Interview with Mayor London Breed of San Francisco, CA.
BLITZER: While New York state is the epicenter of the outbreak here in the United States, there are growing fears about what is happening in California right now. Let's go to our senior national correspondent Kyung Lah. What's the situation there, Kyung?</s>KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, today, the governor announced that there are -- there is a jump of 500 cases here in the state of California. There are now a total of 3,000 cases as the testing expands, a total of 77,000 tests that have now been administered. And part of it is that the expansion of the test is happening at places like this. You can see that car there. My cameraman having to zoom in to keep our distance and also respect patient privacy. The governor is warning that there is a good number of the tests that are out there. The number he anticipates will jump as California continues to ramp up.</s>MAYOR ERIC GARCETTI (D-CA): I want to be clear, the worst days are still ahead.</s>LAH (voiceover): From the nations' most populous state, dire warnings of what is to come from the health agency.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We see cases doubling every three to four days.</s>LAH: To its biggest cities.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We could have a scenario similar to the one that is playing out in New York.</s>LAH: California preparing for the same pandemic spread as New York, as coronavirus testing expands. Despite being the first state to orders its 40 million residents to stay at home, California has lagged behind New York in testing, a state that's half its size.</s>DR. MARIA RAVEN, UCSF CHIEF OF EMERGENCY MEDICINE: Testing for COVID- 19 has proven to be at a state level very disorganized and very unpredictable. I would say that reflects what is going on federally.</s>LAH: UC-San Francisco chief of emergency medicine, Maria Raven, says private, public, and for profit labs are fighting to get limited tests. Without one set of rules to work under, it's like the state is flying blind.</s>GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D-CA): We must focus on meeting this health crisis.</s>LAH: California's governor announced the state had tripled the number of coronavirus tests to try and catch up to the reality on the ground.</s>ELISSA RILL, ER NURSE, NORTHRIDGE HOSPITAL: Patients are frustrated and they are scared.</s>LAH: Still, Northridge Hospital emergency room nurse Elissa Rill says California's health care workers have to pick and choose who is sick enough to get tested. Rill suffering from coronavirus symptoms herself has now been quarantined. (on camera): Do you believe that you've turned away people who have coronavirus who could not get tested?</s>RILL: Absolutely. Absolutely. We have seen so many patients that have the classic symptoms, but they are still relatively healthy at that moment and we just don't have the capability to test them, so we just have to tell them assume they do and then send them home.</s>LAH: You have a cough?</s>GLORIA BOSSI, UNABLE TO BE TESTED: Yes. I have a cough. I have shortness of breath.</s>LAH (voice-over): Among those rejected for a test, Gloria Bossi, mother of four in northern California. Bossi's sister is also sick with the same symptoms.</s>BOSSI: She was tested because she's in the dental field. She's a hygienist. And she still hasn't gotten her results. I think there's much more sick people than we're aware of. It's kind of scary. I am petrified. It is scary. You see some people that are going to the doctor, and by the time they are actually taking them and getting admitted, it's too late.</s>LAH: Now, UC-San Francisco says that they were fortunate they were able to develop their own test and the emergency room, the head of the emergency room services there says she has seen the number of cases had actually begun to level off. But that emergency room, Wolff, is still bracing for what could be a surge in as soon as two to three weeks -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: Kyung Lah, reporting for us -- Kyung, thank you very much. Let's talk more about the rate of infections in California. The San Francisco Mayor London Breed is joining us right now. Mayor Breed, what are you bracing for in San Francisco and the surrounding areas?</s>MAYOR LONDON BREED, SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA (via telephone): Well, we are basically bracing for the worst. I mean, the fact is we are doing everything we can. We shut down the city. We pushed for people not to go out unless they're part of essential services. We tried to explain to people the severity of the issue, and the fact that we need over 5,000 more beds, we need another 1,500 ventilators. There's more that we need so that if we do reach those heights, we are able to support the people of this city. And if the people continue to go out and socialize and engage in activities with one another, then we are not going to be able to take care of everyone who is going to need a hospital bed. We tried to reiterate that time and time again so that people understand the severity of the situation.</s>BLITZER: The president today informed the nation's governors that he will issue new guidelines that will allow various areas identified as low risk to relax those social distancing policies, get people back to work. You've actually advocated the opposite saying you'd like to see communities across the country right now shelter in place. Does the administration's new potential guidance concern you?</s>BREED: I think, sadly, what the president is asking for is ridiculous. I mean, we have people who are dying. We have people that cannot even be tested. We have folks who are infecting people who don't understand that they're walking around with this virus as we speak, and we're already talking about reopening places where we need to basically make sure that those cases never make it to those places in the first place. The whole point of why we're shutting major cities down, why we're asking people to do some things we've never asked them to do before has everything to do with public health, and if we continue business as usual and put a deadline on things without listening to the public health expert who are providing us with the guidance we need to make better decisions, then we -- I don't know what we're going to be doing. It's going to be even worse.</s>BLITZER: Your city's director of health is warning that you could see a similar crisis such as the one that New York is now facing. So, what steps are you taking today to prepare for a potential influx of critically ill patients?</s>BREED: Wolf, we had had to go around the federal government in getting our own materials and supplies from other countries in order to have the PPE that everyone is talking about. I mean, this is something that the federal government should be leading on and you have cities partnering with the private sector so that we can protect our nurses and our doctors and the people who are working on the frontline. We are expanding our hospital beds. And we're working with private hospitals to do exactly that. We're trying to get more people to stay home. We're putting a lot of limitations on the residents in the city, and we are also trying to impress upon the people how significant this is, explaining what we have in terms of ICU beds --</s>BLITZER: All right.</s>BREED: -- and medical beds and what we need more of. And again, we don't want to turn anyone away. And that's what it's all about is making sure that the least amount of people get infected as possible.</s>BLITZER: Mayor Breed, good luck to everyone in San Francisco. We'll stay in very close touch with you. Thanks so much for joining us.</s>BREED: Thank you.</s>BLITZER: And be sure to join Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Anderson Cooper for a live global town hall later tonight, "</s>CORONAVIRUS: FACTS AND FEARS". They'll be joined by Dr. Anthony Fauci and Bill Gates. That's at 8:00 Eastern, only here on CNN. "ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT" starts right now.