eric: we are awaiting the start of the white house news briefing from the coronavirus task force. that will come later on this hour, about a half hour from now. you know, it comes one day after the president announced new cdc guidelines as the number of covid-19 cases sadly and deaths continue to surge here in our country. but new york governor andrew cuomo said in his state, two-thirds of those who are hospitalized for the virus are successfully treated and released. hello, and welcome to a new hour of america's news headquarters. i'm eric shawn. >> i'm arthel neville. the number of coronavirus cases in the u.s. now more than doubled that of any other nation. this as the death toll rises to

more than 7800 here at home. the cdc now recommending all americans wear cloth face covering in public, even as president trump stresses the measure is voluntary. we have live team coverage. aishah hasnie is live from new york city. but we begin with steve harrigan. steve is live in atlanta outside the cdc headquarters with the latest. steve. >> reporter: when you mentioned that u.s. death toll of 7,800, one point in keep in mind is that more than 4,000 of those deaths have occurred in just the past four days alone. here at the cdc, there are recommendations urging all americans to wear cloth masks when they leave their homes or an item of clothing to cover noses and mouths. this is a voluntary recommendation, something president trump made clear as a recommendation the president said he will not be following in the short term. here's president trump. >> the cdc is advising the use

of nonmedical cloth face covering as an additional voluntary public health measure. so it's voluntary. you don't have to do it. i don't think i'm going to be doing it. >> reporter: there remains just nine states that now have partial stay at home orders in effect. of those, five have no stay at home orders across the entire state, those states would be iowa, nebraska, north dakota and south dakota. back to you. >> we have some good news coming out of this as we're hopeful that it gets better. we do have to deal with what's in front of us, right? eric? eric: well, arthel, sorry, because of the technical issues sometimes, you know, the epicenter of this crisis, arthel, is right where i'm broadcasting from, new york city. officials issued an emergency alert calling for volunteers to

come and help the over burdened hospitals. doctors and nurses here are under siege. they're pushed to the brink. the mayor asking for as many as 45,000 volunteers to come to new york to help out. at least we're told two doctors and nurses have died from the complications of this virus. aishah hasnie live in new york city right here with more on that. aishah? >> reporter: well, hello to you, eric. so the governor today, governor cuomo here in new york said a plane from china carrying about 1,000 ventilators was on its way. we know now that it has arrived here at jfk, but those ventilators, they may not be enough. the state ordered 17,000 ventilators. it will only be getting 2500 of those from their order and time is running out. cuomo earlier today said that new york is just about a week away from its apex and the state

is not yet prepared for it. cases in new york shot up by 10,000 overnight. new york is calling on medical workers from across the country to volunteer. >> i'm also assigning an executive order to allow medical students who were slated to graduate to begin practicing. we need doctors. we need nurses. >> reporter: meantime, new york mayor bill de blasio urging new yorkers to cover their faces when they're out in public with a scarf or bandana and we've seen new yorkers do that in midtown manhattan. pennsylvania governor tom wolfe also recommending that for his residents too. and still some confusion over whether you should wipe down your groceries or not. one food safety expert says do whatever gives you peace of mind but the risk of transmission here through packaged food is very low. >> the best thing that i'm doing is really just being mindful of my hands because the virus itself is not going to jump off of my food or food

packaging. even if it's there in that very, very small chance. the only way it's going to sort of move around my house is through my hands. >> reporter: now, there aren't any cdc guidelines about this but if you're interested, the u.s. surgeon general, dr. jerome adams, told fox news earlier this week that he himself wipes down his groceries when he brings them home. eric. eric: yeah, that's great advice. get the alcohol swabs or just put the paper towel and 50% alcohol, 50% water we're told and wipe things down when they come in. thank you. arthel. >> metropolitan area hospitals are under siege as the number of coronavirus cases are set to peak over the next few weeks. and with most of the country under orders to stay at home, health experts are urging hold-up states to put together

tougher measures. the medical director of infection prevention at carolina's medical center at charlotte is with us. i want to start with face masks. the cdc is suggesting we wear masks when we go outside. the president saying it's voluntary. do it if you feel like doing it. what's your recommendation? >> i do think at this point it makes sense for people to cover their nose and mouth. i think it's important to do it the right way so it's very important that we reserve disposable surgical masks for health care workers. those people need to have the types of masks they can throw away that can become contaminated when performing health care. for the public, things like bandanas, cloth masks are wonderful options and make senses personally when going to areas where there may be more people, like grocery stores and that kind of thing. arthel: . i want to go back to the top now. can you contain coronavirus without consistent nationwide stay at home orders?

>> yes. so i think the number one thing regardless of masks, regardless of anything is really those social distances measures that are put into place. so people staying home, avoiding contact with other sick individuals that are going to cause that surge in cases that have the potential to overwhelm health care systems is so important. really people sticking to stay at home orders and trying to do their best when they do have to go out for essential things, staying six feet or more away from other individuals. arthel cou: in new york, we're under mandatory lockdown, we have to stay at home. some states don't have stay at home orders. if you don't have a consistent pattern and mandate, can we really contain this thing? >> i agree, consistency is important. it also emphasizes to the public that everyone is approaching things consistently, giving consistent recommendations so i do feel that consistency is

important. arthel: . i want to play sound from dr. deborah birx from the coronavirus briefing on thursday. let's listen. >> the most important thing is the social distancing and washing your hands. and we don't want people to get an artificial sense of protection because they're behind a mask. you may be protecting others. but don't get a false sense of security that that mask is protecting you exclusively from getting infected because there are other ways that you can get infected. the number of asymptomatic and mild cases are out there. arthel: . the coronavirus is sneaky and unpredict add. as of right now, can you explain to us how this virus is spread? >> so it's spread most by close contact, so through respiratory droplets, by two people that are

within six feet. the most at risk are household contact, people that spend prolonged time. the other concern is touching contaminated surfaces and then touching your face, your eyes, and introducing germs that way. so just, hand hygiene and wear appropriate using masks or covering your mouth, avoiding touching your face, those are the things to keep coming back to time and time again. arthel: . listen, as we said, you're the medical director of infection protection at carolina's medical center. so how close would you say that we are to a vaccine and how close to effective treatment in the interim? >> so, i think a vaccine is still a good way, it's on average about a year we're thinking to get the vaccine so we're a couple months into this. we still have a ways before a vaccine is going to help us kind of bring immuneity to people. treatments, there's a ton of work, a ton of research moving ahead very quickly, looking at

different treatments. currently, there are some options out there and i think there will be more in the coming weeks. the question is how efficacious are they? that's where the studies that are being ramped up really quickly, to look at whether we can help treat patients effectively, especially those that are sick enough to be in the hospital setting. arthel: . right, right. once we get past this current wave, will we see an outbreak of coronavirus again? >> you know, the hope is that we get through this current wave, we have a vaccine, and we prevent that second wave. i think there is the potential when you have kind of people separating themselves, when you have a -- when you reinstitute social gatherings and whatnot, there's a potential if you do it too early to see a second wave. i think that's the importance of being mindful for when we lift those social distancing efforts. and being very cautious and then obviously pushing full force ahead on things like vaccine and treatment so we're prepared if that does happen.

arthel: and really quickly, you mentioned the word when. i think that's a question everyone wants to know, when will we be able to get back to some sense of normalcy? >> you know, i think that vary -- that may vary somewhat area by area. i don't think for our area, we won't see the peak for three or four weeks. it's a ways off before the social distancing measures will be lifted. arthel: i really appreciate your time this afternoon. this is a crucial story. doctor, thank you very much. eric. >> thank you. eric: arthel, president trump is pledging to do more for small businesses. they've been really impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. the president tweeting earlier today this, saying, quote, i will immediately ask congress for more money to support small businesses under the ppe loan, if the allocated money runs out. so far, way ahead of schedule. bank of america and community banks are rocking.

the $2.2 trillion stimulus package set aside $349 billion for small businesses. coming up in about five minutes on the fox news channel we'll talk with the head of the federal housing finance agency, he'll be here to tell us how the government payments can potentially help you. with all the uncertainty surrounding the coronavirus and its potential ramifications, there's a new poll out by the american psychiatric association, it shows the crisis is taking a serious toll on our mental health and emotional well-being. jonathan hunt is covering that. he's live in los angeles with the very latest on this crucial topic. jonathan. >> reporter: eric, these are of course the worst of times for so many people, loved ones sick or dying, jobs lost, schools closed, fear, isolation, none of us is immune to the stress of this e straightforward fairly time. as we -- extraordinary time. as we look at our favorite

streets with bars and restaurants shuttered, more and more are feeling the mental effects, according to the american psychiatric association which found in a new poll that about half of all americans are anxious about contracting covid-19. 40% are anxious about becoming seriously ill and more than a third say it is having a serious effect on their mental health. the association's president says we should all be on the lookout for warning signs. >> i think for anyone who notices that they're starting to sort of drink more, or their sleep is disturbed or they can't stop worrying, you know, about their own health and being terrified that they're going to die, those are the people who really should reach out to other people. >> reporter: california is among many states that have set up mental health hot lines.

you can call if you're experiencing anxiety and the advice from experts to try to cope with those feelings include being good to yourself. >> you need to treat ourselves with some compassion and gentleness around the things that we can't control, so the experiences you might have of disappointment or grief, anxiety, sadness, it's important that people bring the same loving kindness they would bring to their loved ones to themselves in these difficult times and to stay engaged. really engaged with the things that matter to you. >> reporter: the centers for disease control also has an entire section of its website dedicated to stress and coping during this crisis. it is a wealth of information, eric, at cdc.gov. eric? eric: that is so important. thank you, jonathan. arthel? arthel: thank you. the white house briefing on the coronavirus is set to begin in about 15 minutes.

we're going to bring that to you live, of course, when it begins. so stay right here for the latest on that. plus, there are new warnings now about the effect of coronavirus on the housing market, suggesting it could be even worse than the financial crisis in 2008. up next, the resources available for homeowners and renters facing financial hardship due to the pandemic.

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arthel: welcome back. the coral princess cruise ship has docked in miami amid a coronavirus outbreak on-board. two people have died on that ship. and at least a dozen others have tested positive. passengers who are fit to fly

will begin to be let off the ship tomorrow. this, after two other coronavirus impacted cruise ships docked in florida on thursday. the u.s. coast guard has recently ordered foreign flagged cruise ships to remain off-shore indefinitely and prepare to treat patients aboard their ships. eric. eric: kaiser health says four in 10 americans say they're losing their jobs or work related income because of the coronavirus. 74% believe that the worst is yet to come. but the $2 trillion plus federal program that's supposed to help fill in some of your income, if you lost your job, it was signed into law by the president. so if you are in need and need help with your rent or your mortgage loans, how do you ged t aid? joining us now is mark kolabria, director of the federal housing finance agency. more employment is expected to come. what if you can't make your

rent, your rent is overdue or your mortgage payment, current do that, what should people do. >> if you have a mortgage and you can't make your mortgage payment because you lost your job, suffered a decline in income, talk to the lender who you send your check to every month, your servicer, let you tm know you lost your plan. they'll get you into a forbearance plan. you will have to pay it back. if you can pay your mortgage, please do so. i want to emphasize that the phone lines for the lenders have been overwhelmed. they've got employees working at home like all of us. so their capacities are down. i would ask if you can pay your mortgage now, please do so. let us focus on those who can't. but if you are having trouble, contact your lender. if you're a renter and your landlord has a mortgage, your landlord can get forbearance because you can't pay rent. so if you can't pay your rent immediately go to your landlord, let them know, there's a federal program that if they've got a federally backed mortgage the

landlord can get into the program and we can give the forbearance to the landlord and the landlord during that time is required not to evict you. we've got some solutions there. we don't want to see people on the street. we want to be able to make sure that everybody can stay in their house, whether they've got the ability to pay their mortgage or not. eric: what if the landlord is a tough guy and they say i don't care, you owe me the rent? where should folks tell the landlord to go? >> well, you know, so first of all, it's great -- it's always better to have a good relationship with your landlord. our relationship, our connection is through the mortgage. so the mortgage is with the landlord. that's our touch point. we don't have a direct relationship with the renter. so as a renter, you have to go to the landlord. many landlords want to be generous, want to be helpful. if you're landlord is not, that's got to be worked out with the renter. the landlord would go to their lender who they send their check to every month and they could

ask for forbearance for as long as the crisis goes on. the landlord states my tenants can't pay the rent, i would like a pause in the mortgage. the landlord can get a pause in the mortgage. they're required to pass that through to you as a pause in the rent. that's a requirement of the program for the landlord. eric: so basically folks can say to the landlord, and we've heard great stories of landlords who are -- and apartment owners who are foregivenning the rent for now, saying don't worry about it, we'll deal with this when it's over. basically say it's a forbearance situation, the federal government has this by law. it's really hit a lot of people. let me show you what the wall street journal sames it says about two-thirds of the drop -- this is in employment -- occurred in leisure and hospitality, in food services and drinking places, including restaurants and bars. those that work remotely, in high skilled, higher income

jobs, saw little change in payroll last month. employers in sectors such as computer systems, design management, consulting, scientific research added jobs in march. let's say it's uncertain. you don't know when your restaurant will be back hope open, you don't know when your employer will or if they can bring you back. how do you tea deal with that ad how long will this go? >> the assistance will go on for as long as there's a nationally declared disaster. the biggest impact is on renters who work in the service industry, work in retail, we'll be able to give the landlord forbearance as long as we're in this, up to a year. we're hopeful this won't go on for a year. we're trying to figure out how long this will last. we will extend this as necessary as we see this go on. we want to make sure people have an opportunity where they get a

time out. i do want to emphasize, this is for those who lost their jobs, who are in need, it's not a holiday if you kept your job, you're not suffering income decline, please continue to pay your rent, pay your mortgage. because we need that to happen for the rest of the system to continue to be strong to that those who do need relief can get it. eric: it is so important. it is the federal housing finance agency. you have a website, mark, finally, federal housing finance agency for information? >> absolutely. fhfa.gov. eric: fhfa.gov. mark, thank you for the work you're doing. people need a lot of help, especially if they lost their income. thank you. arthel. arthel: that is so true, eric. thank you. well, spain is now second behind the u.s. for the most coronavirus infections and deaths. but officials there believe the country is close to reducing the spread of the virus.

