Tonight's White House presser, summarized
Donald Trump held a press conference on Sunday evening to lay out what his administration has been doing to address the coronavirus and what the weeks ahead hold for the United States.
Here are some key points:
- Trump says he’s seeing glimmers of hope, “light at the end of the tunnel” thanks to work of medical workers and Americans’ social distancing.
- Fauci reiterated this is going to be a very bad week as the curve flattens, but that they hope that it will get better in the weeks after. After the peak, mitigation is key to make sure it doesn’t rebound.
- Trump repeatedly says Americans should try the untested drug hydroxychloroquine to treat coronavirus, said his administration has ordered 29m doses to be distributed across the United States.
- Fema is airlifitng supplies to affected states, including millions of masks, gloves, and sterile gowns.
- Trump took the opportunity to take digs at the governor of Illinois, CNN and a reporter from the Associated Press, calling CNN “fake news” for asking about the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine and telling the AP reporter, “You should be thanking them, not always asking wise guy questions.”
That’s all from me for tonight, thanks for reading.
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Dr Anthony Fauci, the head of the national Institute of Health, spoke further on Trump’s messaging that we are seeing a “light at the end of the tunnel”, and how to reconcile that statement with previous reports this would be the worst week for the coronavirus pandemic in the US thus far.
“When we see a flattening of cases, you don’t see the realization of that until two weeks later,” he said. “So this is probably going to be a very bad week – we are always talking about a two-and-a-half week lag time between when we see results.”
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Trump said despite CDC guidelines changing to encourage Americans to wear masks in public, he won’t be wearing one any time soon.
“I would wear a mask if I thought it was important,” he said.
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When asked if he will refrain from interacting with Pence to avoid the spread of coronavirus, Trump joked, “I don’t breathe when I’m with him.”
Trump and Pence shared the stage for the entirety of questioning on Sunday.
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Spain and Italy could be a model for what to expect in the US, says Birx
After a rambling response from another question about hydroxychloroquine, Trump calls CNN “fake news”, and we have moved back to science.
When asked how sure we can be about numbers and models, Deborah Birx said the experiences of Spain and Italy can work as a model for what we can expect in the United States.
“After four weeks of mitigation we are starting to see these countries coming across their apex,” she said. “This is promising for us.”
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When asked why he is promoting hydroxychloroquine, an unproven treatment for coronavirus, Trump said again, “What do they have to lose?”
“We don’t have time to take a couple years to test it out,” he said.
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Despite saying there is a “glimmer of hope” in the fight against coronavirus, Trump agreed with warnings from the US surgeon general who said Americans will face a “Pearl Harbor moment” in the next week.
“Hopefully we can get this over with,” he said. “This is a horrible thing for the whole world, we are one of 182 countries affected by this.”
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Trump said he has not spoken to Boris Johnson today after hearing he was going to the hospital.
“He’s a great gentleman, I just hope he’s OK,” he said.
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The Army Corps of Engineers is constructing extra hospital bed space in McCormick Place, an events center in Chicago. Some 500 beds have been installed there and 2,500 more are set to be installed, Pence said.
Pence said 3,000 patients at the Henry Ford hospital in Detroit will be participating in a formal study to determine the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for coronavirus.
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Vice-president Mike Pence is taking the stage now.
“We are truly blessed to have the kind of leadership we have,” he said, referencing the members of the coronavirus task force that spoke previously.
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Fema official says millions of masks and gloves are en route to hospitals
Now John Polowczyk, who leads Fema’s supply chain task force, is discussing the distribution of supplies across the US.
He said 2.8m masks and 11.8m gloves are en route to be distributed to hospitals and nursing homes.
Polowczyk said at Trump’s command FEMA is also distributing hydroxychloroquine to pharmacies.
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The presser has been turned over to Dr Deborah Birx, coordinator for the White House coronavirus task force.
She noted that after four weeks of mitigation in Spain and Italy they are seeing the pandemic slow. The White House is hoping to see similar effects in the US in coming weeks.
“Over the next week, although we’ll see rising number of cases of people who lose their lives to this illness, we are also hopeful we will see a stabilization of cases across these large metro areas where the outbreak began several weeks ago,” she said.
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Trump again claims we are seeing the disease peak in coming days.
“We see the light at the end of the tunnel,” Trump said. “Hopefully in the not-too-distant future we will be proud of the job we all did.”
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Trump said the US is close to a vaccine.
“We are very far down the line on vaccines, we’ll see how that all works,” he said. “Johnson and Johnson’s doing a great job and working very hard, a vaccine would be great therapy a therapy. We’ll see what happens.”
