Joel Pollak, Breitbart Senior Editor-at-Large and author of the book, How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, has been reporting the disgusting ‘news’ being distributed by the media, even during a pandemic. Just how bad is the main stream media? Pollak has some stunning examples.The Sean Hannity Show is on weekdays from 3 pm to 6 pm ET on iHeartRadio and Hannity.com. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
It's Friday, and I am guessing if you're like me, you're thinking, oh, I can't wait for the weekend.
800, Linda's laughing.
I know I see you, even though I don't see you because you're socially distant.
Uh, but I think everybody agrees.
Not easy days, not not fun times.
Long hard days, boss.
Long hard days.
And that's why uh some just send Ellen like some of Nancy Pelosi's ice cream for me.
Do something because it's it's that crazy, it's that insane, it is that mad.
I I know I mentioned this yesterday.
It I think it it bears repeating here is that you know, I've done this now for 31 years, talk radio when I got first started my journey, and now my 24th year at Fox, even I'm surprised I'm still there.
Um, in the sense that you know, I didn't have any TV experience when I started, and I'm very honored to be able to do this with all of you every day.
And it certainly um you have your your your tough times, your harder times, and you know, there's always an election year.
I try to always warn people that it's gonna be an emotional roller coaster, and you don't know until election day what the results are gonna be, and there's ups and downs, and times you're gonna be feeling good about where you are and the and the people that you think are gonna win, and and other times you're gonna doubt.
And you know, I'm kind of used to that.
I'm actually pretty steady about going through all of those cycles, and um this nobody expected.
Um the response of some people is just downright repulsive.
It is uh predictably the same people that always that for the last three and a half years have lied, smeared, slandered, besmirched, attacked, um, advanced more psychotic conspiracy theories than you would ever think could happen in America.
Uh, I never thought in my lifetime that we would see such a dramatic drift this hard left by the by the the other party in the country.
I mean, you could say we're not a two-party, we're basically two parties.
It's Republican and it's Democrat.
It's not like we have a parliamentary system of government.
You want to talk about a mad electoral system?
Let's look at Israel.
It's nuts.
Three elections to we get a you know, finally get a coalition government up and running there, and uh Prime Minister Netanyahu now in that position for the next 18 months, thank goodness.
Um, but it's hard to go through nearly an entire year without a government, but that's happening.
Uh I look at the New York Times.
Um, I don't really have words for them anymore, except stay tuned.
And today's disaster by them.
And and it's so interesting when you actually look at their timeline and you know, the Trump virus at the end of February, and them saying that if you're feeling awful, you know who to blame.
Uh specific articles that I I won't regurgitate now, here this minute.
Hope everybody there has a good weekend.
Um, but I will tell you that, you know, I I look at this and I'm like, Donald Trump puts the travel van in effect, everybody criticizes it.
Now, in retrospect, nobody will give him credit for anything.
And it's even worse than that, because you you add to that the the subsequent travel bans, the quarantine for the first time in 50 plus years, then the largest, fastest, quickest medical mobilization in the history of this country by far.
And successfully, when you start out, you know, with with models showing two and a half million people dead in this, and it doesn't happen, you would think it'd be reason for people to say, hey, job well done.
How did you build those those 25, 30,000 hospital beds in four weeks?
How did you get the Javit Center up?
How did you get the Navy hospital ships in place?
How did how did you end up getting all the ventors?
Nobody was short of a ventilator that needed a ventilator.
How did you mitigate it?
What did you do?
You know, it it if history's honest, it's going to it's going to look very favorable at what is really transformational uh approaches towards everything from how we protect Americans, travel bands, public-private partnerships.
Um, the ability of a of a country to function when one small geo when a small when part of the country, geographically speaking, has had to shut down.
We're sustained by the rest of the society, new, different, the challenges specifically for the medical equipment that was needed, the challenges to keep grocery stores, you know, stocked and full with needed food and supplies and medical supplies and pharmaceutical issues, and you know, 20 iterations of testing.
I mean, it's it's it's fairly, you know, it's so exhaustively extensive, and yet there's no credit given at all to the people that were able to pull it off in record time, having rewritten the books on pandemics and having rewritten the books on any type of need for any medical mobilization.
And then even worse than that, even though you end up mitigating the models that predicted high numbers of death, not only do you get no credit for this, then you get called the murderer.
Pretty much that's that's now happening more and more and more every day.
I mean, we had this with Joe Scarborough yesterday, you know, screaming about the president.
And you know, I just I don't even have words to describe how repulsive some of these people are, but they are that repulsive.
And I'm almost to the point where I'm like, I it's sort of like a Jesus on the cross moment, forgive them father, for they know not what they do, in the sense that they're so angry, they're so out of touch with reality, they're so psychotic, they're so full of rage that I think for some, maybe it's the ends justifies the means, that their agenda is that important.
For a lot of them, it's just rooted in a psychotic hatred of all things Trump or any Trump supporter.
Um, it's never been this bad, at least that I have seen in my lifetime.
And then there's a whole level of ignorance that you just want to believe alternative realities and an alternative universe and alternative facts.
No, New York Times today.
How Republicans became the party of death.
That's the headline.
That is the this the New York Times, the same New York Times, February 5th.
Who says it's not safe to travel to China?
The same New York Times Trump virus, if you're feeling awful, you know who to blame.
Unbelievable.
Multiple articles suggesting that individuals that you know well, you know, basically are responsible for murder.
Wow.
I supported the travel ban.
Not many people did.
Those that did were called xenophobic, racist, hysterical, uh, fear mongers.
Well, that travel ban, incalculable.
How many lives were protected from contracting the virus, subsequently dying from this virus, etc.
And then well, you say it's a hoax.
Well, if you if you say it's a hoax, but you've been warning people for months about asymptomatic people and talking to the experts and the doctors and everybody in between, and way ahead of the curve, understanding that there is real danger here.
Uh, would would negate that if logic, reason, common sense were to prevail, but it's not prevailing.
You know, you think through history, how is it that human beings, and we've seen this over and over again, there are I mean, the world is littered with a history of mass psychosis, hypnosis,
madness, that you know, human beings desire to be accepted and a part of something, you know, showing the greater allegiance than others because of a fear that drives them.
It's littered with these stories.
It's not a new phenomenon, not a lot of new things here.
Anyway, I look at the numbers every day, sometimes every hour.
Timothy Egan, the writer in the New York Times, sometimes before dawn, China is not to be trusted, nor is Russia.
I'm always curious about the latest death toll out of Sweden.
Sweden followed the hurt approach, which we had spoken about at length.
Uh, a country with a riskier, more self-regulated approach to keeping people apart.
Uh, Then he goes on to there, et cetera, et cetera, about the drop in this.
And all of us want the same thing a roadmap to the way out.
Scientific consensus is clear.
It's not complicated.
We need a significant upgrade of testing, contact tracing, track the infected, nuanced, dutiful social isolation, all the by time until a vaccine is developed.
But the political way out reveals a stark divide and some true madness for Republicans.
That pro-life slogan of theirs is just another term for nothing left to lose.
They are now the party of death.
The party of death.
And then they go into this.
And really, what they're what some are suggesting is if you open the country.
And this is now becoming a bit of a talking point.
Number one, they won't give Donald Trump credit for what he's done ever.
Trump can do nothing right in their eyes.
The next the next thing is if you want to open the country safely, we've we have discussed the Hannity plan to open New York City exhaustively.
Because you have to say it again.
I'm like, well, the reason is is because I'm I'm trying to get the right sweet spot formula that is safe and yet uh allows people you know back to do what they they do.
And I think it's a reasonable plan for New York City, all right.
Everyone in a big building, half the workers stay home.
Let them telework.
I think that's reasonable.
That means you're creating in every building in New York, you're building in social distancing guidelines.
Then I take it a step further.
Okay, every building in New York, you at least get a temperature check, and when enough tests come online, you can make that a part of it as well.
The next thing is everybody that does go into work must wear masks and gloves.
And have that again, because half the working population is home, you'll have the social distancing built into that.
I think it's reasonable.
I think it's safe.
I'm asking doctors, I'm asking professionals, and then everyone gets to get back to work.
And what's ironic here about the we can't open up crowd, it's murder, it's the party of death, is that well, um, if we close the country down, New York and New Yorkers and New Yorkers, um, to say it the right way.
If you're from New York, they're not real New Yorkers, Governor Cuomo.
I was gonna say sound like Cuomo.
I know.
But all of this is true.
Well, New Yorkers would have died.
They would have all been dead but for the farmers farming, the packers packing, the truckers trucking, and the guys stocking the shelves, stocking.
Because the only reason uh New Yorkers got to eat, and I'm in New York, is because of those people.
And those stalkers stocking were risking their lives.
But they did it safely.
I've not read, I don't know if it's the case, about a high incidence of people stocking with masks and gloves, contracting COVID.
And when I go to the store, I I kind of go out of my way to say thank you to these people.
They the people that were manufacturing if we closed down, there wouldn't be any ventilators made, new ventilators, no respirators, no masks, no gloves.
There would be no gowns, there would be no medicines, there'd be nothing.
So, you know, it's a it's a great strategy that we all stay indoors and hide.
But if that happened in this instance, New York was wouldn't eat, wouldn't have any medicine, health care, frontline healthcare workers would not, the heroes in all this would not have the protective equipment and gear, the pharmaceuticals and the ventilators that they needed to do their job every day.
There are smart, intelligent people in This country.
The doctors, the scientists, you know, let's do it safely and figure it out.
The other thing is, otherwise, we can't afford to do this forever.
And there will be poverty and poverty resulting eventually in sickness in possible death as a result of that.
By the way, coronavirus patients, you want to talk about New York?
Not only were they totally ill-prepared, no ventilators, nothing.