and by the way, we are moments away from an update on the fight against coronavirus here at home from the white house briefing. we are going to bring that to you live when it begins in moments. but for now, a short break.

eric: you know, health workers are desperate, the shortages of medical supplies are continuing. you can help, through nonprofits that are working to get masks and other vitale needed items to the front lines. two long-time friends are teaming up to help solve the problem. they created maskmatch.com. liz clinger and khloe albert are in oakland, california. liz, this is terrific. this started because your mom is a nurse, she's older and you had a need. >> yes. thanks for having us, eric. my mom's a life-long nurse many when i spoke to her a few weeks

ago i found out she was forced to work on her floor without a mask and i was terrified that she was going to die. quite frankly. and i learned that she was not the only one experiencing this and that there are tens of thousands of people just like her all around the country. i went to my friend khloe who works in the health care supply chain. i wanted to see what we could do to help front line health care workers. >> my company -- eric: you have experience, yeah. >> yeah. my company helped hospitals manage inventories and buy and sell medical equipment and supplies and we realized there was a two to three week delay to get supplies into the country. we realized the best source of masks that we could mobilize the fastest were masks that people like you and i had in our homes. we created mask-match.com, where people could sign up to get matched with a health care

worker and ship the mask to them without leaving their homes. eric: that is so fantastic. khloe, how do we get to the shortage? this is the united states of america. we don't have enough in the national stockpile, states don't have enough, cities don't have enough. what happened? >> i think there's a lot of factors contributing to this. one of my high poo the thoughtss haven't been able to procure supplies at the prices they agreed with the hospitals. and so while these companies are trying to make sure they're getting the supplies, the rest of the world is also doing this mad scrambling trying to prevent a lot of resources from leaving the countries. i think it's a number of problems, the biggest one being freight and also just having budgets going to the right places. eric: it is unforgiveable and just totally outrageous that this is happened. liz, let's show the website. what do you do, if you are in need, you're especially focusing on smaller and medium sized

hospitals and clinics and cities because they kind of get lost with all the attention. what are you doing and how do you get it to the people? >> right. yeah. so it's actually pretty simple to do. if you're someone who has some masks or if you're a health care worker, you can go to www.mask-match.com and you can fill out a quick form over there. basically, we send the donor and address the health care worker near them and the donor can schedule a usps pick-up shipment without having to leave their home. we set it up so it's as simple as possible to get masks directly into the hands of the health care workers on the front lines right now. eric: how many have you been able to ship out and what are you getting and where are they going? >> yeah. so basically with our -- we have 273 volunteers doing all this around the clock and so far we've shipped over 63,000 masks to over 1700 hospitals all around the country. and we're actually currently

processing 165,000 mask donation right now and distributing it to over 100 health care centers around the u.s. and counting and as you mentioned, and as i think khloe mentioned a bit too, we're also focusing on those mid-size and smaller hospitals and clinics and nursing homes, ems, urgent care centers around the united states that don't have the resources to be able to get as many of those donations as some of the larger institutions. eric: and khloe, let's say you're a smaller institution in louisiana or texas or oklahoma or mississippi or wherever you are, go on the website, mask-match.com and how do you request material? >> what you do is you go on the website and fill out a quick form, give you information about who you are, what your facility name is, how many masks you need, we also have an option for people who are willing to accept homemade masks as well and from

there our dedicated team of volunteers go to work to actually match as liz said people who have masks at home with those health care facilities. eric: i'm a health care worker, i need masks, you click on that, i want to help, i have masks to give. you guys are just doing god's work. here at fox news, we thank you. again, it's mask-match.com to go on the website. thank you, keep going and we'll check up with you through the week to see how it's going and to get those who are on the front lines the help. liz, khloe, thank you. again, there are several groups besides mask-match.com. you can go to the isa foundation, we focused on them last week. masks for docs also of provide this service. please, you can also donate at

the foundation, six bucks for two masks if you don't have masks but have extra money, mask match, masks for docs, help and save our medical workers. arthel. arthel: very, very important. we are all in this together, indeed, eric. thank you. the prime minister of spain announcing the country will extend its current lockdown for three more weeks. spain has the second highest number of coronavirus cases as well as deaths in the entire world. but a decrease in the number of new deaths for a second straight day is offering some optimism. ryan killcoat is live from london with the latest. ryan. >> reporter: arthel, spain has overtaken italy as the country in europe with the highest number of confirmed cases, nearly 125,000 confirmed cases. only the united states has more. meanwhile, the death toll in

spain continues to rise. nearly 12,000 now deaths in spain. 800 people succumbing to the virus over the last 24 hours. but as tragic as that is, that's actually less than in the previous 24 hours and the infection rate also appears to be falling. so span yards who have spent three weeks in a national lockdown are looking at another three weeks confined to their homes. the government's talked about extending that lockdown. here in the u.k., where people are in the second week of a national lockdown, the number of deaths in the last 24 hours hit a new high with more than 700 succumbing to the virus. one hospital is telling people not to go to the emergency ward because it's running out of oxygen. like in spain, there is encouraging news in the u.k. saturday, the number of new reported cases fell from the previous day. finally, it was a day of national mourning in china as people stood for three minutes

silence, air sig sirens blasted across the country. on top of the tragic deaths, we can expect serious economic distress to be coming our way. the imf reported today they expect that the economic consequences of this pandemic will be much worse than the global financial crisis back in 2008. arthel: ryan, thank you very much. eric? eric: arthel, you know, it's pretty hard to believe right now from communist china if they're indeed telling the truth, what they say at all about the outbreak. did it start in the seafood market as they claim or was it a mistake by researchers at a nearby virus research center, 300 yards from the market they were supposedly experimenting with bat viruses. can we believe how many people they say died from the coronavirus? lots of questions. gillian turner reports on what

we're doing to try to get the truth. >> reporter: u.s. public health officials are ramping up pressure on the chinese government to share information about the pandemic's origins. first up, they're putting china's now infamous wet market in their cross-hairs. >> it boggles my mind how when we have so many diseases that emanate out of ch that unusual human, animal interface that we don't shut it down. >> reporter: key lawmakers agree, calling on china to immediately close all operating wet markets that have a potential to expose humans to risk. china hawks like senator tom cotton tell fox news they question whether the chinese communist party is truthful about the chinese wet market story. >> we know there are laboratories researching coronaviruses within a few miles of the food market. the cha chinese communist partys

going to great lengths to conceal what happened. >> reporter: they're calling on the trump administration to investigate and get into how the virus was introduced into the population last december. >> it's responsible that we ask the questions and demand answers from china about what they know on the origins of the virus and the potential connections to the research done in those laboratories. >> reporter: questions of covid-19's origins are echoed by doubts that china has been forthcoming in sharing accurate data about the spread. >> we're not in a position to confirm any of the numbers coming out of china. >> probably, we were missing significant amount of the data. >> reporter: china's government is fighting back, they say while they have sympathy for the suffering of the american people, the accusations from american politicians has been, quote, despicable and immoral. arthel: thank you. so the white house coronavirus

task force briefing is running a little bit behind. it's now scheduled to get underway at the top of the hour. of course, we will bring it to you live when it does start. we're going to talk about that and then also officials in new york mistakenly transferred patients who tested positive for coronavirus to the navy hospital ship intended for non-covid-19 patients. how this happened, we'll tell you in a live report, up next.

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eric: police in southeast france are investigating whether a man behind a deadly knife attack had terrorist motives. that man allegedly killed two and injured eight people early this morning. it happened outside of a bakery in a small town south of lion. police caught the suspect a short time later. authorities say that he did not have any documents on him at all but claims he was born in sudan. arthel. arthel: eric, this is a fox news alert. the united states just passing 300,000 confirmed coronavirus cases as some cities including here in new york city close in -- they close in on what's believed to be the peak of the pandemic in terms of number of people infected. meantime, also in new york, fox news is learning that multiple patients infected with covid-19 were mistakenly transferred to

the u.s. naval hospital ship comfort which is docked in the hudson river. the ship is intended only for patients who do not have the virus. let's go to lucas tomlinson now, live at the pentagon with details. lucas, how did this happen? i thought there was a plan in place where the hospital was going to start accepting covid-19 patients. >> reporter: good afternoon, arthel. there is a plan in place and this shows the complexities of the environment that both the hospital ship and local hospitals in new york are dealing with this pandemic. what happened was i was told five patients went on-board the hospital ship comfort. they've since been removed after they tested positive for the coronavirus. i spoke to the top general overseeing the covid response in the united states. he says there was another patient delivered by ambulance earlier today, not previously reported, that patient was treated and is also waiting removal. general o'shaughnessy said in a quote, we are treating the emergency situation that needs to be treated. on friday, about a dozen

patients from the javits center in mid-town were transferred to the ship one day after president trump approved governor cuomo's request to have covid patients treated at the javits center. that meant the non-covid patients had to be transferred to the hospital ship. the original plan was to relief the burden from local hospitals, so local hospitals could focus on the virus. half of all people infected with the virus show no symptoms according to the latest data. comfort has been docked at near nine on the west side since arriving on monday. the u.s. military's top office said they're reassessing the situation about the hospital ship treating only non-covid patients. arthel. arthel: okay. so from what i understand, your report, that they perhaps didn't realize that those patients were infected. is that what i'm getting? >> reporter: that's correct. the javits center originally treated non-covid patients

originally but that was reversed when governor cuomo got permission to treat the covid patients. that meant the non-covid patients were taken to the hospital ship. the navy said this was a mistake, but the protocols in place prevented the infection from spreading. arthel: let's talk about the fallout after the skipper of the aircraft carrier teddy roosevelt being fired. so -- which is another story. how many more covid cases are on-board the vessel still? >> reporter: the u.s. navy just released new data and says about half the ship has been tested for the virus. so far, there's 155 positive cases on-board, the crew of nearly 5,000. that means half the navy's covid cases worldwide are on board the teddy roosevelt. the navy says 1500 sailor versus been removed. the top brass said that 2700

would be removed from the ship by this friday. so far, none require hospitalization. as you mentioned, the acting navy secretary fired the skipper of the teddy roosevelt for going outside the chain of command for penning the letter, a plea for help to get the sailors off the ship. none of the sailors require hospitalization but the skipper has been removed. much to big fanfare from the ship's crew, hundreds of sailors send him off in style from the hangar bay on-board. arthel. arthel: unprecedented times we're living in, lucas tomlinson. thank you very much. eric. eric: arthel, we're told that the coronavirus is spreading across the country right now. the death toll in our nation stands at 7,000 as the cases surpass 1 million worldwide. we'll have the latest on this crisis. we're right now waiting for the white house task force briefing at the top of the hour with the president and the officials

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arthel: well, at least 41 states as well as dc are under

some form of restrictions on movement, leaving essential workers some of the lowest income populations increasingly at risk. jacqui heinrich is live in new york with this part of the story. >> reporter: arthel, the disparity is playing out all over the country, a smart phone tracking company shows high income people are staying home more than low income people in the nation's top 25 biggest cities. in new york city, the consequences were visible within the first month of the outbreak. of the 20 zip codes with the fewest coronavirus cases, 19 were in wealthy areas according to the city. the most cases were in the poorest neighborhoods. analysts think there could be several reasons why including more low income people working essential jobs, delivery drivers, grocery clerks and caregivers, more exposure on public transportation and crowding among families in small apartments. a survey from last year shows the risk factors existed before the virus, about 60% of people

who worked in management, business and financial jobs said they could work from home but less than 10% of service workers could. along race and class lines there's a stark division, 37% of asians said they could work remotely, 30% for whites, 20% for african americans and 16% for hispanics. more than half of those with a college degree or higher could work from home but without a high school diploma, only 4% could. now, the virus is ravaging low income people working essential jobs, many of them without health insurance and with pre-existing conditions. >> i've had patients that are coming in because they can't breathe and their lungs sound horrible like crumbling piece of paper and they look pale and weak and say i've been urinating a lot, my mouth is dry. the blood sugar is 400 and it's multiple co-morbidities, undiagnosed medical diseases. >> reporter: many essential workers are demanding hazard pay and more protection from the

virus in the form of ppe and the sort. amazon, whole foods and instacart workers all protested those conditions last week. arthel. arthel: very, very important story. jacqui heinrich, thank you very much. eric. eric: well, arthel, we're expecting an update from the white house coronavirus task force. that update a few moments from now. states are trying to struggle to meet th the demand for tests and memedical supplies, they're demanding the trump administration nationalize the process. we'll hear what the president has to say and the top officials as they take the podium any moment now in just a few minutes, so stay with us on the fox news channel as our special coverage continues.

