to talk about the impact on her state. to the conversation. 8:00 p.m.onight at eastern on c-span. and, after "washington journal primetime," today's senate hearing. you will hear from dr. anthony fauci, dr. redfield, stephen the currents on national virus response and what the future holds. the entire hearing, tonight at 9:00 eastern on c-span. >> our first guest of the morning joins us from austin, texas. he is from the foundation for research on equal opportunity. he serves as their president. good morning to you. tell folks a little bit about your organization. it, the said, -- backs

point of view you take. focus is on market-based ideas that expand economic opportunities. we were founded in 2016. enhance or advance both progressive values and conservative values at the same time. that means things that actually increase social mobility, help those on the bottom half of the deployedladder, but techniques like market-based policy to achieve that. host: along the relative those ideas that states and the white house and the federal government are dealing with is the reopening of states. what do you think about the general approach being taken? there is a loty,

of diversity and how states are approaching this. in our view, in general, we are more on the reopening end of the spectrum. if you actually look at what we inrted doing inmate -- mid-to-late march and look at the evidence piled up about how the novel coronavirus is -19 is, whatw covid it actually does in people and how it transmits itself, we have a lot more evidence. before, we were operating on old playbooks we derived from battling the flu. but covid-19 is a very different disease. that means we can approach reopening in a more targeted way. now, that cov that means we can approach reopening in a more targeted way. we realize, now, that covid-19 is a disease that disproportionately, much more so than influenza, affects the elderly, which means younger children and workers are able to go back to school and work with the right precautions. and, in that way, reopen the economy in a graduated fashion. our approach is let's not

compromise public health. it's not an either/or. there is a sweet spot where you can maximize the ability to reopen the economy while still ensuring that as few people as possible are hospitalized and die from this terrible disease. host: there are those that argue that to find that sweet spot it depends on the testing being done. then, looking at other data there. do you need that kind of information before you can make these decisions, in your mind? guest: our argument -- and we talk about this at length, is the conventional wisdom about testing is somewhat wrong. first of all, not all tests are equally accurate or measure the same thing. there are certain tests that measure active infections from viral rna, the viral genetic material. those tests are very accurate at testing who has active infections, but they are cumbersome to administer.

the standard pcr test is involves a six inch nasal swab that goes up your nostril and gets to the back of your head, and then they pull it out and wait two days, and you get a result. that is a very accurate test, but the idea that 2 million americans a day will submit themselves to that kind of test is unrealistic. on the other hand, you have antibody tests, which are much easier to administer in a home setting, as opposed to a hospital or doctor's office, but they do not actually measure active infections. often, you get infected with the coronavirus, and it takes three weeks to four weeks for your body to develop antibodies against that virus. you may be running around and infecting a lot of people but test negative in the antibody test. i could go on and on about this topic, but the point i am trying to make is that purely the number of tests -- we have this many tests available -- that does not mean anything. what really matters is the kind

and accuracy of the tests. it is our view that testing, widespread, population level testing, is unrealistic. what we have to focus on is the much more accurate pcr intrusive tests for the most at risk populations. at my responders, people working in emergency rooms, and people in nursing homes. we just published a paper on this a couple days ago that 40% of all people in the u.s. who have died of covid-19 live in nursing homes or residential care homes that are about caring for seniors. 40%. only 1.6 that even if percent of americans live in those facilities. that is an area we need to do a lot more. that is a tragedy that we have allowed that problems have fester and get worse. the silver live in -- lining is the rest of that 90% of the population, we can do more to

reopen the economy, because they are at relatively lower list -- risk. host: you can guess -- ask our guest questions by calling (202) 748-8000 for those in eastern and central time zones. guest: -- in2) 748-8001 for those mountain and pacific time zones. what is the necessity of a vaccine before we can return things to normal? guest: there is a good chance we never succeed at developing an effective vaccine for sars-cov-2. you hear this -- it is like making a cake to develop a vaccine for a new virus -- of the fact is there is no guarantee we can develop a vaccine. their brightest minds around the

world have been trying to develop a vaccine for hiv, the virus that causes aids, for over 35 years and we still do not have one. we do not have a vaccine for hepatitis c. antivirale effective drugs to treat those once you have been infected, but we do not have a vaccine that prevents you from getting infected. we cannot assume that we will for sars cov 2. even if, in the near term, we cannot develop a truly effective treatment of the disease. from avik roy, our guest the foundation for research on equal opportunity. you can find the work of the organization at freopp.org. he is here to take your questions and comments.

