. good day, everyone. i'm andrea mitchell in washington, where the trump administration is promising new guidelines on who should be wearing face coverings like scarves or homemade masks when they go out. sparking concerns in los angeles and now new york's mayors both leading the way for advisories in their cities. the fight against the virus forcing the federal government to adapt on the fly. the effort highlighted this morning by the army corps of engineer's discussion about hoda today about javits center taking covid-19 for the first time. >> certain states wanted covid only, other states noncove id. so when we initially set it out, the plan was to be non-covid. but now that this changed a little bit, i asked my team to

go in and relook at the pressures in the building. javits space is sectional, there are areas we can actually change the pressure in some. >> we just heard from new york governor andrew cuomo, who has now requested the change because he said there were not enough non-covid patients from the pop-up field hospitals. the governor announcing today new york has had more than 100,000 positive cases of covid-19 and more than 2,900 deaths from the virus. the governor also announced he's signing an executive order today allowing states to take ventilators and ppes from institutions around the state who do not need them immediately in order to get them to the front lines. today's jobs report for march showing 700,000 jobs were lost last month when the virus was just beginning have spread, increasing the jobless rate to 4 had the 4%, numbers that will skyrocket a month from now reflecting the growing impact, of course. nbc's ron allen is with us now

outside sinai hospital. i know you're following the guidelines from mayor de blasio, wearing a face covering, mask, anything homemade, not the surgical masks, very short supplied n95s. but tell us about that advisory and impact on mt. sinai, what you're seeing today. >> well, what we've seen here, andrea, is a gathering of nurses and medical professionals from doctors' physicians as well who are still complaining about the lack of protective equipment here and across the city. they say that every day at work is like a suicide mission, to use one person's words. they're very angry. they're very frustrated. they think that it's just very, very difficult to do their jobs and it's going to get worse. they're worried about their colleagues. they're worried about their own health. many of these are health care workers who are not staying with their families because they're so concerned about carrying the virus home. here's a sampling of what one of the organizers of the protests

said about conditions they're working under. >> we don't want to be your body bags. i don't want to be your body bags. i want to take this seriously. we need to provide safe, quality care for our patients. as of this morning they said we have six days left before we run out of ventilators. six days of people, if we don't get what we need, will die. and that is something that will be on their conscience, not mine. i'm here, and i will keep coming back here because that is what i do. i'm a nurse. and i don't have the luxury to stay home. >> we have a statement from mt. sinai a few minutes ago saying in part that we understand the fear and concerns and will continue to do everything possible to protect our heroes on the frontline. we will not stop until this crisis is over. this hospital, like many others,

are trying to find other sources beyond the city and state government. as you've heard, they too find it unbelievable, as the governor said during his briefing, that a lot of this material can't be produced somewhere in the united states. and as we know, of course, andrea, it's only going to get worse because demand is only going to get higher and as the number of cases is expected to surge some time next week, in the coming days actually. one last thing, the health care workers we spoke with this morning are very concerned, very concerned about retaliation. they're very concerned about coming forward, speaking out and being -- losing their jobs or facing some kind of punishment. but they're coming forward anyway because they feel this is a matter of life and death, not just their patients but their own. it is really that serious and it was a very, very intense protest, intense discussion, intense press conference about what these health care workers feel they're going through and really just don't want to have

to go through but are committed to save lives and deal with. andrea? >> ron allen, a desperate situation indeed at mt. sinai in manhattan. thank you so much. michael osterholm is the director for the center of infectious disease and research and policy at the university of minnesota and joins me now. thank you so much for being with us. >> thank you. >> let's talk about, first of all, the masks. there's a lot of confusing, even the new york state health director sitting next to the governor was contradicting was mayor de blasio advised last night about the effectiveness. the point here is that it can protect the next person, not so much yourself, but it's more to protect people around you if you are within that six feet from getting possibly infected from you if you're wearing a mask outside. >> first of all, all of us want to do whatever we can. so everyone who's making these recommendations are doing them in the spirit of let's do something. but we just have to take a step

back and make sure we're not doing something that is actually less protective. that may seem counterintuitive. but lets be clear, what's being recommended is to use a mask of some kind so when you're out in the public and you're not sick -- you shouldn't be in the public if you're sick at all, but if you are not sick the breathing in the first one, two days where you're not sick will be exposing other people. there's a real fallacy in that the cloth masks you're talking about, the do your own, actually doesn't stop any of the small particles for coming out. it's going to come out just the shame. look at china, if that was really so successful in china where everybody in december in the hubei province was wearing a mask, we shouldn't have had a problem. we had a problem. so when you hear if you do this, it will stop transmission and we will start to eat up the very masks we're trying to save for health care workers.

