy when he add

lives and talks out of school when he does not know -- need to he hurts his credibility. i hear that wendy's is running out of beef and things are getting progressively worse. since when has the united states bend the paragon of incompetence when responding to a crisis? stephen in michigan, if president trump wants the economy to recover he needs to send one trillion to the states. all states. if he does not we are headed for a depression and the layoffs will be astronomical. the new york post with a story this morning. blue state coronavirus bailouts are unfair to republicans, trump says. they write that states our last -- states should not count on federal bailouts, especially states run by democrats.

trump echoed recent remarks by senate majority leader mitch mcconnell who last month refused to open federal coffers for blue state governments including new york that had been hit hard by the pandemic. let's hear from frank in georgia. go ahead. caller: good morning. done an excellent job considering china tried to hide the truth, they cut off all travel in their own country to protect their own country. they lied about how contagious this thing was. . we probably should have done what the swedes did and shut .own immediately we need to develop herd immunity like the swedes are doing. people will develop antibodies and the immunity will be there is no going back

now. we need to let this thing run a course. we need to develop a vaccine. people need to stop panicking and the media needs to stop miss -- misrepresenting the stats. we have tested more than any country. more than any country. not tracing. you can't trace down this to visa -- disease. you have to have a vaccine. host: one of our tweets a moment ago mentioned wendy's. clayreport a tweet from masters of iowa public radio. beginning limited operation of its plant in waterloo, iowa more than two weeks after closing the facility.

we go to vivian in fredericksburg, virginia. caller: good morning. the trump supporters blame everybody, just like trump, but him. said the first thing they heard about this virus was type of good job is he doing? would be hundred 10 when he was living. school, cannot go to our grandkids can't graduate from college. my granddaughter can't graduate from high school. i don't know if she will be able to go to college. 71,000 people have died.

1.2 million have become infected. good is in that? we have not done more tests than anyone per capita. would stoph you letting these people lie and spread misinformation. this is why we are in the shape we are in. these people that support trump are a curse. they can't thank. host: let's hear from joe in somerset, new jersey. -- new morning -- caller: the woman on before me said spreading lies. let's get the facts. nobody could do any of this. nobody could do -- let's get the facts. when was the first cases reported by washington? theound out two weeks ago

first two cases were in california and not reported by health officials because they thought the people died of heart attacks because the woman was a heart attack victim, it was coronavirus but it turns out it was. we made mistakes from day one. south korea and hong kong all had masks when you ask the maskss if we should wear they said keep the masks for medical workers or first responders. -- if these people were running world war ii we would be speaking japanese and german take a look at the meat plants. before they announced the pig plant in north dakota i think --

people were saying they were dying and had cases and people were going to work. one about the kids on the --ches in florida host: has your governor reopened to beaches in new jersey? caller: he has not. nobody could handle this. what about cuomo with the nursing problems in new york .tate what about having the ship in new york and not using it. what about the money they spent on the center. did they have over 2000 cases? the storymentioned about governor cuomo and nursing homes version the governor defended his handling of nursing homes one day after the state reported more than 1700 reviews late undisclosed deaths at nursing and adult care facilities that remain the

epicenter of the covid-19 outbreak in the u.s.. we hear from robert and greenville, north carolina. as far as donald trump he has let us down -- he has let us down in every aspect of everything concerned with this virus. this herd mentality, the herd mentality he wants is brown people, black people, and poor white people will be the ones that dropdead not his wealthy friends who can stay home for a year if they have to. they don't have to go anywhere or do anything. host: an update on ruth bader ginsburg, the justice in the hospital with an infection. the washington free beacon reporting that justice ruth bader ginsburg was hospitalized tuesday for a benign gallbladder condition.

she underwent nonsurgical treatment for the condition earlier in the day at johns hopkins hospital in baltimore. she expects to remain in the hospital for a day or two where she will continue participating in oral arguments by telephone. those oral arguments are coming up today live at a local seas -- live beginning at 10:00. the court is providing live feeds of oral arguments, the teleconferences, first of two getting way at 10:00 eastern, a look at whether -- a bill dealing with cell phone calls and you can follow that as well. two hours of oral argument and all of that getting underway at 10:00 eastern on c-span and on c-span radio. georgetown, south carolina is next. caller: hello, thank you for

taking my call. trump andpresident what he is doing. it trying he can do vaccinehe virus -- the -- he is finding that. what i am sick and tired of hearing is this 25,000 cases a day. that is not 25,000 cases. that is 25,000 people that tested positive for the antibodies. they did not get the disease, some of them did. the ones that did are immune. host: up next in sacramento, california. caller: i am telling you the truth, these republicans, i don't know. i don't see how anybody could vote for any republican, congress and the president jacked up.

you have this man that knew since last year if you ask me, he has been trying to keep it from the people. is for the blacks, hispanics, native americans who are the real jews, hebrew is the life. host: carol from north carolina. do you support or oppose the efforts of the president so far in the pandemic? caller: i support his efforts in the plan day make -- pandemic. host: tell us why. caller: i think it is just a farce that we have a pandemic. trump knows it's a farce. i think faucher she helped bring it on. host: what do you mean? caller: i think it was manufactured. manufactured to bring us down.

gotten into not office we would be well on our way to oblivion. obama heht years of was setting the stage and hillary was going to bring us down even further. we would not be a country -- host: you believe it was manufactured by whom? caller: by the research they were doing. helped to get funding for research that was done in wuhan for this virus. it was one of those targets that they use on everybody in the u.s.. and everybody now in the world. found the medicine that really helped with the aignernd i think it is and of people that can't see the

big picture -- hill article a reporting on an exclusive interview with dr. fauci binational greek geographic. they write that dr. anthony found she, a member of the white house coronavirus task force shot down theories that the virus that caused the global pandemic was man-made or released accidentally from a chinese lab. interview dr.ing fauci said available research indicated the virus evolved naturally and if you look at the evolution of the virus and what is out there now it is very strongly leaning towards this virus could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated the way the mutations have naturally evolved. a number of very qualified evolutionary biologists have said everything about the evolution over time strongly indicates that it evolves in

nature and then jumps species. dr. fauci dismissed theories the virus was naturally occurring but had been accidentally released from a lab where it was being studied, setting off a pandemic. you can read that report at thehill.com. a synopsis of an interview published with national geographic. from robbinsville, north carolina. caller: i would like to express that it appears that the people who are supporting trump refused to flip the coin and look at the other side of the argument. they see one side, they see fox they they see newsmax and don't seem to assimilate the other side of the coin. i watch fox news. i watch msnbc. i watch you guys. you cannot assimilate or get to the truth unless you are looking at all sides of the story.

most of these folks that blindly support trump don't see the lies that have been documented extremely well. his misstatements about the coronavirus are legendary and it is hard for me to understand why they feel that way. they are only seeing one side of the story. if you only look at one side of the story you will only see one side of the story. i urge them to look at all sides of the story and to make a judgment based on intelligent people. update from johns hopkins university on their dashboard of worldwide cases. on u.s.focused in cases. 1.2 million u.s. cases and the 71,000 deaths so far in the u.s.. you can look at how many tests

they have aggregated. u.s.,test results in the 7.5 million tests in the u.s., breaking it down by state level the amount of recovery. linda, you are on the air. hello, my name is linda and i support president trump for everything he has done. i do watch all the stations, not just fox or that other station that your last caller said. him 100% credit. the man probably does not sleep. he is full of energy. want?oes this country that's my question. i thank you for listening.

we go to alberta in maryland. morning, hello to everybody. and to the wonderful lady that just spoke, i listened to them also. if you look at the map across the u.s. the people that have offended trump are the people that are hardest hit. york, schumer, california with pelosi and maxine waters. the people that he disliked, the democratic states he is burning them up. he is supposed to out for all of us. this man is really unstable. host: anthony is next in richmond, virginia. caller: the woman in north carolina doesn't know what

people watch. she does blanket claims we are watching one side. she doesn't know anything about what people are watching. i support donald trump. i think democrats are trying to use this virus to divide us and a lot of people are falling for it. -- they areng to using this to push a mail-in ballot. i think that in my opinion the by --s are being inflated not that anyone is doing it with bad intent -- if you look at cdc recommendations -- people can be marked as covid-19 deaths if it is assumed they had the disease instead of tested positive. i think there is the possibility for the inflation of numbers to make it look worse than it is. host: what would be the point behind inflation of numbers? it is: i don't think

anything malicious. you could have someone who gets counted as dying from the disease even if they have never tested positive for it. the cdc states you can assume that someone has died of disease and mark that as the reason of death even if it is not confirmed. at the to look possibility that this kind of stuff is happening. everyduring the pandemic, night at 8:00 eastern here on c-span, tonight our guest ra former health and human services secretary in the obama administration, now president of american university will talk about the public health and academic response. also joining us is a washington dc delegate with an update on the cities tour response. eastern tonight here on c-span and c-span radio. to baton rouge, louisiana. chris is up next. caller: hey, how are you doing.

we have been dealing with this for a little over four months. the first two months he spent downplaying the virus, calling it a hoax, and making sure we did not panic so the stock market would be undamaged. he knew that if the damage came here the economy would be messed up and the stock market would be messed up and he would lose the election. he spent two months pretending it was not a big issue until he could not pretend. he has spent two months dividing the country and having people question health experts, they are saying the numbers are made up. he is talking about red states and blue states and looking for scapegoats. he does not care how many people die or how fast the virus spreads. all he cares about is what the stock market looks like and what the economy looks like. a call from jackie in trenton, missouri. caller: what i don't understand

how people can blame president trump for a virus when it is a worldwide pandemic. it is not just a united states thing. people are not taking responsibility for their own actions. take responsibility and do the things they should do to keep it from spreading. you can't depend on the government to do everything for you. host: a headline in usa today. protests from a recent oral argument back last june, we are happy to welcome a supreme court correspondent for thomson reuters. we have no baseball but we have a doubleheader at the supreme court. we will start with the little sisters of the poor case. good morning, lawrence. guest: good morning.

