>> neil: he got that and lives that. jack welsh, dead at 84. ♪ >> hello, everyone, i am dana perino along with emily compagno, jesse watters, juan williams, and greg gutfeld. 5:00 in new york city, and this is "the five." it's another big day in 2020 politics, president trump set for a rally in north carolina as democrats get ready for super tuesday. and there're been some major shake-ups in the democratic race, mayor pete buttigieg and amy klobuchar have dropped out and are getting ready to endorse joe biden tonight. our reaction to all of that is coming up. but first we are awaiting a news conference from vice president mike pence after six deaths from the coronavirus have been confirmed in the united states. all of them are in washington

state and globally the outbreak impacting more than 60 countries. they are nearly 90,000 cases and more than 3,000 deaths worldwide. the president reacting during a meeting with pharmaceutical companies earlier. >> we are working hard to expedite to the longer process of developing a vaccine. we are also moving with maximum speed to develop therapies so that we can help people recover as quickly as possible. we have a lot of recovering going on. we want to see if we can advance that. it is likely that therapies will be available before the vaccine is actually ready and we will seek to bring all effective treatments to market as soon as possible. to some very good work has been done on the vaccine however. >> dana: that was the president who met with pharmaceutical executives. it does take a while to get a vaccine done. you cannot just snap your fingers and get it done. >> jesse: they have to make sure that it does not kill people and that takes a year to get it to the market prior to the president is doing the right thing by meeting with industry

leaders and has had his face in front of the cameras pretty much every day since last week. but i would like to just ask the chinese for a formal apology. this coronavirus originated in china, and i have not heard one word from the chinese, a simple, i am sorry would do. it would go a long where way. i expect a formal apology tomorrow. it does not matter if it comes from xi or the embassy. and all of my colleagues will join arm and arm with me also demanding a formal apology. >> dana: what if it had started here? >> jesse: it did not start here, dana. they have these markets where they were eating raw bats. they are a very hungry people. the chinese communist government cannot feed the people. and they are desperate, this food is uncooked, it is unsafe. and that is why scientists

believe that's where it originated from, and according to "the new york times," dana, the chinese government has been very deceitful and deceptive in the communicating the extent of the infections to the world. so, as i said, tomorrow i will expect an apology. >> dana: why did you not have me hold her hand during that? >> jesse: it was not necessary. it is a common sense request. >> greg: i love that he is asking china for an apology. [laughter] all right. can i -- >> dana: yes, please. >> greg: there is a silver lining to a lot of this. and one of the things that we have to remind people is that the risk are generally for much older people who are medically compromised. when we look at the fatality is, it is important. to the guy that was in washington state when he was talking about the victims it is helpful that people know that information. it is still bad news for them, but in terms of putting it in

the context of other illnesses that is important. and i do think that like, the challenge for us, and i am always wondering about this is that when little is known, it does not mean that the news closes. it's like the less we know, the more we repeat ourselves, we say the same thing over and over again. it is important to say don't panic and it is important to say be aware of what is going on, but the relentlessness of the repetition is not helping. and i think it is important for people to get away from the news and to stop having this stuff hit you in the face all the time, because the effects of repetition are unhealthy for the human mind. that's how advertising works. repetition, so it is good to put this in a box. we saw the stock market regain. i think that maybe people saw an overreaction. but there is something very positive that i think you will agree with me if you have flu-like symptoms, what is the risk when you go to the hospital versus staying at home?

if you go to the hospital you might actually get something worse or you spread it. that is a fact, but if you are able to stay home and consult a doctor using virtual urgent care, that will prevent a lot of spreading diseases. this might be a moment where people can try that out. i know that there is a virtual urgent care, so you can actually contact a doctor at home and you don't have to go in. that is an advancement we should be looking at. >> dana: tell of medicine is something that can help. any insights from washington states that you had today? speak to my understanding that those who have died had compromised immune systems to begin with. so the highest at risk are the elderly, the infirmed, and that goes to my point that when we hear these words like pandemic, and matters the severity. and up until now all indications are that it is a mild to maybe moderate to pandemic. 80 percent is my understanding of people who have coronavirus

