stocks. penn national, draftkings, for the next 12 months for the right client. charles: all right, folks. you heard it there. that's my man. eddie, thank you so much. always appreciate it. looking pretty good as we head into the final hour of trading. cheryl casone in for liz claman. over to you. cheryl: thank you very much, sir. well, you were just saying the markets are looking for three in a row today as they shake off the longest weekly losing streak in more than a year. the dow right now up 506 points, off session highs but still strong performance for the dow. the s&p is up by 60, nasdaq up by 197. bouncing higher led pretty much by financials and also some of the travel-related stocks. we will get into that coming up during the show. all of this comes as team trump has failed in its legal bid to ban the chinese video app tiktok. a judge ruling yesterday that tiktok can stay on apple and google's app stores. charlie gasparino with the very latest twist in this saga that

does not end. plus the secret of silicon valley company palantir will become the latest unicorn to go public this week. we will find out why 2020 is shaping up to be a banner year for new listings and that's despite the coronavirus pandemic. and tomorrow, the first presidential debate of the 2020 campaign. the fox bet ceo here to tell us how you can cash in on the political face-off between president trump and joe biden. less than an hour to the closing bell, i'm cheryl casone in for liz claman. let's start "the claman countdown." cheryl: we start with virgin galactic reaching for the stars after two bullish calls. bank of america global research initiated the space tourism firm with a buy and street-high price

target of 35 bucks. the stock is up more than 23% right now. susquehanna with a positive rating. definitely a stock to watch. from space to the air, airline stocks taking flight after american airlines said it secured a $5.5 billion government loan and it could tap an additional $2 billion more next month. airlines have until wednesday to decide whether to accept u.s. treasury loans which are authorized under the cares act. as you can see, american, delta, united in the green. united making a major announcement, talking about its new deal with its pilots, that could actually avoid furloughs for united airlines pilots. all the stocks are in the green. let's look at inovio pharmaceuticals, plunging after regulators raised questions about a planned phase 2-3 trial for that covid-19 vaccine they have been working on. the trial thahas been delayed. that means the later planned

trials not going to begin until october at the earliest. this is one of the names we have been following on fox business in the race to get this vaccine to market. as you can see, the stock taking a major hit, down more than 27%. well, let's go back to green arrows. these are finally nice to see after four weeks of losses for the markets. you have a nice little rally to start off your week but with two major events this week, the presidential debate and the september jobs report on friday. which will have the biggest impact on markets? i want to bring in our traders. phil flynn and tom hayes. guys, great to have you both here. phil, tell me what you're going to watch more closely this week. is it going to be the debate, performance of the candidates, or the jobs report friday where the unemployment rate is expected to tick down ail lit l bit? >> you know, i should be saying the jobs report but i don't think it is. i really don't. i think this debate is going to be the biggest thing since the super bowl or world series.

it's going to be huge because it basically is going to really determine whether or not president trump can deliver a knockout punch that everybody is expecting in this debate, or is vice president biden going to make a game out of this debate right now. i mean, the polls are tightening in a lot of places around the country. a lot of differences in economic policies coming down from vice president biden versus trump and if it looks like vice president biden lays a couple of gloves on donald trump, you know, the market could start worrying about a biden presidency, more higher taxes, more regulations. what's that going to do to the energy industry, you know? he's talked out of both sides of his mouth when it comes to fracking. does it mean we will stop fracking, does it mean oil prices are going to go to the moon because we're not producing oil? so i think if it looks like vice president biden puts in a strong

performance, it means the odds of him winning improve a little bit. let's face it, most people expect donald trump to knock him out. we will see if it happens. cheryl: we'll see what happens. obviously that's the big question. this is their first time on the debate stage going against each other. but phil is actually on to something. jane foley, a constant guest with me in the morning, has said a lot of these comments she's heard from the president have made her and some of her colleagues nervous, because will they accept the election, that's been kind of a question mark out there even though he says, you know, we'll see, but she says you know, if you factor in all the things going on with the economy, this means volatility is going to continue. that can be difficult waters to tread when you are trying to invest money right now. >> yeah. well, i have to agree with phil here. no surprises on the job report. we will tick down closer to 8%. we will add 850,000 non-farm payroll but the debate and the election, this is the key for two reasons. the democratic tax plan is

