my friend and colleague katy tur. just a whorrendous situatio. we have 20 or 21 ventilators here running in this emergency department. in the hospital we have 90 ventilators running. and we only have a few left to is spare. the humanity is just horrible. >> that was dr. ernie patty with a glimpse of what it looks like is and sounds like on the front lines of this fight. welcome to mtp mail day and the start of what is going to be a

difficult week. i'm california ity tur. continuing msnbc's breaking news of the coronavirus pandemic. we're standing by for the start of today's coronavirus briefing at the white house. as the number of deaths has now passed 10,000 here in the u.s. boris johnson, who like president trump, initially down played the threat, is now in intensive care and as public health official here's at home are sounding the alarm, that it's going to get significantly worse. >> the next week is going to be our pearl harbor moment. it's going to be the hardest moment for many americans in their entire lives. >> things are going to get bad. we are struggling to get it under control. >> this is the moment to not be going to the grocery store or the pharmacy, but doing everything you can to keep your

family and your friends safe. >> for the next week and a half are going to be very difficult. >> if we let our foot off the gas, and start doing things ul advised, we could have another peak in a few weeks. >> the number of confirmed cases in the u.s. has surpassed 350,000. the number is significantly higher due to the chronicled blind spot from a lack of adequate testing. a at the epicenter in new york, governor cuomo now says there's early data suggesting it could be at or near a peak in cases, which would be earlier than expected he warned that the hospital system here in new york could not take anymore strain and states like california and oregon are sending hundreds of ventilators to help these hospitals cope with the surge. on the front lines, hospitals all over the country are facing severe shortages of testing

supplies, extended wait times for results, widespread shortages of protective equipment, supplies and staff, and confusing guidance from the government and that is according to results from a survey of hundreds of hospitals conducted by a trump administration health care watchdog. journalists have begun to peel back the onion of the government's many mistakes, missteps and failures, which led to the pearl harbor moment, as you just heard the surgeon general describe it. the "washington post" reports the failure has echoes of the period leading up to 9/11. warnings were sounded, including at the highest levels of the government, but the president was deaf to them until the enemy had had already struck. joining me from the white house as we wait for the coronavirus task force is my colleague kristen welker. also with us for insight into the west wing is "new york times" chief white house correspondent peter baker.

also with us for the medical side of things is dr. badelia, medical director of the special pathogens unit at boston medical center. she's also an nbc news medical contributor. kristen, i want to start with you. i was wondering after news of boris johnson going into the icu whether this administration, the president would start to change the way they do business specifically at these task force briefings. what we're seeing on the screens now is that they are still using the brady briefing room. and they have still using the small stage. will we see the president alone or everyone crowded around him as we have seen up until now? >> based on my conversations here so far, it doesn't appear as though there are going to be any significant changes in protocol. the white house press secretary told me bluntly no when i asked her if there was going to be changes. he added we're confident in the protocols the white house has in place and as the president said

many times, he feels great and recently tested negative. he has, in fact, tested twice for covid-19 and tested negative both times. now they do have a number of protocols in place here. everyone who enters is the brady press briefing room has to have their temperature taken. you have to have your temperature taken into the white house complex and then over the weekend, we learn ed that the administration was taking it a step further. that those official who is are in close contact with president trump and vice president pence actually have to be tested for covid-19. that applies to officials does not apply to journalists. so a at this point in time, the administration signaling they aren't anticipating any changes. president trump was asked about this yesterday if he needs to be more distant from vice president mike pence. to prkt both of them. and he cede that wasn't necessary at this point in time. they feel very confident in the protections that they already

have in place. he's going to get asked about this when he does come to the briefing room and i'm told that's when we'll get our first reaction to the prime minister's condition. >> i know they are taking temperatures, but all of the health experts have said you can be asymptomatic, that means no fever and still pass on this virus. there are people that are doing that. i'm also curious about the tests that those around the president are getting. how often are are they getting those tests and is it prudent considering the widespread shortage of tests all around this country? >> you heard the administration talk about that rapid test president trump himself got that rapid test on thursday. and talked about the fact that he took it because he was curious to see how quickly the resultings would come in. there's no doubt that this does not apply to everyone. not everyone has access yet to