are mild cases. so what matters are those at risk's are the ones that you mentioned earlier, the already compromised immune systems and i think that we have to applaud at this point the strategy that we have government leaders meeting with the big pharma representatives. who do you trust in that situation? do you trust the government to come up with a vaccine? or the free market to come up with it? so this is the time in combination with canada see why it illustrates why free-market is so important. my final point is to remind everyone that iran has still refused any assistance from the u.s. and viruses don't care about borders. >> dana: and their leader has not been seen in a few days. the united states seems to be handling it pretty well, but other countries, we cannot say the same for them, >> juan: there is a lot of amity between the u.s. and iran, and distrust that leads me to my thinking about the u.s., we have to trust

and have conversations. we have escalated the politics out of control with the kind of things that have been said. and i think that it is very important for people to have confidence in the government to have confidence in their leaders, so that you can have a sense you know what is going on. it's not that i say turn away or turn off or don't pay attention, you should pay attention, but if you are concerned about yourself and your family, it is best to act out on the basis of fear where you are going to have an emotional out-of-control reaction and run to the store for face masks that don't do much for you versus actually looking at the reality of what is taking place in what is happening and knowing that you can have some confidence in your political leaders to do so. that's why i think it is really important. you know, you heard the surgeon general speak about those face masks. >> dana: he is great. >> juan: you see right now we have vice president pence about to come up, and not only is he consulting with a woman who gained her expertise in

immunology from the department of state, but she is well respected across all political lines. it is people like that were going to help us, not people who are trying to funnel a point. >> dana: jinks, you owe me a sparkling water. i don't drink coke anymore. i'm trying to be healthy. and i'm also looking for a moisturizing hand soap, because my hands are quite dry from washing them all day. we are awaiting vice president's news conference on the coronavirus. president trump heading back after the media falsely portrays his comments on the coronavirus, and greg has a mono on that next. ♪ snacking should be sweet and simple. the delicious taste of glucerna gives you the sweetness you crave while helping you manage your blood sugar. glucerna. everyday progress

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>> greg: in the world of fake news we know longer have to worry about hoaxes, we have to deal with hoax hoaxes, friday when resident term called the dems attempt to politicize the coronavirus a hoax, how did the media portray that? that he was calling the virus a hoax. kicking it off with this. "remember this moment. a trump in south carolina called the coronavirus a hoax." politico picked it up with this headline "biden's last trump for calling the coronavirus a hoax," it flew through desperate democratic candidates, mike bloomberg trumping the lie, even though anyone who read the actual quote could see it was b.s. but the media hopes that our laziness will help the hacks get away with misinformation. and if you point out the lies, cnn's hall monitors will accuse you of politicizing it. i know you are, but what my school of debate met with

laughter. but there is hope as reporters call out these fake news viruses. after bloomberg blasted trump for calling it a hoax, reporter stopped him. >> i find it incomprehensible that the president would do something as inane as calling it a hoax, which he did last night in south carolina. >> he said that the democrats making so much of it is a democratic hoax, not that the virus was a hoax. >> this is up to the scientist and the doctors as to whether there is a problem. >> greg: he was now the only one, others on twitter called out the lie which forces the media to find another path to hammer those they hate. that's a problem with the media's bias. it's not so much contagious as it is incurable. the best defense, washing your hands of them. >> jesse: like what you did there appear to >> greg: that was a landing of a line. washing your hands of them. i should just leave right now.

i should just go home and get to my house early and have ribs. alone. in the dark. emily, what do you think? you know facebook identified the politico story as fake news. that's pretty cool, facebook. >> emily: it is troubling that we are hearing the guy's parrot the same things debunked when it is so easy. and in the face of something that has the potential for a really big deal on this country for them to be obsessing over the president's response. the market has its worst week in 12 years and shows you what humans take seriously. it's not impeachment trials. it's not oh, my gosh, collusion. all of this stuff ran down our throats as opposed to the next armageddon, it is a public health situation. so to me it kind of brings up and highlights what is important and certainly the media's coverage and the obsession with the hoax comment is off the ma mark. >> greg: they also said that trump was muzzling --

