there's a lot of journalism out there, there's been a lot of partisanship. i think we can do better. we will see you back here next sunday in the latest buzz. ♪ ♪ eric: this is fox news alert. there could be a new development on the front of medical research of coronavirus. we are waiting for new york governor andrwe cuomo outside of nassau, long island, you see the setup. he's speaking at the center where they are researching plasma and the use of antibodies to fight coronavirus. this is the number of confirmed cases in the u.s. approaches 740,000 so far. almost a quarter of a million cases in new york state alone and nassau county where the governor will be speaking momentarily, well, that county has nearly 30,000 cases and so

far coronavirus has claimed 1,109 americans. across the nation the death toll now stands at nearly 40,000 who have died from coronavirus so far. we will bring you the governor's announcements as they come live here in the fox news channel. hello, everyone, welcome to america's news headquarters. i'm eric sean. arthel: and i'm arthel neville. as we wait from the latest from governor cuomo, the white house is promoting its 3-phase plan to reopen the economy, as the president tells us that some states are already making preparations to get the country safely up and running. >> since we released the guidelines to open up america again, two days ago, the number of states led by both democrat and republican governors have announced concrete steps to begin a safe gradual and phase opening. texas and vermont will allow

certain businesses to open on monday while still requiring appropriate social distancing precautions. arthel: mark meredith live at the white house with this. mark, good afternoon. mark: good afternoon, to you, arthel. the white house is calling on states to use more local labs to help increase testing capability. the administration says it's conducting 150,000 tests every day but it believes the number can still go up. the administration says states should be able to work with more labs to increase testing capabilities both federal and state levels to also allow more businesses to reopen. >> is it president trump's direction we are going to continue to fully partner with governors around the country and health officials in increasing and scaling the amount of testing and we have every confidence that we can have a sufficient amount of testing to be able to reopen america. mark: the administration also appears optimistic a deal is close with congress to approve

more money for small business loans. the program ran out of money last week. treasury secretary mnuchin says the package should also provide additional 25 billion to help with testing costs. >> i'm hopeful we will conclude a bipartisan deal today. it'll go to the senate tomorrow and the house on tuesday and the president can sign it on wednesday and we will open up the program again. mark: the president has been calling on congress to refund that program quickly. he blasted democrats, though, during his news conference last night and he had very specific harsh words for house speaker nancy pelosi. he's been blasting pelosi both on twitter and on camera. today pelosi fired right back giving the president an f when it comes to testing. >> he deserves to take responsibility. he's a weak leader and doesn't take responsibility. he place his blame on others and that might have been okay for before but we cannot continue down a path. mark: we will be wait to see if the president has a response to that. we are expecting to hear from

president trump as well as members to have coronavirus task force, a briefing is scheduled for this afternoon around 5:00 o'clock, arthel. arthel: also waiting to hear from new york governor andrew cuomo. mark meredith, thank you very much. eric. eric: arthel, many experts in the health administration field say the country cannot fully get back to normal unless we have widespread testing for coronavirus. that is something that the federal government does not have right now. one reason according to new report why we don't is that it involves they say the contamination at the centers for disease control lab when the first test were trying to be put together. steve harrigan with the very latest they found. hi, steve. steve: eric, the cdc is admitting that it made mistakes in quality control in original manufacture of tests for the coronavirus. fda is saying that the cdc fail today live up to its own protocol, here is dr. fauci.

>> it was a problem that was a technical problem from within that was corrected and it was an issue of embracing the way we have now and should have. the private sector who clearly has the capability of making and providing tests at the level that we will need them for any of the things that i've just spoken about. steve: there will be an investigation of the cdc testing program by the department of health and human services, one of the key questions initially will be why did these tests fail, why also were they sent out across the country when they didn't work and why did it take one month to rectify the test. this happens right now as the death toll yesterday in the u.s. was 1891. that's roughly down 50%.