You can thank Donald Trump, Comrade de Blasio.
He bailed your sorry ass out.
Anyway, coronavirus patients admitted to Queen's nursing home with body bags.
With body bags.
By the way, I've read the timeline in March of the Plasio and Cuomo.
They didn't see it coming in March.
Want to talk about timelines?
They screwed it up bad and still had nothing.
All right, as we've been doing now for a number of Fridays, Dr. Oz will take your questions at 800-941 Sean.
If you want to get on the line now, you can.
Huge blow up in New York now.
And it's amazing when you think of Governor Cuomo and I need 40,000 ventilators, and they were prepared for nothing.
Same with Comrade de Blasio.
The headline of this article is New Patients and Body Bags, Cuomo order stained uh strains nursing homes.
Anyway, they quote a nursing home in Queens, New York, under a state mandate to take in COVID-19 positive patients, also got a supply of body bags.
I'm reading from the New York Post.
An executive at the facility, previously free of the deadly disease, said the bags were in shipment of personal protective equipment received the same day.
The home was forced to begin treating two people with COVID-19 who had been discharged from hospitals.
My colleague noticed that one of the boxes was extremely heavy.
Curious as to what could possibly be making that particular box much heavier than the rest, he opened it.
The exec told the post on Thursday, the first two coronavirus patients were accompanied by five body bags.
Governor Cuomo's comments literally now are exploding.
And if the standard he set for Donald Trump holds for him, it's not going to be good.
And Comrade de Blasio in this, too, will explain.
All right, 25 now till the top of the hour, 800-941-SHAWN.
Top of the hour, full hour.
Dr. Oz will take any questions you have.
Really come to admire him a lot.
Um as somebody I I mean, he's it I love his line.
It's like you gotta go into battle with the army you have, not the army you wish you have, and all in to save lives.
And it is, you know, you would think that that would be people's focus.
Um earlier this week, I did highlight the success of Governor Ron DeSantis down in Florida.
So the incidents comparatively like Michigan, I'm not comparing it even to New York, but because of their their high percentage of elderly folks retired down there from the villages on all throughout South Florida, well, frankly, all over Florida.
You know, a lot of retirees go down there, and and you know, they have great times and the weather's better, etc.
etc.
But um I was again, we knew, and this held by the throughout the entire thing.
For example, the in New York, 94% in the hospital with COVID had pre-existing conditions.
64% of New York state deaths were over age 70.
So again, we if there was a moment in time when we actually thought that younger that we didn't think younger people were susceptible at all, then that changed and and changed it just didn't work out in terms of mortality, et cetera, et cetera.
Although there are terrible stories out there.
Uh one really heartbreaking story I saw somewhere about a firefighter lost his young baby to coronavirus.
I just it just breaks your heart on every level.
Um, anyway, so the comfort we know uh made it to New York.
If I can open this up on my application, uh on the 30th of March, okay.
Then remember, the the president also uh built the Javit Center.
What was that?
I think that that Javit Center was open on 324.
So that's why we're I'm looking at this report in the New York Post today.
And remember, you know, every everyone's got the answer for their own timelines, their own questions, their own their own comments, their own stupidity.
A lot of it though is, you know, well, what did what were the experts telling us?
And I I say this with great respect for Dr. Fauci.
I really do.
This people lived because of Dr. Fauci's life work.
They just did.
There is a big component in this, which is that China lied, and that China knew how bad it was, and that China would not allow travel out of Wuhan to anywhere else in China, or anyone from China going into Wuhan that wasn't from Wuhan, but they didn't keep open flights internationally to the rest of the world.
They knew how bad it was.
They only protected themselves.
Then the more recent reports is that once they saw it was really bad, then they're going around the world gobbling up all of the medical equipment they can and a report this week that they're actually profiteering from all of this.
And the fact that they lied, I mean, I am more angry at China every single solitary day.
It is outrageous to me.
But again, you look at the timeline when you start getting into the later time period here.
Here, and you look at, for example, Dr. Fauci, you know, February 29th, the country as a whole still remains at low risk.
He says that.
Um, remember the 9th of March, he said, if you're young and healthy, you can go on a cruise.
Think of that.
Uh Wuhan efforts have been draconian, he said March 8th.
The risk of getting into trouble with this infection, mainly if you're infected, is overwhelmingly weighted towards people with underlying conditions and the elderly.
And he was saying that on Meet the Press on March the 8th.
And he said about the efforts, for example, in China.
He said that their efforts have been draconian, something we would never be able to do here.
Um, even suggesting that we would never be able to do the things that we ultimately ended up doing uh at and around the same time.
So, you know, a lot of people said a lot of things.
And it's not to be critical so much of Dr. Fauci.
It's that's not the purpose of me bringing this up here.
Now, those in the mob and the media that are out there politicizing this and have been from day one, we were right in calling them out.
Wasn't hard to see, you know, wasn't me saying uh coronavirus is scary, but the flu is uh uh, you know, well, hang on, get a grip America.
This was the Washington Post.
The flu is much bigger, a much bigger threat than coronavirus.
Really?
Oh, okay.
Um I'm reading, you know, Washington Post past pandemics prove fighting coronavirus with a travel ban is a mistake.
Well, if we would have listened to them, that wouldn't have been too smart, would it?
Just like we have the New York Times, who says it's not safe to travel to China.
Now, I guess based on the logic of the New York Times, their advice to their readers would mean if you you know, you're telling people at that time it's safe to go to China.
Wow, okay.
Uh late February.
Let's call it the Trump virus.
If you're feeling awful, you know who to blame.
And and it's it's so outrageous how people have politicized all of this, and those of us that called that out somehow are wrong.
But it's obvious because it's the same groups of people that have been lying to the American people for years, the same people that smear lie slander besmirch Trump for three and a half years.
The same people that spread conspiracy theories, outright lies, falsehoods, and hoaxes.
They're the worst in all of this.
You got the Democratic Party, their leaders, Nancy Pelosi, comedy shows last week, uh $24,000 freezers, two of them, gourmet ice cream in the comfort of her gated community mansion, while she delays two bills to help people uh with with small businesses and and workers and hospital supplies, etc.
So she's held them both up, you know, with demands to change election laws and demands that we're going to change immigration law with demands that we pay $75 million for the National Endowment for the Arts, another $75 million National Endowment for the Humanities.
She gets $25 million for the Kennedy Center for the Arts.
It's on it's unconscionable to me.
And then you look at New York in particular, and I'm going to get back to this New York Post story in a second.
You know, by the way, the first COVID-19 positive case in the United States was January 21st.
The first one in New York, according to Governor Cuomo, was, you know, he's quoted as saying March 1st.
This evening we learned of the first positive case of the coronavirus or COVID-19 in New York State.
The patient, a woman in her late 30s, contracted the virus while traveling aboard abroad in Iran and currently is isolated, uh, etc.
etc.
There's no cause for surprise.
This was expected, as I said from the beginning.
Well, I have a particular bone to pick with all these politicians in New York because, well, they're the top terror target in the world.
They are, you know, with the highest concentration of people, the most densely populated, the smallest geographical area, and you have a New York City study in a New York State study study, this city study in 2006, the state November 2015, telling the city to get 10,000 ventilators, telling the state to get 15,783 ventilators, 0.4% of what the New York State budget would be, and they never did it.
They never did it.
The fact that the president, again, this is the biggest medical mobilization in history, and I will give Cuomo credit in this sense.
Cuomo, you know, at times he was reluctant, but he did thank the president appropriately enough.
What do I need to send him a cake?
You know, there were times they had their run-ins, but I think in the end, Donald Trump got it done for New York.
Then the idiot mayors out there, are you going to say the New York drop dead?
When he bailed them out.
If you don't have Trump's personnel at the Javett Center building the 3,000 beds and the comfort and the personnel also there and all your ventilators because you guys didn't buy them, and all the gowns, masks, respirators, shields, gloves, you name it, medicines.
If you don't have it, you guys have nothing.
And if you don't have these other people working, uh stocking shelves and going into grocery stores and everybody else in the country producing all of this, New York is has nothing.
The country stood up for New York again.
They did it after 9-11.
They did it again.
Everybody in New York needs to know that the rest of the country was all in to help save New York.
As we would be there for them.
We're there for the rest of the world.
We're going to be there for our own family, even if we have political fights that are pretty dramatic.
But even as late as March 2nd, you know, you know, we had Governor Cuomo.
Remember, they had no ventilators.
They had no, they weren't prepared for anything.
And he's saying we have the best health care system.
He says we're extrapolating what happened in China and other countries.
We have the best health care system in the world right here.
And excuse our arrogance as New Yorkers.
I speak for the mayor also on this one.
We think we have the best health care system on the planet right here in New York.
So when you're saying what happened in other countries versus what happened here, we don't even think it's going to be as bad as it was in other countries.
how wrong they were.
And, you know, it is, the mayor, He's even worse.
I don't even know what to say about this guy.
March 1st, he's tweeting out, okay, New York confronts first coronavirus case.
We have been preparing for jarring to see Mayor Bloomberg at Mike Bloomberg pay millions to rewrite history.
Well, Bloomberg at least bought for 500 ventilators.
The guy that didn't maintain them was de Blasio.
The guy that sold them at auction to some unknown person was de Blasio.
He had none.
Only what the hospitals had.
Uh, Since I'm encouraging New Yorkers, March 2nd to go on with your lives, get out on the town despite coronavirus.
I thought I would offer some suggestions.
You know, here's the first.
Through Thursday, 3-5, go see the traitor.
If the wire was a true story and set in Italy, it would be this film.
March 10th, De Blasio.
Go about your life as you normally would.
Transmission is not that easy.
I'm not making it up either.
And it's, you know, look, it's it's frustrating.
Then now we're learning.