and he pushed back on that. >> dana: do we have the sound? a >> greg: do we have sound? how dare you. we do not have sound, dana. this is not "the daily briefing." >> dana: i like that he stepped up to the podium to say, let me be very clear, i was not muzzled. and what he is explaining makes a lot of sense. when the president put vice president mike pence in charge, he said let's take half a moment to look at all of the things that we are doing and all the different parts of government and get one cohesive unit so that uighurs speaking to the american people. that made a lot of sense to me. when it comes to if you are on the campaign trail and you hear something that sounds just too good to be true, and that president trump said that you want to run with, check yourself. because it usually is not true. and then you look foolish. >> greg: jesse, should the media apologize to you? >> jesse: [laughs] i expect the chinese to

apologize before the media, you are excited, weren't you? >> greg: just the ending. washing your hands of then was a nice turn of phrase. i only get one of those a year. >> jesse: i think you do more than that, but congrats, well said. the president has handled the virus very well. only two things that you can criticize the guy for if you look at the cdc, they had the contamination at the test site and got the this gets out too slowly, and to releasing a woman who was infected that she had been tested positive, that was a mistake. those are sub notes have issues that you can say you better clean that up. and they have cleaned it up. but to say that the president is lying. if that he has muzzling doctors, to say that he is cutting the cdc is ridiculous. to say that the task force is too white or mike pence is too religious to run it is ridiculous. they say that mike pence will parade the virus away. he is not equipped to handle this.

"the new york times" runs two columns comparing the president of the virus. paul krugman celebrates the dowd dropping. "the washington post" encouraging democrats to make a politically out of the virus. and my favorite, cnn says that the travel restriction that trump did was racist and would backfire, and today they put their own travel restriction on their employees because it is such a big deal. so, look at the dowel, look at the study that says that the united states is the best the best prepared country to handle this and the gallup poll that says that 77% of the american people are confident in the administration's response to the virus. >> greg: speaking of cnn, juan, there was a lower third that said can we stop the coronavirus or bernie sanders? so it was like why would they put that together? >> juan: i have something to say here, because i think exacerbating the kind of political divide makes people

less safe. and to my mind, the virus is apolitical. it will get you no matter where you are, right? so i think people see through that. to have people see the virus through a partisan lens is dangerous. it is like that auntie baxter's who made the thing so political. that is crazy and regrettable. so i agree that the president did not say that the virus was a hoax. what he said was the democrats of the way that they are talking about it amounts to a hoax, but guess what, a lot of people at that rally interpret it as this might be a hoax. and i think that meant for them that it was like, you know what, we have nothing to worry about. >> jesse: how do you know what people thought at the rally? >> greg: mind reading. >> juan: excuse me. no it is not. because you watch terms of the conservative media environment, the websites, the talk radio, it is all, you don't have anything

to worry about. this is coming from the trump statement it is a hoax. and you talk about people who misinterpret what it was, they are interpreting it as the hoax is >> greg: so it was a ruse at the rally? >> juan: i am talking about media voices you can put names to and saying that this is dangerous because it should be apolitical from both sides not just one side. america, the virus will get you unless you take the appropriate steps to pay attention and don't get emotional and we trust our leaders. >> greg: i think the population is getting smarter about taking reporting at face value. in a weird way there skepticism is their immune system. >> jesse: you did it again. >> emily: lightning struck twice. >> greg: we are still awaiting vice president pence. he has a news conference on the coronavirus. we will bring it to you when it happens coming up. president trump is getting ready for a big rally on the eve of

super tuesday as the democratic candidates continue to drop like flies.a,l ♪ of heartache and redemption. the lexus nx. modern utility for modern obstacles. lease the 2020 nx 300 for $359 a month for 36 months. experience amazing at your lexus dealer.

