hit with the first wave. oh, great, i'm done. the wave hit me and i'm still standing. be aware because there could be a second wave or there could be a third wave. so don't be cocky just because you got hit by a wave and it didn't knock you off your feet. there could be a second wave. and if you're not ready for the second wave, that's the wave that's going to knock you down because you're not ready for it. so that's what i'm worried about. and also to the local officials and local politicians, i have no problem with them blaming me. very simple answer, say to everyone, whatever they say, i agree with you. it's the governor. because by the way, it is the governor. it is. these are state laws that are in effect. the local official can't do anything about them anyway.

because they can't contradict the state law. so it's true, so the local official can say it's the governor, blame him. it's true. and it will stop us from doing something that's counterproductive, and it will also stop us from getting into a dispute between me and the local government where the net message will be to the people there's disagreement or confusion among government. and this is not the time for confusion or disagreement among government. so the state laws govern, i get the local political pressure. blame the governor. it's the truth. and the state laws can't -- the local laws can't counteract state laws anyway. and to this political pressure, this is a quote that i think people should take to heart.

when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then they ceased to be free. hamilton -- edith hamilton and edward gibbon in "the history and decline of the fall of the roam anticipate empire." when the freedom they wished for most was freedom of responsibility, then they ceased to be free. we have a responsibility today to ourselves and to others. there's a codependency and mutualality among people in society that is more clear and distinct than we have ever seen it. you sneeze, i get sick. you knees,sneeze, i get sick. it is that close a connection.

you have a responsibility to act prudently vis-a-vis other people. because you're not just putting your own life at risk. you're risking my life and my children's life and my parents' life and you don't have that right. you have to act responsibly. and to advocate for total irresponsibly, it's all be irresponsible, no, not here, not now. any questions? >> governor, can you talk about how that will dovetail -- >> let's try another new first and a new normal. we don't need to speak each other. i will answer your question and let each person ask a question and then we'll go on to the next one. >> governor, specifically is michael bloomberg providing funding? are you giving him the power to

hire people? and mayor de blasio talking about his own effort to do tracing and testing. how will the two things overlap? >> they will all be coordinated. city's efforts coordinated, nassau's effort, westchester's effort. they will be hired independently. new york city employees, westchester employees, city and state employees. but it all has to be coordinated. there is no tracing that can work within one jurisdiction. >> michael bloomberg is leading some coordinating councils? >> let me just finish. can you not trace someone within the boundaries of new york city because once the person goes outwhere side of new york city, now that would be a westchester person. i live in westchester, take me. i lived in westchester. i worked in new york city. new york city's going to trace me? how? i'm in westchester, that's a

different county. you can't trace me. well, we'll go trace people in westchester. then westchester will say that's my resident. don't come in here and trace my resident. all right, let's forget the jurisdictional fight and political, local fight. we'll coordinate everyone. this is a monumental undertaking. who's going to do it? we're all going to do it, cities, state, nassau, suffolk, jersey, connecticut. how do we do it? i don't know. we've never done it before. michael bloomberg will design the program, design the training. he's going to make a financial cont cont contribution also. put together an organization that can help hire the people because we have to expand this number ten-fold. and get this all done like this. this has to happen. you don't have months to plan and do this. you have weeks to get this up and running.

super ambitious undertaking. and mayor bloomberg will help coordinate the entire effort. we will be working with the state. i'm working with the city and the nassau and suffolk and jersey and connecticut. >> sorry. >> i don't know the financial contribution is. does anybody know? >> it's a fourth of $10 million. but what mayor bloomberg is doing through the program at johns hopkins, which he funds very heavily, their public health program, which is preeminent in the country. he's helping us define the components of the contact tracing program and they in partnership with us are creating an online curriculum to train the tracers, recruit them to perform the background checks and then we're going to coordinate all of the counties and also with new jersey and connecticut. >> safe to say a quarter million people infected, are you planning on contact tracing that

cohort as well, the quarter million people that are already diagnosed? >> you will trace as many positives as you can. as the testing number goes up, that number of possible people to be traced is up. the implication of your question is right, won't you be identifying more positive people than you could possibly ever trace? yes, i believe that's true. i don't care how big of an army you put together. you now have, let's take your number, 250,000 people tested positive. how do you start to trace 250,000 people? how many people do you need to trace 250,000 people? that's why it's an extraordinarily impossible task, and you do the best you can. >> do we have the resources considering the state is so trapped, $10 billion, $15 billion hole.