host: tell us about the first case starting at 10:00. a combination of cases. two combined cases. a case challenging the trump administration's rule from 2018 that expounds the religious and moral objection exemption to the obamacare health care rules requirement that contraception been ared which has long-running contentious issue back to the obama administration which had a smaller exemption and the trump administration wants to make it broader and that is what this case is about. host: what would that mean for the future? that part of the affordable care act? beif it's upheld there would

a broader exemption which means that more people -- more employers would be able to get an exemption so they don't have to provide contraception coverage for employees or their health insurance. administration they had an accommodation for religiously affiliated groups -- places of worship or exempt but they allowed an exemption to allow this accommodation for religiously affiliated groups and the trump administration once to make it broader so that more groups and employers, including private and public companies, could use the same exception. >> the trump administration supporting that in court, who is on the others? >> this is being challenged by pennsylvania and new jersey.

there has been other litigation with other states challenging it, mainly democratic states. administration creating this broadening and that is what the supreme court will be discussing. host: the court is scheduled to be in session through the end of june wrapping up this current session, we are in the third of 10 cases the court will provide live via teleconference today. there anys term are other aca related cases expected to come up? guest: the court ruled on one last week on a different type of issue. it was not a challenge to a part of the law but a challenge by tolth insurance companies congress's refusal to provide

money these companies were owed under the aca going back to the early years of the law being implemented when the companies incurred various costs trying to expand health care coverage. the supreme court ruled in favor of the insurers and said the u.s. government cannot promise to pay companies these moneys and then renege on the promise and that was worth up to $12 billion to the health insurance companies. next term the court will hear this big case on the constitutionality of the aca. upt: the next case coming today that we will hear is the bar versus the american association of political consultants. what is that about? is a case about a challenge to part of a federal law of the federal consumer

protection act which bars prerecorded phone calls being distributed to people cell phones. it's a free speech challenge to that. the government is allowed to do that or related groups are allowed to do that for debt political and consultants and other people involved in the political world are trying to say it is a free speech violation because it allows for phone calls but not other types of calls. host: have you listened to the first two days of oral arguments by teleconference what are your takeaways. who is most comfortable with this format and how is it for you as a reporter? away is justice clarence thomas who nearly always never says a thing and oral arguments, he has embraced this new format where the

justices take turns asking questions instead of it being a free-for-all where they jump in and try to get their question in and are often interrupting each other or talking over each other. he was not a big fan of that which may be why he did not ask questions, we will never be sure quite why he did not. in this new system he is quite happy to weigh in and so far in all the cases he has asked questions of lawyers on both sides. for me it is weird covering the court from my basement. it has been an experience covering it live. usually you are in the courtroom and not allowed to leave until the end and you can write the story. now we can provide live coverage and that means --

are you doing some of that, are you tweeting during some of these oral arguments? yes. especially for the first argument with the novelty of it it was interesting -- the fact that clarence thomas asked a question, these are not the type of things you might normally focus on in the argument but because of the novelty of it that makes it interesting. story of ruththe bader ginsburg hospitalized last night for a gallbladder concern but we understand that reports indicate she is going to be participating today in the arguments. >> the quote says she is actually going to be calling in to the oral arguments from her hospital room, so that is another first. host: he covers the court for

thomson reuters and you can follow his reporting. thank you for the update and joining us. a reminder about our coverage. , the:00 eastern teleconferences of oral arguments coming up at 10:00 eastern live on c-span. following that we will have coverage from the national constitution center. moderating a discussion with legal scholars on the arguments for today. ahead here on washington journal, the ceo of the national association of free and charitable clinics, we will talk about the coronavirus pandemic impact on health care facilities . we will be joined ia director for the center of the history of medicine who will talk about covid-19 and what could be learned from past pandemics. the defense secretary from a

briefing yesterday responding to a recent letter from democratic senators >> i want am very disappointed that members of congress, particularly those on the armed services committee and those receiving updates from us would write a letter including a number of misleading and false statements. it does not recognize all the department of defense has done, particularly with 62 million americans and many times risking their own health to protect the american people. i've spoken with hall governors who represent the areas that sign the governor -- every step of the way, we have been ahead of the curve, met their needs, and on everything we can to help the american people. -- statements in the latter

letter i'm hearing don't match what the governor is saying. all the time with state, local, and federal authorities. there are number things we can go through. we will respond in due course, but i'm disappointed in that letter and does not reflect the facts. the new york times putting out a full story that we expressed some sort of guidance that commanders were not allowed to take action unless it was improved -- approved in advance. that has been debunked several times yet we continue to see others, including in this letter, citing a source, an anonymous source, who was not even in the room. ofwas the recitation falsehoods like that that is

disappointing. our commitment is to preferred -- provide icard information, which we do on a weekly basis. i have spoken to the chairman and ranking members of the committees multiple times to include the last couple days. all of the information is out there to have a good discussion. we recognize congress has an important oversight role but should be an informed oversight role. we are committed to do that to address any members concerns but ,o live up to the three parties protect our people, they sure we ensure our national mission capabilities, and number three, support to local 30's. >> on c-span, our recovery -- our coverage continues with lamoureux.

>> thank you for having me. host: tell me about your organization. how many free and -- free clinics do you -- free clinics and organizations are you a part of? free andresent 1400 charitable clinics and pharmacies all across the united the tar allerica 501 b three nonprofit health care organizations. itssroots medicine at finest. free and charitable clinics are people who decided to put people over politics and decided to become the community's response to health care in their area. all of our clinics provide primary care, dental care, at some of our local cool -- at some of our locations, access to medications, and we're the people who are helping those who do not have insurance. primarily, our clinics serve 18

to 65-year-old, and in the 100 to 300 range of poverty. host: typically how many, in a year, with these 1400 clinics serve, how many people? guest: 2 million people annually with 6.9 million patient visits. pandemic.efore the host: are you getting a shift early on, seven to eight weeks in, whatever it has been, on how numbers have increased? guest: we anticipate a tsunami of people coming to the clinics. we know that with the economic downturn we see in this country right now, we will be at pre- ac a numbers with the number of people uninsured. we are preparing for more people to need the care. offices alone, before the pandemic, we would handle phone calls for people looking for a free or charitable clinic.

seven or eight weeks in, we are receiving phone calls and the most from people who have now been laid off, now uninsured, and don't know where to go. we are trying to get them connected to the right place of care for what they need. fundingpically, who is the bulk of the 1400 free and charitable clinics? guest: we are not federally funded. nonprofit c3 organizations, receiving our funding through private-public partnerships and grand dollars. i think that is an important thing for us to know, is that as we look at release bills that are coming out of congress, while there may be opportunities for our clinics to receive funding, there is not an amazing amount of money dedicated solely for free and charitable clinics and the work we do for the uninsured. that is why we are so lucky to , andthe support like cvs

those who have made a multimillion dollar commitment to us in the work were doing. without that, we would not be able to provide the care we are providing to keep people out of the ers during this pandemic. host: during your knowledge, -- any your knowledge, have had to close? guest: we are the incubators of thought. delivery goed our from an in person model of care to telehealth. shiftedour clinics have in the fact that they may also be providing medications to their patients. that is critical, because emergency rooms should be used for emergencies. they should not be used for the diabetic or hypertensive who need access to medicine.

we have had some that have had to close and that is because our workforce, our volunteer workforce, are part of the people in that high risk category, 60 or older. most of our clinics have shifted to a telehealth model or providing access to food for our patients and access to the medicine, in new and different way. host: was the shift to hella health new for you folks? guest: i would say it was new for the majority of our members. it was on our horizon for 2020, but not on the horizon for february or march. host: nicole lamoureux is our guest, the ceo of the national association of free and charitable clinics across the country. we welcome your calls and questions. for those of you in the eastern and central time zone, it is (202) 748-8000 mountain pacific, (202) 748-8001, and if you are a medical professional, that line is (202) 748-8002. nicole lamoureux, i wanted to

ask you about the concerns you have raised during the pandemic, ,hat your clinics need the most and top of the list is not surprising, a lack of personal protective equipment and concern for lack of volunteer staff, lack of funding, and concern for high-risk patients. typically in a free clinic, how many of the staff are percentage paid staff? guest: i would say anywhere from 20% to 35% of staff are paid staff. it of the workforce is volunteer. if you add them together, we look at over 200,000 people in the workforce of free and charitable clinics. when we look at a pandemic, we have to recognize those in high-risk categories, whether they are paid or volunteers, it is our responsibility to take care of them.

hence the shift to a telehealth or drive-through model. we see a lot of our clinics utilize a drive-through or walk-up, to take care of their patients. host: among the concerns was the concern for high-risk patients, patients that come to your clinics evidencing some symptoms or signs of covid-19. what has been your guidance to clinics in terms of handling those patients? guest: it has depended on where those clinics are located. so much of the response has been on the state level -- state level. we have our clinics work closely with the governor's office, department of health, to really help our clinics understand where those stations should go. in some locations, it was not for them to go to the hospital, it was for them to go to a testing site somewhere else. in the beginning, there were not many testing sites as we have heard, so we have had to find places where our patients could

go and set up new protocols as to when patients could come to a clinic or how they could see our doctors, such as taking temperatures before entering, making sure our chronic disease patients, the diabetes and hypertensive patients, have access to medicine, prior to the full swing of covid-19. we could keep them on their protocols and out of that emergency room. the: you have been ceo of association since 2007. you come with not a medical background but a background in association work. 13 years now with the free and charitable clinics. what do you think in your background, or has anything in your background prepared you for this medical crisis that your members are facing? guest: absolutely. i think what has prepared me the most is associations -- association is a nonprofit no matter what you are a part of

our those people that camp and they quickly. i work for homebuilders before or horse council, two very different organizations, both being in both of those business minded organizations helped me shift my thoughts. we are talking apples to apples whether it is the funder, congress, or people like you. so you can understand what we are doing and who we are doing it for, and what role the nonprofit sector plays as a critical element of the economy in the united states. host: we have calls waiting for you. let's go to new hampshire, edward, good morning. hi, nicole. great job as always. i wanted to know if you could comment on the one-day clinics you run in the huge as her and convention centers, seeing they -- and the huge domes and convention centers, seeing they help so many people. keep it up.