one of the things we have seen as far as other countries have handle this is sweden's approach. withou familiarize those the approach that country takes and what is right or wrong about it? guest: it is an interesting case study. did a basically never total lockdown the way that we have gotten used to in the u.s. that is not to say they did nothing. they shut down sporting events, prohibited bars where you have ,ig crowds in front of the bar prohibited that. they primitive crowded gatherings. but they did not prevent restaurants from continuing to serve customers, did not close down retail shops or businesses. part of their theory was we might be with this disease, or this disease may be with us, for a long time, and we have to do things that the population of

sweden is willing to accept for a longer-term, so let's do this more graduated or careful or limited approach. yes, the virus will spread to more people in sweden, but not and diesgets sick from covid-19, and if we can allow the younger people to reenter the workforce or stay employed, we will have less economic destruction. we may have more infections but not this apocalyptic scenario. that is what has happened. the one thing where sweden has not done as well -- or i should say have done as badly as other people -- is the nursing home question. across europe and australia and new zealand come a lot of countries are having this problem where 40% to 50% from debts of covid-19 are taking place in nursing homes. that is one area where you could look to sweden and say they have more room for improvement. but, overall, of the western countries we look at, sweden appears to have found the sweet

spot in terms of not shutting down the economy but having an acceptable public health outcome. host: is there a connection for sweden's approach and the type of health care that country provides? guest: i think the answer is no. sweden has a single-payer health care system, but that is something people may point to and say that is the reason sweden is doing so well. italy also has a single-payer health care system, and they are the country that has than the worst in the western world. the u.k. has a single-payer health care system, and they have not done that great. -- also hashouse so a single-payer health care system and have done reasonably well. markets like germany with a multi-payer health care system have done reasonably well. so we have not seen the correlation. what we have found is that the countries that have really done the best job of responding to covid-19 are the ones that had direct experience with the

original size coronavirus in coronavirus in 2003. that virus is similar to the one we have now, which is called sars-cov-2. the countries that dealt with the original sars epidemic like hong kong, taiwan, south korea, other pacific rim countries, they were the ones, in terms of the everyday people and their response and the government's response, they took this very seriously from the start, as soon as the new started coming out of wuhan, china. they started to aggressively act. the everyday citizens wore masks on the subway. they tried to be careful they took care to wash hands and engage in social distancing. that early response and those asian countries, gardens of a kind of health-care systems they have, really matters. singapore has one of the most free-market health care systems in the world, one of the most free-market countries in the world, and they have done pretty well.

south korea has a single-payer health care system and they have done pretty well. it is more about prior experience. host: our first call is from kansas city, kansas. good morning. caller: yes, good morning. what i was wanting to ask is, -- if our government does not start doing something with people coming into our you cannotegally, vet them or see if they have been vaccinated for anything. we still have measles pop up in spots. we have tuberculosis. nobody knows who is bringing it

in. alwaysuntry has almost done away with stuff like that. host: you want to take that? sure thatten, making people are not bringing chemical diseases into the united states is important. it is also important to remember a lot of how this sars-cov-2 virus got into the united states was not through illegal immigration. it was through legal travel between china and the united states and between europe and the united states. some of the strains on the west coast came from people traveling back and forth to china, whether it was chinese nationals or americans who had business in china. on the east coast, it appears that most of the way the virus came here was europe, where -- of course, also came from china, but whether americans or europeans or chinese nationals were traveling through europe to the united