two consecutive days the death toll from the virus in the u.s. has declined, eric, back to you. eric: all right, steve, thanks so much. we will as i said before waiting for governor andrew cuomo of new york to fill us in on the possible new therapy deathing with antibodies, we are bringing it to you, arthel. arthel: indeed, eric, in new york city mayor bill de blasio he's threatening stricter enforcement of social distancing rules. you know the city starting to see warmer spring weather and this comes as the state's deadly death toll falls below 550 for the first time in two weeks, aisha hasine with more. aishah: we have seen people walking dogs and enjoying weather and as weather continues to warm up, mayor de blasio asking nypd to step up enforcement of the social

distancing rules and asking new yorkers if you see someone not following the rules to report it with violaters facing up to a thousand dollars in fine. >> we are finally starting to experience some really nice spring weather and if we let it back in the door, it will reassert itself. we've seen it around the world before. let down your guard and this disease comes back with a vengeance. we can't let that happen. aishah: here is where we are right now. new york has more than 17,000 deaths, that's almost 20% coming from nursing homes and adult care facilities. shocking statistic there. new jersey at more than 4,000 deaths and michigan with more than 2300 deaths there. the mayor announcing today 1400 volunteer healthcare workers from around the country and more than 500 military personnel are headed to dozens of hospitals and nursing homes in new york city. meanwhile he was also pushing

back today on a new call from city council members to close the subway system. now mit report recently connected the subway through the spread of the virus here in the city. the latest numbers a day ago show 68 public transit workers have now died from covid-19. nearly 2500 have tested positive. de blasio says he understands the concern but doesn't see right now how else these workers could get to work. a lot of them don't have cars. he called on the mta to do a better job limiting the number of people on a subway car. the mayor asking why he thinks new york city was hit particularly hard, he said that part of it, the blame goes to the lack of mass-scale testing on the front end. he's calling on the federal government and president trump by name today asking for the federal government to coordinate with the states to increase mass-scale testing here on the back end, arthel. arthel: aishah hasine thank you.

eric. eric: plans to go beyond the pandemic in hard hit italy. the prime minister to unveil his plan to start to loosen restrictions that the public there have been undergoing like here in our country. amy kellogg in florence, italy as they start to see lifting of some of those restrictions, hi, amy. amy: well, the date that has been talked about is may fourth but there's been a lot of squabbling now between the regions of who could get going a little bit quicker and the government now is saying that it really wants a consolidated plan this as accusations and investigations kick off into how this situation was handled in nursing homes with possible criminal charges coming out of that and a very significant important health adviser here in italy saying that we are quite

far from the much talked about and anticipated phase 2 of this situation which is really when ideally the number of cases is down to just the digits every day. not a few thousand as we have been seeing in italy. meanwhile the drone shots of venice show yet again the normally tourist city is quiet. there were a lot of coronavirus cases at the monastery so apparently there were ambulances pulling up to take people away while worshipers trying to get in the church itself, respecting social distancing but it is easter today for the orthodox world and there have been some mixed messages in part of that world about exactly whether or not people should be going to church, and then finally, in

helsinki, orchestra to delivery food to the elderly. the mayor of the city said that he really thinks that nobody above the age of 70 should have to go out and do grocery shop if they don't feel comfortable and as they probably should be giving guidelines. they are entitled to ask for a hand and one violinist interviewed said he was happy to give it. >> meeting someone face to face with 2-meter safety distance. anyway, big thing for them and therefore it becomes a big thing for myself as well. amy: and another slightly upbeat or at least colorful and positive note to end on today, eric, is that though in holland where it is tulip season the gardens which have 7 million

bulbs planted and have been going for 71 years for the first time are not able to open because of covid-19 crisis but they are launching a video tour of tulip season which would be something, another something that people can turn to for a bit of diversion while they are waiting to get out of their quarantines. back to you, eric. eric: that would be great to go on that. beautiful tulips, of course, we saw rebirth in spring, amy. arthel. arthel: so nice to see, indeed. eric, thank you, back here at home the trump administration is facing pressure but understand we will go to long island new york. let's listen to new york governor andrew cuomo who may have announcement on possible breakthrough on testing for covid-19. >> healthcare for the state of new york, social services for the state of new york. he worked with my father, came for one year, was with my father for 12 years in state service

