just accessing like the simple programs like the snap food stamp program, you're dealing with bureaucracies and applications, so there's a host of need on the legal front. we're hearing about it all across the board. the court system with chief judge janet defury working with the new york state bar association are just asking for volunteers, lawyers who are volunteers to help with the myriad of issues. they'll coordinate it. they need to have legal volunteers first so they're asking for the lawyers to come forward and then they'll put them together with the clients who come forward. anyone have anything more on that? no? >> governor, was the extra 600 a one-time thing for those on unemployment and also the 200 million you had announced for low income households and food. how is that being distributed and what can they expect? >> who wants to answer that? rob? >> the 600 will continue right

through the period through the 36 life month, 39-month period and potentially after december 31st could be an additional 600 after that but we're waiting for that. >> for the food and local households, how is that being distributed? >> rob? >> which 200 million? >> 200 million announced yesterday and the day before. >> for the snap funding? >> that's going to go through the normal process, through the agencies that will all go out immediately. >> is that also backed number a similar way to the unemployment system or is that firing on all cylinders. >> we haven't had any issues. it's all moving. >> a few days ago basically said it's like people, democrats want to see you replace joe biden on the ticket. wanted your reaction and what you think of that? would you consider doing that? >> democrats would like to see me replace joe biden on the ticket? that is on one hand flattering. on the other hand it is

irreleva irrelevant. but to the extent it's flattering, i appreciate it. and, look, when i talked about keep politics out of this, you know, everyone is -- everyone has been -- i hope it's changing but everyone has been very suspicious of government and government officials, politicians, it's always about their politics, they're always trying to take the next step on the ladder, be very careful about what they say because nuance. deceptive creatures, politicians. i never felt that. i never believed it. but now it's more important than ever before that people understand there is no politics here. sometimes it can work and it can work right and sometimes at a time of crisis you actually see

people who play to their strength. there is no politics here. i have no political agenda, period. i'm not running for president. i'm not running for vice president. i'm not running anywhere. i'm not going to washington. i'm staying right here. i said to the people of this state unequivocally, when i was running for governor, i will serve as your governor. well, they all say that and then they do something different. yeah, i'm not that person. i am going to do what i said i was going to do because that's who i am. so that's what i'm going to do. period, end of story. >> right now -- if he offered you secretary, would you turn it down? >> i was a cabinet secretary 20

years ago, been that, done that, been that there, no thank you. i'm going to do what i said i was going to do. i don't know why it's so hard to accept from an elected official. they may actually have meant what they said and actually believe in sticking to it. no president, no vice president, no going to washington to serve as the cabinet. i said i did it eight years with the clinton administration. i loved it. it was a great experience. i was hud secretary, housing and urban development secretary. worked all across the country. worked in every state across the united states. loved the experience. but i have probably the most important job to me that i could have and probably more important than ever before, frankly. given what we just went through. >> -- turn to your comments

about the schools and businesses in westchester, suffolk, nassau counties, as well as new jersey and connecticut, does that -- will that also include state businesses and schools? >> well, two things, when we close the schools, we coordinated it not just in metropolitan areas but statewide. because different school districts were doing different things, and you can't operate that way at this time in this situation that's normally designed for local flexibility, a school district makes an individual decision with their calendar, education is basically a local decision. there's a snow day in buffalo. doesn't mean there is a snow day on long island. but this is different. you're asking a society to stay home, well, and close my business that triggers certain questions and there's a direct

connection between schools and business and the application does not follow geographic jurisdiction or boundaries so you live in westchester, how do i tell businesses to close in one area unless i address all the issues in the surrounding areas, right? and the geographic lines between westchester and new york city don't matter and the lines between new york state and connecticut and new jersey don't matter. workforce is basically a tri-state work force. so coordinate school and business and coordinate geographically. and make the decision based on the facts at the time. i reject any elected official or any expert who says i can tell you what's going to happen four

weeks from today. i reject it i mean, you looked at all the models. so, i mean i accept it. i hear it, but i'm not prepared to act on it. so, i talked to all the county executives. they're all elected by their constituents. they all have an opinion, some people believe the businesses will open in may, mayor of new york city, some think we should open them in two weeks. some people think we should keep them closed until june. i hear it all. we'll discuss it. we'll coordinate it, but at the end of the day, the decision must be at a minimum for the metropolitan area, hopefully statewide, ideally regional with connecticut and

new jersey. so, that's my goal. coordinate school and business, minimum metropolitan area, new york city, suburbs, hopefully statewide and it's a little bit of a different situation upstate than downstate and hope it stays that way. ideally i'd like to do it with connecticut and new jersey. >> are you saying it's your legal authority to make the decision on new york city schools, not bill de blasio? >> it is my legal authority in this situation, yes. that's why when i closed them, i -- we closed them statewide. it was not just new york city that we closed. we closed at that tame same the island and the northern suburbs and then we coordinated all of upstate. is that right? >> yeah and, jesse, remember when we did the executive order with the 180-day waiver school districts need a waiver about

they have less than 180 days of school so we said that we're setting them all at the same time. everyone is on the same schedule. new york pause is extended through april 29th. everyone is on the exact same schedule and when we extend it we extend the 180-day waiver. >> and it has to be coordinated. i don't see how -- i understand the debate on when to re-open schools. i understand the debate on when to re-open businesses. i don't understand how you would start businesses in may, but not open schools until june. but keep schools closed until june. i don't get that. i think you have to coordinate the business with the schools because schools do education. schools also do day care effectively for a large percentage of the new york city population. so how can you say to people, i think you can go back to work in

may, but the schools are going to continue to be closed so figure out what to do with your children during the day but you're going to have to go to work in may. how do i go to work but if my kids are home? >> i guess though the mayor saying schools will be closed two hours ago and you saying, no, no, that's not the case, i think for parents that might be confusing and unsettling. >> we just clarified it. >> you give us some sense of when that might be resolved. >> it's not going to be decided in the next few days because we don't know. i can't tell you what june is going to look like. i can't tell you what may is going to look like. so, no, but i can tell you it will be a metropolitanwide decision. it will be coordinated with the business decision. it will be coordinated with the

rest of the state, and it will ideally be coordinated with new jersey -- it will definitely be coordinated with new jersey and connecticut because i'm not going to operate without coordinating with new jersey and connecticut. but ideally it's uniform with new jersey, connecticut, because this is -- they're all connected, these thing, school and business and geography are connected. >> hospitalizations, fewer are report. does it mean we have to change the plan for field hospitals at this point? >> there's no changing of the plan. i'm praying that we don't need a single bed in the additional overflow capacity. i hope javits is empty. well, it's not.

there are several hundred people in javits but ideally we never needed a bed in javits. we never needed a bed on the u.s. navy ship "comfort." we never needed an overflow bed in the field hospitals. >> council member mark levine noted the reason the number of new hospitalizations is so low is they're at capacity and people are being turned away. >> that's not true. what is it, that people are going to a hospital and being turned away from the hospital? >> no. >> people that otherwise would have been hospitalized a few weeks ago. >> the daily call with the hospitals and we get updates from them and there are no reports of that. >> we spoke to his office. our staff has been speaking to his office, explained the way we're doing this which is we are using all the hospital capacity in the system so if people are moving around as needed so if they're going -- we're managing that process so if there is a problem at one facility we move

them to another hospital so no one is getting turned away. we are monitoring this on an hour-by-hour basis. exactly how many people are in the hospital. so no one has been turn rad way. i think he realizes that and been thankful and we've been talking repeatedly to him and his staff to make him understand where we are. >> also defies all logic, right? the high point of hospitalizations was two weeks ago. that's when we had the crush on the hospitals. if you look at that hospitalization chart it was about two weeks ago, but, you know, ten day, that's when there was the crush on the hospitals. we have been down on the downslide for awhile now. so the hospitals are not -- we have empty beds right now in hospitals over the past couple of days. they wouldn't be turning away anyone and that's just -- virtually an impossibility. >> governor, the system is now quarantining prisoners who have,

