3/10/20: Members of the Coronavirus Task Force Hold a Press Briefing

good afternoon, we just completed today's meeting of the white house

coronavirus

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force

and I couldn't be more proud of the efforts of the men and women behind me or everyone behind them. President Trump said from the beginning that this would be a whole-of-government approach and today he gives evidence of the fact that it is also a whole-of-America approach: we are bringing all the resources to the federal government and all the resources of this great economy and our great business sector to support us in protecting the American people and American families some updates starting today as we continue to expand testing availability across the country testing now available in all state labs by the end of this week there will be more than 4 million more tests available in jurisdictions across the country there are already 1 million and thanks to the good work of our leading commercial laboratories that President Trump brought together yesterday, LabCorp and Quest are now in the process of distributing and marketing tests

coronavirus

throughout the United States and we are working. with state and local officials to ensure that happens as quickly as possible, but as testing is expanding, we wanted to make sure the American people knew that testing was available to them and that cost would not be a barrier.

Today, President Trump brought together top health officials. insurance executives in the United States and, as we announced today, all of our major health insurance companies have now joined Medicare and Medicaid and agreed to waive all co-pays and cover the cost of all treatments for those who contract the coronavirus at who have committed themselves. surprise billing and have committed to promoting telemedicine. It was a year ago that Medicaid expanded to pay for telemedicine. Medicare pays for telemedicine, so now seniors can think they are at risk or have contracted the disease and can get medical advice without having to go to the doctor or go to an emergency room.

I know I speak for President Trump when I say how grateful we are to see our health insurance industry step up to meet this need, so no American should worry about the ability to pay or the cost of a test. coronavirus if they consider it and their doctor considers it appropriate and necessary the president also went to the Capitol today to meet with

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of the Republican caucus of the United States Senate there he spoke about an economic package that includes a call, he is asking for a reduction in the tax on payroll and I think what's most important to the president's heart is that we want to make sure that hourly workers, American workers, blue-collar workers who may not have paid family leave today, that small and medium-sized businesses in America have the resources to provide paid leave so that no one feels like they have to go to work if they might be infected. earth, they could have been exposed to the corona virus.

We had a good reception at the Capitol. Our legislative teams have been deployed. We will work with Republican and Democratic leaders to advance an economic package. Larry Kudlow, we'll reflect on that in a moment. We also talked about what are known as n95 masks and we are working with Senator Deb Fischer and others have important legislation that would expand temporary liability protections so that masks made for industrial use can be sold to hospitals to ensure that our healthcare workers are adequately protected and equipped and we are grateful for the growing bipartisan support for that measure and We will seriously work with Republicans and Democrats to push for reform that would make more N95 masks available.

I am also pleased to report that we received a comprehensive proposal from the cruise line industry this afternoon that included improvements to advanced screening. medical services on ships that provide air evacuation and ground care at the expense of the cruise lines for anyone who may be infected not only with the corona virus but with any serious illness, we will review this in the next 24 hours. The president's goal is for us to make cruise lines safer, even as we work with cruise lines to ensure that no one in our particularly vulnerable population goes out on a cruise in the near future.

I'm going to recognize Dr. Foul Chi. to talk about where we are and dr. Burks will give us some research that he has done on the scope and will have other updates, but let me say again that this is a whole-of-government approach and from the beginning President Trump has insisted that our government at the federal level all of our partners At the state level, they work together to protect the American people, and as we stand here today, the risk to the average American of contracting the coronavirus remains low, but we are absolutely determined to provide every American with the tools and information they need. . they need to protect themselves their families their workplace their schools and we're going to work together we're going to work together to get through this and work with leaders of both parties in Congress work with leaders at the state level across this nation.

I'm sure we'll do it with that dr. Tony Fauci for updating us on the status. Thank you very much sir. vice president, just to give you a quick summary of what we do every day, cases continue to rise globally, we're potentially paying special attention to cases in Europe and Italy, in France, where we're starting to see that at the same time . As the relative number of new cases declines from China, what we are seeing in Europe is that Europe is on that upward slope, so that is something to be expected, that is how these types of outbreaks occur, this is not a surprise to no one if you look at In the history of infectious disease outbreaks in the United States, we continue to have new cases until this morning, there were 712, I think with 27 deaths guaranteed by the time tonight, that will increase and there will be several wars and tomorrow there will be There will be several more, so we realized that this is something that we have obviously been saying all along and that we are taking very seriously.

