and that's where we are today. follow the american people. look at what they're doing. look at how they're reacting. and, politicians, try to be half as good as the american people. i want to show you a self-pore trid that was done by american people. this is a self-portrait of america. okay. that's a self-portrait of america. you know what it spells? it spells love. that's what it spells. you have to look carefully but that's what the american people are saying. we received thousands of masks from all across america,

unsolicited, in the mail, homemade, creative, personal, with beautiful notes from all across the country, literally. just saying, thinking about you, we care, we love you, we want to help. and this is just people's way of saying we care. and we want to help. this is what this country is about. and this is what americans are about. a little bit more of this and a little bit less of the partisanship and ugliness, and this country will be a better place. thank you. thank you, guys.

questions? >> regarding the mta meeting, you want it down on a 24-hour basis, how will this be done -- >> i didn't say a 24-hour basis. i said when people get in for the train in the morning, they had to know that train was disinfected the night before. >> how will this impact service? >> i don't know. i told the mta give me a plan where by you will clean and disinfect every train every night so that i can say to the essential workers who are killing themselves for our state, we're keeping the subways open for you. and when you get on a subway in the morning or in the afternoon, know that that car was disinfeb disinfected the night before. >> is there money for that? >> it's realistic. it's an essential.

how realistic is it? what is the alternative? essential workers go to work. by the way, you may get infected with the coronavirus on the train on the way to work. that's not realistic. i'm not going to do that. >> has this been done prior? >> we have started. it's a tremendous undertaking that's never been done before. and you only have to get homeless people into shelters where they can get housing and the services they need, so that's a second operation. and the mta has been going back and forth with the nypd about this for weeks and weeks and weeks. the mta hired private security guards to help. but all a private security guard can do is call 311, which is the city hotline, who hasn't yet called the nypd, who are there in the first place.

so the mta's story is they're at their wit's end. what i said was look, i don't care. i don't care who's to blame. i don't want to point fingers. i don't care. i'm in a place where i'm dealing with people losing their lives every day, okay? i just want to get it done. just tell me what i need to do to get it done. let's tell the truth. let's stop with the filters and everyone covering their own rear end, and people skewing facts to cover their own rear end. and let's start telling the truth, the blunt truth. and if it makes some people unhappy, that's the way it's going to be. but it has to stop, the trains have to be clean, the homeless need the services that they need, and we have to be able to do it as a society.

we have to. tell me what it takes to clean the trains and disinfect the trains so that i know i can say to the essential workers, it's safe to go on those trains. >> you don't think it should be on a 24-hour basis? right now they do a 72-hour cleaning -- >> i'm not going to do a cleaning schedule. i don't do that. i told them give me a plan as to how to make sure every train is cleaned so when the train comes in in the morning it is cleaned. it's their job to figure out the schedule and how they do it. but however it has to be done, i will do whatever i have to do to make that happen. you can't be in a position where you say, we're going to send a plane tribute to the nurses, and we're going to applaud the

nurses at elmhurst hospital and yesterday i got out of my car and i applauded the nurses in syracuse and the doctors in syracuse, and i said on behalf of every new yorker, i thank you from the bottom of my heart for what you did. on behalf of every new yorker. i believe that. but at the same time if that's what you believe, help them. and you know they're getting on the subways to go to work, make sure the subways are clean. >> what should be done with homeless people? >> homeless people -- i have been working on the homeless shelter -- bernadette, i have been working on the homeless issue since i was 27 years old. i did the first plan for mayor david dinkins on how to help the homeless of new york city.

mayor dinkins accepted it. next mayor was rudy giuliani. he came in and he accepted it. we made tremendous progress on the homeless. i went to washington. i did a homeless plan for bill clinton and the nation how to help the homeless. he accepted it. we implemented it. it made tremendous progress. it was called the continuing of care. this federal government still is operating the program. we have done this before. this is a false choice. well, the homeless are on the trains. they have a right to be on the trains. no one wants to live their lives on a subway train. and we have a higher obligation as a society than to say, okay, you can sleep in a subway car. no, you deserve a shelter that is safe and services if you need them to help you improve your life.