you've heard it loud and clear from ron allen. his report is right on the mark. i'm the father of a daughter on the frontline. i hear this every day. i would do anything to protect them. if we find we are losing masks for the public, not an effective way to slow down transmission, then we have a real problem. that's what i hope we can take time to think about, before we actually do something that hurts us, not helps us. >> we're expecting an advisory possibly from the white house, from the white house task force sometimes in the next couple of days. i think your cautions, your caveats reflect some of the disagreements that we understand is taking place within that circle as well. that's why we haven't heard from them yet. dr. fauci, by the way, was on with anderson cooper on cnn last night at a town hall meeting, and he reflected clear impatience with a lack of national advisory. we know governors are in charge, but the lack of any strong statement from the white house about staying indoors. let's watch.

>> does it make sense to you that some states are still not issuing stay-at-home orders? whether there should be a federally mandated directive for that or not, i guess that's more of a political question, but just scientifically, doesn't everybody have to be on the same page with this stuff? >> yeah, i think so, anderson. i don't understand why that's not happening. as you said, the tension between federally mandated between states' rights to do what they want, is something i don't want to get into. but if you look at what's going on in this country, i just don't understand why we're not doing that. we really should be. >> and it's clear that the president has been very reluctant to criticize ron desantis, an ally in the president's new home state of florida. what brian kemp did in georgia. what we saw in oklahoma and other states, all red states around the country that are not telling people to stay indoors or reluctant to relate to it.

>> i think, first of all, let me just make it clear, this is not a red or blue state virus. initially it looked more blue because it's hit major metropolitan areas that have more introduction to the virus sooner and that's had a chance to spread more. this will become a covid color virus in terms of states, counties and cities. i think that's the important message. as the old commercial used to say, you can pay me now or pay me later. we will pay. we need a national plan now that puts this out as a national priority. and as of right now, i think most of the governors have been some of the biggest public health heroes we could have. he we need a national plan we're missing right now that says how are we going to deal with this right now but four months from now, six months from now, 12 months from now? and we don't have that. that would help immensely. >> there's also a report in "the washington post" today just questioning or saying there are questions about the modeling that dr. deborah birx used a couple of days ago, the

horrendous numbers going up to 240,000 deaths and saying that was a best-case scenario, 100,000 to 240,000 deaths. the question people columbia university epidemiologists are quoted saying we don't have a sense of what's going on in the here and now. and we don't know what people will do in the future. we don't know if the virus is seasonal as well. dr. fauci acknowledged we don't know a lot about this virus. how do we model? >> first of all, this is acting very similar to what we would with a very severe influenza pandemic, like 1918. let me remind people in 1918 that ended not until 1920. it literally had to transmit almost two years until enough people became infected, 70%, 80, and then that is what slowed it down. we're in the same boat here. that's not going to change. the model the administration just used is absolutely

impractical. i don't know why they used it as it did. it inferred a wuhan-like shutdown the next four months. that's all it addressed is the next four months. you can take whatever model you want, i always said as somebody who does public health for a living, all models are wrong, some can give you helpful information. but let's cut to the chase, forget the black box stuff, think about these numbers, 320 million americans, if half of them get infected, which is very reasonable, that's 160 million. of that 80% will have mild or moderate illness, not even seek health care. 20% will seek a physician. of those 10% need to be hospitalized. of the 10%, half will need intensive care medicine and about 1% will die. everything we have supports that. 1% of 160 million is 1.6 million people. so where you get 200,000, i don't know. i think over the duration, the model you ought to be looking at is 1.6 million people. if you don't like the numbers i