and he's one of the really beautiful and brilliant leaders in this state. it's a pleasure to be with him, and i want to say to all of the people of northwell who have done extraordinary jobs, thank you so, so much and thank you for having us today. to my right is melissa de rosa, secretary to the governor. to your right, what's your name, young lady? mariah kennedy cuomo who is part of my team and it's a pleasure to have her with me today. i'll be mentioning more about that in a second. today sunday, that is a fact. i know these days tend to run one into the other but today is sunday. and i like to focus on the facts and the situation because facts are what's most important. a lot of people have opinions and a lot of theories but senator patrick who is great senator, everybody is entitled to their own opinion but not his own facts so let's give the

people of the state the updated facts. this is the chart of total hospitalizations. we have been watching this 24 hours a day, it seems most of our lives but 40 days. total hospitalization rate is down again in the state of new york. we are down to 16,000. if you look at the numbers we are at 18,000 people hospitalized for a period of time. flattened there for a while, paused there and then went down 17,000 but this is allow from our high point of 16,000. big question of whether we have been past the apex, past the high point and turned out the high point wasn't a point but the high point was a plateau and we got up to a high point and then we just stayed at that level for a while, but if the

data holds and if this trend holds, we are past the high point and all indications at this point is that we are on a decent, whether or not the decent continues depends on what we do, but right now we are on a decent. that's in all the numbers. the hospitalizations numbers are down. the 3-day average of the hospitalization rate is down. i was speaking to michael and that's what he's seeing in his hospital system. that's what emergency rooms across the state are saying, that they see the maximum inflow is less than what it was, so that all tracks with what the numbers are saying. this number of intubations which i watch carefully because intubations are the number of people put on ventilators and 80% of the people who are put on

ventilators don't make it, so this is a very important chart to look at and the fact that those numbers are down is very important. this is a reality check with all of the good news in the reductions, we still have 1300 people that yesterday came in and tested positive and hospitalized. 1300 is a lot of people coming into the hospital system without diagnosis. less than it had been but it's still 1300 people who are testing positive and need hospitalization. we've been watching the spread of the virus from the new york city area and have been little outbursts on long island and in up state new york and we've been jumping on those outbursts, but overall, we have controlled it and the numbers are about the same.

westchester and rockland where we had real problems. the first problem was westchester county. new rochelle, long island, up state new york only about 7% of the cases. so we are watching for potential spread in other parts of the state, but so far we have contained it and we have controlled it. nursing homes are still our number one concern. the nursing home is the optimum feeding ground for this virus. vulnerable people in congregate facility in a congregate setting where it can just spread like fire through dry grass. we have had really disturbing situations in nursing homes and we are still most concerned about the nursing homes. the worst news for us to live with today and everyday tragedies, we lost another 507 new yorkers and those are not

just very large numbers we see. every number is a face and a family and a brother and a sister and a mother and a father and people who are in pain today and will be in pain for a long period of time so we remember them in our thoughts and prayers , but on this sunday, day of reflection, thank you from the bottom of my heart and on behalf of all new yorkers for the people at northwell have done. the entire team. talk about team effort. this is the team effort and to all our healthcare workers all across the state, 1 million healthcare workers. 445,000 hospital workers, 156,000 nursing home workers. they have made all the difference in the world. a crisis like this, it tends to bring out the best and the worst

in people and certain people can break your heart in their response to this, but on the other hand, other people can rise to the occasion and just give you such a sense of confidence in the human spirit and the healthcare workers have done that. i've been looking at this chart for 40 days and it looks like a bar chart. it looks like numbers and a line. i don't see it as a bar chart as we have been going through this. to me it was a mountain that just kept building and building and building and you didn't know where the top of the mountain was, and those numbers kept growing and we kept going up the mountain and we kept wandering where is the peak, where is the apex, what is the high point, when does this stop and we get to the top of the mountain, and by the way, it's not a point, and then it plateaus and it plateaus at a very, very high rate which means every day those

healthcare workers have to come in and they are seeing a tremendous number of people come in the door overwhelming the capacity of the hospital. and remember, we asked hospitals to increase capacity 50%, so if a hospital had a 100-bed capacity now they had 150-bed capacity and it stuck at the very high level on the plateau and that was day after day after day. people that were at their max and had given it all and then the next day it's the same thing all over again, but they did it and they got us through the plateau and now they are getting us down the other side and we just pray to god that it remains down on the other side. so this has been a lot of pain and a lot of anguish for a lot of people, but the skill, the courage and the love of our healthcare workers, if our first

