Possibility Of Millions Of Coronavirus Cases And More Deaths In The U.S.; Downtrend In Deaths And Cases In Italy; White House Task Force Coronavirus Update.
BLITZER: In Italy, a small moment of relief. The country has recorded a slight decline in new deaths from coronavirus and officials now say it is also pointing to a slight, pointing to a slight downward trend in cases. But the country still has almost 8,000 active, confirmed cases right now. Our Ben Wedeman is in Rome. He's joining us on the phone. Ben, these numbers may hold some promise, but this is obviously very cold comfort for Italians. What's the latest?</s>BEN WEDEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Yes, what we've heard from the Italian Civil Protection Agency is that in the 24 hours before 6:00 p.m. local, 756 people died. That is down somewhat from the record high that (inaudible) on Friday of 969 deaths. So we are seeing a decline in deaths, the weighted increase in new cases is also slowing down. But really, as you said, that is cold comfort, because the death toll here is approaching 11,000 people. And that is the highest on Earth. And keep in mind, Wolf, the average age of those who died in Italy is about 78. And it's raising fears that in some parts of the country, particularly the north, where 80 percent of the cases have been reported, that the older generation is slowly being wiped out. It's expected that the Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte will announce that the nationwide lockdown is now almost three weeks old, is going to be extended beyond the 3rd of April when it was due to expire. And finally, Wolf, today Sunday, Pope Francis appealed for a global cease-fire as nations struggled to combat this virus. He made the appeal via the internet from his library. There was no one in St. Peter's Square to see or hear him.</s>BLITZER: Yes, all of these stories, so heartbreaking. Italy, a much smaller country, 11,000 dead and the United States, right now, about 23, almost 2,400 dead. It's an awful situation all around. All right, Ben Wedeman, be careful over there. We'll stay in close touch with you. The White House coronavirus task force is expected to begin a press briefing in the Rose Garden any moment now, we're told. Originally 5:30 p.m. eastern. I want to bring in Ron Klain, President Obama's former White House Ebola response coordinator. He is now a senior adviser to the Biden campaign, as well. So Ron, what questions would you like to hear the president answer today?</s>RON KLAIN, FORMER WHITE HOUSE EBOLA RESPONSE COORDINATOR: Wolf, I think a lot of the questions that have been out there for a long time. When will we really have the kind of ubiquitous testing that will enable us to figure out where the virus is and will ultimately allow people to go back to work? You heard Dr. Fauci say this morning on CNN that we could, at some point, re-open parts of the country if we had widespread testing. So, when will that testing be there? And then specifically, what's he doing to get the masks and ventilators and all the gear that we need to protect our health care workers and to treat health care patients? We've heard a lot of talk, but still, it seems like it's coming along rather slowly. And really, there's no time like the present to really get that sped up. You know, we went from the first coronavirus deaths to the 1,000th in this country. It took 30 days for that to happen. It took three days to get from 1,000 to 2,000. So this problem is accelerating. It's getting more lethal in the United States in terms of the number of deaths. And I think the real question is when are we going to see more actual results?</s>BLITZER: I'm curious to get your thoughts. The briefing, we're told, in the Rose Garden is getting ready to begin. The president will be walking out, I don't know, I assume the vice president will be with him and other members of the task force. They're doing it in the Rose Garden now as opposed to the tight quarters in the briefing room. What do you make of that because you worked in the White House for several years?</s>KLAIN: Yes. Look, I think, obviously, if you can spread people out that is safer. And I think it's a good move. I mean, it's a nice day here in Washington, I should say. It's nice to be outside. And I think that's an appropriate way to do it. I don't think it matters really where he holds his briefing. What really matters is, do we start to get the answers we deserve about action on the things that are really important to Americans.</s>BLITZER: I will point out that the Press Corps are seated in the Rose Garden. They seem to be in closer quarters than they were in the briefing room. You can look at some of the pictures coming in from the Press Corps. It's a beautiful day here in Washington right now. We're standing by for this briefing. We're told it will begin fairly soon. You know, Ron, CNN has learned that the coronavirus task force of the White House has received proposals to begin rolling back some of these critically important social distancing guidelines in at least parts of the country. Is that wise?</s>KLAIN: Wolf, I think -- I would follow the lead of Dr. Fauci here, which is, no one wants to close down things that don't need to be closed down, but if we're going to open things up, we have to make sure people are safe. That's the first thing. And that means you have to test people who are going back to work to know, are they carrying the disease? Will they spread the disease? So testing is the first condition. And then secondly, you have to know that the areas where people are going back to work, they have the hospital beds and the gear to treat the people who are sick. I don't think America should be closed down one minute longer than it has to be, but I think opening too soon is not only -- it's not going to help the economy when more and more people get sick, when more and more people have to be forced off the job, you know. So I think we've got to do it the right way and I think Dr. Fauci and the medical experts are the ones who should decide that.