just threw out, give me your own. tell me why they're different. these are the practical ones. so we're not even thinking about this long term at 1.6 million and we must. that's what we're going to have to deal with. >> boy, that is tough, tough numbers. a reality check. thank you very much. thank you for being with us. >> thank you very much, andrea. >> thank you. let's drill down on some tough economic numbers we saw this morning with chris lu, former deputy secretary of labor in the obama administration, now senior fellow at the university of virginia miller center, joining us. chris, good to see you. that jobs report -- and it's a backward look at 4.4% unemployment in march when the virus was just beginning to spread. we and have the reached a peak yet, even the hot spot of new york city. so it's going to be only a lot worse next week, perhaps yesterday's unemployment claims, numbers and the last two weeks of 10 million is a more accurate

picture. >> that's exactly right, andrea. we have to put this job support in context. this is a snapshot of what was happening the second week of march. so this was before many states imposed shelter-at-home requirements so we are expecting a bad number but i don't think we expected 700,000 jobs being lost. that's a drastic number. the unemployment rate went up more than any time since 1975. and i think this is just the tiff of ttip of the iceberg in terms of bad economic numbers. 2/3 were in leisure and hospitality, what we would expect. relatively few lost in retail, which i think sis the next wave that will hit. eventually this will spread out to higher wage, white collar jobs. this is just the beginning of what is the very beginning of very bad economic news. >> talk about the mitch mcconnell's news on the small

business program that just went into effect at midnight last night. we already hearing from jpmorgan chase that they're not -- they didn't get the data they need from treasury in time to put it into effect until next midweek. bank of america apparently is taking it online. but the backlogs are extraordinary. this is really bureaucracy grinding to a halt. >> you know, the small business loan/grant program is really kind of one of the key pillars in providing some level of financial stability. a week after this bill is passed, they're setting up a program so understandably there are going to be bumps in the road. but it's critical these applications get processed. the goal is you want small business to get these loans so they're not furloughing employees, they can keep as many on payroll as possible. but it's also important to understand, andrea, there are other critical parts. we need to make sure the stimulus checks get out of the mail, so that will be difficult as well. the unemployment insurance part

of this is also critical. we heard all kinds of stories about people unable to apply online for unemployment benefits. and, you know, it's a process that's run through 50-state systems. some of them are quite an that indicated. so getting all of this money out the door as fast as possible to provide stability to workers and small businesses is critical. >> and our colleague kasie hunt reported from ways and means yesterday they were expecting some of those checks are not going to go out, for those who did not get their refunds online from treasury -- excuse me, from the irs, they're not going to get their checks for as long as five months from now and that's defeating the purpose of a quick stimulus to recharge the economy. what about small businesses who don't have employees, family run, one-man mom and pop shops, are they not included in this payroll protection program? >> look, there's a bunch of programs within this that they

can apply for assistance. but i think you raised a broader point, andrea, which is we're essentially turning off the economy for an extended period of time. when we try to flip this back on, i think a lot of companies because of the assistance that we're providing will be able to restart up. a lot of these other mom and pop operations simply can't survive no matter what relief is provided to them because they operate on such narrow margins right now. and they're just going to go out of business. that's frightening to think about as well as all of the other workers who, as you said, might take months to get the stimulus checks. people who have been laid off in march already had to come up with money for their april rent payments. they may have to go through the whole month of april without money for their may payments and that's just not going to be sustainable for many people in this economy. >> chris lu, thank you, again, for the reality check. coming up -- the battle between the navy and one of its

top commanders, top-ranking officer, captain of the "uss roosevelt" loses his command after he raises concerns about an outbreak of coronavirus on his ship. tis. because there are options. like an "unjection™". xeljanz xr, a once-daily pill for adults with moderate to severe ra for whom methotrexate did not work well enough. xeljanz xr can reduce pain, swelling and further joint damage, even without methotrexate. xeljanz can lower your ability to fight infections like tb; don't start xeljanz if you have an infection. taking a higher than recommended dose of xeljanz for ra can increase risk of death. serious, sometimes fatal infections, cancers including lymphoma, and blood clots have happened. as have tears in the stomach or intestines, serious allergic reactions, and changes in lab results. tell your doctor if you've been somewhere fungal infections are common, or if you've had tb, hepatitis b or c, or are prone to infections.

