HIGHLIGHTS-03/20/2020| President Trump and the Coronavirus Task Force Announce New Actions to Protect Public Health

HIGHLIGHTS-03/20/2020| President Trump and the Coronavirus Task Force Announce New Actions to Protect Public Health
March 20, 2020 Comments Off on HIGHLIGHTS-03/20/2020| President Trump and the Coronavirus Task Force Announce New Actions to Protect Public Health RNHA News Articles, Trump, White House RNHA NEWS

INVOKING THE DEFENSE PRODUCTION ACT

PRESIDENT TRUMP: “We’ll be invoking the Defense Production Act, just in case we need it. In other words, I think you all know what it is. And it can do a lot of good things.”

PRESIDENT TRUMP: “We have tremendous numbers of ventilators, but there’s never been an instance like this where no matter what you have, it’s not enough. That would be the case. And we will be – [the Defense Production Act is] being signed. It’s essentially drawn and I’m going to sign it in just a little while. If we need to use it, we will be using it at full speed ahead.”

SUSPENDING FORECLOSURES AND EVICTIONS

PRESIDENT TRUMP: “The Department of Housing and Urban Development is providing immediate relief to renters and homeowners by suspending all foreclosures and evictions until the end of April.”

CLOSING THE BORDER WITH CANADA

VICE PRESIDENT PENCE: “The President, as you all are aware also announced today, that by mutual consent, the northern border to Canada will be closed to nonessential travel. This does not include essential travel or the transit of goods.”

ENABLING DOCTORS TO PRACTICE ACROSS STATE LINES

VICE PRESIDENT PENCE: “Also, with regard to medical personnel, at the President’s direction, HHS is issuing a regulation today that will allow all doctors and medical professionals to practice across state lines to meet the needs of hospitals that may arise in adjoining areas.”

STRENGTHENING SUPPLIES OF HEALTHCARE EQUIPMENT

SECRETARY ESPER: “The Department of Defense will make available up to 5 million N-95 respirator masks and other personal protective equipment from our own strategic reserves to the Department of Health and Human Services for distribution. The first one million masks will be available immediately. We are also prepared to distribute to HHS up to 2,000 operational deployable ventilators for use as needed.”

LIMITING NONESSENTIAL ELECTIVE MEDICAL PROCEDURES

CMS ADMINISTRATOR VERMA: “Conserving personal protective equipment is also essential to combat the virus. Today, CMS will announce detailed recommendations to further promote this needed conservation. Specifically, by limiting nonessential elective medical and surgical procedures, including dental procedures.”

SECRETARY WILKIE: “We also took the next step and made sure that we limited the dental surgeries that we were provided. We’ve cut back by one-third the number of routine appointments we have had, and we have canceled elective surgeries.”

FEMA ACTIVATING ACROSS THE COUNTRY

PRESIDENT TRUMP: “FEMA now is fully engaged at the highest levels. Today, FEMA is activated in every region. We are at level one, level one being the highest level.”

DEPLOYING HOSPITAL SHIPS

PRESIDENT TRUMP: “We are sending upon request the two hospital ships, they’re being prepared right now.”

PRESIDENT TRUMP: “They are getting ready to come up to New York. I spoke with Governor Cuomo about it. He is excited about it. And I also – we haven’t made the final determination as to where it’s going to go on the west coast. The Comfort is located now in San Diego and it’s going to be – we’ll be picking the destination fairly shortly.”

INCREASING TESTING SPEED AND AVAILABILITY

PRESIDENT TRUMP: “Today, I can announce further steps to expand testing capacity. We are working with several groups to determine if the self-swap – a much easier process than the current process. That’s not very nice to do. I can tell you because I did it.”

PRESIDENT TRUMP: “I am going to be holding a second news conference either today, we’re going to  talk about the FDA– some things that are happening that are quite exciting and we’re going to be doing that either later today or tomorrow”

VICE PRESIDENT PENCE: “I’m pleased to report that we’re increasing the number of tests being performed by the thousands every day thanks to the public-private partnership that President Trump forged with commercial laboratories around the country.”

DR. DEBORAH BIRX: “The test kits that we put out last week through the approval — the rapid movement of that meeting that President Trump called less than two weeks ago, that has resulted in bringing our private sector to the table. Because the tests and the platform that was out there could only run between four and 12 tests per platform per day. We’ve now moved into platforms that can run, basically, tens of thousands of tests per day.”

PROTECTING OUR NATION’S VETERANS

SECRETARY WILKIE: “Last month, we established 19 emergency operations centers across the country. We began to limit the number of visitors who entered our facilities. We began – I think we were the first system to begin – triaging across the country, in our 170 hospitals, the entrance of anyone into our facility without being questioned or tested. We expanded those restrictions to those in our 135 community living centers – which have about 7,800 veterans, who are in acute conditions – to make sure that they were protected.”

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