Trump addresses the nation after 1st known coronavirus death in US confirmed | ABC News

now reporting Tommy yawns thank you good afternoon we go on the air because President Trump is about to speak about the corona virus outbreak the White House calls the press conference has health officials in Washington state come from a patient who has died a cause of infection state health officials say this is the Seattle area's first

coronavirus

death

reported so far in the U.S. and after that, the Dow Jones lost nearly 4,000 points last week amid growing concerns about

coronavirus

again, the president is about to speak, we are just minutes away from taking this press conference when it begins dr.

Jen Ashton is with us on the phone right now and dr. Jen, what is it that the health community, the medical community across the country, what do they want to hear from the president right now? Well, I think what we always want to hear in a medical emergency is a sense of calm and a clear expla

nation

of what is

known

and what is not

known

. Many times in medicine, it is so important to say and know what we do not know that what we do know and I think this is a perfect example of that. I think there should also be some kind of acknowledgment of how scary this is for the general population and what steps are being taken to improve it, but again, you and Jen have stressed to us throughout your coverage on ABC, now is the time to prepare. , don't panic, the president has entered the room, let's listen.

Thank you all very much, before we begin, I would like to congratulate all those incredible people who have worked for so long in our endless war in Afghanistan. It's been 19 years and 20 years and there hasn't been a moment like this. we had very successful negotiations we believe that in the end they will be successful the other side is tired of the war everyone is tired of the war that has been particularly long and horrible and we want to congratulate President Ghani and the people of Afghanistan I want to remember all the people , all the great men and women who have lost their lives in war and their parents, wives, husbands and families, brothers and sisters, they are great people, so many lives have been lost over such a long period of time.

I want to thank our wounded warriors, people who are still in pain and all the trouble they've had to go through and they are incredible people, incredible spirit. I would go to Walter Reed and see them very often and the spirit they had. they wanted to return despite their wounds they always said I want to return wounded warriors are incredible people I think above all I want to thank all the people in the United States for having spent so much in terms of blood in terms of the treasure and the Treasury, the money that was has been spent, the lives that have been lost and we have just signed an agreement that puts us in a position to achieve this, reducing ourselves to about 8,000 troops, the United Nations was informed of everything and NATO has been a great Secretary Stoltenberg has been fantastic and I want I thank the United Nations for the help they gave me and I also want to thank and congratulate Secretary Stoltenberg of the 29 NATO countries and all those who approve it, all very happy with what is happening.

I also want to thank and congratulate Secretary of State Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Mark Casper, and I will meet personally with Taliban leaders in the not-too-distant future and we will very much hope that they do what they say they are doing. They are going to do it, they will kill terrorists, they will kill very bad people, they will keep up the fight. We have had tremendous success in Afghanistan and in killing terrorists, but after all these years it is time to go and bring our people. Back home we want to bring our people back home and again it's been a long journey in Afghanistan in particular, it's been a very long journey, it's been a difficult journey for everyone, we are very much a law enforcement group. law and that is not what our soldiers do, their fighters are the best fighters in the world, as you know, we have destroyed 100% of the Isis Caliphate in Syria and Iraq, 100% we have thousands of prisoners, we have killed thousands of Isis fighters. and the same in Afghanistan, but now it's time for someone else to do that job and it will be the Taliban and it could be the neighboring countries.

There are many countries surrounding Afghanistan that can help. We're 8,000 miles away, so we'll bring that down to 8,000 to about 8,000 600 in that vicinity and then we'll make our final decision at some point in the fairly near future, but this was a very lively agreement, there was a lot of talk, There was a lot of talk, there was a lot of everything. They've been trying to achieve this for many years and it's about time, so I just want to thank everyone. I want to congratulate everyone. I really think the Taliban want to do something to show that we are not all wasting our time if bad things happen.

