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is get all of those supply lines working, get all of this testing that keeps being talked about actually functioning. >> i wish we would have enacted quarantining earlier. >> there's no question earlier preparation would have saved lives today. >> we need to be conscious and careful and aware that just because the restrictions are lifted does not mean we are in the clear. >> this is a marathon, not a sprint. >> we are fighting for you on the front loons and the biggest thing you can do is stay home, wash your hands, make sure you don't end up in my hospital. >> these are our neighbors, our friends in these beds. and we don't want to see anyone else succumb to it. >> welcome to thursday. "meet the press daily." good evening. i'm chuck todd with the breaking news of the coronavirus pandemic. you heard the voices from medical workers on the front lines of this fight.

something of a warning against easing social distancing restrictions too soon. it's a debate everyone in this country is going to be laser focused on in the days, weeks and months ahead of us. in just an hour, the president is expected to announce new federal guidelines to reopen the country. a process if done properly could rival the marshall program in terms of scale and the manhattan project in terms of urgency. we have just got our hands on the plan. it is 18 pages. we'll have more on in it a moment but more importantly we've learned that the president told governors that they get to call the shots. them, the governors which is a reversal from his claim inaccurate one a days ago he had the total authority to direct them how and when to reopen. we'll have more on that in a moment. all of this comes on a day that we learn that another 5.2 million more people have lost their jobs bringing the total losses to 22 million in just 4 weeks of people who are filing for unemployment.

that's a level of job loss this country hasn't experienced since the great depression. yes, nearly 100 years ago. we are starting to see staggering loons at food banks across the country. the small business relief fund set up as part of the $2.2 trillion stimulus run out of money. a fight in capitol hill is delaying additional relief. rural areas seeing an alarming spike in cases. single biggest hot spot in the country is feared to be in sioux falls, south dakota. then there are the brutal head loons like this one where a new jersey nursing home so overwhelmed by the virus that authorities found 17 dead bodies crowded into a morgue, tiny morgue, that was supposed to only hold four. we are going to get all of those headlines throughout this hour but we are going to begin with the president's plan, mainly what is it exactly? although keep in mind any big promises from the president tonight about reopening the economy any time soon should be treated skept cli because that is not his call. it is the call of the governs

no. we need to see a sustained reduction in cases. we are not sure we're at the peak of deaths or cases in this country. yesterday alone 2,500 people died, that was the deadliest day so far. despite the public support for drastic measures required to fight the virus, elected leaders around the country are facing obvious pressure to reopen their communities sooner rather than later. which brings us to the urgent challenge facing this president. who hasn't exactly inspired confidence with the ability to manage any part of the crisis so far. experts an i gree and officials inside the white house are acknowledging as well finally that we have a huge problem due to one thing. a lack of testing. once we get testing figured out, folks at johns hopkins then estimate we need an additional 100,000 workers minimum just to help track and monitor everyone who may have been exposed to the virus. for reference, we have an estimated 2,000 people that do

the work what is known as contact tracing. joining me now from the white house is my nbc news colleague hans nichols. all right, hans. we have an idea of what he's going to announce. >> reporter: yeah. >> it sounds like he's basically saying, starting on may 1 you can do what you want. but here are the conditions i hope you meet. >> reporter: yes. correct. sorry for cutting you off there. there's a new term i think we are all learning just like we learned with social distancing is, and that is, gating criteria. gating criteria seems to be the threshold that the white house is using before you can move through the different phases of opening up your state or your region. and let me tick through what their criteria are for gating criteria. and that is, cases, similymptomd hospitalizations. there is nothing in there about mass testing. the only part that i see about

testing is ensuring that all first responders and health care workers are tested. so let me walk through the criteria for you here. for 14 days, you need to be on the downward trajectory of symptoms. new cases, also a downward trajectory. 14-day window. after that, you can enter phase one. and then if you pass it a second time, presumably another 14 days later, you can go into phase two. and phase two you can have things such as nonessential travel and then you get towards phase three and that means more like life like it was before coronavirus, for example, senior centers will open up, all bars and restaurants will open up without social distancing requirements. my understanding of reading these guidelines which were sent out to the governors and confirmed with sources inside the white house is each stage requires another 14 days and then they could snap back. so get to phase three we are going to be more -- three of