guest: thank you for that. from 2009 to 2015, we held large day large-scale doctors offices in all of the convention centers across the united states. being part of 2009 during the we weresis, and now, able to transition a number of our protocols we used in those events to transition to a standing clinic today. inwrote our pandemic plan 2009, and it was helpful when, all of a setting, the cases, especially in the washington, d.c. area, increased. we knew when we were supposed to work from home, how we were supposed to work from home, and how we were supposed to get that out into the field. those clinics were an amazing way to understand what our standing clinics do, but i don't think i understood back in 2009 that the work we did for h1n1 would so applicable today. host: let's hear from john in

grand junction, colorado. caller: good morning and thank -- for the work for fleet work from free health clinics. i looked at the website and have two questions. most of the site descriptions say pediatrics and women's health. is that a primary focus or for all? on the website as well, i saw 240 facilities. is there expansion behind what this number shows on the website to 1400? guest: i think those are great questions. as we are communities -- as our communities respond, our services will be different. there are 1400 clinics across the country. the last time i was on the show, we had a great number of visitors. always, you can email us and we

can connect you to a local clinic. a, for some reason, there is specialty clinic in your location, we ask people to email us and we will get you connected to a clinic near you, whether that is free clinic or our counterparts, in your areas. host: medical professionals, your line is (202) 748-8002. how difficult has it been to get your volunteer medical staff or volunteers, period, to come in? guest: i think it's amazing. difficult in the fact that we have had to say to so many of our volunteers, we are having you in a high-risk category and want to transfer you to telehealth. making sure we are providing protection they need but for our doctors and nurses, many of them want to go to the hospital and help. we have had the ability to shift our protocol, time of clinics, location, and we are always looking for more medical

volunteers in the free and charitable clinic community. i would not say it's difficult. i would say making sure we utilize their talents in the best way has been a new challenge. host: how about charitable donations? you mentioned all are run by 5013 c's -- 5013 c's. you concerned that those window? continues, i, along with other members of the nonprofit community, are concerned. for many of our clinics, this was the time for them to have their galas, balls, or events, and they have had to be canceled before this. we also worry that as a country opens up, people will forget there are people who need access to care. we are hopeful that, as we continue through this pandemic

and outside of this pandemic, there will be support given to free and charitable clinics, but the national organization joins with the nonprofit sector, and we are asking congress to find a way to support the work nonprofits have done. it is time for the government to be as good of a partner to the nonprofit community as we have been to the government. york is next up, robin. go ahead. caller: good morning. i'm wondering why there is a need for free health clinics, honestly, because i thought , as low as their income could be, could qualify for medicaid. guest: that's a great question. caller: go ahead. host: robin, we will let you go. thank you. guest: that's a great question and one i get often. one of the largest

misconceptions of the affordable care act passages that everyone in the country has access to health insurance. prior to this pandemic, there were 27 million people in our country that still did not have access to health insurance. there has not been this dramatic decline of the work we do or patients we see, so we have to see that across the country, not covered under the affordable care act, so there is not the opportunity for everyone to receive care. there are also things called the medically underserved, the people who may have an insurance card in their pocket but cannot afford their medicine or don't have access to mental health care. definitely no access to dental care. that is a huge problem in our country. that is where free and charitable clinics come in. standing in the gap of those people that don't have anywhere else to turn, but everyone does not have automatic health in our country.

we do not have a single-payer or universal health care payer system. host: from the washington post, their headline, firstly coronavirus pandemic took their jobs in that it wiped out their health insurance. about three weeks ago, they wrote the economic policy millione estimates 9.2 u.s. residents were at high risk of having lost coverage during the past four weeks. health management associates forecasted 12 million to 35 million people will lose job-based insurance because of the pandemic, on top of the 27.5 million uninsured before the virus arrived. it's early still, but how are you preparing your clinics for the potential wave of patients they may see? guest: i think that is a great question. as i said before, i think it was in that article we addressed the fact we see a tsunami of patients coming to us. there are two things to remember, prior to the affordable care act, free insured -- free clinics were

helping the uninsured. we would like to have conversations with the administration and congress. we know how to care for people uninsured. the ways we are preparing them is through access to programs like telehealth, training, and all of these new protocols coming out. we are also asking congress to expand the federal courts claim act to allow more people to practice with us, without the fear of a medical malpractice claim. we know there's a lot of work that will be done and we have to educate people now who are newly uninsured as to where they can go for care. are they eligible for care through the affordable care act? do they have access to cobra? can they afford it? should they be going to a qualified health center? many of our clinics serve as navigators for our patients. training goingf into what's happening, and helping to raise the funds

desperately needed to keep our doors open. host: there's a question on twitter, what is the difference between the health department and these free clinics? guest: i think that's a great question. the difference whether it is a health department or federally qualified health department, they receive their funding from the federal or state government. free and charitable clinics do not receive their funding from the federal government. only in limited states are there allocations for our services in those states. we are not funded by taxpayer dollars. we are funded by donations. host: back to calls. don is next in washington, d.c. caller: good morning, everyone. host: good morning. guest: good morning. caller: yes, i would just like what about this coronavirus is impacting -- this coronavirus is impacting everyone around the world. your: don, just listen to

phone, not the radio audio or tv. caller: yes, i would like to now, why is the president and his team walking around with no masks on around people with masks on? that's kind of scary to me. if you are the president of the united states, you are supposed to represent with whatever you are doing. i hate to say it like that, but this coronavirus thing, i think is a joke. they are making it not a joke so a lot of people are dying over stupid stuff. going to the hospital with all kinds of pain, and all of a sudden we have coronavirus. we need to check our self, because we need to line our self up for the future to go back. host: don in washington. when you first started hearing coming outthe virus of china in late 2019, what were some of your initial thoughts and reaction? guest: the first thing we did was educate our clinics on what

the coronavirus was. getting information in webinars, documents out to our clinics in the field, working with partners we talked about before. especially our partner who major our clinics had access to some ppe. not as many as we need, but thank goodness they stepped in and worked with us. another partner said here is the pbe. for us, it was preparing clinics through information, developing resources because we had to shift protocols, developing telehealth products that could be utilized everywhere from free to discounted products, and trying to find access to the ppe we really needed. the, some of our clinics on ground really started stockpiling and finding new ways they could work, in conjunction, with their hospitals. we did -- the entire idea was plan, proceed, and have it. really, nothing is more unexpected than politics, and now we deal with a pandemic.

we had to think about, what do we need, how do we get everybody what they need, and pivot on a dime to transition to funding because our cleaning needs the money to purchase some of the ppe. we are in the same place you are hearing from hospitals. we don't have access to ppe, we are shifting our providers to make sure they stay protected, and we have the lack of funding like they do. host: let's hear from john in trenton, new jersey. caller: yeah, i wanted to thank c-span for taking my call. any clinicsou have around trenton or anywhere in the mercy counter adria -- mercer county area? my second question, do you think this virus they have now was a weapon grade virus and i got loose on the public? i want to thank you for being

there, because the federal government is standing up for ,he people in the united states went tomitch mcconnell health care before donald trump even got in. host: thank you we will hear from nicole lamoureux. guest: we do have clinics located near you. you can go to the website and put in our zip code and search for them, or send us an email. if for some reason the clinic is not available to you at this point in time, our team will help you find a location closer to you. it may be a federally qualified health center that is located in your area that can serve you. for this virus, my job is to make sure i get people healthy and make sure our clinics have what they need to provide the life-saving and life changing work they do on a daily basis. host: george in louisville, kentucky. hi there.

caller: thanks for your work, nicole. here's my thinking. all of society is so geared toward market-based solutions to our problems, regardless of whether it is worker-based companies, nonprofit organizations. we try to apply market-based theories to absolutely everything. when you look at the hippocratic oath, it is an diametric opposition to a lot of companies that are private companies having a fiduciary interest in increasing dividends for an investor class, often a diametric -- often in diametric opposition to do no harm. i keepp -- what thinking, we are in gilligan's island. the islanders had to learn to survive and look out for each other, and money markets and market-based theories were not at play in how they survived and managed to get off of the island. that is where we are at right

now. with your nonprofit, charitable, or whatnot, you have to deal in the world the market had to create -- market created. reagan once said government does not solution, -- the solution, government is the problem. i think all of the economic theories out of the textbooks, they are largely the problem. we have to step out of the market paradigm and inked in new ways outside of the framework of market thinking to find new solutions if we are ever going to get ahead. guest: i think that is an interesting point to bring forward. you are right, we need money to keep our doors open, whether we are a nonprofit or for-profit company. that is the way our country works. one of the beautiful parts of being connected with the free and charitable clinic movement is that we are able to puts people first, the commitment of every single one of our clinics. because we are not taking

insurance for the most part at our locations. there are times to take those extra minutes with those patients in the room and talk to them about what their needs are and how their family is doing. just know free and charitable clinics are putting people first, and that is a great thing i get to be connected with everyday. host: kaiser health news says free clinics try to fill gaps as covid sweeps away job-based insurance. as the pandemic continues, how much of your work of the clinics work -- your work, of the clinics work, is in the mental health area? guest: i think it will -- i think it will even grow. there will be a dramatic need for mental health providers. our providers, providers in the hospital. not,er people like this or a lot of our work now is in the mental health area. we know that will ramp up for our patients and providers. from edith inhear

brandon florida -- brandon, florida. caller: yes, thank you for taking my call. number two, as my husband works for a company that works for nonprofits, and his company is a nonprofit as well. i believe everybody who works in free clinics and nonprofit organizations like his are heroes that are kind of unsung. no one knows about them or ever hears about them, but they do a lot. they really should be acknowledged like people who work in the hospitals and stuff. i wondered if you might've felt the same way. guest: i think you so much for that comment and complement. i will make sure all of my members know you said that today. i absolutely agree. i will say, unfortunately, at this point in time, free and charitable clinic are america's best health care secret and we should not be. the work our clinics are providing on a daily basis, many times, at their own cost.