you know, been infected with covid-19. can you speak to if the prison system has the capacity to do that and how they might be doing that effectively or not effectively? >> the -- they can quarantine within the facility. you know, you have a prison but then you have distinct operating wards within a prison so they have total capacity to quote/unquote quarantine within a prison system. >> -- on whether or not you're moving forward with any -- releasing any further -- >> not anything new, no. >> thank you, guys. thank you. >> in terms of -- >> nothing new. >> so still about 240 s. that right. >> it was about 240. i know it was anticipated to go to 400 but i don't know the numbers have reflected that shift. i can get you an update. >> all right, everybody, almost quarter past the hour of noon here on the east coast. welcome to "weekends with alex witt." we have been watching new york

governor andrew cuomo. this one lasting 45 minutes or so and bring back my predecessor on msnbc, joy reid to just get a takeaway, joy, on what you thought as well as dr. natalie azar, our medical contributor. with regard to what andrew cuomo said, what was a positive note that you took from this? what was the big takeaway? >> yeah, i mean, first of all, i take away every time that watch these briefings the humanity that the governor brings to it. >> right. >> it's the thing that a lot of the country has been starved for, right? just the sense of a human being who is reacting like a human being and a leader would react so i'm grateful for these briefings because i think we need that. >> can i say, joy, in addition to that is also that that is why people are speaking with him about saying, oh, we want you to run for president. oh, we want you to maybe be the vice president which he said, i'm sticking. i'm staying in new york but he is so popular now. >> that's right. the reality is i think that the

key to his being able to do what he's doing every day is because he's not looking at the next election. he's not looking at this pandemic through the lens of somebody seeking a job, another job. he's looking at it from the point of view of doing the job he has. i think that one of the things donald trump, his fellow new yorker could learn from this governor is that you got to succeed at the job you have rather than worry about the next election. and the job that each of these two men have, these two new yorkers, right, in such stark contrast have is to protect lives, to preserve life, what you see in governor cuomo is he says every single life is precious. we don't just casually lose more than 8,000 new yorkers, more than we lost in 9/11 casually and say, well, as long as we don't hit 100,000, i think i did a good job. the way that a human being looks at those 8,000 people is to say that's 8,000 grandmas and daughters and sons and precious

family minimums and loved ones. those are human beings and what struck me about this crisis is the tremendous horrifying loss. the needless loss and every time i hear these death counts. i've been writing down the number of dead, the fact that you've got hundreds of thousands of americans who have contracted this virus and more than 18,000 gone, gone is so -- i can't handle it, okay. it's too emotional for me. it's too much to take and what i love about these briefings is that there somebody is sharing my sense of absolute flabbergasted horror at the loss of life. i wish the president could get there. i don't know what it is about him as a person. he can't do it but you need somebody to feel that with you and that's part of leadership so the positive i took from it is that i think he also said something important. he said there's no politics in this. re-opening is a health -- it's a health question as well as an

economic question and he says i refuse to divorce the two. and that's absolutely right. you can't just say i want to re-open by this date because this date will help me politically or this date sounds good for the economy. it's a human and a health question. i thought that was important. >> yeah, no, i totally agree. dr. natalie, to you, it's rather a seesaw of information. the good and the bad. the good being that we see these lines, thee curves moving downward in terms of the hospitalizations, those being intubated and being taken off intubation are going up in those numbers, yet we saw just in the last ten minutes, natalie, that the united states has overtaken italy in terms of the number of deaths. so interpret that for us. >> that's exactly what the experts have been anticipating and dr. fauci has said repeatedly don't be discouraged by this but this is what they expect. there's always going to be a two to three-week lag. we should tart to see the number of deaths, the daily number of

deaths, the rate of deaths starting to decline in a few weeks. that is the natural, you know, result of the decreased hospitalizations and the decreased icu admissions the result of all the social distancing measures that we've taken. >> okay. joy reid, i'm going to mercifully liberate you. you've done a few hours already so we will see you again. thank you so much and dr. natalie azar, you are back in just a little bit. let's go right now to the white house. msnbc's monica alba is joining us. he talked about re-opening this country but he seems to be caught between the economic urgency to do that as well as public health and the situation there. what is he saying ultimately? >> reporter: he is increasingly optimistic, alex h. is something that the country will be ready to do in the coming weeks as we see at the end of april, the guidelines that currently took us through the end of the month are set to expire and the president says he'll have

important conversations in the coming days and week, not just with his health professionals but said also with certain lawmakers, with business people, everybody giving their input for what he is casting as the most consequential decision of his presidency so far. take a listen to how he framed that important choice in the briefing yesterday. >> i think we can work together but i think the trick here is for him to develop an agenda that will respond to the -- >> that's clearly not the correct sound. the president actually was talking about how this will be so important for him and when asked by a reporter what metrics he might use to come to that conclusion, he simply pointed to his head and said the metrics were right here, referring to his own instincts so he's going to take all of that together but something else i think that will be in his ear in the coming days is this second task force we've learned will be formed, debuted and announced on tuesday and that council which is separate

from the coronavirus task force as it stands now will be more focused on the economy specifically so it's a fairly quiet easter weekend here at the white house right now. no briefing currently on the schedule. but we do know that vice president mike pence will be leading the coronavirus task force in a meeting in the situation room later this evening and as for the president, he is set to make an appearance on fox news later tonight but that may be the only way we hear from him today apart from, of course, the potential tweets, alex. >> monica alba at the white house, thank you for that. back with me, dr. natalie azar, you worked this week a couple of 12-hour shifts on the covid floor at nyulangone. what was that like? being on the front lines, what did you see? >> i know. you know what, i want to be as concise as possible but had such a flurry of different emotions anticipating it and going in the

first morn and the whole time that i was there. and i just want to say from the outset what i did last week was just a drop in the bucket to what other folks have been doing for weeks now on the front lines, both at my hospital and all over the country. especially the emergency room and especially in the icu. but as you know, they've been, you know, reassigning health care workers to areas where they normally don't practice and so i was working with a gynecologist, i was working with a primary care physician, and a helptologist, the nurses were reassigned from the transplant units so i say this because honestly, alex, it was one of the most if not the most rewarding experience of my career. number one, i felt such gratitude and privilege that i could take care of these patients. one thing i said was that, you know, we hear these stories about how the patients are alone. they absolutely are very alone. we were instructed as we needed to be that we didn't want to

make repeated, you know, trips into the patient's bedside for obvious reasons. each time we went in we had to don our ppe then take it off again and each time we were doing that we were theoretically putting ourselves at risk and devised video and calling the patients just to minimize exposure to health care workers but when i was at the bedside, it just was this like as if i was an intern again starting all over where my job, yes,s of taking care of the patient medically but i felt more of, you know, i was compelled to just ask them how they were, are you bored? they were watching -- i always said if they were well enough they were bored, right? they were watching on the news about coronavirus and yet they were lying there themselves, you know, sick with it. so it was just -- whatever part i could do both medically and just from a human perspective i tried to give the patients and i was just grateful that none of the patients, you know, crashed on my watch and, you know, that i could be a productive member

of the team and just work in collaboration with the nurses and therapists and my colleagues. >> yeah, well, that is a beautiful description of what you've done. your appreciation for having done so. can i just say i foe for a fact you spent your birthday doing that this week so there you go, even more of a little bit of icing on the cake. dr. natalie, we will see you later this hour. we will check in with the scientists running the fda approved drug on the trial on that drug hydroxychloroquine, the one the president has touted. we'll get his early observations coming up next. first, while hospitals remain stressed new information about this new jersey woman who has struggled to get help for her husband, we have spoken with amy, emotional conversations and talked with her a few times on the air about her husband brett's battle with covid-19 so we'll leave you with this update from nbc's gabe gutierrez. take a listen. >> reporter: amy breslow is hopeful. her sick husband waited for a

plasma transplant. he didn't get one but he is recovering anyway. >> i feel blessed. it's amazing, you know, it's a miracle that he is here. we're so lucky to have him and, you know, to have this second chance. here's a razor that works differently. the gillette skinguard it has a guard between the blades that helps protect skin. the gillette skinguard. from anyone else. so why accept it from your allergy pills? flonase relieves your worst symptoms which most pills don't. get all-in-one allergy relief for 24 hours, with flonase.