that's what we should offer and that's what we will. >> can you talk about problems with nursing homes, more infections and more deaths. is the state going to take action to step up a central facility for nursing home locations as we've seen in other states -- >> what facility? >> can you defend your policy that nurses have to retain subjects with the impossible restrictions. is new york going to set up some kind of overload facility -- >> let's hear the facts again, okay. we've done that. let me give you the fact, okay. there's facts. we have facts. you can have an opinion, but you can't have your own facts, right? a nursing home takes a covid person if -- capital i, capital

f, if they can adequately care for that person. if they cannot adequately care for that person, they say i can't adequately care for a covid person. fine, either they transfer that person to the facility or call the department of health and say we have to transfer that person. we have other facilities. we have covid only overflow facilities, just what they're talking about. we have it. we discussed this. so we can do that. but it starts with their determination. they have to say i can't provide for this person. as long as they say, i can't provide for this person -- and

by the way, nobody even asks why. it's just i can't provide for this person. okay. we will take the person. and we have overflow facilities. >> governor, maybe this is a question for the commissioner, commissioner zucker, there's a department of health guidance that simply allows nursing home staffers to work with covid-positive patients. good day, i'm andrea mitchell in washington continuing our coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. here are the facts at this hour. as america surpasses 1 million confirmed cases of the virus, president trump says the united states will be able to test up to 5 million americans per day, quote, in the very near future. after being pressed by nbc's kristen welker on tuesday, compared to the current national average of testing only 2,000 to 6,000 tests per day. vice president pence, leader of

the white house task force combating the pandemic, is defending his decision to tour the mayo clinic without a mask saying it's because he's tested on a regular basis and he's not positive. a new white house executive order compelling meat plants across the country to stay open without protective gear for workers is sparking outrage by unions and workers who continue to show outrage over the widespread virus in the workforce. and governor cuomo said there's no plan yet for reopening saying we will get back to work based on data and numbers. he said the tests increased by 10,000 in the past week, with new york state doing more test than most countries. he also said elective surgeries will be allowed to restart in certain parts of the state, most notably upstate new york.

joining us how weekend is "today" co-host kristen welker and white house reporter jonathan lemire. kristen, what are we hearing from the white house after that notable exchange? let me play that for a moment. you questioned the president on him saying they would in the very near future get up to 5 million tests a day. take a look. >> some experts say the u.s. needs 5 million tests per day by june in order to safely reopen. you want to build a plan that will increase testing but not by that much. why not, and can you get to that benchmark? >> we will increase it and increase it more than that in the future. we're way ahead in testing. >> are you saying you're confident you can surpass 5 million tests a day? >> well, we're going to be there very soon. >> and kristen, can you explain, have they given any more indication as to how they expect to get to that big number given the fact they missed every other threshold? >> we haven't gotten any details

yet, andrea, about how specifically they would get to that number given, as you reported at the top of the show, that right now they're testing about 200,000 per day. so that would be a significant increase. and the answer may be in the timeline and ultimately that might be possible but not in the near term. this is what the president's top testing official, admiral giroud had to say, there's absolutely no way on earth on this planet or any planet we can get to 20 million tests a day or even 5 million. we should say, andrea, for context a harvard university study recommended 5 million tests per day by june was the ultimate goal of 20 million in order to reopen the country safely. that, andrea, does raise the question about this matter of reopening the country. we know president trump right now is meeting with the governor of louisiana, who is poised to

ease some restrictions but not many there in louisiana. and we know that the administration's guidelines, social distancing guidelines, expire tomorrow. in the oval office the president was just asked if he's going to extend those guidelines, he said they would be, quote, fading out. the vice president saying they would largely be incorporated into reopening the states. what that essentially means to break through all of that, andrea, the guidelines will stay in place essentially unless you live in a state where they are being lifted. so this is, again, going to be state by state. administration officials expect president trump will be addressing this not only in the oval but likely a little bit later on today during another event, andrea. >> let me follow up for a minute because, first of all, 17 states are opening in parts but none of those states have even met the first guidelines, which were to have -- as you know very well --