these phases out so i'm not going to do public math on the air here but i'll try and i think 46 days. right? so it's 46 days from when you pass the first one to where you'd be in a position to be somewhat back to normal. chuck? >> and that's under perfect conditions, that's under no renewed hot spots after you sort of let things go. >> reporter: yes. >> i want to come back to testing. so there's no guidelines how much of the population to test? there's no guidelines on whether you need to be doing contact tracing? are they simply saying the states have to do this? they need to monitor it? but the federal government isn't requiring a metric? >> reporter: that's my reading of these 18 slides. there is something on contact tracing saying that part of the gaetding criteria is contact tracing in place but there isn't anything about broad testing. let me read the section of robust testing programs in

place, this is directed for the hospitals, for at-risk health care workers including emerging antibody testing so that's the sirology test to see if you had it. so that is the main part i flip through here on the 18 pages. got this a couple of minutes ago. doesn't appear to have anything on the broader testing. i don't want to say mass but the broader testing that the president was urged in those conference calls yesterday, especially with the bankers that need to be satisfied before the public is going to have the confidence to go ahead and open things back up again so we'll see. we have a briefing here in an hour which means 90 minutes, chuck. >> yeah. it's a guesstimate i guess is the polite way of putting it. hans nichols, thank you for the latest and i have a feeling more will continue to trickle l out and we may be back to you before the start of the briefling. jonned by joseph fair. you know him well these days, a virologist and a nbc news

scientist consultant and crystal watts is part of contact tracing from johns hopkins center for health security. dr. fair, i want to start with you. the general guidelines for every state or regional area to consider what you just heard there, sort of 15-day tranches, if you make it, you know, you have to show, you know, 14 straight days of downward this and 14, you know, to get to phase two and another to get to phase three. forget the start date or the end date, does that -- are those two-week windows reasonable windows to measure whether you're easing of social distancing is having an impact or not? >> it would be under ideal conditions and keep in mind we have talked about flattening the curve and a few cities we have started to see that they have flattened their curve by -- introducing and implementing strict social distancing measures so new york started to

plateau i should say rather than flatten. new york, washington, california, the areas are starting to plateau. before we start to relax anything we would want to see a very significant decrease in the curve itself so we're just at the plateau level an we are not really even sure we are at a point to go down yet so we'd like to see some really steady decreases, almost to zero before we start relaxing the soebl distancing measures. >> i was just going to say, you made this point earlier on another program. you don't believe we have even started to -- may be just starting to flatten the curve nationally. how much do you think sort of our focus on new york is maybe skewing the perception of where we are on the curve nationwide? >> nationwide i think it's going to be different for every city. i think in new york is pretty close to hit its peak if it's not already or will do so in the next week or so. that being said, other cities, new orleans, philadelphia, chicago, other cities like that,

they're going to hit their peaks eventually and, you know, we are seeing it in places that -- when we had talked earlier i think you know i assumed it would go everywhere and seeing south dakota with no social distancing measures now explode with cases themselves starting in their primary urban hubs but also, you know, trickling to the rural centers, as well. >> right. crystal, let's tack abolk about issue of contact tracing and what they would to do. it's labor intensive. there's some folks that they think -- we have quite a few unemployed people right now. maybe there's a way to turn into a temporary jobs program. what is the best way to run a system like this? the federal government clearly is decided that the states and the cities need to run it but does it need to be done on a national level or could you farm it out to 50 states if there was sort of a national sort of tracker if you will to see how

things are going? >> yeah. i think this actually does need to be run at a state and local level. they're the people on the ground, they know what's happening best but they need support from the federal level. guidance, it can call support and they need funding to do this. >> if you were advising this task force right now, what would that -- what would a testing and contact tracing strategy look like in order to prepare the country to reopen in these phases? >> yeah. i think we need enough testing to be able to test everyone with symptoms, not just people who are in hospitals, workers or people hospitalized. we also need to be able to test the people who have come into contact with those infected people. so that needs to be much more widespread. we also need to be able to do contact tracing across the country. we need to find every case and we need to find all the contacts of those cases. that will enable us to manage