the rapid tests. how frequently are the officials being tested? we're told relagularly. it's not cheer how frequently the tests are taking place. but again, the administration insists that they are confident this the protections and the protocols that they have in place. now this has been an evolve iin and a changing situation not only here at the white house, but across the country. could they take another hard look at protocols in the coming days, that remains to be seen. but they insist they feel confident in what they have. >> peter baker, we keep getting evidence that this virus is indiscriminate and doesn't care who you are. what we see now is that it has changed the power dynamic of a major nation. the uk's prime minister is now in the icu. that means he cannot run the country while he's this. he didn't take it very seriously for many weeks leading up to this point. it was only a late start. he's been criticized for it. the president also didn't take

the threat of this virus seriously until way late in the game. now there's been a ton of reporting about all the warnings that were given to the administration and given to the president that were not heeded. tell me about what we're learning about the time wasted up until the virus had already spread. >> that's a great question. boris johnson isn't is the only foreign leader currently to be affected by this. others have been quarantined including angela merkel of germany, justin trudeau of canada. to have the president's friend, the one foreign leader to be considered a friend now in the icu, much more serious turn of events has to be a wakeup call for him. it took weeks for the president to begin acting more aggressively about this. it's been well chronicle d sayig it would go away.

pressure days and weeks went by in terms of not getting the test kit cans out to people a at the rate the president himself said they would be out. i was with him at the cdc. anybody who wants a test can get a test. i'm not sure that's true today. and obviously, in terms of medical equipment, masks, ventilators, all of that has been ramped up a lot in the last few days. but it's opposed to february or earlier when it might have been on available to these hospitals right now when they need it the most. >> i want more in what the delay means and the consequences with our doctor. but kristen before you have to run, there's news that the president and former vice president joe biden spoke today. that was first confirmed. the biden team is not giving anymore detail.

have you heard anymore from the white house side? >> us haven't but i reached out to multiple officials try ingin get a read out of the call. what we do know about the conversation they discussed the covid-19 crisis. the former vice president c signaling that he was willing to try to help in the response to try to offer some ideas. we know the vice president from his home quart rs has been speaking out about this quite frequently. first urged president trump several weeks ago to tully use the defense production act. so he's been quite outspoken on this matter. what specifically did they discuss, will they continue to be in contact. that remains to be seen because if you looked on the two leaders. they are taking jab at each other. they were tweeting back and forth and again this is yet another question that we'll try to put to president trump himself when we see him later on this evening. >> peter bakeer, there's going

to be a lot of people scratching their heads about the two of them get object the phone. just for all of us, is there historical precedent for this where the candidates in touch with george bush during the financial meltdown in 2008? >> it reminds me of the financial crisis. really chorus to the election than we are now. john mccain called for him and barack obama to go to the white house to try to signal a bipartisan resolve to address this crisis. they met in the cabinet room with the president, with then speaker pelosi, with the cabinet secretaries for the purpose of saying republicans and democrats are going to be in this together despite the campaign. i don't know that meeting necessarily led to where john mccain wanted it to go. it was seen by some as a discussion that didn't really bring people together.

it sent a signal that john mccain wanted to send. you could be run ining for president and still come together on the most important things. >> whether it goes anywhere, it's hard to say. it doesn't sound like any one of them wants to get together and try to have a joint message. but it's a time when the country is looking for leadership. and these two are two main leaders of the two parties. >> who have traded inis subtles. it's also a different time because george bush wasn't running for reelection. he was term limited. donald trump is still in this race. and back then you weren't trading twitter jabs or have the president of the united states ensubtling the democrats because he did not agree with them. you want to go back to the medical side of this. this terms of the delay and

there's been reporting from "the new york times" and "the washington post" a number of outlets about everything happening behind the scenes from when the administration first learned of the threat become on january 3rd when they first were alerted to what was going on in china, when you consider they first found out about it on january 3rd, if quicker action, more decisive action was taken more quickly, what would we have been seeing today instead? >> it's interesting. this is not an exchild abusive pandemic. we have faced pandemics before and know the importance of testing. we know if you can do widespread testing up and running and do widespread testing up front, you can isolate geographical areas where you see a large activity and groups of people that might have this disease and do intensive case finding. we look for everybody else that

might be around them that's sick and do contact tracing. we look for everybody else they may have come into contact with and followed them until they are out of the danger zone. and that would have allowed us to limit. it's not just about containment. it would have been about making sure the cases we already knew didn't turn b into two more cases, four more cases, eight more cases. but even now, we require that testing to figure out who is positive and isn't positive. aside from just the drugs that we have talked about, there's no current fda approved drug, but there's many drugs for which the fda has released emergency use authorizations. doctors use your ethical judgment. a lot of these drugs may have side effects and may not have any benefit and give those drugs to people based on your best judgment and consideration and discussion with the patient.

