vivek murthy. he served as surgeon general in the obama administration. doctor, thank you so much for being here. >> i'm really glad to be with you, norah. >> o'donnell: there are so many questions people have, our viewers have, about social distancing. can people spend time with small groups of friends? >> if you're thinking about getting together with a small group of friends, you know, four, five, six friends, you have to be thoughtful about what contact those friends have with other people. and, you know, if they are in contact with folks who may be at risk or if you are living at home with somebody who is in a higher risk group, somebody who might be older, above the age of 60, or somebody who has other conditions, like heart disease or diabetes, i would be cautious about even those gatherings. >> o'donnell: is it okay to go to the grocery store, basic things like that, go to restaurants? >> well, i think that it's inevitable that we have to go out a little bit. we have to go get food. i would be conscious of what surfaces i was touching. i would not

anyway, we'll be right back after this with former surgeon general vivek murthy, so don't go away. teammates help each other find a way to win, just like covered california helps you find health insurance you can afford. they're the only place you can get financial assistance to help pay for health coverage. plus, this year, the state is providing more help than ever before. and because a new law requires californians to have health coverage or pay a penalty, covered california has made it easier to get financial help, but time's limited. visit coveredca.com or call to enroll today. seen lately the president of the united states is not a trusted source of coronavirus information. so i thought we would talk with someone who is an actual expert, former surgeon general vivek murthy. all right, so first things first, welcome to the show, doctor, thank you for being here. >> great to be with you, trevor. >> trevor: thank you for being there and thank you for talking to me here, i should say. i feel like we have to change our language for the world we live in now. you are one of the few

vivek murthy, very good to have you, sir. >> great to be with you. >> so vivek, first thing, am i wrong to say that the president should be tested if he's touching these other people who have been in self-quarantine now and we should know the outcome of the test. what am i missing? >> well, you're not wrong to ask the question and i think that all of us want the president to be healthy. we need our leaders to be healthy and strong. the president also is an important symbol, and when the president is well, that gives confidence to the public. so i think it's important that the president be evaluated by his physicians, that they understand if he's experienced any symptoms, that people experience when they have covid-19. and it's important if he is experiencing symptoms that they make a decision on testing him. we're waiting to get that information on how he's doing, i hope he is doing well and i hope nom none of the congress men and women who are exposed, none of them get it either but it is important especially in this moments for the government to be very transparent with what is happen

vivek murthy, thank you so much. >> thank you, norah. >> o'donnell: and now to that question about testing. today, the president said repeatedly it would soon be widely available. but the u.s. has fallen short. fewer than 17,000 people have been tested since the first case was detected here nearly two months ago. but tonight, there are some encouraging signs. walmart, walgreens, and cvs say they'll opening up their parking lots for that drive-through testing. jamie yuccas reports tonight from the mayo clinic in rochester, minnesota. >> i hear on the news, test, test, test. and i figured that i'd be able to get one. >> reporter: joseph lanza has a sore throat and fever. he owns a manufacturing company near new rochelle, new york, a hot spot of coronavirus. he's frustrated he can't get tested. >> and i might put people at risk. it's not fair to them. so it's very challenging for lots of us. not knowing is horrendous, and without testing i can't go to work, i can't make decisions and it will impact my company dramatically. >> reporter: hundreds of thousands across the country are also asking,

vivek murthy. doctor, the president saying he is also activating the hospital ships "the comfort" and "the mercy." a number of health care-related developments as part of this urgent briefing. what jumped out to you as most significant and was, as we deal with this crisis, anything missing? >> well, thank you, john. there were two things in particular that struck me about this press conference. one was dr. birx saying that the data that they are getting from other countries is showing them that young people may, in fact, be at greater risk than we may have previously thought. what this underscores is that we are still every day learning about the virus, which means that we have to be vigilant, we have to err on the side of caution. and the guidance that you're seeing from governors and from stai states and from many officials within the federal government, that we need to dramatically reduce our social contacts is because of this reason. we should expect that there may be more we learn over the nex

vivek murthy. he served during the obama administration. dr. murthy, thank you so much for joining us once again. what do you make of the white house receiving new guidelines that potentially could relax some of the social distancing restrictions. in your estimation, would it be too early in this outbreak to start allowing some schools and businesses to reopen? >> well, wolf, i think everybody is experiencing the pain of what the country is going through in terms of their lives being completely overturned. kids can't go to school, people can't go to work. this is extremely hard for people. and everybody want to see it come to an end as quickly as possible. what's really important, though, is we have to do this responsibly. to say we're going to open up in the next few days or next few weeks is frankly not consistent with science. inaccurate. what we need to do in order to open up is we need to see several things in place. number one, we have to see the number of new cases significantly declining. and now we're seeing an acceleration. we need to

vivek murthy. doctor, excuse me if we stop when the briefing starts. the governor of new york number one said half of the workforce of state, a giant state like new york, must stay home. he thanked the president sending a thousand-bed, you're familiar with "the comfort," on its way to new york city harbor, but he says we think we will need in excess of 100,000 beds in new york perhaps in the next 45 days. what does that tell you about the tipping point in the health care system? >> what that tells me is that we're at a very dangerous moment, john. we have known that we have about 45,000 to 50,000 intensive care unit beds in this country and that we may need 200,000, if this is even a modern epidemic. this is serious, and we are already seeing our health care systems starting to strain under the lack of resources, doctors running out of masks and gloves, hospitals running out of materials that they need to protect patients and themselves. so, this is urgent. and if we look ahead at what may come, at italy, for example, we see a desperate situation that

vivek murthy, former surgeon general, your father is a doctor.nd i were talking yesterday, or the day before, we see the group is there, and i will -- as soon as somebody starts talking i'm going to interrupt, but dr. murthy, if you can, tell us, your dad was saying, he's a physician, that he doesn't have the supplies he needs, doesn't have the personal protective equipment. has that changed since you and i spoke? >> no, it has not, jake. my father and my sister both practice primary care medicine in miami. they've been struggling to get masks. they're continuing to see patients because they're dedicated to the people who rely on them for care. but it pains me to know they're doing that at great risk to themselves each and every day. each day that comes we hope those masks will be delivered. as of -- >> here's the president, dr. morthy. i'm going to interrupt you and come back to you after the briefing. >> thank you. >> i'm floglad to see you're practicing social distancing. looks very nice. that's very good. i want to thank everybody for being h