tomorrow, millions of americans will spend easter sunday at home instead of there in the pews but there's increasing concerns some states are putting the public in danger by allowing parishioners to pray in person. nbc's sam brock is joining me from miami, florida, one of the states certainly under the microscope this weekend for this reason. sam, how are religious leaders there reacting to governor ron desantis' refusal to shut down all the churches? >> reporter: yeah, alex, good morning. they're definitely -- i should say good afternoon. there seems to be a bit of a disconnect between that faith lead remembers recommending in the community and what the governor of the state is recommending. behind me you're seeing st. mary's cathedral, 1 of 109 parishes not going to have

anyone in person. there are 1.3 million catholic parishioners in the region under the archdiocese of miami. all of them are going to be live streaming this weekend. now, the governor said he does not want to coerce the closure of houses of worship. he is recommending people go to church if they are able to maintain six feet of distance between them and observe other social guidelines. the question becomes what are we going to see this weekend? starting tomorrow on easter sunday, we are anticipating in orlando the church arena there which was open for palm sunday, the pastor says he is going to be doing it all over again for easter sunday and that people there should be definitely maintaining their social distancing but that he wants them to come out. stay at home, he said monday through saturday, come out to church on sunday. there is video of him touching people on the forehead from palm sunday as he blesses and heals them. that's going on in orlando. over in baton rouge there is the life tabernacle church. that church convened is expected to convene 2,000 plus people tomorrow. the pastor tony spell previously

arrested for a gathering of more than 50 people. he says he's going to go forward with it regardless anyway. this time around there are other examples of this thing this houston, philadelphia, other hot spots around the country. i was able to seek with the archbishop of miami to ask him specifically what he thinks about what we're expecting to under fold this weekend. >> we should not have god by thinking that, you know, we're going to be somehow protected because he's going to look after us. that's kind of tempting god. it's being foolish and, you know, the gospel tells us be courageous but hot to be foolish. >> reporter: now, alex, i want to turn your attention to video we have in new orleans where there is a ban on religious gatherings in that state of louisiana. there's drive-through benedicts. people are coming through in their cars and receiving prayers that way instead of being directly exposed and potentially putting themselves at risk. there's also the archbishop there in new orleans as well who

is recovering from covid-19, yesterday, alex, he took a world war ii era plane, rose above the city with a local rabbi and lifted everyone's spirits both literally and metaphorically. that's the kind of thing where we're seeing communities come together and figure out other ways of being in person. it is not ideal in the words of shirt wall leaders here but it is the best option at the moment. alex. >> personally i'm impressed. i think it is creative and i think it's great and uplifting so many spirits by doing so. sam, thanks so much from miami. let's go to search for solutions. doctors and scientists across the world are studying for the best treatment for coronavirus and one of those trials is happening right now at the university of minnesota where scientists are studying whether hydroxychloroquine can prevent covid-19 in people who have been exposed to that virus. joining me now dr. david boulware who teaches medicine in the university's division of infectious decisions. doctor, glad to have you back. last weekend you told us you were expecting potentially new

information this week. i think the date, april 8th is what you said. did you get the information and if so, what can you tell us? >> well, our trial is running quite well and continue to enroll patients but certainly need more volunteers and had our first analysis on wednesday, april 8th and had an external review panel that reviewed the data and so our team remains blinded to the actual data itself but reviewed it and thought the trial was being run well and thought the intervention was there was not evidence of any harm and there was -- it was not unethical to continue so there was not overwhelming evidence of benefit it would -- so the trial continues to run. >> that is very good news thus far. how long would you expect it to be until you could find some conclusive information? when we might be able to start using hydroxychloroquine as a preventive measure? >> yeah, so really the main limitation is we need volunteers

so we have over half the trial enrolled so about 60% of the population has been enrolled in the trial but need volunteers so they can go to our website at co-individu c -- or you can email us and people with participate nationwide. >> the first question, hydroxychloroquine, is that something you are studying to treat somebody who has covid-19 to alleviate what it is that they are experiencing? might it be used as something completely preventive and have you heard about the nightmare stories, there are a few out there, of people who have used hydroxychloroquine and not to positive effect? >> yeah, so we're running three different trials so the first trial is looking at prevention among people who have been exposed to someone with known covid-19. the second is early treatment of patients who are not hospitalized and so in the first

four days of their symptoms and the question is can we shorten the duration and prevent hospital lay sayses then the third trial is looking mock health care workers and use intermittent doses of that as a preexposure prophylaxis trial so all these trials, i think, are continuing and recently well, the question is always the risk versus the benefit and i think with any medicine there is potential risk so knowing the actual correct dose being used is very important so that we're not causing harm. >> okay, dr. boulware, when is the next date after which you expect to get news so we can book you to come back and let us know how things are going. >> yeah, so the next interim analysis is ten days, wednesday, the 22nd of april and so at that point we'll have over the half the participants in the trial will have completed at least two weeks of follow-up and hopefully will have more volunteers that will participate in the trial for the prevention and we'll be able to have more data available

to really see does this work or not work? >> all right, april 25, i'll look forward to seeing you on "weekends with alex witt." best of luck. thank you. breaking news today on the coronavirus pandemic with more than 19,000 people now having died here in the united states from covid-19, that death toll, higher than any other country, in fact, it has just surpassed italy, the number of confirmed cases in the united states almost 500,000. a temporary medical care facility now open in detroit as that state's case count nears 23,000. it was built inside the convention center and house up to 970 beds. the state's governor, gretchen whitmer, put together tighter restrictions. travel between two residents is not permitted. going to texas, residents there under a stay-at-home order for the rest of this month but some businesses could re-open before then. according to governor greg

abbott he will release an executive order detailing a plan to get texans back to work. >> we will focus on protecting lives while restoring livelihoods. we can and we must do this. we can do both. expand and restore the livelihoods, texans want to have by helping them return to work. >> in massachusetts town hopes one-way sidewalks will help with social distancing. officials in beverly mandated that one-way foot traffic on the sidewalks against vehicle traffic and as you can see from this video beyond the tree there, it looks like it's, well, working. developing right now, the president taking center stage almost every day in the white house coronavirus task force briefing but according to "the new york times," aides and allies increasingly believe the president's daily briefings are hurting him more than helping. joining me now msnbc political analyst elise jordan,

contributor to "time" magazine also a former aide to the george w. bush white house and state department. always good to see you. let's get into it. as you know not only do these aides and allies say these briefings are hurting the president to some degree, they're also urging him to step aside, let the experts take center stages. are they right and is this something you could potentially see the president do given what we know which is his love of being the center of attention in all this? >> alex, i may think they're right but you're right in that donald trump loves attention so much that he is not going to be able to forgo a two-hour campaign advertisement every day. so i assume that we'll continue to see more of the same after the first report appeared that some republicans were disconcerted about his behavior at the podium. you saw donald trump on the defensive, on twitter talking about his ratings comparing himself to "the bachelor" and reality tv and so this behavior

will probably continue. i frankly amfar more concerned from reporting from the white house and the post yesterday saying that administration officials think that perhaps it's better for donald trump to not be completely leading this effort from the white house and for it to go to a state level for his political prospects and to me that's very concerning. >> even "the wall street journal" editorial board, it is certainly known to be republican friendly, publishing this piece titled, trump's wasted briefings. if mr. trump thinks they will help him defeat joe biden he's wrong. they say americans will judge trump by the results of this crisis, not by how well he says he did. the president as you said, he goes and he fires back, he talks, look, he talks about how "the journal" is forgetting to mention the ratings. is that all he cares about? what point do you think the substance of what all of us are watching matters as much as the fact that they've tuned in?