♪ >> jesse: we are awaiting vice president pence news conference on the coronavirus and we will bring it to you when it starts. democratic candidates dropping out oout of the 2020 brace in a last-ditch effort to stop bernie sanders. amy klobuchar and pete buttigieg calling it quits and set to endorse joe biden. i know it looks like the democratic establishment is teaming up to take down bernie sanders, president trump is capitalizing on all of the chaos. >> i think it is rigged against bernie. do you see what is happening with klobuchar, i heard something happened there. buttigieg went out and said something, and probably they will say, hey, look at, if i win, i will put you in the

administration. >> jesse: but bernie is trying to shut them out of the nomination. >> what about the moderates consolidating behind joe biden? >> it is no secret, "the washington post" had 16 articles today on this that there is a massive effort trying to stop bernie sanders. it's not a secret to anybody in this room. to the establishment coming together, the political establishment is coming together, and they will do everything. they are really getting numbers. of the working are standing up. >> jesse: juan, what do you see in the race after south carolina it looks like people are dropping out and endorsing sleepy joe, what does it tell you? >> juan: it tells me that biden did really well in south carolina, outperformed even the optimistic of what would happen and that that means that the moderate lane that had been there is suddenly gone, joe biden now dominates. it is interesting to note the monday before super tuesday,

joe biden now has the most votes of any democrat in terms of the primary process. and close to, i mean, just about tied in terms of delegates, he and sanders. but what is going to happen now as you have biden in texas, you have klobuchar going there, we hear that buttigieg could be on his way, they will both endorse, you hear harry reid, the former senate majority leader, he is endorsing. i can go through a list. they put out a tremendously big list of people who endorse. you can see the party asserting itself at this juncture in the way that the republican party tried to, but did too late in 2016 when they try to get people to coalesce and finally take on trump. here you see the democrats acting, i hope for their sake that they are acting in time, because otherwise what you really see is the end of political parties, that this is not about a political party able to select the nominee anymore, that obviously the republicans could not do it, and now may be the democrats can't do it.

it's all about populist rage. >> jesse: the work cut bowed to pete and amy, if you do this now, i will help you later? >> emily: obama talk to them on the phone last night. he said that he ran a historic campaign that you should be proud of and i know what it is like to disappoint your supporters and the voters, but that being said, you don't, obama does not call you if you did not make a really good strategy. and i think that that is brilliant for somebody like mayor pete. where everybody is calling him the rising star and he will speak at the convention. i think that this was likely really surprising for people who supported him. i think that he had a lot of coming you know, he did really well thus far. but i think it was a best move for him and the investment into his future. and that we will see him shining way sooner, amy klobuchar, same thing. making the statement, oh, good on you, party before self. they are getting the claps on the back for this. and elizabeth warren will absolutely not drop out, clear clearly. >> jesse: what is up with

that, who is next? >> emily: tulsi gabbard. >> dana: i don't know if she is out. but i think that mayor pete because he worked at mckenzie, he knows how to read a spreadsheet and the win loss column was like you are going to lose. so we did an honorable thing not taking any more political donations when he knew that he could not actually do it. i think amy klobuchar saw some pulling that look like bernie sanders was going to beat her and her own state, and she did not want to be blamed for not doing something to help. so this make sense for her because she will not be able to perform. and i think what is interesting about south carolina is that late deciders went for biden big time. so what happened last week? there was an entire week of people actually looking at bernie sanders record at the debates, they took them on just a little bit. imagine if they had done that four years ago or in the last four years, because his past is not rigged. it is there for all to see. he will defend it. but he will have to pay some

consequences for that. but bernie sanders is a very strong position for super tuesday. >> jesse: he need some momentum back and i think he will on tuesday. a >> greg: you have klobuchar who dropped out and endorsed biden, and now joe biden has dropped out to endorse joe biden. it happened in the break. look, i don't want sanders to be president, but this is not fair to him. and it is really obvious. number one, he is the most persuasive, assured candidate on their side. even when he is wrong. when he is wrong he still is exciting. and this is the larger problem about life is that there is no excitement in moderation. like the moderation guy is actually really good for a country, but it is boring. klobuchar, boring. but then radicalism is always so romantic. that's why you have public enemy endorsing bernie sanders and you have all of these young people that like bernie, because young

people like radicalism, because it is romanticized. and it can make a nearly 80-year-old man seemed fearless and self-assured. it is about vision. and bernie has a very wrong, but very strong vision. biden has no vision and he has no idea how to articulate a nonvision other than we need to get trump out. but that does not personally go to what you want in life. the voters, how does that help me? maybe it helps me because i don't like them either, they might say. >> jesse: here we have the vice president holding a briefing on the coronavirus. let's listen. >> good evening, we just finished a meeting at the white house the task force. it has literally meant to daily and we continue that effort today. we added the head of the senate for medicaid and medicare services to the task force today as well as robert wilkie with the d.a.