quarter million people, exponentially, look around this room, there are 30 people in this room, if one of us are infected, the contact tracing spirals out of control almost immediately. >> yeah, look, contact tracing, life is options. going forward, how do you educate yourself on reopening? well, we need data. where does the data come from? the data comes from testing. you have a hard database of hospitalizations. you can look at the hospitalizations, and they will tell you how many people got sick enough to go into the hospital. that's all it tells you. you don't know how many people were infected. you don't know what is happening on the infection rate spread. all you know is the hospitalization rate. so testing will give you, first of all, more data on how fast the infection is spreading and how fast it's spreading where. you're going to get a very different number in new york city than you are in buffalo or the new york country or albany. okay, that will inform the

reamal reopenings. and then what you're trying to do to the extent possible, the whole concept of testing tracing isolation, not just here, but every state is talking about this, to the except you can, when you find a positive person, trace it back and ice late. well, if you wiped up wind up w population, let's say we wind up with a 10% infection rate in the state, or in the city, that's, you know, a million people in new york city infected. how can you possibly trace a million people? you can't. you do the best you can. but for every person you isolate, jesse, that's one less person walking around infecting another ten people. >> isn't there an argument it's endemic already? even if it was just 10%, some estimates said it might be 50% or 60%. how much money could this possibly cost, and where is that money going to come from?

>> if it was 50%, 60%, you would be at a different issue point. if you were at 50%, 60%, you would be arguing with what is called herd immunity. that would be don't do anything. that's like sweden and brazil. let it go. whoever gets infected, whoever dies dies. and then the critical mass of population is infected and whatever happens happens. it's not going to be 50%, 60%, and that strategy, some countries have adopted, a lot of people die with that strategy, which is a downside. but it's not bgoing to be 50%, 60%. my guess is about 10% about now in the high infection areas. it's a guess but i would guess 10% downstate single digits upstate.

>> you never really, we never have an understanding of this virus. and i want to know what we're doing in terms of convalescent serum? maybe dr. zucker is better at handling this one. >> you're right. dr. zucker is in a better position to answer. >> on the question about the serum, we are working on this. there are patients who received this within some of our hospital questions. the data, we're still waiting to hear about the clip cal results from that. that's moving forward. the more people we have that end up possible and recover, the more serum will be available and more information we will have on that part. on antibodies, the regeneron corporation has been looking at this issue and we're speaking with them. there's data to suggest the use of antibodies may be beneficial

based on how they were used for other conditions where they end up with the same kind of response with what's called a cyta storm where their lungs are damaged as a result of infection. there may be a relationship here and we're working closely with them on this. >> considering the vaccination level went from the low 70s one day and overnight to the mid-90s, it was a dramatic turn of events. >> and that was part of -- >> the monoclone antibodies. >> and it's not in this state. you shared so i thought i would. i wanted to let you know, is there a shortage of this monoclone monoclone? is this something that happen to be developed?

is it readily available? >> there are two different company that's have been working on it and that has been given to patients across the state who have this already, and the monoclonal antibody, there's specific therapy for that. that's also in -- not really experimental but has been provided to those who are ill. >> contact tracing, are you interested in moving that upstate to do tracing and also will there be an announcement with respect to nursing home infections today? >> yes. i'm going to make the nursing home announcement tomorrow. it's in the works though. we wanted to talk about this today. what was the first part? tracing is going to be done statewide and testing has to be done statewide. testing does two things for you, remember. being the rate of viral infection spread, so you have a calibration on the reopening. and second on the antibody testing, one of the upsides is you find people who have antibodies so they can

contribute for the convalescent plasma by donating their blood. joseph? >> you talk a lot about reopening businesses upstate. how about opening schools? it seems like in recent days you suggested that that's becoming increasingly difficult. is it unlikely that schools will open before fall? >> when you say -- my opinion, when you say you're not going to open schools, you may as well say you're not going to open businesses because the two are connected. i don't know how you really open businesses without opening schools. you want me to go to work, hallelujah. what do i do with my kids? so the two to me are very connected. the school year is up in june. to say we're not going to open businesses until june, i'm not there yet. i don't think people are there