dangerous for the stock market. leave ideology aside, the stock market, the corporate tax rate going up from 21% to 28%, goldman sachs has said would bring down 2021 earnings estimates from $170 per share to $150 per share. not only do you get the loss of earnings, but you will likely get multiple contractions because the market will expect slower growth. we could see a re-rating of the stock market of 18% to 25% if that tax plan is implemented, number one. number two, long-term capital gains. they want to raise it from 20% to 39.6% for people making over $1 million. what you would have is a rush for the exits before the end of the year to lock in the low tax rate. so that's the bad news. the good news is, in order to effect the democratic tax plan you would need a sweep of the executive branch, the senate and the house which is very unlikely. the market is sniffing that out.

grid lock is good, if you look over the last hundred years, having a mixed executive, senate and house is a good thing. that's what the market is expecting. so we will be watching the debate very closely and it's very very important from a mathematical standpoint for earnings in the stock market. cheryl: all eyes on ohio tomorrow night. obviously, you know, how the markets react on wednesday is going to be i think fascinating to watch. phil flynn, thomas hayes, thanks to both of you. really appreciate it. speaking of the president, he will be in the rose garden for an event in about 20 minutes from now. we will take that to you live when it comes. parents can breathe a sigh of relief. i don't know about the parents, but the kids can breathe a sigh of relief. yesterday a judge halted the trump administration's ban on tiktok in the app store but is it smooth sailing from here on out? lot of unanswered questions. charlie gasparino has new details on the story. hey, charlie. can you hear me? charlie: wow. this is the perils of working

from home, i guess. cheryl: you look comfortable. charlie: i thought i was on after the break. this is wonderful. cheryl: welcome to live television. what's going on with tiktok, buddy? charlie: my dog is going to run in here and bark at me which does happen. or you catch me drinking a beer. but here's what we know about tiktok. my long national nightmare known as whether tiktok survives is not over yet. i'll tell you, there was a court ruling yesterday, late last night, that basically said put off an immediate ban of tiktok, not from if you have already downloaded the app on your iphone. it's for new customers. that will be put off indefinitely. the judge ruled in favor of tiktok for a temporary restraining order on the immediate download ban that the trump administration's commerce department sought. but still, this does not resolve the issues at the heart of this

thing. we may be talking about this until after the election which is probably what the trump administration, everybody else, wants. here's why. the chinese government still has not given its blessing to the deal as it is right now. the trump administration hasn't, either. they are coming at it in two different ways. the trump administration wants a u.s. company, oracle, to control everything including essentially control of the algorithm, all-important algorithm from this. the chinese are saying no, we control the algorithm, we want to control -- actually, we want to control the company before it goes public. that's where you have sort of a standoff here. what's interesting in the court filing is that the doj does go to some length to describe why it thinks tiktok is a national security threat, you know, how it uses the user data. remember, tiktok is owned by bytedance, a chinese company. most chinese companies answer to the chinese communist party. it does explicitly state that it believes it uses the user data even though its user data of a

lot of 12-year-olds so we can debate this, whether it's real or not. they really do, meaning the trump administration, really does believe there's a national security threat here. but it doesn't really provide much in the form of evidence. a lot of it's redacted. these are in the court filings that went along with that judge ruling. so we are essentially at -- i would think, now, no one knows for sure, because this is all about what the chinese want to do, you would think you would get some word this week as to where this thing is going. i would say the chinese rather than the trump administration's in the driver's seat. they may just say no to the whole thing, then it's up to trump whether to bite the bullet and allow countless 12-year-olds to have their tiktok, or just go through with the ban. i think we will know this week. but you know, i wrote a column in the "new york post" this week which is very critical of this process. i will say this. this is where it's going to be,

i think, a -- one of those harvard business school case studies. i have never seen a deal like this. first off, it's not really a deal. no real money's changing hands. it's filled with crony capitalism, all the -- i mean, larry ellison will make a lot of money, good friend of trump on this thing. the core deal that at least trump gave his initial blessing to did not really address the national security concerns. bob barr, excuse me, william barr, attorney general, stepped in and basically put a kibosh on the immediate approval of the deal. so this thing, you know, it's a dimestore novel, so to speak. it ain't over yet. cheryl: in the middle of everything else going on in washington, an election weeks away. charlie gasparino, thank you for being there when you were. charlie: at least i was in front of my computer.