-- cost, is amazing. i would say it is the best of our country. i jokingly say to our clinics that i have a job in washington, d.c. that my 92 grandma -- 92-year-old grandma could be proud of and i thank them for giving me that opportunity. all of the people that used to go to the nonprofit sector are needing to be celebrated. you mentionede earlier your alliance and associations alliance with cbs. seles -- tell us about that on what they provide you, what the partnership is, and do you see potential for more of those public-private partnerships? guest: absolutely. i think the private-public partnerships are critical for our organization and other organizations. cbs has been an amazing partner to the national association of free clinics for years.

they help our clinics grow and our capacity, in our value, and in the quality of care we have given tower patients. our are helping us expand telehealth model, so we can see even more people during this pandemic and in the future. in the past, they have helped us with diabetes, hypertension, smoking sensation and making sure our patients have access to care. i think they really want to join with us in building healthier communities and healthier america. also, the partners at direct relief have helped us through hurricane harvey and through this pandemic with multimillion dollar commitments to helping us also address telehealth. they are also helping keep our doors open, paying doctors and nurses. things the private public partnership, one of the great things coming out of these, we are learning from these companies on best practices, as they teach us, but we also teach

them on how we are providing care and how we can work better together. we would love to see for -- more responsibility like this, other companies to take the lead and support the work we do or works of other nonprofits so we can continue moving to this pandemic and into the future. host: you mentioned being based in washington. how does your association actively engage, lobby with congress on issues important to the association? guest: we spend a great deal of time educating congress on who we are, and what we do. jokingly, they call me the free clinic lady when i walk around the halls of congress, which is nice. under the cares act, congress ,eally did very specific things establishing the funding for covid and treatments for covid, they made sure that free and

charitable clinics were part of program and they expanded volunteer protection under the volunteer act. by doing those things, they are making sure free and charitable clinics are taking care of. we are hopeful, in the next round of funding, congress would consider, in that fund for uninsured testing, may separate pools of money. one for hospitals and one for nonprofit entities like ourselves, so we can make sure everyone is having access to that care. we are hoping congress makes a financial commitment to the nonprofit sector at large, because we have been amazing partners to them. we would love to have more volunteer protections past the 2021 deadline congress said for covid so we can make sure more people can volunteer their time. one thing congress has been great about learning from us is understanding we don't fit their bucket of where they have looked at where health care is. and really having that open

dialogue that, just because a clinic will not -- that does not mean there are not people that need help. we had that open dialogue. it has been a lot of miles on my fitbit. host: let's hear from frank in northport, new york. caller: can you hear me? host: yes, we can. caller: nicole, hi. i just want to thank you and applaud you, rather, for what you do. i doubt, very much, that you are making the kind of salary the ceos of these companies and hospital administrations and the like are making. i thought the gentleman from kentucky was spot on in a sense that the market is driven and that isoncepts what is really wrong here. i wanted to ask if you are familiar with a book called an american sickness, how health

care -- in the beginning of the book, she talks about the history of health care and how it was not-for-profit. i'm not sure how true this is, but it was illegal. maybe i'm misquoting or misunderstanding, but i wanted to know if you are familiar with the book and thank you again for what you do. host: thank you, frank. guest: i will check out that book. i'm not familiar with it, but i'm always looking for new things to read. i will definitely check that out. host: gladys is next up, calling from irving, texas. caller: hello? host: hi, gladys. you are on the air. caller: good morning. i just wanted to tell nicole, you are looking so beautiful, first of all. you have a wonderful color. she looks so beautiful. i hope you hear me all right. host: we hear you fine.

caller: thank you for the work you are doing. i'm going to make three or four quick points. yearsher lived to be 95 plus on gods green earth. she did not believe in going to the doctor. trusting god to be her healer. she was old school. god did not disappoint my mother. i'm so proud of her. years lived to be 95 plus , never was on any kind of drugs, period. she would have been the mother of 12, had all of her children lived. survived,of them except a stillborn two-year-old. the eight of us are still here, and doing good. i'm taking after my mother. i'm not going to tell my age but i'm over 50, and i am part of

the trump team. i want to respond to the man that called to say why is the president walking around without a mask, he didn't understand it, -understand it, etc. i don't wear a mask. i happened to go into my ice cream polar -- parlor in my city the other day. i got out short shorts, excited to get out for the first time, because it is a nice day. my legs are not 100% but they are looking pretty good. i had on short shorts, no mask on, but everybody in the ice cream parlor has mask. i don't know, but it seemed like i had a few haters and there. host: gladys, we will let you know there. on then't really touched mask issue. i'm sure in your clinics, you

have issued guidance to all of them. guest: absolutely. i will say i understand people do not want to wear masks. i will tell you i do wear a mask. i have been quarantined myself. i have been ill in the past and my husband has been quarantined. we do wear masks and we wear them for protection of other people as well. we don't know what we have been exposed to, but we know at our clinics, one of our biggest needs has been the lack of ppe. we continue to ask for masks, gloves, and shields. all those who have donated, we can do that on our website. a cdc guidance of one on how -- when and how you should wear a mask. as for the president, i think that is up to the president's doctor to make that decision himself. host: you talk about how the free and charitable clinics get most of their funding through charity, very little federal or state aid, but in the federal response to the pandemic, some

of the packages that have developed are being -- and are being developed in response, are you concerned there may be strings attached? how do you ensure there are no strings attached for your clinics in terms of who you can serve as a patient? guest: absolutely. i think we have been looking closely on what the rules and regulations are. if there is a way to have those conversations, we go to some of our champions on the hill and have those active conversations for them. right now, what i am more concerned about is the find set up for the uninsured, covid testing and treatment. i want to make sure those providers are -- that are outside of the hospital setting will access some of those funds. we have been talking to members of congress to make sure things are based on a medicare payment to understand this will take a while for many of these providers who don't normally think it is safe to fill out the grant applications, they are taking a lot of time and compromise to make sure there are no strings attached but to make sure that money is there

and available for those clinics doing something. that is my bigger concern. host: is there a patient first for that kind of facility in a town, how does an individual determine what kind of facility they should use? guest: if you have insurance in any sort of way, you should go to your provider. if you have insurance, third-party insurance, blue cross blue shield, or kaiser, go to your provider. if you have medicaid or medicare, find a provider or utilize a health center or federally qualified health center. thisu are uninsured at point in time, go to our website and look for a facility near you. we will help you understand whether or not you will come to our clinic. each clinic has different eligibility requirements area whether you should go to a federally qualified health center or to a health department. we know there are so many people who are uninsured, and this is

brand-new territory for them. between ourselves and community navigators, we know that people in each community can help you find where you need to go. host: just a reminder, the line for medical professionals are -- is (202) 748-8002. we hear from sandeep, in kent, in kent, ohio. caller: hello. governor dewine, yesterday, in the middle of this health care crisis, he cut the budget for medicaid and schools. i'm concerned, is he going to kick people off of medicaid and maybe they would have to come to your clinics? why would he cut in the middle of a health care crisis? he could cut the budget somewhere else besides the schools, which may be getting ready to start back up in september. i'm so confused about these

budget cuts. thank you. guest: thank you, sandy. at this point in time, governors are looking closely at all of their state budgets. i don't know, i haven't read the decision as to why the governor of ohio made that decision yesterday. i will do research for that for you. at this point in time, we are watching exactly what you're talking about, what the governors in all states are doing, what funding will be coming out of the federal government, and helping our clinics gear up for those patients that will be coming to see them in the future. host: the expansion of medicaid under the affordable care act, does that affect your clinics? guest: i think it did a couple things. it was absolutely a first step to getting some people access to care. as we talked about, not all states expended medicaid under the act. it was not a single-payer or universal health care system, so as i mentioned, there is 27 million, now much more, people

uninsured at this point in time. even though people have access to medicaid, there are still some things they have to have help with, dental care is definitely one we talk about. there is a need for dental care. mental health care, and medication access. the high cost of medication, for many people, is preventing them from going to get the care they need. even with the expansion of medicaid in some states, we have found those with insurance still have questions for our clinics, and also, we find there are people who roll on and off of medicaid. they may be hourly or seasonal workers. even they -- even though they may have been expanded, it is not all year long. host: we hear from ramona in clarkston, georgia. go ahead. caller: oh yes. thank you for expecting my call. i appreciated much. -- i appreciated very much.

this young lady has touched my heart so much. caresid her association about the lives, preserving life and giving health care to maintain lines. it touched me because the , and his cronies or whatever, they want to open up the economy, which is jeopardizing lives. is moreke, the economy important than life, but you want to preserve life with your association. that means you are a leader. that means you are thinking areof-the-box, and you thinking bigger than our own government. that touched me because you want to help lives, and the economy isthinks the more important in life.