first a few basic facts, and we will hear from other members of the task force about ongoing efforts that at the present moment we have 43 domestic cases of the coronavirus. 48 cases of individuals who returned to the united states. of the domestic cases, 29 of the 43 are either in california or washington state. and we have communities that are facing, facing what the experts tell us could potentially be a cluster in those communities. sadly today there were four additional fatalities raising the number, six americans have lost their life to the coronavirus. and on behalf of the president and all of the american people, we extend our deepest condolences and sympathies to the families of those that were

lost. despite today's sad news, let's be clear. the risk to the american people of the coronavirus remains low according to all of the experts that we are working with across the government. this president has said we are ready for anything. but this is an all hands on deck effort. today's activity really reflects. the president has the effort to bring the best minds of private industry together. the best leadership from around the country at every level. we had a good meeting this morning with governors from 50 states and three territories. i was able to convey to them the gratitude that the president and our entire administration feels, particularly for governors that are dealing with the coronavirus in their states, those that have taken and repatriated personnel. i can say what i hear from the nation's governors is that there has been a seamless relationship

between all of the agencies of the federal government and states thus far. and we are encouraged to hear that. but i told them that we are committed to a full partnership with state governments and to their health officials and to local health care providers going forward. we also met today with some of the leaders of the top pharmaceutical company is in the country. to the president spoke to them not just about vaccines, which many of the company's are already beginning to work on, but just as importantly, the development of therapeutics. it is remarkable to think that there may well be a vaccine going to clinical trials within the next six weeks. the nature of trials as the experts have explained to us is that the vaccine might yet not to be available until late two this year or early next. but the therapeutics giving

relief to people that contract the coronavirus could literally be available by the summer or early fall. the most encouraging news from that meeting was that our pharmaceutical companies, which are recognized as the greatest in the world all have already formed a consortium to work together to share information in the development of therapeutics and vaccines. a quick update, yesterday we were fully implementing the new travel advisories for portions of italy and south korea. and the implementation of screening of personnel from across those countries who are trying to take a direct flight to the united states of america. i was pleased in the white house task force meeting today to learn that within the next 12 hours, there will be 100% screening all direct flights at all airports across italy and

across south korea. the president has directed us to bring the full resources of the federal government and the very best minds in the country to bear on this effort. and finally today, i am pleased to welcome to our white house team a world-renowned global health official and physician, she will be my right arm through this effort as the president has tasked me to lead the white house response to the coronavirus. and i'm grateful that ambassador deborah burkes. also dr. deborah burkes will be on our team. and even her first day she has been contributing significantly to our discussion. she serves as a u.s. governor for developing an international reputation as that. a scientist, a physician, someone with three decades of

public health expertise including virulent diseases, vaccines, and as vast experience in interagency coordination. and dr. burkes and i have talked about bringing all of these entities together to bring about president trump's vision for a whole of government response to the coronavirus. so with that i would like to recognize dr. deborah burkes for a few introductory remarks, thank you for stepping up one more time to serve our country. >> thank you, mr. vice president, it is a pleasure to be here. i arrived last night. every took great care of me. i had computer and phone in record time and shows the level of efficiency and expertise to get moving quickly. it is clear that the early work of the president both with travel restrictions and the ability to quarantine has brought us the time and space to have the task force to be very effective. i have never worked with such incredible scientists and

thoughtful policy leaders. and i got to spend the day with them. i'm trying to get up to speed as fast as possible. i look forward to the days ahead of really working together to end this epidemic. thank you. >> thank you, mr. vice president. i just want her first start out by saying how delighted we are that ambassador burkes will be leading the coordinating efforts across the government. we go way back. basically every leader at the department of health and human services go way back together. so we already have established a relationship. and maybe not so way back, right? we are to have a very established productive working relationship that will help it move incredibly smoothly. and as a vice president said, dr. birx has been asking the right questions and challenging us on the scientific and policy matters that we need to focus on. i just want to begin by