states got here, that is how the disease got to the united states. to the degree that illegal immigration or immigration in general is relevant to this situation, and it may be, to a degree, it is also true that legitimate or illegal immigration or business travel among americans is also a big part of how these pandemics spread, particularly these days. host: from florida, this is david. caller: good morning. i have a family member in an assisted care living facility. they have been in lockdown since the end of january, i want to say, where they were not allowed to leave the rooms or anything. the people that work in those facilities are from our community. as we open back up, how will this affect the people who work and those facilities and keep them from infecting our loved ones? guest: a great question and a

very important question. about what he percent of all the people who have died of covid-19 in the united states live in assisted living facilities or work there. outside of new york state, which has some quirks to the way they report the data, it is actually 50%. about half the people outside of new york state who have died of covid-19 are living in these assisted of ink facilities. florida is one of the states that has action performed relatively well on this metric compared to other states. what are the reason why is that governor desantis did not lock down the whole state the way a lot of people asked or demanded aggressivehe was about restricting visitation to nursing homes. that appears to have made a difference in the performance of florida on some of these health outcomes. one of the key things with assisted living facilities is, as you have suggested, the

workers, the staff who work at these facilities, often live off-site. sometimes, they work and multiple nursing homes or multiple facilities. in onee is an outbreak facility and a staffer works there, and then that same staffer works in another facility, they are than the carrier of that virus to another facility. what will be important is to aggressively test the staff that work at these facilities. it will be really important that, wherever possible, staff are not working at multiple facilities but are sticking to a single facility. ideally, staffers live at that facility or nearby at a hotel that the nursing home operators or the state can rent out. hotels are pretty cheap these days because nobody is traveling, so there is a lot of empty hotel space, and that may be a way to kill two birds with one stone -- run. hotel rooms for staffers, so they are not gett not actually going around getting exposed to thein virus o the community or transmitting it themselves. host: this is margie from newark, delaware. caller: i have a few questions.

because i am confused. i read the "new york post" every day. there is two big articles that are saying, young babies are getting it. , 65 babies of fact that were verified. it is almost related to kawasaki's, but it is through the virus. said, in the age group 30 to 40, they get caught when they got the virus. they are getting strokes. so for him to just say it is elderly people mostly, it is too confusing. i can understand people are confused, because everybody is saying something different. so i would like him to clarify. guest: a great question, and a very important question. and the caller is right. there is a lot of confusion about this, because there are --

look, if you are younger, it is not that you are completely immune from covid-19 or that it is not possible for you to get sick, it is possible for you to get sick. and there are cases of younger people who die of covid-19. but, statistically speaking, if you actually look at numbers across the country and across the world, the percentage of people who are dying in their 30's or 20's or teens or children, is very, very low as a share of the population, as a share of those infected, whereas, among the elderly, it is very high. of those infected, whereas, among the elderly, it is very high. if you are older than 65 -- particularly if you're older than 85 -- the chance that you die if you get infected of covid-19 is very high. i do not have the numbers in front of me -- i can pull up the chart if you like -- let's call it 10%. whereas for people who are under 40, particularly under 30 or 20, less.more like 0.1% or

it is not that nobody gets sick or dies from covid-19 if you are younger. it is that the risk of dying from covid-19 if you are younger is much, much lower. comparable, in many cases, to your chances of getting sick from the flu if you are younger. again, that is not true if you are older. that covid-19 is less dangerous or equally dangerous to the flu. it is more dangerous, but it is particularly dangerous to the elderly. the risk of dying and of being hospitalized from covid-19 is much lower if you are younger. dr. fauci, or at least he is reported to say for a senate committee today, that when it comes to opening the country prematurely, he has great concerns, saying if we skip over the checkpoints and guidelines, we risk the danger of multiple outbreaks occurring. when he says those kinds of

messages, compared to what you have been expressing, how do you square those two? guest: a very important question. i think dr. fauci is being overly cautious. that is understandable. he is a virologist, a public health official. his concern is about infection rates, which is very important. but it is not the only concern. there are other concerns that matter. the fact that 20 million people are out of work right now because we have shut down the economy is incredibly important. the people who are not seeking every day care for heart attacks, the people who are not getting mammograms, war not getting checkups for a high blood pressure or cholesterol, those things have public how the facts as well. a lot of research shows when you have chronically high unemployment, there are increasing deaths of despair my people who die because of poverty. there are other issues. the fact that schools are closed means that people who even can work today -- let's say you are

