go to xfinitymobile.com today. good day, i'm andrea mitchell in washington. continuing our coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. here are the facts at this hour -- testing is still a critical issue across the country. with fewer than 1% of the population having been tested, lagging for behind other developing nations. we'll have a report on a unique new saliva test developed in new jersey. president trump reversed his plan he can out laterally supersede the governors and order the country back to work and he's now today surveying business leaders to try to justify states reopening even sooner than his may 1 goal. and the administration is today hearing pushback from global health leaders like bill

gates for his decision to free hundreds of millions of dollars of u.s. money from the world health organization in the middle of this pandemic. a trump decision that's being widely condemned by other world leaders. joining me now weekend today correspondent kristen welker, white house is correspondent pete baker and dr. zeke emanuel from the university of pennsylvania. kristen, first to you and the president in the road gardse ga backing down on his order to get everybody back to work, reopen the country as soon as may 1 or earlier, even though he didn't have the power to do that, but also this extraordinary decision to take the u.s. money, freeze the u.s. money from the world health organization in the middle of a pandemic. >> in a sense, andrea, we saw the president backtrack on two fronts. to your first point about essentially ordering the governors to start to reopen their states by may 1, president trump acknowledging not every

state will be able to reopen by may 1. he even suggested some states might be able to open earlier. but it was a sharp reversal because just a day earlier, he said he had the total authority, ultimately it was up to him. of course, legal experts disagreed with that clearly. someone in his administration made it quite clear ultimately this is going to be a decision that is up to the governors. the white house says it is going to issue a series of guidelines. we know that they are working on those guidelines behind the scenes as we speak. president trump is going to try to form late those guidelines in consultation with the ceos. he's going to start those conversations today and also with the governors. that was the first backtrack. then to the w.h.o., president trump announcing he plans to halt u.s. funding. of course, the u.s. is the largest funder of the world health organization. that has been met with a backlash. but it was notable because president trump criticized the way in which they've handled

this crisis and said they have praised china for being transparent. if you go back and look at president trump's statements, he also praised china for being transparent in the way they handled the initial stages of the virus. so some critics arguing he's trying to place the blame on someone else. democrats, though, insisted, andrea, he doesn't have the power to withhold the funding. they're going to challenge him. nancy pelosi out you moments ago making it very clear she will try to block this move made by the president, andrea. >> and in terms of the president's calls to business leaders, peter, i want to bring you in for a moment on that. we checked with a number of business leaders, nbc news has found at least a half dozen who did not even know that they were members of this advisory council until the president announced it without any prior warning to them. they got notifications last night after his news conference about these calls throughout the day today, different sectors.

but it almost seems as though he's looking for cover against the criticism down the road if it turns out he opened the country too soon. >> yes, it seems like a committee of what numbers can actually do. it's hard enough to get decisions made by a small number of people, how do you you do it by members across the country and could not get together in person? they have to do it on zoom or phone calls. doesn't seem the most effective way to do it. but i think you're right, the president wants to gather with some of the country's leading people. he's got extraordinary names on there, people with a lot of credibility beyond politics. jeff bezos and condoleezza rice and conservatives and some union leaders and so forth. i think you're right, he wants to be able to say he's the leader of the country and the country is coming behind him. the danger for him, of course,

is that he does something these people on these committees don't agree with. any of them can then quit in protest and then make a big fuss over it, which would then embarrass the president. there's always a danger in these kinds of committees. remember the committee of corporate executives he had advising him back in 2017 when he took office basically fell apart because of his comment hes about the charlottesville racial episode. so when you invite people like this to be part of your advisory group, again, you give them power that then they might use it in a way that might not work for you. >> i wanted to bring zeke in, dr. zeke emanuel. first of all, your reaction to taking back the money and the house democrats appropriations committee, as you pointed out, he doesn't have the right to impound this money without going to congress. we're talking about state department appropriated funds that were supposed to be sent hundreds of millions of dollars in previous years to the world

health organization. without judging the world health organization at this moment, pluses and minuses, what they did, what they didn't do, the criticism around the world is this is the worst time for the u.s. to be sending this signal globally that we are not cooperating and supporting a u.n. organization that does a lot of other things, polio and other diseases as well. >> so let me make thee points. first, let me be transparent, i've been a special adviser to the secretary-general there for a few months now at the w.h.o., and i think it is a very important organization. it's not without its flaws that are well known to the organization itself. second of all, it is a kind of ludicrous decision in the middle of a pandemic where the w.h.o. is key to coordinating worldwide responses and in particular, i was on a call this morning at 6:00 a.m. about coordinating the ethics review of a master protocol to run vaccine trials