Dr Anthony Fauci has repeatedly said a vaccine is at least a year away.
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After promoting unproven cures for coronavirus, hydroxychloroquine and azythromicin, Trump hedges: “What do I know? I’m not a doctor,” he said.
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Trump says the US has ordered 29m doses of hydroxychloroquine
Trump said the US has ordered 29m pills of hydroxychloroquine and wondered what Americans “have to lose” by taking the drug. My colleague Oliver Milman wrote about why the malaria medication may not be the miracle cure Trump is hoping for:
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Trump claims the coming days will be the “peak” of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States.
“Our warriors in this life and death battle are the incredible doctors and nurses and health care workers on the frontline of the fight,” he said. “We pledge to them our eternal gratitude and everlasting support.”
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Trump claims a new testing kit from Abbott Laboratories is being developed.
He once again claimed the United States is testing more people than any country in the world, but although the US has overtaken South Korea in total numbers of coronavirus tests administered, it has conducted far fewer tests per capita given the US population is over six times larger than South Korea’s.
Trump listed a number of efforts being made to get supplies to affected states.
Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Louisiana, New Jersey are among the states that have received ventilators.
Trump takes another dig at Illinois governor: “The governor, he has not performed well.”
He also claimed cargo planes loaded with 300m gloves and 8m masks are en route to New York.
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Trump said 50 states and territories have now been approved for major disaster declarations to address coronavirus.
“This is an all out military operation that we have approved,” he said. “This is very unusual.”
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Donald Trump opens the presser with “well wishes” for Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who was admitted to the hospital today after previously being diagnosed with coronavirus.
“He’s a great friend of mine,” Trump said. “I’m sure he is going to be fine, he’s a strong man, a strong person.”
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Hello readers, Kari Paul here in San Francisco logging on to blog the White House press briefing. Stand by for updates shortly, as Donald Trump is expected to begin speaking at 7 pm ET.
Summary
Contrary to the initial schedule, there will be a White House coronavirus task force briefing at the top of the hour.
While we wait for that, here’s a summary of the latest events:
- US surgeon general warns of ‘Pearl Harbor moment’ as Americans face ‘hardest week’. “The next week is going to be our Pearl Harbor moment. It’s going to be our 9/11 moment,” Jerome Adams told NBC News’ Meet the Press.
- Fauci says no evidence anti-malaria drug Trump pushes works against virus. Donald Trump’s top coronavirus adviser has warned again that there is no scientific evidence to support the use of an unproven anti-malaria drug the president has been pushing as a possible remedy for Covid-19.
- Boris Johnson admitted to hospital with coronavirus. The British prime minister has been admitted to hospital with coronavirus after suffering persistent symptoms for 10 days.
- Biden floats proposal for ‘virtual convention’. Prospective presidential nominee Joe Biden has floated a proposal for a ‘virtual’ national Democratic party convention this summer.
- Illinois governor challenges White House on ventilators. JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor, is challenging Mike Pence’s calculations that his state needs only 1,400 ventilators.
We’ll have coverage of the White House briefing here, from 7pm.
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A Malayan tiger at a New York City zoo has tested positive for the novel coronavirus after developing a dry cough, the Wildlife Conservation Society said in a statement Sunday.
“Nadia, a four-year-old female Malayan tiger at the Bronx Zoo, has tested positive for Covid-19. She, her sister Azul, two Amur tigers, and three African lions had developed a dry cough and all are expected to recover,” the statement read.
The diagnosis is believed to be the first known infection in an animal in the US or a tiger anywhere, federal officials and the zoo said on Sunday. More from the Associated Press:
The finding raises new questions about transmission of the virus in animals. The USDA says there are no known cases of the virus in US pets or livestock.
The coronavirus outbreaks around the world are driven by person-to-person transmission, experts say.
There have been reports of a small number of pets outside the United States becoming infected after close contact with contagious people, including a Hong Kong dog that tested positive for a low level of the pathogen in February and early March. Hong Kong agriculture authorities concluded that pet dogs and cats couldn’t pass the virus to human beings but could test positive if exposed by their owners.
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A just-published Washington Post exclusive identifies longtime Trump advisor Rudy Giuliani as a key advocate for coronavirus treatments whose effectiveness has not yet been proven.
Rudolph W Giuliani, who was in the center of the impeachment storm earlier this year as an unpaid private attorney for President Trump, has cast himself in a new role: as personal science adviser to a president eager to find ways to short circuit the coronavirus epidemic.