Now the question is what are we going to do about it and there are a number of things that can be done. do to mitigate it if you look at the curves of the outbreaks, you know they reach big peaks and go down, what we have to do is flatten them out so we have fewer people infected and ultimately fewer deaths. You do it by trying to interfere with the natural flow of the outbreak, so what we are saying today is that, although we continue to come and appropriately say that as a nation the risk is relatively low, there are parts of the country right now where there are community spread in the that the risk clearly there is a little more than that and you know the places that you know Washington state, California, New York and Florida, but what I want to talk to you about today just for a moment or two is that we would like the country to Realize that, as a nation we can't do the kinds of things we did a few months ago, it doesn't matter if you're in a state that has no cases or a case, you have to start taking seriously what you can do now. . that if infections will come and they will come, I'm sorry to say it, it's sad to say it, but when it comes to an infectious disease, you know, we always have that metaphor that people talk about about that wayne gretzky, you know he doesn't see where the disk, he goes to where the disk will be, well, we want to be where the infection will be and also where it is.

So what we have here, if you could see that here, what is here is that if you go to the coronavirus government, remember when dr. Burke mentioned yesterday some of the things we gathered. These are really simple: keep the workplace safe, keep the home safe, keep the school safe and keep the business establishment safe, this should be universal for the country, everyone should do it, whether they live in one area. whether you have community spread or not, when you have community spread, you're obviously going to increase the types of mitigations that you have, but at a minimum, this is the minimum that we should do, so everyone should say all hands on deck, this is what what do we need. do it.

I'll stop there and then I'll be happy to answer his questions. Thank you, Mr. President and thank you dr. Falchi for that clarity, we continue to monitor the situation throughout the country and around the world and we are very fortunate between dr. Falchi and I have long-term contacts and in many of these countries that are experiencing current outbreaks we continue to review all the scientific literature to look for ideas to really determine who is most at risk and that is why we have spoken to you. about people with immunodeficiencies of any age, people with medical conditions and the elderly and how important it is for all of us who take these precautions at home to protect others because we have circulating flu and other respiratory illnesses right now we all have that act like all those diseases, any respiratory disease can be transmitted to others and as we said yesterday, we hope that all the respiratory diseases that they were experiencing will decrease, we finally received more new reports from China that they had nine pregnant women.

I am during an acute crisis. Kovat and the nine were infected and they gave birth while they were infected and the nine babies were healthy and the mothers were healthy, so we continue to look for data like that to reassure the American public while ensuring that each and every one of the person is participating in this response to this virus and taking those precautions that we should be taking every day, if we start doing this today we will be ready next year for any of our respiratory diseases because I think we will be able to show that these simple home, simple home, simple work, simple school, simple business approaches of all type three can change all of our respiratory diseases, so we thank you for spreading the message, we thank you for participating and ensuring in your homes and in homes across America that we are protecting to all those who need our support at this time thank you dr. burks and dr.

Falchi and this information is available on the coronavirus government and as we said, we can't say often enough that the risks of contracting the coronavirus for the average American remain low, but for older people with serious underlying chronic health conditions, The potential for serious consequences is very real. And make no mistake by practicing these habits in your home, your school, and your business, you are not only protecting your health but you are also protecting those who are most vulnerable. For an update on our progress, President Trump. done today with our health insurance companies I would like to recognize C Sima Verma, the vice president said that we had an excellent meeting with the insurance companies, a real example of a public-private partnership where they agreed to waive co-payments for the tests that They were not made. any surprise billing and also cover the costs associated with the Kovat virus and the other things they did was ask the president for more flexibility in Medicare Advantage plans and the president agreed to do that so today we issued guidance for our Medicare Advantage. plans that can not only waive testing costs, but can go further to eliminate priority, there are authorization requirements, can waive prescription refill limits, can allow mail-in delivery of prescription drugs, and expand more access to telehealth services if they were not.

We don't offer that in your plan, also at CMS we continue to work with healthcare providers around infection control practices. We met with home health agencies as well as hospitals, and today we issued guidance to dialysis centers and home health agencies on infection control. A lot of attention has been paid to the Grand Princess and HHS, which works with the Coast Guard and the Department of Defense, is currently working on the disembarkation of American passengers returning foreign nationals to their country and wanted to ask the Secretary SAR to speak and Please inform us about the progress.