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they might not be around to treat us like family tomorrow. grubhub. together, we can help save the restaurants we love. . the navy has dismissed the captain of "the uss roosevelt" from his command after the captain sounded the alarms about the spread of the coronavirus on his ship. his ship is an aircraft carrier

sailing in the pacific. this was the scene yesterday as a crowd of sailors said good-bye to their captain, brett crozier. captain crozier was dismissed after he sent a strongly worded letter that was actually leaked to a hometown newspaper. joining me now are democratic congressman jason crow from colorado and admiral james durities. admiral, let's talk about what the acting navy secretary did in dismissing this captain. you talked the other day to

brian williams about how he was sailing true north, which is the title of your book as well, but it is a navy expression for following the star, following your compass. >> indeed. i think captain crozier, from everything i can see, put his heart entirely into his command, which is what we would ask our commanding officers to do. there seems to be a lot of administrative confusion as to how far up the chain of command he went, whether he was receiving sufficient support from that chain of command, but at some point he put it all down on paper and he sent it in an unclassified system, and then it got leaked. so that's what led to his dismissal by the secretary of the navy. but i think the thing to underline here, andrea, is this is a captain who cared so deeply for his crew, obviously.

his crew cared deeply for him. there are no winners here. and at the end of the day, the message ought to be that we're going to see this scene again in terms of this kind of infection in our forward military units because they're packed in closely together, on aircraft carriers, on submarines, in army combat units, in our forward s.e.a.l. teams. they operate shoulder to shoulder. we're going to see more of this and we've got to come up with the protocols that allow us to deal with this quickly and maintain national security. >> let me read a bit from what he had written. he said we're not at war. sailors do not need to die. if we do not act now, we're failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset, our sailors. congressman, it certainly appears to me, a civilian, he was doing what he could expect of a commander. an aircraft carrier, i have been on a number of them, the admiral

was stating the obvious, he's are very close quarters. this is a floating city. and this city turned out to say farewell to their captain. >> absolutely, andrea. my time in the military illustrated a couple of things to me but one of them is if you want to know where the good leaders are in the military, you go and talk to the soldiers, the sailors, the airmen, marines, rank and file. they know good leadership when they see it. you can't hide from the rank and file. clearly they turned out for captain crozier as someone who was willing to lead from the front, put his own interest and own career on the line, to do the right thing to protect the sailors he was responsible for. it's going to be a story i think of leadership, it's going to be a story of sacrifice. i think history will treat captain crozier well. but let's not forget, we did not have to be here. we did not have to be in this position to have an aircraft carrier captain sacrifice

themselves. over six weeks ago i raised this concern to the secretary of defense, joint chiefs of staff during an open meeting of the articled services committee. i asked them specifically that day, february 26th, what resources they needed, what additional money they needed to get ahead of this issue to prevent this from becoming a crisis. the response was very telling, the secretary of defense told me on that day they have not yet had the conversations internally to be able to answer that question. that was five weeks ago. you know what we learn in military leadership 101, the first step is to assess the problem, the threat, what it is you're facing and they weren't doing that at the time and that's why we're in this crisis. >> and congressman, you were an army ranger. joe biden issued a statement last night in part that donald trump's acting navy secretary shot the messenger and the navy sent a chilling message to the rest of the fleet about speaking truth to power. the poor judgment here belongs to the trump administration, not a courageous officer trying to

protect his sailors. to that point, let me ask both of you, congressman, you first, about the decision that was announced with great fanfare. apparently, something that had been in the works for months, it was announced with a lot of fanfare by the president two days ago in the preefibriefing o start a land and sea operation against drug traffickers at this time. why would we be putting our forces into close combat positions when the virus is so infectious on a drug operation that could be done a couple of months from now? congressman? >> yeah, the reason is they have no plan. this administration seems to be stumbling from one ad hoc decision to another. they have no global plan. there's failed leadership at almost every level of the administration. the unsn comfort sailed with grit fanfare from virginia to new york city with a sendoff by president trump. it's now sitting in a dock with

only 20 patients. people are very frustrated. they have no plan, no global response. now is the time for real thought. let's have some real thought. there are thousands of people dyeing, tens of thousands sick. this could get much worse. we need leadership. the administration is not going to be able to fire their way out of this problem. they can't continue to push responsibility down to the low levels, fire captains, fire people on the ground. it's time for them they respond and admit we're in a crisis and to start leading. i'm not optimistic that will happen given the history of this administration, but that's what needs to happen. >> admiral, as a former nato supreme allied commander, you had responsibility for forces in afghanistan as well. we understand they don't have test kits. they don't have any protective gear, at least they didn't in some of these forward bases such as afghanistan. >> all of this raises the very