In one-on-one phone calls with Trump, Giuliani said, he has been touting the use of an anti-malarial drug cocktail that has shown some early promise in treating Covid-19, but whose effectiveness has not yet been proved. He said he now spends his days on the phone with doctors, coronavirus patients and hospital executives promoting the treatment, which Trump has also publicly lauded.
“I discussed it with the president after he talked about it,” Giuliani said in an interview. “I told him what I had on the drugs.”
Giuliani’s advice to Trump echoes comments the former New York mayor has made on his popular Twitter feed and a podcast that he records in a makeshift radio studio installed at his New York City apartment, where he has repeatedly pushed the drug combination, as well as a stem cell therapy that involves the extraction of what Giuliani termed “placenta ‘killer cells’. ”
The former New York mayor is part of a chorus of prominent pro-Trump voices who at first downplayed the severity of the virus and then embraced possible cures — worrying health experts who fear such comments undermine efforts to slow the virus’s spread and downplay the risks of the unproven treatments.
Giuliani’s controversial comments have helped him regain a bit of the prominence he had during impeachment – last week, he was back in the spotlight when Twitter briefly locked his account for promoting misinformation about Covid-19.
“He’s been out of the news and out of the limelight since the end of the impeachment drama,” said Andrew Kirtzman, a Giuliani biographer who is currently writing his second book about the former New York mayor. “What you’re seeing is an effort to regain relevance.”
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Boston mayor Marty Walsh asked everyone in Massachusetts’ largest city to observe a curfew and to wear a mask when outside at his daily briefing today.
The city now has 1,877 confirmed cases and 15 deaths attributed to the novel coronavirus, marking an increase of 259 cases from Saturday.
“That’s what a surge looks like and we’re still at the beginning of the surge,” Walsh said.
De Blasio is asked why demographic breakdowns of those diagnosed with Covid-19 have not been released by New York City authorities. De Blasio said that the first priority had been to treat people but data was now being looked at. He said early signs suggested that more deprived communities had been hit the hardest in the city.
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New York City mayor Bill de Blasio had previously expressed fears that his city would run out of ventilators on Sunday. He says that new supplies have eased his worries.
“We thought as early as tonight there was the possibility of running out of crucial equipment like ventilators,” De Blasio said. “We believe now we can get to Tuesday or Wednesday with the supplies that we have.”
The White House said earlier today that it would not hold its usual daily press briefing on coronavirus. Donald Trump has just tweeted that the briefing may take place after all.
“I will be having a White House CoronaVirus Task Force meeting in a short while,” wrote the president on Twitter. “May or may not do a News Conference after the meeting, depending on new information. Talks & meetings today are proving promising, but a rough two weeks are coming up!”
I will be having a White House CoronaVirus Task Force meeting in a short while. May or may not do a News Conference after the meeting, depending on new information. Talks & meetings today are proving promising, but a rough two weeks are coming up!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 5, 2020
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The Queen has made just the fifth special televised broadcast of her long reign. She addressed the United Kingdom on Sunday, urging Britons to take comfort in the fact that “We will meet again.”
She spoke of her own memories of the second world war and said “While we have faced challenges before, this one is different. This time we join with all nations across the globe in a common endeavour, using the great advances of science and our instinctive compassion to heal.”
The only other times the Queen has broadcast to her citizens, apart from the traditional Christmas Day address, were during the 1991 Gulf War, upon the deaths of Princess Diana and her mother, and on her Silver Jubilee in 2012. You can keep up to date with Coronavirus updates around the world in our global liveblog:
A food grower in Arizona has voiced concerns over the combined effects of Covid-19 and the government’s efforts to curb the number of temporary Mexican farmworkers coming into the US.
“We’re already handicapped in our ability to have enough workers in this country. We’re importing too much food into this country. And then you throw a pandemic that impacts the domestic and guest worker population,” John Boelts, vice president of the Arizona Farm Bureau, told the Arizona Republic. “Over time, this is going to have a creep effect. And we’re worried about the long term of what it means.”
The Navy captain who was removed from command of a coronavirus-stricken aircraft carrier after requesting more help for his sailors has tested positive for Covid-19. According to the New York Times:
The commander began exhibiting symptoms before he was removed from the warship on Thursday, two of his classmates said. Crozier was fired following a leak to The San Francisco Chronicle of a letter he had emailed to Navy leaders that detailed the failures on the service’s part to provide the necessary resources to swiftly move sailors off the carrier and disinfect areas on board as the virus spread through the ship.