yet. this is a situation that changes week to week. so let's get the information week to week. let's get the data and then we'll make a determination plus we will try to coordinate with jersey, connecticut, other states. so let's get the data. and in the meantime, schools will not open until we say schools will open statewide. period, new paragraph. opening schools is very difficult. i would not open a school unless we know that the schools were disinfected, that they had a protocol going forward to disinfect the schools, that they had a protocol there would be a certain amount of social distancing and prospective personal behavior in the school. that is a very, very big undertaking. >> what about schools on a regional basis, can you do that regionally as well?

open some schools in some parts of the state where the infection rates are lower? >> theoretically could you? yes. can you say north county schools are going to open with all of those provisos, yes, you could say that. you could say you can open north county schools having nothing to do with nassau schools and westchester schools. yes, they're two totally disconnected and you can argue you can make those as isolated decisions. [ inaudible ] because once you say we're moving towards reopening, one of the first integral pieces is business and school and then transportation, right? you need those three gears to turn at the same time. you can't turn the business gear, which is intermeshed with the school gear, which is intermeshed with the public transportation gear. you turn one gear, you have to turn all three gears.

karen? and good day, everyone. i'm andrea mitchell in washington, continuing our coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. here are the facts at this hour. with the death toll now rising to almost 45,000 people in the u.s., a grim warning from the director of the centers for disease control telling "the washington post" a second wave of the disease next winter at the same time as the yearly flu season peaking could be even more difficult than what we are going through now. one study from veterans hospitals about the anti-malaria drug president trump has been touting for weeks had disturbing news. there were more deaths than those given the drug than those who did not receive it. although the study has not yet been reviewed by other scientists. mayors in south carolina and georgia are condemning decisions by various state's governors to reopen nonessential businesses in georgia. those include beauty salons, gyms, tattoos and massage parlors before communities have even met the white house standards of having two weeks

with declining covid-19 cases. moments ago new york governor andrew cuomo announcing former new york city mayor and presidential candidate michael bloomberg has volunteered, along with johns hopkins, to create and pay for contact tracing across the state of new york. he also said he had a productive meeting with president trump at the white house yesterday and the plan going forward on testing. nbc's ali vitali now joins us from columbia, south carolina, where the government announced schools will remain closed the rest of the school year. what's going on there? we know the mayors of south carolina, many are objecting over the decision of the state governor. >> andrea, you just hit the nail on the head here. there's a lot of mixed messaging when we take in tandem what we hear from the state government, local officials. just to break it down, federal officials put out from the white house the opening guidelines, they said states considering

reopening should be seeing a downward trend of new cases over the course of 14 consecutive days. translate that here in south carolina, that's not the case. nevertheless, the republican governor here is saying he's allowing beaches to reopen, as well as preevousviously closed l stores. so small businesses are allowed to begin getting back in business. all of that coming against the backdrop of local officials like the columbia mayor here who told me being pros business right now also means being pro public health. he's against the republican governor's decision to reopen or start reopening south carolina at this point. and it brings me to the place we're at right now, britains in columbia is one of those businesses weighing whether or not to reopen. they erred on the side of reopening their doors and are doing that with several cautions in place. one of the owners told me she's excited to start seeing they are employees, who are like family and excited to start seeing other people in the store. at the same time she wants to do it as safely as possible.

they have a magic number on their door right now from the fire department that says 18 people is the maximum number of people that can be in this store at one time. so social distancing is maintained. andrea, one other thing i would point out, amidst the mixed messaging, governor cuomo just said this, to him opening businesses and opening schools are joined themes. here in south carolina that's not the case. in the last hour, governor mcmaster said while he's allowing beaches and some retailers to start opening, schools will not be reopening, leaving people to sort of wonder where the line is between what's safe and what's not. >> and how to take care of their children if the schools are closed and they're due back at work. indeed, it's a real problem -- another problem. thank you very much, ali vitali. ben johnson joins us now, the mayor of savannah, georgia. mr. mayor, thank you very much for being with us. we heard from the mayors of atlanta and augusta and albany.

