numbers and higher. we didn't have to be here. this is an epic failure of executive leadership, of government leadership and the fact that our medical workers in the united states of america and the wealthiest country in the history of the world don't have the proper equipment is truly a scandal for the ages. >> we are out of time nap will have to be the last word. my thanks to you for letting us in your living rooms during this extraordinary time. we'll be here with you every step of the way. we're working on our technical issues. thanks for bearing with us. the white house briefing is scheduled to begin any time. katy tur picks up our coverage of that. welcome to monday. it's "meet the press" daily.

we're awatsi inawaiting today's at a moment when public health officials and even the president, in his own way, seem to be leveling with the public about how widespread the threat is and how many people could die. the u.s. has now surged well beyond italy to become the country with the most confirmed cases in the world. the number of cases continues to rise exponentially. the white house is now warning that every metro area is going to be hit. the president has basically admitted through his actions that he underestimated the threat. he extended the social distancing guidelines that urge all americans to stay home as much as possible, through the end of april. it's far cry from his claim last week that the country could reopen by easter. he also warned that more than two million would die under a worst case scenario which was

published in mid march. today his coronavirus task force coordinator, said that 100 to 200,000 people will still die even in a best case scenario. >> if we do things together, well, almost perfectly, we could get in the range of 100,000 to 200,000 fatalities. we don't even want to see that. >> i know but you kind of take my breath away with that. what i hear you saying is that's sort of the best case scenario, if everything works and people do the things you're asking them to do. maybe you can hold the deaths to 1 to 200,000 in this country. >> the best case scenario would be 100% of americans doing precisely what is required. we're not sure based on the data that you're sharing from around the world and seeing these pictures that all of america is responding in a uniform way to

protect one ooanother. >> that's a best case scenario where every one takes the threat seriously. it should be noted the president was down playing the threat up until a few days ago. right now an increasing number of states are taking drastic measures. maryland, vv and the district of columbia announced new orders for all residents to stay at home unless it's necessary to leave. in new york, the epicenter of the crisis, field hospitals are being built in central park has officials attempt to handle the surge in cases. naval hospital ship has docked in an attempt to help the city handle an over flow of non-coronavirus patients and the crisis ismedical workers as the unimaginable burdens of too many patients and not enough basic equipment. as the new york times reports two nurse vs ds two nurse vs have died. we do want to note two small

pieces of hopeful news. officials in the seattle area now say that social distancing measures appear to be slowing the spread of the virus. it's still spreading, just more slowly. same goes for new york state where cases were doubling every two days. now they are doubling every six day days. both places have a long road ahead of them, as do we all. we have an nbc news white house reporter outside of the briefing. shannon, i want to start with you on the phone. the president will come out and speak any moment. we know he had a conference call with governors today. what are are you expecting to hear from him? >> reporter: i'm in the rose

garden right now. we're expecting the president to come out any minute here for the 5:00 briefing. one of the things the administration are getting presses is what more can they be doing so they have extended the guidelines. are there additional guidelines to be put in place. is it enough to carry on as if he grocery store every day or continuing to get delivery food or some areas of nail salons or dry cleaners that are still open. is that enough or do we need to be taking things a step further. the president hinted maybe there will be expanded guidelines coming. i think that's also something we can expect to hear from them today or tomorrow. >> what we have been hearing from him is that everybody who wants a test can get a test and that we have done more testing in this country than anywhere else. both of those things aren't s e true. he was telling governors pe hasn't heard there's been a problem with tests in weeks

suggesting that there isn't one and according to times there was pushback on that. what can you tell us about the information that the president is receiving from the states and whether he's getting all that information or if he's just not hearing it. >> there continues to be frustration about testing and in new york state it's limited to patient who is are hospitalized or the most severe case and you have other people that are presumed to be positive but aren't getting a test. that continues to be an issue and resources. the governors have complained about feel like they are fighting amongst themselves for the limited resources that are out there an wanting the federal government to get involved and rural hospitals, the new york times was reporting as well from that phone call there's concern about rural hospitals while even though they might not have huge numbers new york has and they don't have the hospital. so many rural hospitals have closed in recent years which has stretched them even further when facing a situation like this.