responders, of our police and essential workers have really gotten us through all of this. we also want to thank our neighbors. 95,000 medical professionals who agreed to help in this state and outside of this state who said they would come and help us and i want to thank the other states and communities who we put out a call for help and we got help from all across the country. it reminds me in that post 911 time when we needed help and other communities in the northeast needed help and people came from all across the nation and they just wanted to help and they just showed up. that's what happened here and that when i talk about seeing the best and the worst of people at a time of crisis, that outpouring of generosity i'm sure you felt the same, gave us such a sense of confidence that we are not in it alone and

humanity and the love of the american people was there for us. and i said, we need your help today, but new yorkers also never forget, and thank you for the help and we will be there when you need us, and we will be there when anyone needs us. right now our neighbors in massachusetts are looking at an increase in cases. i spoke to governor charley baker yesterday. they may need 400 ventilators and we know how important ventilators are. if their numbers keep going up and if they have to scramble and i said you were there for us and we will be there for you, if they need 400 ventilators, we already identified them and we will bring them over on 24-hour's notice and we wish them well and anything they need, we are going to be there. the recent news is good. we are on the other side of the plateau and the numbers are coming down, but that's good

news only compared to the terrible news that we were living with which is the constant increase and, remember, you still have 1300 people who walked into the hospitals yesterday testing positive. so it's no time to get cocky and it's no time to get arrogant, right. we still have a long way to go d the virus has been ahead of us every step of the way. we have been playing catch-up from day one in this situation, so it is no time to relax, and this is only half time in this entire situation. we -- we showed that we can control the beast and when you close down, you can actually slow down infection rate but it's only half time. we still have to make sure that we keep that beast under control. we keep that infection rate down, we keep that

hospitalization rate down, as we now get eager to get on with life and move on. so it's not over and we have a whole second phase and in the second phase, first, do no harm, don't jeopardize what you've already accomplished by seeing that infection rate increase. we have to be smarter especially when it comes to the new frontier of testing and how we test and how aggressively and how we get better organized and then when we talk about rebuilding, we have to talk about not just rebuilding but let's learn from this horrific experience and let's take these lessons forward and how do we build back better than before? i don't want to have gone through this and then just say we are reopening. no, no, we have to open for a better future than we have ever

had and we have to learn from this. as we go through this, remember, i know people are eager to get on with life. we have slowed the infection rate down to .9%. .9% means 1 person infects .9% of a person. less than 1. that means the virus is slowing. if one person is infecting 1.2 people, the virus is increasing and is an epidemic and outbreak is out of control. we have a very small margin of error here as we navigate going forward. any plan that is going to start to reopen the economy has to be based on data and that means it has to be based on testing and this is a new world for all of us, testing, how do you get testing up to scale, how do you get it up to scale quickly and

how do you find out where we really are right now in terms of this virus. you have all of the scientists and all the experts who are basically trying to extrapolate from the data but we don't really know how many people were infected, how many people had coronavirus but self-resolved. we don't really know because we haven't been able to do testing on that large a scale, but we are going to start and i'm going to start here in the new york with antibody testing. antibody testing means you test a person to find out if they have the antibodies which they would have if they were infected with the coronavirus and we are going to do that in the most aggressive way in the nation where we are going to sample people in this state, thousands of people in the state, across the state to find out if they had the antibodies. that will tell us for the first time what percent of the population actually has had the

coronavirus and is now at least short-term immune to the virus. this will be the first true snapshot of what we are really dealing with, and we will be doing that over the next week in the new york state department of health will be running that. there's also another set of tests which are called diagnostic testing. diagnostic testing is whether a person is positive or negative and we are coming up the scale on this even though it is very, very hard. northwell is leading the parade on this and i just looked at some of the technology they are bringing in, all of the different manufacturers who made different machines to run the different tests and the number of big manufacturers and northwell is bringing in as many as they can, but this has to be brought to scale. nobody has done testing at this level ever, and we have to do

