♪ he was still dying from it, but not as many as -- as -- as earlier in the pandemic, but it's still lethal. >> they get the family on the phones to make a phone call to say their good-byes over zoom. i've never seen anything like that mp, not having someone at their side while they are sitting there dying. >> everyone and everybody needs to be tested at this point in time. only then can we think of about

reopening this economy, let alone this country. otherwise, we are setting ours up for failure and resurgence and a second wave of covid-19. >> again, we begin the show tonight with a voices on the front lines of this fight. welcome to monday. it is "meet the press" daily. m i i'm katy tur in for chuck todd. we are about half an hour away from the planned start of today's coronavirus briefing at the white house. it could be a bupsy one as the president faces new questions on testing and on his comments about protesters, on an emerging funding deal to rescue small businesses, and a whole lot more. you're looking at pictures of demonstrators over the last 48 hours protesting stay-at-home orders and urging local governments to reopen their economies and, in some cases -c

socially distancing guidelines which has the president to liberate several states but the protesters do not match the prevailing public opinion right now by 58% to 32% margin, people are more worried that the u.s. will move too quickly to erase an ease restriction versus not moving quickly enough. we learned moments ago that georgia and south carolina would be taking what appear to be immediate steps to reopen parts of their economy. the message from experts and from most governors, though, is that it's way too soon and too dangerous to reopen. and the federal government needs to help states very first on testing. >> that's just delusional to be making statements like that. we have been fighting for testing. it's not -- it's not a straightforward test. we don't even have enough swabs, believe it or not. >> our big problem today, i could probably double, maybe even triple testing in ohio virtually overnight, if the fda

would prioritize companies that are putting a slightly different formula together for the extraction reagent kit. >> to say that the governors have plenty of testing and they should just get to work on testing, somehow we aren't doing our job is just absolutely false. every governor in america has been pushing and fighting and clawing to get more tests. >> i can't solve for the national manufacturers not being able to produce the volume to sell to my state labs. >> yesterday, the president said he was preparing to invoke the defense production act to essentially force private manufacturers to help states produce materials for more tests, which stands, in contrast, to the white house's claims that states have enough tests and supplies to begin reopening their economies right now even this if he wanted to. at this hour, we are looking to hear from the president on whether he will back an emerging

deal on capitol hill for 450 billion dollars in emergency relief for small businesses as the u.s. suffers job losses not seen since the great depression. democrats want to include additional funds for hospitals and, yes, to help fund more testing. republicans are accusing them of holding up much-needed aid. meanwhile, the death toll in the u.s. has passed 40,000 with more than 750,000 confirmed cases. while deaths and hospitalizations are declining at the epi center in new york, the number of new cases nationally has entered a phase that some experts worry could look more like shark teeth instead of a downward slope as policymakers zigzag between efforts to save the economy, which means easing restrictions, and efforts to save lives, which means tightening them. we have our nbc reporters covering every angle of this coronavirus story. shannon petty is at the white

house as we await the coronavirus task force briefing. kasie hunt is also with us and von hilliard is with us and blaine alexander is in atlanta, georgia where the state's government is plans to reopen some businesses with stri restrictions. the governor of georgia wants to reopen tattoo parlors and other places as long as he you can seep socially distancing. how do you keep socially distancing as a hair salon or barber or a nail salon or massage parlor? >> i think those are the questions that a lot of critics are going to have about this. this is something the governor announced the past hour or so. this process is going to begin as quickly as this friday. so let me read you just some of the basics. you went through some of the

businesses that reopen. basher shops, massage therapists, gyms can reopen as soon as this friday. then other places like restaurants, movie theaters, others will be allowed to open, reopen a week from today. that is on monday. governor kemp has said in his news conference that he was not open to having what he called kind of the hodge-podge of decisions that he had before he enacted that stay-at-home order. he says he is reopening this on a rolling basis but wanting them to continue with socially distancinging and minimal guidelines. you mentioned there will likely be a number of local official in the state of georgia are not happy about this. i've just reached out to the office of mayor bottoms here in atlanta to see what her response was. as you know, governor kemp had come under fire not too long ago for choosing to reopen the state's beaches. you saw the local officials there in very strong terms calling it a very unwise move, a