you didn't see me with a martini in my hand. cheryl: i have seen that before. charlie: on camera. cheryl: yes, absolutely. charlie, thank you very much, sir. good to see you. we are off of session highs just a little bit. still a strong performance for the market. we have had four weeks in a row, down numbers and losses for the market. looks like people are jumping back in, picking up some stuff. we will keep checking the markets for you. well, boeing is one of the stocks that's actually leading the dow 30 right now after global advisers upgraded that stock to overweight from neutral with a price target of $184 on hopes that the 737 max jet's going to be cleared for takeoff by the faa and european regulators in the coming weeks. testing scenarios that have wrapped up already. boeing is up 7% right now.

coming up next, new listings of publicly traded companies raising nearly $95 billion in 2020 despite a pandemic that virtually shut down the economy. will the ipo boom continue through the end of this year, or will it be over in november? we will ask an expert coming up next on "the claman countdown." look, this isn't my first rodeo and let me tell you something, i wouldn't be here if i thought reverse mortgages

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cheryl: long-awaited ipo palantir technology is expected to open for trading on wednesday, at $10 a share. this would give the data analytics firm a valuation of about $22 billion. the ticker is going to be pltr and the stock is going to open via direct listing on the new york stock exchange. this company was co-founded by peter thiel. palantir is known for its work with the u.s. government including agencies like the cia, department of defense and i.c.e. we are joined by an analyst now who works with companies who go through the ipo process. this is a big one. there has been a lot of buzz about this company going public. what do you think? >> i think we have been waiting for this one to finally get out of the gates for a long time now. palantir is one of the most

active names in the secondary mark market. equities is a recap for buying and selling private company stocks before these exits occur. palantir is one that a lot of us are excited about. cheryl: what do you make of the valuation, the potential valuation of $22 billion? because if there's this much buzz about palantir and there is, how much higher do you think it goes on wednesday? >> you know, the latest coverage i have seen sees numbers as high as $28 billion which is quite a step up already from $22 billion. look, palantir's stock has been trending higher in secondary markets. in their own filings, they said in august it was trading in the $7 range. in september it's trading in the $9 range. bankers are saying 10 bucks. morningstar has come out and said $28 billion. i think the public is eager for high growth software ipos and i

think they have done pretty well this year. palantir is trying to get it out there before the end of october. cheryl: i wanted to bring up a couple of other names that i think kind of go within this same group that have been very successful already. that is slack and spotify. these were vc-backed direct listings which seems to be a trend along with spacs which i will get to in a second. if you base what palantir will do on wednesday on these other success stories, it seems like it would be a good bet for investors, yes? >> yeah, absolutely. direct listings are not something that most companies can do. you have to be -- you have to have a household name recognition, you have to have a lot of numbers behind you, and you have to have a track record. palantir as a teenager which is rare among unicorns has all three of those. obviously you mentioned peter thiel. that's just one of a slate of big names surrounding palantir. i think the public is pretty excited to be able to finally

invest. something that private market investors have been trying to access for awhile and have successfully done so, the public market investors now will have their first bite at the apple. cheryl: what was interesting is peter thiel, alex carp, steven cohen, they become more potent, their shares do, as they sell down their stakes. i want to switch gears real quick. we saw this flurry of ipos throughout the year despite a pandemic which is a fascinating idea here, but through until november, do you think we will get ipos until the week of november 3rd and do we kind of stop then, do you think? >> look, we have five weeks left until the election. all the smart money is betting there's two, at most three weeks to go before the window closes. there's a lot of news coverage, obviously, on the pandemic. there's a lot of news coverage that's going to come to the election. a big reason to go public is to have your name, you go because

you want liquidity, sure, but you also go because you are going to be plastered all across every television in america. so at some point, the election coverage is going to crowd out and there's already a lot to contend with with the pandemic news going on. i think we have maybe two more weeks, then we will see a thaw come in. cheryl: that's what makes me curious about airbnb. we saw what happened with the travel industry and we saw it pretty much in travel, this isn't happening. airbnb, any ideas about when this thing could hit the market? >> airbnb? no. look, airbnb had 2020 in its line of sight. it was ready to go and then of course, with the pandemic, no one saw that coming. i think one company that is exceptionally well positioned to take advantage of the environment we are seeing right now is asana. i have to admit, [ inaudible ] does business with them, so take what i say with a grain of salt

