Remarks by President Trump at Signing of Proclamation in Honor of National Nurses Day
THE PRESIDENT: It's my honor to welcome so many extraordinary nursing professionals as we celebrate National
And you just said, "Thank you for calling us warriors," but you are warriors. That's what you are. Incredible warriors.
America's nurses are waging a heroic war against the invisible enemy. They're fighting on the frontlines of the battle, risking their health to save lives of fellow citizens and, honestly, to save lives -- like we say about the police -- to save lives of people they don't know. It's dangerous, and it's people they don't know. But they're saving lives, and they're doing them in record numbers.
History will ever -- will forever -- and I really mean that: forever -- remember how our nurses answered the call of duty in America's hour of need. And I think that, in terms of a brand, if you take a look at the nurses' brand, I don't think it's ever been higher than it is right now. It's very important.
We're joined by Vice President
We've rallied the full power of the federal government to defeat the virus and support our healthcare professionals. I proudly signed legislation providing
The men and women in this room today are true American heroes.
And, Luke, I'd like you to say a couple of words. Where is Luke?
THE PRESIDENT: There he is. (Laughter.) Luke, please.
You know, a lot of us have been forced away from our partners, turned away hugs from our children. We slept on concrete floors or in cars. And we did these things not for our own benefit or safety, but we did them, as he said -- as the President said -- to risk our lives in service of a stranger. And there is no greater love than that.
And, you know, the world may never know all that you do behind that curtain, but I do. You fight hard to save the ones you can, and we carry with grace the enormous burden of the ones that we can't. And there's been a lot of those recently.
You know, we represent the very best about the human capacity, and I've never been more proud to call myself a nurse. So, thank you. And thank you to all the nurses.
THE PRESIDENT: And thank you, Luke. And you'll answer a couple of questions from the media because I think they'll have a couple of questions -- what you go through and how you go through it with the bravery. We appreciate it. Thank you very much. Beautifully done.
Also with us is
And, Marty, I'd love for you to say a couple of words, please.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you.
But it's just been a true blessing to be able to go back into the facilities and offer help to not only the residents but to the coworkers who are working tirelessly to fight this wicked virus.
THE PRESIDENT: Where do you work, Marty?
THE PRESIDENT: That's great.
THE PRESIDENT: That's great. And you'll go back to
THE PRESIDENT: That's great.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, they're two great places. Thank you very much.
THE PRESIDENT: Fantastic job.
So the valiant sacrifices of America's nurses will stand for all time as testament to American strength and grace and courage. And in demonstrating and in demonstration of our everlasting appreciation, I'm pleased to sign this proclamation commemorating
So I'm going to just sign this right now. And I'm going to give somebody the pen, but I'm going to give you all a pen, okay? Deborah knows that. (Laughter.)
(The proclamation is signed.)
Okay. Here, Luke. Here, Marty. Take that, Marty.
THE PRESIDENT: Okay. (Applause.)
Mike? Where's Mike? Do you have anything to say, Mike?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Just very humbling to be among these heroes. Mr. President, I was chatting with a few of them beforehand. And on National
And so, Mr. President, I just join you in expressing our most profound gratitude for the work of our nurses across America. And, just, it's a great honor to be here with them and with you.
THE PRESIDENT: We appreciate it. Great job you did, too, and the task force -- continuing task force.
Deborah, anything to say?
And I think coming out of this and figuring out not only how to recognize them but protect them going forward, to really ensure that they have the resiliency, because they have been the ones standing at the bedside for every patient that we have lost over the last three months. And I think -- I'm so grateful that you were there for them and such deep service for others, not only your technical abilities, but your compassion for others. I just have such deep respect for each one of you.
THE PRESIDENT: And your mother is a nurse at 91.
THE PRESIDENT: That's right.
Alex? Please.
SECRETARY AZAR: Well, my mother is also a registered nurse. But to not get in trouble, I am not going to tell you how long she has been a registered nurse. (Laughter.)
But I've gotten to see, throughout my entire life, her compassion and to see the great work of nurses. But that has been brought home to me just in the last several months as I've been with my father. As he was dying, I got to see the unbelievable compassion and care of America's nurses.
I've been privileged to work with you in this job, but thank you for everything you do. You are the centerpiece of so much of our healthcare system. You're really the ones who drive so much of it. And just, you're real heroes, and thank you for everything you do.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you, Alex, very much.
