This afternoon, President Trump announced the CDC guidelines urging social distancing and group limits will be extended until April 30.
Please also note his comments below in bold about June 1st.
Highlights of today’s White House Coronavirus Task Force Press Conference are below.
President Donald Trump
- FDA authorized new test by Abbott Laboratories that delivers results in 5 minutes. Normally this approval process would take 10 months, and we did it in 4 weeks. We will be distributing tests this week.
- Army Corps and FEMA built 2,900 hospital beds in the Javits Center in less than 4 days. Also building beds in LA, NJ and many other places.
- Ensure give cities and states best info so they can make the best decisions.
- FDA also speeding treatments including blood plasma treatments from people who have recovered. Plasma rich in antibodies. Trying to get approval for sterilization of masks.
- Just concluded a meeting with CEOs about keeping supply chains and shipping moving. Hospitals in NY typically use 10k-20k masks a week and now using 200k-300k masks a week plus add others states which is why supply is a problem.
- Project Airbridge – UPS, Fed Ex, and Other shipping companies are bringing in supplies from other countries to the US. 80 tons of PPE arrived today at JFK. CEOs of these companies met with the President before the Press Conference.
- Humana and Cigna will waive co-pays and premiums for coronavirus treatments. Hope other company will follow their lead.
- Spoke to Wolfgang Puck and other leaders in the restaurant industry. Asking Mnuchin and Scalia to look into restoring deductibility of restaurant meals and entertainment so businesses can send people to restaurants. CARES Act will also provide relief.
- Data and health experts expect the peak will likely to hit in two weeks. Therefore, we are extending the CDC Guidelines to end the spread until April 30. On Tuesday, we will go in depth about the data and reasons for our actions. We expect we will be well on our way to recovery by June 1st. Could be sooner.
- President Trump was asked about his public comments yesterday regarding a quarantine for NY, NJ and CT. He responded that his team concluded that the Strong CDC Travel Advisory was sufficient.
- Complimentary of the Governors of LA, NJ, CT, CA, and the coordination occurring.
- Prepared to do whatever is necessary to save lives and bring our economy back.
Dr. Tony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx affirmed their support for extending the CDC guidelines.
Both doctors estimated up to 2.2 million people could die if these mitigation measures were not in place. With mitigation measures in place, hope to keep deaths under 200,000.
Admiral Brett Giroir reported that over 894,000 tests have been performed in the US. On the point of care tests by Abbott, Abbott will provide 50,000 tests a day beginning April 2. The Roche tests is also in large laboratories. We are still prioritizing who needs the tests. We applaud FDA approval of self-swabbing your nose tests which will be implemented this week.
Full remarks and additional topics addressed during question and answer session can be found here: White House Coronavirus Task Force Briefing
