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TRUMP CORONAVIRUS UPDATE, APRIL 7




This is a summary of President Donald Trump’s COVID-19 press conference on Tuesday, April 7.

Trump shared his well-wishes for New York, New Jersey and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

This will be a painful week for deaths. Our strategy is totally working. Every American has a role to play in winning this war.

Our massive airlift operation for supplies, Air Bridge, continued today as planes landed with personal protective equipment. 27 more planes are planned in coming weeks.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is building 15,000 beds. They built hospitals in New York and Chicago.

It’s important for governors to share their data on beds and so forth. We are getting some ventilators back, like from California and Washington State and using them in areas that need them.

The four leading “genius” pharmaceutical companies are doing well with cures and a vaccine to totally protect us and have some great potential.

We gave the governors a lot of equipment, and I will protect you if your governor fails.

Our stockpile of ventilators today has 8,675 ventilators, and we have all sorts of incredible soldiers; our military will move them if they are needed somewhere. I spoke to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. If they need something, we have it. Same thing with Louisiana and Detroit.

Also, we have 2,200 ventilators arriving in April; 5,500 arriving on May 4; on May 18, we have12,000; and so forth, for a total of 110,000 coming in a short time. Hopefully, we won’t need them, but we will have them for the future and we can help other nations. The UK called to ask for 200 ventilators.

We have 10 drugs in active trials with 15 more to follow and two vaccine candidates in active trials. We are bringing drug production back to our shores. Some of the companies went haywire and were produced elsewhere.

America performs more tests than other nations and that is probably why we have more cases. We have done over 1.8 million tests.

CVS sites in Georgia and Rhode Island are now offering five-minute tests.

We are looking into the increased impact of the virus on black communities and we are doing everything we can to address this challenge. The impact has been disproportionate.

Dr. Anthony Fauci: This is an exacerbation of an existing health disparity. Blacks already suffer from a higher rate of problems like diabetes and asthma. Unfortunately, those conditions are made worse by COVID-19 and lead to ICU admission and death. We’re very concerned about that.

Trump:

Abbott Laboratories shipped 1,200 machines around the nation and are working to produce 500 more every week. They are making supplies as well.

We are helping other nations and our tests are accurate.

When many Americans are stressed, we need to make sure mental health needs are met. On Thursday I will speak with mental health advocates and look at resources.

The Small Business Administration processed over $70 billion in guaranteed loans for nearly a quarter-million businesses.

I was on a call with heads of major banks. The paycheck protection program has been successful, and I will ask Congress for $250 billion more.

The World Health Organization gets vast amounts of money from us, yet they criticized my travel ban and they were wrong. They seemed to be China-centric. We are going to look into it. We will put a hold on money given to them.

We are in the midst of a great national struggle. Its been remarkable see companies and people step up. Small business is 50 percent of our economic strength.

I am asking Americans to use the hashtag #americaworkstogether to share stories of people working together to get through this.

The original projections, if we had done nothing, is that this would have been disastrous. Closing it down was big. I think we are heading in the direction of fewer deaths, but I don’t want to talk about it yet.

Questions

A reporter asked about the resignation of Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly over the USS Theodore Roosevelt case in which the commander was relieved of duty.

Trump: He resigned. He didn’t’ have to, but it was selfless.

Q: What should happen to the commander?

Trump: They are looking at that through regular Navy channels. He made a mistake, but the secretary probably should not have said what he said.

Q: With the new money you announced, the paycheck protection program will have $600 billion. Will that be enough.

Trump: We will see. The loans are for varying amounts. It has been popular. I like to see these companies, including the small ones, helped.

A question was asked on the reopening of the economy and the status of the economic task force.

Trump: We want it to open soon. I think we are getting to the very top of the curve. This week will be a very difficult week.

Q; What can the federal government do?

Trump: With the stimulus, we can do infrastructure, and we will pay close to zero interest, or even zero interest. The dollar is very strong. Our currency is everything. Other countries want to invest here.

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