</s>BLITZER: In Dr. Fauci's interview earlier today with our own jake tapper on "State of the Union," he stunned me when he said, it's possible -- he didn't say it was going to happen -- it's possible there could be millions of cases and 100,000 or maybe 200,000 deaths from coronavirus here in the United States. He didn't say it was going to happen. There are models out there. But he said that was clearly possible. What do you think about that?</s>KLAIN: Well, look, I think that question, Wolf, is related to the last question we just discussed. As Dr. Fauci would be the first one to say, this isn't like predicting the weather. When you model the weather, that's natural factors and you run computer models and it tells you what's likely to happen. What happens with coronavirus turns on people. It turns on human beings. It turns on whether or not we practice social distancing. It turns on whether or not we get testing going. It turns on whether or not we treat the people and save the people's lives. And so we have a role, starting with the federal government, then the state governments, and all of us as individuals. We're going to play a role in determining where those numbers come out. This isn't just math and models. It's about human behavior. Leadership from Washington, leadership in the states, how each of us handles this individually, we're going to have a big impact on the outcome.</s>BLITZER: At what point do you think it will be safe to reopen the economy?</s>KLAIN: Well, again, I think the safety turns on where we are in terms of getting people tested so that we know that they're not spreading the disease, and getting the equipment and the gear needed so we can treat the people who are sick. I don't know how fast it's -- it should have happened already. I don't know why we're so far behind. The president, you know, had these warnings in January. There were warnings in February, but action wasn't taken. You know, we know there are a lot of problems with how this got staffed up in the federal government. The question is, now, will the president do the things that he needs to do? Will he invoke the Defense Production Act to stimulate and direct the production of all of this gear and material? That's what has to happen so that we can get ourselves ready to go back to work.</s>BLITZER: One final question, Ron, before I let you go. I mentioned you're an adviser to the former Vice President Joe Biden and his campaign. What's the biggest single difference you see in what Biden is recommending as far as coronavirus is concerned and what the president is doing?</s>KLAIN: Well, Wolf, I think, first of all, I do think he would have a science-first approach. He always did when he worked at the White House on problems. He would be listening more to these medical experts than President Trump has and taking their advice. And secondly, I think he would act more aggressively. He would have got the testing problem fixed earlier. He would have ordered more (inaudible) and so I feel like Trump is afraid that he's going to wind up with too many test kits or too many gloves or too many masks. That's not a problem Joe Biden would worry about. He would plow ahead quickly. He'd direct the companies. He'd use his authority to direct the companies to make this stuff and get it out there. I think it would be a lot of a faster approach and a more aggressive approach if Vice President Biden were in charge.</s>BLITZER: All right. Ron Klain, thank you very much for joining us, as usual. Once again, we're waiting for the White House coronavirus task force briefing to begin. We've got live pictures coming in from the Rose Garden. I want to bring in our own John King and Elizabeth Cohen. John, you and I covered the White House for a long time. This is going to a briefing right now in the Rose Garden. Over the past few days, you've noted this, I've noted this. We've seen various, you know, very confusing positions, sometimes very different positions, coming out of the president. What do you anticipate we're going to get from him today?</s>JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's the question that we'll never know the answer to, in the sense that he has swung wildly back and forth, sometimes in the same day, sometimes from night-to-day. Remember, last week, Thursday night, he told Sean Hannity, the governors were exaggerating the need for ventilators. Plus, that's a state responsibility anyway. It's not a federal responsibility to get them. The next day, he said, I'm invoking the Defense Production Act. I'm ordering General Motors to make 100,000 ventilators in 100 days. Yesterday morning, he said, I'm seriously considering quarantine on New York. He got back, met with his advisers. They looked at him and said, sir, we can't do that. The governor has also objected and he dialed back and issued a CDC travel restrictions that really didn't change existing policy. It just said, be careful if you've been through New York. And if you're going somewhere else, make sure you self-quarantine if you have any symptoms or if you think you might have been exposed. So, the president has swung back and forth on this issue, Wolf, that we know is on the table. Will he extend these guidelines? It is critical that he speak clearly and consistently. He said on Friday, after beginning last week saying that the cure is worse than the disease. By Friday, he was saying health and safety will come first. That he very much wants to re-open, but the health and safety will come first. If you look at what mayors are doing and what governors are doing, and where the case load is going up, yes, we look at the big states, the top five, but even looking at other states, there are only, I believe, three states left with fewer than 100 cases. That was as of this morning. The governors and the mayors are saying, not yet, not yet, not yet. And many of those governors are saying, do not say county A is fine, but county B is not, because then people are going to start crossing back and forth. And Elizabeth knows the science much better than me, but the governors and mayors are worried that if you open up parts of a state, if the federal government tries to do that, watch and see if governors fight back if the president tries to do that. But the governor of Kentucky said it on Thursday. He said, if you're fine in county A and county B is closed, people are going to start going back and forth and you're just going to accelerate the problem all over again. So, what the president says on the issue of these guidelines is absolutely essential. The question is, will it be clear?