Thread by @RobertPLewis

(Thread)

3/25/20: Members of the Coronavirus Task Force Hold a Press Briefing

@POTUS : America continues to gain ground in the war against the virus, thanks to American people for answering the call & following the guidelines

The more lives we can save, the sooner we can get ppl back to work, school & normal

Some sections of country likely to get back

much sooner than others

Major disaster declarations for NY, CA, WASH, IA, LA & FLA.

We're in a constant grouping of people communicating w/ various officials, esp NY officials since it's the hottest spot.

They have a number of tough weeks ahead of them

Cuomo mentioned that we're (fed) using the DPA appropriately.

Tremendous spirit in companies, DPA doesn't have to be used so far - GE, 3M etc stepping up

Very little product when this started, much has been made & given away already

4 hospitals + 4 medical centers in NY

being build + Javit center repurposing

NY is the toughest so far, but they're working well together

Large testing throughout the country, SKo has done great in testing but we're doing much better by far, increasing exponentially every day

@POTUS commends PM Abe on his decision to hold the Olympics back - atypical that it's on an odd year this year (typically even years)

President Trump will be there [more reason to go this year!!!]

We're protecting both American lives and livelihoods

Congress & Senate very close to passing emergency release bill, includes sick leave + all sorts of things for workers & families (paid sick leave at no cost to the employers)

$2.2 trillion is bigger than anything ever passed in Congress, perhaps relatively speaking

Tremendous, bc this money goes to jobs jobs jobs + families, families, families

Part of the money goes to loan forgiveness with those available for companies who continue to pay their workers, helping to keep them on the payroll

$300 bn in cash payments for every American citizen earning <$99k / year for the typical fam of 4

$250bn in expanded unemployment bennies
*avg worker who's lost job will receive up to 100% of salary for up to 4 full months

Unlike normal unemployment bennies, independent contractors and self-employed WILL BE ELIGIBLE!!!

Over $100bn to support the heroic work of our drs, nurses & hospitals

$45bn for disaster relief fund (more than doubling amt available)

$27bn to build strategic medical stockpile
(was very depleted when this started)

Will also incl funding for vaccines

Over $500bn support for hardest hit industries w/ ban on stock buybacks
-he says "it's whatever we need to get over this rough patch, but I don't think it's gonna be such a rough patch, the sooner we can open the better & it's gonna open up

"like a rocket ship"

Will also have tough limits on Exec Compensation . If they need the money, they'll have to make things work bc we're interested in the workers & the jobs

$16bn in funding for PPE

@POTUS encourages the House to pass this vital legislation & send the bill to his desk for signature w/o delay, he'll sign immediately

[Please tell me someone's going to check for Nanshy's poison pork pills]

Will be a good day for American workers & companies

Earlier today he spoke to non-profit leaders to thank them, encouraged them to continue their help

Update on critical supplies:

Through FEMA fed gov't has delivered 9.4mm N95 respirators

20mm surg masks (others will be delivered quickly)

Today we broke the 150 mark for countries who have the virus

If this happens again we'll be well prepared

Media likes to bring up the SoKo testing, but now we're better

3.1mm surg gowns

2.6mm face shields

14.6mm gloves

6k ventilators (which go to areas of greatest need, 4k just sent to NY)

Maryland a 7 y/o boy used his birthday money to buy meals for elderly sick

NV a college student recruited 90 of her friends to help deliver groceries to the most vulnerable

MN hundreds of med students volunteered to provide child care for hospital workers

These inspiring ...

Americans remind us that we all have a role to play in winning this great national battle

Mnuchin:

Thanks Mcconnell for his leadership and Schumer for bipartisan support on this bill
[ok now that we know is horse shit - screw Schumer]

*gotta take a dinner break, will pick back up shortly

re-iterates some of the points @POTUS made:

Small biz payroll loans to cover 8 weeks of 50% staff's payroll and over head as long as they keep workers employed

Treasury will issue new regs to allow any FDIC insured bank to make these.

Hopes to have them quickly made &

disbursed on the same day

Companies that don't qualify will have another program for tax incentives to maintain employees + unemployment

Economic impact payments w/in next 3 weeks, direct deposit payments made directly to Americans

For those who don't have bank accts they'll send checks in the mail

Treasury will have addt'l authority ($500bn) with the Fed for emergency programs that will create up to an addt'l $4trillion if needed

$100bn to hospitals & $150bn to states that specifically need it due to

WuFlu (Coronavirus)

@POTUS again, taking questions now:

Q: how long do you think this will keep the economy afloat?