>> alex, the country unfortunately has a president who has no empathy so i think the gravity of this crisis isn't fully hitting donald trump. and he is more concerned with what he's always concerned with, donald trump, with his interests and not the national interests and we would see a different posture from him and from this white house if the overwhelming concern were not donald trump's electoral prospects and the welfare of the american people. >> let me take a look with you at this new cbs poll in which it shows 52% of americans are feeling that the president is doing a bad job handling the coronavirus crisis. that is more than the 47% who say that he's doing a good job. the people who feel the president is doing a good job say their big reasons are that the virus is being contained and that doctors are getting the supplies they need. but those who feel that trump is doing a bad job, elise, feel the opposite is happening. look, we're all watching the same briefings.

we all see the same stats. why is it that there's such different perspective on what's happening? >> the polls on how donald trump is handling the coronavirus pandemic have been fascinating just in that they're so much like any other political poll and are divided along polarized lines of the political class these days and so you see the polarization in how people perceive the crisis. donald trump has this small window of 5% with his own approval rating. he hovers from about 40% to 45% and he doesn't -- it doesn't matter what's really going on in the world. he really manages to hang tight there. i would say, though, the numbers that i would be concerned about if i'm the trump white house would be how little he gained in approval rating. usually in a time of great crisis you look at president george w. bush after 9/11, he

gained 30 points in approval ratings. there is a rallying together cry and we just don't see that. it's a sign of just how polarized we are but i also think it's decision turning for the trump white house when you consider how european leaders, their approval ratings have gone up in this time of crisis. >> okay, yours are up as always, elise, thanks so much. the weather factor, whether there are any signs it may be slowing down in the warmer temperatures heading our way and by the way you can all see the impact of the stay-at-home order at the jersey shore. the ocean city boardwalk, look at that. completely empty. 55 degree, sunny skies although there are clouds in the distance. no way this would be empty if this were an ordinary saturday. (burke) at farmers insurance, we've seen almost everything

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and paramedics that are working in the 911 system. >> i felt this sense of calling and i abruptly packed my bags, booked a one-way ticket to new york and received emergency credentialaling and requested time off back home. >> there's been a general sense of warmth and being there for each other and they say when things happen people rise to the occasion and some shrink down. i feel incredibly lucky everyone around me is the type of person to rise to the occasion and just seems like the whole hospital has come together. >> gratitude there and hope from some of the people on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic as they risk their own health to help those who are ailing. back with us and also working on the front lines this week, dr. natalie azar. so you heard me before the break talking about the speculation that the heat might stave off the coronavirus. we've heard that as being a possibility with these types of viruses but now "the new york times" as you know reporting that may not be the case. it's pointing to a report that

was sent to the white house saying the country should not rely on warm weather to stop the contagion. what's your take on that, dr. azar? >> yeah, alex, i mean a lot has been wring about it now as we're heading into spring and then summer. you know, dr. fauci has always said in his estimation that this virus likes cold and dry and he even a few months ago already anticipated and speculated that we probably will see a little bit of a diminution as warmer weather comes up. not just the heat but the humidity according to experts that could actually help to dampen some of the activity. but, remember, two sides to this story. because that is definitely a good thing. we would want if mother nature is going to help news that capacity we still, this gets back to the whole idea about re-entry of society, we're not going to go back to full-blown everyone is out and about and relying on heat and humidity. that would be the absolute wrong thing to do. there is the expectation that this coronavirus like other

coronaviruses and influenza will very likely be seasonal so even if we see that the weather is helping and social distancing and all of that stuff and we see lower numbers in the summer, that does not in any way, shape or form predict we are out of the woods and we won't see cases in the fall. in fact, dr. fauci predicts we will based on what he sees in the southern hemisphere and that is as their winter is starting to tick up, the cases are also. >> so i'm curious, if the number of cases does start to fall as the weather heats up is there a way to specifically determine that it's because of the heat or because of our social distancing measures having been effective? no? >> you know, i don't think we would be able to tease that out here. i think that's a matter of analyzing experience and patterns from all different environments and geographies and then, you know, analyzing where the activity is and how much social distancing was happening in those places. i don't think you'd be able to say it's one versus the other. >> okay.

lots of discussions, you know, about antibody testing. a lot of people are asking will that testing help us all get back to school, get back to work and if so, when will that be widely available? answers for any of that? >> i know. that is the question on everybody's mind, unfortunately, i don't think, my timer is -- i hope i don't lose you. i don't know that we have an answer to that, alex, unfortunately. you know, i think the concern here is that the fda lifted up some regulations in order to enable developers to get tests to the market sooner but as we found out this week, the problem with that is that some of them have been making false claims about being able to diagnose covid and things like that. so, you know, the problem here is that, of course, we want these tests. we need these tests. that's one part of the equation to getting things back to any sort of sense of normalcy, but i'm concerned the way we had

limitations with original testing, the viral swabs that we're going to face the same problems with this and it's really just about scaleability. we need to determine or we immediate to have a test that's both accurate and that also can be applied to a much larger segment of the population that think we will be able to see early on. i mean, there's so many questions about the antibody test. it's going to help us answer who can go back to work, when can we end social isolation? who is protected, for how long? we just -- we won't have any of that information based on the tests, the initial tests alone, unfortunately. >> all right, well, fortunately we got it all from you. thank you so much for everything you're doing, dr. natalie azar. see you soon. dealing with isolation of stay at home while wondering where your next check is coming from. insight from deep pack chopra next.

the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. >> these are the united states. a united people with a united first. >> the future doesn't belong to the faint-hearted. it belongs to the brave. >> a great people has been moved to defend a great nation. >> all of us can extend a hand to those in need. a majority of americans are spending time alone as a result of statewide social distancing or stay-at-home orders.

some were in quarantine because they'ven exposed. some are in isolation because they are sick. joining me now to talk about the best way to cope is the author of the book "meta human," deepak chopra, this is book number 90 for him and leads a daily meditation online. we're see glad to have you talk about this with us, deepak. welcome, sir. i'm curious as to what you see is the number one concern when people express to you they have to be alone during this crisis. what are they saying? what are the worries? >> they're feeling isolated. they're feeling lonely and as a result of that loneliness their fear is getting aggravated. they're getting stressed and as you know, stress increases the likelihood of morbidity or what we call inflammation, acute inflammation kicytokines storms.

so it is important that those who are alone be supported. i have one expression, love and action so right now reach out to all your loved ones, offer them any help that you can give, even remotely whether financial or otherwise and if you feel vulnerable ask for help. there are a lot of people here. together globally helping each other and we need to do that right now. we can isolate ourselves physically but we can be more intimate emotionally through technology as we're doing right now. >> uh-huh. i want to go through six points that you talk about as being the things to focus on to help all of us get through whatever position that we're in regarding coronavirus. you say, have a sense of meaning and purpose. loving and being loved. self-esteem, a sense of your own worth, tapping into inner peace and joy, being of service to others and generosity of spirit.

all of these things we ought to do all the time but particularly right now. talk about how you came up with this list. >> well, these are spiritual principles. there's nothing new in what i said. these are part of all the wisdom traditions in the world and what is happening right now is that across the scale everybody is experiencing existential anxiety. they are suffering but they also have the fear of death. now, that is the reason why we have spiritual practices throughout the ages. we should be thinking about these things in advance of a life-threatening situation. i had my first existential crisis which was 6 years old. my grandfather suddenly died and i wondered what happened to him. and that start the my journey so right now it's very important for everyone to question their priorities, what is the meaning and purpose of my existence?