So with respect to the Grand Princess, I first wanted to ex

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our gratitude to Governor Newsom, to the mayor of Oakland, to the people of Oakland, to the longshoremen, to the longshoremen who helped bring it in and clean up the dock area so we could do it. In all of our operations there we have Admiral Abel here with us today who has been leading the Coast Guard efforts and then Deputy Secretary of State Beigen has done incredible work with our foreign partners to assist with the repatriation of their citizens. that are aboard the According to our data, shipping is at noon Pacific time, so it will have increased substantially since my last update, but at noon,Pacific, we had 548 people that had been unloaded from the ship. 228 Canadians are already back. in Canada they flew there, I think it was overnight, 171 Californians and we were taken by the California government and now we are at Travis Travis Air Base. 26 people were sick and are being treated for various reasons that could be from the novel. coronavirus, it could also be some fragile people who are sick and need treatment.

Our goal is for all California citizens to leave today in the care of the king of the California state government, just as we United Kingdom citizens leave today so that they can be repatriated to the United Kingdom. We continue to work with other countries in all these maneuvers. We will have residents outside of California who will be on transport to the Dobbins and Lackland bases today, we hope, or tonight. everything is progressing seems to be progressing well we are using the highest possible isolation quarantine procedures medical screening to ensure the safety of not only the passengers but all local communities and all health workers and other emergency services are helping, so thank you to all of our partners for their help with this very complex operation and let me echo the Secretary's thanks to Governor Gavin Newsom, the state of California, the city of Oakland, it has literally been a seamless process. association, everyone on that ship will be tested, isolated and quarantined as appropriate and provided with treatment.

The ship's crew, except those who were sick, will be quarantined on the ship at sea, but it really represented the kind of partnership and cooperation of all levels of government. that every American I know is grateful to see that on the economic front Larry Kudlow thank you sir hello yesterday at a meeting in the Oval, the president acknowledged that there would be challenges on the economic and health side and mentioned that he intended to bring everything the power of the federal government to meet these challenges and, consequently, as the vice president said today at the Senate Republican luncheon and mentioned it yesterday in this room, President Trump has revealed his proposals, strong proposals for a temporary holiday of payroll tax cuts that I think would prefer to last until the end of the year, also administratively, as the minutiae of the Treasury Secretary and others have suggested, we are trying to use unpaid sick leave assistance.

A very important point for people, also for small and medium-sized businesses, another important point and possibly also for Some industries or sectors of the economy in difficulty may be affected. Tax deferral could be a useful tool and other means, so this is a strong cross-cutting package. We are consulting with House and Senate leaders regarding this package and, in particular, the payroll tax holiday. Let me tell you that coming into this difficult period, the economy is not fundamentally in good shape. We saw a blockbuster jobs report last Friday, for example, the small business confidence index, the NFIB Business Confidence Index, posted a very strong number, maintaining its near-record level, unemployment continues. down three and a half percent, other indicators look pretty good, we had a lot of momentum in the first quarter.

The good thing is that I recognize the challenges and that is why we are proposing these fiscal measures to combine them with monetary measures that have already been taken and, again, I will repeat the president's words, I was struck by his determination that he intends to use all the power of the federal government to address these health and economic challenges and a word from Surgeon General Jerome Adams, good evening everyone as Surgeon General, whether it's opioids or cigarettes or the corona virus, my job is to help the American people understand how live a healthy life and I ask you all, I implore you all to help share my recipe for America to overcome this coronavirus situation that we are experiencing.

There are three parts: Number one, know your risk, as you've heard many times, but it's still important to im

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America. If you're immunocompromised, if you have chronic medical conditions, if you're over 60, you have a higher level. risk if you are a child or young adult, you are less likely to be affected by corona virus number two, the second part of the recipe, know your circumstances, are you in an environment where you can telework?, are you planning to go to big meetings like? church Do you live in a community that is being particularly affected by the corona virus and can you get this information from your state or a local health department?

Does your state have a hotline you can call to help you re-evaluate symptoms? your circumstances are then number three and this is the most important part know what you can do to stay safe and we've really leaned on the coronavirus government. Please direct people to that website. We've put the tools there for individual groups and specific audiences so that people can understand how to tell the sticks are kept safe. If we follow this recipe we will beat the corona virus as Dr. Falchi said we will see more cases, unfortunately we are likely to see more deaths.