Thomas B Modly, the acting secretary of the Navy, said he had lost confidence in Crozier’s ability to command the ship effectively as it dealt with the evolving crisis after Crozier sent the letter on an unclassified email system to 20 to 30 people. Sending such a letter, Modly said, caused unnecessary alarm about the operational readiness of the ship and undermined the chain of command. “In sending it out pretty broadly, he did not take care to ensure that it couldn’t be leaked,” Modly said. “And that’s part of his responsibility.”
In a briefing Saturday, President Trump offered support for Modly’s decision. “He shouldn’t be talking that way in a letter,” the president said of Crozier. “I thought it was terrible what he did.”
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According to CNN, Ford spokesman Dan Barbossa said the automaker will have made more than one million face shields over the past week – roughly one every 10 seconds – at subsidiary Troy Design and Manufacturing’s facility in Plymouth, Michigan.
Barbossa said 120 workers have been enlisted to work at the facility outside Detroit and 120,000 face shields have been delivered to New York and surrounding areas.
Washington Post executive editor Marty Baron was unsparing in his criticism of Donald Trump in an appearance on CNN’s Reliable Sources.
“Everything stems from the person at the top,” Baron said, pointing to the Post’s front-page story from today, which takes aim at the federal government’s slugging response to the pandemic. “And from the very beginning [Trump] was being dismissive of this – of the dangers here. He was arguing that it wasn’t going to affect the United States to a great extent and yet there were warnings within his administration that he was aware of and should have been aware of and should have paid attention to that were telling him that this was going to be a very serious problem and that it called for true mobilization on the part of the entire government. ... But the point of the story was in fact the entire government had not been mobilized.”
Baron is also asked how the Post is protecting staff reporting on the front lines, saying: “One of our biggest concerns is to make sure that we can cover this story but make sure that we don’t put our staff in danger. We tell everyone that while we want them to cover this story, we don’t want anybody to do anything that will cause a severe risk to their health. And they are entitled to say that they don’t want to cover a story. When people do cover a story we provide them with the materials that they need. We provide them with masks, we provide them with gloves, and we try to make sure that the story is one that allows them to cover it safely.”
On Sunday, Louisiana governor John Bel Edwards reiterated that the state, one of the hardest hit in the US, was projected to run out of ventilators by Thursday 9 April, and would reach ICU capacity two days after.
As of Sunday, 409 people have died from Covid-19 in Louisiana, with well over half in the New Orleans metro area. New Orleans now has the highest per capita death rate of any city in the US, according to data analysis by the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
“This is a tough emergency, and it’s not different here than it is elsewhere. It’s a little more acute, I think, than some places,” Edwards told CNN on Sunday morning, confirming that 200 additional ventilators had arrived in the city from national stockpile on Saturday.
On Monday, the state will open its first makeshift field hospital at the Morial Convention Center in New Orleans. The facility will house 1,000 beds and, like those in New York and elsewhere, is designed to ease the burden on city hospitals as they near capacity.
Senior infectious disease doctors speaking to the Guardian last week, confirmed that hospitals in New Orleans have already begun discussing the ethics of how to ration care should they become overwhelmed with Covid-19 patients.
Trump is making the most of the down time at the White House today by maintaining an active Twitter presence. He’s spent the last half hour quote-tweeting and retweeting a series of his positive notices from Fox News pundits – and nurturing the special relationship with a shoutout to the Queen ahead of her forthcoming special address to the UK.
A great & wonderful woman! https://t.co/6ivEcwk12Z
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 5, 2020
Justin Trudeau said at Sunday’s daily briefing he’s confident Canada will still be able to import N95 protective masks from the United States despite Donald Trump’s export ban and plans to speak to the US president about it in coming days. The Associated Press reports:
Trump has said he will block exports of the masks from the United States to ensure they are available in the U.S. for use during the coronavirus pandemic.
Trudeau notes Canada supplies the U.S. with many supplies including pulp for surgical-grade N95 masks, test kits and gloves. Canadian nurses also work in the U.S.
Trudeau says it would be harmful to both nations if the flow of those goods and services stopped.
Manufacturing giant 3M say there are significant humanitarian implications in not sending N95 masks to health care workers in Canada and Latin America, where 3M is a critical supplier of respirators.
Trump has said the U.S. wants the masks and he doesn’t want others getting them. But has also said 3M can sell to other countries but the company needs to take care of the U.S.
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No White House coronavirus briefing today
The White House has called a lid for the day, meaning there will be no public coronavirus briefing. The task force instead will convene on a private conference call with no public events on the schedule.
Perhaps the most remarkable kicker in the history of the NFL has died after contracting Covid-19.