in multiple countries so we can get a vaccine trial quickly and we are dealing with or being alerted to an ethical challenge that might be present. you know, only the w.h.o. can convene the whole world in that way, and it's very important to have that convening, especially when we're going to need to run trials on drugs, trials on vaccines, through multiple countries at once to be sure that what we have is pretty effective. i do agree that congress has the power of the purse. that's the way the constitution is set up. the president is an effecter arm and woe have to show there was some critical malfeasance. there's no embezzlement there. it's his claim that they were just overly positive to china. now, you know, china has been transparent on some things and it's not been transparent on others. where this virus came from is one issue that's hotly

contested. but they did release the genome. it's been very critical to the whole world to develop tests. and the president himself has been on china, he's been flip-flopping. i would say having been the target of the some of the right wing ire, he's clearly looking. fi first it was fauci and bill gates and myself, trying to push the blame on others. we're not in the blame game here. we all have to try to solve this problem and that's the top priority, not figuring out who made mistakes. there are plenty of mistakes to go around and his administration has made many of them. but we're here now. it's april 15th and we have to get the economy opening, and we have to push forward in the safest possible way. and that's got to be the top priority. >> let's talk about the testing, which would be the predicate to getting the economy reopened. this is dr. fauci with savannah

guthrie on our special report last night talking about the antibody tests and the questions about it because we don't have all of the science that we need. >> we don't have all of the answers with the antibody because the things that we don't know is in general the viruses that we deal with all the time, when you develop a antibody after infection, it almost invariably means you're protected. we don't absolutely know that for sure yet. i think it is going to be the case. i think it will be. the other thing we don't know is the durability of protection. so are you protected for a month or two or three? a half year or year? we need to get experience to know that. >> zeke, don't we have to do a lot more testing before we can have a large enough study, a large enough base to find answers to those questions? >> yes, the serology test that

dr. fauci is talking about is critical. it's also critical to the vaccine because if you give a vaccine and the antibodies and the rest of the immune system doesn't get engaged and activated and target the coronavirus, it isn't going to be of much use. if all you get is an antibody rise that lasts three, six, 12 months that also creates a huge problem having to reimmunize basically the whole country or 70% of the country every year. that presents a huge production and logistic challenge. we know that with flu, we only get about 45% of adults year in and year out. that would be inadequate for the coronavirus. so that's critical. the other tests that has been critical is the virus test like nasal swab, virus test being developed. there's a lot of discussion about how many false positives we get with that or false negatives, people not caught that we get with that test.

there's also been a recent drop from around 110,000 tests being done a day to 75,000 being reported in politico. that's a huge worry because we actually need way more testing, ramping up to a million tests a day in my opinion, at least, going forward and having up to 75,000 means we're missing many people who are likely asymptomatic but could be spreading the disease, precisely the people who are most worrisome in this situation. so it's a very confusing testing circumstance, and i don't think we have our arms around having the right testing infrastructure both in terms of the varous and as you point out in terms of the antibody going forward to relax these physical distancing requirements. >> dr. zeke emanuel, kristen welker and peter baker, thank you all so much. joining us now delaware senator who serves on the foreign relations committee.

senator, first of all, your immediate reaction to the world health organization and what the president ordered yesterday. >> well, andrea, what we need to be focused on is saving lives and getting our economy restarted. and president trump trying to shift blame to the w.h.o. by cutting off funding or claiming he can cut off funding to this political public health organization is like shooting at an ambulance because you don't like how quickly it responded to its first call when you still have patients lieding out in the street, bleeding, needing responses. it doesn't help anything for us to look backwards and try to punish the w.h.o. and distract from some of the challenges and failures in our own country. we can very rapidly scale up reliable testing for antibodies as well as for the infection itself. and we happen now, andrea, to be in a moment where this highly transmissable and lethal pandemic is beginning to spread

rapidly in the developing world. the w.h.o. has a critical role to play in developing a coordinated response. you know i was quite active in our work responding to the ebola pandemic. back then the united states was really leading the global response. right now i don't see the sort of global leadership that we need. >> senators langford and portman also joined other republican senators grassley, collins last week, romney, in criticizing the president for going back, moving igs. of the 75 igs, challenging the independence of the inspectors general who were supposed to be overseeing the trillions of dollars that have gone out. what is your take on that? is there anything congress can do? >> there is. and i was glad to see this initiative by senators langford and portman because, frankly, when we unanimously passed the $2.3 trillion c.a.r.e.s. act