We have not yet reached the peak of this epidemic, but if we follow this prescription, we will reduce the number of people affected. We will reduce the number of people. Who will die and will we get to the end of this situation more quickly? Thanks, great job. Questions. Will the Pens Trump campaign suspend campaign rallies and other activities? I think it will be a decision that will be made literally on a day-to-day basis, I thought. Dr. Futch, you spoke very highly of that yesterday, I'm very confident that the campaign will take the best information and make the best decision going forward, but these proposals are things that all Americans can do around the world. country that that will reduce the risk of contracting or being exposed to the corona virus the word revealed was just used so far the public is crazy how big this package is how big the payroll tax cut will be when will the general public be going Let's see what everyone put together, of course, we're working on the details right now, so I don't want to quote any numbers upfront.

You know, they make a proposal, we're checking with the leaders of both parties in both chambers and we'll see. what is feasible and where the problems will be, so I don't want to go into details. I think the general outline of the matter is very important. The payroll tax exemption is probably the most important powerful piece of this, but on the other hand, I want to draw attention to the fact that we can use administration and executive authority again to help people on unpaid sick leave. , which is very important, we can use it for medium and small businesses, which is very important, in other distressed sectors we have some influence on tax deferral if we know, I mean, look, I'll say it again, since I've been doing it for quite some time, the economy is strong, we also know there will be problems ahead, we know there will be challenges, don't deny it, we'll see, I want. "You have to take it one day at a time and, in fact, one statistical release at a time, but either way this will be the broad package and at some point in the near future we will outline a more detailed package for you," the president proposed. to the Republican Party political lunch today to eliminate the entire payroll tax on both employers and employees, that would be a twelve point four percent reduction in 2010, we had a two percent reduction, can you basically eliminate four?

However, the number of months of the payroll tax without spending a huge hole in the budget. Plus, the president told the lunch that he would like that cut to be permanent, how do you know that the payroll tax exemption Payroll is a bold move, it's a very bold move and this has always been a bold president and we've been cutting taxes and repealing regulations and changing trade agreements and opening up the energy sector and doing things that no one thought we could do before John. We have had quite good economic results. We are now in a challenging period.

Understand, regarding your question about the details, I think there will be a great growth reward. I think it will help meet any challenges that arise in the coming months. I think that beyond that, it will improve the tax burden in the middle. class, the so-called labor boom that I talked a lot about, that is what the objective is for, that is what the payroll tax is mainly about, to alleviate the burdens of those middle class people. I think we're going to get a big growth driver, we've had a terribly strong labor market, as you know, it may stagnate a little bit or not.

I'm just speculating on the challenges on the health side, but I think we'll make up for it a lot better over time. economic growth and I will also remember that later, probably later this summer and early fall, we will release another package of tax cuts and reform proposals, but yes, it is a bold proposal and this is a bold president and I think he has It was worth it. in general revenue to offset, I mean FY21, Social Security unemployment insurance and Medicare Part A revenue is $1.23 trillion. I'm just saying we're not talking about Medicare right now.

By the way, the answer is Yes, you can fill it out and that has been done before because we have had other payroll tax cuts and you mentioned one of them in 2010 or 2011, so the answer is yes and the answer is we will always keep a solvent Social Security system, but you know that tax reform is very important, economic growth is very important, incentives for middle and low income workers are very important and I will just add that you know, in terms of the audacity of this president's policies, despite what some of our critics think are actually low- and middle-income workers. lower middle class people who have achieved the best results in terms of wage growth and I think this is absolutely consistent with the tax burdens of these lips on the middle class.

I think it's absolutely consistent with your previous policies, let me also say, John, if I can, that the other piece of This is what the doctors have told us, what the experts have told is that if you are sick, if you have reason to suspect you may have coronavirus, we want you to stay home and the president is absolutely adamant about working with Congress or using his executive authority to ensure that hourly workers, people who work for small or medium-sized businesses that are not currently licensed paid family, can stay at home and have the confidence that they will not lose their salary.

I think all Americans can relate to that concern and we're going to work forward, whether we do it legislatively or whether the president has some resources in his executive authority to act, we're going to work to make sure that hourly workers don't feel who have to go to work sick because you are risking your salary get home stay home take that couple of weeks to get better thank you, thank you sir. Vice President, I want to elaborate on something that Larry just said because in 2018, according to the Vulture Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, federal payroll taxes generated $1.17 trillion, which is a huge number, Larry, you're suggesting you can compensate for that. of general revenue, where are you going to get a trillion dollars?

Let us present the proposal in concrete details and eliminate it and we will have much better answers right now. I want to stay in my lane and I think the health story of the coronavirus is very important. We will do our best to provide you with specific plans and details once we remove them. Greater testing capacity. We are still reporting severe rationing in many cases due to limited supply. It seems nearly impossible for average Americans to get tested without being hospitalized first, so when can Americans expect to see these testing kits available in doctors' offices as well as admitted urgent care clinics?