Tom Dempsey, who was 73 at the time of his death on Saturday, was born without toes on his right foot - the same foot he used to kick during his 10-year NFL career. He is most famous for setting the NFL record for the longest field goal in history. The record came when he was playing for the New Orleans Saints in 1970, when he kicked a 63-yard effort as time expired to win a game against the Detroit Lions.
The record stood for 43 years until the Denver Broncos’ Matt Prater converted a 64-yard kick in 2013.
Dempsey used a specially adapted flat boot during his career to make up for his lack of toes. He settled in New Orleans after retiring from football.
“Tom’s life spoke directly to the power of the human spirit and exemplified his resolute determination to not allow setbacks to impede following his dreams and aspirations,” the New Orleans Saints owner, Gayle Benson, said in a statement.
Cuomo is asked about Trump’s reported comments that he believes the NFL season should start on time in September with fans in the stands. As much as he’s like to see it, the governor hopes a cautious tack is taken.
“I would love to see sports back,” Cuomo says. “It would help with cabin fever. But this is not about hopes and dreams and aspirations and what you would like to see. None of us like being here. Follow the data, follow the science. Let the doctors and health-care professionals tell you when it’s safe to reopen and that’s when you reopen.”
Cuomo says it’s time for the family of New York to come together, drawing toward the end of his daily briefing in an inspirational tone.
“We talk about the family of New York, right?” the governor says. “I must have said that one million times: family of New York. What does family of New York mean? Mutuality, cooperation, sharing benefits and burdens. This is the time the family needs to come together, not just out of spirit and love, but out of necessity. You cannot handle this without your brothers and sisters. You can’t.”
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“The number of beds doesn’t really matter anymore,” Cuomo says. “We have the beds, it’s the ventilators and then it’s the staff. That’s the problem.”
Cuomo says that rapid testing that can be deployed at scale will help the United States return to normalcy.
He also notes the state is “working on aggressively” using hydroxychloroquine as a Covid-19 treatment.
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Cuomo says 74% of those hospitalized have been discharged and notes that new hospitalization rates are down from around 1,400 a day on Thursday to 574 on Saturday.
He repeats his call for the hospitals to come together and work as a single network, establishing a “rolling deployment” of medical resources around the country.
The governor says the 2,500 beds at the Javits Center, which has been converted to a temporary field hospital, will be a major “relief valve” for Covid-19 patients.
“This is war time,” he says. “This is a war.”
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Cuomo says there were 594 coronavirus deaths in New York state in the last day for a total of 4,159, but deaths have gone down from 630 a day prior.
“We could be either very near the apex or the apex could be a plateau and we could be on that plateau right now,” Cuomo says. “We won’t know until you see the next few days.”
New York governor Andrew Cuomo opens his daily coronavirus briefing from Albany with the latest numbers:
- 122,031 total positive cases (including 10,841 new)
- 16,479 current hospitalizations
- 4,376 patients in ICU
- 4,159 deaths (up from 3,565 yesterday)
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Arkansas governor defends lack of stay-at-home order
My colleague Richard Luscombe has news on one of the final states without a stay-at-home order.
Asa Hutchinson, the Arkansas governor, has been explaining why he is still refusing to issue a statewide stay-at-home order, one of only a handful of states yet to do so.
There’s no point, he says, because everybody would ignore it.
“You have a stay-at-home order, tomorrow 600,000 Arkansans will still go to work,” he told Chuck Todd, host of NBC News’ Meet the Press.
“So it’s more important the message that, do your social distancing, don’t gather in groups of more than 10 people and bring a mask with you.”
Hutchinson said advice this week from Jerome Adams, the US surgeon general, that federal coronavirus guidelines amounted to a national stay-at-home order, were “great comments”. He went on to suggest that his state was ahead of the game.
“We’re doing everything that the surgeon general has outlined, plus more,” he said. “We have a targeted approach that is very strict. We’ve closed bars, restaurants, schools, some of our park lodges. We’re emphasizing the social distancing and we will do more as we need to.”
He said he “applauded” federal recommendations that citizens should wear masks in public.
“We just had last night, a breakout in one of our federal prisons here in Arkansas that has 10 inmates that tested positive and four guards. That’s a federal facility, but stay-at-home doesn’t help there,” he said.
“You’ve got to have the masks and our state prison is producing masks that we can utilize in our state prison environment. “
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Fauci: 'This is going to be a bad week... just buckle down'
Dr Anthony Fauci, the top infectious disease expert in the country with a key role on Trump’s coronavirus task force, says “this is going to be a bad week”:
“We’re going to continue to see an escalation,” Fauci told host Margaret Brennan of CBS News’ Face the Nation. “Also, we should hope that within a week, maybe a little bit more, we’ll start to see a flattening out of the curve and coming down...