Would you like to say something?
And if I may add, one big concern that I have is the post-traumatic trauma that a lot of the nurses and doctors and other members of the healthcare team will be facing in the future. So I would ask that you please take into consideration --
THE PRESIDENT: Good.
THE PRESIDENT: What percentage would that be, do you think? What seems to be the percentage?
THE PRESIDENT: A lot. A lot.
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. It's a lot of death.
THE PRESIDENT: There's no question about it.
And, by the way, while we're at it, you can pass these pens around, okay? You can pass them around. Here you go. I got some for the other side. We don't want to forget them, Marty.
THE PRESIDENT: Anybody have anything to say?
And I think this is an opportunity, through COVID-19, to really look at the overall health of our country, look at the health disparities, and to see what we can do differently. I think you are in a very unique position to do some very innovative things with healthcare as we look forward on the horizon. So --
THE PRESIDENT: Great.
THE PRESIDENT: And let us know as you have ideas, too.
THE PRESIDENT: I'll bet you do. (Laughter.)
THE PRESIDENT: Let's talk to her.
THE PRESIDENT: She'll speak to the task force maybe.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Great.
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Beautiful.
THE PRESIDENT: Terrific. And that's a beautiful cross.
THE PRESIDENT: Very nice. Beautiful.
THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead.
THE PRESIDENT: Right. Sure.
In regards to nursing, sir, I have to tell you: We talk about science as a nurse -- it's a whole base scientific issue -- but it's the compassion part. And the first time that I got involved with a patient with COVID, sir, this patient was so scared. You should have seen her face. But, sir, we're all, like, dressed up, gowned up. We look like we're going to the Moon, basically.
THE PRESIDENT: Right.
THE PRESIDENT: Good.
THE PRESIDENT: That's fantastic. (Applause.) Thank you very much. Beautiful.
Please.
THE PRESIDENT: Right.
THE PRESIDENT: Incredible.
THE PRESIDENT: Have you ever seen anything like that?
THE PRESIDENT: And yet, it's the right thing, right?
THE PRESIDENT: You have no choice.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Yes. We're giving you a lot of help. And we appreciate what you're doing.
Please.
So I was kind of overwhelmed with feelings of guilt by not being on the frontline and using my skills because, while -- I mean, I love what I do, but I'm not there to really be on the frontlines.
So, in my community, I've raised over
So I am just so honored. So thank you for having us. And it's such a privilege to kind of represent nurses today. I think we all feel that way. Because it's -- this is just a small fraction of us, and we all have different roles and do different things. And it's a privilege.
And like Luke said, I've never been more proud to be a nurse. It's -- and proud of my friends and colleagues. It's a pretty amazing thing.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you let them know how I feel?
THE PRESIDENT: And how Mike feels. And this is the
John, go ahead, please.
Q Mr. President, you mentioned the
THE PRESIDENT: Well, it's had great success. And
You probably saw that. Remember, at the beginning, it was really tough.
THE PRESIDENT: And we got it built so fast. It was really an incredible mobilization. Not since World War Two has anything happened with not only ventilators, but everything else. Testing is doing really well. And the task force has done a great job.
And I had a meeting yesterday. I had a meeting this morning, probably even more importantly. And so we'll be leaving the task force indefinitely. We'll see. You know, at a certain point, that'll end like things end. But we'll be adding some people to the task force. And they'll be more in the neighborhood, probably, of opening our country up -- because our country has to get open again and the people want it to be open, but we have to open it up safely.
So we'll be adding two or three additional members to the task force. There may be one or two that will be less involved that were more involved with the original formation of the ventilator and the ventilator systems. But if they want to stay, they can, because they really did a fantastic job.
So, at a certain point, we won't need the task force, but we're going to leave that. We're going to add a couple of people to it. And that will, again, be for the opening of our country. We're opening -- you know, if you think about it, we're opening our country again.
We had the most successful economy in history for any country, anywhere in the world. And then they came -- I was sitting right here -- and they said, "Sir, we're going to have to close it." I said, "Close what?" "Basically, we're going to have to close our country."
And just like you said, with the -- I said, "Is it important that they not be together?" It's not -- it's not a question, right? It's not a question. You can't have the family together. It's so sad.