real concerns the governor did not consult or have his staff consult any of the mayors about their local situation before this sweeping order to open businesses across the state of georgia. >> yes, and thank you for the opportunity. we were absolutely blindsided. we were very clear even from the white house guidance that there was a defined formula to be able to phase people back in to some sense of normalcy. we realize here in georgia that we have not met the 14-day threshold. we realize here in georgia that we were still increasing cases daily, here in savannah, chatham county, we had eight new cases in the last 17 hours. so we didn't check any of those boxes. certainly we were not prepared for this. i think it's just a very, very dangerous decision that affects the lives of people that i swore

to serve. >> and have you been able to talk to anyone on the governor's staff or governor himself in the 24 hours since the announcement? >> no, as a matter of fact, we have not spoken with the governor since this has begun. >> amazing. >> we realize obviously we're all concerned about the viability of our state. we're all concerned about the viability of our small business community. but we have to be very clear where the data is at this point. georgia has the 14th highest infection rate but at this point we're still the seventh lowest testing rate in the country. those are the things that really concern us. we have 800 deaths in this state, over 20,000 confirmed cases. there are states that are more prepared to phase reopen than we are. we have an order in place for people to stay at home until april 30th, yet we're opening

businesses on april 24th and april 27th. doesn't make sense. >> and one -- part of the mixed messaging in fact to bear out your point comes in fact from dr. deborah birx at the white house briefing. she was asked about georgia. this is what she had to say -- >> there are different communities and different places even in georgia. so i believe people in atlanta would understand that if their cases are not going down, that they need to continue to do everything that we said. social distancing, washing your hands, wearing a mask in public. if there's a way that people can social distance and do those things, then they can do those things. i don't know how but people are very creative. so i'm not going to prejudge but we have told people very clearly and the president's guidelines made it very clear about the expectations of phase one.

>> people are very creative she said? i don't know how you can be creative having a massage parlor or barbershop to keep social distancing. and one of the things, mr. mayor, that occurs is what do you do if people are told by the governor they can go back to work? you tell them they can't. do they get unemployment compensation to stay home? if they obey you, do they give up unemployment because the state says well, you could have worked if you wanted to? >> right. and i mean, you know, that's where the rub is. obviously, i don't have a lot of hair, but i have not seen a way that somebody can cut your hair from six feet away or do your nails from six feet away or give a massage from six feet away. we still have -- if people are being ordered back to work and schools have been closed now for the rest of the academic year, what about those parents, how do they take care of those kids? what about the unemployment insurance that our citizens are still trying to get and now

they're ordered back to work? what about those that are high-risk populations? again, there are so many unanswered questions. we want to just appreciate the opportunity to be part of the conversation. we need to be safe. i think in the end people just want to be safe. >> mr. mayor van johnson from savannah, georgia. if you get answers from governor kemp, call us and let us know. we would love to have you back on. thank you very much. >> thank you. we appreciate it. >> you bet. i apologize for the time delay there, the mayor and i were thanking each other with gratitude for everything that those mayors are doing all across the south. meanwhile, new information from california suggests the first known u.s. case of the coronavirus actually was much earlier than originally thought.

after the medical examiner in santa clara county discovered two people who died in early february were in fact infected with covid-19. neither had traveled, indicating it most likely came from community spread even before the outbreak in washington state. msnbc's gadi schwartz is in l.a. there's a lot of information coming out of california now, which is quite startling. >> yes, and some of the other startling information we have seen of the projections of the antibody studies are eye-popping. right now we have preliminary resul results from two studies, one in santa clara and another in los angeles. they're suggesting 2% to 4% of the county's population might have already have antibodies and might have been infected at some point which suggest 10 to 50 times the amount of people may have covid-19 than the confirmed cases we see every day. like here in los angeles, we have about 15,000 confirmed cases. the usc study is suggesting the coronavirus might have already

infected as many as 200,000 to 400,000 in this county. but, again, the studies are still preliminary and still going through the peer review process. but the one thing everybody seems to be in complete agreement on is way more testing needs to be taking place here in california and across the country. so the push here is testing. most of the testing that's going on right now is nasal swabs but they're hoping to have some of that antibody testing as well. just to talk about what you were just mentioning, those with two people who died in their home of covid-19, it sounds as though that happened in santa clara, california. that was weeks before a man in his 50s died in washington. those appear to be community spread. so it's pushing back the timeline considerably. andrea, back to you. >> gadi schwartz, thank you so much in l.a. meanwhile, dr. zeke emanuel is the vice president of global initiatives at the university of pennsylvania and joins us now.