Those types of things specifically when, well, I'm going to have the Secretary steps up and addresses that, but let me tell you that we have made great progress over the last week and there are millions of tests in the field. Every state lab in America can perform coronavirus testing if you are worried about having the corona virus, your doctor. You can contact the state laboratory. You can process a test by the end of this week. Another four million tests will be distributed, but to your very important question, we are working day in and day out with the largest commercial laboratories in the United States.

We had some good conversations. today also with external experts who said that when the president brought in the commercial laboratories he madeexactly the right thing because it's those big companies that have logistics infrastructure across the country of laboratories across the country and can distribute the testing process the testing. whether it be a mission or a laboratory core, and we believe that in the coming days and weeks we will continue to see the availability of testing increase dramatically and we are moving towards that every day, mr. secretary do you want maybe dr. Redfield can also add it, so at the end of this weekend we had 1.1 million tests that were actually shipped.

We have another million that are in transit or awaiting orders, so we actually already have excess testing capacity that has been produced. and as the vice president said, another 4 million tests will be done by the end of this week, so the tests are available, the tests are in every public health laboratory in the country, they are in hospitals, they are in laboratories, but I think that there is a False Premise in your question, which is the notion that just because I, as a person, say, "I would like to be tested for the novel coronavirus," I should go to a tiny clinic or some other facility and just walk around and say: "do the tests for me." please, this is not how diagnostic testing works in the United States or frankly almost anywhere in the world, it is always whether your doctor will always be clear if your doctor or public health doctor thinks you should get tested, You should always be clinically indicated to receive a test. so it's a false premise go to your doctor if you don't go to your doctor first call your doctor's office if you think you may have the new coronavirus call the clinic call the hospital call the doctor's office so you don't just go straight in, follow your infection control procedures to do that and then they will decide, working with you, if it's appropriate to do a test, but now there are millions of tests and it's good, like the VP said with Quest and LabCorp getting in the doctor's office taking samples that your distribution and transportation system is going to be an even better experience closer to the patient, as I promised, I'll talk to you on Saturday when we meet, that's very good and I'll get back to you, I'm going to ask dr. .

Burks to talk about this as well because he just did a tremendous job of bringing our commercial labs into this, but to your other point, the president ordered us to essentially change that. the criteria that the CDC was giving to labs around the world. country, we heard from governors across the country that people who had only mild symptoms were being told they couldn't get tested, we changed that description and, as the president said, anyone with a doctor's order who wants to get tested is can do the test as directed by the doctor now we are working to meet that need and we are making great progress every day, but I wanted dr.

Burks wants to talk to you too. Yeah, he just wanted to talk to you briefly about what happened with lowering the barriers. I have been a laboratory person. I have been a vaccine developer. I have been a doctor. I have been everything. those things, but never in my life of government service have I worked with the CDC in a way that every time the state or local government calls and says I have this barrier, I need a modification of the regulations that has happened almost daily and the The reason we have commercial labs willing to step in immediately is because the FDA created that capability and posted it on their website.

I don't know if you've been there, this incredible waiver system and the clear definitions that each hospital can make. to use this testing algorithm and that's very unusual, but it's also bringing super large high performing companies to the table and I just want this to have been unique for me, to be able to see this incredible dialogue between what states need and what governments need local. and the federal government has been receptive to changing those regulations and it's been really wonderful to watch the success of the travel ban on China and Iran, why haven't they extended those bans to South Korea, Japan or Italy?

Is it still under consideration or has the administration actually moved to mitigation from containment, well, I'm going to leave, I'm going to let dr. Burke will talk about that in a moment but there is no doubt since dr. Fauci said just a few days ago that we would be in a very different place if President Trump had not suspended all travel from China and I suspect we would also be in a very different place if we had not issued travel warnings for parts of Italy part of Korea. South and began screening all passengers on all direct flights to the United States from both countries.

I will tell you that we had a very thorough discussion today about the possibility of recommending additional travel advisories to the president about what we are doing particularly as dr. Fauci said we're following the facts and we're going to come up with those recommendations at a time and in a manner that we, as the White House coronavirus

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, determine are appropriate, but let me tell you, it's literally day to day. consideration of the day and we will continue to put the health and safety of America first dr. Burks, did you want to expand on that or thank him, becoming a stamper who used to be part of this administration and then doing it where he basically said the United States has two days before hospitals can be overrun?