roughly two weeks ago, there was a lot of concern expressed, particularly by democrats, about transparency and accountability. every agency has an inspector general. one of the key functions they play is holding administrations accountable over the decades. different administrations of different parties, we have relied upon inspectors general and a bipartisan support for their critical work to make sure we know how the money is being spent, and we can make sure it's being spent in an appropriate way. so, frankly, i was grateful to see some engagement by republicans. if we don't have a bipartisan commitment to pushing back on president trump's abrupt firing of the former inspector general of the intelligence community, atkinson, in sidelining the former inspector general department of defense, who was supposed to be chairing the inspector general'sav effective. this was a positive step but, frankly, nd more determined

and bipartisan insistence on full transparency in how this record amount of federal funding is being spent to respond to this pandemic. >> tw are yare you at all surpr concerned about the president putting his name on the stimulus checks starting to go out today? >> finally, this unprecedented act to make sure his own signature appears on a check coming out from the treasury, something that didn't happen in the '08/'09 response when there were also stimulus checks sent out, something that doesn't happen with typical social security checks was just, in my view, an unfortunate stunt to try to ensure that millions of americans who are now receiving the stimulus checks have some sense of gratitude. frankly, there is a pattern here of refusing to take responsibility for what has been an uncoordinated and often even

chaotic response at the federal level is to the urgent demands by governors and mayors for adequate testing and adequate ppe, and an attempt to insist that he has powers and authorities that he doesn't. and to take credit for things that were done on a unanimous and bipartisan basis. i think it's a distraction for us to spend too much time focusing on or fighting over this. but i do think it just shows one more thing about the focus, the prioritization and character of our current president. >> chris koons, thank you very much for joining us from delaware. coming up next -- a new way of testing for the coronavirus dpetding under way in new jersey. why it is so critical and why america is so far behind other countries to get a handle on who is and is not a carrier. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports." stay with us on msnbc. stay with.

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with testing the key to identifying and tracking cases so states can eventually get people back to work, a possible breakthrough is being launched in new jersey where rutgers university you scientists have developed a saliva test with which quicker results for residents with symptoms and much safer method for health workers administering the test. the state's first testing site is open in edison, new jersey, where we find nbc's ron allen. ron, how is it going today?

>> it's going pretty well so far, andrea. you can see behind me there's a long line of cars that stretches all the way around this area and behind that building, which gives you an idea how many people here in new jersey want to be tested. and generally about 40% of the people being tested in most places turn out to be positive, so that gives you an idea how many more new cases this part of new jersey will have by the end of the day. the test is a similar method. basically you drive up, a health care worker hands you a cup, you deposit spit into the cup and wipe it down and hand it back and you get the results in 24 to 48 hours. it's a lot less intrusive, a lot less painful and awkward than having a health care worker lean into your car and take a swipe or swab deep into your nostrils. so this test was given emergency use approval by the fda just over the weekend. it's not quite all the way approved but they're using it here and they hope to do several

thousand a day. they hope to get up to -- the lab can do about 10,000 a day. but they hope to get this process out to the rest of the country as well in the weeks and months to come. as you said, testing is crucial, it's vital. especially a case like new jersey where the death rate is still going up, with governor murphy said he does not see any opening or easing of the lockdown restrictions here until june, possibly into july. this, of course, is a state that's very close to new york, at least this part of the state is. this is the spillover effect. and this state has been behind new york city by a week or so throughout the crisis. there's also a huge concern here in the state about nursing homes and long-term care facilities, where there's been a tremendous amount of infection and a huge number of deaths and losses. but today, this is the first day they're trying to roll this out. again, the demand is strong.