</s>BLITZER: Yes, it's a really important point. Will it be clear and will it be confusing? Will it be contradictory? You know, Elizabeth, what are you hearing from the medical experts out there about possibly the president ordering -- well, here they come right now. There we see the vice president walking out and Ambassador Birx walking out. Looks like the whole team of the coronavirus task force, Dr. Fauci is walking out. The president will be walking out. But while we wait for the president, Elizabeth, what are you hearing from medical experts about the possibility of loosening up some of these guidelines, social distancing guidelines, right now?</s>ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: What I've been hearing from them, really, ever since this was mentioned last week, Wolf, is what Dr. Fauci said today to Jake Tapper, which is, you have to test first. You can't just blindly say we want the economy to get working again, so we're going to open up here, open up there because it seems okay. Well, maybe it seems okay because you haven't done thorough testing. There are areas that seem like they don't have many cases or any, but how do you know? So many people are asymptomatically infected, Wolf. They're infected and they don't have any symptoms. And so you need to test. And that means you need a rapid test. You can't test someone and say, all right, we'll get you your results in a couple of days, because then they're out -- if they're positive, they're out infecting people. There's a rapid test that was recently approved that can be done in about 15 minutes. They need to flood these areas with these tests. That's what Dr. Fauci was getting at. And then you can start making decisions. But to start making decisions about what to open up without knowing the situation you're dealing with is really a problem.</s>BLITZER: I want to bring in our White House correspondent, Kaitlan Collins, who's also watching. Let's go -- we don't have her right now, but we'll get to her. John King, the president will walk out of the Oval Office and then will walk down those stairs to the Rose Garden. You and I covered the White House for a long time, very familiar -- well, here he comes right now, the president walking out. Just got a little book there. I'm sure he's got his notes. He'll make an opening statement and then at some point, we assume, he'll start taking questions from the reporters. Let's listen in.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Thank you very much. Thank you. Appreciate everybody being here. Beautiful day in the Rose Garden. Tremendous distance between chairs. Social distancing. You practice it very well. We appreciate it. That's great. I want to start today by highlighting several critical developments on both the testing and treatment that will help us win our war against the coronavirus. On Friday, the FDA authorized a new test developed by Abbott Labs that delivers lightning fast results in as little as five minutes. That's a whole new ball game. I want to thank Abbott Labs for the incredible work they've done. They've been working around the clock. Normally, this approval process from the FDA would take 10 months and even longer, but we did it in four weeks. Abbott has stated that they will begin delivering 50,000 tests each day, starting this week. And as you know, even before this development, we've been doing more tests than any other country anywhere in the world. It's one of the reasons that we have more cases than other countries, because we've been testing. It's also one of the reasons that we're just about the lowest in terms of mortality rate, because we've been doing more testing. So we have bigger numbers to look at. I want to also thank General Semonite of the Army Corps of Engineers and General paulovich, who's here with us who's going to say a few words in a little while. What the Army Corps of Engineers did along with FEMA in New York was incredible. They built 2,900 beds worth of hospital, an incredible hospital in the Javits Center, which I know well. And I just want to say, that was unreal. They did it in less than four days. People have never seen anything like that. And it's an incredible complex, top of the line hospital. They did it so quickly. Everyone is trying to figure out how they did it, including me. And I was a good builder. But they did it very quickly, Mike. So we're very happy. So I want to thank Army Corps of Engineers, FEMA, the incredible job they have done. Now, they're moving to other locations throughout the country where they already have people building hospitals. We're doing them in Louisiana, in New Jersey, many other places. But these are incredible men and women and they worked around the clock and the people of New York are very happy. Governor Cuomo expressed his thanks, which we appreciate. But these are -- I mean, nobody could have done a job like that. Most people have never seen anything like it. The deployment of rapid testing will vastly accelerate our ability to monitor, track, contain, and ultimately defeat the virus. We will defeat the virus. It will also allow us to test doctors, nurses, and other health care workers immediately