this on an ongoing basis up until hopefully we have a safe and effective vaccine in a number of months. without the capabilities and capacities we are kind of rolling the dice here. >> dr. fair, i know you have been involved in contact tracing coming to ebola. that makes a lot of sense. a nation of 330 million people that already has over 650,000 known cases, we don't know how many unknowns, why does this feel overwhelming? why does this feel as if contact tracing where we basically have 40 states that have some potential hot spot right now? right? really only eight to ten that feel manageable. is it -- is this too much to ask of us? >> it would be if it's just humans doing it. you know? now with the incorporation of modern technologies, everything from artificial intelligence, apps, you know, that is really helping us kind of turn the curve.

it's not as hopeful in the developing world when we try to use it on things like ebola because the networks aren't there, et cetera. but in countries where we have our systems somewhat more developed, we can help use that, harness that technology and help us track down more people. so it's really all about the data and information sharing and as long as we do that the contact tracing is manageable i would say but as you mentioned earlier i think it is going to take 100,000 people minimum but i actually think it will take quite a bit more than that. think of it like census workers except it's more people working with a lot more urgency as opposed to the census. >> i think there's a -- crystal, almost like a workforce to recruit here as sort of a -- you know, a lot of people to participate in helping us out and create a health care corps

of americorps. is there a specialty to help with this or could it be a fairly wide swath of people you could consider for a core of people to participate in this? >> yeah. i think we can look widely to hire people and accept volunteers potentially, too. this is a labor intensive job but it doesn't take a large amount of training so we can train people up fairly quickly to do this and i've been really amazed at the numbers of emails i've gotten since we put out our document calling for this initiative of people who want to help. and so, i think we can look widely for people to do this. >> no. i actually think it can be used as a morale boost, as well. very quickly, dr. fair, i know you're somebody that wants to err on side of, you know, one

more week of a lockdown is better than opening up too soon. what you're seeing so far from the governors, these pacts where states try to act together, do you feel as if we are on the right track of at least if we start to ease this doing it carefully? are you still concerned we're being too haphazard? >> i think the states working together are doing it in the best possible method going forward. i still think, you know, we're still -- you know, like i said it is a plateau in certain areas, not everywhere. certain areas still going up so we don't see a nationwide plateau and we have not reached a nationwide peak of cases yet. at least per city or per area. so i think that's going to change over time. i do think maybe we're being a little bit ambitious in what we're -- i think we are ambitious with the expectations about what opening up actually means so for me when we tack about opening up i don't think that means on day one of opening

up to start walking into a crowded bar and a crowded restaurant and coming to see all of your friends that you haven't seen for a few months now because you've been social distancing. i still think that's going to be like especially bars and restaurants and places like that with intimate and close contact that's going to be something that's going to have to be fazed in over time and we really going to have to change the way we live life post-covid-19. >> yeah. i think people should be happy if parks are the first thing to happen. parks, basketball courts and everybody, you know, baby steps in this. joseph fair, crystal watson, thank you for sharing your expertise to kick us up. are we about to open back up? with 1% of americans tested, going to talk with the mayor of one city in the southwest and what concerns him the most. opening too soon or opening too late? later, tragedy at a new jersey nursing home, 17 bodies stored inside a morgue only meant for 4.

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welcome back. as the president continues to float reopening, confirm coronavirus cases are still increasing in parts of the country. in politico over the last five days, confirmed cases have increased more than 30% in north dakota, 21% in arkansas, 26% in oklahoma and 260% in south dakota. compared to 26% over the same period in new york. the current epicenter of this pandemic. joining me is mayor of tulsa, oklahoma, jt bynum. i wanted to talk to a mayor of a city dealing with issues because i'm very curious, mr. mayor, i imagine you are feeling it from both sides, from the business communities that are antsy, business leaders looking around