eye i don't add up the years.

and i don't count the wrinkles. but what i do count on is boost high protein. and now, introducing new boost women... with key nutrients to help support thyroid, bone, hair and skin health. all with great taste. new, boost women. designed just for you. arthel: well, we are awaiting today's we house coronavirus task force briefing to start any minute now. we'll bring it to you life when it -- live when it just starts. this update just in, the coronavirus now affecting more than 300,000 people in the u.s. with more than 8,000 deaths nationwide. this is a brand new hour of "america's news headquarters," i'm arthel never absolutely. eric: hello, i'm eric shawn. thank you for joining us this afternoon. to date, the coronavirus has infected nearly 1.2 million people around the globe. in our country now, we make up more than a quarter of all those

cases. the virus, of course, having a very devastating impact on people's lives across the country. on our finances, our mental and emotional well-being, and states are pleading with the trump administration to fully nationalize the response to better coordinate and get the life-saving medical equipment to where it is needed so desperately now. mark meredith is live at the white house. we expect the coronavirus task force briefing to start any moment now, waiting for the president and the top officials there to fill us in. mark? mark: good afternoon. that briefing was supposed to begin at 3:30, it was pushed back to 4. we are standing by, expecting to get an update on a number of things including the guidance encouraging americans to wear some sort of covering if they're going out. the president himself, though, saying he doesn't feel like he is likely to do this, but it's something that'll likely come up later on today. now on the economic front, the administration on friday up

launching those loans for small businesses, some 13,000 issued through the small business administration as well as community banks, but there have been reports some of these banks had a hard time getting the process up and running and making sure businesses get the help they need to keep people on payroll. president trump was tweeting about it earlier this morning: i will immediately ask congress for far more money if the allocated money runs out. he tweeted at bank of america and community banks that are rocking. odds are a lot of people are going to need help because we saw the march jobs report with the unemployment rate going now to more than 4%. in the hospitality sector, which includes restaurants, jobs down by 459,000, retail getting hammered down 46,000 jobs. health care workers also down. federal hiring was up in the month of march, but that was mostly due to the census. as for those stimulus checks, a lot of people are eager to see, treasury secretary steve mnuchin

said friday he believes within two weeks that money is going to be direct deposited but, of course, it has to do with your income, whether you're married, kids, that depends on how much money you get, if you get that check at all. as for the president, he had a call earlier today with leaders from the major sports teams, major league baseball, the national hockey league, nba, pga, the lpga. the president recognizes the good work being done by so many teams and players. there are, of course, so many sports fans all over really the world that would be glued to their tv with march madness and everything else that would be going on. this afternoon the white house is facing criticism from lawmakers on capitol hill over its choice for the inspector general to monitor the recovery, brian miller, a lawyer with the white house's counsel office, we've seen pushback from speaker pelosi as well as a few others

up on capitol hill. the big question though whether or not this is going to slow down the process as the administration, as well as congress, tries to monitor how this $2 trillion stimulus bill gets handled here in the weeks and months ahead. eric? eric: all right, mark. we'll have the briefing as soon as it starts, thank you. arthel? arthel: eric, well, thank you. and new york city now seeing its largest 24-hour spike in both deaths and cases. coronavirus killing more than 3,000 people in the empire state so far. we're in new york city, the epicenter of the outbreak. >> reporter: hi, or arthel. yeah, time is running out here in new york. governor cuomo said earlier today that the apex, the state's apex is set to hit in the next week, about the next week, and he says he still needs every single day, every hour to get ready for it. >> our reading of the projections is we're somewhere

in the seven-day range. i call it the battle of the mountaintop because that's what it's going to be. that's going to be the number one point of engagement of the enemy. >> reporter: now cases in new york shot up by 10,000 overnight to now 113,704 cases. of course, it is the epicenter. more than 40% of u.s. deaths come from new york state. new jersey follows with nearly 30,000 cases now, and pennsylvania is is also in the top ten with more than 8400 cases. now, help is on the way. a plane from china filled with 1,000 ventilators arrived at v. fk today. governor cuomo has also ordered medical schools to allow students who are slated to graduate this year to begin practicing now and calls for more doctors and nurses continues as 85,000 medical workers have already signed up

and 22,000 come from out of state. meantime, new york mayor bill de blasio urging new yorkers to cover their faces when they're out in public with a scarf or a bandanna. we've seen that here in midtown manhattan, and pennsylvania's governor tom wolf also recommending that for his residents. a little confusion on whether or not you should wipe down your groceries when you bring them home. food safety experts say, you know, the risk of transmission is low, but u.s. surgeon general dr. jerome adams told fox news this week he's wiping down his groceries too. >> i've just got to be honest with you, when i go grocery shopping, i lay out my groceries on the table, i leave them there for several hours to the extent that i can if they're nonperishable, and anything that is perishable, i wipe it or spa it down. better safe than sorry. >> reporter: and, of course, if you are able to wipe it down, maybe you've run out of wipes, the most important step is, of course, to wash your hands

whenever you are down handling those groceries. arthel? arthel: yeah. and you know what? also just alcohol works, because we wipe down everything. i feel you can't be too safe in this environment. thank you so much for that update. eric? eric: yeah, that is for sure. half alcohol, half water, i'm told, actually also still works. meanwhile, italy that was hit so hard, now four week of social distancing, we're told, well, that appears to be paying off, thankfully. but number of new coronavirus infections in that country now leveling off. this as the pope has sent a video message of encouragement to catholics and others ahead of the holy week celebrations. amy kellogg live in florence with the latest on the conditions there and the pontiff's plea. hi, amy. >> reporter: hi, eric. well, our cases are still increasing, of course, but our curve is flattening. however, out has been made very clear -- it has been made very clear that this is a period now

of containment and not conquest, and italians are being told that they need to remain profoundly responsible as we continue to go forward. but there was a survey out today that says that it is believed 30,000 lives have been saved by the restrictive measures that have been put in place here. now, there's been a lot of concern that the epidemic will spread to the less prosperous south, but one naples hospital has gotten prepared, building on the lessons of the north which was caught out. they've managed to keep all of their staff ine next-free by procuring totally protective gear and setting up protocols that keep the heavily-protected front-line workers separate from all the rest. another model gaining some traction here is the idea of treating as many patients as possible at home. one doctor has been doing that in amelia romana to good results. he claims there is a comfortable psychological effect with a home visit, and this particular

doctor has started patients early on with antiviral drugs. only 10% of his patients have required hospitalization. now, this nurse's picture went viral some weeks ago, a symbol of the exhaustion in the treason. s. she went on to get sick with coronavirus, but recovered calling all those who have beat this virus and will the real heroes. in the meantime, though, 80 doctors and dozens of nurses have die of covid-19, two nurses committed suicide. [speaking italian] >> translator: the psychological aspects are fundamental. think of medical workers, doctors, nurses who every day face death. and it's not easy, and they are substitutes for priests, because they give the last good-bye, even in place of the family. andsuicides of the two nurses is linked to this. >> reporter: now, the spurt, eric, of volunteerism has been quite astonishing here, and it's inventive and creative.

people have come up with all sorts of ways to help their neighbors and help the poor. pope francis keeps saying, look, we really need to try to make the most of this situation, to reach out to the lonely, to dig deep into ourselves and make it not an entirely negative time in our lives. and finally, interestingly enough, the franciscan brothers have offered a hotline for those who feel they would like to speak to a monk about their stress. eric? eric: all right, amy. that's so important, and we are all indebted to the work of those in the medical community around the globe no matter where you are. thank you. arthel? arthel: yeah. and, eric, we can't physically touch each other, but we can touch through the hearts still. so, listen, we are waiting for that white house coronavirus task force briefing. it's running a little bit behind schedule, but we are going to bring it to you as soon as it begins. plus, some medical professionals are coming out of retirement to

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eric: i'm eric shawn in new york. the president of the united states is now addressing the white house press briefing room about the coronavirus crisis. let's now listen. >> -- made a lot of progress. we appreciate all of the great assistance from the governors and people within the states -- eric: the president of the united states, as you can see, is now address at the white house briefing. i'm everything shaun in new york. there -- eric shawn in new york. there has been an urgent plea from and other states. we're going to pause for one moment to let our fox stations join us. >> -- 2,500 -- eric: this is fox news coverage of the white house task force briefing on the coronavirus pandemic. i'm eric shawn here in new york. let's listen to the president of the united states and other officials talk about the very late. here he is, the president. >> we have a lot of not only

hospitals being built, but now we're manning the hospitals because states are, in many cases, unable to get additional people to work. it's just an incredible situation. there's never been anything like this. one of the important issues in battling this pandemic is coordinating the supplies throughout the nation based upon the most accurate information available, and we've got the best health care and disaster experts anywhere in the world, and everybody will tell you that, and we're dealing with big parts of the world on helping them also through this horrible situation where 151, still 151 nations are going through it. we're working to insure that the supplies are delivered where and when they're needed. in some cases we're telling governors we can't go there because we don't think you need it, and we think someplace else needs it. and pretty much so far we've been right about that. and we'll continue to do it as

it really gets -- this will be probably the toughest week, between this week and next week, and there'll be a lot of deaths, unfortunately, but a lot of less death than if this wasn't done. but there will be death. we're looking for an obvious focus in the hardest-hit regions. some of them are obvious and some aren't so obvious. they spring up. they come, and they hit you like you got hit by a club. an area that wasn't at all bothered, you look at what's going on in new jersey. the governor's doing an excellent job, by the way, but how that sprang up. every decision that we're making is made the save lives. it's really our sole consideration. we want to save lives. we want as few lives lost as possible. it's, therefore, critical that certain media outlets stop spreading false rumors and creating fear and even panic with the public.

it's just ine credding. i could -- can incredible, i could name them, but it's the same ones. i guess they're looking for ratings, i don't know what they're looking for. it's so bad for our country. people understand it, you look at the approval ratings, and they're the lowest they've ever been for media. sod bad for our country, so bad for the world. they've got to put it together for a little while. get this over with and then go back to your fake news. it's just essential that the federal decision makers cut through the fog and the confusion in order to follow the facts and the science. many hospital administrators that we've been in touch with even in the really hot spots, you know what they are, are communicating directly with us that their levels of supplies are meeting essential needs. at the current time, they're really thrilled to be where they are. whenever local shortages are reported, we're asking

statements to immediately meet the demand, and we're stockpiling large amounts in different areas, in different areas, and we're going to be discussing that in a little while. but we want distributions to be made on a fair basis. we have to take care of a large country, not just certain areas of the country. no matter where we're -- we've been there, and we've been there very strong. i want to thank fema, i want to thank the army corps of engineers, i want to thank our military for what they're doing. and we're going to be adding a tremendous amount of military to help supplement the states. thousands of soldiers, thousands of medical workers, professionals, nurses, doctors. and it'll be a large number. it'll be, we'll be telling them over the next very short period where they're going. they're going into war. they're going into a battle that

they've never really train thed for. nobody's trained for this, nobody's seen this i would say since 1917 which was the greatest of them all. the great of this type of battle, probably the greatest of them all, right? 1917. up to 100 million people were killed. in addition, we're working directly with hospitals and existing suppliers and distributers to insure that those with the greatest need are prioritized. and and that need changes. one day it's one state or one locale, one city, and then all of a sudden they're starting to do well. we had some very good reports coming out of the state of washington, coming out of various parts of california. so areas that we were getting ready to really hit hard, we can now go to other areas. and it looks like new york is going to be hit very hard. and louisiana is just amazing the way it just spread out. everyone's doing a good job, but they're going to be hit hard.