so not knowing if a patient is positive, you lose that ability to make a judgment of do we give this person who is coming in and wait iing a day or two the drug that's in front of us. you can quickly isolate them. right now we're stuck treating a lot of people waiting for tests. but at the same type of intensity with personal protective equipment and as we would do if they turned out to be negative. so it still remains important. and this week because as you heard, the metropolitan areas in the country are hitting their peak. that just means we are going to see the rate at some point, the rate of acceleration of this case come to a potential top peak. that doesn't mean the cases are going away the next day. we're still dpoing 206 a long plateau and testing is going to remain important throughout this entire time. >> that's what i was going to ask you. we're talking about reach iing e

apex in new york potentially today. some might look at that and think good, that means the threat is going to start to diminish. you're say iing that's not the case. there's this structure in place or this time line in place that says april 30th might be the deadline for us or the earliest we might be able to lift these social distancing restrictions. can we even consider doing that if we don't have enough testing out there? don't we need to get a handle on testing the majority of the population or anyone who wants a test as the president claimed a month ago chrks is not the case, before we can have realistic outlook of send iing people bac to work safely? >> i'm so glad you brought that up. so the most important thing is this concept of flattening the curve. the idea that what you want we know the only way to get to the other side of the pandemic is when we make everyone immune to

the disease. we may be immune from what we're finding out. the way we get on the other side of this, is to make sure that we grant that immunity so people are protected. 23 you flatten the curve, it becomes a plateau toe. that's at a low rate. so we're still expecting people to get sick. if you look at the experience of those everybody is olding their breath. it's not going to be a magic wand moments where you say great, social distancing is over. we can relax. it's going to be stop and go and saying no, maybe we need to stop in this area. and make decisions about when that stops depending on the m metropolitan area. and what it looks like. it's got going to be easy.

to try to make sure until we get the vaccine people are safe. skbl>> i think it's better to b realistic so we can set realistic expectations for what the next few months at the very least might look like. thank you very much. peter baker, thank you as always for your expertise. and kristen welker who headed into that briefing, we appreciate your time as well. we're awaiting the start of the briefing. once it begins, we'll bring it to you live. along with updates on the a pandemic response here at home, we expect the president will be asked about the condition of uk prime minister boris johnson. who is as we just said now in intensive care. keep iter keir. here. iter keir here say this pizza is your part b medical expenses.

this much - about 80% - medicare will pay for. what's left is on you. that's where an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company comes in. this type of plan helps pay some of what medicare doesn't. these are the only plans to carry the aarp endorsement for meeting their high standards of quality and service. so call unitedhealthcare insurance company today and ask for your free decision guide. with this type of plan, you'll have the freedom to choose any doctor who accepts medicare patients. and when you travel, your plan will go with you - anywhere in the country. whew! call unitedhealthcare today and ask for your free decision guide. call unitedhealthcare today you can't always stop for a fingerstick.betes with the freestyle libre 14 day system, a continuous glucose monitor, you don't have to. with a painless, one-second scan

you can check your glucose with a smart phone or reader so you can stay in the moment. no matter where you are or what you're doing. ask your doctor for a prescription for the freestyle libre 14 day system. you can do it without fingersticks. learn more at freestylelibre.us.

yeah. this moving thing never gets any easier. well, xfinity makes moving super easy. i can transfer my internet and tv service in about a minute. wow, that is easy. almost as easy as having those guys help you move. we are those guys. that's you? the truck adds 10 pounds. in the arms. -okay... transfer your service online in a few easy steps. now that's simple, easy, awesome. transfer your service in minutes, making moving with xfinity a breeze. visit xfinity.com/moving today.