but it's a workplace communication service, technology firm, former facebook founder, good name recognition. it's another one on the docket to be able to have a successful direct listing coming up. cheryl: thank you for the disclosure. we appreciate it. atish, we will see how this ipo shakes out wednesday. we will cover it for sure. thank you, sir. speaking of markets, the dodow is up 469. investors rolling the stocdice gambling stocks. taking a look at caesars that stock is up, apollo global up 3.8% right now. gambling stocks are rallying alongside those names, penn gaming, churchill downs in the green. we have another story you. fox bets. we will give you a chance to win cold hard cash during tomorrow

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cheryl: well, the debate stage is getting ready at case western reserve university in cleveland, ohio. as chris wallace will moderate the first presidential debate tomorrow night, 9:00 p.m. eastern time. while president trump and joe biden are trading barbs onstage, our next guest has a way for you to win cold, hard cash during the debate. we welcome in the fox bet interim ceo kip levin. great to have you here. >> thanks for having me. cheryl: you have been known for betting on nfl games, which we will get to in a second, but how did you decide and why did you decide to let folks place bets on the debate tomorrow night? >> well, they're not really placing bets.

the fox bet is actually a product we use nationwide where it's free to play, free to enter and obviously, it was designed as a way to let people play, so they are free to play games to win money around sporting events. we just thought given the interest in the event, why not give people sort of a fun way to play along, try their hand at sort of predicting what was going to happen. and create a light-hearted way for people to engage in a new way. cheryl: the sports wagering group has become one of the hotter groups, if you will, for investors and obviously for fans. you have barstool sports, fanduel, the score, wynn resorts getting into it. we just got breaking news mgm resorts is partnering with the tennessee titans for something called bet mgm. there's a lot of competition. how do you stand apart from it? >> for us, yes, it's a growing

space. the last two years, you know, have really seen it take off. we now have some form of legal sports betting in 20 states with a number of others that are in the process of looking at new legislation to bring it there as well. so it's obviously a big market opportunity, lots of competitors coming in and for us, it's about two things. one, we have a great partnership with fox and fox sports specifically, and they are helping us build a strong trusted brand around everything fox sports brings to the table. second, i think we are taking a strategy, you know, really looking at sort of new recreational customers. we have seen a lot of interest in betting on player props, patrick mahomes to throw a touchdown tonight, so on. that's been our focus and a way for us to differentiate the product we are putting out there. cheryl: i'm glad i didn't bet on the cowboys last night.

let's look at some debate questions for you. first, which nickname will president trump use first. it's multiple choice. it's free to play. i could just log in, then depending how well i do, i could maybe get a cash prize, right? >> yeah. it's pretty simple. it's available in the app store, fox bet super 6. just download, answer a couple questions, free to enter and you can play that as well as you will see the regular games that we run on a weekly basis around college football, baseball and obviously nfl sunday is usually our biggest contest of the week. cheryl: we've got all the questions up. we have shown our viewers. they can check it out. we have the actual president coming up in just a few moments. we will let you go. thank you very much. >> great. thanks. cheryl: all right. you don't want to miss fox business's democracy 2020 special coverage of tomorrow night's presidential debates. we will start things off at 8:00 p.m. eastern time. but before the main event, you

want to watch "countdown" special presidential debate economic undercard. that's tomorrow, this program, 3:00 p.m. eastern time. there's a full powerful lineup for you. larry kudlow, he will lay out team trump's vision. former biden chief economic adviser ben harris will share the former vp's position. we will also have a market matchup between mike novogratz, galaxy digital founder, chairman and ceo and businessman robert kiyosaki, plus billionaire co-owner of the milwaukee bucks, marc lasry. he will share his insights on the market, the economy and a lot more. jam-packed show, 3:00 p.m. eastern time on "the claman countdown." let's take a quick break. dow is up 460, off session highs. we were well up over 500 a few moments ago. nasdaq up 196. coming up next, president trump. we have our live shot ready to go. there's the rose garden at the white house. the president expected to make an announcement on coronavirus

testing. we will have a preview of the big event when "the claman countdown" comes right back. this is decision tech. find a stock based on your interests or what's trending. get real-time insights in your customized view of the market. it's smarter trading technology for smarter trading decisions. fidelity.

