caitlyn rivers, respond to the mayor there. this issue of scope, the issue of testing, we don't have enough kits. at the same time there is a fear that we could overwhelm the system with all these tests. >> i think the mayor is absolutely right that understanding the open and scale of the outbreak is critical both to the public health response and to making sure that people get the medical care they need. so i am very excited that testing is now available at state and local public health labs. >> mayor, there is -- the new cases today, when we jumped from 40 -- mid 40s to now over 70 -- this is now a sense this is basically being passed around person to person, it is no longer just connected to one or two hot spots? >> i think that the medical profession and the public health people believe that we have communication in the public at large. most of the cases we have had that are the most acute and the fatalities have been to those locations that we know that are the hot spots. but i think one thing that's going to be very impor

caitlyn collins is out front at the white house. caitlyn, of course, you were in the briefing with the president, vice president, dr. fauci. it did not sound like when it comes to the time line, the president talking about a beautiful easter, fauci did not seem to be on the same page about that. >> reporter: yeah. the president certainly sounded a lot more hopeful about that time line. whether or not it's realistic as a time to open the country, certainly there are going to be questions raised about the president's suggestion that churches should be packed on that day given what medical experts have said about crowds so far. fauci got up to the microphone. he said they discussed it in the oval office today but he cautioned that any date you're talking about when you're talking about reopening the country, excuse me, needs to be a flexible one. a lot of that is going to be based on the data they're seeing and those questions going forward. i asked the president, is this easter time line, have you picked that on the basis of a data yo

caitlyn collins, 11 minutes that did not soothe global markets one bit. dropping after president trump announced the 30-day european travel restrictions. looking at markets around the world you can see asian shares down sharply. europe just opened -- europe is not open yet -- no, it's open. europe is down and it's down sharply here. wall street pointed to more trouble ahead. you can see a 4% decline. that's almost 1,000 points for dao futures. even proposed tax relief. bull market confidence is shattered. the dow's 11-year bull market is over. the market finished down 20% from the high in february. the s&p hanging on. looking like it will crash into a bear market today. the market reaction and the week's coronavirus headlines confirm a new reality. more cases, social distancing, cancellations, school closures. these are things that grind the economy to a halt. the president tried to sound a unifying tone last night but his claims the last few weeks have been anything but. >> we're doing a great job with it and it will go away. just stay calm. it will go a

caitlyn collins, cnn, the white house. >>> joining me now is dr. ann ramoine. she teaches at ucla's epidemiology department. thank you so much for being with us. >> sure. >> as the w.h.o. launched its trial testing existing drugs to compare treatments, president trump was taughting the benefits of the antima layer yal drugs. he talked about one man whose lives were saved but some have died as a result of using these drugs. how much hope do you think the antimalarial drugs hold and do you support their use starting tuesday? >> it's an interesting situation because we've never been collectively so concerned about having drugs in place and needing them. these drugs, a specific chloroquine, drugs around since the '40s, known to be safe and tolerable in standard doses, but they've never been used in this capacity. there's very little data to suggest that they actually work. you know, we worry about any kind of mass distribution of drugs even in an emergency use set whg there's not enough data on the safety and efficacy for this particular indication. so i think that

caitlyn collins is at the white house for us. >> reporter: yeah, laura and christine, the president spoke1 minutes in the oval office last night talking about his administration's response to the coronavirus and what really was his first acknowledgment of what a crisis it truly has become, not only here in the united states but also around the globe. but one of the president's most restrictive measures that he announced that he was banning all travel from europe to the united states for the next 30 days starting at midnight on friday had to later be clarified by his dhs secretary who said it wasn't that extensive. really essentially offering us the fine print in a statement later on saying that it was going to suspend the entry of most foreign nationals who had been in certain european countries leading up to two weeks of their arrival to the united states. they said this did not apply to legal permanent residents, family members of u.s. residents and other individuals identified in the proclamation. a really important confirmation of people who are traveling, how soon should they return

caitlyn, to this point it was a very sober president that we saw, taking question after question, even from reporters he doesn't like to take questions from. talking about a friend of his in a comb because of coronavirus. saying this is em2359icly saying this is not flu. this is vicious as he just referenced. as recently as march 9, the president was comparing the deaths for the flu and the deaths for coronavirus and saying think about that, downplaying this. perhaps the flu was more disruptive. >> yeah. aaron, that was three weeks ago that the president was saying that. last week he was pushing the easter date to open the country. the president is acknowledging the grim reality that these numbers and these models that his team of doctors have been presenting to him over the weekend show. you saw the president disavow the flu argument, an argument he himself put on multiple occasions. the president did have a more serious tone tonight. that doesn't change the fact that he downplayed the coronavirus for months. also there was a p incredibly slow start to testing in the united states, wh