a single mom who works as a pharmacist, and you cannot go to work because you cannot leave your 3-year-old at home alone, because normally your child is in school -- or think about the fact that, and a lot of low income communities, it is not just about childcare, it is about nutrition. a lot of low income families depend on the federal school lunch program to feed their kids. and they do not have access to that right now because schools are closed. there are a lot of considerations that matter as well as infection rates. my concern, and where we disagree, me and my co-authors, with dr. fauci is i think a single-minded focus purely on infection rates does not take into account the trade-offs that come from the economic disruption and physical disruption -- we spent $4 trillion trying to resuscitate the economy or prop it up while all of this is going on. we would have to spend more if

we keep the economy shut down for longer. what is really important is to find that sweet spot where we are careful about reopening the economy in the lower -- lowest risk possible way, similar to what sweden and florida have done. what we will see, as time goes those states that have gone carefully will not see the apocalypse that apocalypse -- the apocalyptic vision that dr. fauci sees -- host: go ahead with your comment. toler: in regards to sweden, my understanding, the finance minister said they were still looking at a possible 10% gdp 50% as well as 14% to unemployment, even with this structure of letting people go about their normal business lives. including the exponential growth rate of this, considering

germany has got it down to 1.1% it closer to hours of 2.0%, will they not be dealing with a surge of hospital stays over the long term, causing more disruption to their economy? guest: great question. a couple of different points, so i will try to go through them. first of all, germany did not completely locked down its economy either. there was a great story in the " wall street journal" about how multiple factories had stayed open through the pandemic and come as a result, the economic lower in germany has been than what would otherwise be expected. by the way, germany is now reopening their economy. they reopened their schools or are planning to. off.undesliga is kicking germany is actually coming out of lockdown in ways that active

algae, for example, would otherwise complain about or be concerned about. you mentioned the sweetest situation. the sweetest gdp has gone down -- out of the reason why is that sweden is a small country that trades with every other country. if you are a manufacturer of saab cars or ericsson cell phones in sweden, you sell those around the world, or volvos, than the global shutdown affects your economy as well. even if you lift yourselves out of lockdown, you are still dependent on trade the rest of the world. same with the united states. but because the u.s. is a bigger country and less dependent on foreign trade compared to a smaller country like sweden, our ability to resuscitate our economy, in that sense, is greater. the caller mentioned that the sweetest gdp is down 10%. the congressional budget office forecasts that u.s. gdp will be

down up to 40%. i would take that 10% rather than 40%. host: from montana, kevin. caller: how are you doing today? host: fine, thank you. caller: i was wondering when you would do an apology week for dragging trump through the mud for three years on the russia collusion deal. i think that would be a pretty important topic -- host: we will let the coverage we had for that stand for itself. what is your question for the guest? caller: you will let that stand. host: what is your question for the guest? caller: nothing -- host: ok, we'll go to joey. that theike, was economy has to reopened due to the fact that we cannot do too long -- when we were younger, we

were taught to wash her hands and that there are germs and bacteria that will be out there. i feel like people everywhere have to be responsible, making sure they are not coming into contact with the bacteria. and if they practice natural hygiene, the governors should be able to decide if we clean the ,reas everywhere people are at they should be able to come out. there should not be a mandatory lockdown, because that will not help our economy. just keep stepping back and not go forward. guest: i completely agree. that is the point of this big proposal we put out at freopp.org on how to bring americans back to work even as covid-19 enters or during covid-19, as we call it. reopening thet economy after covid-19, it is

about reopening the economy during covid-19, because the economic destruction has been so hard. by the way, it has been hardest for the most vulnerable workers in our economy. 60% of 70% of hourly wage earners, people who work hour to hour, 70% of those jobs are on right now. 70%. if you work at a tech company or at an investment bank and you can work from home, things are manageable for you. maybe you need a babysitter and that is your challenge. but if you are an hourly wage earner, you do not have a livelihood right now. that is a huge problem, especially when you consider the fact that these 20 euros and 30-year-olds are at slow -- are at very low risk of dying or being hospitalized from covid-19. , 50% outside of new york state, our seniors who live in assisted living facilities. i pulled up the chart. in terms of the deaths per

