President Trump and members of the Coronavirus Task Force provided an update on the many actions the Administration is taking to keep Americans safe.
U.K. AND IRELAND TRAVEL RESTRICTIONS
VICE PRESIDENT PENCE: “The President has made a decision to suspend all travel to the United Kingdom and Ireland, effective midnight Monday night Eastern Standard Time.”
VICE PRESIDENT PENCE: “Again, Americans in the U.K. or Ireland can come home. Legal residents can come home.”
ACTING SECRETARY WOLF: “The President made the decision due to the rising number of cases in the U.K. to apply these restrictions to both the U.K. and Ireland. As we move forward, again, these restrictions bar travel from certain for from– for certain foreign nationals who have been present in the U.K. or Ireland in the past 14 days. And again, that goes effective midnight Monday.”
ACTING SECRETARY WOLF: “Legal permanent residents, family members under the age of 21, foreign diplomats and then we have other exemptions that are outlined in the proclamation can certainly travel back to the U.S. They will undergo some medical screening and some other questions when they arrive and then they will be asked to self-quarantine for 14 days.”
CORONAVIRUS LEGISLATION
PRESIDENT TRUMP: “We also reached an agreement yesterday on a new legislative package that will provide strong support for American families and communities in dealing with the coronavirus. So it was done very, very bipartisan.”
SECRETARY MNUCHIN:” I would describe this as like a baseball game. The first inning was the $8 billion. This is the second inning. We have a lot more we need to do with Congress. And the Speaker and I have acknowledged it. We’ll be working starting immediately.”
SUPPORT FOR WORKERS
VICE PRESIDENT PENCE: “The deal that passed the House last night will head to the Senate early next week…delivers on the President’s plan for strong health and economic support, particularly focused on those most impacted, including hard-working blue-collar Americans who may not currently have paid family leave today.”
VICE PRESIDENT PENCE: “If you are sick, now you need not be concerned if you are an hourly wage earner in America. You need not be concerned about staying home. If you’re sick, stay home. You’re not going to miss a paycheck because of this legislation that’s moving through the Congress.”
SECRETARY MNUCHIN: “The first thing that this does is, it creates a very seamless process for people that work for small and medium-sized businesses. They will continue to get paid by their employer.”
SECRETARY MNUCHIN: “We were also very sensitive to small and medium-sized businesses. Many of these businesses covered sick pay but they’re going to have many more people that may be on quarantine than normal sick pay and we didn’t want them to have to bear the cost. So 100% of the cost for these limited situations will be taken care of by the Federal government.”
FREE TESTING FOR ALL AMERICANS
PRESIDENT TRUMP: “The bill provides for free coronavirus testing for all Americans who should be tested. So people that are getting tested are getting this free.”
NEW TEST APPROVALS
VICE PRESIDENT PENCE: “We are very pleased that Thermo Fisher was just approved last night by the FDA, in record time, to also be providing what’s called a high-throughput test that will actually increase the capacity of this public and private partnership.”
MANUFACTURING MILLIONS OF MASKS
PRESIDENT TRUMP: “We have a lot of things to tell you in terms of respirators, in terms of all of the different things. The masks are being made by the millions.”
SECRETARY MNUCHIN: “There’s a provision as it relates to masks. We can now ramp up to 30 million masks a month, and we wanted to make sure there was free testing but there’s also a provision that the States will communicate back to CDC these results. So we will very quickly get those results.”
UPDATE ON CASES
NIAID DIRECTOR FAUCI: “Right now, there are 129 countries that have involvement with coronavirus. Globally, the numbers are 132,000-plus. It’s a little bit more than 132,000, about 7,500 of which are new cases.”
NIAID DIRECTOR FAUCI: “If you look at the domestic cases, there are about 2,226 including the repatriations, 50 deaths, 532 new cases and 9 new deaths which means we have not reached our peak.”
SMART PRECAUTIONS FOR ALL AMERICANS
PRESIDENT TRUMP: “Well if you don’t have to travel, I wouldn’t do it. If you don’t have to travel — we want this thing to end. We don’t want a lot of people getting infected. We want it to end and end as quickly as possible.”
SURGEON GENERAL ADAMS: “We need your help. Social distancing and mitigation, they’re not to protect the 30-year-old or the 20-year-old from getting coronavirus. They’re to protect your nana. They’re to protect your granddaddy. They’re to protect the people who you love in your lives and we need your help.”
SURGEON GENERAL ADAMS: “We all have a role to play. If we are complacent, selfish, uninformed; if we spread fear, and distrust, and misinformation; the situation will last longer and more people will be hurt. But, if we pitch in and we share the facts, we will flatten the curve and we will overcome this situation.”
SURGEON GENERAL ADAMS: “My prescription: know your risk, understand your circumstances, and get the facts to protect yourself at coronavirus.gov.”
TESTING WEBSITE
VICE PRESIDENT PENCE: “I know Google issued a statement that they are planning to launch a website. I think they gave the date of Monday, March 16th and we’re working, literally, around the clock. And I know that our whole team working on this public and private partnership couldn’t be more grateful to all of the hard-working people at Google that are helping to put this website together.”
VICE PRESIDENT PENCE: “Tomorrow at 5:00, we’ll have very specific — we’ll have a very specific description tomorrow about when the website will be available, when the parking lot sites will be available for people to be tested. And we’re working right now with state and local communities to determine where it’s best to roll those out. As a number of — a number of communities are already doing a great job meeting their needs, so we’re trying to flow the resources.”
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