i don't think this pandemic is over. i think we have yet to get to the worst of it. unfortunately. >> i adopt think it's over. hopefully we're toward the end of it. who knows. >> the pandemic is not over. >> they should be wearing masks. welcome become. the top scientists and doctors in the coronavirus task force are warning that this is going to be a very tough week in the fight against the pandemic. today the death toll in new york topped 4700 with more than 130,000 new yorkers having tested positive. and according to the world health organization, only four countries, italy, spain, france and the uk have reported more covid-19 deaths than new york. here's another stark way to look at it. this map shows the northeast is the most intense hot spot in the country right now. ron allen joins us live from new

york on long island where nearly 30,000 people have tested positive for the virus and more than 700 people have died. so ron, governor cuomo warned that the next hot spot could be long island. tell me are hospitals on that area prepared for this? do they have the ventilators? do they have the ppe? do they have the beds? >> today yes, tomorrow, maybe is the best answer. that's how everyone feels out here. they are bracing for this. it's no surprise the cases are spiking out here. we're just on the suburbs of outside new york city. the numbers here have been 2,000 cases a a day over the past few days. so it's the ripple effect they are calling it from being so close to new york city people commute back and forth. it's almost an extension of what's happening here. the hospital here now they have the tent behind me.

it's in anticipation of more case ace arriving. they have been trying to make a hospital ward. they have done the same thing with a conference room.egion be trying to increase capacity by 50 to 100%. and so that's what's happening. they are trying to do that. in terms of supplies east of where we are now, the county executive warned over the weekend he had run out of supplies. ppe supplies, just run out of them. and he was desperately appealing to the rest of the country to help out. the white house heard this plea and sent down 200,000 masks that are supposed to be arriving along with 30 day of other supplies. so that's happened. there's another example of how local governments and communities are doing the best they can to save themselves.

we have heard stories about state asks regions and governments competing on the market for the same goods. ventilators and protective equipment ask so forth. here in long island, the warning is that this is going to be a tough week. but you heard he extended the pause until the end of april, which i think was pretty sobering for a lot of people. because that essentially means that we still have a good month of what we have been doing already for several weeks. so people are talking about whether school will resume in the area. like lu hood perhaps not. it's going to be an impact impact. so many things are closed down. they are not getting paid. while it was continue hiting hard in the city, now we're 20 minutes from brooklyn or so. it's hitting hard here. >> ron, i'm so sorry to interrupt you. please forgive me.

we have to go now to new york governor andrew cuomo, who is joining us by phone. we understand, thank you for being here, you have an announcement about the usns. tell me what you have. >> yes, thauk for having me. good afternoon. as you just heard on your coverage, obviously, the entire down state metropolitan area has been a hot spot. long island, west chchester, ne york city, and the system is at capacity and people have been work iing at capacity for 30 da now. the outlet valve, if you will, that we are creating for the entire down state area is a major facility at the convention center. 2500 beds. which the president agreed to and will be staffed by federal percesonne personnel, which is a major benefit because these are

professional personnel who can take a load off the existing system. and us spoke with the president this morning and asked if the usns comfort an additional thousand beds could also take covid patients. the original plan to do non-covid patients from the hospital system. as it turns out, we don't have many non-covid systems. because when you close everything down, the silver lining was traffic accidents, crime went down, so we really need help with the covid patients. the president spoke to the department of defense and granted that request to use the navy ship comfort for covid patients. so that's an additional 1,000 beds. with federal personnel managing that ship. so that's a welcome relief. and the president grant ed the

request. he did it quickly. s he called back this afternoon and said it was done. the 1,000 beds of the comfort, that should be a major, major relief system for already overtaxed hospital system. >> you talk about an overtaxed system. i can tell you from personal stories i'm getting from loved ones of mine, i have a friend whose mother is a 73-year-old mother, sat in a chair in the emergency room in brooklyn for over 30 hours. she tested positive for covid. she had a cough, fever, chills. has covid-related pneumonia. there just wasn't a bed for her. so given that lot of these ers are overloaded, will ambulances

start to be redirected to the usns and how quickly can that happen? >> well, what you're talking about is happening all over the down state area. we have a system that is overcapacity, period. physical bed capacity in most cases, staff, stress, supplies, et set ra. the relief of the comfort will help alleviate the situation you're talking about. we're not planning the ambula e ambulances to go directly to comfort because these are emergency facilities that are obviously just being set up. and they don't really have the intake assessment that you need. so the ambulance would still go to the glolocal hospital, which the shortest trip. we're talking about the down state area, but it can take you