million people, based on the centers for disease control statistics, if you are over 85 -- this is as of mid april, so the numbers will increase but the ratio should stay the same -- if you are over 85, 564 americans per million have died from covid-19. between the ages of 25 and 34, prime working age, 2.5 people per million have died from covid-19. that is a ratio of about 200. the risk of dying from covid-19 is about 200 times for an 85-year-old what it is for a 35-year-old. that matters in terms of the policy response. we have to look at the evidence from this disease, from what is accumulating and piling up from covid-19, and not merely plot a fromook that we dusted off the 1918 spanish flu. you are seeing a lot of public health types say this is how we

dealt with the food -- flu pandemic from this or that year. covid-19 is not the flu. it has a different effect on different populations. we should take that knowledge and use it to maximize our ability to reopen the economy. host: we have seen the federal government extend financial help to individuals and businesses going beyond that. is that an appropriate role for the government? guest: it is appropriate philosophically that governments are saying shut down your business, so the government tells you to shut down your business and is not letting you work, then the government has a role in trying to provide you relief. the problem is twofold. one we have overshot. the lockdown has been too aggressive. the second problem is the actual paycheck protection program that congress passed to help those small businesses stay afloat has a lot of problems. first of all, it is limited --

it defines small businesses as any business with fewer than 500 employees. i do not know about you, but i know a lot of businesses with 500 employees. i do not think of them as a small business. they are often national or international companies. to me, a small business has , may bean 50 employees smaller than 100 employees. those small businesses with fewer than 10 employees or just an individual freelancer, those are the ones that struggle to access the funding from congress, because they did not have lobbyists, lawyers, the people to get them access to the money before it ran out. the other thing is the way the paycheck attention program is designed is it says if you keep your workers employed, then you qualify for the loan forgiveness , which makes sense. you do not want to give companies an incentive to lay

off their workers and then collect any from taxpayers. the flipside is if you are a restaurant or retail establishment that has been forcibly closed by the government, you cannot employ anybody. because there are no jobs. you can pay people, but you basically cannot operate. so you're telling these small businesses to operate at a loss, hemorrhage money, and if you do that, maybe you are eligible for aid. worked for some companies but has failed a lot of others. host: from indiana, good morning. caller: thanks for c-span and thank you for being on. you think the defense production act put in, like, yesterday to help our country with the testing?

a lot of other countries are able to open not because they are testing the people to go out and do their jobs every day instead of just not doing that. i do not understand why this is not being done for our country? and for the president to get on -- well, yesterday, in a way, and just makeup things are not true to the american people is pretty outrageous. i think something needs to be done now about the defense production act. host: we will let our guests respond. guest: in terms of the performance of the president and other leaders, we have an election, and voters will be able to register their views at that point as to how things have gone. in terms of the defense

production act, i do not actually think the defense production act will make that much of a difference here. as we talked about earlier in the show, one of the big elements of our policy proposal at the foundation for research for equal opportunity is the conventional wisdom is overly simplistic about the role and need for testing, because not all tests are equally accurate, and not all tests look for and can detect an active infection of sars-cov-2, or the covid-19 disease. merelyt to say that looking at the number of tests does not tell the story. if you look at the number of tests, we are doing fine. on a per capita level, the united states is on par with other countries. the problem is it is not practical to test every american for covid-19 or for the sars-cov-2 virus. what we can and should and need to do more aggressively is aggressively test people who

work in emergency rooms and other health care facilities or first responders, and we need to do a better job of testing people who live and work in nursing homes. fromy half of the deaths covid-19 are taking place in assisted living facilities. we have to focus our aggressive testing regimens on the higher risk populations. in terms of the average person going to work every day, sticking a six inch nasal swab of your nostrils to get tested every couple of days is not going to be practicable -- practical. what you will see more of in the everyday setting is temperature checks. they are not as active as pcr tests, the kind we are talking about, but just checking your temperature to make sure you do not have a fever can be a good way of figuring out whether you may be at risk of covid-19, and