this in partnership with the federal government because there's lots of logistical questions and supply chain questions and people can't get certain chemicals they need to do tests and the chemicals in other countries, so we have to do this with the federal government. i spoke to the head of the cdc yesterday and he was very smart and very informed and we talked about how we can do this together. talk about being smart, the federal government is talking about passing another piece of legislation which would help in the reopening and they want to help small businesses and that's great. they also have to help state governments and local governments which have not been supported in the previous legislation. everyone is saying, well, it's up to the states to come up with a reopening plan, it's up to the governors, fine, and that's true and right and legal, but the governors in the states have to have resources and, yes, you

have to help small businesses, you to help the airlines and all the private-sector interests as well as citizens, but if you don't help the state government and local government, then how are we supposed to have the finances to reopen and if you don't give state and local government support, you know, we are the ones who support the schools, we support the police, we support the fire, we support the hospital workers, we support the transit workers, so if you starve state and local government, all that means is we have to turn around and reduce funding to the people who we are funding. if we don't get federal assistance, you're looking at education cuts, close to 50% in the state of new york where school districts would only get half of the aid they got from the state last year. you're talking about cuts to hospitals from the state. how ludicrous would it be to now

cut hospital funding from state governments? so the governors bipartisan, democrat and republican, in this crazy political environment where you can't get democrats and republicans to agree on anything, all of the governors agree and have said to washington, make sure you fund the states in any next bill you pass and we ask for $500 billion again on a nonpartisan basis. we have to remember as we go forward what we have done so well thus far, the mutuality and discipline that we have shown. i have many school districts, 700 school districts. they are calling saying they want to open up their local schools. they want to make these decisions. local officials are calling. we have beaches, we have parks, we have businesses, we want to

make decisions. i understand the pressure that the local school districts are under, i understand the pressure that the local officials are under, i understand the mounting political pressure. you know, people see the numbers come down, they are like, okay, let's go. let me get out of my house. i get it, but we have to stay smart and we have to stay united. now is no time as i said to get arrogant. we are working with our regional states, our partners, new jersey, connecticut, et cetera, the surrounding states. we are coordinating with them and we have to continue to do that. the weather is getting warmer. the numbers are coming down. fever is getting worse. i believe that's going to be a documented disease when this is over. cabin fever. but we have to stay smart and we have to stay coordinated. we have been working with the

new jersey and connecticut because whatever one state does affects other states, right? you live in nassau, you live in suffolk, new york city, you can be in connecticut in a matter of minutes. it's very important to plan accordingly. not that we can be on the same page on everything but at least let's know what each other is doing, so, for example, on state parks we are coordinating what our policies are because people go from one state to another. i was in albany yesterday, talked to a couple who drove up from queens thai food. 2-and a half hour ride. yeah, we had to get out of the house. very good thai food.

i'm from queens. it just shows how people need to get out and do something, so we get it. new york state parks are open. new jersey they are closed. connecticut, they are open. new york, our beaches are closed. in new jersey the state beaches are closed. some of the local beaches are open. connecticut, they are open. connecticut marinas are open and new jersey and new york also. so staying coordinated with our partners is very important and it's important within the state also. i get the political pressure that everybody is under. i get the political pressure that local officials are under, but we have to be smart and we have to be coordinated. people have to have the best government from government officials in the state of new york. government matters today in a way it has not mattered in

decades, and it's important that government sends the right signal and one message and there's no confusion because if people don't have confidence in government right now, if they think this chaos or confusion or politics, that -- that would be a terrible message to send. we've done a great job as government officials, all of us, democrat, republican, state and local. we have to keep doing it, and now is not the time to send mixed messages. and also on a very parochial level, people feel political pressure. here is the simple answer. the state's emergency powers now govern in this emergency. blame me, blame me. somebody is complaining about a beach, somebody is complaining about whatever, businesses open,

schools open, blame me. it's true, it's right. it's the state law and i don't have any issue with that. so blame me. also as we are planning the reopening, let's set the bar a little higher and let's all start to think about this now. what did we learn during this? personally what did we learn and how do we incorporate that in our opening, how do we have a better healthcare system when we reopen, how do we have a better transportation system, better telecommuting and better technology and education, how do we have more social equity? you can see the desperate effect of this disease and how it reinforce the it is a --

disparity in society and how are we more cohesive in a community for having gone through this, right? it's not just reopen, it's not just build it back. it's advance, use this as a moment in time where they look back when they write the history books and say, boy, they went through a terrible time but they actually learned from it and they improved from it and they moved forward. we had 9/11. yes, we built back. we built back different, we built back smarter. we had hurricane sandy, devastated long island. we will learn how to do better infrastructure and we did, long island today is better for having gone through hurricane sandy as terrible as that was. we have to do the same thing here. how do we come back even better?