which don'torgia, expand medicaid. we have a huge, homeless population. on clinics like you. i just want to appreciate you. i will be praying for you. god bless you. host: thank you, ramona in georgia. guest: thank you. i take your complement but i will give it back to the leaders of the free and charitable clinic movement. these people have really decided to put people over politics. nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that believes it is our job to provide access to health care to the medically underserved in this country. thank you for your compliments to me, but it is those people who deserve the compliment. host: it is the national association of free and charitable clinics nicole lamoureux, their ceo, thank you for being with us this morning. host: coming up on "washington journal," in 15 minutes, we will

be joined by the director for the center of history of medicine at the university of michigan, discussing covid-19 and what we can learn about past pen that makes. first, we are joined on the phone by chris young, from the american association of meat processors, talking about the effect of the pandemic on the meat industry. good morning. >> good morning, sir. how are you? host: we are doing well having you want to address the concerns nationwide on meat plants and processing facilities. give us an overall picture of how many are open, what this applies like across the country. guest: it is hard to quantify the exact number that have been in the news. a lot of them are beginning to reopen. the biggest thing -- one of the biggest things is that they are not reopening at full capacity. they are all beginning to operate but with less employees

and a little slower production lines, trying to mitigate the risks to their employees moving forward. i think the supply is still doing ok. but, there are certainly challenges as we try to work through this time. host: how many meat processors does your ogre and is asian represent? guest: we represent around -- your meat processing plant represent? host: last week, the president issued an executive order requiring meat processing facilities to stay open. what was the effect of that order? guest: i think that has helped in some cases. when you're talking about large plants or small plans, all of them have done a lot of work leading up to this one when the pandemic started to try to mitigate the risk to employees. before the president's order, some plants that may have only have a hand -- had a handful of sicke that could become

might be strongly influenced by others to close the plan. the order makes it harder to do. it encourages local authorities to keep the play is open then work together to find ways to mitigate risks to the employees moving forward. it has made it easier to keep those plants open and operating from that standpoint. host: in terms of the risk mitigation, have your members been able to get the sufficient protective equipment the workers need? part, at thee most very beginning, that was typical to -- that was difficult. in other industries, and as we saw in the health field, it was difficult to get masks.

the industry tied to get masks right away -- try to get right away, even though the cdc was not recommending them. they began that way, and most started with getting local people to make masks for them. employees would find ways to get their own and they would do it that way. now, there seems to be a better supply coming as there is more manufacturers making them. now, it is not as difficult. now, it is becoming an easier process to get those types of things. in the meat industry, most of those workers working on production lines already have personal protective equipment to they wear because of the job they do. it was just tried to get hold of masks to help out with that. host: let me get your response to the story in south dakota about that states attorney theral and others, among list of attorney generals, asking for federal investigation into suspected price-fixing of

meat across the country. guest: i have heard one of the issues there has been there seems to be a difference between what some people are paying for the cattle or pigs from the ranchers and then subsequent what is charged to people down the line from that. i know there has been an investigation started on that. i don't really know about that. i know from the standpoint of some of our processors, some of the small and medium-size processors who buy box before further then process items they have seen an increase, slow but sure. in some cases, stark increases on some cuts of beef or pork, or poultry. host: it sounds like it is a multilayered problem for the

meat industry, in terms of the potential harm to workers in the processing plants but also the shutdown of restaurants, demand -- otherwise demand from shoppers nationwide in grocery stores. guest: yeah. it has been a challenging time, because we have kind of worked through multiple layer's, as you said. one of the things, when this first happened and the restaurants shut down, you have a lot of product on the market meant to go to these restaurants, and it was finding ways to begin to divert that toward retail sales, because retail sales jumped through the roof. people begin to buy and began to buy in large quantities. part of that was because the restaurants being shut down and people being home cooking and schools being closed. it moms were having to adjust, families were having to adjust to everyone being home and having access to their

refrigerator, and how to plan these meals and plan for this. we saw a large jump in retail sales at that point. you come to the part now where we talk about large processing facilities, harvesting facilities, shut down and people begin talking about the chance of shortages. all of a sudden, you have people starting to say "am i going to be out of meat, so do i need to go to the grocery store and buy up a bunch and put it away?" we have been through a complete cycle here of supply and demand. host: can you give us an idea? one of the stories we saw yesterday, from tyson, saying their core production is down 50%. what is your understanding from tyson? guest: i think because they have had to close a number of plants -- they had a large plant in t of that had a lo employees that tested positive. a lot of that production is down . some of that is being picked up

in other places, but it is difficult. it takes a lot to feed 3.5 million plus americans on a daily basis. i think tyson -- i just read this morning -- that some of their plants, the waterloo plant in iowa, is coming back online, not to its full capacity. i think you will see, over time here, a lot of them will begin to come back on and begin to ramp up production. host: lastly, a story a lot are familiar with this morning, a headline in the new york times, where's the beef? the new reality talking about 1000's chain, on monday, 43 locations were completely sold out of beef products. what is your -- 1043 locations were completely sold other beef products. what is your take on that in does that go back to the beef processing part of the equation? guest: when we talk about shortages, i think -- in this

goes directly to what is going on with wendy's, i think when people see shortages, if they will see them, they will see it on the fresh side of the industry. there is a lot of proteins, beef, pork, and chicken in the review users -- in the freezers. something that was destined for the food service, restaurants, or things like that. i'm guessing the issue with wendy's is because of the shortages coming on the fresh side of it. , there beef is never frozen, so they rely on this fresh beef supply. i think that is probably where wendy's is running into issues. i have not heard that from any other fast food places. i'm guessing it's coming because we see it -- we will continue to see shortages on the fresh beef, fresh pork, fresh chicken and turkey side of it. host: chris young, the executive

director director of the americans oca shouldn't of meat processors with an update. thank you for being here. as we have been doing through the pandemic, we have checked in with numbers of congress in their home districts on how things are going there, what is ahead for the u.s. house, and in particular, we say hello to buddy carter. how are you? guest: i'm wonderful. i hope you are. host: doing well. tell us about your first district in georgia, how are things there? guest: as you can imagine, everyone is ready to get back to the office. we are blessed here in the first congressional district i represent. i represent the entire coast of georgia, so it is a beautiful area. being sheltered in places not such a bad thing when you are on the coast of georgia. nevertheless, these are hard-working people down here, and they really want to get back to the office and get back to some kind of normalcy. host: your state's governor has

issued orders, at least partially, reopening the state of georgia, that being evident this past weekend. give us n/a -- give us an idea of the changes you witnessed over the weekend. guest: certainly there were more people out, which is to be expected. more businesses are open and restaurants are easing open again. but, you know,n, i'm proud to see people with the first congressional district because i think they are practicing personal responsibility. regardless of how quickly or slowly you roll out the economy, a lot of this will depend first of all on technology that is robust testing. secondly, personal responsibility. and, can you do the things we have been told by the task force to do, washing our hands and coughing into our arm, wearing a mask when possible when needed,

practicing social distancing that is the, and key. fore do it not only ourselves but out of respect for each other, do it for other people as well, i think we will be fine. host: you are the only pharmacist in congress, certainly the u.s. house. from your perspective and experience, how do you think the pace will go in terms of testing across the country? guest: it has gotten better, no question. it was somewhat of a slow start. i think we were somewhat caught off guard by preparation. we were working under a platform initially that was not conducive to mass testing. we quickly rectified that, and got that corrected. i think we are catching up quickly. i think we have caught up, and now we are getting the tests out there. it is such an important part of it because the tests, particularly the rapid testing,

can help us with other problems. if you can get the results back within 45 minutes or within even 24 hours of whether you are positive or negative, that helps us with concern about the personal protective equipment, because before, we were having to wait eight to 10 days to get results and you had to assume the patient was positive the whole time. therefore, you are going through ppe like anything. being able to get the results quicker would save us with ppe. host: can you see pharmacies both in georgia and across the country having a role in administering that testing and the eventual administrating -- administering a vaccine when it is available? guest: no question about it. arm assists are the most accessible health care professionals. live within five miles of a pharmacy. we would be remiss if we are not taking advantage of a great

opportunity, of a great resource, a pharmacist, both in testing and vaccination. pharmacists have been giving vaccinations for years. most people, when they get the flu vaccine, have been going to the pharmacy to get it, as far as to sing goes. -- get it. as far as testing goes, we have been working with the white house and hhs to administer the test. hopefully, we will be able to get compensated for doing that. the most important thing is the availability, and taking advantage of the pharmacists is -- pharmacists being the most accessible health care professionals will help us. host: you also raised concerns over the who and their role in the pandemic. to introduce specific legislation. tell us about that. andt: we know china lied, they try to cover it up. the who helped them and assisted

them in covering that up. that was something the american people deserved to know the answer. they deserve to know what the who knew. it's important because not only is america the primary funder of the world health organization, but look at what this has cost our society. tens of thousands of people have lost their lives. people have lost their jobs and it has devastated our economy. the american people deserve to know what role the world health organization had in helping china and assisting china to cover up, not releasing information initially as they should have. it would have helped us and have been better prepared in america to attack this pandemic. host: one more thing for you congressman. what is your sense of the house returning for legislative work next week? suspect, like many

members, i'm ready to get back to work. i think a lot of it is political. i think the speaker and majority party are trying to go ahead and craft phase four without having the minority party up there, put --t having im input from the majority party. that is the way our government is supposed --minority party. that is the way our government is supposed to work. if it is safer the senate to go back, it is safe for the house to go back. host: we look forward to your return. thanks for being with us. guest: thank you. host: morehead on "washington journal." next, we speak with the director for the center of history of medicine at the university of michigan. we talked about covid-19 and what we can learn from past pandemics. washington journal primetime.

a special evening addition on the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic. our guest are sylvia burwell, and president of american university on the public health and academic response to the coronavirus pandemic. also, washington, d.c. demo cutting delegate eleanor holmes norton on the city's response to the disease. tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span. c-span has unfiltered coverage of the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic with white house briefings, updates from governors and congress, and our daily call-in program washington journal, hearing your thoughts about the coronavirus crisis. if you missed any of our live coverage, watch any time on demand at c-span.org/ coronavirus.