dangerous move. so that just came when he decided to reopen the beaches. we know, again, this rolling open comes as the number of cases here in the state of georgia continues to increase. we are talking about nearly 19,000 cases, more than 700 deaths according to the newest numbers have come out today. certainly a lot of people will have a very strong opinions about these measures that the governor just announced. >> blayne, do we have any warning that if the number of cases keeps increasing or if they see a flare-up even more than they are already seeing because you said they are still on the rise that he could reinstate the lockdown measures? >> reporter: here is what he did say. he did make it clear that the shelter-in-place order is still in effect until april 30th. he also said that people who are elderly or happen to have underlying health issues should remain sheltering in place until may 13th. that was where he started his announcement before he enacted the shelter in place weeks ago.

he said, look, if you're medically fragile or elderly, shelter in place. it almost looks like a going back to those initial guidelines before he enacted the shelter-in-place order. >> that's so difficult because, again, we don't know how it's going to affect any individual. we are talking about underlying conditions and the elderly but a number of people in their 20s have been hospitalized who seemed otherwise healthy. blayne, thank you for that. von hilliard, you're in arizona. a protest is going on. a lot of these protests seem largely politically motivated with a lot of trump 2020 or trump/pence paraphernalia. what are you seeing there? are people suddenly putting on masks since i last talked to you? >> reporter: there is only a few masks in this crowd. the crowd has died down on the arizona state capital. one of the protests today were

500 folks here that were congregated together. a republican governor here who issued a stay-at-home order three weeks act. in large part when you look at the death toll in arizona, the death toll has been limited to 17 deaths. there is questions. folks here calling for reopening. they call it the arizona economy. but you still have the likes of about 80,000 older folks over in the likes of sun city that are congregating in a type community. navajo nation rates of covid contraction is nine times than the rest of the state's population. you're talking about reopening the economy here, you're talking about essentially ending all of the policies and efforts that this government has put into place. it was a young woman had to be in middle school or high school. on a sign. it was hard to miss when she walked in and it said, identify -- "give me liberty or give me

death." the greater population of here is 5 million and the folks here willingly able to drive up and honk their horns. folks gathered behind our cameras and shout and waved posters next to each other. another part of the population i talked to the last three days that would like to protest but are not. those are the small business owners. i know you'll talk to kasie about this more. this is where protests are folks that did not get the ppe funding or the folks in the pizza shop down the road. i talked to a woman chef here who said she has seen the likes of ruth crist see the ppe funds but she has not and she is trying to maintain the socially distancing which up do not see here. >> she is trying to follow the rules and waiting for the government promised to help keep her business open and it's infuriating for her and other

business owners i've talked to see an organization like ruth's crist or shake shake get money because they are a larger organization and i know shake shack is giving their money back. kasie hunt, mitch mcconnell blamed the democrats for not come up with the deal with the payroll protection program. what is the log jam? what are your expectations for the days to come? >> reporter: both democrats and republicans say they want to fund this small business program more. democrats say they don't want to just do that. they want to add other kinds of money and they want to add new guardrails to the program to try to give some of this money or direct some of this money toward those smaller business owners. they tried to get a whole lot money out in a rush the way the law was written, left some loopholes in the case of these massive restaurant chains. it's that rule that says 500 people per location or less.

now each one of these massive -- one of these locations of these massive chains have less than 500 people but when you take it together, it's a giant organization that has resources that these small mom and pop shops simply don't and so many you eluded to talking to small business owners. i've spoken to many i still interact with regularly and there is a network here in washington of small business owners, restaurants are having trouble to find people who could access the money. democrats say we want more rules and a pot of money going to specifically these smaller more underserved entities to banks that don't necessarily have massive clients. that is a piece of it. we have seen this delay drag out. the fight today is over a couple of things. one of them is techinsting. we know they are spending about 25 billion on testing. democrats seem to be pushing behind the scenes for some sort of national testing regime. we know the president has resisted that. there was a phone call over the weekend and angus king got test

wii with the president over this issue. republicans seem to be privately say they want a bigger area for private testing. the other thing is an issue among democrats. alexandria ocasio-cortez said she was not voting for this bill and they want a moratorium among rental evictions that are not discussed as a part of this emergency package. the reality is that through this week, we could see a potentially dangerous situation really on capitol hill. they are able to social distance more than any of these, say, crowds of protesters, but to have 435 people coming back from across the country, all of these different hot spots across the country, including many from new

york to the capitol building raises a lot of questions how to ensure the safety of staff and members there. >> and hard to say how many lawmakers are much older. shannon, the white house today or the president today seemed to liken the call for tests from governors, bipartisan governors. republican and democrat alike, as the same as the call and the complaint for ventilators. he tweeted last month, the following. republicans are saying this too.