A long time, hopefully, but if we have to we'll go back in order to take care of the American worker & companies who fuel our economy

Mnunchin adds: we anticipated 3 months, hopefully we won't need 3 months

@POTUS : a lot of this will be to keep companies going, and since it's in the form of loans it will be coming back

Q: What did you mean when you said yesterday that we should never been dependent on -

another country for our survival?

[why can't the media get more than 1 question in w/o turning into compete f-ing morons???]

We're reliant on many countries where we give up our manufacturing, supply chains & production facilities bc we can buy it somewhere for a little

lower price, but it's costing us more in the end because we lose our independence and we can't let that happen, so we'll be making some changes

Q2: will you make an EO to ban the export of medical equipment?
I don't know if we'll need that, but it's happening by itself

We have companies who make the best, but for example the EU won't take them bc they have specs that won't allow our equipment, even though it's better. There are a lot that have been playing games for a long time, and no other President has done anything about it

We take their medical equipment but they won't take ours, even though it's the best in the world - some of the people who took the greatest advantage of us were allies, both militarily and financially.

The abuse given to our country by NATO, where nobody else would pay, but

now bc of me they're paying a lot

Q: 4 republican senators have said the extra $600 for unemployment insurance may encourage workers to leave their jobs, even though they can only collect if fired

[let me take a WILD guess at which "Republican [RINO] senators those are]

POTUS hands off to Mnuchin:

We wanted enhanced unemployment, but most states have completely outdated equip so we had to use $600 across the board, but most Americans want to keep their job

number 1 issue was how to we keep American workers getting paid.

He says their expectation is this bill gets passed tonight & goes on tmrw.

Q: family of retired FBI agent Robert Levinson says US officials have concluded he died in Iranian custody, are you aware of that?

Yes, he was great w/ great family, he was ill for a long time

and we've already got 2 others back, it's not looking good.

He had medical conditions before he was captured...it's not looking great but he doesn't think he's dead & Iran hasn't told @POTUS he's dead

Q: You tweeted earlier linking closing of country to your election success in Nov, is Easter timeline based on your political interest?

He asks her to be specific, and she admits she's twisting a bit (he tweeted about media wanting country to remain closed to hurt his re-elect)

@POTUS I think there are certain ppl who maybe don't want it to open up so quickly & financially to do poorly bc it would hurt me at the polls

Q: once you sign the package, how quickly? And we hear you're pushing for 4//6, is that correct?

Mnunchin: 3 weeks for payments, end

next week we want all banks to be able to originate loans same day

Q: tmrw you're speaking w/ G20, are you going to be creating a worldwide band on exotic animal markets, given that COVID 19 (WuFlu) is zoonotic and transferred to human in trade w/ exotic animals
[I hope you...

understand this asshole is working to help China avoid the bio lab accusation]

POTUS: I don't think that's going to come up. There's talk about how this happened but it's not at the top of my list

followup: Dr. Ashiv Shav (?) says key to opening country back up is to get -

everyone tested

[side note: this chubby fuck is using his arms so dramatically I think he imagines he's back in his high school drama club]

POTUS: basically no

Same mf-er: How many deaths are acceptable?

[my answer at this point would be f- you, you f-ing f]

POTUS: none
[he's a better person than me]

Why would we test the entire nation of 350mm people when some states have no or very little problems vs others that have a big problem

[this guy's going for another Q...good Lord someone get the old fashioned vaudeville hook and pull him TF outta there]

Q: would you consider waiving tariffs & sanctions to help other countries with these efforts?

No, we have strong borders, we didn't have any before I got here. I'm very strong on borders and I want ppl to come in legally, through merit

Q: both repub & dem bills incl $25mm for Kennedy center in NYC, shouldn't that money be going to masks, respirators, etc

[THIS IS THE QUESTION THAT HAS ALL OF AMERICANS HATING NANCY DINGBAT PELOSI RIGHT NOW]

POTUS: I approved that, it was $35mm but I took off $10mm

I'm a fan of that, although I don't get to go often.