and enable us to act quickly and aggressively to shut down the spread of the virus -- so important in critical facilities like hospitals and nursing homes. And we will ensure that we can give cities and states the best information to guide local decision makers and making. I want to point out that the hydroxychloroquine is being administered to 1,100 patients, people in New York, along with the Z-Pak, which is azithromycin. And it's very early yet. It's only -- it started two days ago, but we will see what happens. I want to thank Stephen Hahn, who's a great doctor -- left one of the best jobs in our country, running an incredible hospital in Texas -- and he's the head of the FDA. And Stephen got approval for that so fast. Let's see how it works. It may, it may not, but we may have some incredible results. We're going to know soon. So it's being tested on 1,100 people in New York. The FDA is also allowing the emergency use of a blood-related therapy called convalescent plasma, as an experimental treatment for seriously ill patients. This treatment involves taking blood plasma from patients who have already recovered from the virus. So they're recovered. They are strong. Something was good in them that worked. And so we take the plasma from those people that have recovered so well, meaning their plasma is rich in antibodies against the virus, and transfusing it into six patients very, very powerfully. So, sick patients will be transfused with the blood taken to boost their immune system. We'll see what happens. And we're having some early results that are good, but we will see. And that's going, I think, very rapidly. Again, we got approvals in really very quick time. We're also looking at an approval for the sterilization of masks. I kept saying to myself, I see some of the masks are very complex. We're delivering millions, by the way, millions. But I kept saying, why aren't they able to use that mask a second, third, fourth time? And Mike Dewine, the great governor of Ohio called me. They have a company that is in the final process of getting approval for the sterilization of masks. And in some cases, depending on the mask, some of these masks are very, very strong, very powerful, very strong material. They're able to sterilize the mask up to 20 times, so I guess it's like getting 20 masks, and so we worked on that. As soon as I heard from Mike today, I got involved. And the FDA is now involved. And we're trying to get a fast approval for the sterilization of masks. That would be a tremendous difference. It would be really helpful. While much of the research has to be done, we have a lot of research left to do, obviously. This treatment on plasma has shown promising results in other countries and very strong communications and they're very reliant on us in just about all cases. We have the greatest people in the world. They're very, very anxious to find out how we're doing on our different things, whether it's a cure or whether it's -- really anything having to do with getting people better. We have some interesting things will be announced I think over the next few weeks, but we'll see what happens. They're being tested right now. The vaccines are moving along very rapidly. The vaccines are an answer, but I'd like to see if we could do something therapeutically so that we could take care of the people that are already sick and we're working on that at a level that people would be amazed. These are incredible people. They don't stop. This method also has been used for more than a century, and that's the blood-related therapy, you know, more than a century to fight off infectious diseases. So, it's not unusual, our level of complexity has changed, but it's a concept that's been used for a long time including during the Spanish flu epidemic. And that was really a pandemic of proportions like, frankly, nobody's seen until what we're facing now. That was in 1918. You know what the result of that was, probably from 75 to 100 million people were killed. And also other viruses like the one in this outbreak. This is a very tough one. This is a tough one because it spreads so quickly, like nothing we've seen. It spreads so easily, so quickly. We're unleashing every tool in our nation's vast arsenal, economic (inaudible). If you look medical and scientific, military, Homeland Security is working very, very hard with all of them in order to vanquish the virus. As you know, every level of government, state, local, and federal, is working nonstop to obtain more personal protective equipment for frontline workers. We're delivering vast orders of this material. I'm going to ask a couple of the people here to join me that both make it and deliver it. Joining us today are the leaders of America's largest distributors of pharmaceuticals and medical equipment, including McKesson, Cardinal Health, Henry Schine, Owens & Minor, Medline, Fedex and UPS. We just concluded a very productive meeting about ways to keep our supply chains and delivery systems moving at top speed. And maybe I'd like to just ask for a couple of minutes for Mike Kauffman to come up and maybe Ed Pesicka. Mike is with Cardinal and Ed is Owen & Minor. And I appreciate, and if anyone else has anything, please come up. But if you could come up, Mike, for a second and Ed for a second just-- you could maybe say what you told tell me before when we had the meeting. Thank you.</s>MIKE KAUFFMAN, CEO, CARDINAL HEALTH: Thank you Mr. President and thanks for your leadership on this. Because of that leadership, we have really seen the government agencies working with industry like no time before. We've seen HHS, FEMA, the CDC work incredibly effectively with all of the distributors, and all of the distributors working together for the good of the people. And all of us have been so focused on making sure that we take care of our customers because our customers are the ones that are taking care of the patients every day. And we need to do everything we can to make things good for them. And so, it's been great to see how well all these government agencies have been coordinating together with us.