so the long and short of it is thank you to all new yorkers for all the good work, to our healthcare workers. a special thank you to the police, the fire, to the transit workers. you know, the has not been closed down, right? all of the essential services are still functioning. you still can go to a grocery store and get food. lord knows you can go to a healthcare institution and get health care. the transportation work, the buses work. all of these people who kept everything working, we thank them from the bottom of my heart, our hearts, but also remember that we still have more to do, and new yorkers know that because new yorkers are tough but tough doesn't mean just tough, tough is easy. it's tough but smart but disciplined and unified and loving and that's who we are as

new yorkers. last point on a personal point. i have my daughter mariah who is with me and she's the third daughter for me and she just came home, if you will, she was quarantined, so now i have all 3 daughters with me and they can't appreciate this, but it's such a comfort to me personally to have them home. you know, when your child is not at home especially at a difficult time like this, you're always wondering where are they are, they okay, are they doing what's right and every instinct is you want to be able to protect them and when you're not there you have a constant hole in your heart as you're going through the day and you're trying to do everything that you have to do but you still have this question on the back of your mind, where is mariah, how is she. so they are now all 3 with them

gives me a great sense of comfort and in this crazy situation we are in, but for the craziness, i would never have my 3 daughters with me again. you know, they are 25, 25, 22 year's old. the last thing they want to do is hang out with pop, right? they have places to go and people to see. they are taking life by the horn, so i get this beautiful silver lining in the midst of this hell where my daughters are with me again and we get to celebrate family and we bring back traditions and we get to enjoy each other and have really in-depth conversations that we haven't had in years, right, and reconnect in a way we haven't had the opportunity in years. today is sunday and i come from an italian-american household where we have great tradition on

sundays, family had to come together at the table. you had to be there. they called it dinner but it started at 2:00 o'clock in the afternoon. i don't know why they called it dinner but everybody was at the table. spaghetti and meatballs every sunday. i started my tomato sauce before i left. we are going to go back and sit at the table, have our spaghetti and meatballs on sunday and i know what i'm going to talk to them about. my daughters mariah -- mariah brought her boyfriend who is also here. the boyfriend is very nice and we like the boyfriend. advice of fathers, the answer on what you think of the boyfriend is always i like the boyfriend, always because only two options either you like the boyfriend in which you case you like the boyfriend or you don't like the boyfriend, but you can never say you don't like the boyfriend.

i learned this lesson the hard way, otherwise it triggers nds. natural defiance syndrome. it's not documented but it is a psychological condition where if you say as a father, i don't like him, natural defiance syndrome kicks in and then they like the boyfriend more because he's opposed by the father. so the answer is i like the boyfriend. in this case i actually like the boyfriend but even if you don't like the boyfriend the answer is i like the boyfriend. we will be at dinner with the boyfriend and we are going to have our spaghetti and our meatballs. arthel: that's new york governor andrew cuomo as he often does injecting personal anecdotes speaking about whether or not he

like the boyfriend. let me get to news saying that the state of new york is aggressively working to produce antibody testing to test people as if they had already been infected with coronavirus. this would tell what percentage of the population has already had the virus and is now the least -- at least temporarily immune from the coronavirus. the governor went onto talk about diagnostic testing which determines whether the person is positive or negative and northwell is the company leading the way. he mentioned this is done in a scale never done before so the governor saying this must, though, be done in coordination with the federal government. by the way, there will be a white house briefing coming up at 5:00 p.m. eastern. we will cover that live here on fox news as well and wrapping up the remarks from governor cuomo, he's saying that the federal government must help state and local governments with the next

tranche of funding through the pension protection program to include one number at the table 150 billion for state and local governments, so that was new york governor andrew cuomo with bit of encouraging news in terms of plateauing numbers in new york which new york lead with particular case on pandemic. that's it for now, i'm arthel neville. we will take a short break and eric and i will return on the other side of the break guys! guys! safe drivers save 40%!!! safe drivers save 40%! safe drivers save 40%!!! that's safe drivers save 40%. it is, that's safe drivers save 40%. - he's right there. - it's him! safe drivers do save 40%. click or call for a quote today.