“Things are going to get bad and we need to be prepared for that. It’s going to be shocking to some and it certainly is really disturbing to see that... just buckle down...
“We’ve got to get through this week that is coming up because it’s going to be a bad week”.
What should Americans be preparing for with #coronavirus?
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) April 5, 2020
Head of @NIAIDNews Dr. Anthony Fauci tells @margbrennan “This is going to be a bad week,” but also says “within a week we’ll start to see a flattening out of the curve pic.twitter.com/RnNx34XGnT
Fauci said that states without statewide stay-at-home orders are “putting themselves at risk.”
“I will not say we have it under control, we are struggling to get it under control,” he says, but social distancing and other mitigation measures were showing some signs of success:
NEWS: Head of @NIAID Dr. Anthony Fauci tells @margbrennan of the #coronavirus pandemic:
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) April 5, 2020
“I will not say we have it under control, we are struggling to get it under control,” but notes that mitigation is showing some success in places like New York. pic.twitter.com/DgrkLWxmrB
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Illinois governor challenges White House on ventilators
My colleague Richard Luscombe has news on tension between the governor of Illinois and the vice-president.
JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor, is challenging Mike Pence’s calculations that his state needs only 1,400 ventilators.
“I pray that the vice-president was right, but let me tell you where I think he got his numbers. He looked at a University of Washington model that’s out there that people are accessing to look at every state,” Pritzker said on CNN’s State of the Union.
“The problem is they didn’t put that model out there for resource allocation reasons. If you look at the model there’s a central point that shows Illinois needs only 1,400 or fewer… but there’s also a worst-case scenario that shows we would need five, or six, or seven thousand more.
“We’re looking at all of the numbers, and everybody is taking an educated guess because we really don’t know.”
He added: “This virus is unpredictable. Our guess is we need a few thousand more than we have now, up to 4,000. That’s what we’ve asked the federal government for, and over time they’ve given us 450 total.
“We’re looking everywhere and anywhere across the world to get ventilators. Here’s the problem, the president didn’t enact or use the defense production act until just recently.”
Pritzker said he was worried it would lead to a shortage of ventilators nationwide, because he thought New York would still be at its peak at a time the need became greatest elsewhere and unable to share its supply.
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Surgeon general: 'next week is going to be our Pearl Harbor'
Surgeon General Jerome Adams has warned the country of a devastating week ahead in the fight against coronavirus.
“The next week is going to be our Pearl Harbor moment. It’s going to be our 9/11 moment. It’s going to be the hardest moment for many Americans in their entire lives,” Adams told host Chuck Todd of NBC News’ Meet the Press.
Todd asked Adams what his advice would be for the nine governors who have not yet issued statewide stay-at-home orders.
“The next week is going to be our Pearl Harbor moment. It’s going to be our 9/11 moment,” Adams responded, continuing:
It’s going to be the hardest moment for many Americans in their entire lives, and we really need to understand that if we want to flatten that curve and get through to the other side, everyone needs to do their part. Ninety percent of Americans are doing their part, even in the states where, where they haven’t had a shelter in place. But if you can’t give us 30 days, governors, give us, give us a week, give us what you can, so that we don’t overwhelm our healthcare systems over this next week. And then let’s reassess at that point. We want everyone to understand you’ve got to be Rosie The Riveter you’ve got to do your part.
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Washington governor Jay Inslee, whose state was hit with the first confirmed coronavirus cases in the country, blasted the Trump administration on Sunday for not helping states get the emergency equipment they need and fueling a bidding war among the states for that equipment.
“This is ludicrous that we do not have a national effort in this. To say we are a backup ... Can you imagine if Franklin Roosevelt said ‘I’ll be right behind you Connecticut, good luck building those battleships’?” Inslee said on NBC New’s Meet the Press.
“Look, we need a national mobilization of the manufacturing base of the United States.”
In a snide letter to senator Chuck Schumer of New York last week, Trump said the federal government is just a “back-up,” writing:
As you are aware, the Federal Government is merely a back-up for state governments. Unfortunately, your state needed far more of a back-up than most others.
Inslee said the coronavirus crisis was a national crisis demanding a national response, and he called on Trump to lead:
If he wants to be a wartime president, be a wartime president. Show some leadership. Mobilize the industrial base of the United States, that’s what we need.