again, it's republican and democratic governors saying the same thing. we just played them a moment ago. larry hogan and governor dewine both saying republicans and they need more help with testing. the president said yesterday he would invoke the defense act but didn't need to to produce more swabs. the swabs are needed for testing. where exactly does that stand? do we know who he was talking about needing to use it against? >> reporter: well, we think we do but the president hasn't identified the company. what he said is that he was preparing to use it or that he was going to be using it. our reporting indicates, as of right now, he has not actually used the authority to compel any company to start producing swabs. you noted we have been hearing the governors raising concerns about testing. you were at one of the field testing sites today talking to one of the workers who was

raising a issue with not having the supplies they need to carry out the testing. so there continues, as we have seen through this entire process, whether it is ppe or ventilators or tests, this disconnect between what the white house is saying is occurring and what is going on out on the ground. the president put a feel focus on testing over the weekend and on friday to try and tout what the administration is doing with regards to testing because of the criticism they have gotten. i think there will continue to be defiance we hear from the president on and they bring out the number of tests. to put some of those in context the president talked about having 4 million tests done. back in mid march, that is how many tests we were told would be available and would be out there. 4 million tests in mid march. that's how many they have actually completed now. that continues to be the big barrier here. that is preventing this administration from getting businesses and getting governors to lift these orders in a lot of states to bring businesses back

online and i will be asking dr. birx and dr. fouchy auci is tal about things they have been doing. it sounds like a solvable problem. we heard from other people that process is not in place until september. i think this is the big question that needs to be answered at this moment. >> a month ago, the president said we would be up to 5 million tests right now. but we wouldn't need that many tests. we are only at 3.8 million right now. around 1% of the population has been tested. shannon, thank you so much. thank you all as well. we are awaiting the start of the coronavirus task force briefing set at 5:30. once it begins, we will bring it to you live because it's president of the united states answering questions on the coronavirus. plus the results of our new poll about the response to the

coronavirus. steve kornacki will break it down at the big board coming up. [ action music throughout ] every box has a mission: to protect everything inside from everything outside. that is where the true glory lies. when what's inside matters, [ doorbell rings ] ...count on boxes. paper and packaging. how life unfolds.

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welcome back. we just said, georgia will announce or has announced it will begin reopening businesses on friday. but the rush to reopen is not what the majority of americans are saying they want. joining me now at the big board with some of the numbers from our latest nbc poll is who else but my nbc news colleague steve core nkornacki kornacki. if georgia says we are opening up all of these retail places, how many people are actually going to feel comfortable leaving their house? >> yeah. based on these numbers here, you're seeing, i think, a lot of caution on the part of americans and i think you're seeing here, americans are still processing this and figuring out their feelings towards it. how about this poll? just a question here. do you know somebody who has covid-19 who has been infected with it? 40% now of americans in our poll

say yes. look how quickly this has been changing. we asked the same question a month ago. at that point, it was 27%. it has jumped and basically a 50% increase there up to 40%. you see the stats. we see the stats day and night how this is still growing so expect that number is going to continue to grow. it's already up to 40%. how about this question here? the state of the economy. probably not surprisingly given the shutdowns it's 22% right now who say it's in excellent or good condition. vast majority is fair/poor. in terms of what a massive change this is, basically at the start of the year, this same question in our poll, a majority of americans back then said the economy was in a really good place. they said it was excellent or good. 53% when we basically came into 2020. now barely 20%. a big change in a short period of time. how long do folks expect this is going to last? how long do they think it's going to be until the virus is