washington journal continues. host: with us from michigan is university of michigan professor dr. howard markel. he is the director of the center for the history of medicine, here to talk with us about the -- what we can learn from past pandemics and the history of past pandemics, particularly in the u.s. good morning, dr. markel. tell us about the history of medicine. what does that cover? guest: well, the history of medicine. [laughter] the second oldest profession in the world. forle have been getting ill a long time and seeking the help of physicians, whether they were formally trained or not since at least antiquity. medicine study the history of illness, the history of medical progress or knowledge, as well as specific fields like public health or

pediatrics or in my case epidemics. it is a very rich field because everybody gets sick. if you are studying history, you are studying the history of medicine. host: what do you find of the biggest similarities and dissimilarities between this covid-19 pandemic and past pandemics? in particular the 1918 spanish flu? guest: well, there are a great many similarities but we have to be careful about not saying it is executiv -- it is exactly the same. 1918 was a very different country. the federal government was very small in comparison to today, as well as what it could do in terms of helping states and cities recoup or recover from that crisis. of infectious

diseases, particularly viruses, was almost nonexistent. doctors did not yet know what was the cause of influenza. they did not know anything about virology. they thought influenza was caused by the bacteria. largest, upt is the until the present, the largest collection of data on what are now called nonpharmaceutical interventions. quarantines and isolations, public gathering bans, school era,res in the modern except for the covid crisis. viewers will recognize these terms as social distancing measures. there were some similarities that help the study those measures. trying to look at what worked and what didn't because quarantines have been around since at least the middle ages, but nobody really studied epidemiologic late or

statistically -- epidemiological statistically if it worked. 1957-1958 virus, and 9h1n1 --ntly the 2000 2009 h1n1 pandemic. is ifrase we often hear you don't learn history, you are condemned to repeat it. what things are we condemned to repeat from past pandemic response? guest: a variety of things. ofbegin with, concealment pandemics in the past have always cost the world a great amount of money and humanity. the longer a country or a group delays reporting its infectious

problem to others, the more widely spread that disease is. as one of your previous guests mentioned, the covid virus not only had a step or two ahead of the doctors in china, which microbes always have a couple of steps ahead of the doctors, it was actually given a running head start. we have seen this time and again. concealment does not help. particularly in our globalized village. it is quite disastrous. epidemics and pandemics cost communities enormous amounts of money. whether it is a quarantine or a closure of a seaport or an airport, commerce stops flowing. business stops. jobs stop. youicularly in positions have to show up to actually earn a living. some of us are blessed with jobs where we can telecommute. many other people who work in factories or waitresses or what

have you have to literally be on premises to earn a living. that is a real problem as well. the media has always been around, especially since the printing press and has always been fascinated by epidemics. what changed now are there are so many forms of media, the internet, social media, and good information and bad information can travel with the speed of an electron. a lot of us fear that information is almost as viral or avirulent as the virus itself irulent is the virus itself. we tend to be far more interested in the spectacular microbes that kill us occasionally.

covid is no exception to that. compared to the old ones that kilis by the millions annually -- kill us by the millions annually. we don't seem to give them much thought, particularly here in the united states. host: dr. howard markel joining us from the university of michigan. he is a professor of the history of medicine, a professor of psychiatry, the head of the center for the history of medicine. he is there director. we are -- their director. we welcome your calls and comments. (202) 748-8000 for eastern and central time zones. (202) 748-8001, mountain and pacific. if you are a medical professional, the line is (202) 748-8002. you are joining us from michigan. the scene of a number of well-publicized protest at the capital in lansing against some of the restrictions imposed by

the governor in that state. have civil liberty restrictions been a factor in past pandemics? or rebellion or opposition to those restrictions in place? host: yes. there are many examples where the quarantine or the isolated or those that felt their individual liberties are being stomped on protested, through rocks, righted, even took public even tookrioted, public health department to court. given the michigan situation, is a small minority doing this. i can't think of a better or easier place to contract protest than in a large in a very cramped area, the lobby of the state capital building where everyone is shouting, screaming, coughing and sneezing on one another. it defies imagination.

this is not an uncommon part of the epidemic story. host: there was a story in usa today about in the business section that said why it may be a working changer. productivity is up at home. the article is about that, working from home. what sort of societal changes happenedter -- and after 1918 because of how the pandemic was handled? guest: that's a question i get a lot. i have not been able to find vast changes in how americans lived post 1919 after the flu pandemic ended. it did not change everything as some popular historical tropes go. the evidence is just not there. if you look at what happened 1918-1919, the

roaring 20's. the stock market went up to incredible heights before plummeting in 1929. as f scott fitzgerald called it, it was the god he is, grandis guadiest,od -- grandest spree in american history. there were a lot of things that begin the 20th century as we know it in the 1920's. perspective, history does not show society changes entirely after an epidemic or a pandemic. in fact, we have lots of evidence to show to the contrary. but certain things will change. i suspect the handshake will fall by the wayside, just as if he grew up in the 1960's, you were taught to cover your mouth coughing. now my children are taught the vampire cough. cough into your elbow. these are small things but i

really don't see this as the end of society as we know it. not at all. host: one of the frequent photos i have seen about 1918 is signs that discourage spitting as passing the virus at the time. ashink spitting has not been big a social problem in the united states. guest: spitting was a very common practice in 19th-century america, especially when a lot of men chewed tobacco. thee was a theory well into 1920's that once you spat in the microbes would mix with dust on the ground and stay alive and you could inhale that infected dust. it was thought to be a major cause of tuberculosis as well. the no spitting laws -- you can still see them if you go to an old subway station, a sign that says no spitting -- those were

primarily for antituberculosis campaigns. the influence of part jumped onto that -- influenza part jumped onto that campaign. host: one more question about 1918. returns stronger later that year and into 1919. did it affect what would've been the 1920 election? guest: it doesn't seem to. first of all, there were four wavesf that pandemic -- of that pandemic. a mild wave which may have not been influenza. we don't have viral samples to prove that. it is just thought to be. then there was the fall of 1918. september to december. it then roared back in mid-january until april 1919. i have been thinking a lot about that. they called it two separate waves. hernder if you was just not

relief of social distancing measures that led to the virus still circulating and they were still hundreds of millions of americans or people around the world for that matter who were susceptible to the virus. inn there was another wave january to april of 1920. in terms ofction, after thef 1920, was flu had gone away. it did not seem to change things all that much at all. host: we will go first to michelle in baltimore. caller: hi. good morning and thank you for c-span. andlistening to the doctor i hear him say the epidemic is similar to maybe aids or -- i think the difference is that you have to participate in certain activities to get aids, which i

don't. my concern is some people who downplay the importance of this and the breathing can get you killed and this disease kills whereas a lot of the cold do not, i think that makes people feel they can go out and be in public and not wear a mask. concernit is more a that false information is getting out instead of the reporters reporting on it. that scares me. comment? markel, any guest: i don't disagree with you and i don't believe i compared covid to aids other than that we don't seem to report much on hiv aids. there is no question there are very specific ways you can contract hiv that are very different and far less casual than the respiratory virus. i have in anyve

way, shape or form downplayed this pandemic. it is one of the most serious contagious threats ever to occur in human history. so, i think there is more agreement and what we are saying that disagreement. i did not mean to imply that they were similar. they are not. host: wolfgang from alexandria, virginia. caller: good morning. i would like to ask the professor why is it in germany you can get drive-by testing that is taken care of in five minutes, and in this country you cannot even get testing everywhere and it takes more than four weeks to get the results? i will take the answer from the air. thank you very much. guest: that's a great question. it is way above my pay grade, but there is no question in this country we have not done nearly as good a job as manufacturing

and distributing tests, and having the human power to administer those tests then in other parts of the world. germany is a much smaller country than the united states of america, but that is not an excuse. impact of measure the an epidemic disease or a pandemic disease without good hard quantifiable numbers. and testing is very important. another issue is we have not had -- some 200 companies are making those tests. that does not mean they are good tests. all medical tests need to be tested. they need to be standardized so they don't have false positives or false negatives. that can skew your data one way or another. there is no question this is a real failing and we must do a better job in terms of our testing of the american people

so we can get a sense of where we are and where we are going. host: our guest is dr. howard markel. he has the center for the history of medicine at the university of michigan. he is the author, co-author, or coeditor of 10 books including "six major epidemics that have invaded the americas since 1900 and fears they have unleashed." what are some of those fears and are we seeing this happening during the covid-19 pandemic? guest: he read the subtitle. the title is "when germs travel ," which is having a resurgence unfortunately because of current events. see a lot ofe times in past epidemics is scapegoating of so-called socially undesirable groups who either made or are perceived to be associated with the infectious disease in question. we can go through a long list on

this side of the atlantic and across in europe and in asia of people who have been scapegoated for pandemics past. of coursercumstance, there have been lots of stuff on the social media and elsewhere, new sources and what have you, that have -- news sources and what have you that have scapegoated china. china was not entirely honest about their cases and probably delayed telling the world about covid-19 for four to six weeks. that's a huge problem and that needs to be fixed in the future. that is the chinese government. but to blame chinese people is another ball of wax. i have had students in my own classes who were asian, not chinese but asian, from different asian countries. by heritage they were american citizens who reported to me scapegoating or untoward events in our lives when people were

still moving about before the social distancing measures. -- a scapegoat is problematic because it discourages -- encourages those to evade public health workers because they fear what might happen if the government discover some of the disease. thatave to ask, does public health measure that scapegoated a group help the public or harm it? if people are afraid and running away from you, you can pretty much figure out how i would answer that question. host: about your students, dr. markel, i assume all of your classes have gone online near the end of the semester. what is ahead at the university of michigan? guest: that is above my pay grade as well. we are having a lot of meetings and at the faculty level and the administrative level our president fully hopes to be up and running in the fall, as do

i. --aught an honor graduate undergraduate course on literature in medicine. we were doing a lot of stuff about epidemics when this one broke out. then it was transferred to a zoom kind of format and it is not the same. it's a lot more fun teaching in person than long-distance. it is hard to predict because we don't know if the virus will go quiet in the summer or stay that way in the fall. we have young people who were coming to ann arbor and other campuses. their parents may rightfully so be worried. students live in a very different setting than most people, particularly when they live in dormitories where there are small rooms cramped together. they eat and dining halls. they have communal bathrooms. there are a lot of issues that have to be worked out. the bottom line is safety, safety, safety first.