in fact, we should be perpetually grateful for our existence because only when it's threatened do we feel like this. if we are feeling grateful, that also mitigates fear so all the principles i mentioned are part of every wisdom too decision in the world east and west. >> i this i think bear repeating. lastly, we were showing pictures of those frontline workers whether in transportation or front lines in the hospital and you mentioned the stress. grocery workers, the list goes on and on. those people keeping society going and more importantly right now tending to those who are sick and helping to make them bet ever. the stress that they may feel as they go about their daily job knowing that they may be more susceptible to this virus, how do they cope? what do you say to them? >> well, first of all, if they're out there, as workers on

the front lines then we presume that they're not infected and they're taking all the precautions as we see from these pictures so if you take all the precautions, you mitigate against the risk of getting infected. having said that, they all need support from all of us. at the chopra center we are offering free meditation online to all these people. we have a partner xi, i have a partnership with oprah winfrey that is a medication right now, chopracentermeditation.com which is called hope in uncertain times and we want everybody to avail of any support they can get psychological, emotional, spiritual, financial, all this is being organized across the board by several nonprofits including our own. >> i'm so glad we have that at the lower part of the screen where people can join you and oprah winfrey as you said. last question to you, deepak. is there a silver lining to come

out of this and may i just say anecdotally one observation is i'm a lot closer with my neighbors than i was. we are sharing this together. we all know each other's first names. we wave to each other. we come out at 7:00 every night and clap for the health care workers and it brings us joy. you know, i mean we're not hanging out but there's a closeness in going through this together. >> that's the blessing. that's the first thing. there is increased emotional and spiritual bonding. but i think we look a little deeper. i'm told that birds are singing for the first time in bangalore. as that asthmatics are breathing better in polluted cities. that fish are returning to dead lakes. that the sky is clearer. you can see the himalayas from 100 miles away in the punjab in india so the ecosystem is saying, dear humans, if you stay a little longer in your cages,

we will resurrect the planet and hopefully when you come back, we'll all join together to create a more peaceful and joyful world because we're all in this together. >> we are, indeed. i'm very glad for your voice being added to our conversation today, deepak chopra, thank you so much. we appreciate what you do for all of us. thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you. it was a big problem in america even before the pandemic and this morning it has become urgent and alarming.

good day from msnbc headquarters. welcome to "weekends with alex witt." lots of developments in the coronavirus crisis in the past hour. let's bring you up to date. and we begin with the breaking news on the pandemic. as there are now over 500,000 confirmed cases across the country, 19,552 people have died and now that number surpassing italy for the most confirmed coronavirus deaths in the world. in new york city the epicenter of the outbreak in the u.s., mayor bill de blasio announcing today he'd like for public schools to remain closed for the rest of the year. new york city has the nation's largest public education system with 1.1 million students. new york governor andrew cuomo, however, says not so fast. >> yeah, i understand the mayor's position, which is he thinks schools should be canceled for the rest of the year. it makes no sense for one

locality to take an action that's not coordinated with the others. >> is that actually invalid? >> that's his opinion, but he didn't close them and he can't open them. it happened on a metropolitanwide basis. >> a live report from new york soon. apple and google are creating smartphone technology to help public health agencies track the coronavirus. next month, the two companies will roll out a contact tracing system using bluetooth technology on iphones and androids to alert people if they have been in the vicinity of someone who has the virus. and some new questions about when and how we might start to see a return to normalcy. the president is convening a new task force to guide his administration on re-opening the country although insisting he won't do so until it is safe. right now to the white house, nbc's monica alba standing by with more on all this. the president has been certainly eager to shake the country from this self-imposed lockdown but

what does he have in mind? >> reporter: exactly, alex. he has been striking more optimistic tones in recent day, partially citing new estimates that the team has seen about a potentially lower death toll than who was originally offered in some of the models so the president is trying to urge americans to look forward to think about the days and weeks to come in which after these guidelines expire at the end of april they may be lifted entirely. but it's worth noting that really this decision about which particular states will be letting people go back to work or back to school falls to the governor. the president can offer his guidance and guidelines and maybe pressure them. it will technically be up to the governors but regardless of when this decision is made and how, the president is conceding it is likely to be the most significant of his time in office. take a listen to how he framed that important choice in the briefing yesterday. >> i don't know that i've had a bigger decision. but i'm going to surround myself with the greatest minds, not

only the greatest minds but the greatest minds in numerous different businesses including the business of politics and reason and we're going to make a decision and hopefully it's going to be the right decision. >> when you say so what metrics you will use -- >> the metrics right here. that's my metrics. that's all ki do. i can listen to 35 people. at the end i got to make a decision. and i didn't think of it until yesterday. i said, you know this, is a big decision. >> reporter: you heard the president there reference business people that he's going to be consulting. that's in part because he has created this new task force that is going to be focused on re-opening the economy. we don't have a full list of who is going to be on that yet but the president has promised to unveil that by tuesday. but it sounds like it will be both lawmakers, leaders, people from the private sector and a lot of the folks who are in his ear, there are dozens of people he's been consulting on this in recent weeks.

he's now though not as focused on the mitigation efforts even though dr. birx has been saying repeatedly that even the hot spots we haven't reached the peak yet so to exercise this caution, the president has said we're going to continue to step through april but is really looking ahead to may 1st for when he's hopeful some might be open. no briefing on the schedule. more quiet holy saturday here at the white house. but the vice president will be leading a closed press meeting later today and may get more information on what was discussed there as the day goes on. >> okay, we will appreciate getting that from you when it happens. thank you so much, monica. breaking news from here in new york, the governor, andrew cuomo, says the health system is holding up but the number of daily deaths has stabilized at a very high rate and he is concerned about re-opening the economy too quickly. the state of new york has the largest cluster of coronavirus cases in the world. the latest number there inching closer to 174,000. the majority of those cases, more than 94,000 are right here

in new york city. an estimated 26,000 are being treated in hospitals. more than 5400 people have died. let's go to cory kaufman joining me from a field center near the elmhurst hospital which was the epicenter of new york city's outbreak. so let's talk about what the governor is saying about how the health system is managing through this. >> reporter: with great difficulty, he said. and mentioning those numbers and stabilizing number of deaths coming out of the state of new york, alex, he used the word horrific. it's stabilizing between some 750 to 800 deaths a day. the numbers do go up and they do go down just a little bit. he said hospitalizations are down but the number of admissions to icu are up. now, the reason that he said that actually that might not matter as much today is because the hospitals have really turned most of their beds into icu beds

in general. it's not like the traditional demarcation between the normal beds and the icu bedded that we would have thought pre-covid-19 days. here at this facility, they have some 475 beds. they have planned on creating and building constructing by the time this is all done. we do know this is fully operational. they already have at least five covid-19 positive patients inside here and 20 icu beds. when it comes to the number of icu beds, even though the number of icu admissions is higher, alex, the governor did say the number of intu bakes is down, and that's important. he explains why. take a listen. the intubations are a bad sign from a health diagnostic perspective and when we talk about the number of deaths, those tend to be people who have been intubated for the longest period of time, so while icu

beds may not mean anything anymore in the hospital system, intubations are still intubations and this is a very good sign that the intubations are down. >> reporter: so that's a number new york officials are going to keep holding on to and keep watching in the coming days. governor cuomo said antibody test something going to be very important for him in determining when he will re-open the state very slowly doing some 300 antibody tests a day hoping to get to a thousand next week and 2,000 in two congresss. >> cori coffman. thank you. dr. john torres, we'll talk to you in a second in more details. what cori was reporting about intubations being down talk about the relevance of that from a medical perspective and where you think it bodes in terms of covid-19 fighting? >> i think that's actually some

good news we're getting, the fact they're down, the way things happen is the cases start off first and people get hospitalized after a few weeks. then if they're sick they get intubated into the icu and intubated and unfortunately once on the ventilator 80% of them end up not getting offer the ventilator and dying while on it so those intubations are down, that means we're getting towards the end of seeing deaths start to drop. that hasn't happened yet but it's going to happen. but what we're seeing is the beginning here of the cases dropping, the intubations dropping so that is good news, hopefully we've reached the apex or at least the plateau and start coming down the back side of that curve. >> okay, a few more questions for you in just a moment, dr. john, appreciate that. let's go to the growing crisis hitting cities with large populations of lower income families this week. thousands of people have poured into food banks across the country organizers in san antonio say they've already distributed over a million pounds of food and nbc's priscilla thompson is joining us from houston right now.

priscilla, welcome to you. what is happening right now there in terms of food banks? how are lawmakers reacting to this incredible increase in need? >> reporter: one of the key issues that this pandemic has shed a light on is this idea that you mention, alex, of food and stability. and so by now many of us have seen those photos in san antonio of the thousands of cars that were lined up to receive services this week as that demand tips to grow across the country, here in houston, i actually just spoke with a woman from the food bank who tells me that they're operating at about 150% on some days, 200% of the services that they're used to providing and he really emphasized the idea that, you know, while they're continuing to serve the most vulnerable populations that they've always served, they're also now seeing the folks who have been out of work for the past couple of weeks and who perhaps never thought they would need these services having to come in to pick up food.