stabilized enough to have the economy return to normal? look. not many are saying it's the next few weeks. you see the plurality. 45%. they say the next few months. 26% who say, a quarter, who say sometime the next year when that is going to play out. those are the two answers you get the most from folks when you ask that question. while in this condition, are you more worried we are going to stay in this too long, cause too much damage or get out of it too soon? nearly 60% say too soon is their worrying here. 48% say the government will spend too much as opposed to the government not spending enough. there is that question of public faces of all this. public leaders, institutions. do you trust what they are saying about coronavirus? the cdc people say nair own state's governor and anthony fauci high marks for all of

those. the president, himself, a majority 52% saying they don't trust what he is saying on covid-19. one other note there. joe biden, 26, 29, small numbers. a lot of folks say they don't know whether to trust or not trust it because they are not hearing from him right now. >> it's hard to get your message out from a computer in your basement as joe biden is now being forced to do, being forced to conduct his campaign. steve, thank you so much. >> sure. >> the former head of the fda ahead says we likely won't have broad-based testing for the coronavirus until september. when it comes to some of the tests we do have, they might not be reliable. we will try to clear up some of the confusion with our medical experts coming up next. n with ol experts coming up next you know, new customers save over $1,000 on average

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welcome back. new york state is planning to randomly test thousands of residents this week for covid-19 antibodies as a move to think about reopening the state's economy. but in addition to still falling far short of the number of tests that would be needed to truly get new york back to work, there are a lot of other potential pitfalls, including that we don't know fountain tests are reliable. here is dr. fauci this morning. >> the problem is that these are tests that need to be validated and calibrated. and many of the tests out there don't do that. so even though you hear about companies saying, flooding the

market with these antibody tests, tloleav a lot of them ar validated. when you have an antibody protected against reinfection but that has not been proven for this particular virus. >> still so much we don't know. dr. clayton dalton is an emergency room doctor at massachusetts general hospital. and dr. patel is from the brookings institution and a former health policy director in the obama administration. dr. dalton, you're out there on the front lines with patients every single day. there is this talk from the president that testing is fine, states just need to ramp up and do it. talk to me about what you are seeing and what the need is and, you know, whether states can do it alone. >> i don't think the states can do it alone. i think a lot of the state governors have been moving mountains and have done an

incredible job in terms of making sure hospitals have what they need, especially new york. i have colleagues who work in new york city' they have said they feel like the only support they have had is from the state government and they have felt the absence of federal leadership here. i think there have been so many missed opportunities on the part of the federal government to step in, help coordinate things and help to make sure that we had the right tests early on. it just wasn't taken seriously. i think when we look back on this, we will see that cost people their lives. i think it's a major missed opportunity. >> so as states start to reopen and some states start to allow elective medical procedures but procedures not urgent but still necessary, what is that like for the doctors treating them when we don't have enough tests and we are not entirely sure if somebody might be an asymptomatic spreader some how are those procedures going ahead, ones that normally wouldn't require a full

head-to-toe ppe body suit? >> that's a great question. i think nobody really knows the answer yet. i think we -- we know that we have to have better testing capacity, whether that is pcr testing to see if someone is actively infected or antibody testing to see if there is any evidence that they have already been infected and acquired immunity. there is a major gap right now in terms of what our capabilities are and what they need to be. i know a lot of people are working really hard on trying to increase this testing capacity but we are not quite there yet. and as dr. fauci was saying, a lot of these tests need to be validated and tested to make sure their results are reliable because if you get unreliable tests from the antibody tests, you can make decisions based on them that could put people at risk. so there is still a lot of work to be done but it is going to come down to testing. we have to know who is exposed in order to protect everyone

else. >> dr. patel, please expand to that because we are all waiting on the antibody tests and hoping they can tell us whether we can interact safely with others. as dr. dalton and dr. fauci said, they are not reliable. why is that? >> well, first of all, the fda has kind of been speeding up their authorization in order to try to facilitate testing but normally these type of tests take years to perfect and to check the validity of. that is normal and in a pandemic, you'll try to do things as fast as possible. but to the point of the reliability of these tests, just basic immunology, for you to develop immunity it takes several days when you get the infection to when your body develops the antibodies themselves. you can imagine testing someone kind of in that window where they might actually be infected but not have developed a specific type of antibody and

that could give you a false picture into that person's immunity status, itself. so honestly, this isn't one test. it's going to have to probably be kind of a panel of different kinds of tests that we are going to need in order to feel safe to return to work or send our kids to school. the bottom line is that in several months, we will have better performance of these tests than we do today. >> dr. patel, so much about this virus we don't know, including how long it lives in your body. i was watching a correspondent at cbs seth doane who got this virus and had to be locked up in rome i think 40 something days he was saying. he tested positive multiple times and he had not shown symptoms but he had gotten better. do we have any idea how long it lives in the body and after when you stop showing signs, showing symptoms, you might be able to reemerge from a quarantine?