But the Kennedy center has suffered greatly because nobody can go there. Dems wanted that & we had to give them something

Q: earlier today Rubio told RTB that WHO showed preference to China & Mckaulif questioned integrity

of WHO director based on things in his past and his relation to China. Should the US reconsider its relationship with the WHO?

A lot of ppl feel that, it's been very unfair, the very much sided with China. There are good people there that we trust, but the fact is that I've

heard for years that WHO is very much sided with China.

Dr. Fauci talking now:

I've known him since he was the Minister of Health for Ethiopia. Under his leadership they've done very well.

[the reporter pushes back bc Fauci isn't talking about China's relation w/ WHO, so

Fauci abandons the podium and goes back behind POTUS]

POTUS: if I hadn't made that call on China, thousands more would have died

Q: At G20 tmrw, what kind of coordinated response are you expecting?

It'll be an interesting call

Q: next week when the 15d ends, what should we

expect then. Are you going to extend it?

[does this numbnuts really not understand the whole point is to look at the data THEN???]

POTUS: I'll be speaking with the experts and VP and Steve (Mnuchin), but our country wants to get back to work.

Could be that we do sections since

there are large sections of our country that aren't affected, while there are others that are greatly affected. By Easter or maybe before Easter we'll have a recco, but definitely by the end of the 15d we'll have some sort of a recommendation

POTUS is leaving as reporters still shout questions, VP is handling the rest of the questions and giving a statement.

VP: 10d into the "15d to slow the spread"

Every American can implement the guidelines given out by the President, so we can significantly impact the rate of

growth

FEMA reported that 100s of companies stepped up now to help w/ supply chain, they're vetting 70 now to re-purpose

VP & Betsy DaVoss had call today, VP calls teachers working from home to teach heroes

Dept of Ed has helpful website for reccos:

Ed.Gov/coronavirus

DaVos & Sonny Purdue will join TF presser on Friday to speak about distance learning reccos for K-12 ed, creating new flexibility so kids can use, Purdue will talk about reduced lunch program

VP spoke to CEOs of top 150 non-profits today, he's urging every American to continue

to support these great non-profits

VP and POTUS also spoke to a lot of governors today - he's giving them praise [I hope he doesn't praise the NV governor - seriously WTF is wrong with that guy??]

FEMA has assembled team for tech assistance to state of NY, will arr very soon

In VP's convo w/ Newsom, FEMA is at the table w/ Newsom's team to work on all of their needs

VP reiterates that Fed gov't is there to help states in need

Testing:

We're at 432,000 test completed

[wow, that really is exponential]

We're pleased to see there are drive thrus throughout the country, more standing up every day

Reminds labs & hospitals to provide tests to CF TF

BC of public/private partership we're adding 10s of thousands of test per day

[if the dems were in charge it would be all gov't

ineptitude and villification of private, which means we'd still be hovering around a few dozen tests, if any]

Before end of week we'll talk more about supply chain - we're leaving no stone left unturned, team working around the clock

CDC is developing guidance (to be published

tmrw re: best way to utilize out national parks), VP will share around the country

Nothing more important for American ppl than to heed state & local guidance, and to put in the guidelines for "15d to slow the spread"

The risk to everyday Americans remains very low, the vast

majority of ppl that contract WuFlu will have mild & flu-like symptoms and will recover. But in respect for elderly and immunocomprimised, everyone needs to practice the 15d to slow the spread guidelines

POTUS announced this week we're looking forward to the day we can open -

the country.

Every American who wants to see America open for business, hasten it by following the guidelines

Dr. Birx up now:

Watching testing results carefully. 2 things going on in parallel:
1. system to look at flu-like illnesses is still up & running. We had Flu A & Flu B, and the flu system is the platform we're using to see any increase in flu-like symptoms. Telling local govt's to look for

changes in their localities slope for flu-like illnesses. There are enough test kits to be constantly surveilling what that flu-like illnesses are

We have counties sill w/ 0-1 WuFlu, but they can participate by maintaining their flu like symptoms trackers

Go to

CDC.gov and you can look at the tracker

There are still 4 counties that still comprise the highest cases and highest new cases: NYC, Westchester NY, Suffolk and Nassau

A few counties in NJ, but this is still where 56% of cases are

Important to look at new -

cases per day.