areas in the country that are not experiencing large scale infections are requesting supplies beyond what their present circumstances require, and we talk to them and we tell them and we explan if it. for the most part, they're good with it. we think we're right. it's very understandable that officials would seek to get the most they can get for their communities. but the fears of the shortages have led to inflated requests. we have some states and areas where they're just asking for far more -- look, we had one state asking for 40,000 ventilators. 40,000. think of it, 40,000. it's not possible. they won't need that many, and now they're admitting they don't need that many, but we're getting as many as we can to them. again, nobody's ever seen anything like this in terms of ventilators, in terms of protective equipment and group forms and outfits. but it makes it more difficult

for distributers to prioritize the real need, and it could intentionally and, you know, they -- everybody hasp proper intentions -- has proper intentions, but they want to make sure they're 100%. and sometimes when they know they don't need it, they want it anyway. it gives them that extra feeling of satisfaction, but we just can't do that. it's not even possible to think about. and that's why -- and we're backup. remember, we're a backup. we're the greatest backup that ever existed for the states. especially end when we start getting into the hospital-building business and getting into the medical center-building business. when you see we built many hospitals, numerous hospitals in some states and medical centers. that's why my administration's been requesting actual usage numbers directly from the states and hospitals to meet their needs, because we want to be ready when the brunt of it comes, which is coming quickly, you see it, you see it as sure as you can see it. and when the brunt of it comes,

we want to be ready to hit the area that needs it. we don't want to have spent everything in one area and they don't need it there to anywhere near the extent. so let me be extremely clear about one point, we will move heaven and everett to safeguard -- and earth to safeguard our great american citizens. we will continue to use with every power, every authority, every single resource we've got to keep our people healthy, safe, secure and to get this thing over with. we want to finish this war. we have to get back to work. we have to get -- we have to open our country again. we have to open our country again. we don't want to be doing this for months and months and months. we're going to open our country again. this country wasn't meant for this. few were. few were. but we have to open our country again. i just spoke with the

commissioners, leaders of i would say virtually all of the sports leagues. rob manfred, commissioner of baseball, roger goodell, commissioner of the national football league. adam silver, commissioner of the national basketball association. gary beckman, commissioner of the national hockey league. jay monaghan, commissioner of the pga tour. kathy engelbert, commissioner of the women's national basketball association. dana white, the ultimate fighting championship. vince mcmahon, president of the wwe. don garber, commissioner of major league soccer. steve phelps, president of nascar. michael wand, commissioner of the lpga. roger penske, founder and chairman, penske corp.. and drew fellowing, president of the breeders -- fleming. president of the breeders cup. and there were a couple of

others on. these are all the great leaders of sport, and they want to get back, they've got to get back. they can't do this. the sports weren't designed for it. the whole concept of our nation wasn't designed for it. we have to get back. we want to get back soon, very soon. for example, and i have to say we're using the defense production act very powerfully and sometimes directly, in many cases indirectly. just the threat of it's usually enough. but fema and hhs have ordered 180 million -- think of that, 180 million, whoever heard of 180 million n-95 masks? and we're working now with 3m to see whether or not that all works out. but we want them to help our country. and i think it's going to be okay. we're going to soon let you know. but we need the masks. we don't want other people

getting them. that's why we're, that's why we're instituting a lot of defense production act. you could call it realuations, because that's what it is, it's a retaliation. if people don't, if people don't give us what we need for our people, we're going to be very tough, and we've been very tough. usually we don't have to use it, but we've used it plenty. it's turning out more and more, unfortunately. and it works very well. our supply chain logistics task force led by by the admiral who's doing a fantastic job will insure they're distributed to the health care and critical infrastructure workers in the area with the most pressing requirements. that's the 6 of -- 60 million maxes that we're talking about and the 180 million n-95 masks. 180 million, who ever heard of 180 million masks?

and this is a incredible things. a lot of times, and we have to stop playing this guam, if a above wants 200 ventilators and i say, no, we're going to send you 1,000, we think you need more than 200. and then the media meets with the governor and they say, oh, you got more? well, it's not enough. the president should have sent more. so he's asking for 200, we give him 1,000. they say how's the president doing? he should have given more. because that's politics. that's politics. and that's unfortunate, because we can't play that game. and, you know, that's one party doing it, and the other party's happy. but they're all really happy because they should have been doing this work themselves for a long period of time. many of their cupboards were bare. fema and hhs continue to monitor the data on an hourly basis we're provided by the states in order to most effectively target the distribution of supplies. we've been asking states to

provide us with daily updates on the number of ventilators and their utilization rates. because some states have more ventilators than they need. they don't even like to admit it. they'll admit it when everything's over, but that doesn't help us very much. this data is vitally necessary so that we can insure ventilators are getting to the right place at the right time. fema, hhs, dod are developing resources within the next 24 hours, they will have a whole different set of criteria. every day it's different criteria. every day this horrible invisible enemy changes the course. it changes course. if you were fighting the normal fight, you'd know what's happening. here's -- they hit one, they hit another, they hit another state. they hit areas that you didn't expect. but we're watching it, and we're

capturing it. our goal is to stay several days ahead of the needs in each state, but we can only do that if the cities and states utilize realtime local knowledge to provide timely and precise data about actual usage. so we have to be able to do that. and if a state has ventilators, as an example, that they know they're not going to need, they should give them over, and we should move them with the other ones. we have now 10,000 in our pipeline, stock fuel. 10 -- stock fuel. 10,000 plus. and we're moving some into new york. we're going to need some additional. we're moving some into new york city and state separately, and we're bringing them to the point where they'll need them. i can also report that at my direction 1,000 military personnel are deplowing to new york city to -- deploying to new york city to assist where they're needed the most. that's the hottest of all the hot spots. new jersey's right there, it's right next to it. i don't know if that's overflow, but new jersey's -- it's a great

state, and it's a very, it's a crowded state also where you have people on top of people it's always tough. but we're bringing some of the ventilators. we got some for new jersey just yesterday, and we're going to bring them some more including doctors. we're getting doctors, nurses, respiratory specialists and other support workers -- these are from the military. we're taking people now out of our military. we've been doing it, but now we're doing it on a larger basis. and i want to thank secretary of defense esper who will detail some of what we're doing tomorrow and monday. as the situation in washington state continues to stabilize, we're returning a 300-bed federal medical station to a different location where we need it, and we appreciate that. they won't be needing it, and if we appreciate them letting us know. we're going to move it to a different location. it was already bullet. many governors -- built. many governors initially made

large requests for federal support for their states in anticipation of a greater number of cases, but the residents of washington state have done a really good job of following the federal distancing guidelines. they really have. i'm also pleased to report that oregon will be spending and sending -- they're spending a lot of money because they really did stockpile well, and they're also sending 140 ventilators directly to new york, which we appreciate. and i want to thank the vice president for the great work he's doing every day dealing with our nation's governors. mike pence has been working day and night on this, and we want to get it over. he's got to get a little more sleep than he's getting. he hasn't been getting very much, i will tell you that. and we're all in this together, and it's a beautiful thing to see how people are joining forces to help one another. they really are. in addition to our courageous doctors, nurses and health care workers, i also want to thank

the incredible food supply workers who are feeding our nation. i spoke just a little while ago to senator bozeman, you know senator boozman, we all do. he's a great senator, a great person. we spoke just this morning, and we discussed how important it is to keep our farmers and ranchers, processers and distributers in our nation's prayers. and i want to thank the senator for the incredible job he's been doing. and a lot of the senators and congressmen and everyone, everybody's working very hard. my administration is working very aggressively to pioneer new medical countermeasures to treat and prevent infection, working on a lot of things. we must utilize our nation's scientific brilliance to vanquish the virus. we have to vanquish the virus as quickly as we can. because we have a lot of things

happening in this country, and we have a great future, but we have to get back to work. this week the fda established the coronavirus treatment accelerator program which is expediting the development of new antiviral and and other therapies, and they're doing it on a very rapid basis s. and i think we're having some very good results. we'll tell you about that. hhs continues to speed the development of therapies derived from human blood that have the potential to lessen the severity or shorten the length of the illness. and as you know, last saturday the fda also gave emergency authorization for hydroxychloroquine, and the hydroxychloroquine is -- i hope it's going to be a very important answer. we're having some very good

things happening with it, and we're going to be contributing it through -- distributing it through the strategic national stockpile. it's going into the strategic national stockpile to treat certain patients, and we have millions and millions of doses of it. 29 million, to be exact. in addition to that we're making it, and we're also getting from various other locations and countries. in one case i called prime minister modi of india this morning. they make large amounts of hydroxychloroquine, very large amounts, frankly. and i said -- they had a hold because, you know, they have 1.5 billion people. they think a lot of it, and i said i'd appreciate if they would release the amounts that we ordered, and they are giving it serious consideration. but they do make -- india makes

a lot of it. but we have already 29 million, if you look, that's a big number, 29 million doses. we've got millions of doses that are being made here and many millions of doses that are made elsewhere that are being shipped here and will be arriving. we are just with hearing really positive stories, and we're continuing to collect the data. but i'll just speak for mousse, it's been out -- for myself. it's been out for a long time. it's a malaria truck. it's also a drug -- it's a malaria drug. it's also a drug for lupus. and there's a study out that people with lupus are not catching this horrible virus. they're not affected so much by it. now maybe that's correct, maybe it's false. you're going to have to check it out. but there's a lot of very positive things happening with that. that's a game-changer, if that's the case. obviously, we continue to work

on the vaccines, but the vaccines have to be down the road by probably 14, 15, 16 months. we're doing great on the vaccines. i think johnson & johnson is leading, seems to be leading in terms of the studies, but we'll see what happens. i feel good about that, but that's down the road. but tremendous promise with what's just been mentioned. in addition to that, gilead sciences has initiated a phase three -- down the line, meaning -- clinical studies of the drug rem december mere. it's approximately 1,000 patients which is a pretty good study. other drugs are also being studied in patients, and this week oracle -- great company -- donated a new web portal. larry ellison, amazing guy. and platform to the government to gather realtime data on how patients are responding to the various new treatments. and they have a very

sophisticated site, and we'll be learning a lot from oracle. thank you to them. we're also spending economic dollars like you wouldn't believe and speeding economic relief to american workers, families and businesses. yesterday the small business administration launched the paycheck protection program to help employees -- employers keep paying their workers. in 24 hours the small business administration and over 1,200 lending partners processed over 28,000 loans. it's so far ahead of schedule. and billions and billions of dollars. it's worked out incredibly well, and i want to thank bank of america and jpmorgan chase and a lot of the big banks that have been involved and a lot of the community banks. community banks have really jumped on it, and it's so far going way ahead of schedule.

the sba also clarified that faith-based organizations including houses of worship are eligible for the paycheck protection program. that's great. as well as the economic injury disaster loan program that you're familiar with. on the same terms as every other applicant. if we run out of funding for the employee retention program, i will immediately ask congress for more money. this is money that's really going directly to the people that need it, the small businesses that need it and the workers that need it. finally, i can -- when we open, we want to open strong with businesses that are going. remember, we had the great economy in the world, and then one day we were told you've got to shut it down, stop it. tell everyone to stay home because of this horrible virus. and we did that. and we did the right thing. but now we have to open. we have to open our country. finally, i can report that as of today the state department has

successfully considered coordinated the safe rush of more than 40,000 americans stuck abroad on over 400 flights from 75 countries. many of those countries were terrific in helping us. and i appreciate that very much. some of them i had to call the leaders of the country, most of whom i know, and once i did, they snapped like you wouldn't believe. they really helped us, so i appreciate that. so we brought back 40,000 americans who were literally stuck in some countries with no chance of getting out. we got 'em back. 400 flights, 75 countries. think of that. and those countries in almost every instance had a big problem with the virus. i want to thank the mesh people most of all -- the american people for the selfless sacrifices they're making for our nation. i know it's not pleasant, a although some people have said they've gotten to know their family better, and they love their family more than ever. that's a beautiful thing. they've actually gotten to know

'em. they're in the same house with their family for a long time. i guess it can also work the other way perhaps, but we don't want to talk about that. i want to encourage everyone to keep following our guidelines on slowing the spread. sustaining this war effort is -- and that's what it is, this is a war effort -- is the patriotic duty of every citizen. while we may be more physically distant for a time, we're closer together in the heart and in the spirit. and through this great national unity -- it's happening. we're having a great unity developing that a lot of people didn't think would be possible to develop like this. and we will conquer the disease and restore our nation to its full and glorious might. we're doing really well, and i'm very proud of everybody out there. we're very proud of you. it's something that nobody could have ever projected. it's been over a hundred years that a thing like this has happened. and the problem with this one is is the contagion.

it's so contagious. nobody's ever seen anything like that where it's so contagious. you can be just talking to somebody and catch it. you can catch it, you know how long it can live on surfaces. so things that nobody even thought of, the level of contagion. so we're getting there. we're going to make sure that it's over soon. and just keep going. it's not going to be long and thank you very much. and with that, i'd like to ask dr. han to speak, and he's been doing yeoman's work at the fda. thank you very much, doctor. >> thank you. thank you, mr. president. i'm going to speak about hydroxychloroquine and the efforts around that. just to preface, i'd like to echo what the president said about the american people and the resiliency e and the just terrific work. mitigation is such an important part of our fight against the covid-19 virus.