Why did Ron DeSantis save?
How did Ron DeSantis do it?
He got the crap beat out of him over the spring breakers.
Okay, maybe fair criticism, maybe to some degree.
At the time, in fairness, if we're listening to Fauci, he's saying, yeah, young people, he was saying March 9th, young people healthy can go on cruises.
So I think he'd have a way to say that the experts were saying young people are going to be okay.
Anyway, back to this piece in the New York Post today.
New patients, body bags.
My colleague noticed one of the boxes was extremely heavy.
This is right after Governor Cuomo ordered nursing homes to take on COVID-19 patients.
And he goes, within the first within days, three of the bags held the first 30 residents who would die there after Governor Cuomo's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene handed down its March 25th directed directive that would bar nursing homes from refusing to admit medically stable coronavirus patients, according to the director.
Then he goes on to say, like clockwork, the nursing home received five body bags a week every week from city officials.
Quote, Cuomo has blood on his hands.
There's no way to sugarcoat this.
Why in the world would you be sending coronavirus patients to a nursing home where they're where the most vulnerable population of this disease resides?
How do you answer that?
Anyway, since March 25th, the Queen's nursing home had admitted 17 such patients from hospitals testing positive for corona.
But in a bitter irony, most of them fared well.
Those who have died passed away without a test while awaiting results, et cetera, et cetera.
You should have known, I guess, by that point, no.
The rest of the people are dropping like flies.
Most of them have been with us for years.
Then he goes, that's what he describes here.
Now, as you go through, there's a lot of finger pointing in all of this.
And, you know, they go into more details about officials all around the state of New York.
And remember, this was a dictate from the government of New York.
Now, the go the what the governor said.
Now there's another fight with the Blasio and Cuomo.
The Blasio is now saying Cuomo and his assertion that it's not our job to supply nursing homes with coronavirus safety gear, saying that there's a moral imperative to protect our seniors.
Look, protecting senior citizens, protecting people in nursing homes is for all of us.
It's our job, it's our responsibility.
It's a little ironic considering, you know, because Cuomo said that if nursing homes can't properly quarantine and treat COVID patients, the homes were supposed to move them to facilities, but then the mandate comes down, and then Cuomo doubles down on his remark that this is the rule and that's the regulation, and they have to comply.
And then he's saying, uh, well, I'm not responsible.
The nursing homes are responsible.
Imagine if Trump said that to New York.
You guys should have prepared for this.
Uh, I think there would have been a lot of screaming from everybody in New York.
But it is um, it's just sad.
Because the one thing that we've we learned here, now there's a learning curve.
There is, but we knew all along it was older people.
How you know, and what they did so brilliantly down in Florida is they targeted that population like a laser beam.
It turned out to save lives down in Florida on a mass scale.
It turned out to be in many ways the dumbest, most dangerous, horrific thing, choice that I have seen to date on in all of this.
All right, glad you're with us, hour two, eight hundred nine four one Sean.
You want to be a part of this extravaganza, as we've now been doing for uh a few weeks now.
Dr. Oz doesn't sleep, doesn't rest.
His calling in life is what it is.
I've learned a lot about him and have come to admire his his work ethic, his his calling, his passion, which is the health of everybody.
Uh I think we've learned a lot from him.
More importantly, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you wish you had, which is it's true.
You do the best you can.
Uh he's been right uh so often on a lot of this, and uh I just appreciate him being here.
Um we're gonna take your calls for the hour.
How are you, sir?
Welcome back.
Thank you very much.
I'm doing very well.
Thank you really a lot for doing this.
All right, so now we have the lowest death toll in New York since March 31st today.
Still too many people, 422.
Uh we have the hospitalization number at 14,700, below 15,000 for the first time in 20 days, net decrease hospital hospitalizations for 11 straight days, net decrease intubations 12 straight days, still hovering around 1,300 new coronavirus hospitalizations per day.
Um, and then the big big question is how do you open a city like New York?
I think you know, I I you know the Hannity plan.
I don't want to repeat it.
You know the Hannity plan for stadiums that I have.
Am I am I there or is it something that we could look at in June, July?
What are your thoughts?
Uh you know, I don't want to rope either of us into a date because it's really about data, and we're gonna learn a ton from the states that are opening, even starting this weekend, uh over the next few weeks, because New York City's not going to open New York State.
I don't think their plans in even the northern parts of the state uh open.
So we're gonna watch what happens in parts of the country that have not been hard hit.
It's for those of you listening from other parts of the country, it's it's to see what Sean and I saw in this part uh in New York area in particular, it's stunning.
I mean, half the mortality is here, half the cases are here.
Uh you see uh uh you know how how it could have been uh elsewhere, and thankfully we don't think we're gonna hit anywhere close to these numbers in other parts of the country, but we want to be cautious.
But the most important thing of all the things happening now is more testing and making sure that we don't miss hot spots.
And by learning from those experiences, we're gonna for the first time really know for sure if you put your mask on before you go to a restaurant where you're not packed on top of each other, and this it's ventilated, and you got you know the right kinds of filters in your air, does that make a difference?
Because if it does, then you can go one step further, so march your way down the road because you have to work out all those kinks in places that that are not as crowded, because in New York City we have unique problems, right?
You've got subways to get to the stadium, so you can go in the stadium.
It might the subway might be even more of a problem than sitting in the stadium.
So those kinds of things that we don't have all the answers to.
We ought to get pretty concrete on before we start, you know, getting to plan the third stage of opening the country.
I spent a lot of time this week not knowing the story existed about New York and the mandate that they had March 25th, uh, that details how the state of New York forced nursing homes to take COVID-19 positive patients in Florida.
What was very interesting, and I know the governor down there got criticized for you know the spring break issue.
And but interestingly, I mean, I'm I'm making no excuses.
I didn't like it.
Um, but I we were told in the beginning, and mostly throughout this, that this was not a life and death issue for for young people by and large.
It was where, for example, H1N1 infected young people more than old people.
I mean, these viruses are, you know, I'm learning so much about them.
And anyway, but he they early on in the process in Florida targeted nursing homes.
They targeted the villages.
I don't know.
Have you ever been to the villages?
It's the coolest place.
America's friendliest home hometown.
You ever go down down there at all?
I've not I've not been there, but I know there's an older population in some.
Oh my god.
It's the coolest thing.
They got a million golf courses.
They got up their pickleball.
I don't even know what pickleball is.
They got tennis.
They got movies.
They got concerts.
They got book clubs.
They got chess clubs.
They've got this.
I mean, they got bars, they drink, they have a blast.
It's like, you know, it's cool.
It's a very fun place.
Uh and I've been down there and I'm very impressed.
But they targeted specifically the elderly population, which is quite high as you know in Florida.
And the numbers are so dramatically lower.
Uh and I'll take New York, New Jersey, Connecticut out of it, than say a state like Michigan.
Dramatically.
Because they did that.
Now in New York we have this story where not only were the COVID nineteen patients sent into the nursing homes that body bags were sent with them.
How could that decision have been made that late in March?
Uh I and I'm again I'm not playing politics here.
I'm like, wow, you know, you got what a contrast in decision making and and literally the consequences associated with it.
I gotta say, I think the entire world and our perspectives changed during the month of March.
We went from to being fairly confident.
I didn't say cocky in our ability to address a virus that had already hurt other parts of the world to recognizing exact exactly how devastating it could be when it's not based up and there's more more new data coming out from Northeastern arguing that there were hundreds of thousands of cases here before we even realized we had a problem.
So of course it made it much more difficult because you didn't realize that the tsunami was about to hit you.
Yeah.
Well, I I know, but but from the earliest days, I do remember one particular press conference I paid close attention to with Cuomo when he started saying, uh, yeah, everything we've been telling you about young people is wrong.
Remember when we hit that little there was there was like a uh a moment where we thought maybe young people were more vulnerable than we had believed earlier.
And I I actually had asked him about that because we all thought this was, you know, mostly the great threat was for older people, underlying health issues, and compromised immune systems.
In the end, it turned out mostly to be that, I think is a fair statement.
But there was a period we thought maybe younger people were more susceptible than I think they ended up being.
Is that a fair statement, a right statement, accurate statement?
It's a correct statement.
I mean, two percent of the cases are young people.
Thankfully, most of them don't even have life threatening consequences.
But I I had a sh kid on the show today who did, a four year old, have no idea why the mother was a pediatrician.
She went she went in to to stay with her son, of course.
You know, mom's not gonna leave a little child alone in the hospital.
And once you're in the room with the child, now you're assumed to be COVID 19.
Now she never got sick.
You know, staying in the room with the child never got sick.
He you know was really sick, thankfully recovered.
His two sisters did not get ill.
Uh so the the viruses there's genera there's definitely genetic element.
Uh that's why we think more men than women have problems with the virus.
It's it's not just lifestyle, but lifestyle's part of it as well, especially uh in middle age, it seems to play the disproportionate rule.
They folks from NYU published data saying that uh the younger people under the age of sixty who got sick, adults, um, had a disproportionately higher percentage of being overweight or obese.
And so, you know, you're starting to see some trends.
The folks from Northwell published their data, eighty-eight percent of the hospitalized patients in their hospital had at least two comorbidity issues, so they they had overweight and diabetes and hypertension or some combination.
So we're starting to see how the virus picked on us.
It was able to get into our bodies more readily.
In some cases, it was able to re reproduce, probably because our bodies were being overwhelmed with inflammation.
And so you're starting to understand how how devastating it was.
The good news, if there is any good news, is some of this antibody data that we're seeing now that's highlighting here in New York, for example, ten times more identified people who've had who have had the virus than actually tested positive at the time.
I in the West Coast it was fifty to eighty times more people.
They but these are all by the way, projections basically.
Do you think these numbers will hold or you think they're they're that maybe they'll be somewhere around there?