14 days of a decline in infection rate. i also want to ask you about mike pence. the notable pictures yesterday when he was at the famed mayo clinic and he was the only one not wearing a mask. his explanation was not wearing a mask was not according to the guidelines because that is the requirement at the mayo. >> the mayo clinic's guidelines are that any viftder visitor wear a mask and the mayo clinic put out a tweet, which they deleted, saying they had briefed the vice president on their policies prior to his visit. the vice president was asked about this yesterday and his response was, look, he does get tested regularly and everyone around him does get tested regularly. thereby he believes he's still following the broader cdc guidelines which says you should wear a mask only when social distancing isn't possible. but expect the vice president to be there in the oval office and the president to get more questions about this today,

andrea. >> indeed. jonathan, as kristen has been reporting, the president pushing towards reopening, reviving the economy. but that requires a whole lot of steps first as well as mitch mcconnell with continuously objecting to state and local government funding in any of these packages. i want to play a little more of what andrew cuomo had to say about mitch mcconnell from kentucky and senator scott -- rick scott, of course, from florida saying they should not be bailing out the taking states. a lot of anger from governor cuomo just now about that. >> senator mitch mcconnell, you are bailing out new york when every year you take out more from the kitty, the federal pot, $37 billion more than you put

in? who is bailing out whom? senator scott, florida, you're going to bail us out? you take out $30 billion more every year than you pay in. how dare they. >> there's a lot of anger, jonathan, from governor cuomo and other northeast governors. we also heard from senator chris murphy in connecticut. they spend so much money, send so many tax dollars to the federal government and are frequently bailing out southern states and states like florida from tornadoes and hurricanes and the like. they said this is a real emergency for them. >> no question, andrea. when governor cuomo was in washington last week or so to visit with the president in the oval office, this was the thrust of his argument. it was they needed help with

some testing and ventilators, but he also made a push to the president that the states need -- are going to need federal assistance. the next wave of the next bailout economic package, whenever that comes, the states are going to need a part of it. senator majority leader, of course, mitch mcconnell has been add mapt adamantly opposed to that. i think what you will hear a lot quite frequently from his brethren up and down the east coast, the northeast, states that have been hit hard worry this is becoming a blue state/red state divide. to your earlier point, the president, of course, is trying to really forge forward here despite warnings from his own staff, medical advisers, but even some on his campaign. the reopening the economy too soon in addition to being, of course, dangerous for -- potentially dangerous for the american public, but also dangerous for his political future. the ideas americans would not be willing to forgive a number of american death that's would happen in the weeks and months

ahead if they are seen as caused by the president ignoring science and medicine and pushing forward to reopen the economy. >> andrew cuomo just also made the point that germany, which was praised for having a lot of testing and being so careful, beginning to reon and now the infection rate is -- within ten days -- starting to inch up again. so the dangers of possibly germany reopening too soon. thanks so much to jonathan lemire, thank you kristen welker, as always. meanwhile, dr. mario ramirez joins us. he's an emergency room physician treating covid-19 cases and served as pandemic and emergency threats coordinator at the department of health and human services under the obama administration. first of all, i want to ask you about a potential breakthrough in some very good test results on preliminary tests on remdesivir as a treatment, not a preventive, on tests where people were tested between five days and ten days.

patients who were given the drug therapy earlier showed some good improvement? and dr. fauci in the oval office said this reminds him of the breakthrough during hiv/aids when, of course, he was working on those major breakthroughs decades ago, and they would start looking into fda authorization. >> yes. i think we're starting to see the pieces of this good news, andrea. i think it's important to note the announcement from gilead today is not an officially published study but it is the earliest raw data from a study that showed when patients received remdesivir, their overall outcomes and improvements were the same in patients who got five-day doses and ten-day doses. it's important for a number of reasons. this study was called a phase three study and didn't look at a placebo. so we only looked at patients

who retrieved the drugs. now showing they have the same kout yom in five and ten-day courses means we're starting to get a better idea how long these patients need the medicines f it turns out the patients only need a five-day course of remdesivir, that would effectively double the dosages we need available. and it gives us some information when we would need to start the medicine and which patients would gain the most from it. >> it also indicates -- gilead, be of course, is manufacturer so there's a lot of potential for them to gain as well but there's possibilities if you come in sooner for treatment rather than delaying as well? >> that's right, andrea. we generally know among antiviral treatments that the of course and improvements are better when we start treatment earlier. we certainly know that from influenza. we are getting better ideas from this coronavirus when exactly we need to start treatment but the data does suggest the sooner we start, the better. that i think gets to the point