it is easier. you can stick a little probe in your ear or on your forehead, and there are these lasers that can detect your temperature -- there are a lot of ways to detect a person's temperature that are not as intrusive and are easier at the practical population level. that is where we will see more action. airlines and airports are thinking about if lamenting temperature testing to make sure they have a first pass screen passengers who may be at risk of covid-19. host: from samuel in wisconsin. caller: good morning. i was wondering if you could comment about the concerns of business about liability claims. is there anything congress will from protect businesses the slip and fall lawyers? guest: i've been hearing this a lot from business owners, of all types, all sectors of the economy, who are concerned about

if we do what those of us are advocating for reopening suggest and reopen your business and bring people back to work, are you going to put yourself at risk of millions or billions of dollars in lawsuits? cannotse, you necessarily prove where that got infected. that makes it even harder in terms of these plans. the answer is yes, congress is looking at this. members of congress have heard from the businesses in their congressional fissures and states about this very problem, loud and clear. i think the next time congress thinks about or considers covid-19 relief legislation, the issue of liability protection will be front and center in that conversation. host: matthew joins us. he is in connecticut. caller: how are you? thank you for accepting my call. i want to say that i cannot help but agree with the guest.

onust want you to comment how this pandemic is creating a mental health crisis in our country. i believe the "washington post" reported on this on may 4. i do agree with you, but more so because of the impact that this pandemic is having on everyday fundamental health of everyday americans. guest: and before i get to that, i want to say the call is from connecticut, and connecticut is one of the states that has one of the worst situations on the nursing home front. the percentage of the nursing home population that has died in connecticut is second or third highest in the country. the highest is new jersey, as a share of the assisted living population. connecticut has a real problem, and the more connecticut can adjust that, the better. in terms of your question on the

mental-health side of things, it is another huge problem. it is something that is hard to measure. there are polls and surveys where americans say my mental health has declined or deteriorated as a result of the pandemic. but again, this is one of the reasons why i push back, from a thoughtirological process about economic policy. you have to think about the incredible strain that the lockdown has had on people. people who do not particularly have childcare but also people who are unemployed, people who are not able to leave their home and need that companionship. older people who may be living alone, single parents -- and they are all sorts of people, let alone those who already have mental health challenges on top of that, that are dealing with the strain. across the entire country, every single cohort of people, you are seeing this kind of strain. some of it is necessary,

particularly in the short term. we all said, when the lockdown started, if we need to do this for a short period of time to flatten the curve, that is ok. but we have to remember something that is really important. why were the lockdowns implement it? they were not fomented to squash the curve. they were not -- they were not implemented to squash the curve. they were implemented to flatten the curve. what flatten the curve means is not actually reducing the number of people infected but slowing the pace of how quickly people are infected, so that hospitals and icus do not get overwhelmed with patients in severe respiratory distress. we have done that. even in new york city, we never reached a point where the icus and hospitals were overwhelmed. and the rest of the country, congress spent $100 billion to help hospitals losing money because their beds are empty.

that is another thing that points to why we need to reopen the economy. the original rationale was to protect our hospitals from being overrun. our hospitals are not being overrun. we should take advantage of that to gradually and strategically reopen the economy and help people get back to work and give people less strain in their lives as well. host: avik roy of the >> tonight, four expert witnesses on the coronavirus pandemic, anthony fauci, robert redfield, stephen hahn and others testified before the senate committee on returning to work and school. three of them were potentially exposed to the virus. watch testimony tonight

beginning at 9 p.m. eastern on c-span, anytime at c-span.org, or on the go with the free c-span radio app. >> 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. watch anytime on demand at c-span.org/coronavirus. earlier today, virginia governor andh northam governor is a hutchinson talked about the pandemic during an event hosted by the "washington post." governor northam talks about steps his student has taken to reopen and improvement to testing capabilities. governor hutchison