So anyway, we have -- we did something that -- we did the right move. We saved millions of lives by doing what we did, but it's unbelievably tough for a country. And most countries throughout the world did something similar. But this affected 182, 184 countries, and it's a very sad thing. A very sad thing.
So we're keeping the task force for a period of time. I look forward to when we can close the task force, because then the job will be, essentially, hopefully, over, Mike. Right?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Yes, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: And you've done a fantastic job.
Q Mr. President --
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
Q -- can you explain the change between what you said yesterday about winding down the task force and now, saying you're going to keep it?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think -- yeah. Yeah.
Q Because it is different from what you said yesterday, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. Well, I guess, if you think, we're always winding it down. But, you know, it's a question of what -- what the end point is. But I think it is a change, a little bit; I thought we could wind it down sooner. But I had no idea how popular the task force is until actually yesterday. When I started talking about winding it down, I'd get calls from very respected people saying, "I think it would be better to keep it going. It's done such a good job." It's a respected task force. It's -- I knew it myself; I didn't know whether or not it was appreciated by the public, but it is appreciated by the public.
When you look at the job we've done on everything -- on supplies, on everything -- the gowns, the gloves, the fa- -- the masks. You saw, yesterday, the masks. We were at a factory yesterday. A great company -- Honeywell. And in a period of four days, they took a big factory -- essentially, four days. A little longer. Two weeks, but it was really -- most of the work done in four days. They took a big plant that did other things, and they converted it into masks. You have to see it. It's actually complicated process.
But they have unbelievable equipment, and they're doing millions of masks out of this factory. And that took place so quickly. And that was all because of the task force. I mean, all of this happened because of the people working within the administration.
And something I didn't know, Mike: They take different layers of material and compress it, put it together. Because one layer is good for something; one layer is good for something else. One layer is good for very tiny particles. I mean, it's really -- you think of it as a mask. They make a very good mask. This is really something that's very special.
So the task force will be around until we feel it's not necessary. But I will say that I learned yesterday -- even after I spoke, John -- that the task force is -- something you knew -- it's very respected. People said we should keep it going. So let's keep it going. And so we'll be doing that. But we'll be adding some people to it, actually.
Q Sir, who are some of the people you are thinking about adding to the task force?
THE PRESIDENT: We have a whole list of people that want to be on. And we have a list of people that we want. And --
Q What would their roles be?
THE PRESIDENT: Nobody has -- I'll tell you this; I will say this -- nobody has ever turned me down to be on that task force. It's a very -- nobody has turned me down for anything, to be honest. When we have a committee -- like we had the various committees -- the sports committee, the commissioners -- everybody wants to be on everything we do. The business committees. It's never had anybody say, "Gee, I'd rather not be on that committee." You know, it's very important.
So we'll be announcing, I would say, by Monday. We'll be announcing two or three new members to the task force.
Q Mr. President, on the issues of reopening, it seems little question that, by beginning the reopening process and continuing it, there will likely be more cases of coronavirus, more deaths than there would have been had everything stayed shut down. Will the nation just have to accept the idea that, by reopening, there will be more cases, there will be more deaths?
THE PRESIDENT: So I called these people warriors. And I'm actually calling now, as you know, John, the nation warriors. We have to be warriors. We can't keep our country closed down for years. And we have to do something. And hopefully that won't be the case, John, but it could very well be the case. You won't be locked in a house. And some people should stay, if you're over a certain age. I mean, you've seen that, right? Elderly people or especially elderly people with --
THE PRESIDENT: -- with a problem, where they have a problem. It attacks these people viciously. And I think they will be staying back and we're strongly recommending that they do that. We're saying over 60 -- and especially over 60 if you have diabetes or heart problems or whatever problem you might have.
So -- but we have to get our country open again. And you see it. Look, you cover it. People want to go back. You're going to have a problem if you don't do it. If you don't do it, you've got a very big problem.
Q How close are -- how close are we to a permanent problem if we don't reopen the country?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think people won't stand for it, actually. I don't think our people will stand for it. Now, what I really believe you people will be able to do is, at a certain age, they'll stay back longer. Because, you know, this virus is going to disappear. It's a question of when. Will it come back in a small way? Will it come back in a fairly large way? But we know how to deal with it now much better. You know, nobody knew anything about it, initially.