going we're not new york and others saying you don't want to become new york. walk me through what that pressure's been like. >> oh, sure. i think you nailed it on the two tensions that are out there. here in oklahoma, we're probably about two weeks behind in the life scale of the virus compared to the coastal united states. that benefited us in one hand because we were able to put in place orders in tulsa and oklahoma city and metro areas earlier in that overall event within our community but it also means now that we're in the week this week where our modeling shows the contagion rate at the peak. the tests should bear that out and the daily hospitalization rate to hit about ten to 14 days after that. and so, everyone here in oklahoma is watching the news about the coasts talking about going back to work and what can

be done and it definitely creates a tension and the caution i give is this is the worst time to take our eye off the ball when our contagion rate is peaking right now in tulsa. >> the governor has not issued -- you have safer at home orders, you have a stay-at-home order there in tulsa. have you been concerned that not having this same policy for the state and the city makes you a bit more vulnerable? >> oh, it is hard because in the tul so metro and oklahoma city metro the people from rural areas come to the hospitals and use the icu beds just like anyone in the metro areas where we have shelter in place orders and creates a place and also understand the governor has a different set of metrics to work with than i do and my focus is on what we need to do in tulsa

to keep tulsans protected. >> i know, look, these guidelines are just coming out but you have seen these guidelines of 14 days at a time. you know? you have to hit one metric and then another. does that match what -- the advice you are getting from your health advisers? >> actually, i'm very grateful to hear that this is coming out just because i think people need to see a plan. more than anything people want the know what the plan is moving forward. i don't think -- i don't run into a lot of people on whether it's people to reopen immediately or people who are very concerned from a public health standpoint, i don't know a lot of people saying that shelter in place is sustainable for a year and a half until a vaccine is available an having some sort of a plan to cautiously move forward i think is a very positive thing. and everything we're hearing locally and i would say probably the great concern i hear from our public health experts

locally is that the data needs to guide when you initiate the gating that you are talking about earlier. it can't be an elected official like me picking a date saying to start doing things, it has to be guided by the positive test cases that are coming in. >> well, speaking of data, testing, testing, testing and that -- that still feels like a bit of a disconnect. right? business leaders want more testing to know for sure. we know that testing is what will give the confidence to people to participate in the economy. what's your testing capacity? and do you need help from the feds? is it from the state level to ramp it up and are you prepared for the labor intensive focus of contact tracing? >> well, i would say we were i think way behind in the early going when it came to testing, that's one of the reasons that we moved so aggressively so

quickly in tulsa was because we recognized that we didn't know how widespread the virus was and when you don't know that data the best thing to do is to assume the worst and we did and put into place the order that is we did very early it turns out in the life of the virus here in our community. we're now at a point, though, where and i was just talking with our governor about this yesterday, we're a point where anybody that has a simple symptom in oklahoma has over 80 different places to go and get a test and we feel better about that but i agree with the concern it is still not a point of anybody to go to the corner drugstore for a test and have a turn around in 24 hours and key. if you're not getting a quick result it is not as useful. if you have to wait a week that's a challenge. and then on contact tracing, i completely agree with the folks that were on before me. i really think that that is something where we need far more

people working on it an we need to utilize the kind of technology that apple and google are talking about that you have seen in asia that reduces the amount of manpower that you need and can create a better, more readily available list of people that you've been near. >> mayor bynum, i'm going to let you go. good luck next week. sounds like you're as prepared as you can be and you just have to get through it as best you can. stay safe. stay healthy out there, sir. thank you for sharing your views. >> thank you so much, chuck. quick update on a story we continue to follow, the south dakota pork plant that appears to be the new coronavirus epicenter in the united states right now. nearly 600 of the plant's employees tested positive for the virus and 135 folks who had contact with an employee at the plant have tested positive. think about that. over 700 folks within basically 1 plant. the plant is closed

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♪ nothing is everything i want free access for whto research.? yep, td ameritrade's got that. free access to every platform. yeah, that too. i want to know what i'm paying upfront. yes, absolutely. now offering zero commissions on online trades. welcome back. the president just announced he convened a meeting of a new congressional task force aimed at reopening the economy this afternoon.