a significant amount of time to drive from nassau county, let's say, to west side of manhattan, which is where the comfort is. so you still go to the local hospital and do the intake there. but then the hospital would refer the person and the person would be transported to the comfort. so the person receives immediate assessment, immediate relief and then gets transported to the comfort. >> are you hearing about any issues with that or any issues that might come up with that? when i was speaking to an e.r. doctor, i asked about moving patients to facilities that might be less overwhelmed than others. they said the issue that they are having with patients is that their conditions can turn on a dime and be fine one moment ask then in respiratory failure the next or cardiac arrest the next. are there going to be issues

with transferring some patients? >> well, we have so many, katy, that the condition that they are in ranges. some are more towards the earlier stage. then you're right, you have many which are sort of right on the bubble where they could become the situation right away. that's why the hospital at the assessment center determining which patients to refer in the comfort. makes sense because if a person can turn a acute on a moment's notice, then they shouldn't be taking the vabs ride. so that's a determination the hospital will make. but any relief that we can bring to these emergency rooms and intensive care units is good. and this will be significant

capacity on the back end relief valve basis. >> can you clear up where this state stands with ventilators? i know you deployed the national guard the other day to redistribute ventilators from update state to down state, the places that need it the most immediately. today you said that the hospital system is overcapacity, but then there are also some still in reserve. can you explain how we can be over capacity and still have some in reserve? >> because we ahave gotten very creative on how we use ventilators and what can be used as vebt lant the laters. there's a machine called the bipap machine, which is not technically considered a ventilator in the way we define it. but you can use the machine. you can use ventilators that run

a system that handles two patients. so we have gone to strategies like that. and right now we have haven ventilating capacity for every hospital. we have a couple hundred in reserve. so there's no hospital in down state new york that needs ventilating capacity today. as you heard on a previous report that you did, every hospital will say we're okay for today. we're okay for the next couple days. but beyond that, we can't answer. and that's true for the entire system. we are hope iing that we're see

a flattening of the increase. and if the increase in cases is flatteni flattening, then we can stretch and manage that need. god forbid the cases go up again, we're going to have a real problem. but if the curve is flattening, for the next two or three days, the entire system we're okay. and we have some in reserve b. but again, that's only if the curve is flattening. if the curve continues to go up, we're going to have a different set of issues to deal with. >> governor, us show northeast you said you don't want to get into a back and torte with the president, but it seems like the president is constantly responding to a request that you made publicly by saying that you're exaggerating the need or always asking for more or that you're not grateful enough to

him. do you have to be grateful to the president in order to make sure that new yorkers and the hospitals here are getting the equipment they need? >> what's most important to me right now is new york gets the help that it needs. that's my singular focus. and i will do whatever i can do to help achieve that. the president is right. i have continually asked the federal government for assistance. look at the numbers in new york. no one anticipated these this level of need and the state can't do it on its own. and we do need federal assistance. i was in the federal government, i believe, that's in this type of situation. it's a federal emergency.

they have a role. so the questions are justified, but he's right. he's constantly requested assistance because we need it. and i said with the system from day one, there's no doubt he and i have different views on many issues. i probably the governor in the country who has been most critical of the policies. and i can tell you the president has most criticized. and when this started, i said, look, we have to work together. and if you help me for new york, i will call it the way it is and say you delivered and he delivered today. and if i don't think the federal government is meeting its correspondent, i will say that. it's just the plain truth. sometimes it comes down to the the plain truth where we are as a nation, this is plain truth

time. there's no political nuance. there's no spin. people are dying. everybody has a role to play. everyone has to do their job. and we have to cooperate and work together. and if i believe you're doing your job, i will say it. and i will thank you. if i believe you're not doing your job and you're not being helpful where you should, i will say that too. and i don't care what political party you are. us don't care what happened in the past. it's the here and now that matters. >> spoken like a true new yorker, plain truth. i'm sorry to hog all your time, but i want to ask one question before we go to the briefing. how is your brother? >> he is doing okay. there's no doubt this is a tough one. and we will experience with