people have been here since 10:00 this morning when it opened up. you have to make an appointment, and you show up, you get in line. the wait seems to be 45 minutes to an hour or so, or perhaps longer. they're still trying to get the kinks out of the system because it's something new. again, a health care worker hands you a vial or a cup. it's different from the health care worker actually being involved during the process. they say it will reduce the need for more personal protective equipment, it could be faster and more efficient. they say the results have a very high accuracy rate. of course, there's a lot of concern about that. so we will see. of course, in a state like this, just about anywhere, anything that helps create more opportunities for testing and diagnostics is a very, very positive thing. andrea? >> indeed. it is one of the possible solutions. thank you so much, ron allen. at this hour a rising star in the democratic party, michigan's governor gretchen whitmer is facing protests

against her tough shelter-in-place orders with the procession of cars organized by conservative groups advocating for looser guidelines, especially for residents who want to visit their vacation homes or use their boats. the governor reacted to a response in a very big spike and warnings from the cdc about detroit and other urban areas in a dispute that divided the state politically and has some racial overturns as well. and fears people who go to their rural homes in the state's upper peninsula could be sick without hospital facilities. joining me now, congresswoman debbie dingell. congresswoman, thank you very much. have i accurately characterized the dis put here? how serious is this objection to a person who has been a very popular rising star in the democratic party? >> you know, shows doie's doing she needs to do. i think there have basketball a lot of reaction of variety on subjects like they can't mow their lawn or get landscaping.

i don't hear quite as much about the out state versus the suburbs. regionally, it's going to lose. the tricounty area which detroit is in, outer wayne, macomb, has been the area that's been hardest hit by the number of cases. here's the reality, we're fourth in the nation with the number of cases, alternate between third and fourth. we need to mitigate this. if we don't take tough actions, people are going to die. people don't understand they could die and there's no room to be political now period. and the governor's got my 100% report. >> the governor is such a major figure, but she's even on the short list, we understand from joe biden, as a possible vpice president running mate. >> you know, this is what i want to say, i'm very close to her, as you know. she's been one of my friends for years. i talk to her.

i'm not afraid to tell her exactly what i think and, trust me, i've had some pretty intense discussions since i have been fighting to get testing quite frankly for my fire and police in wayne. we got our abbott test yesterday but it took three weeks to get it. but she's not focused on politics right now. she's not focused on whether or not she's going to be a running mate. she's focused on what does she do to stop the mitigation in michigan? how does she keep people safe? when you look at the modeling numbers, the president was looking at the same modeling numbers at the white house, our numbers are staggering, frightening and devastating. she did what she had to do. she talked to me about it. she was scared to death with the impact could be to michigan residents. and everything she's done is to try to save lives. and, look, i have been in my house for 31 days alone, no human interaction. you lead by leading.

i'm frustrated. but you have to do what you have to do right now because we don't want people to die. this is an invisible enemy which we can't be partisan on, by the way. i refuse to take a shot at anybody. right now i'm upset about the world health organization, like others, but i'm with the cdc director who this morning made it clear he was going to continue to work with them. we need to work together. >> can i ask you briefly, also, about a controversy i read about involving anadian workers over the bridge from canada to michigan and are vital to michigan, has that been resolved across the boarder? >> it's an history everybody worries about because after 9/11, frankly, we did have a hard time across the border. 65 bedside nurszs in the system of detroit comes from canada. but i would like to say this

administration i think really understands that, has worked very hard with the deputy secretary of state that's on the task force, actually worked at ford for over a decade and is really very alert to what the issues are. it's been talked about between the two leaders. i think some of the local government on the canadian side have been worried about the potential spread. but my understanding is that while everybody worries about it, there are not any issues at the very top levels of our government, from the president on down. they know it's a serious issue. while we all pay attention to it,ing i'm told on a regular basis they are alert and those workers are getting to the hospital. >> that's good news indeed. thank you very much, debbie dingell. thank you, congresswoman. as we're all sheltering at home, it's a difficult time for everybody. >> it's an interesting time. thank you.

meanwhile, this has also been at the forefront globally, the whole issue of what south korea has done. south korea has done better than most of the other countries around the world in handling the pandemic. they're now sending 600,000 more covid-19 test kits to the u.s. today. south korea's widespread testing allowed it to become the first country to hold a nationwide election during the pandemic, a possible blueprint for the u.s. in november. what lessons can the u.s. learn from south korea's approach to the virus? nbc's karina ferris victor chi is here. he is leading all government efforts on south korea for years. good to see you. let's talk about this election, which apparently was held successfully. we have seen video of people going to the polls, getting their temperatures taken before they vote, everybody wearing masks, of course. what can we learn from south korea and how effectively they broadly tested and are beginning

to reopen? >> well, i think you just said it there, andrea. one of the things they did is she did widespread testing. they tested two to three more people per capita in south korea than they have here in the united states. and as you mentioned in your piece, they have a surplus of masks and test kits that they're now exporting abroad because they met all of the domestic demand. and they never really had to lock down and shut down like we're doing now because they moved fairly early. basically right after the crisis, almost right after the crisis, they declared a national emergency, about a month before the united states did. within two weeks of their first case -- they discovered their first case within a day of the united states. within two weeks they're rolling test kits off the production line and within three weeks they're creating these phone apps for mobile contact tracing.