important question of, how do the armed forces balance between these forward operational missions, afghanistan, our work in deterring china, the korean peninsula, where we have many forces. you mentioned nato. the deployment of the counternarcotics, teams and ships to go down in the face of -- continuing a flow of narcotics into the united states. i wouldn't understate that based on my three years as commander of the u.s. southern. but these are solid deployed missions and we have to find a way to balance the need to maintain those missions, andrea, with the help and security of our forces. and in particular we need to bear in mind if we can't keep the force healthy forward, none of those missions will be accomplished. so this balancing act is going to require planning, thinking engagement forward. i will simply close by saying,

the other balance here is going to be the u.s. military's support to the civilian world here in the united states in the face of covid. and there are many, many ways the military can help. the hospital ships were fully deployed. i'm quite certain the navy will pivot and find ways to make those more useful. the congressman makes a valid point that so far they have not been employed properly. but finding those two balances, andrea, forward deployment versus health of the force and the balance between what we need to do forward and what has to happen to support our efforts here in the united states, are going to require real nuanced leadership and decision making of the very highest order. >> thanks so much, admiral, congressman. thanks to both of you. coming up next -- could the drug president trump has been touting as a treatment for

covid-19 actually even stop the spread of the virus? one researcher leading a study into it joins me next. stay with me, you're watching "andrea mitchell reports." ll re" to schedule an appointment to give. now, with the corona virus outbreak, it is important to maintain a sufficient blood supply. your blood donation is critical and can help save lives. please schedule an appointment today. download the blood donor app. visit redcrossblood.org or call 1 800 red cross today. you can make a difference. it's an easy way to earn it's cashback on the stuff i'm already buying. when you have a child and they're constantly growing out of clothing, earning cashback from rakuten just makes everything easier. sometimes it's 3% sometimes it's 8% but you're always getting cashback. the way cashback works on rakuten is so they get a commission from the store and then they share that commission with me. and you have money, more money to spend

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some promising signs out of france and china in using a malaria drug to speed up recovery in covid-19 patients. now, the first major study is being conducted stateside, 2,000 people being enlisted for a clinical trial by the university of washington. the goal is preventing further

spread and protecting people exposed to the virus from infection. joining me now dr. lewin barnabas, leading this multi site clinical trial at the university of washington in collaboration with new york university school of medicine. dr. barnabas, thank you very much. tell us about how you think this might prove to be successful in actually spreading the infection to people who have been exposed. >> thank you so much for having me today, andrea. we are going to test hydroxychloroquine to stop the spread of transmission within communities. we know that more than three-quarters of transmissions occur within clusters. so we're going to give hydroxychloroquine or placebo equivalent to close contacts of people who have covid-19. these would be household members, people who have covid-19 or health care workers who have taken care of patients

without personal protective equipment. and then we'll follow -- >> and how long -- >> and then we'll follow -- >> i was going to ask you how long will it take before you know whether this is actually being successful? >> this will take us a few months, and we hope to have results in the summer. >> and if it is successful, it would mean that it could not only be used to try to ameliorate the effects of those infected but prevent it from spreading to members of the household or people close to them? >> yes. so we're testing the drug for prevention of spread between people, and so this will protect someone from acquiring covid-19. >> one of the problems, of course, is when the president first mentioned this, it led to potential shortages of this well-known drug for those who already take it for lupus and other ailments.

>> yes. so this is an area where we really need rigorous science. we need to test this in the right way and we need to do this as quickly as possible in order to answer the client specific questions. we have been exploring results that hydroxychloroquine could be effective, but we need solid evidence so we're conducting a vigorous trial in order to answer this question in as short a time as possible. >> thank you very much, dr. barnabas. thank you for sharing your study with us. and meanwhile, doctors and nurses from new york to california are risking their lives to save covid-19 patients risking their own lives and potentially those of their families. one new york city physician telling nbc news as an american, i feel ashamed. we shouldn't have to be scrounging for masks. the government has failed us. here here's more from the heroes working on the front lyons in their own words. >> we have never been in a