different people. us can tell you that chris is a tough dpiguy. he's truly a tough guy. he's gone through a lot. he's had a lot of illnesses. and i talked to him, obviously, constantly. and this is really been difficult for him. and he's not a complainer, by la and and large. this has been a tough one. he's in good shape. he's relatively young. so he's not in the vulnerable category we talk about. but i can tell you he's suffering. >> governor andrew cuomo, thank you so much. best to you and your family. stay safe. we appreciate your time. we are now under two minutes before the white house coronavirus task force briefing. with that i want to toss it to my friend and colleague brian williams. >> hey, katy. we are indeed waiting. all eyes on the white house

briefing room in the west wing once again. this, of course, will be the first time we have had to get on camera reaction from the president to his friend and fellow leaderthe uk having been intensive care. his condition apparently worsening over the past few days. there's been fresh reporting since we last heard from the president about exactly how much time transpired between the first word the white house had of this new developing virus in asia and the first actions they took. certainly the actions we're witnessing now with over 80% of us under some form of stay at home order. this is the first time we will have heard from the president since the death toll has spiked over 10,000. we have been listening to governor cuomo.

sadly, new york is now home to varieirtually half of that that death toll. joe biden spoke to the president today. you see an aid bringing out some of the documents. and so much for social distancing, as there's a bottleneck at the door. dr. fauci going to take his place off to the side. you see the coast guard admiral and dr. berks awaiting the arrival of the president. we are likely to hear the president relitigate that drug today. and still no idea if there's something new we're expecting. this follows the daily with meeting of the task force inside the white house. normally, the vice president has

accompanied the president for this. peter alex apder, knowing we may have to cut things short here, if the door blue slides open, anything you can add by way of background today over at the white house? >> i think it's likely we'll hear the president address a couple thing this is the course of this conversation. i'm told by sources close to him it's likely he will certainly come out and speak about his friend boris johnson, the prime minister of the united kingdom, given our learninged to he's now in intensive care. when nbc news reached out to the press secretary today for better indications whether the white house was considering any addition protocols or change in the way they try to protect president trump given what we leshed about another foreign leader today. grisham told us no. i see the president. >> thank you, peter. here we go.

>> this week america continues our aggressive effort to defeat the virus as we enter a crucial phase of the battle. we continue to send our prayers to the people of new york and new jersey and to our whole country. but right now, new york and new jersey are very hot zones. and we're with them, we're with everybody. your struggle is our struggle. we will beat this virus together. i also want to send best wish s to a very good friend of mine and a friend to our nation, prime minister boris johnson. we're very saddened to hear that he was stake taken into intensive care this afternoon, a little while ago. and americans are all praying for his recovery. he's been a good friend. he's been special. he doesn't quit or give up.

we have made tremendous progress or therapeutics. i had a fantastic call today, which i will be talking about a little later. and i have asked two of the leading companies, these are brilliant companies. ebola, aids, others, they have come with the solutions and just have done incredible jobs. and i have asked them to contact london immediately. they have a offices in london, major companies. but more than major, they are genius. and i had a talk with four of them today. and they speak a language most don't even understand. but they have really advanced. they have arrived in london already. the london office has whatever they need and we'll see if we can be of help. we have contacted all of boris's

doctors and we'll see what is going to take place. but they are ready to go. but it gets serious. so the two companies are there. and with what they are talking about, it's rather complex. and has had really incredible results. we are working with the fda and everybody else, but we are working with london with respect to boris johnson. across the country, we're attacking the enemy at all frontings including medical, scientific, social, logistical and economic. we're pressing into action the full power of american government and american enterprise and our military has been incredible. we have just sent 3,000 public health personnel. they are now depoliloyed in the

nonew york area over at the great ship. and as you probably have heard, i was informed that governor cuomo has already told you and announced he called me up and asked whether or not it would be possible to use the ship with respect to fighting the virus. we hadn't had had that in mind at all, but we're going to let him do it. we're also going to let new jersey, governor murphy, we spoke with him a little while ago. new jersey is going to use it also. new jersey is a hot spot. so governor murphy and cuomo will be using the ship. new york, new jersey and it's a big ship. and it's now covid. it's set for covid. hopefully that will be very helpful to both states.

it's going to be man ned now by the mull tear and they should be in place tomorrow. and they will start sending quite a few over to the center. it's convenient and right in the middle of everything. so that will be something great. and we appreciatedr cuomo's really nice statements and like wise governor murphy. we have worked very well with both of them and with, frankly, all of the governors. vice president pence had a call this morning with them that lasted for close to two hours. and i understand there wasn't a negative person on the call. 50 governors or just about 50 governors. i think they were all on from what i understood. and they were very positive about everything. their federal government has been doing for them. you'll hear what that is. it's rather amazing actually.