>> gabe, you are somewhere outside of a field hospital that nobody ever expected to see. field hospital in the middle of central park which only a few days ago was packed with sunbathers. tell us what's happening there. >> reporter: hi there in is field hospital that started to be constructed over the weekend by a group, a charity organization. it's worked on many disasters including the ebola crisis. these are tents that sprung up out of nowhere. they are expected to open this fee field hospital tomorrow. it has just 58 beds. local authorities have said every little bit helps. you mention the u.s. comfort also docked here in new york with 1,000 beds as well. the governor has said repeatedly, as you know, this area needs 140,000 beds in just one small piece of it. something we did see when we

toured one of these tents earlier, they do have several of those critical ventilators that the governor and the mayor had been saying are so critical and president trump suggested over the weekend perhaps they didn't need quite so many. there are a few of them here. to let you know what they plan to do, this is meant to relieve some of the pressure from the hospital system. they plan to bring in some patients from mt. sanai as well as mt. sanai west on the west side of manhattan. 68 beds. dozens of medical workers here. it's something many people thought they would never see. medical tents set up in central park. >> the last time we saw tents even remotely like that and not even like that because they were mean tos was during the great depression when people rr living in central park. nobody expected that. the medical tents will be

housing coronavirus patients. i know the usns is not for coronavirus patients. that's for the over flow of nonviral infections that new york hospital see on a daily basis. >> reporter: yes, they will. they have vent larilators here. that is to bring in non-covid-19 patients to put on the naval hospital ship. here, this is a very small facility. several tents that have built behind me. the location is significant because of its location in central park here in east meadow. there will be covid-19 patients here starting tomorrow. this might not fill up to several days or weeks as we get closer to the apex that governor cuomo has been talking about. >> governor andrew cuomo has

been talk in stark terms about the realities on the ground in new york and the need that this city and this state has for ventilators and hospital beds and doctors and it will see in the coming days. there was a bit of good news. he said that the rate of infection has been slowing to every six days, it's doubling now. >> reporter: yes, that's true. that is hopeful news. the governor touted that number but he also said they are testing more people and the numbers of those testing positive is going up. again, he said that's because new york now is testing more people than any other place in country. the state has over 66,000 people who have tested positive. new york has the highest number of positive cases. ten times higher than what you see in california. it's only second to what's happening in new jersey. the point of why you see the hospital beds going up in new york's central park and why we

have this magnificent ship behind me with the red crosses at the bow here on new york's west side highway is because this city and this state just needs more hospital beds because of all the cases in the state, the majority of the ones are happening right here in new york city. they are hoping that of the 140,000 hospital beds that they need as gabe mentioned, the governor said they only have 53,000. they are a far cry away from meeting all of their need even with this magnificent ship here. even with the floating hospital, a field hospital that's opening at the javit center and even at sdral pa central park. >> major de blasio said they would need 40 more of those ships. we're under two minutes for the president of the united states to come out and give his briefing. with that let me toss to my friend and colleague brian

williams. >> thank you. even the two minute briefing has been flexible, shall we say, over the past few days. we'll put the shot of the rose garden on camera for you and set the scene. just in the last couple of minutes, white house military aids came out with a small table to the right and after affixing the presidential symbol to it, they put a box on the table and various television monitors were looking at it. appears to be a kcovid device o some sort. the reporters now standing in the press core indicating the president and vice president coming out of the oval office.

>> thank you very much. thank you. very afrcomfortable here. lot of room. we appreciate you being here. yesterday i announced we will be extending our social distance guidelines till the end of april. this is based on the peak of fatalities will not arrive for another two weeks. the same modelling also shows by very vigorously following these guidelines we could save more than one million american lives. think of that. one million american lives. our future is in our own hands and the choices and sacrifices we make will determine the fate of this virus and really the fate of our victory. we will have a great victory. we have no other choice. every one of us have a role to play in winning this war.