situation like this. oomgs. >> we're fighting a war and it's microscopic. >> our icu floors and in-patriot units have been filling up. >> a lot of sick people. a lot of sick people on vents. >> we see sick people a lot but not at this rate and this indis-crimm netly. >> we have people with heart failure and they become critical so quickly. >> it's getting worse. this war is going to take weeks, if not months. >> it's not clear to us when the peak is going to be and how bad it's going to be. >> i have anxiety from the unknown. >> we too are very apprehensive about what we're going to encounter in the field. >> before i go home every shift i think about are what are my chances of actually getting infected? >> you're going to get sick. but you will be fine if you get sick. life is going to be okay. >> we are stressed. we're all feared. our biggest fear is we won't

have enough equipment. >> running out of vents and ppes. >> we're basically being given the minimum protections of what we would have been afforded had we not faced any of this problem. >> we feel like we're in a fight with both hands tied behind our back and we're at a huge disadvantage. and that's not on us. it's on everybody else in leadership in this country. >> we need the help from the public. stay home. bend that curve. get that down. and that's going to help us. >> we want you to be scared enough to be prepared, to be participating in helping us flatten the curve. >> please stay home. please be our ally. >> please keep your social distances, six feet apart. if you don't have to go out to get essentials, don't go out and hand wash, handwash, handwash. >> i guarantee at the end of this pandemic, every single person will know someone who has lost their lives from this disease. do it for them. >> and our thanks, of course, to all of those first responders,

the doctors, the health workers, emts on the front line for everything they continue to do to save all of us. coming up -- why is the word methodism trending since last night? we'll tell you why after the break. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports." reports. $9.95 at my age?

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government's response explaining why bidding wars for critical equipment are being weighed by state governments. >> this product that we're moving is primarily commercial product that would enter the commercial system and be distributed through financial business transactions between hospitals and these distributors. >> just to clarify, that explains why states say they're bidding like they're on ebay, because the sploupplies are goi to the private sector, and then they have to go there. >> that's normally how things work, right? so i'm not here to disrupt a supply chain. >> joining me now are nbc white house correspondent and "weekend today" co-host kristen welker and reporter jeff mason. first, we're not here to disrupt the supply chain? i thought that's exactly what they are there for. i thought that's what fema was supposed to do is lead the way?

>> and that's part of the mixed messaging, andrea, that we have heard from this administration. reporters have been asking about this bidding war that governors have been complaining about, has been saying is such a large problem in terms of getting the critical supplies that they need for such a long time. the white house has indicated that they wanted to address it yesterday. you heard the white house essentially say, look, that's the way it is. we heard that message not only in the soundbite that you played but from the president himself, so essentially said, look, this is the way that things work. jared kushner, who came to the briefing room for the first time yesterday to address this crisis, essentially said look, this is supposed to be our stockpile. that was met with some raised eyebrows. and there's no indication that the white house has a plan for dealing with these bidding wars that continue to complicate governors' efforts, they say, to get the critical supplies, medical equipment, that they

need to those doctors, to the nurses, to the medical teams who are on the front line, andrea. now, there's going to be another briefing yet again today so you can expect some more tough questioning around this issue. of course, it also comes as the white house is signaling that they plan to within the coming days make a determination and order some of those hot spots to wear some type of face covering, people in those hot spots to wear some kind of face coverings when they go out. questions swirling around that, andrea, is the announcement going to be made and who will it apply to? >> and, andrea, as we continue to follow this, i know that jeff mason also reporting out from the white house talking to his sources, working on these angles as well.

jeff, i don't know if you can hear me, but what are your sources telling you about what, if anything, the white house plans to do to rectify this fight over the supply chain and governors saying that they aren't getting the medical equipment that they need? >> yeah, hi, kristen. i don't have anything new to add from what we heard from the briefing last night, but i think you're right it sparked some raised eyebrows, as you rightly said, and raised more questions. the frustration from governors has been very clear, and the president has tried and sought to play that down in these daily briefings. when we're questioning him about it. he's also made a point of saying that he wants to be thanked and that has created quite a bit of controversy as well. it was an interesting briefing on a few different levels. certainly jared kushner, as you mentioned, coming in and saying what he did about the national stockpile. and also saying this is the time