of testing capacity and how important it is we identify patients early. >> i wanted to ask you about a lot of talk about the oxford vaccine, that it could be far sooner to have a vaccine than people have indicated. some people are cautioning to be very careful with that because, first of all, go through the human trials, safety procedures for any vaccine and then scale up to be able to treat essentially hundreds of millions of people requires a lot more than what people are saying could be early fall. what is your take on that? >> i think this is some promising news out of the uk. what their researchers were able to do was repurpose a vaccine they were already working on for another coronavirus called middle eastern respiratory syndrome or mers. they were able to repurpose that vaccine and change some of the genetic he material for covid. and because of that, they were able to accelerate into the phase two trials much faster. now, that's important because

sort of passing through those gates of clinical trials takes some amount of time. it's not until you get to a phase three trial where you're in fact actually trying to figure out whether patients who receive a vaccine fair better than those who don't. in phase one and phase two you're just looking for immune response and safety. so the fact they were able to go straight to phase two could potentially shorten the timeline. it's important to note though that phase three could cause a significant delay because you need to have a significant number of patients who are still sort of developing the virus in your natural population to determine whether or not the vaccine actually works. the way we would deploy a vaccine like this in a phase three trial is we would give it to a group of high-risk personnel and then look over a period of time how many develop the infection and how many don't. because of that, you have to have a high enough incidence of the disease still developing in the population to measure that. if it drops too low, it takes

longer to determine if the vaccine has an effect. so while a september timeline is hopeful, there are so many other things to go into this. and that's to say nothing about production capacity and actually scaling up the production of the vaccine if it actually works. >> a lot of questions there as well, but so much more context from you. we really appreciate it, dr. mario ramirez. thank you so much for being with us. and also today in response to concerns about food shortages and after a lot of pressure from the industry, president trump issued that emergency order last night under the defense production act forcing meat and poultry processing plants to remain open. but thousands of workers at those plants around the country have already tested positive for covid-19, which is why at least 22 plants had closed in the first place to avoid further spread in their communities. about 800 workers were infected be-smithfield pork processing plant in sioux falls, south dakota, forcing that plant to shut down earlier this month. now the governor there said the

plant could reopen in days. the cdc issued safety measures the plants should follow but unlike past health enforcement actions notably, these were all completely voluntary. at least 20 meat processing plant employees died after being infected, according to one union estimate. gadi schwartz is at the meat processing plant in colorado where 120 workers have tested positive and some employees are worried about others becoming infected by people who are asymptomatic but still infectious. gadi, what are you seeing there? >> yes, andrea, you just mentioned that 120 workers number, that's the number that everybody here is still working off of. unfortunately that number is still several weeks old. we don't know, we don't have an accurate count of how many people have been infected with covid-19. we're expecting an updated number a little earlier today, around 4:00 p.m. local time. but, again, 120 people were infected. that number is several weeks old

and that was enough to shut down this plant for a couple of weeks in addition to four deaths, now up to five deaths of workers. they have finally reopened. they reopened last friday. i will show you some of the changes you see out here. this is a gentleman, this is one of the only times we see people without masks. he's got his mask on but they come out here and sit if they're taking a smoke break or lunch break. they're separated from others by plexiglas. everybody else we've seen has been wearing masks at this plant. they go through, this is where they come in. they disinfect basically all of the different handrails. but when it comes to what's going on inside, we talked to one worker who said there's no real way to maintain social distancing it's so crowded in there. take a listen. >> i got a line producing the meat for them to eat, but they also got to take florida

consideration having the work to produce the meat puts us at risk if the virus, you know, is still being spread through this company. >> again, a lot of those workers happy to be working after this shutdown but still scared of asymptomatic workers. they have a screening process. they're screening people who come in, taking their temperatures. if they have a cough, they're not allowed to work and tested for covid-19. but the workers here we have spoke to said they want everybody tested just like jbs said they were going to do earlier and they're scared of people who don't know symptoms coming to work and infecting others. andrea? >> that's exactly the point. thank you very much, gadi. joining us now, former iowa governor and secretary of agriculture for president obama, tom mill sack. and carlos gutierrez, former commerce secretary for george w. bush. he's currently the chair at the