Because it was that period of time.
I think it was what they thought there would be a mortality rate of what, three point four percent.
Yeah.
Yeah, that was the number thrown around.
Right now, the governor uh New York quoted the mortality rate that these numbers hold would be closer to to half a percent, which is still a lot.
I mean, that's five times more than the flu, but it's you know, it's not three point four percent.
And just as a you ask me to answer your question more directly, I think the New York numbers are gonna hold because uh Howard Zucker, who's the he's a great health commissioner of state, uh, worked with the federal government to make sure that we had really meticulous antibody testing.
The West Coast tests, uh we don't know if they're as good, and a little difference in the quality of those tests because you're extrapolating from three thousand people to millions, you could, you know, a small difference makes a big error.
So may not be as much, but I think I think if it was ten times more than we knew, that sort of makes sense because everyone listening right now probably thinks they may have had the coronavirus, right?
Everyone had a little cough, you know it'll ache, little intestinal thing, they they weren't sure they were smelling normally.
I mean they they we had they had one of the symptoms because they're common and so you didn't get tested because you didn't want to take a risk of going to the ER to get tested or there weren't any available so there are probably in a fair number of people who may have had minor symptoms or none who did con who did convert having antibodies.
But the fact it didn't a 10 to one it's eye opening because it shows you that there's a big difference in how humans respond to this virus.
Yeah amazing you know you we we learn a lot and I I know more about viruses now than I ever wanted to know ever thought I'd know um but I will tell you it's um it's scary and uh you know we lose people from the flu every year and I know you get killed for saying that but uh we lose tens of thousands of people in this country hundreds of thousands get hospitalized every year.
Um all those things I wish we had cures for cancer.
I wish we had cures for everything.
I've said that many times before all right uh we're taking your calls for the hour Dr. Oz is with us uh you know this I'm looking at this question Chrissy in California asymptomatic carriers christy it's funny you say that because I brought this up with Dr. Fauci in my early interviews the end of January and February 10th because that was the one thing that stood out in my mind and it's a fascinating question you're on with Dr. Oz I want you to ask it.
Hi son hi Dr. Oz yes my question is is there data to tell us how long an asymptomatic carrier is actually contagious to others and if the contagious period is up to 14 days why are we still on lockdown off so the uh the the the period that we think you're contagious is up to 14 days but let me explain a couple couple things.
First off there have definitely been cases where people have been contagious for longer but you have to pick a number that's rational and you can't get nine you know you're not gonna get everybody because there's always going to be a few exceptions.
So the data is based on CDC and other information, arguing that the vast majority, you know, high 90s percentile, will be through the course of their illness within 14 days.
Now, most people are not going to have the ability to infect others for the first two days, let's say, because they're still making a virus in their body.
Then from days two, or let's say three on, you're infectious, but you might not have symptoms depending on how your body reacts until day five, which is sort of the average.
But it's just...
average of course means that you know most people have it then but up you know a bunch are going to have it less and a bunch more so by five days you know but by day five or six you're gonna have symptoms and whatever those symptoms might be they could be very subtle like losing your sense of taste and smell which the CDC just added to the uh symptom list today is present according to the European researchers two different studies either two thirds of the time or up to 85% of the time that's a lot of people and that's something that's something we even thought about as a symptom earlier on.
So those kinds of things might be your only clue that you have it and they're gonna definitely be some people who have absolutely no symptoms people getting off the cruise ships who where we tested every single person a quarter of them were you know healthy they were doing one lady told me I was interviewing her she said she was doing Pilates when they studied her.
So she clearly wasn't symptomatic and yet she tested positive so uh in those populations we still think they have a lot of virus they have a similar course of viral extra x uh re excretion they just don't seem to have the symptoms to go along with it and by two weeks out we think you're done.
Part of the reason that we say that once you've had symptoms it's seven more days with is the belief that those first seven days of your 14 have already become you've already gone through them.
By the time you have symptoms you're about this you know about that many days in I was shocked when I look went back and looked at my old transcripts how fixated I was on asymptomatic you know carriers of this because that's what scared me.
You know what my problem is I have too many friends of mine that are doctors and I read Google too much.
My own doctor Dr. Roger love this you know I'll call them and I'll start telling them this, this, this, this, and this.
And he's like, Do you want to do you want Dr. Google or do you want me?
Which I think is a great line.
I'm sure you probably have thought that or said that to a patient occasionally.
Because we think we know everything.
We've I've researched it on Google.
Charlie, Texas, you're on with Dr. Oz.
Glad you called, sir.
Uh, yes.
Um pleasure to speak to both of you.
Uh, my question is about a compound called triethylene glycol that I know in the about the mid-80s and before, they were pumping through the air system in hospitals to keep one patient from contracting what another patient had.
And uh, I was just wondering if they still do that and if that's a viable option for many businesses uh to pump through their air systems to open things up again.
So it's interesting you know about that.
It's it's it is an air sanitizer, uh and there's the commercial products that use it.
Uh it's not something that uh I've thought about much for large-scale uh purification.
There was a a bit of an alarming article from China that I'll share with everybody because it plays to this question you're asking.
They look back at um at a restaurant that had about 80 people sitting in it.
And there was a a woman who went there who was just beginning to feel symptoms, and she sat you know, uh a table away from the air conditioner, and they mapped out what happened.
And the air conditioner is a closed environment, no ventilation.
The air conditioner blew the air across this woman around the room and infected nine people.
Now, a couple of things are interesting, right?
Seventy-one people roughly, if I get the math right, uh didn't have any symptoms afterwards, didn't get sick that we know of.
The nine people did get sick, and they weren't directly next to her.
So I obviously the air conditioning blew it around, and some people were more susceptible than others.
So when we open restaurants uh in this country, we're gonna want to do a couple of things.
First off, that's a cautionary note, right?
There's things we can do about that.
One is ventilate the room well.
So anything that comes out of that woman's nose could have been carried out so it doesn't keep bouncing around the walls to get everyone multiple doses.
Second is uh instead of running an air conditioner like that, you might want to look at air purification systems.
Yeah, I I don't know.
Look, that's not gonna uh that that's not the panacea, and I want people to hear Dr. Oz clearly.
He's not saying that.
He's he's saying something totally uh different about ventilation being looked at for other reasons and health reasons.
I you know, I don't know anything about it, but I want to be clear.
Quick break, right back.
All right, 25 till the top of the hour, 800 941.
Sean, you want to be a part of this extravaganza.
Uh Dr. Oz uh with us for the full hour, uh taking your calls.
Uh let us say hi to Elizabeth in Colorado.
Elizabeth, apparently a flight attendant.
Um well, first of all, I know it's probably tough on you right now.
Thanks for calling, and uh I hope we're protecting as airlines open up our flight attendants, our pilots, everybody in between.
They have these antivirals, as I understand it, Elizabeth, that they can spray in planes.
I don't know how effective they are.
I've just read about it.
Yeah, I don't know how effective they are.
I I do uh work.
I'm not afraid, I have my face.
If I die tomorrow, I'm okay with that.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
All right, no, no.
We don't we don't want you dying.
Just stick around a little longer.
We we all we all believe that there's a a heaven.
I believe in God with all my heart, Jesus, the whole thing.
I believe it all.
God's the creator of the heaven and heavens of the earth.
Not now.
And he's running he's running the throat.
Not now, but okay.
My question is here in Colorado, there are two labs right now that are offering the antibody tests.
Apparently they're not FDA approved, but I still believe I've continued to fly through this whole virus.
I'm pretty sure I already had it.
Could I so my question for Dr. Oz is do I go take the antibody test?
Or do I wait another three weeks or however long it's gonna take for the FDA to approve specific tests?
Well, the FDA has gotten overwhelmed.
And so, in order to allow access to testing, they've uh done something called an emergency use authorization.
Doesn't mean the tests aren't good.
It means that the companies are responsible for telling the the government how good they're performing, and so that way Americans can get tested.
I don't think it's any urgency to your getting tested.
It's not gonna change your day-to-day life, other than you'll feel more comfortable that you got through it already.
And as a flight attendant, that that might make your your you know, you feel a little more comfortable as you get on the plane.
So it personally, I think I'd wait.
I personally haven't gotten the antibody test yet.
I may have been exposed.
I didn't I didn't have any symptoms, but uh there are many of us who probably didn't have many symptoms.
So I if I were you, I'd wait.
Let the people who need the test urgently, especially first responders, emergency rooms, hospitals.
I let them get the test.
They're doing that at my hospital now, so that folks who are on the front line have a little more comfort, but we're not even a hundred percent sure that you're not gonna be able to get an infection again, even if you have antibodies.
That's still being worked out.
Uh good call, Elizabeth.
Um thank you so much for being with us.
One thing I'll say to Elizabeth too is I think testing is with lab core and quest.
I think w uh uh and I'm uh Linda might be able to clarify this for me that we think as early as next week with a doctor's prescription, maybe or approval or letter or ask.
Um you can go and you can I think beginning next week, you might be able to get your doctor to give you that.
Yeah, supposedly by next week, some of the sources that I've been talking to at HHS and and other doctors in the field on the front lines with COVID have been saying that as of next week there will be an antibody test that you can buy for between eighty to a hundred bucks, and then you can take it to your local lab core and have them draw blood and test it.
Um and we don't want to rush on it.
Maybe for people um that that need it.
By the way, I did not mean to i in interrupt you by the way at the end of the last hour.
I just didn't want I had cut you short because we had a hard break as you were talking about ventilation systems.
And I just wanted to be clear that you were you know, you were speaking more in the abstract in terms of air ventilation systems being generally good, and I didn't not want because in this environment everyone's taking everything anybody says out of context, anybody to interpret it other than how you are expressing it, but I'm the one that cut you short, and that's why I I wanted to clarify that, Dr. Oz.