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and we're here to help you get started. book your free virtual or in-home design consultation today. cheryl: we've got some breaking news right now for you. president trump is expected to hold a news conference in the rose garden at any moment. this is going to be his first news conference since nominating judge amy coney barrett to the supreme court to fill the seat of the late ruth bader ginsburg. he is expected to give an update on the nation's coronavirus testing strategy and he's expected to take some questions. we just got a list of participants for this event. let's bring in edward lawrence from washington for a preview and what we can expect. the questions will be pretty interesting. reporter: very interesting. you talked about the supreme court. that is likely to come up as possible questions from the press pool that's there. democrats are pushing back against judge amy coney barrett about her faith. they are saying she could be the swing vote to overturn roe

versus wade. also, she could be the swing vote that possibly overturns or ends obamacare. the white house saying that if we have a very contested election, as it is shaping up to be, we will need a full court. at this event today the president will unveil the new coronavirus testing strategy for the nation. that event held in the rose garden which you see there. this strategy is expected to include a new initiative to have targeted testing at specific populations. you can guess this might be related to the most vulnerable for the coronavirus, possibly in nursing homes going forward. we are also going to see a number of speakers or the president talking about a number of folks who will benefit from this testing. one, the consumer, because experts have said that if you figure out where the coronavirus is with more testing, then you can have consumers more confident to go out and spend more money. that in turn would help the economy going forward. the other topic that will likely be asked when the president takes questions is about his tax

returns. the "new york times" releasing that story saying that in 10 of the past 15 years, the president has not paid any federal tax money on his taxes there, saying that his massive losses outweighed the income on his tax returns. the president has tweeted about this, saying he has paid hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes, pushing back against the story. in fact, trump organization attorney calling that story inaccurate. we should hear all about all of this coming up in just a few minutes. cheryl: the announcement itself, if you look at who will be joining him, we just got this from the white house, secretary azar will be there, secretary devos, seema verna will be prese present. not anthony fauci, i don't see on this list. correct me if i'm wrong, i don't see deborah birx. reporter: you haven't seen either of those two at these type of briefings over the last few weeks. betsy devos, they will talk

about schools and that could be one of the areas, targeted populations, talking about schools that are reopening to make sure they can open confidently going forward. alex azar will likely be able to give a list or tell exactly what's been happening with the vaccine updates on this. a lot of this information flows through the health and human services. but betsy devos there, again, schools is a big push here for the administration. then health care, nursing homes, the most vulnerable there, possibly part of this testing initiative. cheryl: the president will be there and he may give an update on operation warp speed, the race to get a vaccine, and you've got some trials that are possibly going to be giving us results next month. october which actually starts this week. but at the same time, you know, i was looking at the cdc numbers as far as testing goes in this country. we are up to 111.3 million tests in this country according to today's data from the cdc and a positivity rate of 8%. that does include the height of the pandemic, we should say, in

the spring. but i'm curious if the president or the vice president will give us some kind of updated estimate of how many tests we can expect in the next month to two months because the testing sites could actually help the country reopen more and get the economy going better. reporter: i don't know exactly if they will have testing numbers but i can tell you the vice president today spoke with governors around the nation about how they are doing with their reopening, specifically about schools, but also about the economy going forward. that happened about two hours ago. so there will be some information related to that. the vice president could be able to offer going forward with operation warp speed. you mentioned the vaccine, alex azar up to speed on that, also the vice president, but we are talking about pfizer and moderna had possibly said, possibly they will have enough data by the end of october to have a vaccine approval possibly, then you've got astra-zeneca which has delayed a little bit because of the testing issue they had, their phase 3 trials back open