last week, as the president said, we issued an emergency use authorization to allow the donated hydroxychloroquine to come into the country and enter the general circulation. we are prioritizing this drug to come in for clinical trials, also into general use for physicians because, as you know, physicians -- based upon their interaction with the patients, they assessment of the risks and benefits -- can write a prescription for hydroxychloroquine if they think it's appropriate for the patient. being a physician, we do this all the time. and that assessment needs to be done between patient and a doctor. and then the third portion is we wanted to make sure these drugs were in the circulation, in the supply chain so that people who have them or need them for the other indications -- lupus, rheumatoid arthritis -- had them available. that was the purpose of the emergency use authorization. one other thing i'd like to mention that we, on friday, stood up a formal convalescent

plasma program. we have a great deal of enthusiasm for that. there are some reports that this is a benefit to patients in other countries who have had covid-19 virus. and what this means is taking plasma from patients who have had the virus and who have recovered and transferring the immunity from that person to someone who's sick. and we're, hopefully, expanding that across the country. the red cross is involved in that program, and i think it shows great promise. it needs to be studied like other things, but just like i said before, provides hope. we don't want to provide false hope but definitely hope. thank you. >> [inaudible] >> thank you very much, mr. president. i'd like to just take a couple of moments to talk a little bit about the public health aspects and how it relates to what the president just said about the need for us to begin to at least think about returning to some degree of normality. and that has to do with what's going to be happening as we end this week and we go into next

week. you will be seeing -- and we should not be surprised, because the kinetics of how this virus works -- is that we're going to be seeing that there are going to be deaths that are going to continue to go up. but as i mentioned to this group and to the general public multiple times, there the really is a cascading of events where you have new cases, hospitalizations, intensive care and deaths. so at the same time that we may be seeing an increase in deaths, we want to focus on the effect of mitigation is really the number of new cases. and that's what we're going to be thinking about and looking about. so we're going to pay close attention to that and, hopefully, the kinds of mitigations that we're talking about are going to have the impact to allow us to begin to think about maybe changing a bit. so the question arises, is the mitigation working? so let's look historically, and then just look at the reality of it. clearly in the countries, china included, that have implemented

very strict kinds of programs of mitigation, clearly it works. in our own country we've seen indication of that in washington. remember, washington state was the first to get hit. but they put in a really good program of mitigation. and if you look at the charts that dr. birx showed the other day, they're still down there doing well. and the reason is, again what i've said before but i think it's worth reiterating, that we have two opposing forces here. the virus, which the virus wants to do what the virus wants to do, viruses transmit from people to people. when people are separated from each other, virus does not transmit. it doesn't go enough. and that's the reason why something as simple as the physical separation -- because if you look at the vice president's chart that he shows all the time here from this podium, every aspect of that ending the covid outbreak in 30 days has some aspect of physical

separation. whether that's avoiding crowds, whether that's staying 6 feet away from people, whether that's doing teleworking, all of this does that. that's our most important tool. we'll be talking about vaccines and drugs and things like that that we'll mitigate later. but this is really what we have to do. and i want to actually just plead, as i do multiple times from here, to the american public. you know, as sobering and as difficult as this is, what we are doing is making a difference. so we really need to continue to do that. i must tell you i was just mentioning to the vice president as we came in last night, when i wasn't here, i went out with my wife and actually did a little power walking down massachusetts avenue for those to who live in washington, know what i'm talking about. and we passed a couple of restaurants with people who are getting takeout food. the restaurants were closed to people going in, but they were open to takeout. and i saw something that absolutely made me feel really, really good. they were separating themselves

by at least 6 feet. in fact, some of the restaurants had little things on the floor that said stand here, stand there, stand there. and i think if we as a nation pull together to do that, hopefully when we keep coming back here at these press conferences, we'll be able to show you that that curve that we keep talking about is going in the right direction. i'll be happy to answer questions later. thank you. >> okay, please. >> you said earlier that the virus is springing up in areas you did not expect. yesterday you said some states in the country are not in jeopardy. the fact that this is unpredictable, isn't that an argument for every state to have one -- >> look, there are some states that are, you have great distance, natural distance, big land. few people. and they're in very good shape. and if there is a case, they can quarantine that person, or that person will be separated, will be brought to a hospital, a secure area.

so you do have different cases as opposed to a new york or los angeles. los angeles is doing incredibly well, by the way. but areas where you have lots of people tight together, it's a big difference. no, there are different, there are many different cases. please. >> you mentioned military off the top, so 1,000 troops going to new york, and then are we expecting other mass deployments? and then is it just army -- >> no, not mass -- many of the places are really in great shape. they really have done a fantastic job. and we may add to the thousand, but new york will be getting about a thousand military people, nurses, doctors, lots of other people, because that's what they need. and that's -- medical. no, no, medical military. please. >> you tweeted earlier today that you liked the idea of a second coronavirus task force that was focused on -- >> thinking about it. >> so i was wondering if you were planning to go forward with that. >> thinking about it. a group of people. we have to open our country. you know, id had an expression

the cure can't be worse than the pop u.s., right? than the problem itself, right? i started by saying that, and i continue to say it. the cure cannot be worse than the problem itself. we've got to get our country open. >> [inaudible] can you talk about your call with -- [inaudible] did you say -- [inaudible] back in arenas? >> absolutely. i want fans back in the arenas -- >> [inaudible] >> no. whenever we're ready. i mean, as soon as we can, obviously. and the fans want to be back too. you know, they want to see basketball and baseball and football and hockey. they want to see their sports. they want to go out onto the golf courses is and breathe nice clean, beautiful fresh air. i can't tell you a date, but i think it's going to be sooner rather than later. and, you know, we're not going to have to have separation for the rest of our times on the planet. we need it for this period of time, but eventually people are

going to be able to occupy those seats in arenas next to each other like we have for all of my life and all of your life. they want to sit next to each other at restaurants. they don't want to be, you know, 6 feet away. some restaurant man called up and said, yeah, i'm worried because i have a small restaurant with not too many seats, i think he said 120. and he said if i practice what this is, i'm down to 30 seats. i can't make it. i said, don't worry about it, that's for a short period of time. you'll be back to your number of seats. we can't do that. otherwise that means your stadium is half the size of what it was a month ago. no, no. they're going to be close together, but they're going to be breathing air that's not going to kill people. please. >> [inaudible] but august, what are your -- >> i'm not committing to it. i'm not committing to it. we're going to see where we are. that'd be great if we could, but we're going to be back to good health soon, in my opinion.

we're making a lot of progress. and we're making progress because, as tony told the story about the restaurant and about how they were separating sort of automatically, people are doing that. people are doing that. they're staying in their homes. they don't want to go out. they're doing what they know is the right thing to do. it's not very complicated. it's, in many ways it's a very beautiful thing to see. yeah. >> [inaudible] >> we have no contingency plan. we're having the vex at the end -- convention at the end of august, and we think we'll be in good shape. we have no -- you know, it's going to be in north carolina, as you know, in charlotte. and i think we're going to have a great convention. i notice -- i think we had an opponent if, but i, i almost didn't know who it was. he got .0001% of the vote. but i heard he dropped out three or four weeks ago. i'm not sure, maybe you could tell me that. 's the kind of opponent i had --

that's the kind of opponent i had. and hopefully we have another one just like that. >> lawmakers are working on the next round of relief packages. what was not in the stimulus package that you signed last week that you'd like to see? >> well, i think we're going to need more money for the small businesses. it's been working out so well, it's been so efficient. the banks are doing an incredible job. i think we're going to need more money there, i think, we'll see. based on the first couple of days, it's been incredible. i think that restaurants and entertainment, that would be -- include sports leagues, all forms of entertainment, go back to the original where they get tax deductibility for what heir doing and for people who come in and buy tickets or go out for meals, and corporations can then send people into these restaurants who are going to have a hard time otherwise opening, in my opinion. and that could be the same for the sports leagues. we want to see for entertainment and for restaurants deductibility so that

corporations can take a deduction. they'll send their executives and people there, they'll get a deduction. that is something that will really bring life back to the restaurants, make them hotter before. you know, they used to have it, and when they ended it, it was really never the same. it was never the same. yeah, please. >> you just said you wanted to keep as few lives lost as possible in the pandemic, but there are still eight governors, all republicans, who have refused to issue the statewide stay at orders. your -- stay at home orders. your own experts, including dr. fauci, say that's the most effective way to stop the virus. >> [inaudible] we have a thing called the constitution, which i cherish, number one. number two, those governors i know every one of them, they're doing a great job. they're being very, very successful in what they're doing. and as you know, i want the governors to be running things. now, in some cases we'll supersede, but in this case it's not -- >> [inaudible] >> i think it fends, it depends

on the individual state that you're talking about. but they're doing very well, and they're doing a magnificent job in running -- >> south carolina has 1700 cases right now of coronavirus. utah has 1255. i mean, are these not states that should have -- >> they're doing a great job. well, that's a very small -- >> it's large or than some states that do stay at home ord. >> if i saw something wrong, if i saw a massive breakout of which that's not, i would come down very hard -- >> [inaudible] getting ahead of those numbers though? >> no, not in that case. but in the case -- i know the states you're talking about. by the way, i think you're up to 92% of the country is covered. and from a constitutional standpoint, they make the difference. they call the shots. yes, jeff, go ahead. >> a question about that. you and the others here saying people need to continue following the mitigation efforts, but you're also saying again the cure must not be worse than the problem. which is it?

>> i'm just saying we have to get this country open, jeff. it has to get open. this country was not designed to be closed. so we have the greatest we've ever had and then we're paying people to stay home? think of it. we're paying people not to go to work, how about that? how does that play? >> i understand that -- >> and they want to go to work, by the way. they don't even want -- they don't want money. this country is great. we're paying people. we have to get back to work, that's what i'm saying. go ahead, please. >> [inaudible] this is off topic. the announcement last night, yes or no question not that we expect you to answer the yes or no, but wasn't michael atkinson doing the job of the inspector general, the intelligence community, the job he was supposed to do when he simply took the whistleblower complaint to congress? that hadn't been taken previously? wasn't he doing the job that he was supposed to do, that american taxpayer were paying him to do? why did you decide to fire him?

>> i thought he did a terrible job, absolutely terrible. he took a whistleblower report which turned out to be a fake report, it was fake, it was totally wrong. it was about my conversation with the president of ukraine. he took a fake report, and he brought it to congress. with an emergency, okay? not a big trump fan, that i can tell you. instead of saying, and we offered this to him, no, no, we will take the conversation -- we're fortunate we had that transcript. if we didn't have that transcript with the kind of deception and dishonesty that was practiced be by the democrats, i might not be standing here right now. fortunately, we had a transcript, and it was a perfect transcript. even the lieutenant colonel admitted it was correct. okay, wait a minute, wait a minute, you asked a question. so he took this whistleblower, and i keep saying where's the whistleblower, right? and why was the whistleblower allowed to do this? why was he allowed to be, you call it fraudulent or incorrect

transcript. so we offered this i.g., i don't know him, i don't think i ever met him. he never even came in to see me. how can you do that without seeing the person? never came in to see me, never requested to see me. he took this terrible, inaccurate whistleblower report, right? and he brought it to congress. we offered to have him see my exact conversation. it was all about the conversation, by the way, that was the whole thing was about the conversation, right? and then after he saw it, he must have said, wow, because as i've said it many times and it drives you people crazy, it was a perfect conversation. so instead of going and saying, gee, this is a terrible thing he said about the president's conversation, well, it was a fraud. i didn't say that. and, by the way, you have the whistleblower, where's the informer, right? and here's another question. remember before did the, before i revealed the real conversation, where's the second

whistleblower? remember the second whistle -- wait, wait, wait. there was going to be a second whittle blower. but after i -- whistleblower. but after i gave the conversation, he just went away. he miraculously went away. where's the informer? because it was going to be this informer. maybe schiff was the informer. do you ever think of that? he's a corrupt guy, he's a corrupt politician. so, listen, say this: where's the informer? remember, the informer was coming forward. but, you see, i did one thing that surprised everybody. this gentleman right here said, boy, that was a shocker. i revealed the conversation. i got approval from ukraine because i didn't want to do it without their approval. and they said, absolutely, you did nothing wrong. by the way, president of ukraine, foreign minister said he did nothing over that, with 196-0 by the republican, not one dissenting republican vote, dishonest democrats impeached a president of the united states. that man is a disgrace to igs.

let's go next, please. he's a total disgrace. >> did you run by your decision to dismiss the inspector general by senator -- >> we'll get off this. people want to talk about what we're talking about. let me tell you something. that's my decision. i have the absolute right. even the fake news last night said he has the absolute right to do it. but ask him, why didn't you go and see the actual conversation? there was no rush. he said oh, we've got to rush it. he even said it was politically biased. he actually said that. the report could have been -- you know who the whistleblower is and so do you and so does everybody in the room and so do i. they give this whistleblower status that he doesn't deserve. he's a fake whistleblower and frankly, somebody ought to sue his ass off. that's enough of the whistleblower, please. >> [ indiscernible ] -- he has accepted 1,000 of them from the chinese government.