we can make the difference in stopping the virus. this is our shared patriotic duty. challenging times are ahead for the next 30 days. this is a very vital 30 days. we're sort of putting it all in the line. so important because we have to get back. the more we dedicate ourselves today, the more quickly we will emerge on the other side of the crisis and that's the time we're waiting for. the more we commit ourselves now, the sooner we can win the fight and return to our lives and they will be great lives. today we reached a historic milestone. over one million americans have now been tested, more than any other country by far. not even close. tested accurately. what i'd like to do is ask

secretary azar, who has done a fantastic job to come up and say a few words about the fact we reached substantially now more than one million tests. please. thank you, alex. >> thank you for your leadership in marshaling the resources we have for thisunprecedented testing effort and thank you mr. vice preside testing. the united states hit more than one million samples tested. a number that no other country has reached. we're now testing nearly 100,000 samples a day. also a level that no other country has reached. i want to thank every partner that's been involved in this effort. that includes all the men and women of the fda and the cdc, including director redfeeield. they have worked together to

balance need nor testing on an aggressive skill with scientific rigor that americans expect. working with our testing coordinator, they have now truly inleashed the ingenuity. the center pieces of america's historic approach to testing. i want to thank those state and local leaders who have used their on the ground resources and knowledge to lead testing and make it much more easily accessible to the americans who need it. i'm also grateful to fema with whom we are working closely to get state an local partners what they need. i want to thank cms where administrator ve administrator verm harks hma had that tests will be paid for. we would not be where we are without the companies who have worked day an night to develop, as of today, 20 different emergency testing options.

the number of options is growing nearly every day. fda opened up new informations for using the available tests like self-swabbing and new options. i also want to thank fda and other components of hhs for rapid action on other tools that we need. this weekend, we actually work to secure 30 million tablets and one million tablets from bayer for covid-19 treatments and we authorized the new decontamination machines with which sterilize thousands of essential n-95 masks for reuse every day. thank you for your leadership and thank you to everybody who has played part in getting us where we are today. thank you. >> thank you very much. i'd like to ask dr. hahn to come up. the numbers have been incredible

on testing. in the days ahead we'll go even faster and we have something from abbott labs which is right here and that is a five minute test. highly accurate and i maybe can show that as we listen to our fda commissioner, the job he's done and the approval process. we talked about the hydrochloroquine now. we have that now under test with 1,100 people in new york. it was only the fast approval by fda that allowed us to do that. this is the first one on the line from the five minute test for abbott. >> thank you for your leadership. i'm very proud of fda staff to

expedite the availability of testing in this country. we had a substantial addition to testing especially the abbott point of test which the president has pulled out of the box. it's a test that gives you a result where you're getting care. just like tests for flu or strep, we go to the doctor an get the test done, you can get an answer within minutes of having this test done. they are planning to scale up the number of tests that can be put out throughout the country and patients can get the answer within as little as 15 to 5

minutes. we are working with abbotas well. i was on the phone with the abbott ceo. he said this is a 9 to 12 month approach to developing a point of care test. they did this in collaboration with fda and u.s. government within weeks. they will be delivering these tests tomorrow and will be ramping up. the other point is abbott and fda work together to make sure we a fast, reliable and accurate test to market. thank you. >> thank you. great job. really great job. thank you, steve. so, the pharmaceutical company

has been working with us very closely. as alex mentioned, little bit 30 million doses of the hydroxychloroquine to the united states government and bayer has donated one million doses of the chloroquine which will soon be distributed to states and state health officials around the country. teva pharmaceuticals is donating six million doses of hydroxychloroquine to hospitals. it's been really amazing. we'll introduce you to some of the greatest business executives in the world today, no matter where you go. they'll say a bit about what they are doing. we have so many more. fda is also authorized the

patel's n-95 respirator masks sterilization kits. i've been asking why are we throwing these masks away. you look at them and they are significant pieces of equipment. i say how come you throw them away. why aren't they using sterilization techniques. i got a call from mike dewine, the governor of ohio. he's a tremendous guy. he said we have a company named batel and they are having a hard time getting approval from the fda. kaled up dr. hahn and within a short period of time they got the approval. i want to thank mike and steve. each machine can disinfect 120,000 masks per day. think of that. each machine can disinfect 120,000 masks per day.