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♪ ♪ arthel: a new harvard university study suggests the u.s. should conduct more than 3 times the number of covid-19 tests that the nation is currently doing now in order to safely control the pandemic and restart the economy. that comes to about 500,000 tests per day. our next guest was one of the coauthors of the study and joins us now, director of the harvard

institute, practicing physician, good to have you, let's jump in, sir and ask you why do we need so many tests, what percentage of the population needs to be tested and does america have enough tests or existing or in production to meet such a demand? >> yeah, so thanks so much for having me on. 500,000 tests sound like a lot. over a week 3 and a half million. that's 1% of the american people being tested every week and so even if we just did that, it would take quite a long time to get -- 1 years to test everybody in america. it's actually not that much testing but the reason we need it is when we open up, you want to make sure the guy in the cubicle next to you, the person who is serving you your food at the restaurant, they are not infected and the only way we will know if we can test a large number of people.

arthel: completely makes sense and as you know, doctor jha many people desperately in need to get back to work and understandable, however, if we race to punch the clock prematurely, could the country see relapse and how would that affect the health of americans and the health of our economy? >> no doubt about it, basic biology. the moment people go back to work, the moment they go back to doing regular stuff. infected people and uninfected people will come back in contact with each other. that's just basic biology. it's not a risk. it's a certainty. the only way we can prevent another explosion of cases is by identifying everybody who is sick and sheltering them in place, so what i say is the testing strategy is shelter in place only for those infected. we are doing shelter if place for everybody right now but how

can i shelter those infected? by testing everybody. testing a large number of people and separating out all of the infected people so uninfected people can get back to their lives. arthel: dr. jha, more questions, we are out of time. thank you very much. >> thank you for having me. arthel: and we will be right back. odor stains or fuss. odor stains or fuss. get everything you need for spring at ortho.com order today! we're returning $2 billion dollars to our auto policyholders through may 31st. because now, more than ever, being a good neighbor means everything. like a good neighbor, state farm is there.

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eric: testing to coronavirus is a key for reopening the economy. challenges remain especially testing those who are most at risk like the elderly and those with preexisting conditions who are unable to get out of their homes and go to the testing sites but a. >> atrum help are helping people who are at home and cannot go to testing sites. can you hear me? and we may have an audio problem as we try to sort this out.

conell coleman, they go out to the sites where people live and they test people at home. they are starting this now in mecklenburg county. let's show you the stats on north carolina. there are 6,493 tests -- cases so far. 172 deaths as you can see. in mecklenburg county, that's charlotte, 1,078 cases, 21 cases. wade county which is raleigh, 4 deaths. they are a correctional institute there. atrium health can go to nationwide and go to people's homes to try to give them the test for the coronavirus that they so desperately need. hopefully this can be spread out across the country to help people there. arthel, isn't that great news?

arthel: yeah, great. it's wonderful news. you know, that coupled with the great news that governor cuomo just announced moments ago that he here in new york are working desperately and fervently to produce antibody tests so we can determine who in the population may have had coronavirus because everyone wants to get back to work but you can't do that. as you mentioned you don't want to go to local coffee store and barista giving you coffee and coronavirus, if you will. a concerted effort that all of americans want to get back to work. we will be back at 3:00 eastern s and emergency services. respond now at 2020census.gov.

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>> every confidence that we can have a sufficient amount of testing to be able to reopen america. leland: vice president mike pence appearing a little optimistic today, saying that the u.s. is moving toward the first phase of reopening and with that we welcome you to our coronavirus pandemic special. i'm leland vittert. kristin, we heard they're looking forward to this for a while now. kristin: they have indeed. i'm kristin fisher. the vice president's comments come as the u.s. confirms more than 730,000 coronavirus cases with more than half now coming from the east coast. our steve harrigan is tracking