dr. emanuel, let's talk about a couple of things that came out overnight. "the washington post" reported the interview with the cdc director, dr. redfield, warning a second wave next went wither coinciding with seasonal flu could be more difficult for hospitals and more difficult for the whoefl medic the whoele medical community. what say you? >> yes, i think he's recognizing, first of all, we could have a second wave of covid-19. he's arguing a third wave, if we have opening up in georgia, texas and tennessee, you might see increases early as july and the fall would be maybe a third wave. and i think what is worrying him is that we'll have two very serious viral infections out in the fall. we know we get typically a very big increase in hospitalizations from flu, especially a bad flu season, adding coronavirus to that with obviously really

taxing the system and obviously might dramatically increase, especially if people get coinfected with both agents. it might dramatically increase our death rate. so are his worries. that it's coming now suggests this rush to open up and this rush to have people engage in business and commerce, maybe way premature, especially if you have to close down again in the fall because you are just having too much spread. so it's a very confusing picture as to what the policymakers are thinking. it just doesn't seem to be a consistent theme tied to the expected epidemiology, or they're expected epidemiology. >> one of the things that was so disturbing about the white house briefing, frankly, here you have openings being announced in georgia and south carolina and other states for barbershops, beauty salons, tattoo parlors, things that are clearly not

essential. yet dr. birx was asked about it and said, well, i guess they can be creative in florida and figure out how to keep social distancing. i realize she's put on the spot there at the white house with the president right there, but doesn't there have to be a consistency of messaging from the scientists? >> well, i agree, and, you know, it's quite clear that in these states, they are not consistent with the president's guidelines. so you have a set of guidelines that the president just issued, and georgia and south carolina are not even consistent with the president's guidelines. they haven't passed through the testing and the decline in the number of cases. it's not clear how well their hospitals are prepared in the manner that the president says. even to go into phase one of easing up some of the restrictions and as you point out, they're not easing up within the framework of nonessential businesses that the

president had laid out. so, again, a serious contradiction happening between what was issued in washington and the kind of opening up that's happening in these southern states and it is interesting that this opening up is occurring with encouragement from the white house and the administration. again, i don't think they're on the same page and i don't think they're letting their own plan, their own he deemology, their own best policies guide how they're reacting to these situations. you know, it makes it hard for people to understand what to do when you've got these mixed messages happening and we do need people to adopt a very consistent public health set of measures, as was pointed out in your report from columbia, south carolina. we need people to wash their hands, have safe distance, wear

masks. those are just like absolute requirements if we're going to get out of this problem. >> i want to also ask you about the anti-malaria drug. there's one study and i realize it's not peer reviewed or controlled study, but there's one disturbing from the veterans hospitals indicating there were actually more deaths from the combination of anti-malaria drug and z-pac than there were discoveries. >> look, this is just a muddled area because we're having a lot of those case reports without the right kind of control trials as you point out. and i have been skeptical this thing is going to be -- is going to work. i'm in general, andrea, skeptical if you have a drug developed for some other condition, whether it's malaria or some other viral condition, that it's really going to work when we come to covid-19.