it will be just like a new one. it can go up to about 20 times for each mask. each mask can go through this process 20 times. they have two in ohio, one in new york and one will soon be shipped to seattle, washington a also to washington, d.c. that will make a tremendous difference on the masks. this morning i spoke to our nation's governor to help each state get the medical supplies they need and yesterday vice president mike pence asked our nation's hospitals to begin reporting total bed capacity, icu bed capacity, ventilator capacity and vital medical supply level os on a daily basi. mike, thank you for the great job. in new york, the 2,900 bed hospital under construction which is now completed, they completed it in three days. you might say three and a half

days. it will be completed today. when you look, they're going up, i think we'll be adding some more beds which will completed today. we have opened up, there goes our box. my hair is blowing around. it's mine. one thing you can't get away with, if it's not yours you got a president if you're the u.s. navy ship comfort also arrived today equipped with 12 operating rooms and 1,000 hospital beds be p wo. work has begun on hospital sites including a 600 capacity nursing home in brooklyn. a 2,900-bed hospital in new york

in just about three days, maybe four days. the whole city is talking about it. on top of that, we floated in a great ship which is going be 1,000 rooms which is being used for patients outside of what we're focused on and that will free up a lot of rooms for what we're focused on. it's been great. the army corps of engineers is awarded contracts for the construction of alternate care facilities also at the state university of stony brook, old we westbury. we're sending 6 0 ambulances th new york city today. we have a total of 60. we're getting some additional ones with up to 190 more to follow at different locations. to date, fema has obligated more

than $1.3 billion in federal support to the state of new york. we're spending a lot of money in new york. it's a hot bed. there's no question about it. we're spending a lot of time, effort in new york and new jersey. spoke with governor cuomo a lot. we're really getting the job done. people are very impressed. i'm very impressed by the people. i've never seen anybody do anything like it. in addition to the vent larts we have delivered, we are delivering more than 1,000. 400 are going to michigan very shortly. 300 going to new jersey. 150 ventilators to illinois. 150 to louisiana and 50 to connecticut.

fema and hhs already delivered 11.6 million n-95 respi rrkrato 4.4 million surgical gowns and 22 million gloves. it said ford just announced that they will produce, along with general electric health care, 50,000 ventilators and they'll be doing it in less than 100 days. we have nine other companies doing ventilators as we out pace what we need we'll be sending them to italy. we'll be sending them to france. we'll be sending them to spain where they have tremendous problems and other countries as we can.

more than 14,000 national guard members have been activated and can help supplement state and local efforts to distribute pemp protective equipment. we have plane loads coming in. we have 51 loads from various locations all around the world. they are landing. we had our first big cargo plane land this morning. we're getting it from all over the world. we're also sending things that we don't need to other parts. i just spoke to the prime minister of italy. we have additional capacity. we have additional product that we don't need. we're going to be sending approximately $100 million worth of things, of surgical and medical and hospital things to italy.

joining us this afternoon are cc ceos to help meet our needs. darius has been somebody that i've dealt with in the past with honeywell. he's great leader of a great company. deborah waller of jockey international. a friend of mine, mike lindell of my pillow. david teller of procter & gamble and greg hays of united technology corporations. i want to tell all of you that america is very grateful to you and what you've done. maizie in

amazing job pe have -- you have done. mike, come on up. come on up, please. come on up. you have to say what you're doing it's been really incredible. go ahead, mike. >> my pillow is a u.s. company which has been forced to adjust to the changing business environment as a result of the pandemic. my pillow is uniquely positioned as a u.s. company that functions as a manufacturer logistics management distributor and direct to consumer. give our current business lines we are experiencing the effects of this pandemic first hand. what my pillow has done is monitoring future needs of countries across the company as a result of this panpandemic. we began to research and develop new protocols to discuss the current and future needs of u.s. businesses across multiple sectors. how companies will prepare themselves when they once again

open up and changes to their current operations in order to adjust to future thets and pandemics. my pillow has designated some of its call center to help u.s. companies navigate the issues that resulted from this pandemic. we dedicated 75% of my manufacturing to produce cotton face masks. i was up to 10,000 a day. by friday i want to be up to 50,000 a day. i'm proud to manufacturer our products in united states and more proud to serve our nation in this great time of need. thank you for your call to action which has empowered companies like my pillow to help our nation win this invisible war. now i wrote something off the cuff if i can read this. god gave us grace on november 8th, 2016 to change the course we were on. god had been taken out of our schools and lives. a nation has turned its back on god. i encourage you to use this time at home to get back in the word.