WATCH: @GovInslee says it is "ludicrous that we do not have a national effort" against the coronavirus. #MTP
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) April 5, 2020
Gov. Inslee: "To say we are a backup ... Can you imagine if Franklin Roosevelt said 'I'll be right behind you Connecticut, good luck building those battleships.'" pic.twitter.com/uAudl3SxAU
In his wide-ranging interview this morning with George Stephanopoulos, host of ABC News’ This Week, Biden described preparations the Obama administration took to handle a pandemic which he said Donald Trump had dismantled.
“We did a lot to prepare, as you know George. We set up a pandemic office within the White House, we expanded CDC in other countries so we could be in fact, observe, see when things were coming, how things were moving,” Biden said.
“We put people in China. I mean we did a whole lot of things, and they got a very detailed breakdown on this by a briefing, the Trump administration, when we transitioned out of office, but the president dismantled almost all of that, and he drastically cut the budget for the CDC, he drastically cut the budge for the ... anyway, so he didn’t follow through on any of what we suggested was going to be a real problem.
“We can do much better than being done now.”
“We did a lot to prepare,” Biden tells @gstephanopoulos when pressed on whether the Obama admin should have “done more to prepare” for a potential pandemic.
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) April 5, 2020
In 2014 DHS warned that a pandemic was the highest homeland security risk from a natural cause. https://t.co/IWEd5ppDTB pic.twitter.com/2P0CHEOPBO
Biden calls dismissal of Navy captain 'close to criminal'
In his interview on ABC Biden also weighed in on the controversial dismissal of Navy Captain Brett Crozier, calling it “close to criminal”.
Crozier was removed from his command after he wrote a memo about concerns for his crew on an aircraft carrier with coronavirus cases aboard. Donald Trump on Saturday slammed Crozier for writing the letter.
“It’s close to criminal the way they’re dealing with this guy,” Biden said Sunday. “The idea that this man stood up and said what had to be said, got it out that his troops, his Navy personnel were in danger. ... Look how many have the virus. I think...he should have a commendation rather than be fired.”
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Biden, 77, will wear a mask if he goes out in public, he tells ABC News.
Donald Trump said on Friday that he would not wear a mask, in spite of new guidelines issued by the White House that day for people to wear face coverings in public places.
ABC host George Stephanopoulos asked Biden, who is sequestered at home in Wilmington, Delaware, whether he would wear a mask.
“Yes,” Biden said. “Look, I think it’s important to follow the science, listen to the experts do what they tell you,” Biden said. “He may not like how he looks in a mask but the truth of the matter is that -- follow the science. That’s what they’re telling us. So if I go out in public, and I have not gone to commercial places of late I haven’t gone to my local church ... but my generic point is that you should follow the science.”
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Defense secretary Mark Esper is up on CNN’s State of the Union, as military personnel head for New York to help a city and state under the hammer from Covid-19.
The Pentagon has “been all in going back to the beginning of this” and has been “ahead of the curve” regarding the coronavirus, he claims, in an opening mission statement. There will be more than 1,100 military medical personnel in New York, Esper says, at the temporary hospital in the Javits conference center and at other New York facilities.
He also says many Pentagon ventilators have been deployed this week, contrary to a CNN report which said they had not been sent to where they are needed.
“We’re probably sitting on a few hundred,” he says.
Now Esper is asked about Capt Brett Crozier of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, who was removed this week after writing a memo about his concerns for crew members, which was then leaked. Capt Crozier was cheered off the ship by his crew, as Julian Borger reported:
“We need to take care of the sailors on the ship,” Esper says, saying there have been 155 positive coronavirus tests on the Roosevelt.
Esper says he supports the decision to relieve Crozier which was made by navy leadership, which holds leaders accountable for their actions.
Should there have been an investigation, host Jake Tapper asks.
“There is an investigation ongoing,” Esper says, but repeats the navy secretary had lost confidence in Crozier.
On Saturday, Trump said he did not think Crozier should have written the letter, which he said was a “terrible” thing to do. Esper dodges again when asked if Trump ordered Crozier’s firing, and says “when all those facts come to bear we’ll have a chance to understand” why the decision was taken.
This was the navy secretary’s decision, Esper insists, not the president’s – contrary to reports that, as the Washington Post put it, navy secretary Thomas Modly “told one colleague Wednesday, the day before he announced the move: ‘Breaking news: Trump wants him fired.’”
The navy has been on top of this situation from the start, Esper insists.
He is also asked about why US Navy medical ships in Los Angeles and New York are not taking coronavirus patients. The Mercy and the Comfort are “ahead of need”, Esper says. The plan was for the ships to take trauma cases and relieve regular hospitals, he says, but trauma cases are down while the virus rages. Hence, in New York, opening the Javits hospital for coronavirus cases.