and so here in houston, you've got business owners and also some athlete was are stepping up to donate and raise funds for the food bank and you also have lawmakers across the state calling on the state government to issue more aid to a number of these organizations and one lawmaker in particular is also using this incident as an opportunity to highlight some of the underlying issues that americans don't often think about. take a listen to what he said about this. >> san antonio among major american cities was already a big tale that is relatively poor compared to other places and you saw 10,000 people line up to get food from the food bank. this is exposing a lot of the warts in american society. one of those being the fact that people have maybe one, two, three weeks of savings and then that's it. >> reporter: and the good news is that food bank and san antonio was able to provide

services to all of those thousands of families that were lined up in that line and also here in houston they tell me that they're not in danger of running out of food. as a matter of fact, they've seen and flux of produce because the growers and restaurants aren't operating at that full capacity and here in houston they're also looking at opening what they'll call supersites which will be hosted in some of those shuttered mall parking lots to provide increased services to high need neighborhoods. >> i'll tell you, the food insecurity is heartbreaking. when you see long lines. we were showing oklahoma city, the line stretched for miles. it is -- it's a lot to take in. we appreciate all the help you've given us on this, mbs's priscilla thompson getting this straightened out. back to dr. john torres, a few questions going to come your way. first off let's talk about the w.h.o. which, as you know is investigating a report out of south korea that 91 recovered coronavirus patients tested positive for the virus just days

after testing negative. what is that about? and when you first hear about that it sounds alarming like they tested positive and got the disease again. it doesn't look like they got the disease. instead what it looks like is happening and got information from them saying they think what's happen something it's called a reactivation, not getting reinfected but instead what's happening the test is detecting dead virus in their body that hasn't been cleared out of the way yet. at least that's what they think is happening. only 91%, less than 1% of the total number of coronavirus cases they have had. so it's one of those things that just as we learn more about this virus we learn these things can happen. but it doesn't look like it's reinfection. it doesn't look like they're getting the disease again. they still have that immunity of having coronavirus and more importantly doesn't look like they can spread it around again. >> what do we know, dr. torres and what don't we know about immunity relative to this virus?

>> and so what we're trying to find out right now is exactly that. a couple of things. some things we know. people once they recover from coronavirus, they are developing these antibodies and those antibodies seem to be able to protect them from getting reinfected. we don't know how long it will last. you hear about antibody tests that will come out. these finger prick tests. if they say yes or no is that enough of an antibody to protect you because levels have to be at a certain height. if it's not enough then you might stand a chance of getting reinfected so there's a lot of information to work out here. other countries including south korea, they had antibody tests and stopped using them because they weren't accurate enough. china's haven't been accurate enough and making sure the ones here are accurate enough. one of the reasons it's taking so long to come out with one and make sure it is a good test. >> are you encouraged that we are, indeed, flattening the curve, specifically here in new york given the graphs that we got from governor cuomo?

>> i'm very encouraged because the news you've been hearing over the last few days on the bad side we've been hearing about deaths increasing or not decreasing on the good side haring about the cases going down and how it seems to be that we're making or clearing hurdles and coming over the top of the curve and know those deaths will be delayed by a little bit so what you're seeing now is somebody dies from coronavirus today it's usually because of an infection they got a couple of weeks ago and there is that lag time. importantly it looks like those are coming down and something called the doubling. the doubling of infects so that's not used to be that the numbers would double every couple of days. now they're taking six plus days to double and so that's showing those infections are spreading out and slowing down very important to have happen right now and looks like it's happening the same in other parts of the country. i think there will be some hot spots but overall we're making some headway here. >> yeah, can you speak to those who are something of the naysayers, if you will, those people saying, listen, we have

to get the economy working again, nobody is disputing that, by the way, but they're saying we all have to get out there and get back to work and their argument the same amount of people die every year from the regular old flu. what is it that makes this so different that we are taking these extreme measures? >> so a couple of things make it different. number one, for the flu we have a vaccine so the vaccine can protect a lot of people. they get it. they go to work and we don't really try to mitigate the flu other than the vaccine. telling people to stay home if they're sick but if you think bit, we haven't tried to mitigate it in my lifetime and yours, we just let it go through the population. the difference is and the reason we're not doing that with coronavirus is because, one, there's no vaccine for it. there's no medicine to help with it and on top of that it's a new virus. every time we get a new virus like this our bodies really don't know how to handle it. we can't fight it off so it ends up like a wildfire through the population. we want to make sure that is stamped out as much as possible

and over the years ten, 20 years from now we might treat it like the flu but this this point we can't do that. if we didn't do what we're doing you could imagine deaths skyrock skyrocketing. >> let me ask in terms of the vaccination developing that, there's a scientist leading one of britain's most advanced teams in that woman says she's 80% confident a vaccine could be ready by september. do you think that is feasible? >> yeah, she's saying she's 80% confident, not 100% so i think what most are saying, what most experts are saying 12 months as soon as we could expect it in the late winter, early spring of next year. i think september might be a little early because it still has to go through trials and even though you come out with something that looks like it's safe we're not going to know until it goes through the trials and as many people say including dr. fauci it's biology. you can't really rush that part of it so it's going to take time to get through that. 12 months is actually extremely fast.

it would be the fastest vaccine we ever came out because most take 5 to 20 years. even getting it in 12 months, i know we want it sooner but want to make sure it's safe and effective and that takes time. >> all right, dr. john torres, thank, my friend. stay safe. a glimmer of hope from the front lines. you'll hear what one emergency room doctor told me just a short time ago. meet jim. for jim, comfort is king. which is why when it comes to his dentures only new poligrip cushion and comfort will do. the first and only formula with adaptagrip cushioning technology. choose new poligrip cushion and comfort.

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with everyday life being disrupted by the coronavirus experts worry point mental health of those most at risk. let's go to steve patterson joining me from los angeles. steve, welcome to you. what are you learning about not just the physical but also the mental health during this crisis? >> reporter: well, that there's a huge toll being taken on everyday people and it's being tracked by these agency was are doing their best to fight on the front lines just like nurses and doctors, there are mental health agencies doing all they can to get people stabilized in this

crisis. one of those agencies ies is on the largest, oldest mental health agencies in the country and they operate actually the oldest suicide hotline, they take about 130,000 calls every year. back in february, they started tracking the calls that they were getting about covid. it was somewhere around 20 and then in march by the end of march that number was beyond 1800 with one in five expressing a desire for suicide. so this is a huge battle that they're fighting just like everybody else. those people on those suicide hotlines still have to report to work. there were confirmed cases of covid inside the company and listening and hearing about all these problems as they're trying to keep safe themselves so we spoke to the agency and here's what somebody there told me about the trials that they're going through in order to basically help people stay sane during all this. listen to this. >> what are the biggest challenges that are facing the

crisis hotline right now. >> so we've never seen a time where all of our counselors are experiencing the same stress and anxiety that many of our callers and chatters are so sometimes calls can be triggering if a caller has a situation that is very similar to your own, we had to worry about health and safety in the space itself. >> health worker, law enforcement, we're all needed and so we can't have that fear. but, of course, it's a fear for everyone. every day you go out, that can be our only focus. we have to attend to a lot of people in need. >> and, again, those crisis hotline workers still reporting to the facility because they have to take such a large volume of calls and they're worried about things like hipaa and confidential of patients and these numbers up on the screen for anybody experiencing anxiety, not just suicidal thoughts. get this touch. they will talk to you. by the way we're hearing stories about nurses and doctors and

family, all those front line workers taking advantage of those numbers, as well so incredibly important to think about the mental health toll which will last and have a much longer tail as the frontline crisis with everybody dealing with medical issues or stabilizes this will continue for years to come when you think about the job market and the ptsd that people are going to have from just this one moment in time. this extraordinary amount of work being done across the country. >> so glad you brought thumb. i think it's important for us to reach out to others, people you suspect may be hurting and suffering because you know what, we hear it all the time but we are all in this together. steve, thank you so much from los angeles. let's go to the front lines of the pandemic. i interviewed dr. stefon flores earlier and this is what he told me about what he has seen lately in the hospital. >> i wasn't as overwhelmed as from even a couple of days ago or a week ago. when i came on, for example, i mean it just felt manageable.