they learned from previous mistakes. they had pandemics before where the government didn't respond well. so they were quite prepared this time, and the results are clear. >> their phone apps are probably similar to what apple and google are talking about with phone-to-phone connections. but there are privacy concerns. you worked in the white house. do you think that the u.s. would accept that, and could properly protect against the privacy invasion that this could represent? >> yes, it's a great question. undeniably these sort of locator apps do raise privacy issues. they raise privacy issues in the united states. there was one trump official that said korea can do this because they're not a democracy but this is a country that actually where the people actually impeached the last president of the country. so they're very much a democracy. but there are clearly privacy

concerns with something like this. but it's a tradeoff. on the other hand these mobile apps and mobile tracing provides a public good so we all feel safer and more comfortable going out of our homes if we were to reopen our economy. that's the key, the objective is to reopen after the peak. and if we don't have universal testing as debbie dingell just said and we don't have a vaccine, which is 18 months, 2 years away, all we're left with is contact tracing and social distancing. so what these phone apps do is they give us a better handle on being able to do that, even though it means a temporary incursion of our privacy. >> and, of course, the contract tracing is going to require 100,000 workers, volunteers or other kind of workers, which we don't have. we don't have that system set up. i wanted to ask you about the world health organization decision because you worked so closely with these international

groups. china potentially agreed to move in as they are in other areas, where the u.s. is stepping back from international leadership. what is the impact of the u.s. freezing the w.h.o. money? >> well, i think there are certainly flaws with the way the w.h.o. handled this pandemic. i think it's been clear to most experts who have looked at this. they were slow in wanting to declare the emergency with regard to the pandemic. there's a lot of chinese influence there. at the same time freezing contributions to the world health organization in the middle of a global pandemic might not be the best thing to do. but unfortunately, it fits very much with what is essentially being a vacuum of multilateralism in dealing with the covid pandemic. when we compare it to the way

the world came together after the global financial crisis or the way the world came together in response to ebola, led by the united states, we don't see that sort of multi lateral response at all now. and i think there are countries that are willing to do that but they need the united states to step up and unfortunately we have not been playing that role. >> and it also undercuts a key u.n. agency that does a lot of other things besides covid-19. >> yes, absolutely. as you said, if we step away and cease funding because we're worried about the w.h.o. being unduly influenced by chinese funding and chinese influence, by stepping away we're only ensuring china will have more influence in this organization and potentially other u.n. agencies that play a very important role in terms of things like pandemics and global

health. >> thank you so much, victor cha. thank you for your expertise. meanwhile, back in south dakota in this country, a massive processing facility is now closed indefinitely after at least 438 workers have tested positive for covid-19. the plant, operated by smithfield foods, is responsible for roughly 5% of the country's pork processing. joining me now is nbc's blayne alexander outside of that plant in sioux falls, south dakota. the governor of south dakota is one of few governors that originally resisted all sheltering in place very controversily. the question is what happens to this food plant now, not only the food supply, meat supply around the country, but the workers in this extraordinary hot spot? >> absolutely, andrea. so right now the mayor of sioux falls is really looking at taking action and stepping in themselves, having the city council enact some sort of action. but, yes, they're calling on the

governor to enact some sort of stay-at-home order. the governor has been pushing back on this, saying even if there was a stay-at-home order in place, that would not have prevented more than 400 cases here at smithfield foods. let me just lay the scene for you, it's not just the 438 cases inside the walls of this plant but another 100 or so more people who are contacts of employees that have tested positive for covid-19. so we're talking about the fact of all of the cases here in south dakota, 55% are linked to this specific plant. of that's why officials are saying a stay-at-home order is necessary. when you have a place like smith field foods, the third largest employer in this area, so many people are tied to this very specific building. if coronavirus gets in, if it takes hold, it can wreak havoc on this entire community. speaking about the food supply and concerns there, the ceo of smithfield raised an alarm