albright stoneridge group and we should point out senior ceo of kellogg's. a lot of experience in the industry as well. secretary, the concerns being expressed by union leaders as well as workers we have talked to or reporters have talked to that these advisories from the cdc are just voluntary under this executive order that the president signed, unlike previous health advisories which were requirements, in fact. what is your take on that? >> andrea, this is essential work to maintain the food supply of the united states, to maintain jobs, to maintain farm income, and to maintain the affordability of food. if it's essential work, it means they're essential workers. if they're essential workers, they ought to have essential safety precautions put in place. the companies need to take this very seriously. they need to focus on worker safety more than they are trying to provide themselves liability protection. that means slowing work lines

down, it means appropriate social distancing, it means testing, it means protective equipment, it means making sure people who are sick are not encouraged to come to work. all of those steps need to be taken by these companies in order to maintain the saefety o the workforce and the security of food supply. >> secretary gutierrez, is there a way in these plants where people are working at the same table right across from each other, side by side, is there a way to properly distance them so that it is safe? >> that's the big challenge because this manufacturing process is very manual. it's not as if though you have a lot of technology driving the process. so you have a lot of people in the plant that are close to each other, and that's just the reality of how this process works. so the problem is going to be inside of the plant when they're manufacturing, when they're processing these products and that's the difficulty.

they'll have to test -- i don't know how often, but they're really going to have to ramp up the protocols and it all depends on what they do signinside of t plant. a lot of people are needed to produce these products. >> secretary vilsack, it does seem from the outside the administration, the president, took the defense production act and put it in play here after being reluctant to do so to protect an industry and food supply, understandably, but not to put in these requirements because company by company, they're not likely to do this unless they're ordered to do it. >> i think osha has a responsibility here, and i think the companies can in fact put in place a process. secretary gutierrez is correct. this is a process normally that involves people being close to one another but the reason for that is the line speed. if you saw the line speed down,

you could essentially spread out the people who are working at the plant. that may require you to put on a different shift, it may require a different alignment in terms of how much you process but this can be done and should be done for the safety of workers and for the security of the food supply. and i think it's in the company's best interest long term to make sure that they figure this out because this isn't going to be the last time we're faced with a pandemic. we need to make sure that our system is more resilient in the future and that is obviously looking at ways in which in-plant safety can be ill proved and also taking a look at the size of these production facilities and determining whether or not it may be necessary to diversify and locate smaller plants in a number of locations so you have greater resiliency in the system. >> and secretary gutierrez, should people be confident that the food that they are buying is safe given these high infection rates in the plants? >> yes, i think we're talking about people running the risk,

but once the food gets on the shelf and it's been through transportation and it's been packaged, that's safe. i wouldn't consider the food to be the problem, but it's the health of the individuals, the people, the workers who have to go in because they're told they have to work. and some people can stay at home and receive a paycheck. and this is where, you know, there's a bit of a social tension taking place, and it's examples like this that just add to it. >> indeed. carlos gutierrez, always good to see you and tom vilsack, old friend from iowa, thank you both very much for helping us out today. up next -- a new study on how the impact of covid-19 is being felt disproportionately by women in this country. first, new symptoms and severe complications for some

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in new york city the mayor is facing backlash to instruct the nypd to break up hundreds of people who lined the streets of brooklyn for a funeral of a local rabbi who were not social distancing at all.

mayor de blasio who saw it in person tweeted, my message to the jewish community and all communities is simple, the time for warnings has passed. i instructed the nypd to proceed immediately to summons or even arrests of those who gather in large groups. today the mayor is on defense, defending his actions calling them tough love. said why he wasn't singling out the orthodox community that the gathering put the people there and new york's cops at risk. the mayor is trying to reduce the number of coronavirus cases and get new york city back to work. times square is known as the crossroads of the world but for weeks it's been empty with store fronts shuttered. how does it even begin to reopen? katy tur is in new york's times square. anchoring from time square today, how wonderful but how empty it looks. >> it is so weird to be here, andrea. it's hard to express it. i try to just look around and see how empty it is. if i can compare it to another point in time, maybe some time in the middle of the night, it's