Biden floats proposal for 'virtual convention'
Prospective presidential nominee Joe Biden has floated a proposal for a ‘virtual’ national Democratic party convention this summer.
“We’re going to have to do a convention,” Biden tells ABC News. “We may have to do a virtual convention. I think we should be thinking about that right now. The idea of holding a convention is going to be necessary but you may not be able to put 10, 20, 30,000 people in one place, and that’s very possible. Again, let’s see where it is.”
BREAKING: Joe Biden tells @GStephanopoulos that Democrats "may have to do a virtual convention. I think we should be thinking about that right now. The idea of holding the convention is going to be necessary."
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) April 5, 2020
The convention was rescheduled for August. https://t.co/OBWRrasROt pic.twitter.com/4WNgvp824n
The Democrats had previously postponed their convention from July to August. The national conventions bring party officials from across the country together to nominate a presidential candidate. Delays in state primary contests owing to the coronavirus crisis have muddied the process this year. In the nominating race, Biden is currently leading senator Bernie Sanders by a seemingly insurmountable 500 delegates and holds a prohibitive advantage in polls of states that have yet to vote.
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While we wait for the Sunday shows to begin – a breathless wait each week if you’re a weekend editor, I assure you – here in the form of a succession of embeds is a selection of informative further reading about the coronavirus, the crisis it has caused and what you might need to know:
…and finally our map of the outbreak in the US, which uses figures from Johns Hopkins University in Maryland and which updates throughout the day:
Good morning and welcome
… to another day of coverage of the coronavirus outbreak in the US.
- Confirmed US cases of Covid-19: 312,085
- US deaths: 8,499
- New York cases: 114,174
- New York deaths: 3,565
Those figures, from Johns Hopkins University, will of course grow during the day, one key point being the usual briefing by New York governor Andrew Cuomo, whose state is by far the hardest hit though the numbers in New Jersey, Michigan and Louisiana, and elsewhere, are rising worryingly swiftly.
At the time of writing, there is no White House coronavirus task force briefing on the president’s public schedule. Let that sink in… then think of what happened at Saturday’s briefing, an angry, rambling and averagely incoherent affair.
Trump warned of “one of the toughest weeks” to come, and said: “There’s going to be a lot of death, unfortunately. There will be a lot of deaths.”
But he also repeatedly recommended Americans concerned about Covid-19 take hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug which some (including many Fox News hosts) say works in relation to this coronavirus but which has not been clinically tested, a fact to which Trump’s own public health experts, standing next to him at the podium, repeatedly point.
One of those experts, Dr Deborah Birx, told the briefing the next two weeks would be key to slowing the virus by following federal social distancing guidelines and keeping most of the country shut down. “This is the moment to do everything you can to keep your families and friends safe,” she said.
Trump did not seem to be listening. As well as insisting the economy would have to reopen soon, after attacking governors including Cuomo and of course the media, and after saying Republican-led states which have not implemented shutdowns did not need to because “big land, few people”, the president returned again and again to the supposed need for hydroxychloroquine.
“Take it,” he said. “I really think they should take it.” Trump also said he “may” take hydroxychloroquine himself … “but I’ll have to ask my doctor about that.”
The president’s message? “Trust me, I’m not a doctor. And also, I’ll ask my doctor before I do what I think you should do. But trust me.”
Here is what the Food and Drug Administration says about using hydroxychloroquine for Covid-19. And here’s Oliver Milman’s look at why you shouldn’t listen to Trump.
The first order of the day here in the US will be the political talk shows, of course. Governors of hard-hit states will appear: John Bel Edwards of Louisiana, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Jay Inslee of Washington. All Democrats. A governor of one of Trump’s “big land, few people” Republican states, Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, is due on NBC.
On CBS, Dr Anthony Fauci may face questions about Trump’s fondness for hydroxychloroquine. And on ABC, Joe Biden appears as reports circulate of Bernie Sanders’ imminent exit from the Democratic presidential race.
While we wait for that, and any presidential tweets of course, here’s some further reading:
Tom McCarthy on Jared Kushner and his shadow coronavirus task force. What is the president’s son-in-law up to?
Columnist Robert Reich on Trump’s coronavirus power grab.
…and Lloyd Green reviewing a new book by ABC News chief White House correspondent Jon Karl which was written before the pandemic, of course, but which makes fascinating reading from an author who has known Trump for 25 years. Also, Lloyd quotes Gladiator. Book reviews that quote Gladiator are the best book reviews*.
*Editor’s own opinion, not legally binding.