saying we're possibly on the brink when it comes to the nation's food supply. it's not just this plant but poultry plants and others around the country that have had to close their doors either temporarily or indefinitely as covid-19 ha spread among employees there. now, there are some experts who say because there are other plants still in operation, that's enough to kind of fill in the gaps and continue to produce meat. so we won't see a shortage yet when we get to the grocery store shelves. but the question is how long will that last? and how long will these plants go before more of them have to shut down as this virus continues to spread, andrea? >> blayne alexander in sioux falls, south dakota. and now the daily briefing from new york governor andrew cuomo. he's just come out. >> the way we do this, people noticed our annoying personal habit, people remind me and my staff too, reminded me this

morning. people love to give you their opinion on what they think, i think this and i think this. i often stop them before you tell me what you think, just give me the facts first before your interpretation of the facts. i like to start with just the facts. just give me the facts. as we will do in this presentation. here are the facts, no opinion, no filter. and then i will give you an opinion but i will tell you what my opinion versus the facts, just the facts. it is an annoying personal habit. people want to tell you their opinion. i think this. i know, tell me the facts first and then we will do your opinion. total hospitalizations, click down, still in the 18,000 but click down. good news. that's a fact. it is a fact that is good news. not my opinion. you see flattening of the curve, all of these new expressions we never used before, plateau,

flattening, rounding. and the change in hospitalizations down. that's good news. three-day rolling average -- because, remember, any one of these days of reporting, this is a new reporting system. it's imprecise. i wouldn't bet the farm on any one day's numbers. but a three-day average starts to be a little more accurate. icu admissions is down. that's good news. intubations are down. that's very good news. just on a real-life level. when a person is intubated, they're on a ventilator. 80% of the people will never come off the verne or thereabouts. so that's good news. a reality check, you still have on a day-to-day basis about

2,000 people who are being diagnosed with covid. so we're out of the woods? no, we're still in the woods. the good news is we showed we can change the curve. good news is -- great news, in my opinion -- we can control the spread. that is great news. can you imagine if we couldn't control the spread? if we did all of this and the spread kept going up? so we can control the spread. but you still have about 2,000 people a day who are new diagnosis coming into the hospital system. so it's still a serious public health issue. lives lost yesterday, 752, which is the painful news of our reality day after day. and they are in our thoughts and prayers. you see 707 in hospitals, 45 in

nursing homes. people are interested in those numbers, and how those numbers are changing. but you see the terrible news is basically been flat over the past several days. again, the number of death is quote/unquote lagging indicator. it's almost disrespectful to put it in scientific terms, but these are people who were probably intubated. they were on a ventilator, and then again period of time on a ventilator normally has a bad outcome. the total losses, total number of deaths number, the cdc changed guidelines on how they want information reported. they want deaths and then another category of probable deaths, which is a new category

that's done by the local department of health or the coroner. so we're going to rationalize those new reporting requirements with local governments. and get that information out as soon as we can. we're also -- since we have a little bit of a period to take a breath, we're going to contact the nursing homes and facilities to find out if there were other people who passed from covid who were not necessarily in a hospital or in a nursing home. because there is a sense that there may be additional people who passed away and they weren't included in the count because they weren't in a hospital or weren't in a nursing home. so we'll be going through that. but basically the health care situation has stabilized. the fears of overwhelming the health care system has not

happened, thanks to the phenomenal work of our frontline workers. thanks to all of the additional capacity the hospital system created. over 50% additional capacity in one month. just think of that. thanks to the work that our federal government did, army corps of engineers providing the beds at javits. by the way, javits, which is 2,500-bed capacity is the overflow valve, about 800 people have gone through javits. so thank you very much. and it was a great service that was done by the federal government in a very short period of time. so we have that stabilized. people are still getting infected but we have the infection spread down to a manageable number. we've accomplished that. people are restless. we have to talk about the reopening of the economy, how do

we do this? we have to build a bridge from where we are to the reopening of the economy. what does that look like? let's say that the -- where we're going, it's not a reopening in that we're going to open what was, we're going to a different place. and we should go to a different place. and we should go to a better place. if we don't learn the lessons from this situation, then all of this would have been in vain. we learn a lot if we're willing to open our eyes and open our ears. so we're going to a different place, which is a normal -- and we talk about the new normal. we've been talking about the new normal for years. the new normal in public health. by the way, the way we have a new normal in environment, new normal in economics, new normal in civil rights, new normal in social justice.