we will see. to be continued. host: robert calling from washington, d.c. caller: thank you for taking my call. whene i ask a question, the aids virus came out it was 3.led htlv1, 2 and it was a sheep and bovine virus. doctor to clarify. -- clarify the differences and -- homeopathy clarify the methodologies in to define aployed disease condition. is a: allopathy 19th-century term for orthodox medicine.

what is taught and practiced at major medical schools and hospitals at the time. it is rarely used as a term today but most people who are mds -- i'm overeducated. i have an md and phd so i went to school way too long. if you go to medical school, you graduate with a medical degree and you are an allopath. use the conventional orthodox methods of treatment, whether they are surgical or pharmacological. those methods are not set in stone because we have new breakthroughs in treatments and procedures developing almost every day. homeopathy, which was created by a physician named samuel honnoman in the early 18th germany and spread to the united states on a lower level was the notion that if you

give -- if you find a drug that causes a similar symptom to the question and you use it in infinitesimally small doses, you will somehow be treating that disease. i know i will get a lot of angry letters about this but most scientists and most physicians a not feel homeopathy is proven way to treat disease. hyh -- naturopot toa newer term referring things you would find in nature. this has some issues because there are a lot of things in nature that are harmful. arsenic and lead are naturally occurring substances, but i

would not prescribe them for your health. i am biased because i am an md generalpath but in methodcible scientific is the way to go when we elect to take a particular treatment or procedure. that is best offered by medical doctors and hospitals has practiced today in united states of america. host: scientists in the pharmaceutical industry are racing for a cure for covid-19. there is certainly a fairly strong anti-vaccine movement out in parts of the country. has that been an issue in past situations where vaccines were needed? the polio vaccine and others for example? guest: the polio story is incredible because 1.8 million kids were in the trial. theexample? guest: sault vaccine was tested

in 1954 and 1955 by thomas francis, one of the world's great epidemiologist. 120 million children were volunteered by their parents. could you imagine that happening today? shortly after the vaccine was announced to be safe and effective on the ann arbor campus in 1955, the cutter pharmaceutical laboratory company made a huge shipment hade doses of the vaccine accidental amounts of live poliovirus in it that caused a couple of hundred cases of polio and some deaths. yet that did not stop the vaccine in his tracks. there have been anti-vaccine firstnt since jenner described the smallpox vaccine in the 1790's, but it is particularly viral today. it is not a monolithic

community. different people have different reasons for their antipathy to vaccines. i won't go into those but i will say as a pediatrician, as well as a historian of medicine, if i had to raise the top 10 greatest hits in the history of medicine, at least nine of them would be vaccines. t.would be underestimating i some 300 million lives at the minimum have been saved to because we don't see diseases like polio, diphtheria, measles, whooping cough and influenza today as much as we used see them 100 to 150 years ago. it is a real issue. in fact, the magic bullet, the way out of this covid crisis is a safe vaccine against it. host: let's hear from gary from east brunswick, new jersey. gary, you are on the air. go ahead. we will move to simon in

brooklyn. he were on the air. caller: good day. greetings, everyone. i want to thank c-span and i want to thank dr. markel -- hello? can you hear me? host: you are on the air. caller: there is a delay with the tv. fornt to thank you guys having an open outlet. it appears to be nonbiased. i have two questions and concerns i would like to put out there. dr. markel, i would like you to please expand more and clarify your comment earlier when you made the comment regarding the testing not being accurate. i have heard many doctors and medical professions say what you did say. there is a lack of information

with this covid 19. there is a concern with results being skewed. has ak that also contribution to the numbers guess, inflated. host: when you say results being skewed, you mean the death toll or test results? caller: it could be either/or, or both. know -- i have family in the medical field. they're being informed by management to say that -- i will say it this way. a majority of the cases -- i'm in the new york area -- a lot of people that did die did have underlying ailments. people are being labeled as covid. host: we will get a response.

guest: there were several questions. let's talk about the death rates. it would seem pretty easy. there is a standard result of death. there is a corpse. you are dead. the way death certificates are filled out varies from state to state and even dr. to dr. -- doctor.o early in a pandemic where the doctors don't recognize the infection in question, especially when you have an elderly patient with many different health problems, you might put on the death certificate respiratory arrest or cardiac arrest but not have culture for covid because you did not know about it at that time. we could be under reporting our deaths, especially the early and january, february and

early march cases. that needs to be better reported in standardized. in terms of who is infected, as i said, there are many companies making tests. --on't have the ability to let alone standardize them. if you are using a test that is an accurate, day will not help you as much -- it will not help u.s. much if there was a false positive. or worse, a false negative that tells you you were fine but you are positive. you may be shedding virus and infecting others. you can see were either way causes a great many problems. it's important to have accurate statistics so you know where to mobilize your troops, mobilize your resources. let's say wayne county in michigan, which is where detroit sits, they are having a huge crisis. they are having many cases of deaths compared to my own

na, where ann arbor sits. ann arbor is following social distancing measures quite well. i'm impressed by that but we are not having as many cases of death. you want to mobilize your resources to the county in greater need of those limited resources. we have to do a better job in getting our numbers. we are never going to have exactly accurate numbers, particularly in the fog of war or the fog of an epidemic. at least if we can get closer to reality, that will help us on many levels in terms of how do we manage and respond to this pandemic. host: a little less than half are never -- half an hour left with dr. howard markel. we welcome your calls and comments. the lines for the owes of you in the eastern and central time zones, (202) 748-8000. the mountain and pacific region, (202) 748-8001.

you that are medical professionals, the line is (202) 748-8002. we go to surprise, arizona. john is next. caller: thank you for taking my call. i'm old enough to almost a member 1918. not quite, but my dad went there it. we all understood the heat of the summer kills the flu. everybody got better during the summertime. what is the current thingy relative to that -- thinking relative to that and covid in terms of it will be 105 your today and hoping it will kill all the bugs? host: thank you. thought that has never truly been proven is that influenza does not like warm weather. quietms to go away or go when spring and summer hits and

does not return until the cold weather comes back. another theory about that is when it is cold we are inside, we are closer together. we are generally using artificial forms of heat. the delicate membranes in our nose and mouth can crack and have little tiny tears or openings where the virus has an easy path into your body. it puts a little bit of both. coronavirus -- there are many coronaviruses. sars. coronavirus.was a many common colds are caused by coronavirus. this is not to say that covid-19, that novel coronavirus is a common cold. it is anything but and can get you very sick. that as the a hope warm weather comes -- i'm glad

it is 105 in arizona. in michigan on may 6 it is in the 40's. i hope that will help matters. but we have seen coronavirus thrive in warm places like iran and australia's summer. the jury is still out. host: question on another. the bubonic plague on twitter. "the plague was spread by infected fleas from small animals. it is obviously contracted different than a virus. there are contemporary issues of the bubonic plague." guest: the bubonic plague is caused by bacteria called pestis . that's an old name for the plague. fleas andsmitted by they feed on little mammals, generally rats but other little rodents. the rats for the fleas bite humans. humans are incidental actors in

those plays. when they get it, they get very sick. there is the bubonic plague, which is from co-mingling your blood with the infected animals, or pneumonic plague where you literally brief plague out and it can -- and you can cough on someone and give them the plague. it is fortunately controlled. there are still about 10 to 15 cases of bubonic plague in the united states. generally in the far western states like arizona and nevada. it seems to live in rodents in the desert. there are cases in places like india and so on, in asia occasionally. those cases can be well-managed with antibiotics. it is one of the age-old pandemics, the black plague, the black death. it is where the institution of quarantine was formally started.

it is a very different type of infection from covid-19. host: what is the origin of the word quarantine? time?ers to a period of guest: yes. in venice, one of the major ports of the world in the middle ages during the black plague -- it is no surprise that as people begin to move from country to country and ship travel began from place to place, so too did diseases. the black death which killed one third of europe's population in the 1300s, venice wanted to respond to that. they came up with a quarantine law. it was based on the italian words for 40 days. ships coming into the laguna venice had to put down their anchor and stayed there for 40 days. their goods were people could not exit. 40 days was thought to be the period a bubonic plague epidemic

would burn itself out. it comes on the writings of hippocrates, who separated acute infectious disease as six weeks or less. six-time sevens is 42 days -- six times seven is 42 days. that was the original quarantine, 40 days. it has been fine-tuned ever since. days too40 day -- 14 short based on history? guest: that is based on the incubation period of covid-19. for influenza it might be seven days. typhus fever might be three to five days. those periods are based on the microbe itself. you have to remember in the 13 50's nobody knew anything about 'scteria or viruses --1350 nobody knew anything about bacteria or viruses.

it's based on observation but no real scientific information. we changed those terms, the meanings of those terms for the infectious disease in question. host: ellington, michigan. wanda, go ahead. caller: i would like to know what your opinion is on our president disbanding the task peopleand how as we as a will know just how bad this virus is getting. i'm afraid everything will be downplayed or covered up and leave us all exposed. thank you. guest: thank you. i'm very concerned. our center works with the cdc to study the 1918 pandemic. when cities lifted the brakes too early, they got another bump of cases. because the virus was still circulating and there were plenty of people still susceptible. i fear that is what is going to happen with the early lifting of social distancing measures.

georgia comes to mind. it is not quite 14 days yet, but i expect to see a bump in cases early next week. that could happen a week later with several other states that have relinquished their social distancing breaks. i don't think the time to disband a national task force is now. i think this was a problem that is not going away. it demands great leadership and great coordination of the remarkable resources we have in the united states. we have some of the best infectious disease mines in the world, some of the best public health and a bidet melody experts in the world -- epidemiology experts in the world. yet.e not out of the woods lives andout loss of serious illnesses. maybe not for ourselves but surely someone we love or care

for. i share your concerns. host: this is the atlanta journal-constitution in northeast georgia. a new hotspot emerges. the president is tweeting about the task force, saying this in a series of tweets. "the white house coronavirus task force has done a fantastic job of bringing together the vastly, highly complex resources that have set a high standard for others to follow in the future. ventilators, which were few and in bad shape, -- i apologize about that. we will try to get the rest of the tweet. let's go to margie in philadelphia. go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. i was watching a program the other day. they were talking about there was a lab in fort dietrich, maryland. they had a bad accident and the lab had to be shut down.