in general the most effective drugs are not ones developed for some disease and applied in a new situation. so i think not jumping on the hydroxychloroquine bandwagon too early was the right thing. we still await controlled trials. the same thing is true out of university of chicago and the drug remdesivir from gilled. few case reports, none of the patients were on ventilators. it's hard to assess the quality of the data. until we get good randomized controlled trials and hopefully they will be out soon, it's very, very difficult to know what works and what doesn't work. again, in the hydroxychloroquine case, you know, the worry that you would actually harm people had to be a real worry and this is suggesting that in fact far from helping people, the drug might actually be making the situation worse, and that's the

worst of all possible cases, we're going to give you something on a hope it's effective and turns out worse for you and maybe increases mortality. what could be a worse situation than that frankly for people caring for patients? >> we just remember a repeated comment, what do you got to lose that came from the white house, the president himself. >> yes, yes. >> we have to leave it there, dr. zeke emanuel, thank you. attorney william barr, who is not a medical doctor, is going against even the white house guidelines for gradually lifting stay-at-home rules. he said governors who continue lockdowns could be violating the law. the attorney general's unusual tirpgs of the constitution included saying the justice department is considering taking legal action against states that he says are going too far with their stay-at-home orders. >> these are unprecedented burdens on civil liberties right now. the idea that you have to stay in your house is disturbingly

close to house arrest. looking carefully at the numbers of these rules being put into place, and if we think one goes too far, we initially try to jawbone the governors into reeling them back or adjusting them and if they're not and people file lawsuits, we find inherent of interest and side with the plaintiffs. >> joining me now the co-host of "weekend today" kristen welker. the messaging from the white house, dr. birx yesterday and now this today even more aggressively from the attorney general. is such a signal to the protesters and others, the governors themselves, violating the white house guidelines of wait until there's at least two weeks of declining cases before you start lifting restrictions? >> it's really remarkable, andrea. and the attorney general is in some ways echoing what we've

heard from president trump himself at the podium during his daily briefings when he said some of these governors, he feels, have gone too far. when he tweeted out, for example, andrea, that the states like virginia, michigan and minnesota should be liberated, essentially siding with the protesters as you say and going against his own policy. so it is quite remarkable. it's not exactly clear. it's a little windy out here, andrea. the attorney general is -- >> kristen, please -- >> we're okay. it fell in front of me. it's okay. it literally fell in front of me. it's okay. they fell in front of me so we're okay. the one other thing i will say, and we have a little breaking news, andrea, at this hour. my colleagues monica alba, carol

lee and myself reporting that president trump himself quite eager to get out of the white house. he's looking at the possibility of his asian allies having him travel as early as may 4th. not etched in stone but they're looking to see if that would be possible. he was potentially in some of the early trips to meet with first responders and meet with those who have been impacted by the coronavirus. these would not be campaign trips, andrea, but undoubtedly he's eager to get out on the campaign trail as well. andrea? >> you powered through that as well as the truck backing up and all of the other noise and wind. thank you. it's a busy day at the white house. i know the president is also talking about delaying by at least one day this immigration order that was not ready yet, and we can talk about that tomorrow. thank you very much. thanks for everything you do. and ahead on this 50th anniversary of earth day, the

"today" show's al roker on how wildlife is thriving during this temporary absence of air pollution. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports." (soft music) - [female vo] restaurants are facing a crisis. and they're counting on your takeout and delivery orders to make it through. grubhub. together we can help save the restaurants we love. many of life's moments in thare being put on hold. are staying at home, at carvana, we understand that, for some, getting a car just can't wait. to help, we're giving our customers up to 90 days to make their first payment. shop online from the comfort of your couch, and get your car with touchless delivery to keep you safe. and for even greater peace of mind, all carvana cars come with a seven-day return policy.

so, if you need to keep moving, we're here for you. at carvana-- the safer way to buy a car.

♪ ♪ ♪ the calming scent of lavender

by downy infusions calm. laundry isn't done until it's done with downy. two weeks ago critics including this protester warned that wisconsin's republican leaders were dangering the lives of voters and poll workers by insisting on holding their

in-person election as scheduled. tragically those warnings proved to be true. 19 people who voted are now testing positive for the coronavirus. state haeealth officials add several could have been infected by other means. this as republican controlled legislature is filing suit to force the state's democratic governor to lift his stay-at-home order. joining me now, msnbc political reporter shaq brewster. i think there were poll workers as well in the 19. there were plenty of warnings. so this is actually why there's a big push for mail-in voting. >> that's exactly right, andrea. it first started with milwaukee election officials or with milwaukee health officials saying that seven people connected to the april 7th election tested positive for the coronavirus. that included one poll worker. now state health officials are saying they're tracking about 19 people. they're making very clear, and they're cautioning us saying those people actually contracted the virus at the poll locations.