not that this whole pandemic was manageable, but like i said in comparison to the last few days, i didn't feel like i was running around like a chicken without a head and it was a good sign. i mean i had providers and felt like i had control of my board for the first time in a long time but maybe that's because i've essentially adapted to the new normal. >> let's turn to this emergency room physician who got off a 24-hour shift at the pecos memorial hospital in texas. thanks for being with me and hope to get you some shut-eye soon. what did you think of what you heard from dr. flores that he at least yesterday felt like he could manage what he was seeing in his e.r.? >> that's reassuring that the cases are not accelerating there. there are other areas that are accelerating. every area has a different time zone and how they'll deal with this so this is going to be a local response in many way. >> very true.

speaking of local, the governor of texas hinting he will open aspects of the state economy soon, possibly even this week. so as a doctor there on the front lines in texas, do you agree with this? do you think the lone star state is ready to open know, i did ju finish a 24-hour shift overnight so forgive me if i'm brutally honest. at some point we have to accept that we open up the economy and x amount of people are going to die. and the question is what is that number and what are we willing to accept? you know, as we flatten the curve, if we don't time this right this may be another spike and this won't be flattening the curve, it'll be flattening the roller coaster so myself, the front line health providers, we don't want to flatten the curve, we want to crush it and i think there's a few ways that we can do that. things i'd like to see. i'd like to see less people

coming into the emergency room, less people being put on ventilators before we start opening things up. that means we're really on the downhill slope and we're seeing less cases. i'd like to see more of a ppe response so that when those cases start coming in, me and the front lines are ready. i would like to see a broader availability of testing so that we can find a true denominator, see who has it and we can use tracking. with that testing you can track, there's a pocket here, there's a pocket there and address that accordingly and then i think we can reassess and make a calculated decision which, again, will be local, new york will be different than texas, which would be different from another area of the country. >> can you tell me as you reflect on the last 24 hours in the hospital in the e.r. what that was like for you? what did you see? >> we are seeing a handful of cases here.

they're coming in and what is essentially happen something that we have a limited number of tests, so we're assuming people are positive, and we're telling them to go home and quarantine. and that's the safest way because even the tests may have false negative results. and what we're also seeing is other emergencies like broken bones and things like that are actually decreased in volume. we're not seeing as much of that. so for the listener out there i'd like to tell them that an emergency is still an emergency f you feel like you're having a heart attack, stroke, please come in and we will take care of you. we do have precautions to try to keep you separated from the covid patients to the suspected covid patient. >> from pecos memorial hospital, dr. sudip bose. donald trump's performance as a wartime president. historian doris kearns goodwin will talk about this later. first, a sight to be seen in

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breaking news in the coronavirus pandemic. the number of confirmed cases has surpassed 500,000 in the wuss more than 19,000 people having died. more than any other country. some new cases coming from new jersey. governor phil murphy announcing there are now more than 58,000 confirmed cases in the garden state. he's also signing an executive order to cut public transportation capacity in half. >> we remain confident that the course we are on is the right one and that if we all continue with what we need to do, keeping our social distances, wearing a

face covering when we're out which we all do, we only take off for the purposes of this press conference and otherwise staying home, we will win this war. >> in rhode island, the governor there announcing her state has more than 2,000 cases and made a plea to residents asking them to stay home during the holloway weekend. . >> please resist the temptation. i know it's brutal to be stuck in the house. i know easter comes once a year. by the way, the easter bunny is coming. he is an essential employee. but, please resist the urge to get together in a large family gathering or with friends. >> well, the irs is making it easier for some people to get their coronavirus relief checks. the agency launched a new simple tax return tool meant for people who traditionally aren't required to file taxes. treasury secretary steve mnuchin says checks will start going out by the end of next week.

joining me now dr. patrice harris, president of the american medical association, she's also a psychiatrist, doctor, i welcome you back to the broadcast. tell me what you are hearing from the doctors out there on the front lines, the ppe problems that we discussed, have they been remedied or are they still overwhelmed at hospitals? >> well, alex, good to be back with you and, yes, in different regions of the country we still are hearing from physicians and other health professionals that they are worried about not having enough ppe. and i want to make sure that everyone knows that ppe is. those are the masks, the gowns, the gloves, the face shields and so it varies by region and it varies as to the number of days on hand that a particular institution has. i'm hearing from physicians in private offices who are still seeing patients, certainly reduced hours so that is still a concern. >> what about any indications

that you are aware of that this virus, that the hot spots are shifting across the country? >> well, absolutely. we still continue to see the number of cases increase and it varies across the region. we are seeing numbers in increase in larger urban areas, but also in rural areas and that is why it is so important that everyone practices physical distancing, staying six feet apart. staying at home except for going out for the essential services. that really helps, everyone will have a different peak. that is to be expected but what we don't want is that peak to overwhelm the health system and in certain areas where they were already underresourced or low resourced, it would be very easy to overwhelm the health system. it wouldn't be enough beds, enough icu beds, ventilators or people and the ppe. >> yeah, this is very concerning

as there is early data, i know you're familiar wit, showing that african-americans are dying from covid-19 at a higher rate. that also could be extrapolated to a certain segment of the latino population, as well. why is that, and is there something that can or could be done to help better protect these communities? >> well, those numbers are certainly troubling and i think just yesterday i read a report that the first eight deaths in st. louis were african-american and so i think we can look at it, certainly there are many contributing factors but overall three broad buckets, first of all, there are pre-existing health inequities. african-americans, others from communities of color were disproportionately impacted when it came to the incidence of diabetes and high blood pressure and certainly those two conditions predispose anyone with covid-19 to worse outcomes, even death. so that's a part of it. those structural and social determinants of health that

cause those inequities, the second is we have blacks and latinos who are overrepresented in the service industries, those are the folks that are still continuing to work. and, therefore, they are continuing to work and continuing to be exposed. and the last area we can look at is misinformation. we are still seeing misinformation, i spent the first two weeks of this pandemic really not in my role as ama president but really as a friend and as a family member dispelling the myth that african-americans could not become infected. we also heard that from young folks and children so those are the three broad areas, and what we need to do right now is make sure we, first of all, collect the data. it is not standardized ainge not widely collected, and once we collect it data, we need to use that data, hopefully we can even get that by zip code and use that data to target a specific intervention to the communities that need it. >> it has been an extraordinary time, trying time for health

care workers on the front lines. how do you make sure they are okay and have confidence in a system that some feel may have failed them? >> health care workers are frustrated. they're exhausted. they are working long hours. they are worried about their health, yes, but more often they are worried about the health of their families going back home and exposing their families. at the american medical association we have a resource page and we have developed resources just for physicians to better support them in taking care of themselves and their families. we should all not forget about the mental health aspects of this and certainly there are things we can do thousand to make sure there are supports, maybe debriefing after a shift, each institution should decide how best to support their own workers, but there should definitely be conversations about that. but we are absolutely going to have to have a greater conversation once we get on the other side of this, because our

mental health infrastructure, just in general, has been woefully underfunded so that needs to be a top priority as we get on the other side of this pandemic. >> which can't come soon enough. president of the ama, dr. patrice harris, thank you so much. pleasure talking to you. leadership in a time of crisis. how does president trump measure up to those who came before him? presidential historian doris kearns good wing joins me next. california. i have been a sales and sales management professional my whole career. typical day during a work week is i'm working but first always going for a run or going to the gym. i love reading. i love cooking healthy. it's super important to me. i was noticing that i was just having some memory loss. it was really bothering me. so i tried prevagen and it started to work for me. i wish i had taken prevagen five or ten years ago. prevagen. healthier brain. better life. did you know prilosec otc can stobefore it begins?urn heartburn happens when stomach acid