this is the way of the world now. we're moving to a new place, new challenging place, but also potentially a better place. well, when is this over? i say -- personal opinion -- it's over when we have a vaccine. it's over when people know i'm 100% safe and i don't have to worry about this. when does that happen? when we have a vaccine. when do we have a vaccine? 12 to 18 months. who determines that? the federal government has to test the vaccine and fda. it's a big gap, 12 to 18 months, yes. i say the sooner the better of the anything we can do to work with the federal government to get a vaccine done faster, we are all in. you want to use new york state as a laboratory? we're ready, willing and able. any way the department state department of health can work with the fda to reduce that testing period, we're all in and energized and creative and ambitious about it. and so anything we can do to accelerate that vaccine, we will

do. you need a place to test it in large numbers, think of new york. but that's the ultimate end, right? we have a vaccine. now we don't have to worry about this. by the way, we'll probably have to worry about the next public health risk at that time. so don't forget everything we learned. besides the vaccine, there's a possibility that they develop a medical treatment. so we can't prevent you from getting the virus, but we have a new medical treatment and if you get the virus, don't worry, it's no big deal, you go and you get this medical treatment. that's another way of having a natural end, right? and that's what convo lessant plasma is all about and antibody testing to find people who had the antibody and then injecting the antibody into a person as a treatment method. maybe the hydroxychloroquine works. now, this has been a very politicized topic. i have done my best to stay 100

miles away from politics in all of this. everybody wants to see hydroxychloroquine work. everybody. well, the president says he believes it works. but he's not a doctor. you're right. he believes, says he believes it works but he's not a doctor. find out. find out. and everyone hopes that it works. and anything new york can do to test it, we will. we're now testing hydroxychloroquine. there are a number of hospitals that are doing it. it's not a government decision. it's not a political decision. it's a medical doctor decides. and if a medical doctor decides it works, fine. we have an executive order that limits the prescription of hydroxychloroquine only because we don't have enough. and there was such a demand on it that people who needed it and are using it can't get it. if the federal government sends us more, we will dispense more.

it's a pure supply side issue. or maybe they develop another drug that they figure out has an effect. that could happen between now and the vaccine. and we will pray that it does. but until you have a vaccine, until you have the medical treatment, what do you do? how are you building the bridge? well, it's going to be a phased reopening, right. and during the phased reopening, the priority is make sure you do no harm and keep your eye on the public health issue. that is what is key in all of this. so it's going to be a calibration of reopening based on public health safety and that infection rate because what we have done, and the reducing of the infection rate, is a pure function of what new yorkers have done and what people across the country have done. when you relax that social

distancing, you could very well see an increase in the infection rate. so it's all a calibration to the public health. but it's going to be a gradual increase of economic activity in calibration with the public health, public health standards. the single best tool to doing this gaging, right, is large-scale testing. test, trace and isolate. just what everybody is talking about. what does this mean? it means you test, find a positive, trace back who they were with, where they were, test those people and you isolate the people who are positive. it's inarguable, it's just very, very hard to do. and it opens this new world of testing. and this new world of testing is a new world to all of us, by the way. this diagnostic testing, are you

positive or negative? then testing for antibodies, were you exposed? if we find out you were already exposed and had the virus, now you can go back to work because you have the virus, you have antibodies. antibody testing, once you with boat antibodies, you can help develop convalescent plasma to take the antibodies and use it as treatment. there's saliva testing which is faster and easier. it's not blood testing, it's not a swab, it's just saliva. but that's a new form of testing that's just been developed. this finger prick testing which is less invasive. but also being developed. there's full-blood sampling testing which is obviously more intrusive. but to do the testing, you need testing equipment. you need swabs. you need vials. and you need all of these things

at a capacity that does not now exist. where do you do the testing we've been doing the testing in hospitals. frankly, that's not a great place to do testing. you don't want people walking into a hospital emergency room who may be positive for covid. our drive-through locations are better. but how do you bring that to scale? all right. and then even if you have the equipment and the testing site and the personnel to do the testing, where do you get the labs to test all of these tests? this is a whole world of questions that nobody has ever seen before. the bottom line is, well, you need large-scale testing. let's do it. we can't do it yet. that is the unvarnished truth. i know, because new york has been doing this since this

started, exploring this new world. we have done more tests than any other state. we've done over 500,000 tests which is more than the other states that are near us combined. okay? so, we've been very aggressive here. but in all of this time, we've only done 500,000 tests. now, that's a large number of tests, yes. but this is over a one-month period. and even 500,000 tests, you're talking about a state with 19 million people. right? so you get a sense of the scale of what we have to do here. we cannot do it without federal support. and i've been saying this for days. if you have a state that has a lower need, yes. they may be able to do it.