they say it's simply too early and they don't have enough data to make that certain. but they know at least 19d people who went out and voted have contracted the virus. as you mentioned, this is exactly what health officials were warning and concerned about when they asked the governor and state to postpone this election. you will remember governor tony evers, the democratic governor of wisconsin, he tried to postpone this election. it went all the way up to the supreme court. supreme court blocked his executive order. now you're seeing a similar fight between the state legislature and democratic governor who's trying to push back and globlock the governor' extension of the stay-at-home orders. now they're trying to block that extension and give him more negotiating power in when those stay a home or safer-at-home orders as they're called in wisconsin are lifted. >> shaq brewster, thank you very much for that. and president trump continuing to boast about covid-19 testing in this country, with only 1.3% of the

u.s. population has been tested. now the rockefeller foundation is releasing an ambitious new plan to test 30 million people a week, estimated cost of $100 billion. the plan also calls for up to 300,000 paid testers and contact tracers and a common digital platform to track cases and resources. joining me now are raju shaw, president and ceo of the rockefeller administration and former isd administrator and dr. patel, msnbc medical contributor and former white house policy director. welcome both. tell me about the plan. how is this going to be paid for? how do you see launching it? >> thank you, andrea, for have having me and it's good to see you again. the reality is our country has been stuck at 1 million test cases per week for the last several weeks. we know that's not enough to mount an effective effort to do surveillance in america as the economy starts to reopen. we're very worried of potential

resurgence of this covid pandemic, especially through the summer and into the fall. so we pulled together experts from science, from industry, importantly former government officials from republican and democratic administrations and said what's a specific actionable practical way to solve this problem? and we concluded that achieving a goal of getting to 3 million tests per week, between now and eight weeks from now, and getting up to 30 million per week in six months was achievable with the set of concrete and specific investments and actions we can make. i just note that the congress looks like it's passing a bill that includes $25 billion for testing, so 100 is not inconceivable in an environment where we're losing $300,000 billion a month in an economic output and where we committed trillions of dollars in supporting the response of this

economy. >> is the expense the testing as much as the contact tracing? where do you see the budget for this really? >> the two go hand in hand. the two go hand in hand. we estimate that somewhere between $5 billion and $15 billion of the $100 billion is for deploying a workforce of up to 300,000 americans and community health corps that would be accessible and allow for cities and states to scale up their public health workforce for this purpose. the rest of the resource is really for testing, for investing in new technologies, for procurement and we proposed a very specific effort to bring together the supply -- demand side of the market and do longer scale, long-term pooled procurement backed by financial guarantees and ultimately to compensate all testing facilities in a similar manner whether they are in network or

out of network for the actual cost of the test. it turns out two-thirds ever america's molecular testing capacity is sitting underutilized in the university labs and research labs and small labs that are not part of the cdc diagnostic surveillance system. we can solve that problem but it's going to take leadership at the state level and leadership at the federal level. one other point, andrea, we're not just bringing this as a plan. we committed $15 million to accelerate i. accelerate its implementation and working with a dozen cities and states and some indian reservations, native american reservations to scale up this plan in specific parts of our country. it's got to happen, and we've all got to come together to make it happen if we're going to protect american families and allow them to go back to work. >> dr. patel, do you see the national leadership coming together behind this? >> i do. and thank goodness for people

like rajv and the wore that they're doing at the foundation. in terms of national leadership, andrea, i don't see it necessary limb nating from the white house, but i do think nationally between governors and mayors and even your kind of coverage on the state of georgia, you're going to have municipalities that are asking for this. i also think what they're doing at rockefeller is critical to identifying the gaps. we've already seen in the united states there are populations who have been overlooked and they are consistently being overlooked. we need testing, in and of itself is not the answer, though we still do not have enough tests. we need to make sure access to testing and access to health care professionals that can then do the contact tracing as rajv described, that's critical. the final piece of this is the isolation, and i mean having people positive be identified. what you covered earlier about

cases that cropped up before washington state, andrea, i think that's the tip of the iceberg. i think we're going to learn that was way earlier than anybody expected. >> very serious warning there. dr. patting, rxel, rajv, we hav leave it there. thank you very much. and earth day around the world and the world planning to celebrate earth day. because of the pandemic the celebrations will be virtual. the good news is the global economic shutdown has at least produced a dramatic decline in pollution, air pollution. as we mark the 50th anniversary of earth day, the "today" show's al roker is taking a look at how the covid-19 pandemic has impacted our planet in some surprising ways, and what this could teach us about combating global warming in the future. >> that's a coyote. >> coyotes roaming the streets of chicago.