Now we know we can put out fires. We can put out -- I call them "embers" if it's a small -- or if it's a fire or a hotspot, we could put it out. But we can't have our whole country out. We can't do it. We can't -- the country won't take it. It won't stand it. It's not sustainable. And I think you're going to have a tremendous transition, which is a third-quarter thing. I think you're going to have a good fourth quarter. I think next year is going to be an incredible year, economically.
And, with that being said, if somebody lost somebody -- a parent or a wife or a husband or, you know, any brothers, sisters -- if you lost someone, you could never make up for that by saying, "Well, you're going to have a great year next year, economically." And so you can never do that.
But I will say that, from an economic standpoint, I think next year is going to be a very big year. There's tremendous demand. You see it with the stock market, where the stock market is at 24,000, and we went through the worst attack we've ever had on our country.
This is really the worst attack we've ever had. This is worse than
Okay.
Q Mr. President, 20 states have begun reopening without meeting those gating criteria that your administration put out. Are you okay with that?
THE PRESIDENT: I've given the leeway to the governors. If I see something wrong, we'll stop it. But I have given leeway to the governors to make that decision.
You have some governors -- most of whom I have great respect for -- they're working very hard. They're watching very closely. But we've given leeway to the governors to make those decisions.
Q And unemployment: There's some projections that show unemployment for the month of April could be as high as 15 percent. Are you worried about that number? And are you also worried that
THE PRESIDENT: Well, there's nothing --
Q -- or your opponents might blame you for it?
THE PRESIDENT: There's -- no, I don't think they can -- they're not blaming me. You know, it's very interesting. It's one thing: Nobody is blaming me for that. I built the greatest economy -- with a lot of great people -- that we've ever had, and I'm going to rebuild it again. We're going to have a great economy very soon. Much sooner than people think. Much sooner.
Now, we cut taxes and we do things that you have to do. If somebody comes along and raises taxes and does all of the nonsense that they're talking about, you'll have a crash like you've never seen before.
But this was artificially induced. This was an artificially induced unemployment. This was where we said, "We're taking the greatest economy in the history of the world..." Because that's what it was. Most people in our country, almost 160 million people -- we were never close -- and we had to turn it off. One day, it turned off. Nothing like that has ever happened before. But by doing that, we have saved millions of lives.
But now we're going to make our comeback. And the comeback is going to be a very strong one. And I'll be meeting you in a little while because, as you know, we have a very good governor --
Q Quick question, just before we go, because it's healthcare-related. Today is the deadline for the
THE PRESIDENT: So what we want to do is we want to --
Q Or would you want Attorney General Barr --
THE PRESIDENT: We're staying -- we're not doing another thing. In other words, we're staying with the group -- with
Now, we've already pretty much killed it because we got rid of the individual mandate. Now, in getting rid of the individual mandate, which was, by far, the most unpopular thing in Obamacare -- that's where, for the privilege of paying a fee, you don't have to -- you don't have buy health insurance at a ridiculous price for not good health insurance. It was a terrible thing. You mandated to pay something in order not to pay, and we got rid of that. That's gone. And nobody thinks it's ever going to come back.
But what we are doing is we want to terminate healthcare for -- under Obamacare, because it's bad, and we're replacing it with a great healthcare at far less money, and it includes preexisting conditions. There will never be a time when we don't have preexisting conditions included.
Q So --
THE PRESIDENT: So what I'm saying then, John, is we're going to replace Obamacare with great healthcare at a lesser price, and preexisting conditions will be included and you won't have the individual mandate -- which was expensive and terrible and very unfair to everybody, and it was very unpopular.
Q So Attorney General Barr's suggestion to pull back on invalidating the act and leave some of it in place, you're not going to go in that direction?
THE PRESIDENT: No, I don't know about that suggestion. I think I've spoken a lot about this to
Because Obamacare -- we run it really well. I had a decision to make. I said this yesterday: We took over Obamacare. We got rid of the individual mandate, which basically was the end of Obamacare. In a formal sense, it was really the end of Obamacare. And few people are challenging the fact that we can do that. So we got rid of the individual mandate.