looking at past cases now. they said one death was in december and one in january where both those people had covid-19. i want to go to wuhan, china. we had intelligence agencies in wuhan, china when this virus was taking off. they were sending reports back to the united states warning the president about something going that was not caught in time to stop and it was going to be catastrophic. host: you talked about china a bit. what about her concerns on the fort dietrich lab? guest: that was more than two decades ago and had to do with an outbreak i believe a hemorrhagic virus. it was quickly caught. lab accidents are a real risk, but they are generally far and few between.

that the been talk too covid-19 was somehow manufactured in a lab and weaponized. most experts don't agree with that, by the way. it is also very hard to weaponize a virus. you have to have a lot of expertise and laboratory equipment. we know with those labs are. it is certainly not impossible, but that is not what i think happened here. --hink this particular virus it is a zoonotic virus. he lives in animals. it probably jumped from an animal species to the human species, mutated and became transmissible by breathing, coughing and sneezing. it was probably the horseshoe bat, which is among many wild animals that are slaughtered and consumed at chinese wet markets where there is a major one in wuhan which is where the

covid-19 virus was thought to originate. while i am not privy to what intelligence reports that the president had in early january about covid-19, i know from my own reading and the reading of most people who are in the infectious disease world, we were seeing reports in mid-january that something was brewing. i should point out there were a few united states senators who took those intelligence briefings seriously enough to sell their stocks in late january. they took it seriously. there is no question that the united states was slow footed. host: you mentioned the wet markets in wuhan. have you ever visited one of those? guest: i have. if you are a foodie, they are kind of neat.

there is a real cultural practice where the fresher the meat. going to the supermarket and buying the little plastic wrapped containers of chicken would be a real insult to your guests in many parts of asia. but it is not just domestic animals, although viruses like avian influenza can spread in domestic poultry, chickens, turkeys. there is a lot of wild animals, exotic meats. cat was probably the source for sars. pups,hoe bats, wolf reptiles. all sorts of things that are caged in slaughtered by order. i would like to order that animal for consumption. if you think about the slaughtering where the blood is spurting and body fluids can become easily aerosolized, there are no windows between you and

the butcher. it is easy to inhale those droplets. if there is a virus and it, it can mix and match inside your own body and become a mutated deadly virus like covid-19. these wet markets were supposed to be disbanded after sars. they started reproducing and reappearing in the years since. they are a very popular source of food consumption. also very affordable source of food consumption for many people in the world. that said, public health department seven shutting down 11 cultural practices for -- beloved cultural practices. people used to smoke on airplanes. we don't do that anymore because it is unhealthy. the science is quite clear and you can ask just about any disease expert, including anthony found she. uci.fo he said it is mind-boggling

these wet markets still exist. they are a superb mixing bowl for viruses to come into the human species. host: our guest is a professor of the history of medicine. at pbs.org.icle when history revealed about cities that socially distanced during a pandemic. al in rosedale, maryland. medical professionals line. caller: i'm a physician from baltimore. i would like -- guest: i used to practice their. -- there. caller: i have a question . and why ite w.h.o is being scapegoated. it is a branch of the united nations that is governed by the member states. they don't have any type of to investigate unless

the country asks them to investigate. i was concerned by the previous congress and from georgia who basically scapegoated the w.h.o. , and it is pretty embarrassing we have officials like this who don't know the facts about the w.h.o. and what they are doing throughout the world. yet it is so easy to blame a body that literally has no power and they basically covered up for china. i wanted your opinion on that. guest: i agree with you. the w.h.o. it is really a small body. it is smaller than the staff of the new york city department of health. it has no police powers. you are right. it cannot go into a country unless invited and china did not invite them. the cdc also wanted to come in. it is very limited in what it can do unless the country in question cooperates.

there are many people in the united states who have great antipathy for the united nations armw.h.o. is the health of the united nations. that might be part of the problem. in my opinion we need to do the exact opposite. to build up w.h.o. to have an international, global surveillance and reaction system that is transparent. there is constant communication between the various cdc's of the different nations of the world so we know when something problematic is brewing. it is a lot easier to nip something in the bud when there are relatively few cases. opinion,e need, in my just as we need stronger local, state and federal public health agencies, it's also high time in this globalized world, this

global village we live in where everybody does business with everyone else and so many people travel from one part of the world to another in under a day, it is time for a real international public health agency. host: donna in vero beach, florida. caller: hi. i want to ask you a question thet the fact that it is planes. they came in from the west coast and the east coast. us.ght the virus into host: you are getting a little confused. listen to the phone and continue with your question. donna in vero beach. let me add onto her comment about shutting out the airline flights from china and europe. when the history of covid-19 is written, where do you think the

epidemiology on this begins? willoughby earlier than the first cases -- will the first cases be earlier than we now think? guest: yes. it's a wonderful parlor game people love to play. what was the first case of this or that disease? who is patient zero? who is typhoid mary? we may identify or label somebody as patient zero. that doesn't mean they actually are. there were probably cases november or fall, december that were not recognized. it is a novel coronavirus. it is responding in a way other coronavirus's have. when you are a doctor in a tiny village in china and you see somebody come down with this terrible viral pneumonia, you might not only -- you can't recognize it because you have never seen it before.

you don't have a test that will tell you what it is because the test does not yet exist. i suspect it is probably earlier than the late december or early january cases we saw in wuhan. host: michael asks, would you consider today's modern industrialized lifestyle either a blessing or a curse when it comes to emerging pandemics? advanced medical understanding but also a connected global infrastructure? guest: well, i feel like you have been reading some of my books. i say exactly that. it is a blessing and a curse. there has never been a better time in history to have a pandemic and today, except for tomorrow. because of the advancements we've had in medicines, treatment, intensive care. none of this was available in 1918. a lot of the people with pre-existing conditions were dying of covid-19. they would never be alive 50 or 100 years ago.

cancer,ith hiv-aids, transplants, on and on would never be alive and they are because of modern medicine. this global conductivity is both a problem in terms of how easily something can spread. an outbreak can go everywhere. scientists and doctors are connected so they can talk and work together to create vaccines. . within hours after the cdc sending viral samples to the nih in late january, early february, within hours the scientists at which protein would be most immuno genetic to develop a vaccine. that is a world record. sars was pretty good. it took about a week to figure out. aids took about three years. bubonic plague took centuries.

we are rapidly shortening the time from discovery to diagnosis to treatment. host: a couple of more calls here. next from four lotto -- fort lauderdale. this is kevin. caller: are you familiar with the testing in tanzania where they testing i -- tested eight apaya and it tested -- tested papaya and it tested positive. guest: the papaya tested positive? caller: thanks for coming on. i wanted to know your thoughts. he said the united states was slow walking into this. when trumpou saying put the travel ban on china in late january? what were you saying at that time? thank you. guest: i was probably saying it was a good thing.

commercial airlines were doing it already voluntarily. primarily probably for business reasons. americans did not want to go to china and they did not want to bring potentially ill people to the united states. travel's are interesting because interestingns are because governments are hesitant to order them because it cost so much money, but that was probably a good thing. the fact that more than 5 million people left wuhan before the lockdown happened in late january tells you the cow had already left the barn door. well.as a problem as host: maxing and new baltimore, michigan. -- maxine. caller: thank you for taking my call. i will give a disclaimer. i am not a fan of the medical profession.

we are told on the news constantly we have to listen to the scientists. that would be fine if the scientist would ever get together and make a decision. i have seen so many doctors on television with their opinions. they don't know anything. all of them have gone political. i would like to know if the did that become as political as this pandemic is? that is all it is. you don't know anything about you are doing. the same old same old. we don't know, we don't know. of course you don't know. put is why so many people into your care and of dying, but we have to pay for it. host: we will get a response from dr. markel. guest: well, i respectfully disagree. most of us have spent years and years studying these issues. there are things about the novel

virus we don't know. at least we are honest and tell you that. i don't treat politics that treat people. it is your choice to listen to experts who spend their lives working on these issues were not. choice.your flu islling it spanish politicizing it. it did not originate in spain. in fact it may have been because that was the only country reporters were allowed to write about it early in the epidemic. no one really quite knows where that mantra came from. labeling one country or another as the origin for a naturally occurring disaster like a pandemic is politicizing it. americans had a great deal of faith and experts back then in a

way that has been eroded, sometimes by the fault of the doctors and scientists themselves. but also by leaders and journalists and media who make false cries of fake news for news they don't like or fax they don't agree with, and then call it an opinion or a bias. here's the bottom line, ma'am. while you may think you are entitled to your own facts, you're not. that are many, many facts are scientifically reproducible that we are using to combat this pandemic. that is very different from opinions. toctually do take offense you saying i kill people because i don't know what i'm doing. that is quite offensive. i respectfully asked for you to reclaim that comment. host: university of michigan history of medicine, dr. howard markel, the center's director.

thank you for joining us this morning. washington journal primetime back tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span and c-span radio. our program again in the morning tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. eastern of the historic supreme court oral argument conducted by teleconference with. they are breaking tradition due to the pandemic. the argument are historic. for the first time audio is available from the court and you can hear it live in just a few minutes. is first case moments away the little sisters of the poor versus pennsylvania. consolidated with trump versus pennsylvania about birth control access and religious exemptions. .he second case is barr vs political consultants about one these robo calls as a free-speech right. after the oral arguments, stick around for a live from the

national constitutional center on said it -- on today's cases. up next, the supreme court live on c-span.

>> the honorable, the chief justice and the associate justices of the supreme court of the united states. yea, all persons having this is before the supreme court of the united states are admonished to give their attention as the court is now sitting. god save the united states and this honorable court. >> we will hear arguments in case 19 431 little sisters of the poor v. pennsylvania in the consolidated case. general francisco. >> mr. chief justice, may it please the court.