read our bibles and spend time with our families. our president gave us so much hope where just a few short months ago we had the best economy, the lowest unploim and wages going up. it was amazing. with our great president, vice president and this administration, and the great people in this country praying daily, we will get through this and get back to place that is stronger and safer than ever. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. appreciate it. >> come on up. i did not know he was going to do that. he's a friend of mine. i do appreciate it. thank you very much. >> first of all, mr. president, mr. vice president, the entire administration and all the agencies, thank you for your strong leadership during this time of crisis. it's noticed. it's making a difference. second of all, i'd like to say a big thank you to all the health care workers out there. you're putting yourself in harms way every day and we really

respect what you're doing and we couldn't be thankful enough for it. i can tell you that more help is on the way. we as honeywell, we're industrial technology company. we are one of the businesses that we're in is protect the industrial worker. what we're doing today is repurposing a lot of that equipment to serve the health care worker. a few days ago we nieannounced start up of a new manufacturing facility in rhode island. we'll be hiring 500 employees. we have 200 on board and we'll be starting to production of n-95 masks within the next two weeks. furthermore, today we are announcing the start up of another manufacturing facility in arizona. we'll be hiring another 500 people and we'll be starting up production in that facility by the middle of may. in total, we have doubled our production of n-95 masks already. it will double again within the next 60 days and within the next 90 days we'll have five x the

capacity we do today. nothing furthermore we'll be providing other safety equipment to support all the efforts going on. lastly, i'll say a big thank you to all honeywell employees and announce a $10 million fund for them for all the hourly and administrative employees are having a hard time during this time of crisis. thank you, mr. president. >> fantastic. >> thank you. normally i'd shake his hand but we're not supposed to do that anymore. that's okay. great job. thank you to honeywell. go ahead. >> thank you, mr. president and mr. vice president on your guidance during this unprecedented time. i'm very honored to be here today. founded by a minister, 144 years ago, jockey international is family owned company headquartered in wisconsin. since 1876, we have been providing socks and underwear for generations of families.

it is part of our dna to roll up our sleeves and help our country in her time of need. during world war irkii, we made parachutes for military and today we are eager to serve this great kun trip country by provi support for the health care workers on the front line of this fight. as the president and vice president have said it's a whole of america approach and we are committed. jockey has had a long standing partnership with encompass group headquartered in georgia serving the health care community. when we learned of the critical need for ppe, we knew we had to he help. that mention starting production on tier 3 isolation gowns. monumental lifting be jockey encompass fema and the fda was done in a few days to be production ready. we expect to deliver 30 to 50,000 gowns per week helping those that need it the most right now. in addition, this week, we are

also donating 10,000 units of scrubs to the front line doctors and nurses at the convention center in new york city. we would not have been able to do this without the collaboration of the administration, representatives from the federal agencies and congressmen bryan styles. thank you very much mr. president and mr. vice president. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. i'm proud to be able to represent the men and women of procter & gamble who every day 24 hours day are working to build and make essential cleaning products, hygiene products and health care products for families everywhere. these include health care workers and for institutions that are serving those in the front line. p and g people are the face of the brand you know and trust. brands like tide, pampers,

bounty, charmin, mr. clean and vick's. they have worked together to transform our plants, to make things we have never made before like hand sanitizers and fascia masks some of these are getting to national, state and local agencies. some are in the hospital already. everywhere around the world, p and g people work to serve everybody. they are working together to bring together the full capabilities of our research and development, our engineering, manufacturing and our communications capability to make sure we make a difference to the consumers we serve and to all audience that we can make a difference to. i want to thank them and are very grateful for what they do every day in service to others. thank you mr. president and mr. vice president for bringing us together today.

>> thank you. >> good afternoon. i'm greg hays from united technologies. on a behalf of the 240,000 employees of you nounited techns and the 70,000 employees at raytheon, i want to say thank you to the president and the vice president for your leadership dwhaurg uring what i. it's a different war than anybody has fought but it's a war we're uniquely qualified to help. as one of the largest defense contractors and technology, we're using the technology tosoever real world problem. we're working with the air force to help pilots as they are moving medical evacuees. so they can be protected and the patients can be protected. we're working with logistics. if you think about a war, strategy is important but logistics win war. it's imperative with fema along with mr. navarro's office that

we coordinate all of these activities. last week we donated 9 90,000 pieces of personal protective equipment to fema. next week we'll have almost a million. working with our supply chain partners around the world. we're beginning the manufacturer of face shields using technologies that we have and the machines we have able within utc. we'll be able to produce approximately 10,000 shields in the next four weeks. all needed equipment. we stand ready to help in any way we can. we don't need the defense production act to ask us to act. all of the people at utc are focused on this war and we mean it. i also want to say thank you ta all of our employees for their work during this crisis as well as to the front line medical and other first responders. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> those are great companies. thank you very much. i'd like to ask seema to come