nationwide the army corp. of engineers is building 22 field hospitals. these are big hospitals. and alternate care sites in 18 states. so you have a combination of 22 field hospitals in addition to that we're building alternate care sites, which is a little bit of a smaller version of the hospital. and we have a lot of them they are going up in 18 different states. . in total we have deployed 8,450 hospital beds from federal stockpiles. if you think this is done over a period of really a period of weeks, it's incredible. more than 8,000 ventilators have been sent to our cities and states. backed by the defense production act, which we have used very strongly and powerfully. so powerfully we don't have to use it too much. it's nice when you don't have to. we are getting more than we ever bargained for.

american industry is stepping up. manufacturers are really going to town. we have thousands of ventilators being built as we speak. and we have hundreds that are being sent to different locations. we're ready to roll with almost 10,000 that we have in the federal stockpile. when us say ready to roll, i mean exactly what that states. wherever that monster goes, we're automobile to move with it. great flexibility, we have tremendous flexibility. is we have people waiting and they are ready, willing and able, but waiting to bring them wherever it may be. if they need it. if they need it. it's possible that they won't be needed. that we are fully stocked because numbers are coming this where because of what the american people are doing, we're having fewer hospital visits. i think that could be the case in new york. it could be the case in a few

other states. and fewer beds, us fewer hospital visits mean fewer ventilators. so we'll see whether or not our original projections were right. but i had a very good talk with both governors. i think they are very happy about the what we're doing for them. especially going all covid. so that will take place almost immediately. fema and hs have directly distributed 11.7 respirators. think of that. 11.7 million respirators. 26.5 million surgical masks, 5.3 million face shields, 4.4 million surgical gowns and 22.6 million gloves. we have also arranged for vast

quantities of additional materials to be allocated through donations and existing supply chains. we have also given tremendous medical material and supplies throughout the 50 states and supplies into the united states from overseas. we had an additional three -- these are massive planes by the way, the big planes. they're very big, very powerful. they're loaded to the gills with supplies, and rather than bringing them into our stockpile, as we discussed we bring them to all the different locations. because of my actions, i can announce today that we have reached an agreement very amicable agreement with 3m for the delivery of an additional 55.5 million high quality

facemasks, each month so that we're going to be getting over the next couple of months 166.5 million masks for our frontline health care workers. so the 3m saga ends very happily. we're very proud to be dealing now with 3m and its ceo, mike roweman, i just spoke with him and thanked him for getting it done. mike was very happy to get it done. great company. so we're getting 166.5 million masks, and mostly that's going to be for our frontline health care workers. okay? that's 3m. thank you, 3m. i also want to thank apple, one of the great american companies that has leapt into action. apple announced it's producing plastic face shields for health care workers at the rate of 1

million per week. and these are the shields you see on television quite a bit. and they're at the highest level of quality and safety. we're grateful, as well, to sales force, which has donated 48 million pieces of personal protective equipment, including masks, gowns, suits, and face shields. so thank you very much to sales force. i urge all of our nation's governors to ensure that the massive deliveries we have made to your states over the past few weeks are distributed as quickly as possible. so, again, we're working very well with the governors. they may see you and say we're not happy. but they're very happy on the phone. and mike pence is a straight shooter, and he had a grade conversation to them with all the governors, a teleconference. they're very happy, every one of them. were there any negatives? >> no, sir. >> see, i told you. mike is the greatest.

mike, you have done a great job. the whole country appreciates it. >> thank you, mr. president. >> see, everybody appreciates mike. a special man. so a lot of the things that we've done, again, are going directly to the states. the states seem to be very happy. if not, they can call me or mike directly and we'll make them happy. but a tremendous progress has been made in a short period. and importantly, the progress has been made before the surge comes, because the next week, week and a half is going to be a big surge, the professionals tell us. and i think we're in good shape for it, anthony. so it's good timing. we can have the stuff there, it's already there for the most part, but we're bringing a lot of different resources to the various locations, especially where the surge is looking like it's going to take place.