a release from the white house says the open america again congressional group consists of nearly 100 lawmakers of both parties, this announcement on the same day that the small business administration announced the paycheck protection program that provides loans to small businesses that could get frifb completely if they use it to avoid layoffs has officially run out. a statement released this morning states, quote, all ppp funds are exhausted. joining me now with the latest on the congressional debate over virus relief efforts is nbc news capitol hill correspondent kasie hunt. kasie, we have talked about this earlier. i -- you know, this is one of those i assume each party thinks they have some leverage and some constituency group to answer to which is why we're in this situation but it feels we know where we will be in two weeks which is everybody to put more money in the coffers and

everybody is more money to the states, hospitals, right? we know what this is going to look like in three weeks. why does it have to be so painful to get there? >> well, chuck, i think you have guidelines nancy pelosi's position basically there which is that there is a broad acknowledgement that they're going to have to do something big when they all finally do figure out a way to get back to washington. but they also know they have to do something in between. and republicans would be happy to have that just be the small business program. democrats, of course, are saying, you know what? we want to wait and add in money for hospitals and local governments, we want to make a deal with the administration to do that. republicans say democrats are holding these small business loans hostage for this. democrats say, you know what? you're leaving the other people behind while you try to rush this through. it's a classic standoff that, you know, in some ways doesn't fit kind of even the track record that congress established in this unbelievable moment that we are in. >> right. >> they rushed a $2.2 trillion

bill out the door and now they're arguing desperately over this $250 billion. a lot of money, obviously, but not really in the scheme of what they need to do to fix this and mcconnell left the capitol and said they will look at any deal crafted with mnuchin but the senate won't have a session to approve this until monday and we are waiting until at least then before there's a resolution here, chuck. >> and we should make note of a few interesting people that were included and excluded from the president's congressional advisory list. it is bipartisan but it was interesting. if you were a vulnerable republican senator you got invited. you are a vulnerable democratic incumbent you did not. doug jones, gary peters not invited. every vulnerable republican. no mitt romney either.

>> we have been watching the tweets all afternoon, chuck. everyone seems to be letting their constituents know that they have been named to be one of the -- members of the president's task force. there are a lot of members of the task force as you point out and yes people use this in the re-election. the romney omission is particularly notable to me, seems like the continuation of a pretty personal feud between these two men. when you consider that every other republican in the senate was included and mitt romney is arguably one of the most successful if not the most successful self-made men in the senate. >> i think that's a fair point on mr. romney's front. kasie hunt with the latest on these sort of stalled congressional talks, thank you. with me now democratic senator of oregon, senator jeff merkley. let me just start with this standoff and i say this, you

know how this looks from 30,000 feet. we know what you guys are going to do in three weeks. you know? why is this -- why does this have to be filled with a political point-scoring? i get it. everybody has different leverage and constituency groups. this one though just feels off. >> it really does feel off. i was so disappointed last thursday. i felt that when the majority leader came out to the floor to do unanimous consent request, gave minute's notice to chuck schumer, the minority leader, it was all about saying, we're not in this together. we're going to put the republicans out front rather than being partnership. you think about the fundamentals here. we know state and local governments are going to need a lot more so let's negotiate which we put in $100 billion now or $150 billion. we know the rural hospitals and other hospital and health care organizations are really hurting and need help. their revenues collapsed. okay. let's negotiate over the number.

we know that food is still a problem so we need a little bit more s.n.a.p. funding. let's find a number to put in now and adjust it again with the next bill. meanwhile, the ppp program needs to be funded. we cannot wait a moment to do that but there's a series of problems where very small businesses can't get in the door and did result of that is right now we should be putting in with the money the provisions to enable those excluded so far have the door slammed in their face be able to get in the door. these are very bipartisan possibilities here, this really shouldn't be a moment with this type of change. >> what would be the downside if democrats stood down and said, fine, replenish the fund for now but, you know, we're -- you know, we're taking the lead on the next bill? what's the downside in your mind of doing it that way?