>> well, we do know certainly we have seen some guidance even from the cdc, as well as other countries where they have kind of established that if you don't have a fever or a 72-hour period and you don't show symptoms for a seven-day period, that that is probably a pretty good sign that you can't pass this on. however, to your point, there is actually documented patients that have had symptoms and signs as long as 47 days and there is a question about whether or not -- i think if you're wondering for anybody you know or for yourself, if you're showing symptoms, that is certainly obviously a reason to not -- to not break self-isolation or a quarantine. but i think your question when will we know it's safe to kind of return to normal activity, that is one of the other reasons that we need to have not just the antibody testing but to dr. dalton's point, we have very

accurate kind of prarns tests to check if you're actively infected or could be a fal false/negative rate but it has a pretty good positive rate -- >> what? >> i'm sorry. i wouldn't have known it myself. absolutely. i wouldn't -- i wouldn't have known it myself unless i had to study it. it just basically is a game nettic material. it's genetic material so the pcr test is the type of test to look at the reproduction of the rna, the virus and to put it simply, it's a test that looks for the genetic material of the virus that is in the virus or nasal fluid we are talking about

swabbing. that gives you the most accurate picture of an active presence of the virus. and that is why, again, one test is not going to be enough to give us a complete picture so we are talking about different types of tests and probably at receding points of time. immune et or lack of immunity today might not mean what it means in a month because we don't know how long immunity lasts for coronavirus. >> dr. dalton, one more to you because you've seen so many patients now. do you have a clear idea of who comes in, who is -- when someone comes in, which patient is going to have a more severe reaction, which patient is going to be more critical, and which one you'll be able to treat and then release? >> we do, yes. there is a number of different things we can use to try to gauge the severity. a check x-ray, a certain blood

test, the degree of oxygen that they require in terms of support. how fast do they breathe? are they using neck muscles and shoulder muscles to help them breathe? so a variety of things we use to paint the picture of ourselves how sick a patient may be and gives you a fairly accurate picture of who will need to go to the icu and who will need to go to the medical floor and who might be able to be discharged. a lot of things that go into trying so make that assessment and something we are experienced with other illnesses too, so we use the same sort of means of accessing severity of illness for covid-19 as we do for other diseases, does that make sense. >> it does make sense. thank you dr. dalton. dr. patel will be stick around for after the president briefing. once the briefing begins, we will bring it to you live.

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and defer your first payment up to 120 days on the purchase of a new lincoln. just like that! the white house coronavirus task force staff came and out here is the president but here is brian williams first. >> at a time when millions of american workers and families are struggling with the financial consequences of the virus, it's critical to continue

the medical war while reopening the economy in a safe and responsible fashion. during this time americans must maintain strict vigilance and continue to practice careful hygiene, socially distancing, and the other protective measures that we have outlined and that everybody has become very familiar with. we continue to be encouraged that many of the hardest hit by the virus appear to have turned the corner. recent deaths are down very substantially. you can compare that with their peak not so long ago. and you have numbers of 30%, 25% and detroit as an example is down over 50%. congratulations. and in new orleans, they have done a terrific job, they are down 65%. 30 states have just one case or less per 1,000 people. far fewer cases per capita as an example than germany, the united kingdom, france, italy, ireland,

switzerland, belgium, spain, norway, the netherlands, austria, sweden. my administration continues to press congress to replenish the enormously successful paycheck protection program which has impacted 30 million american jobs. we hope to have an agreement very soon and hopefully tomorrow the senate is going to be able to vote. a lot of progress has been made on that, tremendous progress. it's a great plan. it's a great plan and helped a lot of people so we hope to have a vote maybe tomorrow in the senate. and based on the record low price of oil that you've been seeing, at a level that is very interesting to a lot of people. we are filling up our national petroleum reserves strategic, you know, the strategic reserves and we are looking to put as much as 75 million barrels into the reserves themselves that