I I appreciate it very much.
And I I and I also suspect that there must be a a hard out, which means I was going to commercial.
At least you know what a hard out is.
Oh, some of you have no idea.
It's funny, Tucker throws to me at night, and uh some nights it's fifteen seconds early, some nights it's fifteen seconds seconds late.
I'm like, Tucker, I work in radio.
You gotta hit the post and he's like, what does that mean?
And uh it's actually a joke between us.
Uh all right, back to our phones.
Uh let's say hi to Paul in New Hampshire.
Paul, you're on with Dr. Oz, we're glad you called, sir.
Hello, gentlemen, uh honor to speak to you.
Dr. Oz question, uh I go into the grocery store, it's the only time besides work, uh I'm a trucker for um for mail, so I have to wear it in every post office I go into.
Um and uh when I go into the the supermarkets, I also wear goggles.
So I don't see anyone else wearing them, so I look stupid and I feel stupid, but I'm wearing them because I don't want to infect my family.
They've been home for three weeks or actually two and a half months now, so they're safe.
I don't want to be the one to give it to 'em.
Is wearing goggles a necessity, a good idea, or is it overkill?
I think it's a good idea.
Uh but I gotta say something uh because you bring it up.
You know, we were we were laughing at people wearing masks in this country six weeks ago, right?
So we thought, you know, come on, that's what are you doing.
I mean, you're a little paranoid.
In fact, we were telling people not to bother.
The the world changes because we change our appreciation of exactly w what what the virus does, how it's transmitted.
It's clearly from our belief, usually, not always, usually transmitted in a virus particle from person to person, which means anything you can do to slow that process down works.
Doctors wear eye protection in the emergency room taking care of patients.
Why are we doing that?
Because it might help.
Is that the most important thing we do?
The mask is more important, but the goggles are in our best interest.
We had face shields, there's all kinds of technologies that we use in the operating room.
We'd likewise always wear eye protection.
So you're s wise to do that.
I think a lot of Americans would be well served if they're high risk to do it.
Uh even though it's not the most important thing that you'll be wearing.
What you know, it's a belt and suspender solution.
Go do it.
Thanks for the call.
We appreciate it.
Dan in Kentucky, you're next on the Sean Hannity show with Dr. Oz.
Glad you called, sir.
Happy Friday.
Uh, happy to you both of you too.
Thank you so much for taking the call.
Thank you.
Uh is there any data being collected for those who get the flu vaccine every year, where they are more or less likely to get the COVID nineteen, and or those who get the COVID nineteen, if they got the flu shot, are their symptoms or illness any less aggravated, that makes word or less uh not as serious as those who did not get the vaccine.
Yeah, it's a question that will get asked many, many times.
You're the first who have asked it directly that I'm aware of it on the show.
And I gotta say that they they are they should be completely separate issues.
Uh that well it may ch the data may change, but for right now there's such separate viruses that for sure the immunization that's aimed at the at the flu should not protect you against COVID 19.
Now there may be other things that happen independent of that that may help you, but the single biggest benefit is if you get sick next December, you're not gonna know why.
And it'd be sort of nice to know that you at least got the flu shot, so there's less of a chance that you have the flu, even though it's still possible, uh since we won't have a COVID vaccination.
And I gotta say, this if you haven't gotten a flu shot before, I get it every year.
As a physician, we're obliged to, because we don't want to spread viruses to our patients who are who are many of them critically ill.
So uh it's it isn't it about forty percent effective uh annually.
I get it every year as well.
But but that's my some people are so anti-vaccine, and I don't criticize them.
I I you know, I look I believe in people having their own thoughts on things, but I get it.
How effective is it usually, like 30, 40 percent I usually read.
Yeah, I think forty percent's about the right number.
It's uh you're roughly half as likely to have a problem and half as likely to lie on your back for a week or have some more serious complications.
And I just especially next year when we're just not gonna be able to tell people apart that often, just get the vaccine guys.
It's if you haven't done it before, I I don't think that there's significant risks associated with it.
I know there's always a complication.
If you give a hundred million people anything, you'll have issues.
But you know what I like about it though, it's worth it.
Yeah, I just go to my local Right.
And the same person, the wonderful w a woman uh right where I live.
I mean, she gives it to me every year and we catch up.
How are your kids?
How's this?
I mean, and it's it's literally in and out.
One, two, three.
Um anyway, good call.
That was a good question, Dan.
Thank you.
Uh uh Tony, well, let's go to Maria first in Jacksonville, uh W O K V. Uh Maria, you're on with Dr. Oz.
Uh glad you called.
Hi.
Um my question is, are we going to compromise or weaken our children's um immune systems by creating a society of germophobes.
Well, I you know, kids benefit from being exposed to germans, which I know is the intent of your question and to g kids around pets, for example, seem to help, and we've always allowed our kids to to rumble around.
But you know, I don't want them exposed to a virus that the species hasn't seen before.
And potentially because of that hurt people who are very dear to them, like my in-laws.
So I think this is a little bit of an exception.
I'm I'm not doing things with our kids at home that are out of the ordinary.
You know, I mean, I've got the grandkids here with us as well.
They go out and play in the dirt and my grandson makes a mess of everything like he's supposed to.
Uh so I but I just it's a little different, however, taking him to the store and exposing him because he probably wouldn't have symptoms, but makes it that much more concerning because I won't know if he's about to pass it to somebody else.
I hope that answers your question, Marie.
Uh thank you.
Tony, Iowa next on with Dr. Oz.
Glad you called.
Hi.
Thanks for taking my call.
Um, my question is I'm wondering if uh valid antibodies, you know, specific to COVID nineteen, if they could be harvested and maybe aerosoled.
A lot of people vape, if it could be put into some kind of product like that to where people could breed them in.
Is that even possible?
Well, the antibodies that we're harvesting now, we you so you just set someone in the chair, you pull their blood out, you take out the yellow stuff, which is the serum, and then you purify the antibodies.
It's best if you put that back into someone's blood.
That way we know exactly what the immune response is gonna do.
Uh I we haven't I have not not thought of putting it in the lungs.
There are many medications that once they work in the blood, we've proven everything.
You can then begin to think about them in in other parts of the body.
But I think for right now, we still have to prove that it works.
I I just interviewed Ian Lipkin today on my show, who's the famous virus hunter, and uh he's one of the big leaders in this movement.
But you know, this this technique of taking plasmas, you know, it's a hundred and plus years old.
So I'm opt he's optimistic, but let's prove that first in clinical trials that are going, and then we'll take it to the next level, which is looking at easier ways of putting it into people.
All right, good call, Tony.
We appreciate it.
Uh let's go to North Carolina.
Jonathan's next.
Uh Jonathan, happy Friday to you.
Glad you called, you're on with Dr. Oz.
Happy Friday to you too.
Thanks for having me on.
Hey, uh, Dr. Oz, um, I have kind of an observation and I was wondering if you think that this is going to apply to the the COVID case also.
Um historically speaking, any time you introduce a new virus or anything along those lines to a population, it tends to have um a massive effect initially, like the first time it goes around.
But then once the general population has the people that ha are going to die off have died off, the people that have survived have survived and they've built up the antibodies.
It tends to not be as b Even if even if it's something like the flu where you can get it, you know, every year or so on so forth, it never seems to be as bad as it goes on over time because people are building up an immune system to it.
My point with this is everybody keeps talking about, well, what if this comes back?
What if this comes back and getting worried about it?
Even if this does come back, do you think it's going to I I I'm feeling like this first round of it is the worst that we're gonna see, and it should actually, in fact, not be as bad even if it comes back.
Do you think that's correct?
Well, unfortunately, you pay a big price to figure that out.
And our country has decided, I think appropriately not to pay that price.
There are other countries, as uh Scandinavia, Sweden in particular, uh, who are taking that approach.
I I I think the loss of life is so great with a virus of this nature, as contagious as it is, as devastating it is to the lungs of people, especially if they have comorbid issues, uh, that it's it's not an experiment we can do.
Herd immunity, which is what you're describing so eloquently, Jonathan, is only going to be seen at 65, 70 percent of the population being infected.
And we're talking right now about low single digits in most of America that's already been hit hard.
Even in New York City, where or New York State rather, where you know, many parts of the uh county aren't gonna have high numbers, even though the city itself is at 20 percent.
So we're still quite a bit away from the numbers that we require.
The easiest way to get herd immunity is to get an a vaccine because then you can get up to 95, 97 percent where you truly can suffocate the virus, and that's what we're gonna do eventually.
But in the meantime, I think the smarter tactic for us is to reduce the number of people are infected and waited out.
We're gonna recreate what you're describing in a safe way with a vaccine that that gets our immune system to wake up but doesn't cause pathology while doing that.
Thanks for the call, Jonathan.
Judy Nevada, next with Dr. Oz.
Uh glad you called.
Hi.
Um I'm wondering if you get your pneumonia shots on a regular basis.
I'm 75 and I've been getting them for quite some time.
Will that help you if you come down with this virus and get pneumonia?
Uh well, it I don't what it what would help is preventing you from having both.
Having both a b a very bad bacterial infection of your lung and at the same time having COVID-19, which would do other things that are bad for your lung.
So this is a good year to make sure you're up to date your vaccination so you can at least what you remove the pathology, the the damaging uh uh infections that could hurt your body, particularly your lungs.
So if you were to get COVID 19, you could weather the storm.
I I'd never even heard of a pneumonia shot or barely heard of it.
Um is that something that has a uh uh is that something that you find effective?
Oh, yeah, that's very effective.
It's it's a it's a vaccine against the bacteria that causes pneumonia.
Is it annual or uh well you but it it it uh you don't usually need it annually, but it's uh it's a it's a protection against uh a bacteria that's different from influenza.