still busier here in the middle of the night than it is at 12:30. take a look around and jimmy will pan around and look. there's almost pomore pigeons tn people out. the big question is how are we as a city going to be able to reopen times square, and what is that going to look like considering how many people normally travel here? it's one of the biggest tourist spots in the entire world. and if you look around, andrea, you will notice with all of the big brand names, this is going to be a picture how customer face and corporate retail, corporate hospitality, corporate restaurants, how they come up to the challenge of trying to reopen and do business within this crisis. hard rock cafe, which is over here, the owner of hard rock was on cnbc last week saying that he expects it to be a year before they're able to reopen. they're looking to china to figure out what that might look like. three weeks after they reopened

in shenzhen, they only had 12% occupancy at their hotels. there are a lot of cues taken, times square alliance talking to new york city to get everybody on the same page. but what it's going to look like here, andrea, really remains to be seen. >> katy tur. you're going to have a lot more from times square when katy and chuck todd continue our live coverage together starting at 1:00 eastern right here on msnbc. now to another very troubling discovery about this new virus. we're learning so much about it. the virus, of course, is overwhelming the nation. doctors are now discovering blood clots. blood clots leading to strokes in an unusually number of relatively young covid-19 patients. people in their 30s and 40s. researchers identified about a dozen cases in new york city and in philadelphia, people normally at very low risk for strokes. joining us now a doctor studying have them very closely. he's the chief of the division of neurovascular surgery at the

harvest of sciences at jefferson health in philadelphia. thank you for joining us. what explains the blood clots? how does covid-19 affect the clotting mechanism? >> hi, andrea, thank you for having me. as you know, the virus causes an inflammation. there are multiple theories but we think this inflammation is a protein that increases in the blood and this can trigger the formation of clots. >> when it figures a formation of a clot, how do these patients present? is it something where you see this immediately and you can test for it? how can you, i guess, diagnose it before it becomes a stroke? >> so practically those were small number of patients. it was a snapshot between march 20th and april 10th. so too early to draw conclusions, but i think concerning enough to raise

awareness. so what happens is that we noticed there's a high number of young patients and middle-aged patients presenting with stroke and they are covid positive. those patients, 50% of them, did not have any risk factors for stroke. and in some of them, stroke was the first symptom of their covid. so unfortunately, you can't test for that, for the clot, until someone is symptomatic, until someone develops symptoms. so we also noticed that a lot of patients are delaying in presenting to the hospital because they are scared because of the pandemic. that's why the message out there is to really call 911 right away if there are any signs of a stroke because we have a short window to be able to intervene on those patients and reverse the stroke.

>> that's really important information, dr. jabbour. thank you so very much. i want to go now to -- dr. fauci what he just said in the oval office about remdesivir. >> comparing the gilead drug remdesivir with a placebo. it was highly powered with about 1,090-plus individuals. so it is the first truly high-powered randomized placebo control trial. it was an international trial involving multiple sites not only in the united states but in various countries throughout the world, including germany, denmark, spain, greece, the uk, et cetera. the primary end point was the time to recovery may lead to the ability to be discharged. when you have a study like this, we have a data and safety monitoring board which looks at the data. and they are independent so

there's no prejudice on the part of the investigators because they're doing the trial or the drug is from a certain company. the data and safety monitoring board on monday afternoon contacted me on april 27th -- first on friday the week before and then again on april 27th and notified the study team, mainly the multiple investigators who are doing the study throughout the world, that the data shows that remdesivir has a clear-cut significant positive effect in diminishing the time to recovery. this is really quite important for a number of reasons, and i will give you the data. it's highly significant. if you look at the time to recovery being shorter in the remdesivir arm, it was is 11 da compared to 15 days. that's a p value for the scientists listening of .0.001.