>> well, i think the -- a couple of things. one is that the ppp program just put more money in it and don't fix the problems our c constituents, i had so many people in my state, why didn't you fix -- >> is there a big bank? can i pause you there for a minute? let me pause you there. let me pause you there a minute. is it a big bank issue? is it an issue if you're a small business and don't one of the big banks on the corner, what's been the challenge for the small businesses that got shut out of this? explain that a little bit more. >> well, i had my team do a survey of all the banks and credit unions in oregon participating and what we found was that only four of them taking cust mores who didn't have an existing banking relationship. that's now up to seven or agtd. that's part of the problem. of course, another is institutions are overwhelmed and

hoping that they get through the initial applications and then open their doors wider. but it is -- not unlike the unemployment system where the speed with which this has developed has caused our -- institutions just aren't up to the task. they're having to be expandemiced very quickly and some is legitimate challenge of the size of the crisis. >> did you guys -- is it fair to say you underestimated -- at first we looked at $2.2 trillion in the press here and added in the other 4 trillion in sort of available credit from the fed and you think, wow, $6 trillion, and yet, in hindsight did you underestimate what you needed in that c.a.r.es about in. >> it is very clear we need more so i guess you could say yes. when have we had a crisis in which every week we have another

five, seven, 10 million people unemployed? this is -- we're over 20 million now. it's phenomenal. i mean, we didn't have a collapse this big in the great depression. i mean, it is -- and so the strategy was to do a bill, take input, see what needs to be done, do the next bill and then do the next bill. you are in unchartered territory. you won't get everything right. you do another bill. and that's why i just find it unacceptable, we can't get to the floor for funding with state and local, funding for some hospitals and fix the ppe problems, the contractors or the counted in the payroll. another problem that came up. small chambers of commerce around the country, should be involved in the ppp. they're assisting them and so

forth so this is -- this is really a solvable situation if we just put aside the partisanship. >> very quickly, senator, is the problem you guys aren't physically here? i mean, look, social distancing but part wonders is this an emergency? should senators only be getting their -- getting back here if they're not going to let you work remotely? >> you know? i advocated yesterday in our caucus call that we should really come back to d.c. to create the pressure, the public pressure to get this bill done. i quickly discovered that my colleagues were all -- legitimately pointing out that we are trying to model the type of separation not getting on planes if it's not essential, and that we can participate in the negotiations while we're far away which we are but i have this yearning in my heart to be there and if not in the room at

least down the hall. >> i bet you do. >> as affecting it. >> yeah. well, these days you have to be in the zoom that it happened. rather than in the room that it happened. sorry. i'm borrowing that bad pun. senator jeff merkley, democrat from oregon, thank you for coming on and sharing your views. i appreciate it. up next, headed to the site of a tragedy representative of the nationwide crisis at nursing homes. life isn't a straight line.

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welcome back. it's hard to overstate the ongoing tragedy happening right now at nursing homing across this country. frankly, the fear that i think many families have about nursing homes right now. they have been hit so hard by the coronavirus. the numbers are hard to process. nbc news investigation found that more than 5,600 deaths linked to the coronavirus at facilities in 29 states, some states aren't disclosing the data. so the death toll at nursing homes nationwide is likely

higher. new york and new jersey with 3,600 deaths at nursing homes with 17 bodies discovered this week in a small morgue. the police chief said the facility was overwhelmed by the number of people dying. ron allen has been reporting on this story all day long in andover, new jersey. ron, i know that you have been trying to report this out, learn more about the company that runs this. how much of it -- you know, how much of it was a facility overwhelmed? did they have enough people? what more have you learned about how they got into this situation? >> reporter: it sounds like they don't have enough people. it sounds like a lot of people, unfortunately, died during a short period of time. the owner, private family, has said that there was a backlog of deaths during the holiday weekend last weekend which she says is -- what accounts for the

large number of bodies in the morgue, the mortuary at one time. he now claims that there is enough staff and that they're following the required protocols but there are a lot of local officials and others we have talked to out here who don't believe that and the big problem is nursing homes have been sealed for the last month or more. you can't go in to visit a loved one for safety reasons, obviously. for them and for yourself. so there's a lot of secrecy, a lot not known and that of course breeds a lot of worry and a lot of fear. >> right. >> the county released a number today saying as many as 57 people died in that community during the past month or so. a community about -- over 400 people, 400 residents. there's also scores of workers there, staff, who are ill. described as having flu-like symptoms and some have the virus. there's not been a lot of testing there we understand as