And it's it's given most people are offered it as you get as they get older.
It doesn't that that bacteria doesn't tend to cause problems in younger people as much, but in some parts of the population we offer it.
But this is not just that.
I mean, frankly, I'd get a shingles vaccine right now.
I'd get every vaccine I could just to remove those things because if you get sp splotches on your skin and aches and pains, people are gonna start thinking they've got COVID-19, even though they're just the beginning of herpes ostra, you know, let me let me ask you this question, and I only have thirty seconds and you've been so generous with your time, Dr. Oz.
I look I don't want to open up a Pandora's box here.
I have friends that are very anti-vaccine.
And I I don't I I'm not anti-vaccine.
And I but I want to respect their points of view.
Uh and and I do.
You get into some very, you know, now we hit some ethical t territories here, you know.
Well, uh for example, a polio vaccine or mumps or whatever we're talking about.
Um it gets complicated.
If you believe personal freedom, etc.
And and the rights to protect others from outbreaks of things, uh, you probably don't even want to walk into that fire, right?
I don't blame you if you d if you do don't.
Well, no, I do I'll walk into it.
I've been walking into it many times.
I mean I I I have this conflict, you know, with members of my family who you know, people uh here's what I found effective.
I don't want to treat people like chattel.
What really bothers people is when you tell them they're fools for not getting vaccines.
That is not the right way to go, and I don't think it's an honorable way of dealing with it.
Since the first time vaccines have ever been offered, humans had felt that it wasn't in their best interest.
They didn't want to take the risk, it wasn't worth it.
I respect that.
Personally, in my family, I want people vaccinated.
I think it's best for them.
That's how strongly I feel about it.
But it's your choice.
If you thought about it, you'll do the research.
Dr. Oz, as always, we really appreciate uh you being with us.
You know, so many good questions today.
Really good, amazing.
All right, 800, thank you, sir.
Uh 800-941 Sean, you want to be a part of the program.
The latest on the media mob, Joel Pollock is the Breitbart senior editor at large.
And uh, well, he's gonna talk about the mob in the media when we come back.
Often try and sort of stay away from our colleagues in the business, but Fox News has several puppets for this president, constantly going on the air, constantly repeat repeating what he says verbatim.
These people are working for Trump behind the scenes.
We try and stay away from it.
We try and hope that Fox News will do their best, that there are other hosts on the network that really step up and do the right thing, and and we hope that prevails.
We hope that goodness prevails, and we hope that uh ability to be objective prevails and try and put the facts first, but we repeatedly see it not happen on certain shows.
And last night, Sean Hannity went after Joe at the top of his show for quite a long time.
Perhaps it was too tough to take the president's ridiculous ideas and make them into a reality for his viewers and put viewers at risk.
Perhaps it was even too much for Sean Hannity.
So he had to find some sort of foil to go after.
It's just it's got to stop at some point.
Something uh both tragic and pathetic um and ironic about the fact that it took a um, you know, colorblind, gender blind, um, state, you know, state line blind virus to sort of have all of the president's sins from his first three years catch up with him.
You can't stand there and lie.
You can't contradict your scientists because they're the ones that stand at 66 and 68 percent public trust, not you.
He's down at 38 percent, pence is lower than him.
I mean, he needs those people, whether he likes what they say or not.
And I I wonder what you think about whether or not there's some silver lining there that some of the things that that that we've been talking about for three years maybe finally catching up with him.
You mean the lies for three years?
You mean the conspiracy theories?
You mean the hoaxes, the let's see, the character assassination, the libel, slander.
Uh I I don't even know what to say anymore.
Uh the mob in the media is nuts.
What Mika was talking about, and I still I don't even hate Joe, but Joe lost his mind and accused the president pretty much of murder.
Um He killed 50,000 people.
Remember, we're gonna lose 2.2 million people.
And what's so unbelievable here, and uh something that I've said now for a long time.
If Donald Trump cured cancer, they'd impeach him for curing cancer.
They can't even acknowledge the travel ban.
Wow.
Was ten days after the the first identified case of coronavirus.
You know what?
That prevented untold tens of thousands of Americans likely from contracting the disease, untold numbers of Americans from exponentially mathematically then dying.
And this being, you know, uh exponentially worse on a level I don't even think we can imagine.
And it not a word.
You know, I I go back and I go through the timelines and you know, fake news CNN, uh you know, Anderson Cooper, well, uh the the virus is worry more about the flu.
He said that on March 4th.
I went over the statements in great detail in the last hour about the things Dr. Fauci was telling, well, if you're generally healthy and young, sure go on a cruise March 9th.
That's late.
If you go to him, um, and we interviewed him a lot throughout this, going back to January 27th, February 10th, um, etc.
You know, February 29th, you know, you know, it's we still remain the risk is is as a whole, the country as a whole still remains a low risk.
February 29th.
If you want to look at the politicians and the things that that they were saying, they were wrong on a level that is it was an epic spec spectacular fail on so many different levels.
The politicizing of this of the New York Times calling it the you know it's hypocrisy, calling it the Chinese virus, okay, but they themselves did.
Uh well, at least fake news acosta did over at CNN or January I'm sorry, February 5th.
Who says it's not safe to travel to China?
Oh, there's some genius advice.
Maybe we'll follow that advice.
And what would the ramifications of that be?
Then you have your your incredibly genius politicians uh that couldn't have been more wrong on so many different levels that it is it is so scary from having what's her uh Nancy Pelosi, February 24, come to Chinatown.
Really?
Come to Chinatown?
What was she doing when the president was implementing the travel ban?
She was impeaching the president.
What was she doing when he was talking about it at the State of the Union?
She was pre-ripping the papers for her made-for-television, pre-planned uh well-orchestrated temper tantrum.
That's what she was doing.
Um, you know, I I've for the governor of New York, March 2nd, to be saying the things that he was saying, oh, we're New Yorkers.
You know, you know, we're New Yorkers.
We're we're ready for this sort of thing.
Uh we're not like these other countries.
If you don't mind me, I know I speak for the mayor on this.
That's what he was saying.
And then the idiotic, you know, tweets going out to March 10th by Comrade de Blasio.
They were prepared for nothing in New York.
You know, it was the biggest medical mobilization in history.
Nearly 30,000 hospital beds, you know, the Javit Center staffed, built, staffed by Trump.
Every ventilator New York had came from Trump.
The comfort staffed by Trump, converted COVID-19, not the original plan by the president.
Uh the masks, the shields, the respirators, the ventilators, the gowns, the gloves, the medicines, Trump.
Doesn't matter.
You get the foremost expert on the issue of hydroxychloroquine.
Um they don't even want for Daniel Wallace, 42 years, 400 peer review studies.
You know, it doesn't, then none of that seems to matter.
And the I and him saying that the risk is nil for 30 to 60 days at the at the at the dosage level, people were talking about what's the first roll of medicine?
Do no harm.
You know, hydroxychloroquine is a very safe drug.
His words, it's been in use since 1955, 65 years.
And in 42 years of practice, no patient of mine has ever been hospitalized for HCQ complication.
This guy wrote the book on lupus.
400 peer-reviewed, you know, uh papers this guy's written, including anti-malarials, too.
This is the drug he uses for rheumatoid arthritis and for lupus.
Anyway, uh Joel Pollock is with us, editor, senior editor at large, Breitbart, author of How Trump Won the Inside Story of a Revolution.
And, you know, he's been reporting this disgusting news.
You know, I would look at the greatness of the American people, then I see the same people that lied for three years and hated Trump for three years, the Democrats and the mob, and it's the same thing, even during a national emergency.
It's absolutely right.
And in fact, the media sure is emergency as the opportunity to take Trump out rather than unifying the country behind the war against the invisible enemy.
The mainstream media and the White House press corps viewed this as their opportunity.
Finally, impeachment didn't work, Russia collusion didn't work, 25th Amendment didn't work, Michael Cohen didn't work.
None of their schemes worked.
Stormy Daniels, Michael Avenati, but this was going to be it.
And they put the interests of the country behind getting rid of Donald Trump because in their minds, it's in the best interest of the country to get rid of Donald Trump.
So they think they're doing the right thing and they put all their energy into attacking him rather than unifying the country.
Um is it the ends justify the means.
Do they know they're lying in your view?
Because I can't tell.
I think there are true believers.
I think there are people that, you know, they they they're in a state of psychosis.
They wake up in the morning, how can I hate Trump today?
And they don't even know what they're doing.
Then you got other people that know damn well what they're doing, but they they want the power back and then there's a combination somewhere in the middle.
Uh where are your thoughts on it?
I agree with you.
There are different people.
So there are some people who are just determined to get rid of him regardless.
It doesn't matter whether it's right or wrong.
They just want him out.
They want their power back.
You see, because he hasn't just undermined the Democrats.
What he really did was undermine the power of the media to choose our leaders for us.
By defeating Hillary Clinton and doing it without the support of the media, without paying for all the advertisements on CNN and so forth.
He got them to cover him without paying for the airtime and that really frustrates them.
So some of them just want him out.
But then there are those who think they're doing their civic duty.
They're so brainwashed by their peers and by the constant drum of fake news that they think it's in the national national interest to get rid of him.
That's why they pounce on every little mistake.
They use every gaff, every error.
The guy's been up you know, he and Pence twenty four hours a day for the last six weeks working on this problem.
And they've done a stellar job of delivering.
There's no response in American history like this one.
And they did it in a conservative way that was more effective.
They didn't centralize government they didn't build new government agencies.
They deregulated they decentralized they let the private sector and the states take the initiative it's an amazing achievement and the media is so frustrated by that that they simply will pounce on anything any small minor ridiculous nonsense to try to oust the president.