resources from the national stockpile need to reach our warriors. and they are warriors. i saw it again this morning. these young in many cases, in many cases older, but they're walking into the hospital and they're putting on gowns, i mean, as their doors open, they go into this place, and, you know, it's not exactly too safe. and they're going in there and putting the outfits on and putting their masks on and it's incredible. it's truly like no different than you watch the war movies or you watch the old clips of war, running uphills. to me, it's the same thing. men and women, young and old, but a lot of young people just going in there, not thinking about oh, gee, this is dangerous. they're not saying, oh, i don't want to go in. they're warriors running through those doors. it's the most incredible thing. it's beautiful. it's an incredible, beautiful thing. resources from the national stockpile need to reach these

warriors in a hospital immediately, and we're making sure they do. again, the states have that responsibility, but we're working with the states and getting the states a lot of things that they can distribute or they can tell us when they bring it directly from the federal stockpile or the planes that land without going to the stockpi stockpile. if any state is having difficulty drivering supplies, we urge you to use the national guard. you have done a fantastic job. deborah, tony, you have done great. what a job you have done. i appreciate it. your whole group has been incredib incredible. that's a lot of stars you have, i'll tell you that. he's supposed to do a great job when you have four stars, right? but the military has been incredible. and i thank them for all of us. conversely, the state believes that it has surplus agreement,

very important, because we have gotten so much to some of the states that they're able to now -- they've done a fantastic job and they have kept that line low. and we have some states that have surplus equipment and supplies, and they're working with us to rapidly redeploy those supplies to areas of greatest need. we thought that might happen. if it worked out well, that's what was going to happen. and it's happening. and i want to thank governor gavin newsom, who is doing a tremendous job, who has announced california will send 500 ventilators to be distributed to other locations. i think some are going to arizona, some are going to washington, d.c. we think they're going to delaware. we're working it out. but 500 excess ventilators from the state of california and we're going to get them taken care of, wherever they have to go. those decisions are being made

right now. the members of the white house task force and i are in close touch with mayors and governors and hospital administrators across our country. and we're told that the present time, at the present time, most of the critical needs are being more than met. states have to continue sharing detailed information in the amount and utilization rates of medical supplies, so we know what to resupply them, or they can get it directly. thane colludes ventilators. ideally, if they can get it directly. if they can't, if they're up able, we have a tremendous amount of supplies that we're building up very fast here. this is before the big surge. this information is fundamental to our ability to deliver the material when and where it's most needed. now mike in his conversation today, i think got some

information as to a couple of locations where we're going to be delivering large numbers of ventilators and large numbers of medical supplies. so we'll take care of that. but some of the states are very happy. even governor pritzker from illinois is happy. of course rn, he may not be hap when he talks to the press, but he's a very happy man. we're hopeful that the aggressive mitigation strategy we put into place will allow our hospital system to successfully manage the major influx of cases that we have right now. again, i say that we're finding -- because of the incredible job done by the american people, in conjunction with everybody. governors, the military, federal government, state government, local government. had a lot of conversations with new york city and mayor de blasio. gotten to know him. didn't know him. gotten to know him.

and a lot of people are working hard. everybody is working hard. a lot of people are doing a great job, i tell you that. a lot of people are doing a great job. but the goal is that all americans have been sacrificing to achieve these last few weeks, things that a lot of people thought were not possible to achieve. and i think we have more than achieved, but we have to go through. again, we're going to have a rough week, we're going to have maybe a little more than a week. but there's question light at the end of that tunnel. i said it last time, said it last night, there's tremendous light at the end of the tunnel. there's so many things happening with therapeutics, vaccines, with things we really want. deborah, tony, they're all working so hard on this. but those therapeutics, look, the vaccines are always going to be later because of that testing period. but the therapeutics, getting the kind of things i heard about today, talking to these brilliant companies and people

on the phone is fantastic. it was such an incredible conversation. i also spoke just a few minutes ago with vice president -- former vice president biden, who called and we had a really wonderful, warm conversation. it was a very nice conversation. we talked about pretty much this. this is what we talked about. this is what everyone is talking about. this is what they want to talk about. and he gave me his point of view, and i fully understood that. and we just had a very friendly conversation. lasted probably 15 minutes. and it was really good. it was really good. really nice. i think it was very much so. i appreciate his calling. as we continue to develop treatments and cures this afternoon, i spoke with leaders of the ameri