are you concerned -- >> what he didn't say. let me tell what you he didn't say. two very good friends of mine brought him the whistleblower, brought him those ventilatorsing right two very good friends of mine. they brought them. if you'd like their name, i'll give you their name. but the governor didn't mention that. it came through the chinese -- the country of china. but they were given by two friends of mine. but he didn't tell you that. now, the governor also -- you'll see when you read the letter. the governor also asked for 40,000. he wanted 40,000 ventilators. now, the governor as you know had a chance to get 16,000 a few years ago. he decided not to get that. the state of new york has asked for help. i've given them four hospitals, four medical centers, then i gave them an additional hospital. then i gave them military people to operate the hospital. they were not supposed to be covid hospitals.

the boat, the ship is not. interesting thing happened with the ship. people aren't in exodus because there's nobody driving, nobody taking motorcycle rides down the west side highway at 100 miles an hour. people are away. so people aren't being injured. now they're asking whether or not we could open up the ship for covid. we have given the governor of new york more than anybody has ever been given in a long time. i was going to say in history, but in a long time and i think he's happy. but i think that -- because i watch what he said today and it was fine. i wouldn't say gracious. it wasn't gracious. it was okay. i must tell you, gavin new s&p m has been gracious. los angeles, california, the job we've done and all of call important. >>california. >> why does it matter if they're gracious or not gracious. >> it doesn't matter. when you see what we've given -- mayor de blasio has been very nice. he understands what we've given him.

we brought him more ventilators too yesterday. but nobody has been given like new york. and i think -- i know he appreciates it. he just can't quite get the words out. but that's okay. >> when he says he needs 40,000 -- >> please, go ahead. >> dr. fauci's comments -- >> which one's in. >> dr. fauci's comments. on the reproductive value of the virus, the who had 2 to 2.6, other hads it a percentage point or two higher. do we have a new number based on those mitigation techniques. have we managed to bring it down? >> i think deb, you should answer that. dr. birx. go ahead. >> you know, it's an excellent question and it's why all of the modelers and i really want to thank them, again, they're re-evaluating all of their models in light of the level of the impact of the mitigation. remember, none of us had really been through this before. so when we modeled school

closures and distancing and staying at home and all of these pieces, that had never really come into the model before. they're working on that very diligently now. of course, just to be clear, we won't know how valid the models are until we move all the way through the epidemic. what we're triangulating right now and instead of working on -- or not, we're looking at testing and triangulating testing, test positive, case, hospitalizations, icus and the whole -- and of course the recoveries, because that's also very important to us. i think it's very important that the american people know that there are equal number of states with less than 5% positive, despite high levels of testing. so there's states that are mitigating and making this work. there are also the states that you know of, the 18 states that have the larger outbreaks and we're watching them very carefully, triangulating for

them all of the information to ensure that clients who come to the hospital are cared for. and then there's states in the middle that we're trying to figure out, are they changing or not. each of those states and each of those epidemics within those states may have a different r-value and that is what we're trying to figure out and it's very variable in each of these factors but the bottom line is, and i think going into this weekend it's really important for the american people to know this, spain and italy are moving through this. they are seeing their number of cases drop. they're seeing the number of people in hospitals drop. we are about -- on our models and on the actual data about 12 days behind them. at the same time, we see in the united states really good case studies of the impact of washington state, of california, and a series of smaller states where we're trying to learn from

them how you to do surveillance and with these new hhs, abbott id now kits -- i want to thank admiral gerard for getting them out, being able to look at testing in a more comprehensive way so we can do surveillance and mitigation simultaneously so we can answer that very question. it's going to be very difficult to answer at this moment across the united states because each metro cluster is on a different pathway as they move through -- move through the epidemic and i think we ought to emphasize "through." because we see italy, we see spain moving through and we hope to be in that same position. at the same time as the president said, he's concerned about every single person that is succumbing to this virus. we all are. and that's why we're making sure that in this try layings, they're tracking -- try

angulation, they're tracking minute by minute. and also being flexible and responsive to have dod take 1,000 health care providers out of their medical corps is a very big deal. i was in the medical corps for 29 years. we never did that. so this is saying we respect and understand the importance and value of the american lives. but the r-values will be variable by state. >> we talk about county by county -- >> before i do that. we had breaking news last night. you saw that. where i think the probable presidential candidate for the democrats will be joe biden and he agreed that i was correct when i stopped people from china very early, very, very early, from coming into our country and dr. fauci said that was a very big moment because it would be a much different picture we have

right now had we allowed thousands and thousands of people from specific area, i don't have to go into it, from china, to come in highly infected. it would have been a very different thing. the other thing -- so i appreciate the fact that he did because i was called xenophobic, racist, i was called many things when i did that very early and i got a lot of credit for it in the federalist because the federalist covered the whole journey and they said trump was -- i didn't speak to the author, respected author. they said trump was right at every single move and on top of that he was going through a fake impeachment, a hoax, i was going through a hoax when i made the decision. and that does take a little time and certainly a little thinking time but i appreciated the fact that joe biden announced last night that he now agrees that i was correct. you saw the report come out. that i was correct when i stopped people from china coming in at a very early date. >> can we talk about the

captain krosher, the commander that was removed. i don't know if you saw the videos of sailors cheering for him as he left. our reporting shows that some sailor versus said they are worried to reenlist because they are not convinced that commanders are taking care of their health and taking care of them. what do you say to tha that? >> here we have one of the greatest ships in the world, nuclear aircraft carrier, incredible ship with thousands and thousands of people and you had about 120 that were infected. now, i guess the captain stopped in vietnam and people got off in vietnam. perhaps you don't do that in the middle of a pandemic or something that looked like it was going to be. you know, history would say you don't necessarily stop and let your sailors get off. number one. but more importantly, he wrote a letter. the letter was a five-page letter from a captain and the letter was all over the place.

that's not appropriate. i don't think that's appropriate. and these are tough people. these are tough, strong people. i thought it looked terrible, to be honest with you. now, they made their decision -- i didn't make the decision. the secretary of defense was involved and a lot of people were involved. i thought i was terrible, what he did, to write a letter. i mean, this isn't a class on literature. this is a captain of a massive ship that's nuclear powered. and he shouldn't be talking that way in a letter. he could call and ask and suggest but he stopped in vietnam, a lot of people got off the boat. they came back and they had infection. and i thought it was inappropriate for the captain of a ship to -- i don't want to comment as to whether or not, but i agree with their decision 100%. in the back, please. >> joe biden actually just attacked you in a tweet, i don't know if you have seen it. >> he just what? >> attacked you. >> he didn't write anything. he has professionals from the democrats writing.

>> let me read what he said. he says donald trump is not responsible for the coronavirus but he is responsible for failing to prepare our nation to respond to it. how do you respond to that, sir? >> he didn't write that. that was done by a democrat operative. he doesn't write. he doesn't -- he's probably not even watching right now. and if he is, he doesn't understand what he's watching. but just so you understand, it was very nice what they wrote. you know, they released it at a strange time, sort of a strange time to release something like that. but he admitted i was right. and if you read the federalist story which most of you won't, because you don't want to, but you'd learn something because if you -- it goes through a chart, times. i was early. dr. fauci, i don't think he's changed his mind but he said it was a very important step when we stopped china from coming in from the specific area that was heavily infected. we would have a whole different thing right now. so i don't really know what joe biden said. i don't really care. and again, i see -- every once

in a while i'll say something, i'm make a speech and it will be critiqued and i get this beautiful, brilliant critique. joe biden didn't write that. joe biden didn't write that. he wished he did but he didn't. go ahead, please. back. >> china has warned of a resurgence of the virus. has the u.s. developed a plan if in fact a second wave of the virus does in fact occur here in the country? yes, we do. one of the things that obviously is parallel with thinking about the possibility as i mentioned a little while ago about mitigation allowing us to turn the corner very much on the front burner is what happens when we do because the risk of there being a resurgence is real. so what we need to do, and i believe i said this before but it's worth repeating, that what we need to have in place and we will have that in place is that as you then pull back, you have to have the capability of in a very pristine, precise way, do

the kind of containment when you do see it. because remember, when you get to mitigation, containment takes the back seat because you're just struggling to mitigate but when you get it down, you need to make sure it doesn't resurge. that will require the ability to test, to identify, to isolate and to do contact tracing. that's what we have to have in place and hopefully we will at the time that we then pull back. >> a question for -- [ indiscernible ] you mentioned the plasma, the plasma of people who were infected and have recovered and are transferring it to family members. can you walk us through, is that working and a case by case basis, what are the results of that? i'm not familiar with that. >> so this is a situation where someone who has recovered from the virus doesn't have the virus in their system at all, you can take plasma -- this is a pretty routine procedure. you can donate a couple times a week, a couple times a month and give that plasma.

that plasma contains the proteins in the blood that have the antibodies against the virus. you can take that, process it and give it to someone who is ill. and so that allows you to transfer immunity. doesn't have to be matched by family or anything like that. since last tuesday, the tuesday before last, we've allowed academic centers and other lab laboratories and hospitals around the country to do this on a compassionate use basis. we pulled this together in an expanded access program and run it through the red cross because they have the greatest system and capacity for doing this. this allows us to scale up so that when people get sick we can actually have these donated plasma packs given to the patients who are sick. >> some of us don't know if we have it or recovered, what should people be doing? >> we started with the red cross in this program. we made an announcement yesterday. we are planning to scale that up and we'll have more information this week. we want to make sure we have the systems in place. it's a superb question. >> can you clarify the

situation with 3m right now? germany says there was an act of piracy that 200,000 masks were apparently diverted from thailand to the united states instead of to berlin. did that actually happen? should 3m be fulfilling contracts for -- >> we're very disappointed with 3m. they should be taking care of our country. they can sell to others but they should take care of our country. the people that have dealt with them have dealt successfully with many companies over the last month. they don't like the way 3m has treated our country. they don't frankly like the representatives of 3m. and no -- you said piracy, right? piracy. there's been no act of piracy. there's been no act of piracy. it's the opposite. 3m has not treated our country well and if they do, great. and if they don't, they're going to have a hell of a price to pay, okay. i say it that way.

i watched him on television, on something, talking about -- it's so hard to believe, so hard to fathom. they ought to get their act together because i got involved and i looked at what happened and they have not -- 3m has not treated our country well. >> can you clarify about the -- >> go ahead, please. >> was that diverted. >> we'll get you the information. >> i was wondering about what you're seeing as far as patients in regards to coronavirus, it was mentioned earlier but what does -- [ indiscernible ] >> what is the question? is the incidence of coronavirus -- >> [ indiscernible ] >> right now, this is being looked at in a natural history study. we don't have any definitive information to be able to make any comment on that. it's an obvious good question because it might be a way for us to get some interesting and potentially important data as to the role of those medications. but that's something that is now being looked at but we don't have any data to be able to say

definitively. >> i hope they use the hydroxychloroquine. they can do it with z-pack subject to your doctor's approval. i hope they use it. i tell you what, what do you have to lose? in some cases they're in bad shape. what do you have to lose? it's been out there for a long time and i hope they use it. and they're going to look at the -- work with doctors, get what you have to get. but we have it stockpiled and it's -- we have a lot of it and we're getting more of it and as i told you, i spoke to prime minister modi. we're getting more of it. it's been used for a long time and therefore it's passed the safety test. fda has been terrific. dr. hahn i appreciate very much too. i've seen some results. now, it's early. i guess it's early. but -- and they should look at the lupus thing. i don't know what it says. there's a rumor out there that

-- because it takes care of lupus very effectively as i understand it. it's a drug that's used for lupus. so there's a study out there that says people don't have lupus haven't been catching this virus. maybe it's true. maybe it's not. why don't you investigate that. and there's also other studies -- you know, with malaria, that the malaria countries, people that take this drug for malaria which is very effective for malaria, that those countries have very little of this virus. i don't know. you're going to check it out. but i think people should -- if it were me -- in fact, i might do it anyway. i may take it. okay? i may take it and i'll have to ask my doctors about that but i may take it. yeah, please, go ahead. >> last couple days you've been really optimistic about russia and saudi arabia coming together on a deal on oil. in the last 24 hours opec thought there was pushback. >> i've been against opec all

my life. because what is it? it's an illegal -- you could call it a cartel, a monopoly, a lot of different names for it. but it broke down very violently, very violently. so i don't care about opec. i really don't. i couldn't care less about opec. i think they're going to settle it. you know why? because they're going to be destroyed. they're destroying themselves if they don't. russia, it's a very important -- we had a very good conversation, president putin and myself. very good. but russia, big part of their economic well-being is from oil. well, oil is at a record low. nobody's ever seen anything like it. it's actually lower than you even think. and it's to their advantage. obviously it's to saudi arabia's advantage. they told me they're discussing -- saudi arabia went further than that. he thinks a deal is going to be made at 10 million barrels reduction. maybe more than that. he indicated it would most likely be more than that.