up. >> thank you. let me start by saying i want to convey my deepest sympathies to those who have lost loved ones. we are all thinking of you. today is doctors day. i want to send a message of gratitude to the foot soldiers in this war. we are engage inside war against an invisible enemy. in wartime the assumptions of peacetime must be revisited and adjusted to meet the demands of the moment. under the president's leadership, cms is waving a wide and unprecedented range of regulatory requirements. many health care systems won't need these waivers and they shouldn't use them if they don't need them. the flexibilities are there.

in a time of crisis regulations shouldn't stand in the way of patient care. there are several components to our announcement today but first one is cms's hospitals without walls. this is going to allow hospital systems to create new treatment sites outside of their facility to expand capacity and be able to safely separate patients that are infected with the coronavirus and those that are not. fema doing an incredible work setting up temporary hospitals in new york and other areas but under these waivers we are empowering local communities to complement and augment the work of fema in allowing hospital systems to tap into the capacity that already exist in their communities making use of dorms and hotels or gymnasiums and allowing the main hospital focus on those that need the most intensive care. there are surgery centers out there today that are delaying elective surgeries and they may

have excess capacity that could be devoted to hospital like care. we are also make changes to the medicare program to facilitate testing. some people that need a coronavirus test can't leave their home or patients in a nursing home and now we will pay for labs to go out to these locations and perform testing. we're also expanding the work force. we are taking action today to relax some of our regulations to allow their work force and we're allowing a broad range of flexibilities so we can let health care workers operate at top of their license. we are also allowing our hospitals to give to provide more support for our health care workers. under today's regulations they can only provide minimal support to health care workers but now we're going throw them to provide child care, meals, laundry services. then there's also telehealth.

the president directed a dramatic expansion to our 62 million seniors with medicare. we're so proud of all the health care providers and patients that have rapidly implemented telehealth. today we're announcing we will go even further and we'll be paying for doctors to make phone calls with their patients and provide care over the phone. we're getting rid of long standing barriers to telehealth in medicare program allowing emergency rooms to use teleheld and eliminating the requirements that some business be provided face-to-face. i've barely skra lly scratched

surface of the flexibilities we are offering. they will provide a lot of flexibility from regulations that are ill suited to the unprecedented needs of this emergency. doctors and nurses and other health care professionals that are working long hours and sacrificining times with their families and risking their lives will have the flexibility they need to con front needs of the coronavirus pandemic. there are many heros in this war but i want to take an opportunity to thank the team at cms. these folks have worked day and night. the flexibilities that are in this regulation and any regulation usually take cms a year. we did this in two weeks. i couldn't be more honored and privileged to serve along side these dedicated public serserva. thank you. >> thank you. so we are in the midst of something that is very difficult but we're going to win.

it's just a question of when. we want to do it as quickly as possibility. we want to have as few deaths as possible. we will meet again tomorrow for some sta ti-- statistics and so updates. i think times will be important because we have to get our country back. we have to get our country back to where it was and maybe beyond where it was because we have learned so much. if you look at what is happening with our medical professionals. i see them coming out of planes today going into new york. they go in there and just want to do the job.

you see the numbers. you see numbers like i see the numbers. i have some friends that are unbelievably sick. thought they were going in for a mild stay. in one case he's unconscious, in a coma. you say how did that happen. i want to thank all the great professionals, men and women, doctors and nurses and paramedics and first responders and law enforcement, by the way. if you look at new york and see how the affect this had on law enforcement, it's been incredible. these are great people. firefighters. great people. they are helping in so many different ways. thank you very much. if you'd like, we'll take a few questions. john. >> thank you. yesterday you said you would be extending the guidelines through the end of april and giving specifics tomorrow. do you expect the guidelines will just carry on?