We're close to working through backlog, you can look at NYC and see that new cases have been relatively constant through last 3 days

This is a call to everyone in NY metro to continue the guidelines

Residents of NY metro need to carefully monitor temps &

self-isolate

Finally: this is important bc we each have a role to protect one another. Don't let up over the final 5 days of the 15d

Rising hospital rates (in NY) are a product of what happened 2 weeks ago, before full mitigation was put into place

Dr. F now:
*Going over info from his WHO call

Learned today that Chinese colleagues went through entire cycle to come down, but are starting to see imported cases as they're restricting their regulations. Need to ensure we examine how we release our constraints when time comes

2. Learned inflection of curves now have mult diff countries who have gone through various phases of their outbreaks, we can use to learn about our own

China went up, went from 500 new (arbitrary number), next day 1000, 1500, 2000. But once number of new starts to flatten,

you get to point where the inflection goes down. You don't declare victory, but acknowledge that you're where you want to go

3rd and final: would this possibly become seasonal? Very well might, bc we're starting to see southern hemisphere having cases appear as they go into

their winter season. If they have substantial outbreak we need to be prepared for a second cycle. This is why he says vaccine is important + drugs shown & known to be safe. He knows we'll put this down now, but need to be prepped for another cycle

VP taking Q's now

1. Ventilators: someone said only 16k in national stockpile - how many are there, who has them & how long will it take to make more?

We're making progress: national stockpile just delivered 4k to NY, so there were around 20k total

Beyond that, there are more than 150k vents

in healthcare system around the country. We've determined the devices anesthesiologists use can be converted pretty easily

We believe there are 10s of thousands that can be converted now that FDA has given guidance. They produced a video to show how quickly they can be -

converted. Working with GE & GM to speed up production, vetting their capability. Another idea, we're looking at areas most impacted, will want to focus resources on where communities are struggling the most

Working through at FEMA now by spinning up production + working w/

existing supply in areas that don't have issue with WuFlu yet.

ID'ing resources around the country and world

Dr. B: thanking assoc of anesthesiologists for immediately getting to work helping figure out how to reconfigure their vents, who will also be supplying their people who can run them. Stopping elective surgeries has freed up a lot

of resources.

We're collecting data county-by-county, the epidemic isn't equal everywhere. Looking specifically at where it is, has been and where we have resources to ensure we can innovatively move equip as needed.

***Ppl are focusing on numbers rather than what is needed.

[this is because our media are fear mongering pieces of garbage who want to run with anything that has the most fear value]

Some media have said Germany would be 50% infected. They only way that happens if this stay continuous through 3 cycles with nothing being done.

We're dealing with cycle A right now and we're working on it, the numbers that have been put out there are VERY FRIGHTENING TO PEOPLE

[she is absolutely correct]

The numbers put out there are worst case and nowhere near what the reality is, those numbers are only if you have 0 controls and do nothing. We're doing a lot

Q: a lot of folks are sewing cloth masks and donating to hospitals, is that a good idea

You'd only recommend that in desperate situations, but we now have a significant inflow of materials, it's not a necessity given what's going on

Q: we keep hearing of competition between

states to buy products. Gov of KY says they were trying to buy but FEMA came in under them, this is creating a problem
[Son of a Bitch they are asking / saying the same damn thing every day. WHY DO I KNOW THE ANSWER TO THIS BUT MEDIA PRETENDS THEY DON'T?!?!?!?!?]

VP: I spoke to Gov of MI today about just that, we put FEMA reg rep right on the case. We want full coordination with the states & hospitals, we're looking into those matters.
[they've said literally every day of these pressers to have the states contact FEMA or TF and they'll

back off.
Stupid, lazy media and state government]

Q: masks, healthcare workers on the ground still report shortages. What's the timeline for adequate supplies?

We've ID'd significant resources around the world of masks that can be used by healthcare. As Dr. B said, we're

focusing in areas where workers are most in contact and need for the protection.

I spoke about this today to several Govs, POTUS and VP couldn't be more grateful to biz's that are ID'ing masks and donating them to hospital workers

Dr. B: the FDA put out new guidance that ppl -

can do self-testing in the drive thru

This will free up massive amounts of PPE back to the hospitals & clinics. We have to move to the new tech so that we can spare gowns, gloves, PPE. This is the moment to move to the self-testing front of nose w/ new applicators

VP: Peace out, Girl Scouts.

Pence, out!!!