They're talking about the twenty fifth amendment today because of some comments he made at a press conference and they've been talking about the twenty fifth amendment since before he took office.
It's just the same thing over and over again and the American people are tired of it.
I think they're tired of it but I I it's never going to end uh you know I was saying for a while that if he cured cancer they'd impeach him for for curing cancer.
If he gave every American five million it would be why didn't you give them six um and so how does this all play out because we're a hundred and ninety three days away from election day.
As you examine the landscape it's obviously very different than what we thought it would be this this is a whole new equation then we're seeing you know the ever so forgetful Joe would by basically useless probably the best thing that can happen is hiding him for now.
Um do you see any way they try to wrestle this nomination away from him yeah they may try because he's really been stuck in his bunker in Wilmington Delaware not able to do anything he's a very handsy guy as we know for better or worse.
Can't shake hands, can't kiss the babies, can't hug people he's just stuck in a basement trying to learn how to live stream and he's not very good at it.
So they may try to find someone else.
On the other hand, all of these endorsements coming in and this effect of rallying everybody in the Democratic party against Trump is helping Biden hang in there.
So it may get hard for them to replace him as to what the race looks like you know if this crisis had happened in September and October instead of February and March and April things might look very different.
But we've got a long way to go still before the fall we've got to have the economy reopen.
We've got to see where it's moving if it's headed in the right direction we've also got to think about whether this thing's going to start to come back in the fall, whether you're going to see a resurgence of coronavirus infections.
If the Trump administration can handle the virus and the economy which is a tall order but Trump's done it pretty well so far if he can do that then I think he's in pretty good shape.
People will judge him on his performance over the next six months.
The media will get more hysterical than ever as you said Sean it never stops but it is going to get worse.
You're going to see craziness increase rather than decrease and even if he gets reelected it's not going away but this has always been about results with Trump.
It's always about what he does over and above what he says and I think if people are impressed by the results he'll be re elected.
If not well we'll talk about it then but there's going to be a resistance a real resistance from the conservative side and From the American people, frankly, because they know what the media and the Democratic Party have tried to do to them.
They've been behind what amounts to a coup since before you took office, and we're finding more out about that every day.
Stay tuned on all of that.
Um anyway, and you guys get your share of uh hits as well as us.
I mean, it's unbelievable the environment out here.
I've never seen it that this bad, and I've been at this, I'm an old person.
Thirty-one years since I started my radio journey, twenty-four years at Fox, and it's never been this bad.
And it's none of it, as I said, even before this whole mess, you know, what they're doing is destroy is destructive to the country, Joel.
It's sad to watch, and and it's an all hands on deck to save the republic moment, in the sense that uh their plans to restructure the country are so dangerous uh for everybody.
But anyway, great to talk to you, great to catch up, Joel Pollock.
Uh Bright Bart, senior editor at large, author of the book, How Trump Won the Inside Story of a Revolution up on we'll put it up on Hannity.com, Amazon.com, hopefully soon bookstores near you.
All right, 25 now until the top of the hour, 800 nine-four-one.
Sean, you want to be a part of this extravaganza.
Um, we're just gonna take calls at some point.
I think they'll have the coronavirus task force.
If it happens, we'll let you know.
Um, as we've been doing, um, want to remind you if you want to sleep better, our friends at My Pillow.
There's no better products.
And Mike Lindell and all the workers at MyPillow, and by the way, they're all in Minnesota.
These are jobs in the United States.
They make the best pillows, the best pillow products, the best sheets, Giza Dream Sheets, the world's best cotton.
They have the best deals when you go to MyPillow.com and the Sean Hannity Square, you get deep discounts.
Buy one, get one free.
Buy one set of geezer dream sheets, get another free.
Every day, great, great discounts, but they're also building those N ninety five masks.
They've they've reconfigured it to help the country out in a time of need.
Uh, how to get workers to transition to do that in the right way.
All these people, everyone thinks you can snap your fingers.
Oh, well, just gonna make N95 vet masks.
GM will make ventilators.
We'll have hundreds of thousands of them in seconds.
No.
You know, it was that's what makes this so amazing what people have done and how they pulled it off.
And my pillow is a big part of it.
And I want to congratulate Mike Lindell and his team over there for everything.
More great partners of ours, my pillow.com, Sean Hannity Square.
Uh, you're gonna fall asleep faster, stay asleep longer.
And by the way, we all need a little extra sleep, right?
All right, let's get to our phones here.
Um, for stations along the Sean Hannity Show Network, we're gonna continue our format that we have had now for the last number of weeks.
If the coronavirus task force uh starts during this half hour, we'll go to it.
We'll take it right straight to the end.
Um let's say hi to let's see, Ben in Delaware.
What's up, Ben?
How are you, sir?
Glad you called.
Happy Friday.
Crazy times, rough times, but we see great things in the American people, don't we?
Yes, we do, Sean.
I see it every day.
I'm blessed.
My family company.
We have a construction company, Greg O'Marrera.
We're still in business 70 years in Delaware, and we're open right now, fortunately.
But I got a real heart for the people that are out of work right now.
And you know, I I've got five simple facts out of Delaware that would blow your mind.
You know, here in Delaware, we have 3300 coronavirus cases.
That's 0.3% of our one million population.
We have 290 hospitalizations, and I take every life seriously, okay.
But this is point zero to nine percent of our population.
We had ninety-two tragic sad deaths.
Most of those, unfortunately, were elderly with existing complications, but just a fact here.
This is.009% of our population.
Okay, if you look at that and overlay that against the very real economic crisis that we have, we have $30 million right now.
This is today's numbers.
$30 million a week being spent on unemployment numbers.
And every month we have another 70,000 new claims of unemployment.
We have an economic crisis, not a medical one.
Our medical infrastructure, we have over 2,200 hospital beds in Delaware.
And I talk to many people in our medical profession, and there simply is not any overwhelming work crisis.
Well, look, let me say it a little differently than you, and I'm listening very closely to everything you're saying, and you're thinking along the lines that most Americans are, and that is, all right, how do we get back to work?
It's amazing because everywhere across the country you see people protesting.
Why?
Because they want to get back to work.
I go back to the same example I've been using, and I'm not trying to repeat myself, but I'll go New York grocery stores.
I've been in New York City.
I have been out in Long Island, right in the epicenter of the, of this.
And the store shelves are full.
There's not been a time in the last number of weeks that I have gone to my local grocery store, and I go, you know, people always say, I don't know why people say this to me.
I say, what are you doing here?
I'm like, shopping.
What are you doing here?
Yeah.
And people must think that I guess you're a talk show host.
You have people's that does shopping.
No, I like to do my own shopping, my own cooking.
Jeez.
Cracks me up.
And but I but I see every single time, Ben, I see this the guy stocking the shelves.
And they're, and I'm telling you, they're they're in their mask, they're in their gloves.
And the one time I saw a guy with his mask on, please put it on, please.
So if we care about you.
And most people now are wearing their masks.
And a few weeks back they weren't, but now they are.
Absolutely.
I'm I'm building a $12 million roadway project right now, and we've adapted improvise and overcome by supporting each other.
We we social distance, we wear masks.
The American people are resilient.
I swore note to this country as a special operations veteran, and I'll never let it go.
We the people are capable of making choice, living out our freedoms and protecting each other.
The American people have proven that.
The president just stood up to the microphone.
Let me just say this, and we'll start it at the beginning here in a second.
I hear everything you're saying.
But if those guys can stock the shelves or else we starve and they can do it safely, the key is safely.
Social distancing, if half the New York City buildings stay working from home, wear masks and gloves, you have temperature checks.
When you get more tests, you have more testing.
Gotta do it safely.
I understand people's fears, but it can be done.
Um anyway, listen.
Uh stay well, stay healthy, cling to your families, your God and your Bibles.
Oh, yeah, we're one of those bitter Walmart choppers.
Um, but uh, those are the things that matter.
Uh and we'll see you on Monday.
This is now the president taken to the podium.
Thank you very much, everyone.
Thank you.
We continue to see evidence that our aggressive strategy is working and working at a very high level.
Nationwide, the percent of tests that come back positive has declined very significantly.
Last week, roughly 38% of the tests in New York were positive.
This week, that number is down to 28%.
New cases in New York are down 50% compared to a week ago, and fatalities are down 40% over the same period.
In Louisiana, the rate of positive test resulted decline from 25% down to 15% in the last seven days alone.
18 states now show a decline in a number of positive tests in the last seven days.
So over the last seven days been very, very significant progress.
Half of all Americans live in states that have now taken steps to open their economies.
Just yesterday, Governors Gavin Newsom, California, Tim Waltz of Minnesota, and Bill Lee of Tennessee announced additional plans to restart certain sectors.
We ask every American to maintain vigilance and hygiene, social distancing, and voluntary use of face coverings.
We're opening our country.
It's very exciting to see.
We have a lot of talent involved from governors down to people that just uh stand there and help you with the doors.
Uh there's been tremendous talent involved and tremendous spirit from our country.
Country is a great place, and it's going to be greater than ever before.
I really believe that.
I think there's going to be a tremendous upward shift.
I spoke with Tim Cook today of Apple, and they have a good sense of the market, and he feels it's going to be a V. The V is sharply upward later on as we actually get it fully open.
Today I signed the paycheck protection program and healthcare Enhancement Act providing $320 billion to keep American workers on the payroll.
$30 billion of the paycheck protection funds will be reserved for small financial institutions, including those that serve minority and distressed communities, extending vital relief to thousands of African American and Hispanic American small business owners and their employees.
The bill also delivers 75 billion dollars for hospitals so badly needed for hospitals.
They've taken a very big hit and medical providers in areas less affected by the virus.
Hospitals and doctors should work with their state and local health officials on ways to safely resume elective medical treatments and care.
Under the CARES Act, we're sending direct payments to millions of American workers.