would top it out. that would be first time in a long time it's been topped out and we would get it for the right price. we are also pushing for the deal to include an additional 75 million hour deal, a deal we are talking about 75 billion dollars for hospitals and other health care providers, many providers and their employees have taken a huge financial hit in recent weeks, and elective procedures and et cetera, et cetera, were cancelled. we think they can all get back online and they will get it done. the hospitals have been really fantastic. the hospitals, they have stepped up to the plate. they really did a great job and we appreciate it so much. for areas less affected by the virus, we have issued recommendations about how to safely resume elective treatments. hhs was also distributed the first 30 billion dollars in direct payments to a million health care providers across the country. we have also invested 1.4

billion dollars in community health centers to ensure our most vulnerable communities, including many african-american and hispanic-american communities have access to the services and testing that they need. earlier today, vice president pence spoke with governors from all 50 states about our unified effort to defeat the virus. had he a great call. it was a great call. very positive. i'd say in every way. prior to the call, we provided each governor with a list of the names, addresses, and phone numbers of the labs where they can find additional testing capacity within their states. many, many labs who are providing you with a list and show it to you now if you need it and give you the details. hundreds and hundreds of labs are willing, ready, and able. some of the governors like as an example, the governor from maryland didn't really understand the list. he didn't understand too much about what was going on on. so now i think he'll be able to

do that. it's pretty simple. but they have tremendous capacity and we hope to be able to help him out. we will work with him and all of the governors. similar to the situation with ventilators, states need to assess their complete inventory of available capacity. some states have far more capacity than they actually understand and it is a complex subject but 13469 governors didn't understand it. the governors one is from illinois pritzker who didn't understand his capacity. not simply asked the federal government to provide unlimited support. i mean, you have to take this when you have it but we are there to stand with the governors and to help the governors and that is what we are doing. they have a tremendous capacity that we have already built up and you'll be seeing that. we will introduce a couple of folks in a little while to talk about it. i want to draw your attention to

governor cuomo remarks during his press conference today. he said the president is right and the state's testing is up to the states to do. which will implement the test and low gistically coordinator the tests. we have thirty-o300 great labs york and it's my job to coordinate the 300 labs. i think the president is right when he says the states should lead and the governors are really getting -- they are getting it together in new york. a lot of good things are happening in new york and i think the governor is coming in to see us tomorrow. he is coming to the oval office tomorrow afternoon. andrew is going to be coming in with some of his people so we look forward to that. some of the articles just recently came about, if you remember, i put out a statement today for a month, it was all ventilator, ventilator, ventilator. all people could talk about was

ventilators. and we did a great job with that. we built a lot of ventilators to put it mildly. we have so many now that at some point soon we will be helping mexico and italy and other countries. we will be sending them ventilators which they desperately need. they were not in a position to build them themselves. but we have thousands being built. every state has had -- they have the ventilators. if they don't, we have almost 10,000 in our federal reserve, our stockpile as they call it. and we did a great job with the ventilators. unfortunately, the press doesn't cover it other than the fair press, so then you say, gee, think need ventilators? we don't need ventilators. that is under pressure we did that. nobody that needed a ventilator in this country didn't get one. and store that just came out, how the media completely blew the trump ventilator story. i'm sure you'd love to see that.

that is by rich lowrie, a respected journalist and person. how the media completely blew the trump ventilator story, which, unfortunately, it will. another one here just came out. kyle smith, the ventilator shortage that wasn't. the ventilator shortage that wasn't. because we got it fixed and we are also going to help the states, by the way, stockpile ventilators so if a thing like this should happen again, they have got them. the stories on testing are all over the place that we are actually in good shape. i'll have the vice president and others speak to you about that, but we are in very good shape on testing and we are getting better all the time. you'll see some interesting things. ill thought before i went any further, though, i'd like to have general who has done an incredible job tell you where we are. we are still building beds and hospitals for people that need

them. i guess the hospital business, general, is getting pretty much closed out now, but we are creating a lot of space for people just in case, and in some cases, they probably will be using them, but i thought the general, he has been so impressive and done such a great job, i thought on behalf of the services and on behalf of the federal government, he will say a few words what we are doing right now. thank you so much. general? well,. >> well, thank you, mr. president. i want you to know on behalf of all of us and the department of defense, our thoughts and prayers go out to all of those patients and all of those victims who have been affected by many this terrible price. president and vice president talk about the heroes. i've seen the nurses and doctors that work very hard when i go out there and we are proud to be a part of this calling. for my team i said it's simple. three legs of this stool and they all have s's. sites. hospitals. supplies. staff.