in the uk there. and the others, johnson & johnson coming in and novavax coming, johnson & johnson at the beginning of next year, novavax possibly at the end of this year. so positive signs moving forward related to a vaccine on all of this, as we wait for the president. now we will hear the testing side of this and see how we can trace this in the united states. you know, officials have made a very big deal about if you could track and trace this, then you could isolate the communities and the other communities can then thrive more than they are thriving now. as we saw today, indiana opening up fully, florida also opening up more of their economy. cheryl: yeah. edward, if our viewers are just joining us, want to remind them we are looking at live pictures of the rose garden. we did get the two-minute warning. we have now gone past the two-minute warning. we expect to see the president and of course, members of, at least vice president pence who heads up the coronavirus task force and other members of the administration including secretary azar. also, there's going to be brad smith will be there, deputy assistant to the president for domestic policy along with dr.

scott atlas, adviser to the president and vice president. i was looking at a piece in the "journal" this morning and goes along with the vaccine story, not necessarily the testing story, that the fda has been very clear in giving guidance to these drug makers, all the ones you just mentioned who are in the phase 3 trials, a lot of them, to get this vaccine to market. the "journal's" opinion says the president should take credit for the vaccine progress, but shouldn't rush it, because there has been a lot of concern now really among investors that some of this vaccine, these trials are being rushed. i thought that was an interesting kind of take from the "wall street journal" that the fda is fully involved in getting these vaccines to market safely. reporter: that was the point of the ceo from astra-zeneca who said look, we are being safe, we paused our trial because there was one issue. we want to have an independent body look at it, then go forward related to that. they have made that case. in fact, the fda has come out, you mentioned the guidelines from the fda coming out.

the vaccine has to be 50% effective or more. pfizer, we are seeing in some documents, theirs might be 80% or more. this is what they are testing to see, but 80% or more plus it has to have a diverse population. that's very important that some of these other minority groups are included in this vaccination process. i can tell you, i was just looking at the pfizer data, that's why i'm familiar with it. pfizer has something like 24% minorities inside their study which is something that the fda wants to see to make sure it not just works on one segment of the population but all segments of the population. but as of right now, we talk about vaccines. >> tim: important to know we are talking about adults, not children. the children's vaccine for pfizer specifically is going to start soon. they have submitted a plan to try and test it on children. but they want to make sure it works in adults first and then move on to children. cheryl: here comes the president and the vice president, president donald trump, vice president mike pence. again, the nation's coronavirus testing strategy. >> so beautiful out here.

thank you for joining us as we announce a massive and groundbreaking expansion in our testing capability for the china virus and as you know, it's already setting records, records like nobody's ever seen before. last week we crossed a historic milestone when the united states conducted our 100 millionth test, far more than any other country. not even close, actually. second seems to be india with 1.5 billion people and the numbers would be probably at least 50 million more tests by us. we have conducted more tests than the entire european union and more than all of latin america combined. we are joined by vice president mike pence, secretary of health and human services alex azar, secretary of education betsy devos, hi, betsy, administrator for the centers for medicine and medicaid services, seema verma.

and admiral giroir who has done such an incredible job. we are also joined by mississippi governor tate reeves. had a tremendous victory, we're so proud of you. and as well by abbott ceo robert ford. robert, thank you very much. great job. today i'm pleased to report that we're announcing our plan to distribute 150 million abbott rapid point of care tests in the coming weeks. very very soon. this will be more than double the number of tests already performed and here's our plan. 50 million tests will go to protect the most vulnerable communities which we have always promised to do, including 18 million for nursing homes, 15 million for assisted living facilities, 10 million for home health and hospice care agencies and nearly one million for

historically black colleges and universities and also tribal nation colleges, 100 million rapid point of care tests will be given to states and territories to support efforts to reopen their economies and schools immediately and fast as they can. for example, the support my administration is providing would allow every state to on a very regular basis test every teacher who needs it. this continues our critical effort to use testing to protect high risk communities. these new abbott rapid point of care tests are easy to use and return results within just minutes. you will have a result in a maximum 15 minutes. machine, no machine is required to process them so in the old days, when we just started this, you remember we would go out and we would have to find these massive laboratories with tremendously expensive equipment. now we're down to something that you'll see that is really from a different planet. i would like to ask admiral