He recommended that schools be closed perhaps for that reason. you need what the administration thinks, what it reports, that lets the United States could be at the point where there could be a tipping point in the next 10 days or so and what about, well, let me tell you the recommendations that they have and that every American now has on the coronavirus Goong applies to every jurisdiction in the country, every state, and every community, regardless of whether or not a corona virus case has been established. I will tell you that we are working very closely with California, Washington, New York, Florida to develop specific community recommendations for those areas where we have had what is known as community spread a number of coronavirus cases that appear to be transmitted in the community in the next few years. 24 hours working with those states we will publish the CDC recommendations on what should be done, but I want to give it to dr.

I appreciate you saying that we really believe that the most important thing here is that we continue to present the facts to the American people and that our proposals and recommendations apply to everyone in the United States and We will help reduce the infection rate of the corona virus and, for those communities who are being affected, we will develop specific recommendations that will make the most sense for them, dr. Can you wait until there is community spread to do some of these? It depends on the degree of community spread. I mean, community spread could be just a small amount or you could start to see multiple generations, but getting to your individual question. that everything is on the table for consideration, so the idea that we're not going to close all of them, I mean, I think for the country to say right now that we're going to close all of the schools in the country, I don't think that's appropriate with the school . close the appropriate depending not on whether you already have the horses out of the barn, but when you start to see that we are in a bit of danger here, so let's do it, so it's wrong to say that now everything has happened badly, let's close the school and It's incorrect to say let's just leave it blank that they closed schools across the country tonight.

I don't think that's appropriate, but I do think it would be appropriate to carefully try to do things like close, but there are other things to do besides close. real mitigation at some point before you think you really need it, that goes back to what I said a few moments ago about where the puck will be, but you want to make sure you're not so far ahead that you overdo it when shaking people's hands which he just did at the Medal of Freedom ceremony a few moments ago. In this sign he says that you should stop shaking hands if you are at your workplace and at your school or in commercial establishments.

If the president sets that example, I will notice. You've been opting for the elbow strike. I've been shaking at this. Well, look, as the president has said in our line of work, you shake hands when someone wants to shake your hand and I hope the president continues to do that. I will continue to do so. This is a broad recommendation for Americans, but a really good recommendation is to wash your hands frequently, and all the experts tell me that while people want to get the various disinfectant lotions, wash your hands. with hot soap and water for 20 seconds is as good as any lotion you can buy for coordinating a response with all your countries.

Sorry, you've seen a plan to coordinate our response with other countries on any continent. President Chirac met with the president of Brazil. Wow, Sanada, this weekend they talked about the coronavirus. I know they talked about a wide range of topics and I'm sure coronavirus was discussed. What I can tell you is that our focus is on the health and well-being of the American people, we will continue to communicate with nations in this hemisphere and across the country, but what the president has given us as the mission of the task force on White House coronavirus is to ensure the health and well-being of the American people. and I will continue to make recommendations to do just that, how about one more question?

A Washington state requested the strategic arsenal for 200 200 33 000 vast and they received half of that wondering if that report is inaccurate please talk to him and secondly cruise. lines, are you considering a bailout for the cruise lines on several of these companies or taxing the percentage so that they initially got half of the shipping from the strategic national stockpile and then when the vice president went to Washington state, that's when it came the second Half of the shipment arrived, but I spoke directly with Governor Inslee with whom we have had an excellent working relationship and he informed me that there are some additional needs for personal protective equipment that some of his hospitals have and that we are working on it . the strategic national stockpile to ensure we are directing and fulfilling shipments as needed.

I want to again echo our gratitude to Governor Inslee and all health officials in Washington state. I was there last week, our teams are working very closely. together we will follow up on that public report, but the Secretary indicated it, but look, we are in, as I said, in the next 24 hours we will be working not only with the state of Washington, California, with New York, with Florida and revealing our recommendations , CDC recommendations. to those areas that have been affected by community spread and then they will continue and accompany those communities to do everything in our power to mitigate the spread, let me say again as a resource, thank you all, we will be back here tomorrow coronavirus. practical information from the government for every American details for state laboratories who may still have questions about how to perform their own tests, we have specific enzymatic agents, ingredients, where they can be purchased and how to perform coronavirus tests, but for every American I just want to say Remember again that the risk to the average American of contracting the corona virus remains low, but nevertheless, the risk to older people of suffering from serious underlying chronic diseases is very significant and it is important that we all continue to take all necessary measures to take care of our children. the most vulnerable We take care of our health and I am sure that together we will overcome this.

Thank you.