that's something that a 31% improvement doesn't seem like a knockout 100%, it is a very important proof of concept. because what it has proven is that a drug can block this virus. and i will give you an example in a moment why we think looking forward this is very optimistic. the mortality rate trended towards being better in the sense of last tests in the remdesivir group. 8% versus 11% in the placebo group. it has not yet reached statistical significance but the data needs to be further analyzed. the reason why we're making the announcement now is something i believe people don't yet fully appreciate. whenever you have clear-cut evidence that a drug works, you have an ethical obligation to immediately let the people who are in the placebo group know so they could have access. and all of the other trials that are taking place now have a new

standard of care. so we would have normally waited several days until the data gets further, dot the i and cross the t, but the data are not going to change. some of the numbers may change a little but the conclusion will not change. so when i was looking at this data with our team the other night, it was reminiscent of 34 years ago in 1986 when we were struggling for drugs for hiv -- and we had nothing. and there was a lot of anecdotal about things maybe they work, maybe they not and people taking different kinds of drugs. and we did the first randomized placebo control trial with azt which turned out to give an effect that was modest but that was not the end game. because building on that every year after we did better and better. we had better drugs of the same type, and we had drugs against different targets. this drug happens to be blocking an enzyme that the virus uses.

and that's an rna race. but there are other enzymes the virus uses that will be targets for this. this will be the standard of care. in fact, when we look at the other trials we're doing, we're going to do a trial with another antiviral -- actually, it isn't an antiviral, it's an anti-inflammatory. we will now compare the combination of remdesivir with this so that as drugs come in, we will see if we can add on that. so bottom line, you're going to be hearing more details about this. this will be submitted to the peer review journal and be procedure peer reviewed. but we think it's an opening door of treating and i can guarantee you as more people, more companies and more investigators get involved, it will get better and better. i will stop there but i will be happy to answer any questions. >> why don't you go first and then you go.

>> is there a timeline for development of a vaccine -- >> no, this has nothing to do with vaccines. this is treatment for people already infected. vaccine is to prevent infections. >> do you have more than that? >> nothing more than that burt i will keep you up to date at the press conferences we have regularly, the study is phase one in the third part of it and we will go into phase two but nothing has changed. >> we talk about oxford, we know johns johnson & johnson's -- >> another candidate moving along because we have a lot of shots on goal when it comes to vaccines. >> that's great. >> what is your thought process on states reopening their governments? do you think people should be more comfortable knowing that there is a drug that has proven effective -- >> i think it's a beginning. i thought tony explained it really well. it's a beginning. as a building block, i love that.

but certainly it's a positive, it's a very positive event from that standpoint, and we are going to be very careful as we open, a lot of people and governors are opening. i know you're very advanced. you will be very advanced in getting it going. but we're doing it very carefully. we learned a lot over the last couple of months. if there's a fire, we're going to put it out. if there's a little ember burning, we're going to put it out very quickly. i think we've learned how to do that. there have been some areas that have really started up and we put it out very quickly. so we learned a lot. yes, please? >> the yguidelines expire tomorrow. can you explain that? >> mike? >> we issued the guidelines and that was actually 45 days ago. first 15 and then 30 days to slow the spread. and, frankly, every state in america has embraced those

guidelines at a minimum or even done more. and now our focus is working with states as governors like governor edwards unveiled plans to open up their states again. the new guidance we issued is guidance for how we can do that safely and responsibly so not only the gating criteria for when we feel it's appropriate for states to enter phase one are included but also the very specific guidelines for when states open and how they can open and in, as the president said, in a safe and responsible w way, are included in the president's guidelines for opening up america again. >> so the current guidelines will not be extended? >> the current guidelines i think you can say are very much incorporated in the guidance that we're giving states to open up america again. but maybe mr. president -- >> i think a way to say it is they will be fading out.

i have had many calls from governors, governor of texas, greg abbott, many, many governors, tennessee, arkansas, we're speaking to a lot of different people and they're explaining what they're doing. and i am very much in favor of what they're doing. they're getting it going. they are getting it going. and we are opening our country again. do you want to explain that, please? >> yeah. i think you could see from california, they may slow the spread of the phase one of their four faces. so every governor is adapting both currently where we are and moving forward of how to move through phase one, phase two, phase three. if the governor doesn't feel they have met the grading criteria, some of them made it their first phase one and some the zero. we are interested if finding a framework for governors and moving forward all the way from what they call either phase zero all the way through phase three. >> ron desantis, the governor of

