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TRUMP COVID-19 UPDATE, APRIL 6




Trump April 6

Trump April 6

This is a summary of President Donald Trump’s daily COVID-19 press conference from April 6.

Send well-wishes to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who went into the ICU with the coronavirus. American pharmaceutical companies are in Britain and are ready to help if needed.

In the U.S., 3,000 public health personnel deployed to New York City’s Javits Center and the Navy hospital ship. The military will staff the 2,900 beds at Javits Tuesday.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is building 22 hospitals and alternate care sites in 18 states; 8,450 beds have been deployed.

8,000 ventilators have been sent from the national stockpile.

Thousands of ventilators are being built and hundreds are being sent to locations.

There are fewer hospital visits in the nation.

FEMA and HHS deployed 11.7 million N95 respirators, 26.5 million surgical masks, 4.4 million gowns, 22.6 million gloves.

Those are in additions to donations of supplies.

Project Air Bridge brought in planeloads of supplies from foreign countries.

Under the Defense Production Act, the administration reached an agreement with 3M for 55.5 million face masks each month; over 166.5 million masks for health care workers over the next couple of months.

He thanks Apple which announced it is making plastic face shields of 1 million per week.

Sales Force gave millions of pieces of protective equipment.

He urges governors to quickly distribute the personal protective equipment (PPEs) the federal government gave them, and all the governors were happy.

There will be a big surge in the next week and a half, the professionals say.

He praised the courage of medical workers, whom he called warriors.

Trump urged the states to use the National Guard to help them deploy supplies if they are having logistic problems.

If any states have surplus supplies, they are working to redeploy those supplies to the areas with the greatest need.

Thanks to Gov. Gavin Newsom who said California will send 500 ventilators to other locations.

The coronavirus task force learned most of the critical needs are being more than met. States must keep sharing information on the rate of the use of medical supplies. This information is vital to our ability to use the materials.

All Americans have been sacrificing to reach this point. This will be a rough week, more than a week. But there is tremendous light at the end of the tunnel. There is good news with therapeutics and vaccines.

I spoke moments ago with Joe Biden and we had a warm conversation about the coronavirus. He gave me his point of view.

I spoke today with leaders from the pharmaceutical companies. Ten therapeutic agents are in trials and some are looking successful. Fifteen more are in the plans for trials. Another company has authorized a vaccine for trials, making two.

1.79 million tests have been done. That is more than any other nation. 125,000 per day are being tested.

CVS is launching two more drive-through test sites in Atlanta and Rhode Island.

We are speeding economic relief to workers and employers. Tens of thousands applied for over $40 billion under the paycheck protection program. A couple of minor glitches were taken care of.

Nearly 3,000 lenders made loans and we are signing up more lenders.

We are preparing to ask Congress to refill this fund.

$100 billion in direct support will be given for hospitals, and the first $30 billion to be distributed this week.

On April 1, the China trade deal was enacted. They bought $250 billion from us. Of that, about $50 billion will be from farmers. We’ll see how it goes; $40 billion to $50 billion of our agricultural product.

We mobilized the unbeatable strength of American determination and compassion. I saw that from the drug companies. We’ve seen citizens making donations.

The virus is attacking 182 countries.

Questions:

Q: You said American drug companies are helping the prime minister. Can you say what help?

Trump: They have already met with his doctors and we’ll see if they go that route. They are at the hospital if their drugs are needed. I found Boris to be a fantastic person who loves his country.

Q: Yesterday you were asked about this (getting sick). Do you have concerns about you and the vice president?

Trump: I had my test yesterday. I’m not concerned. Because of questions like that, we’ll have quite a few tests.

Q: A survey was made of over 300 hospitals, and the top complaint was a severe shortages of testing supplies and long wait time. This is from the HHS inspector general.

Trump: It’s wrong. Speak to the admiral (Brett Giroir of the U.S. Public Health Service). Give me the name of the inspector general. Trump hinted that politics was behind the report.

Q: Are you worried about international relations following your ban on the export of medical goods? India said it would ban exports of hydroxychloroquine.

Trump: I would be surprised if they would. They’ve been taking advantage of the United States on trade. If he (Indian prime minister) doesn’t allow it, it will be OK, but there may be retaliation (by other nations).

Q: A reporter said the paycheck protection program was off to a confusing start. He said Wells Fargo stopped taking applications. He mentioned Bank of America.

Trump: Bank of America took the lead; they wanted a different application, they’re number one in applications. Why don’t you say it got off to a tremendous start with a few glitches? Ask the question in a positive way. We’ll probably have to add more money to save more businesses.

Q: The acting Navy secretary told the commander of the USS Roosevelt he was too naïve or too stupid to be in command. Is that appropriate?

Trump: I haven’t heard that exactly. First, that’s a strong statement. Letters should not have been leaked. (The captain’s letter warning sailors may die from COVID-19 were leaked.) I may look into it. It’s unfair to the families of people on the ship. I don’t want to destroy somebody for having a bad day.

Q: Dr. Anthony Fauci said states where governors are not enacting stay at home orders are putting the states at risk. Trump was asked about issuing an order.

Trump: I would be inclined to call them, but there is a constitutional issue for me to order stay at home. I would rather the governors do it.

Fauci: I had a good conversation with the governors of Nebraska and Iowa. Even though they don’t have strict stay at home orders, their regulations are basically doing that.

Q: You have mentioned getting back to normal Will we get back to normal before there is a vaccine?

Fauci: If getting back to normal is like acting like there is no problem, we won’t be. When we say normal, we mean different from now because right now we are in an intense mitigation. Normal will be a functioning society. With the therapies coming online and a good vaccine, we will never return to this point.

Q: Will you lift restrictions after April 30?

Trump: I don’t want to reply. Looking at places where the peak is flat – that happened through mitigation.

Q: What is your issue with making a stay at home recommendation?

Trump: I told you. It’s called the Constitution of the United States. If I thought it was necessary, I’d do it in a heartbeat.

Reporters also clashed with Trump more over the HHS inspector general report, with Trump demanding to know when she was appointed. Reporters said she was appointed in January but later said she also served during the Obama administration.

As a result, Trump asked Giroir to ask about testing.

Giroir: There have been 1.79 million tests done in the nation, not counting pending tests. The inspector general report was made over March 23-24 during a ramping-up period and longer backlogs that have been addressed. He questioned why this inspector general would not have told him about a problem in March and instead the first he heard about the report was this morning on the news.

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