giroir to come up and demonstrate how these tests are performed. you will do this very nicely, i think. good luck. hope you don't test positive. >> thank you, mr. president. as of today, the nation has performed over 111 million tests for the virus causing covid. on 13 separate days, we have achieved tests over one million per day and our average test numbers are now approximately 920,000 per day. we are now at an inflection point in testing. we now have available on average three million tests per day, not counting school testing which could multiply that number several fold. nearly half of our current tests are rapid point of care. all of the actions of your administration including aggressive use of multiple [ inaudible ] of the dpa, hundreds of millions of dollars

in investment and regulatory flexibility including over 200fda emergency use authorizations and applications of the press act have led us to this inflection point which brings us why we're here today. on august 27th, after months of planning and only after one day after the authorization, the trump administration awarded a contract for $760 million to abbott for the delivery of 150 million of these abbott rapid tests. it detects the presence of the covid antigen using a specific nasal swab and that swab comes with a test and it's made by puritan. the reason why puritan swabs are here is because the administration used the dpa and $120 million in investment to make these swabs able to use by abbott. it does not require an instrument to determine the results. it's in 15 minutes, the result.

testing may be performed by laboratories where the clear certificate of waiver. this is not a home test. but during the health emergency, seema verma and cms permits laboratories to extend their certificate to operate in temporary sites like schools or churches or parking lots. so though we anticipate that the test will generally be performed by a trained individual on a patient, i will demonstrate a self-swab for you to show you just exactly how easy the test is performed. so literally, it almost could not be easier. it starts with six drops of liquid on to this piece of paper. one, two, three, four, five, six. then there's a nasal swab and again, this is not the deep brain biopsy we talk about. this is generally done by a health care provider but can be done supervised. it's this easy. one, two, three, four, five. one, two, three, four, five.

into the test, twist it three tim times. the adhesive is pulled off and you wait 15 minutes. that is the test. it really could not be easier than this. this is a very sophisticated little piece of cardboard with lots of antibodies and incredible technology into that. we have already shipped 65,000 of these to disaster operations in california, oregon, texas and louisiana, and we have already shipped 2.1 million tests to 7,600 nursing homes, over 900,000 tests to assisted living, 300,000 tests to the indian health service and 339,000 tests to historically black colleges and universities. today, we start the shipment of 100 million tests to governors beginning with a total of 6.5 million tests this week to be shipped this week. this is in addition to the continuing support to other priorities like nursing homes.

allocations to states and territories is based strictly on their relative population. governors have the flexibility to use these tests as they deem fit, but we strongly encourage governors to utilize them in settings that are uniquely in need of rapid low tech point of care tests like opening and keeping open our k through 12 schools, supporting critical infrastructure and first responders, responding to outbreaks specifically in certain demographics or locations and screening of surveillance and congregate settings. mr. president, we just completed a briefing to the governors and their state health officials, and we heard words like game changer for their states. thank you, mr. president, for your leadership and support of all our efforts to defeat this virus. >> thank you very much, admiral. let me ask you, governor reeves, do you agree? would you like to say something?

>> thank you, mr. president, for your leadership through this pandemic and through this crisis. it was said by republicans and democrats alike earlier, this is a game changer. in our state of mississippi, our k through 12 schools have been open for nine weeks. our institutions of higher learning have been open for about the same. but while we have testing available now, at least once a week in every county of our state, what this allocation is going to allow for us is we will have testing available for our k through 12 teachers every single day going forward and the thing that we know is that kids learn and secretary devos knows this so well, kids learn so much better when they're in the classroom than when they're doing distance learning or a hybrid and while we have 75% to 80% of our kids back in the classroom, we want to get 100% of our kids back in the

classroom. it is also critically important, mr. president, your decision to allocate on the front end to the historically black colleges and universities means the world to mississippi. our larger institutions have the financial resources to provide testing, but in mississippi, with jackson state university and alcorn state university and mississippi valley state university, three of our eight institutions of higher learning will get an allocation of these tests and it's going to make a difference. and kids all across our state are going to be better served because of it and i want to personally thank you on behalf of the residents of mississippi for doing this, mr. president. thank you. >> thank you. great job. in a short period of time, my administration has built the most advanced testing system in the world. there's never been anything like this. when the pandemic struck, there were zero tests for the china virus, but we've marshalled all of america's resources to