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consider america to be on a war. time footing in terms of fighting the virus. >> i do. i'm looking at it that way. i view it as a sense a wartime president. i mean that's what we're fighting. i mean, it's a very tough situation here. you have to do things, you have to close parts of an economy that six weeks ago were the best they've ever been. we had the best economy we've ever had and then one day you have to close it down in order to defeat this enemy. >> president trump there

declaring himself a wartime president as his administration combats the coronavirus crisis, but a new op-ed in a new op-ed rather former national security adviser susan rice says president trump is the wartime president we have, not the one we need. she said few of his actions display the leadership we need from a wartime commander in chief who is kong fronting a viral version of world war iii. joining me now presidential historian doris kearns goodwin author of "leadership in turbulent times" and a bunch of other wonderful books. doris, welcome to you, my friend. my first question to you -- >> thank you, alex. >> what is your definition of a wartime president. two in particular come to mind and joke both your boyfriends given how much you've written about them. franklin dell low roosevelt and abraham lincoln. >> let's look at what they did during the civil war and world war ii. first they provided a sense of responsibility. they took responsibility.

they mobilized every resource of the nation that was needed to meet the challenge and they directed where those resources should be. they developed trust in their word. they showed empathy to the people. lincoln went to the battlefield more than a dozen times so the soldiers could feel what he was feeling for them and created teams in the cabinet around them that could argue with them, lincoln famously had his team of rivals and fdr had eleanor roosevelt who he shied was a well come thorn in his side always willing to argue with him and walked the fine line between telling the brutal truth of whafrts happening during the depression and war and losses and yet giving people a vision for the future and exercised a sense of credibility. i think, in their word which is maybe the most important thing of all. >> yeah, let's play a clip here from february 23rd, 1942. this is president fdr speaking to the nation. here it is. >> this generation of americans has come to realize with the

personal realization that there is something larger and more important than the life of any individual or of any individual group. something for which a man who has sacrificed and gladly sacrificed. not only as goods, not only his associations with those he loved but his life itself. in a time of crisis when it is in the balance we come to understand the full devotion of what this nation is and what we both do to it. >> what comes to mind when you hear that. >> it's so inspiring and it inspires people to come in action. what comes to mind when i think about history he also said that this generation of his would have a rendezvous with destiny and i hope history will record that our generations too had our

own rendezvous with history, surely they would reward the medical teams, the first responders, the people who are getting us our groceries and prescription drugs. i mean sure think they will be able to see what people are doing overwhelming majority of the people are doing by bearing the social distancing which is so against human nature, knowing that people they love cannot be with them when they die, that they will be given if it works part of the responsibility. now, in the end it's not just leaders that get us through crises, it's the people. when lincoln was called a liberator, he said don't call me that, it was the anti-slavery movement and sole that's did it all. it started in the cities and states before teddy voesz develop was able to act and the soldiers who worked in those factories 24 hours a day during world war ii that got us through it so in the end i think what we're looking at in that quote from franklin roosevelt it's up to all of us, we're part of the nation to make those sacrifice, soldiers made them. our medical team are making them

and we too are being called upon and i think so far we seem to be up to the task as long as we don't end it too quickly. >> when you think about fdr, the fireside chats were much revered and inspiring way for the president to talk to the nation. families were gathering around their radios and happening on his every word. how is that different than what we see from there white house? >> well, what's so interesting about his fireside chats is they were so effective, that people would write to him by the thousands saying, you've got to go on the radio every day. it's the only way to sustain morale. if he said if my speeches ever become routine they will lose their effectiveness and also he said it took him three or four days around the clock working with his speech writers to prepare for each one of those fireside chats. so the problem is that if you're doing it every day, you know, as is happening now, there's no "time" to prepare, there's no willingness to wait for the moment when you have to talk to the people. he would talk when the banking crisis had reached a peak, explain what is happening with the banks. when we had to sacrifice, he would say why we needed to

sacrifice, driving our cars or having rationing systems so that people would wait and people thought he was talking directly to them. i love his story that a construction worker was running home one night and his partner said where are you going? he said, my president, he's coming to speak to me in my living room tonight. i have to be there to greet him when he comes. it was that direct contact with the individuals that he was able to achieve which is an amazing thing. >> yeah, and it's good that we have your book to look to as well, "leadership in turbulent times," something we can all read and get drilled down in the details on your thoughts. doris kearns goodwin, thank you my friend, stay staph and healthy. >> thank you, alex. it is a matter of trust that the president will listen to scientists before easing restrictions and jared kushner knows what he's doing. can americans believe that. programming note, dr. anthony fauci will be reverend al sharpton's guest on "politics nation" at 5:00 p.m. eastern. fr?

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i'm going to surround myself with the greatest minds, not only the greatest minds, but the greatest minds in numerous different businesses, including the business of politics and reason, and we're going to make a decision. >> can you say, sir, what metrics you will use to make that decision? >> the metrics right here. that's all i can do. i'm going to have to make a decision and i only hope to god that it's the right decision. but i would say, without question, it's the biggest decision i've ever had to make. >> president trump there acknowledging the weight of the question, when do we reopen the country? the critical decision on his mind as he's caught between economic urgency and public health. joining me, washington representative, denny heck, a democratic member of the house intelligence committee. awfully good to see you even though you haven't shaved for a few days. still go to see you. when do you feel the country will be ready to open and do you trust that this president will

make the right decision on it? >> well, in our hearts and minds i think the country is ready to open now, but the science does not say that. i think we'll be ready to open when your public health community, when the doctors and when the epidemiologists suggest to you that reopen the economy would not lead to a flare or a second wave of the virus and not before. we're not out of the woods yet. we're beginning to have encouraging signs, especially here in washington state, which i remind you, was actually ground zero. >> no, we remember, absolutely. it was really the first place of focus in this country and it is good news that it's flattening the curve there in washington. but with regard to jared kushner, i want to turn to that because two of your colleagues in the house, both chairs of key house committees, sending a letter to fema demanding answers about the president's son-in-law's role in managing the efforts. do you share their concerns? i'm curious your perspective on what kushner's role really is

and how it's been executing it. >> of course i'm concerned about it. i know of nothing in mr. kushner's background that would qualify him to be one of the experts the president said he was going to surround himself with. the fact of the matter is that the president has approached this crisis in the same way he does all others, and i know of no theory of management, no theory of organizational development, no theories especially of crisis management that says what you do is you surround yourself with people who agree with every word that comes out of your mouth and the only words that come out of their mouths are words of effusi effusive praise. that's an absolute disaster for what we've seen here, which is of course an epic failure. history is the great irony, he thinks it's going to work for him politically and it's not working for him politically. indeed, every other president in history, as your previous guests, my friend doris would suggest to you, has had an increase in popularity and support as a result of the rally

around the flag feeling any time this country faces a crisis. the president's numbers barely moved up and now we're beginning to subside, and here's why. because the american people know this is not the way to approach this crisis. >> okay. congressman denny heck, i just want to say on a personal note i was lamenting the fact that you're going to be leaving congress. i'm delighted to say that we've heard you're going to be running for lieutenant governor of your state of washington. i'm going to have you back and we're going to talk all about that and everything else on a very busy agenda with you. in the meantime, stay safe, my friend. thank you so much. >> thank you. that's going to see to do it for me. i'm alex witt. thank you for watching. we'll see you bright and early tomorrow at 7:00. alicia menendez is up next with the west bracing for its peak. which is why when it comes to his dentures only new poligrip cushion and comfort will do. the first and only formula with adaptagrip cushioning technology. choose new poligrip cushion and comfort.

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you're watching msnbc. it's 2:00 on the east coast, 11 a.m. out west. the numbers keep rising, but there are signs of hopes as doctors and medical professionals continue to fight the coronavirus across america. so far, 19,000 people have died in the united states, the most of any country in the world. the number of cases nationwide has now reached half a million. to put that in perspective, nearly 330 million people live in the united states. the hardest hit state, new york, had its highest number of deaths this week. but the