voters should think about electing somebody who is a good crisis manager, making sort of a dig there at the governors who have been critical of his father-in-law and perhaps making sort of a hint that his administration, that his father-in-law's administration, was one that should continue in november, even though that was an official briefing yesterday and not a campaign one. >> and, kristen, when you and chuck interrupt the briefing to give us fact checks that is so useful, so helpful, because we're hearing a lot of spin out of the white house, frankly. joe biden has criticized them as well for not putting someone in charge. kristen? >> and you saw that on display yesterday, andrea. this is yet another remarkable aspect of this briefing because, of course, the administration has said, look, fema has the lead when it comes to this response and presumably this supply chain as well but then, of course, when president trump invokes the defense production act, he said that peter navarro

would be leading that part of the effort and jared kushner yesterday talking about the supply chain as well. so you have governors and a number of state and local officials saying it's not clear who the real point person is on this. so that is yet another area where the white house might have to provide clarification. and one more point, andrea, they continue to get some tough questions around their decision not to renew the obamacare exchanges. president trump indicating he plans to try to fix that through legislation, but so far, we haven't gotten the specific details on how they're going to guarantee people who don't have insurance get coverage, particularly if they're dealing with the coronavirus. andrea? >> our thanks to kristen welker and jeff mason, to both of them. and we will be right back. like way more vanities perfect for you. nice. way more unique fixtures and tiles.

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with all of us staying at home amid the covid-19 pandemic, life can feel pretty repetitive.

days meld into each other. harry smith the beloved bill murray classic movie "groundhog day." ♪ then put your little hand in mine ♪ ♪. >> the moral of the movie is murray uses his time to make himself a better person. we're all live in a kind of groundhog day now. >> what would you do if you were stuck in one place and every day was exactly the same? and nothing that you did mattered? >> reporter: little changes for those of us who are hunkered down. honestly, can you tell me the day of the week? >> for a second there, al, i forgot what day it was. >> reporter: what many of us did not anticipate was the coronavirus partner pathogen, anxiety. how do pay the bills. when can we go back to work? should i get a test? are my adult kids or my parents

abiding by the distance guidelines? the numbers keep going up. >> 92,000 tested positive. 13,000 currently hospitalized. >> reporter: and the news only grows more urgent. >> temporary morgues now set up outside of some hospitals. >> reporter: morality estimates enough to sober even the most cavalier. >> new projections show as many as 240,000 deaths in the united states over the coming months. >> reporter: yet as we worry, we wonder how on earth they do it. >> i'd be lying if i said i wasn't scared. >> reporter: the health professionals who face the pandemic every day. what we see are face shields and gurneys. what they see are people with needs sometimes they cannot meet. and co-workers who themselves are getting sick. the first responders in some parts of new york, neighbors say it seems the sirens never stop.

the empire state building lit like an ambulance every night. we cook, we cope. we watch crazy tv shows. >> this is my way of living and nobody is going to tell me any other way. >> reporter: the guy with the lions and tigers, oh, my. for some of us, turner classic movies has been the answer. >> operator. i want to speak to the hotel ritz. please, hurry. this is an emergency. >> reporter: the world in simple black and white. music abounds and the virtual orchestras and choruses uplift us. yet as spring sets in, our souls yearn for the rituals of lent and passover. holy week. we miss that feeling of community. >> let's get you some place warm. >> reporter: in the movie, bill murray's weatherman found the answer in service. and this week, we saw restaurants delivering meals to

hospitals. and the newspaper delivery man tending to the needs of his shut-in customers, one by one. >> get a chance to help them, you help them. >> reporter: but the person who inspired us most is this texan introduced to us by cynthia mcfadden. chris austin's backyard business is cranking out hundreds of ventilator helmets every day. >> what if that was our son or daughter or grandfather sitting in that bed grasping for air and we have to explain to him that, i'm sorry. we don't have anything for you. and this, i think, will make it much more available for a larger number of people. >> reporter: the cost, $162 each. and, get this, he's willing to share his design with other manufacturers for free. >> take care of yourselves. take care of your loved ones. chris jansing picks it up on the

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hello, everyone. i'm chris jansing. at this hour the cases of coronavirus just keep excelerating. now topping 1 million. hundreds of thousands of people lost their jobs, today in the u.s. we have more confusion and policy reversals in the fight against the pandemic. after weeks of saying no, the cdc is now expected to recommend that ame