so we'll see what happens. we're going to see what happens. as far as opec is concerned, i mean, i was against opec for years and years because i thought it was very unfair to our country. the beautiful thing is, we have built one of the great -- one of the things we've done is created so much, we produce, we're the number one producer in the world right now. i don't like it for a different reason, because it's going to hurt a lot of jobs in our country. this price. it's going to hurt a lot of jobs. now, with all of that being said, people are going to be driving, paying 90-cents a gallon. did you ever hear of that? what's that, 1952 or something? all right. from that standpoint -- you know what, i am a big believer in our great energy business and we're going to take care of our energy business and if i have to do tariffs on oil coming from outside or if i have to do something to protect our thousands and tens of thousands of energy workers, and our great companies that produce all these jobs, i'll do whatever i have to do. okay? yeah, ma'am, go ahead. >> you tweeted a little while

ago about how sad it is for kids, they don't have little league right now. i'm wondering if you're willing to share about your youngest child and how he's dealing with life sheltering in place, not going to school, no sports. >> well, he's a good athlete and he loves soccer and he's like everyone else. everything's shut down. he's in his room. he's happy. but he's not as happy as he could be. he'd like to be playing sports. baron. and let's see what happens. but we have to get back. we have to get back. remember that. we have to get back. and we have to get back soon. okay. >> on the jobs report the number -- >> you guys ever stop? you want to keep going for a little while? huh? i mean, do you ever stop? how many times do you ask -- actually a lot of good questions. go ahead. but keep going, yes? you're not going to blame me i kept it going too long. people said -- every time you ask -- i mean, no, it's amazing.

i'm telling you. every hand went up. i thought we've gone through -- i think every single hand went up the last time. you know what it shows you? it shows you that you love what you do. go ahead. >> we do love what we do. >> you do. some of you do it well. not all of you. go ahead. i'm not looking at you, by the way. >> we did get the jobs report numbers yesterday. it's a small portion because it's the first half of march. was there anything in there that was any sign of optimism? obviously we all saw the numbers, down in retail, down in hospitality. is there anything you said okay, maybe with this virus -- [ indiscernible ] >> look, the job numbers are what they are. we asked everybody to go home, don't work. so the numbers are going to be astronomical. we understand that. i understood that. i know somebody said that the numbers are meaningless and then they took that to mean oh, jobs don't mean anything and it was just another fake news story.

it wasn't me that said it, by the way. it was a very smart person. but they meant it. by saying it really is -- that's why i answered your question very carefully. the numbers are what they are. we know the numbers were going to be massive because we told everybody to go home and lock your doors, essentially. don't come to work. you can't come to work. don't go outside. don't breathe. don't do anything. we've got to open up our country. but i know that it's coming back. and in my opinion, it will come back very strong. there's a tremendous energy, there's a tremendous demand. and some good things have happened. i mean, i don't know. there's one habit that as you know, a lot of you have covered me for a long time, i was never a big believer in shaking hands but i decided if you don't shake hands you're not going to be winning a lot of contests. right now, i'm not sure have you to shake hands anymore. couple of people have told me, deborah, you told me that if we didn't shake hands the incidents of flu -- flu's a big deal also,

and that flu might be cut down in half. who knew that shaking hands was such a bad thing. i felt it. i mean, i always felt it. and you know, i was never to a point where i can't shake somebody's hand. i knew people like that too. there weren't too many of them. but when i ran for office all of a sudden i'm shaking hundreds of hands and if i didn't, i wouldn't be standing here. i think that's a custom that maybe people don't have to do. we have to get close together. we have to sit together at the stadiums. we have to sit next to each other. all that stuff is going to happen. i think the concept of shaking hands maine is something that's going of -- maybe is something that's going to be a little bit from the past. let's see what happens. >> is there anything you want people to do to show their support for the medical community, is there something -- we see people clapping when nurses leave. >> we've seen a lot of that. you might say something -- i have seen such support. i saw this morning where everybody's clapping for the

fire department, clapping for the policemen. these people are -- you know what they're like? they're like warriors. they're like warriors. they're going into elmhurst hospital which has been tragic, right near where i grew up in queens. going in and the people in buildings, they're going -- i mean, they're the rock stars. they're warriors. nurses, doctors, first responders, what they're going through, and they don't even know what's going to happen. they go in, and by the way, even if they have great equipment they're catching it. you know, great equipment. they have good equipment, they k56catch it. they catch it with good, with bad. it is evil. tony, you might say something about that. >> i'm glad you brought up that question because i don't think people can really fully appreciate the extraordinary effort of these people. it's amazing. i did all of my medical training in new york city in a big, busy

new york city hospital. at a time when it was just what you normally see in a hospital. i came to nih and i spent about five to eight years in the very early years of the aids ope epic which was just the darkest years of my life because almost every one of my patients died but as we knew open dee there was verye risk of getting infected from a patient, to see now what these brave warriors are doing in the hospitals, not only giving life-saving treatment to people, but every single day putting themselves at risk for themselves and their family, i just think that the american public owe a phenomenal debt of gratitude for these people. and they should just salute them at every way they can. you know, when we were at war at the height of the war in

afghanistan and iraq, when you're at an airport and you would see somebody with a uniform come by, everybody would do that, i think that's what we should do when we see a health care worker, just applaud them. >> pretty much what's happening. mike? >> the stories are incredible moving about what health care workers are doing every day. it's not just that they're going back into the hospital, in places like new york and new jersey, earlier than that in washington state and california where this first began. it's not just they're providing care to people. but because of the nature of how contagious the coronavirus is, they're also supplementing for family. i mean, that's what gets to me. when i hear the stories that understandably in nursing homes and in hospitals they're restricting visitors and they

should. to prevent the spread of the virus, to be brought into the hospital or to be brought out. and so to hear the stories of health care workers who are holding up an iphone while someone who is critically ill with the coronavirus may well be saying their last good-byes to their family, and then to be there in those moments, i mean, our health care workers are -- they're not just doctors and nurses today. they're supplementing for family. for people all across the country. and i just think tomorrow's palm sunday, it's holy week and great christian tradition and i have people ask me from time to time, send me an e-mail or on the many conference calls that we have, they say what can we be praying about. my first thought is with families who lost loved ones and the patients who are struggling

with coronavirus. but during this very special week, i just encourage people to pray for our health care workers. pray for them and their families. they are really the hands and feet every day, not just of health care, but of the heart of the american people and we are all grateful for them every hour of the day. >> and think also about the army corps of engineers. that's a little different, depending on where they are and where they're working but the army corps of engineers, throwing up a hospital in new york city, 2,500 beds in three days. i mean, think of that. and fema, what they're doing. and the national guard is now delivering for the states because the states were unable to get -- we drop it at a big warehouse where we're told to drop it. and some of the states were unable to bring it from the warehouse to the site. so we got the national guard to become a delivery service if you can believe it and they would bring it and some of those sites were dangerous sites. they were very dangerous sites.

think of that. it's been amazing. it's been amazing. i just think i've never seen anything like it. i'm so proud of this country. and really, it's a world problem. some countries in the world are just handling it so well. you know, again, i keep saying this, 151, that was as of two, three days ago, it's probably more. some didn't know it was that many countries, that's how big iwas. mike said something else, palm sunday, tomorrow. think of it, we're not going to church on palm sunday. think of next sunday, easter. and i brought it up before. i said maybe we could allow special for churches, maybe we could talk about it, maybe we could allow them with great separation outside on easter sunday. i don't know, it's something we should talk about. but somebody did say that, well then you're sort of opening it up to that little -- you know,

do we want to take a chance on doing that when we've been doing so well. but easter sunday, palm sunday, i'm going to be watching tomorrow live from riverside, california, great church. but i'm going to be watching on a computer. right. on a laptop. i think on easter maybe i'll be watching from a laptop as opposed -- so how sad is it that we have easter palm and easter sunday and people are watching on laptops and computers. it's sad. but the job that this whole country has done is amazing. but i'll say this. our medical professionals, what they've done, because they are -- they walk into those hospitals, you see them putting on their gear and they're putting it on as they're walking through the front doors and some of those people are going to die. they're going to die. you know. it's like incredible. and we can say what we want. tony and deb about young and

medium aged and-plenty of those people dying too. it generally hits the older people where they have problems. it hits young and middle aged people too. these people are walking into hospitals that i watch. i think it's incredible and they're putting their outfit, and they're going in, and it's like a -- that is like a war. again, there's never been anything so contagious as this. in 1917, it was vicious, if you got it, but it wasn't contagious like this. now, in 1917, had they the internet and all the means of communication they could have practiced distancing. by the time people started thinking in those terms, they lost i guess 75 to 100 million people. so that's modern -- that's a modern day great thing that happened. please. >> what sense do you think you

can use antibody tests to determine who can go back to work? >> i don't know. i would rather leave that to the doctor. doctor, do you have an answer to that? >> we think it will be a tool to help us get people back to work. it will be additional information. because as you know, if you have an antibody that means you were exposed and have recovered from it. that with the information about diagnosis should help. >> how quickly can we scale up this testing to determine on a large scale how many people can go back to work? >> as you know, couple weeks ago we provided a great deal of regulatory flexibility around this. a lot of great developers have been working on this, dr. birx put a call out to academic labs around the country to do this and we've been working very closely with a number of manufacturers so we think that it can be scaled up relatively quickly. >> mr. president, a question for

dr. fauci. in a recent interview you had said that you knew the 15-day guidance would not be enough. i wanted to ask your confidence level about the 30-day guidance and whether it will be enough. >> you know, it's tough to talk about levels of confidence but i can tell you one thing that i feel strongly, that if we do in a very proactive way what i said in my opening comments and people literally across the country as a baseline have that physical separation and as we mentioned up here, there will be vair i did -- vair i varying df that. everybody should be doing some degree of this physical separation. if we do that, again, i have confidence that what we will see is the turning around of the curve. whether or not it will be all the way down where we want, it's impossible to say. i would be foolish to say that. but the one thing i am confident

in, so let's take this to the bank, that mitigation works. so it does. we've seen it in other countries. we've seen it in our own country. that's the reason why i keep coming up at every chance i get to plea with the american people to please take a look at those guidelines that the vice president keeps putting up with his chart because every single one of those points has something to do with physical separation. >> it does work. but again, we're not going to destroy our country. we have to get back. because you know, at a certain point you'll lose more people this way through all of the problems caused than you will with what we're doing right now. what we're doing right now i think is going to be very successful. but you know what? i don't know. we have a big decision to make at a certain point. okay. we have a big decision to make. we went this extra period of time. but i said it from the

beginning, the cure cannot be worse than the problem itself. and we cannot let that happen. we have an incredible country. we were having the greatest period in our country's history from an economic standpoint and many other ways. we cannot let this continue. so at a certain point some hard decisions are going to have to be made. go ahead. >> mr. president, ventilator manufacturers are doubling, trip martin luther kin-- tripling pr. some are predicting there will still be shortages of tens of thousands of ventilators. is it time for you to level with the american public that there likely will be shortages of ventilators in some cases? >> could be. i mean, it could be you have shortages and it could also be that you have some that have way over-estimated the number of ventilators they need. we think that -- we have a good amount ready to move. i mean, literally like an army. they're ready to move to any hot

spot. some of the ones you're talking about -- always a nasty question from cnn. because you know remarks you've asked that question about 10 times over the course of a month. look, we're mobileized and ready to go. we have a lot of ventilators ready to go. and if we had given them all out, we wouldn't. and you would be over-stocked in many areas. what we're doing is we have a very good plan to take from some areas, even though we have the ten or almost the 10,000, we're also taking from areas that won't be as badly hit as today we think they will be. there will be some areas hit harder than we think and there's nothing that deborah or tony or any of these professionals can do about it. this thing moves in a lot of ways. but what we're going to do is we are going to have -- and you look at us compared to a lot of other countries. we're in much better shape. but these professionals have

done an amazing job. now, over the next week and two weeks -- this is going to be a very, very deadly period, unfortunately. but we're going to make it so that we lose as few lives as possible and i think we're going to be successful. i think we already are successful in that regard. when you look at that graph and you see all of the bumps if you want to call it at a very low level and you see a couple of the higher levels, they were tough. but you see all of those levels. you know, when you look at, when you hear about italy and you hear about france and -- what we have is we have many italys all over. they're like countries, california is a country, new york is a country. if you look at them from the standpoint of what we're talking about. we have many like country spots. some are hot spots and there's nothing we're going to do about it. one of the biggest surprises is louisiana. because it starredded off so good and -- started off so good and all of a sudden it shot up

like a rocket. we're going to try to have ventilators wherever we possibly can. >> the efforts of some companies to ramp up production, it still won't be enough. >> new york wanted 40,000 ventilators. okay. 40,000. think of what 40,000 is. it's like cars. it's a big project. it's an expensive product. some of them are $50,000 apiece. i saw one the other day, $55,000. that was before they start playing the games with supply and demand. okay. some are very, very we call them luxury, some are not. but frankly, these are very expensive products. these are very high tech projects and products and they take a period of time. we have thousands of them being built right now. some will be ready. and we're going to have extra and we'll keep them at hospitals. but a lot of hospitals, a lot of states had the chance of the getting ventilators and they turned those ventilators down so they could spend money on something else and in a way i understand that because who thinks a thing like this -- it's