in some places sea turtles nesting on beaches for the first time in years. >> we predict with these interactions if the beach closures go on any longer due to covid-19, we will see possibly more successful nesting events the way we are seeing turtles. >> reporter: wildlife around the world ranging freely in cities and regions normally bustling with people. just one of the ways in which the coronavirus lockdown has quickly and dramatically changed our environment. less foot traffic, less waste, less environmental consumption. what kind of reductions have we seen? we've seen reductions in greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change.

in india, the majestic peaks revealed almost 20 miles away. in new delhi, clear skies. here in the united states it was evident almost immediately. los angeles, a city of more than 4 million people, had more than 6 million cars, register the cleanest air on the planet. while these signs of renewal are encouraging, climatologists say the change in the air is only temporary and not nearly enough.

now we're here with nbc's al roker, the co-host of "today."

this is such a clear signal of what we should be doing but yet in terms of policy, the government has been rolling back all of the autoimmune standards that have been legislated for california and other states. what we've got is a reverse of what we ought to be doing. auto standards that have been legislated for california, and others state. we've got what is a reverse of what we ought to be doing. >> that's right, and we need legislation to go back into effect, that brings those emission standards back to where think need to be, and continue. we look at china, they locked down, and guess what? they ended up, unfortunately they're seeing their emissions ride again. the advantages we're seeing with turtles on the beach, will those be reversed it's pretty

impressive. so we just need to take those steps right now. it's a positive, almost a reversal of the canary in the coal mine. once we have great air quality, the animals respond. the plant life responds. we're seeing leaf-outs coming out sooner, unfortunately because temperatures are warmer. that's because of the climate change around this country. spring, again with the leaves coming out, about three weeks above average as far as our leaves are concerned form. >> thank you so much, al, in what you're doing. before we go, we also want to bring you this message from queens, new york. ♪

>> i thought we were doing -- that is josh lan dress, a marine corps veteran, owner of a new york city city shop that restores brass musical instruments. the store was closed because of the pandemic. he is using one of his own instruments to honor victims of the disease by plays taps every night. just after the daily 7:00 applause for health care workers and first responders. josh says he's been overwhelmed by the poof response. -- positive response. >> an overabundance. i'm not a professional trumpet player. a professional player said you sound good, it's really moving. [ applause ] >> thank you. for this edition with thanks to josh and to his trumpet. remember to follow the show online, on facebook, and on

twitter. please stay safe. check todd picks up our coverage after this break. ♪

sun care is self care. i used to not love wearing an spf just because i felt like it was so oily and greasy. but with olay regenerist whip spf 25 it's so lightweight - i love it! i'm busy philipps, and i'm fearless to face anything.

there are times when our need to connect really matters. to keep customers and employees in the know. to keep business moving. comcast business is prepared for times like these. powered by the nation's largest gig-speed network. to help give you the speed, reliability, and security you need. tools to manage your business from any device, anywhere. and a team of experts - here for you 24/7.

we've always believed in the power of working together. that's why, when every connection counts... you can count on us. ♪ good afternoon. i'm chuck todd. here are the latest facts at this hour.

president trump revealing hi administration will begin reopening national parks and lands in line with the covid guidelines, during the planting of a treat at the white house. governor cuomo revealing his state os covid-19 curve is constituent on the descent. the governor adding he's looking to double tests and ramp up the contact tracing efforts with help from former new york city mayor michael bloomberg. this as the death toll hits another milestone. passing 45,000. there are 2.5 million cases globally. a new u.n. report says 269 million people are at risk of famine by the end of this year, up from 135 million in 2019. that's an decental 130 million people, quote, living on the edge of starvation. we have a