recapping the current situation that we face with covid-19 as a vice president mentioned as of this morning we have 43 confirmed or presumptive cases of the virus in the united states. excluding the repatriated cases. 17 of those are travel related in one way or another, 26 are believed to be person-to-person spread. because of the president strong leadership and all the hard work that the public health professionals have done, the immediate risk to any individual american has been and does continue to be low. but the risk for people with possible exposure to identified cases can be high. what every one of the experts and leaders has been saying for more than a month now remains true. the degree of risk has the potential to change quickly. especially by seeing sustained spread of the disease around the world which could qualify this

disease as a pandemic. as dr. found she said this morning, we will see more cases of community spread in the united states. as we have emphasized for some time, we all need to prepare for the potential need to prepare for the worst, hope for the best. in some places we will have to use a range of the mitigation efforts, in fact we are already working closely with santa clara county and the state of washington and particular king county to assist them in some of the best practices from the pandemic action plan as well as learning from singapore and hong kong around the most effective community mitigation efforts such as temporary school closures or tight trained reactions such as having school, but perhaps not having assemblies in school. that's why the president has taken an unprecedented of goal to protect the american people including the step in the last few days to radically expand and

improve the testing that we have and to improve access to respirators needed by health care workers. the vice president, and the doctor of the cdc and i spoke with every governor we have this morning and we appreciate their close effort with us. i also wanted to now introduce an individual who i asked to the vice president to have joined the task force, because the centers for medicare and medicaid services play such a vital role. $1.3 trillion of spending here in the united states providing health care to 60 million american seniors and as we have seen, this disease can have a disproportionate severity impact on the elderly as well as the medically frail. so our administrator has a very important responsibility with regard to funding of care, whether it is therapeutics or

vaccines or diagnostics for our senior citizens. but also a vital role that you may not know of in regulating long-term care facilities such as nursing homes and other health care facilities. very important regulatory function. i'm delighted that administrator is turning over the task force. let me turn it over now. >> thank you secretary azar. so patients come first and the health and the safety of america's patients and welfare is the highest priority. so let me start with what cms is, and as the secretary said, we are the nation nation's largest insurer covering 130,000 americans between medicare, medicaid, and the insurance market. and some are most vulnerable populations, those in poverty, elderly, children and so forth. critically we do have a regulatory responsibility for

pretty much every health care institution in america. this includes facilities such as hospitals, critical access hospitals, nursing homes, home health agencies, dialysis. a surgery surgery centers. and that gives us a critical role in addressing the coronavirus. we are responsible for enforcing the quality guidelines based in part on recognition from partner agencies like the cdc. so let me stress that cms has long-standing infectious disease policy is already in place that we have used for other outbreaks such as influenza. so health care facility is already have these procedures in place. and should be for what they may see. we are going to continue to proactively update our regulations. we will be working with cdc. right now like i said, those are already in place. it is our job to make sure that health care facilities are effectively implementing those guidelines. and we will work with the cdc to

determine whether we need to update or change those. also we are looking at what we cover in clarifying the types of products and services that our programs will be able to pay for in terms of medicaid and medicare. and with that i will turn it over. >> i want to recognize a couple of other members of the team, tony fauci. >> thank you very much, mr. vice president. i want to make three comments and points, with the vice president and secretary azar said, we had an extraordinary meeting with the people of biotech business, several in the room where people actually already actively collaborating with and their enthusiasm about getting involved in helping us along with the development of products and the ability the availability

of products, whether they are vaccines or therapeutics was very gratifying. a second, i am pleased that the president and vice president will be visiting the ih tomorrow and we will have an opportunity to show them first hand the kind of things we are doing. and finally, just one comment about ambassador dr. birx, a couple of people appear have said i go back a long time with dr. birx, nobody goes back as long as i do with ambassador birx, she was a fellow am i program as a trainee. and we knew that she was a star then. and now what has happened over the years is she is a superstar. together we saw the first patients with hiv back in the early '80s. involved in a vaccine trial, the first successful trial of hiv. we have known each other through that, and i had the privilege of putting together though program for president bush, and she was the ambassador in charge of that program. so i can't tell you how excited