so right when governor cuomo called the president about almost 30 days ago, he said i need some help. worrying about what could be tens of thousands of hotel rooms -- i mean, hospital room shortage. the president and secretary of defense asks to you fly to albany with a team. on the way up we understood how complex of a challenge this was. we knew no way you could solve this catastrophe with a simple solution. we needed a simple solution to work with hhs to work with fema and work with the vice president's task force and then to be able to power this down all the way down to the local level. some of the governors asked us to try to built a hospital in a parking lot or a field in two or three weeks. you can't physically do that. so what we said is let's go to where an existing facility and i'm make this in two big pots. those are either hotel rooms or college dormitories, smaller rooms, or those that are in real large areas like field houses or convention centers.

we designed those standard facilities that could be either noncovid-19 or covid and then we got that approved here at the federal government to be able to then power that back down. so we went to governor cuomo and he said right up front. i love the power that back down. we want to governor cuomo, and he said i love the concept, but i need you in the javet center. so when we flew back the next day, we built the standard design and continued to be able to power it down all the way down through the rest of the team. i just want to show you a couple of slides here, and we'll kind of let you know where we're at right now, mr. president. we had to do a bunch of assessments. somewhere in the order of over 1,100 different locations we went to, and we worked for fema, the president, and we work for governors and mayors and said what do you think your demand is going to be? based on a lot of the modeling in this room here, we were able to understand when the peak curve was, and we were able to

understand where is the bed shortage. so these 1,100 facilities right now today, we're executing 32 different facilities, that's on the order of merit of about 16,000 beds. eight of those are all done. we have a lot more to complete. in the next week and a half, we'll complete about 15 more facilities. we've got some pending. some mayors and governors are still wondering do they have enough bed space? and what's important here is they need an agile plan. you can't do something three weeks ago and think that this is going to continue to say, because this virus gets a vote. this entire team, the federal government has tried to be as agile as they can supporting those states and governors. the beauty of the plan is it doesn't have to be built by the united states army corps of engineers. we designed about an extra 52 facilities and gave those to the governors. i have to be laudatory to the governors. they then put a lot of those on the ground and did those

themselves. so i'm just going to show you some simple pictures here. go to the next slide, if you don't mind. this is an example of the center, and you heard the president talk about it. this one is about 2,100 bed spaces. what you get is about an 11 or 12-foot square cubicle. there's lights in there, a nurse call to call the nurse station. there are nurse stations throughout, farm sis throughout. this started as non-covid, but we came back in and put in central oxygen, so everybody has oxygen right behind their bed. and built this one about 1,000 pay sents treat s -- patients here ask what the governor needed to do here. you'll see all the cubicles laid out in the middle of a convention floor. and built 970 different

capabilities there. a lot of great work by my guys in the corps of engineers and the rest of the mayors and cities pulling together. next one, this is called the mccormick place. the governor sat us down and said here's our intent on what you want to do. mayor lightfoot walked us through and we went into another large convention center. this is 3,000 bed spaces and got this done in a relatively short time. here's another one that helps you understand the dynamic here. this is in miami bench. i flew in to see the governor in florida. and my guys scoped out about 450 beds and he said, how long is it going to take to build this. we told him until the 27th of april. we went to his health people and they said we need this the 21st of april. i told my guys, figure out how to get it done by the 20th. this is where you don't get to build to have the perfect

solution, you have to get the mission company done. lives are on the line, and we have to get everything done to save those lives. last one here. this is one we're doing right now. colorado, this is in denver, another gigantic convention center. you'll see all the different cubicles to bring in that oxygen, six-inch copper plate that comes in, and it's all piped throughout the convention center. six miles of pipe to make that happen. in closing, i want to be able to say that we are very, very focused getting this done. this is all about the federal and state team, the local team, the vice president's task force, a lot of the people sitting here have informed us of how fast we need to go. and it goes back to all the governors and mayors making this happen. i want to reiterate, president trump has called me three times, and secretary esper has been on the phone at least one of those times and said what else do we need to do to set you up for success? any other knobs we can turn?