but when you have a state that has to do a large number of these tests, i'm telling you, we can't do it without federal support. and i've said that to day one. we will coordinate. and we have been coordinating all of the tests in our state. that's how we got to that 500,000 number. more aggressive than i think anyone else. we have 228 private laboratories in this state. we will coordinate with them. we'll make sure that we're not competing with ourselves, because there are a lot of groups that are now testing. new york state department of health developed their own antibody test. and that test is going to be very important. it's in our control, because we'll actually do those tests. we don't need a private lab. we don't need anyone else. with those tests, it will go to about 2,000 per day capacity. and that is a finger prick test

so it's not terribly invasive. even i can endure the pain of that one. we've asked the fda to approve a state test that could get us to 100,000 people per day. to give you an idea, that's then 500,000 a week, if you don't work the week ends, i don't know if you do and i don't want to raise something i don't know about. but 500,000 a week. we've only been 500,000 to date, right? so, you get a sense of how powerful that would be if the fda approves that. we're going to prioritize the antibody testing for first responders and essential workers. and this is important. we've all been saying thank you to the health care workers and that's nice. but i've told the head of the health care workers, his point

has always been gratitude is appreciated but we need support. the health care workers need the support. they need the ppe equipment and they need the tests to make sure they're not getting infected. and if they are infected what is the status. he's exactly right, morning thank you, actions, more than words, right. nurses, they've been doing phenomenal work. they need support. they need the equipment. they need time off. they need to recuperate. and the first responders, the nypd, pat lynch represents the nypd has said to me from day one, my guys need support. guys being gender neutral. they're out there every day. they live in the downstate area. and they work in the downstate area. many work -- live in nassau, suffolk, westchester sh, orange

they work in the city. they need not only ppe, et cetera, they need testing. they need to know if they've been infected for themselves. and also they could wind up being spreaders if we don't know. and pat lynch and the nypd have been extraordinary here. okay. make them a priority for the testing that we can do and we can control. and that's the antibody testing and we will. so, more testing, the more open the economy. but there's not enough national capacity to do this. i've been speaking to governors across the country. every governor is now in the same situation. i was speaking with governor pritzker of illinois. he has some labs that do the testing in the state but everyone is in the same position. and we to be clear on this who does what between the federal government and the state

government. the states can not develop national testing. there's no simple answer to it. it's basically controlled by private sector companies who have been doing it, at a reduced volume, because that was the world. you didn't need such a high-level of tests. so the private sector companies only develop to the capacity that the market demanded. this is an entirely new market. and when you talk to the private sector companies which i have, they'll say, i can't increase my volume. i can't get enough swabs. i can't get enough vials. i don't have enough machinery to manufacture it or to test it. they need chemical agents that do -- that are part of the test. many of these chemical agents aren't even manufactured in the united states. so, there's an international supply chain.

all of this to say, it is very hard to bring this to scale quickly. and we need the federal government to be part of this. testing capacity to me is like what ventilators were over the past month. all of a sudden, because of this virus and the respiratory attack, we need massive numbers of ventilators. i never heard about ventilators before this. i now know more than i ever wanted to know about ventilators. but it came out of the blue. they're very hard to manufacture. there's a whole supply chain. they're a sophisticated piece of equipment. and you just -- it's very hard to get them manufactured quickly. no one is to blame on ventilators and no one is to blame on testing. i know we're in a political world, well, who's to blame, who's to blame? sometimes, there's nobody to blame, you know. on this testing situation,

there's nobody to blame. just how do we now do it? how do you now scale this up and scale it up quickly? because we want to phase the reopening fast as as we can between now and the medical treatment and a vaccine, right? that's what we're doing. i do know this, on the lesson of ventilators, the answer on testing is not what happened on ventilators which is 15 states competing against each other to buy testing capacity from these private sector companies. and the federal government, which is also buying testing capacity, competing against the 50 states. that is not learning the lesson of what we did before. so, partnership with the federal government, 100%. but we need that partnership to do this. once you test, then you have to

trace the contacts. so we test bernadette, bernadette turns up positive. okay. who were you with over the past week? what family members were you with? who do you sit next to in the office? you now have a list of 30 people. if it's bernadette, even more because she's highly social, has a lot of friends. now, somebody's got to run down that list of 30 people. from one positive. it's a detective, investigator in the public health space. that is a massive undertaking. it's intelligent, but it's massive. and that is an army of tracers. so, testing. have to get that up to scale. and then tracing, yes. but that's a mas