We will come back, I will let people know that we will come back and we will come back very quickly and we will come back with strength like no one has ever seen and I don't think it will be necessary, I hope so. It's not necessary, so I just wanted to mention that before we get into a topic that has become very, very important to everyone. First of all, the amount of work that these professionals behind me and many other professionals and many rooms behind us are looking at. Now I don't have space here to bring them all, but they have been working 24 hours a day so hard on the corona virus that it is difficult, but a lot of progress has been made.

I want to provide an update to our people. to our citizens to the world, frankly about our action to address the corona virus and those who have been severely affected by it at this time, we currently have 22 patients in the United States who have the corona virus, unfortunately one person passed away overnight, which was wonderful. one woman, a high medical risk patient, in her 50s, four others are very ill, fortunately 15 have fully recovered or are on the road to recovery and in all cases they have been at home. There are additional cases in the United States.

Probably, but healthy people should be able to recover completely and we think that will be a statement we can make with great confidence now that we have become familiar with this problem, they should be able to recover if they contract the virus, so healthy people if you are healthy , you will probably go through a process and be fine from the early stages of the Fahren outbreak, my administration has taken the most aggressive measures in modern history to confront the spread of this disease, we moved very early and it was one of the decisions we made that It really turned out to be a lifesaver, in a sense, a big lifesaver: on January 31st I imposed travel restrictions on foreign

nation

s that had been in China or on people leaving China and I mean China seems to be making tremendous progress, their numbers are very low and if you read that Apple's Tim Cook said that they are now fully operational again in China, the numbers are very low, experts now agree that the decision to act so quickly despite so much opposition to that decision was a wise one, it greatly slowed the spread of the virus to the United States and it really gave us time to make some of the critical moves that we have made and allowed these great professionals to come together and figure it all out and we believe that they have done that, we have taken the most aggressive actions to confront the corona virus, are the most aggressive taken by any country, we are the number one travel destination anywhere in the world, but we have far less. cases of the disease that even countries with much less travel or a much smaller population as an important part of our efforts on Monday I will meet with the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, in fact, they will come to the White House and We are talking about a vaccine and it is developing very rapidly and they have already started working on it very quickly developing a vaccine to combat the virus and we are getting very good initial feedback, but these companies are coming to the White House on Monday there are already huge amounts of supplies available, we have 43 millions of masks, far more than anyone would have assumed we could have had so quickly and there will be much more today from the White House corona virus task force led by Vice President Mike Pence.

They met for two and a half hours. I spent a lot of that time with them as well and we came up with some idea recommendations and, frankly, some pretty strict edicts that were going to apply and Mike was going to discuss that, but we're really. to have such a talented group of people and they work 24 hours a day and for that reason I really wish we could report exactly what happened and how well we are doing in quite adverse circumstances, but we are We are doing very well, handled very, very professionally, our country is prepared for any circumstance.

We hope it is not a major circumstance, it will be a minor circumstance, but whatever the circumstance, we are prepared and I would like to just ask and warn. that we respectfully ask the media and the politicians and everyone else involved not to do anything that incites panic because there is no reason to panic. This is something that is being handled professionally. I also want to thank, by the way, the governors and representatives of our various states in some cases, some more than others, because they have really been working very hard in areas where we have seen signs of the virus, but I want to thank the governors and all the representatives from all areas of our state. they have made available the speed with which they have worked is really incredible, so again thank you all.

I'm going to ask Mike Pence now to talk a little bit about travel and we have some restrictions on some travel from other countries that We are going through a difficult time and I want to thank everyone. We'll answer some questions as soon as we're done. Thank you so much. Thank you Mr. President, let me begin as the President did by expressing our deepest condolences to the family of the woman in Washington state who lost her life to the coronavirus. I want to assure that family that they are in the hearts of all Americans and those who continue. to fight in some cases in ICU units can be assured of the prayers of millions of Americans from the moment this country learned of the spread of the coronavirus, President Donald Trump took decisive action, established the task force on the coronavirus from the White House and as the president just described the president took an unprecedented step to suspend all travel to the United States from China, it's just never been done before by any previous administration and it's one of the reasons why The coronavirus threat to Americans remains low despite today's tragic

news

from the Washington state task force.