i am to finally once again get back to being a partner with debbie birx. >> vice president pence: thank you, doctor. and finally again, dr. bob from the cdc. >> thank you, mr. vice president. what i would like to do is just recognize that the cdc continues to work and provide support as really the backbone of our health system in this nation which is a state local, tribal, and state departments. and they work to identify new cases, isolate and trace these. or to work together to try to limit the transmission of the coronavirus. and working with our public health partners, we continue to identify new community cases as the secretary said, we always

anticipated. and use our public health assets to aggressively again confirm those cases, isolate, do contract tracing to use the public health tools to discredit the virus. i want to echo what was said by the vice president and the secretary that despite seeing the new community cases that shows you we have a public health community across this country in action, the risks to the american people is low. i also want to add my looking forward, and i know my entire agency is looking forward to the president and the vice president and the secretary's visit to come to atlanta on friday and get to meet a lot of the wonderful people that form the background of this agency. >> vice president pence: we will take a few questions. steve holland, reuters, where are you? >> reporter: how quickly do you expect the virus to spread

throughout the united states? >> vice president pence: let me refer that to the experts. go ahead. >> about the cluster in washington state? >> the important thing is the secretary has had, we have anticipated the community cases pop up, and now we have a number of new community cases which the health departments are aggressively evaluating to see if they can understand the linkage, who are the contacts, how is the virus spreading? and i think the american public should rest assure that we have one of the finest public health programs in the world when you look out to the state and local territorials, so we will continue to see the cases as a consequence of them doing their job. and we will use the public health strategies that we can to limit that transmission. and i think that we should focus on that right now. we're still working very hard and trying to contain the community outbreaks. but as the secretary has said,

we are blending that now with very strategic mitigation strategies. >> just to underscore something that i said the other day, there are two aspects of cases coming in and control of the situation of the spread of what is already in here, and they are two things that are going on is the restriction of travel to areas where there are hot spots in the rest of the world just like the original inhibition of travel here with china. i think it will mitigate against the question of where it will spread in the contract tracing is very aggressively going on. we hope, you can never predict 100% of anything, but i think what is going on right now at the cdc in particular, the state and local health facilities will get us through this. >> vice president pence: it is something that i learned along the way when we have cases that emerge, the state and local health officials are in the lead, but the cdc is on the ground immediately helping to identify how that might have originated with that individual

to find out any other people that they have been exposed to. we know that there will be more cases, the president initially took unprecedented action to do all that we could to prevent the coronavirus from coming into the country, and now we are focused on mitigation of the spread as well as treatment of the people that are affected. kristin fisher. it's kristin fisher here? no, she walked out. let me go with haley jackson. >> reporter: two questions, and if anybody wants to jump in, president trump hinted at new travel restrictions between italy and south korea and china abroad, can you elaborate on what countries you are looking at? is germany on the table? >> vice president pence: the president is very clear, we are going to follow the facts and listen to the experts every step of the way.

the action the president authorized this weekend raising the travel advisory, the american people should know that we are saying that they should not travel to certain sections of italy or south korea. those advisories may expand, but we will allow the case load in those countries to define that. in addition to that by establishing the screening protocol, which will be in full force and in effect within the next 12 hours in both countries will ensure that anyone traveling on a direct flight to the united states of america receives multiple screenings at all airports in italy and south korea. but to your point, the nature of the european union does not require a passport to move around, so our task force spoke today about new cases. and there were some in several european countries that we are following very closely. and again, we will listen to the

experts. we will watch the cases, and i know that the president will make the decisions with regard to both travel advisories or restrictions on the basis for those facts. >> reporter: and just on the word pandemic, do you, do your experts behind you, do you consider this a pandemic in all but designation only? >> vice president pence: i would just refer to the experts that our view is that that would be for the world health organization to divine. and our task force team was in touch with them today. let me let the secretary address that. this is not so much about semantics. i think our briefing today was in more than 60 countries at this point, so we will continue to focus on ensuring that we do all we can to prevent people coming into the country with the disease to mitigate any spread of the disease once we identify cases. and of course to provide