here's white house correspondent caitlyn collins. >> reporter: laura and christine, the president came out to the briefing room and announced several new measures in his administration is taking it. there's fine print on some of them. one of them being the president said he would sign the defense production act. that would bring the emergency powers to be able to direct private companies to accelerate supplies that they believe are needed to help protect the national defense. usually it's used for things like military equipment, but of course in this situation what's on everyone's mind is medical supplies that hospitals say they are in desperately short supply of. however, the president tweeted a short while later that he was only signing the dpa, he was not actually invoking it at this time and instead saving that for a worst case scenario. that seems to surprise some people, including lawmakers who are praising the president for signing it and hopefully in their opinions invoking it. two other things we want to note is the president did say they were going to deploy two u.s. navy shi

. >> caitlyn, she's a resident doctor, doing her residency at a catholic hospital in -- near seattle. $300,000 of student debt, $300,000 to put herself through medical school. she's come out and endorsed bernie. there's nick in kalamazoo, michigan, who wrote to me. he hasn't seen a dentist in three years and he's got a horrible rotted abscess, something going on in his tooth. he doesn't have the money to go see the dentist. and you know you mess with your mouth, he's endorsed bernie sanders. >> right. >> the single mom who brought me my girl scout cookies this week -- don't see those, i'm sorry. she told me she's endorsed bernie sanders. that's who i care about. >> all right. >> not what politicians are. the people out there. >> all right. so after this break i'm going to talk about the economic policies of bernie sanders and joe biden and i don't want to hear anything on twitter negative about michael moore. he comes and he engages, we talk. >> say whatever you want. it's just twitter. >> right. correct. it is just twitter. >> come on. >> just be nice. >> no crying in twitter. >> goo

as caitlyn collins reports, the death toll is rising and the united states does not have enough testing kits to get a handle on just how many americans are infected. >> reporter: after a morning at the white house, the president will visit the centers for disease control after all. he said that he would sign the coronavirus funding bill at their headquarters today. >> the president is expected to sign the legislation tomorrow as he visits the cdc tomorrow in atlanta. >> reporter: then the trip disappeared from the schedule and the white house gave conflicting explanations why. at first, the white house said that he was not going because he did not want to interfere with the health and wellness of the mission of the agency. but after signing the funding bill at the white house, trump was asked about the cancellation. >> they felt that there was a problem with somebody at the cdc with the virus, and because of one person that they did not want me going. >> reporter: but the president said that the tests were negative. >> so i may be going. >> reporter: and then he went to nashville to tou

. >>> caitlyn collins is live outside the white house. the number of coronavirus cases in the united states 102 now, and we're finding out about more cases. is the level of concern in the white house on the rise? >> reporter: you see a sense of change here. you see the president downplaying it and it realized the white house's response was coming under scrutiny now they're working overtime to ensure people they're adequately prepared to respond to this had. that's why you're seeing events like today where the president was meeting with the dru . he held the briefing today with the rest of the task force, including the new coordinator who said she just got in from south africa last night. that comes as the president himself has been injecting ideas that some aides dr. fouche are saying that's not what we should rely our response on. but the president floating ideas like this is going to go away when the weather warm ups, something scientists say they have no idea and won't know until the temperature does warm up. you see other officials tr

surgeon general, caitlyn, the range of input and analysis on what people should do. >> we are shiftingainment posture where we're trying to keep the virus out of communities to one of mitigation, helping people understand we've got community spread. >> isn't it always going to be mitigation if you don't have a medical prevention? this isn't a situation yet where we're preventing people from getting it outright. >> not quite, because for some pathogens we are able to completely control the spread with enough concerted effort and stop transmission entirely. we're not really in that place with this virus. that's why you hear more talk about mitigation which is thinking more about how we can prevent secondary impacts in the community. we still want to reduce transmission, but we also want to be thinking about how we can prevent health care systems from becoming overwhelmed, how we can take interventions, sometimes closing schools or community gathering places to slow transmission, things like that. >> what would that look like if we achieve door number one for this threat? >> being contain