and you think about that equation of the these ss, with the federal government, mayors and cities, we have effectively taken that first "s" out to have equation. so of all the things i've done in my career, this is a noble calling to step up and save american lives. thank you very much. >> fantastic job. anybody have a question for the general while he's here? because i think it's very self-explanatory. >> are there more projects beyond the ones you've just identified? >> about a week ago, what we're seeing, and i said the virus gets a vote. we're seeing some of these curves are stretching out where we might have thought we only had five or six days, we have a couple weeks now. other ones we're seeing the opposite. so where we didn't think we had some, we are definitely getting requests and six more requests in, in the last four, five days. there are smaller facilities in remote areas, but we have enough time to build, we want to do the assessment and we work for the

mayor and the city and the governor here and we can still get them done if the mayors make a fast enough decision. >> you might say while you're here, we're building the general is in charge of the wall on the southern border, and we want to build 450 miles of wall, and it's very much you believunder construction. how are we doing on the wall? >> you stressed this, our number one priority is to protect the team, no matter what we do, we have to take care of or civilians and service members out there. every single thing we're done, whether we're building for the va or the department of defense or building on the southwest border, we are going out of our way. i talked to my commanders this morning. we have over 4,000 contractors on the ground out there, and we have had no positives as of this morning, knock on wood. we're testing them, not

necessarily with temperatures to be able to make sure that everybody is safe and goes out of their way to do things the right way. construction is going very, very smooth. what we're seeing is our contractors are focused now that we have got a good, clear path. we are very well postured. this is a very aggressive build. and we are well postured to make your expectations of 450 by the end of december 2020. >> and we're over 160 miles. >> 164 as of today. >> 164 miles and we'll have it done early next year. very exciting. and the quality of that wall in terms of its power for stopping people that shouldn't be coming into our country? >> same thing. if you have a standard design that you trust in and it works very well, i have a pat on the back from commissioner morgan. he was adamant that it continued

to support his agents. so we have a design that does that. and we have a phenomenal contractor workforce, my corps of engineer employees. and we don't see any significant problems. i think it's important to point out that we want to do this the right way. so we try to balance this with environmental considerations out there. we're trying to do due diligence when it comes to do anything with any of the citizens affected. we're making sure we're protecting all the things we need to protect. and find that balance where we can meet the administration's directive, while at the same time making sure we're doing this so that everybody gets a vote and everybody has a fair shake. >> okay. yeah, please. >> may i ask what you're doing regarding the availability -- at the recreation sites at the army corps of engineers operates, how the access is going there and whether or not there are restrictions. >> i'm an engineer. when the president says turn on

america, what we initially did, like many, many other governors shut down beaches and cities, i had a meeting with my commanders this morning. as soon as we think it's safe, turn them back on. i mean, parking out there at a rec area in a camper is probably throw threat. i will continue to take guidance from the administration, but where we get green lights to put our rec areas up and let everybody go out there and do things safe. i don't want to be the last guy that turns things on, not at all. yes, ma'am? >> are there any specific efforts in communities that are hard hit, like black or latino communities, is the army corps of engineers doing anything to build temporary facilities for those communities? >> we key what the city and governor asks for. there are certain things city

mayors have asked for. if they say i'm worried about a hot spot on this side of town or a specific community here, we will do -- and that's what the administration has charged us to do -- whatever we can do to be most responsive. we don't want to have an ambulance pull up to a hospital and somebody says, we're out of room, go to the next hospital down. that's where we are making sure that bed space is available. so far, everything we have built has been ahead of need. so we're able to finish a building two or three days ahead of when it's being needed. >> so you can stay and watch these wonderful people ask us nice questions or go back to building. >> i have a lot of building to do. >> very impressive. seriously. that's really great. thank you very much. he's a terrific gentleman. we have a lot of great people doing that kind of thing that they really have to get