the guidelines that have been in place for 15 days. could there be some modification. also you have some travel restrictions that come up for reconsideration. the one from the eu on april 13th. canada-u.s. border. >> they'll be staying. we may add a few more. the guidelines will be very much as they are. maybe even toughened up a bit. they're having a big impact. we're starting to see it. that's the key, we're starting to see the impact they are having. >> have you talked about ford now ramping up production of ventilators, the govrt ernment sending thousands. clearly the supply is increasing. when you look at the production curve against the hospitalization curve, can you guarantee that every one who needs a vent lailator in next f weeks will be able to get one? >> i think some are ramping up to a level they won't have to and i think we have kept in reserve, we have almost 10,000

ve ventilators. we held back because we did the stockpile. we don't know where the emergency -- it hits so fast. it comes so quickly. new york has been doing well but we can add some more to new york. we are adding them to the areas that are having problems. even alabama flared up a bit as you saw over the last couple of days. we'll send them down to alabama. we have 10,000. we kept them for this specific purpose. sounds like a lot but it's not. we have now ten companies making

the ventilators. we say go ahead because other countries will never be able to do it. it's big and expensive. >> do you believe as we approach this peak, there will be enough for the american population? >> i do think so. i think we'll be in very good shape. we had a great call today with the governors. they were -- i actually said i hope that the media is listening to this call because it was a really good call. that was randomly selected, largely democrats and republicans. i think for the most part they were saying thank you for doing great job. people are happy with what we're doing. the circumstances are so terrible with what's going on. i think they are impressed by the federal government. i watched that beautiful ship floating in today, weeks ahead of schedule.

almost four weeks ahead of schedule into new york harbor. i watched the mercy floating in to los angeles a week ago, almost a week ago. they are stocked. they are really ready to go. they are stocked with talent and tremendous stocked with talent tremendous amounts of equipment. and the navy and everybody else involved, they got it ready so fast. it's just uncredible what they can do. i am so impressed by the people involved. mike and i were talking about it before. the level of genius to put it all together so quickly. this wasn't a month ago, nobody ever heard of this. nobody had any idea, "the mercy" was in maintenance for a month. and when they heard we needed it, and i was surprised, they said sir, we're ready to go. i said what do you mean? it's going to take three weeks. they said no, we're ready to go. i think the building of the hospital, 2,900 beds in a matter

of days, a few days is just incredible. governor cuomo was impressed and gavin newsom was impressed by what we've been doing with gavin and california and los angeles area in particular. really san francisco, all over california. when you look at what we're doing with michigan, we're getting along very well with michigan. it's a great place. we're sending a lot of things to michigan, because that's becoming a hot bed, especially in specific areas. it's become very hot. it's become, i don't know, could even at some point supersede. but it's got to be taken care of. the relationship we have with the governors i just wish you could -- we took a lot of calls from a lot of different states. even a thing where the governor of ohio calls, where he has a company that does the sterilization, but they have a problem because it's not going quickly at the fda.

i call up steve and steve comes in and he said, we'll get it done. and they checked it and got it done almost immediately. and originally they were approving it for 10,000 masks. and then it was supposed to be for 80,000. and they ultimately approved it for 120,000. that's a tremendous number. and i kept wondering, why aren't they sterilizing these masks? i assumed you can't do it. but it's not cloth, it's something that looks like it could be sterilized. the mean over there, they have a piece of the machine over there. and this is incredible when you talk about five minutes, 15 minutes, and highly accurate, and not nearly as disturbing to do as the other tests. so we've just gotten better. we're doing things that nobody ever thought of. please. >> the dmv has issued stay at home orders, but the governor of

virginia took it pretty far. he issued a 70-day stay at home order. is that constitutional first off? and secondly, do you think it's warranted to issue a 70-day guidance at this point? >> we're letting the governors do in their states pretty much what they want with our supervision and they consult with us in all cases. some go further than others. i could give you examples, but i'm not going to do that because we never want to be controversial. but some of the governors have taken it a step further. people are questioning that. but look, staying at home with respect to what we're talking about doesn't bother me at all. people should be staying at home. that's what we want. oan, please. oan. >> 2,405 americans have died from coronavirus in the last 60 days. >> yeah. >> meanwhile, you have 2,369 children who are killed by their mothers through elective

abortions each day. that's 16,500 children killed every week. tuesday tuffs suspended elective abortions to make it -- do you agree with states placing coronavirus victims above elective abortions and should more states do the same in >> as we are trying to do, republicans and democrats, we're just working together to solve this problem. that's been a -- what you're mentioning has been going on for a long time, and it's a sad event. a lot of sad events in this country. but what we're doing is now we're working on the virus, we're working on that hidden enemy. we're doing a great job, as good a job as you could do. when tony and deborah came up with numbers yesterday to say if we did nothing, you could lose up to 2.2 -- maybe beyond that, but 2.2 million people if we did