More than 80 million Americans have already received their payment.
$3,400.
That's great.
And you deserve it.
The CARES Act requires that the Federal Government send out a notice of what benefits Americans are receiving to fulfill the requirement.
The Treasury Department is mailing a letter to me.
It will include the amount, their economic impact payment, how it will arrive, direct deposit check, or prepaid debit card, as well as a message to the nation letting each American know that we are getting through this challenge together as one American family.
And that's what's been happening.
The whole world is watching us.
You have 184 countries out there that have been hit, and now it's probably higher than that.
But uh they're all watching us.
They're all watching and they're calling and they respect what we're doing so much.
I spoke with the leaders of numerous countries today.
They're asking if we can send them ventilators, and I'm agreeing to do it.
We have tremendous capacity, uh now overcapacity of ventilators.
We're filling up stockpiles for our states and for ourselves.
Uh, federal government has over 10,000 ventilators, and we could have a lot more if we wanted to do that, but we're helping Mexico, Honduras, uh, Indonesia, uh, France, we're sending to France, we're sending to Spain, we're sending to Italy, and we'll probably be sending to Germany should they need them.
Over the last three years, we built the strongest economy and the most successful country the world has ever seen.
Greatest economy the world has ever seen.
Nobody's ever done anything like what we were able to do.
And we will rebuild that economy.
Our economy in the not too distant future, I really believe with all that we've learned and all that we've done, we'll be just as strong and maybe stronger than ever before, even stronger than it was just two months ago.
Uh some interesting note is that the FDA approved the first at-home COVID-19 test kit.
Just got approved, and uh Dr. Stephen, where is Stephen?
Stephen Hahn.
Stephen uh is going to say a couple of words about that and some other things.
I want to thank Stephen.
The FDA has been incredible.
They've been approving not only this, but they've been approving many things at a pace that's never happened before.
And uh they're being very safe about it, as Stephen told me.
He's told me, told me very strongly, but at the same time, they're approving things at record numbers in a record at a record rate, and it's really been helpful.
Uh many tests are going on, many vaccine tests and uh tests of every different kind, and things are happening just like this event.
Things are happening very rapidly, and I'd like to have Stephen tell you a little bit about it.
Thank you very much, Steve.
Thank you, Mr. President.
Um appreciate the opportunity to tell you about what's happening at the FDA.
We have a team of more than 18,000 employees, including 10,000 scientists, doctors, pharmacists, and nurses, and they've been working around the clock because as you probably know, many of the medical products that are being used for the COVID-19 outbreak are in fact regulated by FDA.
The staff have been hard at work authorizing tests and other medical products.
Um, as part of these efforts to support diagnostic test development during this global pandemic, the president has asked us and under its leadership to actually cut down as many barriers as we possibly could to get medical products uh into the medical community, and we have done that with course recognizing the urgency of the situation.
I do want to emphasize what the president said that is that we are very much paying attention to safety and with respect to tests, validity and reliability of those tests.
And I think it's really important to understand how far we've come in just a few short months.
The academic community, which I come from, the private sector, the government, we've come together to develop diagnostics for a completely new infectious disease.
And it's really important.
We've heard from many test developers, both in academia and in in the manufacturing world.
This normally takes years to develop.
You've heard Dr. Burks talk about the fact that HIV tests have taken many, many years to develop.
This has happened in weeks and months.
We've been laser-focused on working with both industry and academia to actually make this happen.
To date, under our emergency use authorization approach, we've quickly reviewed and authorized 63 tests, both diagnostic as well as serologic, that is the antibody test.
We've had several point-of-care tests, and that's important because those can be done in the emergency room or in a doctor's office, et cetera, and much more convenient for the patient.
And this week, as uh the president said, we authorized the first at-home test by a company called LabCorps.
This is a test where, under certain circumstances, with a doctor's supervision, a test can be mailed to a patient, and the patient can perform the self-swab and then mail it back and get the results after that time, all under the guidance of a licensed physician.
And we're not just letting up with these 63 tests we've approved.
We are uh working with more than 400 test developers who are pursuing authorization for their diagnostics under our current policies.
And under our regulatory approach, which is quite flexible, many other tests are becoming available.
We are we have heard and have reported to us 220 labs around the country have begun patient testing using their own validated tests.
This has allowed us to increase significantly tests around the country.
I updated you earlier this week on serologic tests, these antibody tests that are used to detect natural immunity and the FDA's approach to help make these tests available.
While these are just one part of our larger response effort, they can play a role in helping move our economy forward by helping healthcare professionals identify those who have it uh uh immunity to the COVID-19.
And just finally, when it comes to therapeutics, we are leaving no stone unturned in finding treatments for COVID-19.
You do know that we don't have any approved currently therapeutics for COVID-19, but we are actively involved with both the academic and the uh commercial and private sector to find those.
72 trials of therapeutics are underway in the United States under FDAA oversight, and 211 are in the planning stages.
So we expect to see more.
This includes convalescent plasma as well as antiviral therapies.
Work continues on vaccines, and two firms have announced that the FDA has authorized their trials to go forward, one of which we've mentioned here before.
And finally, in response to the presidents and task force requests, we've stood up the coronavirus treatment acceleration program.
We are leaving no stone unturned, as I said, and we're working around the clock to develop these therapeutics for the American people.
Thank you very much.
Dr. Hana about antibody tests, please.
It's a quick question.
And it's timely because just about an hour ago, as subcommittee with oversight released some findings that the FDA doesn't have any review of the antibody tests that are on the market.
There are no guidelines to tell which ones should be out there, and there's no way to test their accuracy.
They're quite worried that these are junk tests on the market because uh they weren't uh reviewed before they were approved.
Is that true?
So under our policy, uh we provide a flexibility.
What we've told manufacturers is that in order to market in the U.S., they have to validate their tests.
They have to tell us that they validated their tests, and then in the package insert, they have to let people know, and users, labs, et cetera, that those tests were not authorized by FDA.
We've authorized four, as I mentioned, more in the pipeline.
Um, and these tests that have come in without uh any information to us, but have been self-validated, as I mentioned at the podium a couple days ago, we are working with the National Cancer Institute as well as CDC to perform our own validation of the tests that that have been sent to us.
So we'll provide as much information as we possibly can.
And there is transparency on our website about those tests and also the tests that we have authorized.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. President.
From early in this effort, President Trump has called forth a whole of government response to the coronavirus epidemic in America.
And by that, the President made clear when he asked me to lead the White House Coronavirus Task Force, not merely a whole of the federal government, but a full partnership with state and local governments across the country.
And today we renewed that with our latest conference call with governors all across America.
We've met with them today specifically to speak about the progress that our governors are making, expanding testing across the country.
And we were pleased to hear about the extraordinary and rapid uh progress that governors are making.
At the uh at the outset of the call, where we had more than 50 of our nation's governors, we of course uh had Pete Gaynor of FEMA report on progress.
More than 35,000 National Guards stood up, 5,000 active duty military deployed in 10 states.
And uh we were also uh pleased to report that FEMA, HHS, and the private sector have coordinated the delivery of shipments uh to states around the country, including nearly 67 million N95 masks, 105 million surgical masks, uh, surgical gowns, shields, gloves, more than 10,000 uh ventilators, and more than 8,000 uh federal field medical station beds.
Beyond the report that we provided to the governors, we assured them that at the president's direction, this is uh one team, one mission.
Uh, and uh we've made it clear to the governors that that we know we're all in this together, and the partnership that we have forged together really begins with mitigation efforts.
It moves to making sure our health care workers have the support they need, but also testing is in the forefront of all of our minds.
We're working working to make it possible for every governor to access the existing capacity to enable our states to be able to reopen responsibly under the phased approach that the president unveiled one week ago.
A little bit of context, you may recall that uh uh one month ago, all of the testing that had been done in America, 80,000 Americans had been tested.
But as of this morning, 5.1 million Americans have been tested for the coronavirus.
A quick reminder to our fellow Americans, uh, and this was something from our scientists today at the task force.
We reminded governors of this as well, that as testing increases dramatically across the country, cases will increase as well.
But uh people should not be discouraged by those numbers.
Uh we are looking at very positive trends in hospitalization, in emergency room uh entrances, and we continue to see, as we've said at this podium, uh, every day over the last uh several weeks.
We continue to see positive progress, not just on the West Coast, but even where uh the coronavirus epidemic has most deeply impacted in areas of the greater New York City area, New Orleans, Detroit, and elsewhere.
On our nearly two-hour phone call today with those governors, uh we heard of the progress governors were making in implementing the resources that we've been working to provide them, not just the medical equipment, but also, as you recall, uh that map a week ago that showed where all of the equipment is all across the country in all 50 states.
Uh Governor Cuomo joined us uh for the call today.
He spoke favorably of his meeting here at the White House, Mr. President, uh, and his recognition that testing is a partnership uh between the federal and state governments.
Uh as Governor Cuomo said today, he understood that the federal government works with national manufacturing and supply chain, and the governors deal with the labs to expand and implement testing at the state level.
Um Governor Cuomo also explained how he's using his licensing authority as a governor to stand up the more than 300 labs that can do coronavirus testing in the state Of New York, and uh we congratulated him for his leadership in that and urged other governors to use their authority similarly.
In Tennessee, Governor Bill Lee told us that he's deployed the National Guard to stand up more than 20 drive-through test sites.
They're testing 10,000 people a day, have already tested more than 130,000 people in Tennessee, and they expect to surge another 15,000 people in testing sites this weekend in Tennessee.
Massachusetts and area, we're continuing to watch very closely as cases have not yet stabilized.
And Governor Charlie Baker, after he he thanked us, Mr. President, for the Army Corps of Engineers deployment of four field hospitals, he described how they have rapidly expanded.