achieve these unparalleled capabilities. we slashed red tape and approved emergency use authorizations for 243 type of tests. that's how many tests we have. i invoked the defense production act and related authorities more than 100 times and distributed 171 million to expand testing production. we have done nearly twice as much testing per capita as france, italy and germany and over six times more testing per capita than south korea. we've done far more than any other country. usually times two, three, four, five or six. we have performed nearly 40 million more tests than india and by the end of next month, we will have over 100 million tests available on the market, more than half will be point of care tests. those are the quick ones. they are really the ones that have the best impact, with the results in less than 15 minutes. we have also prioritized

resources for the folks most vulnerable, including nursing home residents. we delivered rapid testing devices to nearly 14,000 certified nursing homes. we opened over 1,000 community testing sites in low income communities. nobody could have done this. we invested an unprecedented $8 billion to help tribal communities have the tests and resources they need to combat the virus, and it's important to remember that as younger and healthier people return to work and as we massively increase testing capacity, we will identify more cases and asymptomatic individuals in low risk populations. this should not cause undue alarm. the total number of cases is not the full metric of success. hospitalization capacity and mortality rates are far more instructive metrics. as we do more tests, you will have automatically more cases.

we are relentlessly focused on protecting the vulnerable while enabling healthy americans to go back to work. we can do both, as florida, arizona and other states have recently shown. over the last eight weeks, hospitalizations have declined by 48% and they have just reached the lowest point since march. it's a long time ago. due to advances in treatment, the fatality rate has fallen 85% since april. our excess mortality has been excess mortality compares total death during a pandemic to what we would be expected in a normal year. this is a critical measurement because it includes undetected china virus deaths along with deaths resulting from lockdowns and lockdowns can be very harmful. we have too many states that are locked down right now. the governors are, nobody knows what the governors are doing actually. europe is experienced a 50%

greater excess mortality rate during the virus than the u.s. and their economic contraction has been far more severe. under "operation warp speed" my administration is on track to deliver a safe and effective vaccine in record time. we're doing very well with the vaccines as most of you know. four vaccines are in the final stage of trials. the day the vaccine is approved by the fda we'll begin distributing it within 24 hours with hundreds of millions of doses to follow very quick lid. we're all set to go. we're all ready. logistically we have the military lined up, some incredible people waiting to have it. over 100 million doses will be available before the end of the year. we will defeat the virus and we will end the pandemic. next year will be one of the greatest years in our history and we think it is going to be a very exciting period of time. with that i would like to ask mike to say a few words because you just left a task force

meeting. vice president mike pence. >> thank you, mr. president. this is a historic day and other than the day that i believe will come soon, that america produces the first safe and effective vaccine, what's announced today with the distribution of 150 million rapid point of care tests all across america. this is test at that to your leadership, mr. president. this is testament to this great team that you have assembled. secretary azar, admiral giroir and others. a testament to the partnership we forged with governors like governor reeves across america. it is a testament to great companies like abbott laboratories and the thousands of employees, who, mr. president, who literally worked around the clock since

those early days in this pandemic when you brought in the greatest research companies in america and said that we need medicines known as therapeutics. we need a vaccine for america but you also challenged them to develop a rapid point of care test that could be distributed all across america and enable us to more effectively slow the spread, flatten the curve, protect the vulnerable and save lives. mr. president, today's announcement is really emblematic of the public/private partnership that you forged from the early days of this pandemic. as you said we met today with the nation's governors. the white house coronavirus task force completed our 38th conference call with america's governors but all along the way from our very first meeting you made it clear that we would spare no expense of the federal government. the full resources of the federal government you made

available to put the health of america first but you also challenged us and you challenged american industry being the full power and innovation of the american economy to bear on this moment. whether it be pppe where we forged a partnership to see to the delivery and manufacture of hundreds of millions of personal protective equipment, whether it would be how we started with 15,000 ventilators in the strategic national stockpile and today in partnership with ge health care, ford and general motors we have over 150,000 ventilators in the strategic national stockpile. whether it be the extraordinary progress on therapeutics, remdesivir, convalescent plasma literally saving lives or whether it would be as you reflected mr. president a steady progress towards achieving a safe, effective vaccine towards the end of this year, it is that public/private partnership that you have led made these