not a -- if i'm told like perhaps new york, you can spends $1 billion on ventilators and get 16,000 or a massive number of ventilators that they've been offered over the years, or you can build a new bridge or road or something. i mean, i understand how that works. i'm not blaming anybody. i'm just saying a lot of the states had chances of stockpiling a lot of ventilators. they didn't do it. and i think we're doing a very good job in helping them out. please, yes. and it's a very fair question. i understand that question very well. >> a follow-up on what you've been saying about it being a deadly week or few coming. can you give us a sense or perhaps dr. birx what that means for america, please. >> i'd like to ask also -- i'd like to say we know pretty much the line of attack. we know the numbers, the numbers are the numbers. they seem to be checking out unfortunately or -- in some cases they're on the low side which we're very happy. we want to keep them on the very low side and that's where we're headed and i think that's maybe

where we're headed. i'd like to ask maybe you and tony what -- where is the weak or the number of days of greatest attack, what will be our worst day? if that's possible to determine. i think that's what you're asking, right? >> how many deaths exactly are you expecting? >> so, as you can look in the places that are the most difficult hit right now, the detroit area, the new york area, louisiana area and we are doing it by the counties in those states, because there are -- mostly it's metro areas and the bedroom communities around those metro areas because people went to work and got exposed and came home and exposed others. if you look in new york, you see that it's in long island, sufficienandnassau county. all of those counties, wayne and oakland, they're all on the up-side of their curve of

mortalities. so you know when you get to the peak, you come down the other side. >> when will that peak be? >> by the predictions that are in that healthdata.org, they're predicting in those three hot spots, all of them hitting together in the next six to seven days. >> tens of thousands of deaths in that period of time? >> you can go to the website. it's variable. each one of those communities is different. but you know where new york is, how much their mortality has been and you know -- what we're seeing today are the people who were infected two or three weeks ago. if mitigation in new york worked and we believe it is working, the cases are going to start to go down but the mortality will be a lag behind that. because of the co-morbidities and other conditions.

so that's why all of the predictions are that this next week -- and i think we said this last sunday when we talked about the charts, and it's difficult and we tried to prepare the american people to understand that, you have to -- as much as you go up, you have to come down the other side because coming down is a reflection of the case that's were coming in before. >> would you rather not say a number. >> i'd rather not say a number but the numbers are available if you go to the website. you can see there's several hundreds per day in new york. and i think governor cuomo has talked about that increasing still into the five, six, 700 range a day. so that's very concerning to us. we, again, applaud the health care workers who are doing every single thing humanly possible to save more lives and we are ensuring on a ventilator by ventilator, day by day to get

them there so that we can say and we can be there when they need it. because we are supposed to be that group that comes in after all other resources are exhausted and we really applaud what oregon did and we really applaud what the governor is doing about moving between the states, between the different counties to bring them to new york. because that's what's needed today. a different place will be needed tomorrow. >> a follow-up on something you said yesterday that you had concerns about pennsylvania, colorado and washington, d.c. could you expand on that? >> we're watching them because they are starting to go on that upside of the curve. we're hoping and believing that if people mitigate strongly the work that they did over the last two weeks will blunt that curve and they won't have the same upward slope and peak that new york, new jersey, connecticut and part of rhode island are

having. so this is a very important -- the next two weeks are extraordinarily important. that's why you've heard from dre president and the vice president that this is the moment to do everything that you can on the presidential guidelines. this is the moment to not be going to the grocery store, not going to the pharmacy, but doing everything you can to keep your family and your friends safe and that means everybody doing the r hands. >> so ditto to everything that dr. birx said but also to emphasize why it's so important to do that, because we're looking at three or four really key hot spots that are still going up. it's absolutely essential that the ones that are down at that lower level that dr. birx showed the other day, those communities where they're still going up. we've got to make sure we don't

have multiple waves of peaks. that's going to be the answer to the question of when we can start pulling back. because if you keep having multiple peaks and different waves, that's going to make it very difficult. >> [ indiscernible ] >> exactly. what i said just before and i keep repeating, just make sure everybody does at least the minimal amount of that physical separation because the virus has no place to go if you're physically separated. >> one of the reasons that i keep talking about hydroxychloroquine is that the question that nobody ever asks and the question that i most hate the answer to is what happens if you do have a ventilator, what are your chances? and i just hope that hydroxychloroquine wins, coupled with perhaps the z-pack as we

call it, dependent totally on your doctors and the doctors there, because you know the answer to that question. if you do have the ventilator, you know the answer to that question. and i hate giving the answer. so i don't want to get them there. i don't want to get them there. there's a possibility, a possibility, and i say it, what do have you to lose. i'll say it again. what do you have to lose? take it. i really think they should take it. but it's their choice and it's the doctor's choice or the doctor's in the hospital but hydroxychloroquine, try it. if you'd like. the other thing, if you have a heart condition i understand, probably you stay away from the z-pack. but that's an antibiotic. it can clean out the lungs. the lungs are a point of attack

for this horrible virus. but when have you a ventilator, don't ask the answer because i hate it. if you have it, and it's working beautifully, i don't like the answer because it's not a very high percentage. so i want to keep them out of ventilators. i want to keep them -- if the drug works, it will be -- not a game-changer because that's not a nice enough term. it will be wonderful. it will be so beautiful. it will be a gift from heaven if it works because when people go into those ventilators, you know the answers, i know the answers and i'm glad you don't write about it. mike, please. >> you've heard from the experts what our task force has heard. it's going to be a difficult week for the american people. you will see testing increased around the country and so cases

are going to continue to rise. across america and before i give a few facts relevant to an earlier question about ventilators, let me just -- let me add my voice to what the president just said and what all the physicians who have spoken have said. even though we see the losses rising in the days ahead, do not be discouraged. because there is evidence across the country that americans have been putting the social distancing and mitigation into practice and it is making a difference. we are seeing it in the new cases that are being reported. because remember, people -- families who experience loss up to this day and in the next week have a loved one who contracted the coronavirus in most cases more than two weeks ago. in many cases, before social

distancing and mitigation efforts were put into effect. and so we want to encourage you, believe in the president's coronavirus guidelines for america. go to coronavirus.gov, print them off again, put them on the refrigerator and remind yourself to put them into practice. on the subject of ventilators, if i can amplify the point the president made, our team at fema is doing a remarkable job rockerring with governors, state health officials and local hospitals, particularly focused on our priority areas. we'll refer to the new york metro area. which includes new jersey and connecticut. we're focused on the new orleans metro area, louisiana. we're focusing on detroit, we're focusing on chicago. these are the areas where we see the significant rise in cases.

and we are surging supplies specifically ventilators but all personal protective equipment from fema to those areas and just to give you a couple of examples, i spoke to governors in new york, new jersey, louisiana, ms. che massachusett, michigan and maryland today alone and in those cases, governor cuomo is actually assessing all of the available ventilators. we sent 4,400 ventilators already to new york. as has already been referenced, they're going to receive a shipment of over 1,000 from oversaws and allow me to say as i told her personally today, the governor of oregon, governor kate brown, her unilateral decision to send 140 ventilators because oregon -- they felt oregon today is in a place where they could give those ventilators to new york, to me was in the very highest american tradition of loving your neighbor.

and when i talked to governor cuomo, mr. president, he actually told me they never asked oregon for the ventilators and governor brown hadn't even called him to tell him she was doing that. it really is remark a and i talked to governor hogan today and the president i will be speaking to all of america's governors on monday again, i told him how inspired i was and how he ought to spread the word to other governors in areas where they can spare resources to be joining with us at the federal level and providing them to states at the point of the need. but just a few for instance as we track new jersey, as i told governor phil murphy, we deployed 1200 ventilators to -- 200 ventilators to newer new jey today. louisiana we're monitoring hour by hour what's taking place in new orleans with some encouraging news but still great challenges. yesterday, you heard the president say that we deployed 330,000 gal -- gowns that had

been delivered to public health systems there, 200 ventilators. i spoke to governor charlie baker today, was able to inform him we're watching boston very closely, 100 ventilators are deploying today. i spoke to governor gretchen whitmer today, detroit is experiencing a significant number of cases. we're watching it carefully. and today, fema directed 300 of ventilators to michigan. again, as the president said, we're all working our hearts out. but what i want to say to american families and what i want to say to health care workers is that we are going to identify the resources, leave no stone unturned and we are going to focus resources on those areas in the order that they emerge. now, the last thought is back on mitigation, we are hoping that we do not see other major cities

in the country experience what seattle experienced, what greater new york city area is experiencing, what new orleans is experiencing and that's all in the hands of the american people today. and so i just want to encourage -- coronavirus.gov, put into practice the president's coronavirus guidelines and you will do your part to save lives, protect the american people, and ensure that we will have the resources to meet this moment wherever the need should arise. >> mr. president -- [ indiscernible ] -- loan program got up and running yesterday. we heard from a lot of small business owners, a lot of concern of whether they will get the money. some say the banks weren't ready to start processing loans. some banks are -- >> we're way ahead of schedule. the banks are in great shape. jp morgan chase, bank of america, they're so far ahead 678 this is typical with you in

particular. they're not behind. it's been a flawless -- it's been flawless so far. far beyond our expectations. you should say i hear you're doing well but maybe -- i don't even hear of any glitch. they've done billions of dollars of loans to small businesses. and these are great loans. these are loans that they get immediately paid off. these are loans that get businesses back. i wish you could ask a question where something's working so well -- maybe things won't work well and i don't mind that kind but when something's working so well and you ask a question in such a negative way. it's doing great. go ahead. doing great. really good. maybe it won't in two weeks and i'll respond differently but it's doing great. you know it and so does everyone else. everyone's shocked how well it's doing. >> dr. birx mentioned some demographics such as seeing men might be more susceptible to the

virus, seeing in europe more cases among the between 30 and 50. has the data that you've seen in the past two weeks changed that assessment? are men more susceptible? >> it hasn't changed much has it. >> the same pattern. >> same pattern. same answer that we've given you. >> that includes folks between 30 and 50 being more adversely affected than what we've seen in asia? >> no, tomorrow i'll bring you all the graphs back. >> we can bring an updated graph but it's very similar. please. >> talked about possibly restricting flights from hot spots. where are you on that? >> we're looking at it very seriously. right now, we're dealing with governors, we're dealing with airlines. we're dealing with a lot of different factors. it's a very difficult decision. we're also doing testing getting into planes, very strong testing. states are doing testing of people that leave planes. they don't want people coming in

who are infected. understanding that and the level of testing has been enormous, okay. and some states are saying you have to go in quarantine for two weeks if you come from certain areas. so knowing that, we're working with the governors. >> mr. president, what kind of test -- you mean domestic travel? >> some states are doing when they land, they're doing strong, powerful testing. go ahead. >> [ indiscernible ] >> you'll check up again. >> a question on ventilators -- >> governments are doing it too. >> the governor of new york said he received ventilators from alibaba which i think is your friend. would you call on the business community to donate ventilators, not necessarily from europe but other states like louisiana. >> jack is a friend of mine and he's made it very possible to get about 1,000 ventilators from china. but that was from him and my

other friend. that was really a gift and we appreciate it very much. it was very nice of them. i think we've had enough. we'll be seeing you very soon. and i'm sure that you know that all of us are going to be working very hard. we're working very hard. we are coming up to a time that's going to be very horrendous, probably a time like we haven't seen in this country, wouldn't you say. i don't think we've seen a time like this in the country. we're getting to that point where it's going to really be some very bad numbers. we want to keep those numbers a lot lower than they would have been and we will do that. we have tremendous talent working, we have tremendous people and that includes governors, that includes everybody. everybody's working. but unfortunately we're getting to that time when the numbers are going to peak and it's not going to be a good looking situation. i really believe we probably have never seen anything like these kind of numbers, maybe during the war, a world war, a

world war i or ii or something but this is a war, all to itself and it's a terrible thing. we will be seeing you soon. we'll keep you totally abreast. we're also going to be releasing new ventilator numbers because we have a lot of them coming and a lot of them going to different locations and we appreciate it very much. thank you. thank eric: and americans who are staying home, that was the white house briefing. i'm eric shawn. that's the latest from this fox station. please stay tuned to to fox news channel for the very latest. we now rejoin the fox news channel. the president, arthel, said this is a very tough week, expect lots of death, but there was also inspiration, working on the situation with ventilators even

though or national stockpile has about 10,000, the president and vice president praising our medical workers. we are all in this together. it is for us all as americans. jon: president trump and the white house coronavirus task force wrapping up a briefing just moments ago as the u.s. now leads the world in covid-19 cases. good evening, i'm jon scott. this is a special two-hour edition of "the fox report". at that briefing, the president touting state and federal government efforts to slow the spread of the virus, but warning dark days and weeks are ahead. the u.s. now with more than 300,000 diagnosed cases and at least 8,000 deaths. this all comes as the centers for disease control issues new