treatment. >> i spoke with dr. mike ryan, the incident to manage better for the world health organization about this precise question, because i wanted to see how they were assessing the pandemic status, i will let them fully speak for themselves, but at the moment while we are seeing community spreading in multiple regions of the world, there is not -- there are many definitions that people use around pandemic. one issue that they are focused on is just sheer magnitude. while we have had very large numbers of cases spreading in china, the number of cases outside china while reflecting community spreading are not of the magnitude comparable to any other pandemics that have been declared before. for instance even the h1 and one where you have billions of individuals affected across the world. that's how they are thinking about this, and we will keep working with them. we don't have a view as to

whether they should designated a pandemic or not pandemic. i just want to get a sense of how they are thinking about it and assessing it. i will lead to them, ask them if they could put out some points about how they are assessing the stuff. >> vice president pence: hang on, how about ben from abc, where are you? >> reporter: a screening from italy and north korea, what will that screening look like? is it temperatures, every single passenger, who will be conducting it? and will it expand into other countries? and how many tests were conducted? what is the update on that? >> vice president pence: the state department is an inner agency group that is worked out that arrangement with both italy and south korea. south korea actually about three hours ago fully implemented the screening on all direct flights,

all airports. and as i mentioned within the next 12 hours or so, italy will have implemented the same thing. it will be multiple temperature checks in the airports for people before they are boarding, and we are working very closely to assist them in implementing that. but to let me speak about -- the status of tests, because one of the things i heard from governors last week was the whole issue of test kits, the ability of testing, and i want to commend dr. han on their work of getting many tests, and local testing which will now make it more possible as our experts

told us to identify additional cases. as we find more cases, it will mean our health officials are doing their job in large part. and the availability of those tests will contribute to that. >> as you heard from the secretary and the vice president this weekend, we had the capacity and state public health labs to perform 75000-100000 tests. on saturday we issued new policy allowing us to have some flexibility regulatory flexibility around the development of the test. so academic centers, private companies can develop the tests and tell us that they have validated the tests and begin to use them. they alert us of that and then later on within 15 days we can look at the validation data. they are having the responsibility to show the data of that test. we have heard from multiple companies and academic centers and we expect to have a substantial increase this week, next week, and -- by the end of

this week, close to 1 million tests will be performed. >> reporter: when we are talking about risk, we say that the risk is low, but with so few tests being done in the incubation rate being two weeks, how can we accurately say that the risk is low at this point if we have not put out a million tests? >> if you talk about the entire country, the risk is a low risk. i think the point you are making is that since we have not done yet, but what will happen really soon as the testing into the community, how do we know the risk is low? i imagine it will still be low regardless of that, what happens in real time, is that things can change, but right now today on this day, monday, if you look at the country as a whole, the risk

is low. >> vice president pence: one more. go right ahead, ashley. >> reporter: people are worried about spring break. worried about spring break and wondering if they show book travel or cancel travel, one as the expert on the task force, spring break travel and domestic travel, would you feel comfortable bringing your family right now including your three grown children and their partners >> vice president pence: > there's been no recognition about any limitations on travel in the united states of america. let me let the experts speak to recommendations with regard to travel. >> reporter: are you still comfortable? vice president pence: i travel all over the country all the time and look, this is a time to use common sense. if a to wash her hands. this time of years, that's a

good decision. as we said, the risks remain l low. while we have had tragic losses for today, the reality is, 29 of the 43 domestic cases are in california and in washington state in the senate and various specific areas that we are working to identify the source on. but i think people should just continue to use common sense this time of year, but with regard to international travel, leave it to the experts. >> reporter>> i want to echo whe vice president said, we want people to go about and live their normal lives. the secretary is right, even before the coronavirus, if you asked the cdc when you should do about preparedness, we would give you every individual should think ahead.

>> white house officials wrapping up the press conference on the coronavirus. if be back here tomorrow and a to "special report" is up next and stay tuned for a michael bloomberg town hall. ♪ >> bret: good evening, i'm bret baier, from july, from to virginia, 30 minutes we will have a special fox news town hall with presidential candidate mike bloomberg. if there are several major topics likely to come up at the event and they are our top stories. if there's a major shake-up going on in the presidential race as moderates and centrists consolidate and the apparent attempt to stop front runner, bernie sanders beta amy klobuchr is out. if the rancor support behind joe biden. pete buttigieg dropped out last night lining up tonight with the former vice president. details on