President Trump and the Coronavirus Task Force Update Americans on Response Efforts
ENCOURAGING SIGNS OF PROGRESS
PRESIDENT TRUMP: “Over the weekend, the number of daily new infections remained flat nationwide – flat. Hospitalizations are slowing in hotspots like New York, New Jersey, Michigan, and Louisiana. This is clear evidence that our aggressive strategy to combat the virus is working and Americans are following the guidelines.”
AUTHORITY TO RESPOND TO THE CORONAVIRUS NATIONAL EMERGENCY
PRESIDENT TRUMP: ”The President of United States has the authority to do what the President has the authority to do, which is very powerful. The President of the United States calls the shots. If we weren’t here for the states, you would’ve had a problem in this country like you’ve never seen before.”
VICE PRESIDENT PENCE: “I support the President’s leadership under the National Emergency Declaration that he signed. We’re standing before you today, for the first time in American history, when all 50 states have issued emergency declarations, and the territories.”
VICE PRESIDENT PENCE: “In the long history of this country, the authority of the President of the United States, during national emergencies, is unquestionably plenary. You can look back through times of war and other national emergencies.”
EXAMINING REOPENING THE ECONOMY
PRESIDENT TRUMP: “We will soon finalize new and very important guidelines to give governors the information they need to start safely opening their states. My administration’s plan and corresponding guidelines will give the American people the confidence they need to begin returning to normal life.”
VICE PRESIDENT PENCE: “In the days ahead, what the President’s charged us to do is to work with our health experts. We’re going to bring together an extraordinary group of American business leaders to counsel the President. And then working with the CDC, we’re going to produce new guidelines based upon the data for every state and territory in this nation.”
VICE PRESIDENT PENCE: “As the President’s indicated, we’ll continue to respect the leadership and partnership that we’ve forged with every governor in America. But, this is an unprecedented time.”
TAKING EARLY ACTION
PRESIDENT TRUMP: “On January 6, that’s long before the dates you’re talking about, there were CDC issued a travel notice for Wuhan, China. A notice, before there was even a confirmed case of the virus in the United States. That’s on January 6 – it’s all documented.”
PRESIDENT TRUMP: “On January 11, we have zero cases in the United States. Zero. We don’t have any cases. So, there are no cases reported that we know of, this is January 11, the CDC issued a level 1 travel notice for health while there were still no confirmed cases.”
PRESIDENT TRUMP: “On January 17, the CDC began implementing public health entry screenings at three major U.S. airports that receive the greatest volume of passengers from Wuhan, at my instructions. There was not a single case of the coronavirus in the United States.”
PRESIDENT TRUMP: “On January 21, the CDC activated an emergency operation center, there was just one case.”
PRESIDENT TRUMP: “CDC reported January 31 not one person has died and I issued a travel restriction from China. Think of it, so nobody died and I issued. You can’t get earlier than that. … so, I issued travel restrictions on that day even though nobody died and I got brutalized over it by the press.”
PRESIDENT TRUMP: “Then first mandatory quarantine in more than 50 years we did — first mandatory [quarantines] in 50 years, the same restrictions that the Democrats and the media called xenophobic.”
MEDIA MISREPRESENTATIONS
NIAID DIRECTOR FAUCI: “I had an interview yesterday that I was asked a hypothetical question. And hypothetical questions sometimes can get you into some difficulty, because it’s what would have or could have. The nature of the hypothetical question was if in fact we had mitigated earlier, could lives have been saved? And the answer to my question was, as I always do and I’m doing now, perfectly honestly say – yes.”
NIAID DIRECTOR FAUCI: “The first and only time that Dr. Birx and I went in and formally made a recommendation to the President to actually have a quote shut down in the sense of not really shut down, but to really have strong mitigation, we discussed it. Obviously, there would be concern by some that in fact that might have some negative consequences. Nonetheless, the President listened to the recommendation and went to the mitigation.”
NIAID DIRECTOR FAUCI: “The next second time that I went with Dr. Birx into the President and said 15 days are not enough we need to go 30 days. Obviously, there were people who had a problem with that because of the potential secondary effects. Nonetheless, at that time, the President went with the health recommendations and we extended it another 30 days.”
NIAID DIRECTOR FAUCI: “The travel was another recommendation. When we went in and said we probably should be doing that and the answer was yes. And then another time was we should do it with Europe and the answer was yes. And the next time we should do it with the U.K. and the answer was yes.”
MEDICAL SUPPLIES
PRESIDENT TRUMP: “Today, the Department of Health and Human Services announcing five new contracts to procure large numbers of additional ventilators under the Defense Production Act – which we used a lot, by the way, which you didn’t like to talk about – in addition to the 1,300 we received today.”
PRESIDENT TRUMP: “No one who has needed a ventilator has not gotten a ventilator. No one who has needed a hospital bed has been denied a hospital bed.”
PRESIDENT TRUMP: “We’ve ordered a total of 16 mobile decontamination systems. … Now we’re going to have more than 33 million N95 masks per week will be cleaned, decontaminated and it’ll be great.”
PRESIDENT TRUMP: “Five more flights landed today as part of the Project Airbridge. Our massive airlift operation to bring personal protective equipment into the United States, which has now delivered nearly half a million N95 masks, 370 million gloves, 25 million surgical masks, and 4.9 million gowns.”
PRESIDENT TRUMP: “We’ve facilitated the supply of more than 38 million N95 masks nationwide. This week we’ll be sending 2 million N95 masks to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”
VICE PRESIDENT PENCE: “The task force today spoke to 48 of the nation’s governors. On that call we reflected on the fact that all 50 states had emergency declarations in place, which was a first for American history. 5.2 billion have been distributed to the states under the Stafford Act.”
TESTING
PRESIDENT TRUMP: “The United States has now conducted nearly 3 million test for the virus. 3 million, the most of any nation. We’re performing approximately 115,000 tests every single day and our rate of testing is especially high in areas hardest hit by the virus.”
PRESIDENT TRUMP: “Per capita testing in New York is higher than the rest of the world.”
VICE PRESIDENT PENCE: “A new antibody test, which may well be approved by the FDA in just a matter of days … would be produced at the rate of 20 million tests a month.”
THERAPEUTICS
PRESIDENT TRUMP: “The NIH, CDC, and FDA are also currently validating several antibody tests that will allow us to determine whether someone has already had the virus and potentially become immune to infection.”
PRESIDENT TRUMP: “In the race to develop effective treatments, the drug company Gilead announced that its drug, Remdesivir, has shown promising results – very promising – in compassionate use settings.”
PRESIDENT TRUMP: “The FDA has just granted emergency use authorization for a device that removes certain proteins from the bloodstream, possibly preventing a patient’s immune system from overreacting to the virus and damaging vital organs, which is a big problem.”
PRESIDENT TRUMP: “Over the last seven days, my administration has deployed roughly 28 million doses of hydroxychloroquine from our national stockpile.”
ECONOMIC RELIEF
PRESIDENT TRUMP: “My administration is also taking bold action to help American workers. On Friday, Americans began receiving the cash payments authorized by our historic $2 trillion relief bill. By the end of the week, nearly 80 million Americans will receive a total of $147 billion.”
SECRETARY MNUCHIN: “We are very pleased that we are ahead of schedule on delivering the economic impact payments. These are what was known as the checks in the mail, that we want to deliver in direct — direct deposit.”
SECRETARY MNUCHIN: “I’d also like to announce the progress we’re making on the new SBA program, the [Paycheck Protection Program]. Let me just remind everybody this is a brand-new program that is now one week old. We have distributed and confirmed $230 billion of loans to over 4,600 lenders participating.”