nothing. and i can't tell you what the unfortunate final toll is going to be, but it's going to be a very small fraction of that. so we're doing an awfully good job, i think, with what -- >> do you support -- >> please. >> are you considering at all a nationwide stay at home order? i know there's a lot of states that have put them in place, but are you considering a broad stay at home order? and then a question for dr. birx, too. >> well, we talked about it. you know, obviously there are some parts of the country that are in far deeper trouble than others. there are other parts that are frankly not in trouble at all. so hopefully we'll be able to keep it that way by doing what we're doing. we talked about quarantine. a group came to me and said we want to do the quarantine. i said let's think about it. and by the end of the evening,

it was tough to enforce. and something we didn't want to do. but we did advisory and i think that's doing well. i see -- i look at the streets. you look at new york, where -- i look down 5th avenue. today they were showing a shot of 5th avenue and there was almost nobody on 5th avenue and i've never seen that before. i think the people of this country have done an incredible job. if we do that, we'll let you know, but it's unlikely at this point. >> a quick question for dr. birks. so dr. birks, you mentioned that this model that predicts 100,000 deaths is if we do things almost perfectly. i wanted to know, are we currently doing things almost perfectly, or are there more things we need to be doing to cap, you know, to not exceed that 100,000, 200,000 model. >> please, come.

>> thank you. i think that's a really great question. tomorrow we'll go through all of the graphs and all the information that we took to the president for the decision. but when you -- and i just want to thank the data team working day and night. i usually get my data about 2:00 a.m. from them and they assimilate the data from all the states. when you look at all of the states together, all of them are moving in exactly the same curves. and so that's why we really believe this needs to be federal guidance so that every state understands that it may look like two cases today, that become 20, that become 200, that become 2,000. and that's what we're trying to prevent. i think states still have that opportunity, but they're going to have to do all of these recommended -- i mean, these recommendations are recommendations that the globe is using. so we really do recommend that every governor, every mayor looks very carefully and ensures that their communities are

utilizing these guidance. >> thank you very much. it is amazing. you look at louisiana, and for a long time it was just staying at nothing. and then all of a sudden i look one day and i see a lot and a lot and a lot. and then it explodes. now we're working very carefully and very powerfully with them. we're building hospitals, we're building a lot of different things for louisiana. so it's very important. yeah, please, go ahead. >> mr. president -- warned that this could be a seasonable, cyclical virus. maybe both of you could comment on this. are you prepared for this to strike again say in the fall? all the efforts that are taking place right now, to contain this, to be proactive, and -- >> we're prepared. i hope it doesn't happen. doctor, would you like to say something about that? i hope it doesn't happen, but we're certainly prepared.

>> in fact, i wouldice that that would actually happen because of the degree of transmisability. however, if you come back in the fall, it will be a totally different ball game of what happened when we first got hit with it in the beginning of this year. there will be several things that will be different. our ability to go out and be able to test, identify, isolate, and contact trace will be orders of magnitude better than what it was just a couple of months ago. in addition, we have a number of clinical trials that are looking at a variety of therapeutic interventions. we hope one or more of them will be available. and importantly, as i mentioned to you many times at these briefings, we have a vaccine that's on track, and multiple other candidates. so i would anticipate that a year, year and a half we would be able to do it under an emergency use if we start seeing an efficacy signal, we could use a vaccine at the next season.

what we're going through now is going to be things that we have available to us that we did not have before. >> okay, please, go ahead. >> mr. president, scott gottlieb, your former fda commissioner, wrote a road map for recovery after the coronavirus. >> very interesting, i saw it. >> he suggests -- the road map suggests that everybody wear a mask in public. is that something that the task force thinks is a good idea? >> we haven't discussed it to that extent, but it's something that we could discuss. we're getting the number of masks that you need. we are in the process of talking about things. i saw his suggest shun on that. so we'll take a look at it, for a period of time. not forever. we want our country back. we're not going to be wearing masks forever. but it could be for a short period of time after we get back into gear, i could see something like that happening for a