</s>TRUMP: Thank you very much.</s>KAUFFMANN: Thank you.</s>TRUMP: Appreciate it.</s>ED PESICKA, CEO, OWENS & MINOR: Thank you Mr. President. Let me first start by thanking the administration for all their support you have provided to the industry. You know, one of the things we did, we did hear the challenge. And starting in January, we've ramped up our production in the Americas including our facility in North Carolina where we are now manufacturing an additional 40 to 50 million masks per month to get into the U.S. health care system. We talked a little bit about this in the pre-meeting. One of the issues we're struggling with is the demand increase. You know, I've used an anecdotal example of one hospital in New York that traditionally uses roughly 10,000 to 20,000 masks a week are now using 200,000 to 300,000 masks a week. So you multiply that times the entire U.S., let alone the same demand outside of the U.S., that's part of the issue we're running into, is even with a significant ramp-up in supply, you know, there's still that demand that is much greater than that supply.</s>TRUMP: Thank you very much.</s>PESICKA: Thank you.</s>TRUMP: And I bring that up because when we discussed back in a room, we were in a conference room, very nice one, actually. It's called the cabinet room. That statement was made, that they have been delivering for years 10,000 to 20,000 masks, okay. It's a New York hospital. It's packed all the time. How do you go from 10,000 to 20,000 to 300,000 -- 10,000 to 20,000 masks to 300,000? Even though this is different, something's going on, and you ought to look into it as reporters. Where are the masks going? Are they going out the back door? How do you go from 10,000 to 300,000? And we have that in a lot of different places. So, somebody should probably look into that because I just don't see from a practical standpoint how that's possible to go from that to that. And we have that happening in numerous places, and not to that extent. That was the highest number I've heard. That's the highest number you've seen, I would imagine, right? But this man makes them and delivers them to a lot of hospitals. He knows the system better than anybody, and I think you were more surprised than I was when you saw that number, so thank you very much. I hope I didn't get any of your clients in trouble, but it could be that they are in trouble. So, they have to look at that in New York. FEMA's working with these companies to launch "Project Airbridge" to expedite the movement of critical supplies from other countries to the United States. The first flight arrived at JFK Airport New York this morning, filled with 80 tons of personal protective equipment, including 130,000 N-95 respirators. Those are the ones that we were talking about before, 1.8 million face masks and gowns, 10.3 million gloves, and many other things, millions and millions of different items. FEMA has scheduled 19 additional flights and is adding more daily. We hope to have about 50 flights. We're going to have, I think including the one that came in together, we're up at 51 flights with these massive planes from the different companies that were so nice to be here today. Would you like to say something on behalf? Please, come up. Thank you.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you, Mr. President, for the incredible leadership. I will share with you that UPS is really proud to be part of this effort. Vice President Pence and I had the opportunity to speak before, and the way we're going to win this war is with great logistics, and UPS is going to be part of that effort. We have a big, brown army, 495,000 UPSers across the country that are ready to deliver. We're bringing in the supplies from anywhere around the world as fast as we can so that they can serve the communities that need them most. We're proud to be partnering with the states as well because we know that in partnership with those states we can deliver what is needed everywhere. So thank you, Mr. President.</s>TRUMP: Thank you very much. Great job you're doing. Please. Thank you very much.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you Mr. President. I would certainly like to echo my colleague's comments that the collaboration amongst many of the government agencies and the private market and the distributors represented here today has been incredible, has been increasing and ramping up over the past weeks. Today's first delivery of "Operation Airbridge" I think is the first evidence that it's working. The 51 flights you referenced we're excited about. We look to build upon that. So, I would echo my thanks for your leadership and certainly to the staffs for the terrific partnership and the commitment to protect the people we think about most often, which are the people on the front lines providing care. And maybe just a quick word of thanks on behalf of all of the CEOs here, to our teams that continue to show up in warehouses across the country, in pharmacies across the country, and do their jobs to keep the supply chain going. The supply chain is working. It's resilient. Supply is a challenge. We're tackling that.</s>TRUMP: Thank you very much for your job.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you. Thank you Mr. President. And thanks to FEMA and HHS. I think great leadership is really working well. The demand has skyrocketed and we're doing a lot of things to bring in more masks, more other protective apparel. We are involved in reprocessing masks and we have already started at about 100,000 masks per day and we hope to expand from there. So, we're quite optimistic about it.</s>TRUMP: Great job, yes.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.</s>TRUMP: Fantastic job. Anybody else, if you want. Yes, please. You're doing such a great job.