many other places so it's unclear the full extent of the problem but it's a place that's just -- you know, on its knees like so many other nursing homes and long-term care facilities across this state and so many others. extraordinarily vulnerable population and in this instance all of this came to light because somebody who works there picked up and phone and called out for help, administrator. called a local congressman saying we need body bags, we need ppe. another person called out anonymously saying a body found in a shed somewhere on the grounds of the property. that apparently turned out not to be true but it just gives you an idea of the horror that has been happening out here that people have been enduring. so now, governor murphy of new jersey has stepped up, says he wants the attorney general to conduct a full investigation but that the point they want to get this place everything it needs to help these people survive and for this place to operate.

and one congressman wants the national guard and fema to lead the way in doing that. chuck? >> ron allen, just such a tragic situation to follow on so many nursing homes communities around this country that have been going through similar situations. thank you for your reporting on the ground there, appreciate it. we'll continue to follow this terrible tragedy in the coming days but also the larger issue of what it -- what kind of regulatory holes has this exposed when it comes to seniors living in america. next, the u.s. economy sinks deeper into a coronavirus-caused recession. subway is still serving the subs you love.

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and now it's no different. because helping you through this crisis is what we're made for. as we await the start of the coronavirus task force briefing, we are learning more about the guidelines that the task force is going to send -- has already sent to governors. kristen welker, one of the nbc news white house correspondents is with me now. and i think the most -- everything in here so far seems to make a lot of sense where basically governors will make the decision what date does it start where they have to start meeting this criteria. but there is going to be one part of this that tells me this is going to be where there might be some tension with the states. according to this document that i'm reading now on opening up america again, it says the states, the corestate preparedness responsibilities,

number one is ability to quickly set up safe and symptomatic screening sites and trace contacts for covid results. ability to test symptomatic and covid trace contacts as well. they believe the states have to ramp up scale up their testing ability, and the state governors and some of these -- just about everywhere, i just had the mayor of tulsa on, it's not enough tests. nobody has enough tests. >> that's right. and that is the widespread complaint that you are hearing from these governors, chuck. and yet president trump on that call said to the governors you're going to call your own shots. so making it very clear that it is up to them to not only ramp up their testing, but to decide what those numbers are going to look like, what the specifics will look like, and how to execute that. and i think that that may be one of the critiques of what really

are guidelines, chuck. these are guidelines that the white house is putting forward. what's missing from this are sort of the details, the meat and potatoes, how you actually get this done. for example, in order to start reopening each economy, the administration recommends that a state see their covid cases decline over a 14-day period. well, when does that 14-day period start? what do the declines have to look like? what numbers or benchmarks are they looking for before a state should feel confident to reopen? and so i think those are the types of details that certainly governors will be looking for. now the question remains once we see the president and other officials come to the podium today, will they fill in some of the missing pieces to this? will, for example, the cdc have more to say about this and more clarity? but when it comes to the issue of testing, chuck, there is broad agreement with not only the medical community, but among

governors, lawmakers on capitol hill that testing is really central to having a reopening of the economy that would be successful. now based on our reporting today, the administration has been looking at ways to do this, even potentially ramping up testing through a republic/private partnership. but so far these guidelines, what we're seeing today in this list of guidelines that the administration is putting forward don't include the details and specifics about how the administration would help the states or how the states should try to set their own testing standards. chuck? >> now there is some interesting contradictions in here, what they consider to be -- in phase one, you don't open schools, but you can open large venues, which is interesting. it seems to be the white house almost encouraging in a phase one to start allowing some sporting or entertainment events. anyway, i'm going to sneak in a quick break here before we believe is the start of the

briefing. it is scheduled for 6:00 p.m. and so we're going take a break now and make an atumz that it may be starting on time. we'll be right back. be right ba. what do you look for when you trade?

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welcome back. it's 6:00 p.m. on the east coast and we are awaiting the start of today's briefing from the white house coronavirusig show-and-te today. we're expecting the president to announce guidelines for states to begin reopening parts of their economies. we've been getting a look at the power point