florida, was here yesterday. he gave us -- >> we have just heard extraordinarily positive news from tony fauci, saying as a therapy testing positive is remdesivir and the day in '87 when he and his colleagues discovered the first therapy for hiv aids and because of the ethical requirement to notify people of the placebo in this test that this was effective, they had to present the results now instead of waiting for any final calculations. kristen welker, that is a very positive explanation in contrast, of course, from what we saw from the false suggests of hydroxychloroquine from the president and others previously. i was very confused by what the vice president just said. he said that the governors have

all embraced the guidelines as they are talking about them phasing or expiring or phasing out? who among the 17 have started reopening have embraced the two-week requirement or advisory in those guidelines? none of them. >> reporter: well, and i think that is right. i think what you're seeing take place, andrea, is effectively the administration urging governors to transition into a new phase of this. so you had those 30-day guidelines in place and now they are essentially encouraging governors to look to the reopening, phase one, phase two, phase three. as we have been reporting, a number of states are looking at whether they actually meet those phase one requirements, that 14-day decline in covid cases and it's not clear that any cases actually do. yet we do know that some states have started to ease restrictions. again, the administration, you

heard the president there trying to put the focus on the fact this is going to be fading into a new phase of things. >> kristen welker, we forward to your reports today and tonight on "nightly news." 76% of the work force is female and majority of the nurses, nurse practitioners, health aides and doctors under the age of 45 are all women. the pandemic is also hitting women in their pocketbooks. 40% of mothers in the u.s. are the primary bread winners and they are the majority of service workers, two-thirds of america's minimum wage workers and more likely to be the wait recesses, the cooks, the hotel, housekeepers now out of work. in many cases, as we all know, is also the women, the moms who are carrying the burden of house keeping and other chores. joining me now is cecilia richards cofounder of super majority and former president of

planned parenthood and lucille is also joining us. lucille, to you first. women are not often affected as men in the statistics we see according to the data, but they are carrying an unequal portion of the burden. >> no. exactly. andrea, i think it's important what you said is exactly right, women are the vast majority of care givers in this country. they are the majority of essential workers. and i feel like that government has failed women by not providing the kind of protective gear that they need, and something that is, obviously, related is that so many of these women have now lost their child care, they have lost their -- their kids are no longer in school because of the public school shutdown. we have really done nothing to address that as well. so they are on the front lines, they are trying to take care of their families. and they are being exposed in a way that is disproportionate particularly of women and women

of color in this country. i hope in this next stimulus package that we think about the people on the front lines. not just the corporations and industries but what women need in order to recover from this pandemic. >> how can we make that happen, ruth marcus, as we see all of the big lobbyists who come in and pressure congress and the people who are getting the first cut of the money that is available? >> there is not a big powerful washington lobby that represents, you know, grocery store workers or workers in nursing homes or things like that. and so i think cecile makes a powerful point about the double whammy or maybe triple whammy that women are experiencing that they are the majority of these service workers and the majority of health care workers. they are exposing themselves even as they are dealing grappling with the absence of child care which is primary

provided by women on an absence of school, which also is primary provided by women. and so i think that the push to make sure that everybody who is on these service lines, male or female, but they happen to be a lot of women, are adequately protected and have adequate sick leave and adequate health insurance and that just needs to be a priority for lawmakers going forward. >> this is just the start of a conversation, cecile and ruth. we will leave it there just for today and pick it up another day. that does it for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports." a lot of news and big progress reported by dr. fauci today on remdesivir. follow us online. indica

katy tur and chuck todd pick up your on coverage. your on coverage and families are giving their all to the soil because no matter how uncertain things get, the land never stops. so to all those linked to the land, we say thank you. we're here for you because we all run together. soon, people will be walking back through your door.. soon, life will move forward. we'll welcome back old colleagues, get to know new ones some things may change, but we'll still be here, right here, so you can work on the business of getting your business back. at paycom, our focus will always be you and we'll see you soon. 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.

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i'm chuck todd. here are the facts as we know them at this hour. senior adviser to the president jared kushner called the federal response to the coronavirus, quote, a great success story. kushner said the government is on other side of the medically aspect of this crisis and the united states has a way to go, especially when it comes to testing. governor andrew cuomo again called for additional federal fundin