We met this morning and presented the President with a variety of options and at his direction we will do the following: First, the President authorized action today to add additional travel restrictions on Iran. We will use section 212 F. I am prohibiting travel from Iran. Iran is We are also already under a travel ban, but we are expanding existing travel restrictions to include any foreign national who has visited Iran in the last 14 days, in addition to moving to Iran, we will increase to the highest warning level , which is the level for advising Americans not to do so. not to travel to specific regions in Italy and South Korea, let me say again that the president today authorized the State Department to increase the travel advisory for Americans to level 4.

We are urging Americans not to travel to areas of Italy in South Korean areas. The presidents who are most affected by the coronavirus have also directed the State Department to work with our allies in Italy and South Korea to coordinate a medical examination in their countries of any individual entering the United States of America and we hope I have many desire to work with them in a collaborative and cooperative manner now with respect to the work group. I've only been in this job for a few days, but I can tell you that after spending time with these extraordinary professionals, the president just alluded to having spoken directly. to more than a dozen governors, including Governor Jay Inslee, this morning in Washington state.

I think every American would be proud to know what I've heard about the work of HHS, the work of the CDC, the work of all of our agencies in the presidency. Leadership, this team has been working seamlessly with health officials at the state and local level and I can assure the American public that we will continue to make good on the president's warning a few days ago that we are all in this together and as we work with members of Congress, I have had the opportunity to speak with Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress. We will work very closely on a supplemental funding bill to make sure that not only do all of these agencies have the resources that theyneed, but I will also make sure that state and local health officials have been following this press conference at the White House with some breaking

news

.

Vice President Pence, abandoning the coronavirus effort here in the United States, just announced that they are expanding the US travel ban expands with Iran and then providing the highest level travel advisory, warning Americans not to travel to Italy and South Korea due to the cluster of coronavirus cases in those countries. The quote is ready. I want to bring in our chief medical correspondent, Dr. Jenna and right now dr. Jen, you were listening with me as we listened to both the president and the vice president talk about this travel ban that's now going to take effect, they're expanding it and they're telling Americans basically we don't want you to go to Italy.

I don't want you to go. to South Korea, yes, you know Tom. To me, that sounds like there's still an attempt at containment when you're talking about an infectious disease outbreak like this of this nature that's global, at some point we're going to go from the containment stage to what's called a containment phase. mitigation and that means how this is going to disrupt our daily activities here and how we can take steps to minimize that. I think screening at airports is obviously important and as we heard from the World Health Organization yesterday, when they raised their alert to the highest level of concern, they said, and I quote, this is a reality check for all governments in the world. planet wake up and get ready.

I think we need to understand that now is not the time to panic. that this is the time of preparation so in the community right now and it's the weekend so this is a perfect time to start asking about this. You know that you should consult with any representative of the nursery schools in your workplace and, most importantly, with Tom, because we are. If you expect more community cases, if someone has been traveling anywhere, but certainly to these countries where there are high levels of coronavirus and you have a fever or are concerned about symptoms, do not simply or immediately rush to an emergency room unless you have an emergency. difficulty breathing call the emergency room call the provider and call the Health Department so they can tell you the best course of action dr.

Jen Ashton is waiting for us, we appreciate it, and of course there was another big headline in the White House that the president announced saying that the United States has reached a deal with the Taliban in hopes of ending the longest American war in history. history. Of course, in Afghanistan, what the president said, ultimately the goal would be to keep about 8,000 troops there. We will have much more about this story and the coronavirus case in the world news tonight. We will continue our coverage on our live ABC News broadcast channel. Now I'm Tom Yamas in New York, thank you for watching here on ABC.

Now we'll get back to the XFL game. This has been a special report from ABC News. Hello everyone, George Stephanopoulos, thanks for checking out ABC News. youtube channel if you want more videos, highlights and live event coverage, click right here to subscribe to our channel and don't forget to download the ABC News app to receive breaking news alerts, thanks for watching.