I had a decision to make: Do I want to have Obamacare run as well as it can run? Or do I want to have it run really badly so everybody can say Obamacare is terrible? Politically, I could do the other. I should do -- let it run badly. But I can't do that because I'm President for the people. And we ran that much better than
It's still not good. It's still not good. But I had a decision: Do I want to run it great? Or do I want to run it really badly? Politically, I should've run it really badly, but I'm glad I made the decision to run it great. But running it great, it's still lousy healthcare. And we are going to do something that's going to be great healthcare, always including, always having -- again, the individual mandate gone, and preexisting conditions will be taken care of. So I'm glad you asked me that question.
Q Mr. President, yesterday we went to
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I actually did have one. No. I put a mask --
Q Did you have one on?
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. I put -- I had a mask on for a period of time.
Q We didn't see you with a mask on.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I can't help it if you didn't see me. I mean, I had a mask on, but I didn't need it. And I asked specifically the head of Honeywell: "Should I wear a mask?" And he said, "Well, you don't need one in this territory." And as you know, we were far away from people, from the people making the masks. They were making the masks.
But I did put a mask on, and it was a Honeywell mask actually. And I also had a 3M mask, and I had about four other masks. But I did have it on. I don't know if you saw it or not, but I had it on.
Q How long did you have it on, sir?
THE PRESIDENT: Not too long, but I had it on. I had it on back -- backstage. But they said you didn't need it, so. If I didn't need it -- and, by the way, if you noticed, nobody else had it on that was in the group.
Q We just saw --
THE PRESIDENT: And they were people --
Q We saw the workers wearing them.
THE PRESIDENT: The workers had them on. Yeah. The workers were there, yeah, because they're working next to each other. Okay?
Q Mr. President, what kind of message does it send that you're surrounded by nurses who are not doing social distancing, who are not wearing masks? What kind of a message is that?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I can't help that. I mean, look, I'm trying to be nice. I'm signing a bill and you criticize us.
Look, here's the story: There is nothing I can do to satisfy the media, the
Now we're helping
I watched this phony
And then the other thing that is very interesting: Because we did so much more testing, we have more cases. If I did little testing, we'd have practically no cases. So the headline was, "We have more cases than anyone else." Well,
If you would add every country -- every country together, we've done substantially more testing than the entire world together. And all I'll get is, "Oh, we have more cases." You understand that. We have more cases because we do more testing. If I don't do testing, we don't have any cases.
So, as I do more testing, they say, "But you have more cases." They're very smart, but they're very devious people. And in many cases, very bad people. And in some cases, very good ones. There's a couple of good ones here.
Q Could we ask the man who was sleeping on the floor -- behind you -- a question? Up until recently, we've heard a lot of stories of hardships on the frontline owing to a shortage of PPE, masks, that sort of thing. Can you tell us, did it get bad where you were? And what's the situation now compared to what it was?
The third thing that we can't manufacture -- and I've talked about this before -- is a doctor or a nurse or essential personnel. We can't just manufacture them. So, ultimately, that ended up being the weakest point for us on the frontlines. We had the PPE, we had the ventilators in time, but we just didn't have enough people. We couldn't get them there fast enough.
THE PRESIDENT: And one of the things we did is we sent in the military doctors and nurses. And I think most of you have seen them and some of you have worked with them. But they did a fantastic job.
John, we had lot of the military. Like, we took the Comfort -- because they didn't need the ship -- and we took the Comfort and we took the doctors and nurses, and we sent them all over
So we did a job. And we weren't even supposed to have doctors in the convention center, but we ended up putting them there. So we had a lot of -- because it's true. Wouldn't you say? It was right. Man- and woman-power was one of the toughest things.
Q Mr. Luke, are you -- and all of you -- are you seeing now that the supplies are what they need to be?
To answer your question earlier, we're all COVID-19-free. We were all tested. So we're not socially distancing, but we're all negative. And we wouldn't do anything to harm our President, obviously.
THE PRESIDENT: Everybody has been tested.
THE PRESIDENT: I hope the test works right. (Laughter.)
Certainly I've had several tests throughout this whole COVID-19 crisis. I practice in
THE PRESIDENT: Sporadic for you, but not sporadic for a lot of other people.
THE PRESIDENT: Because I've heard the opposite.
THE PRESIDENT: I've heard that they are loaded up with -- with gowns now. And, you know, initially we had nothing. We had empty cupboards. We had empty shelves. We had nothing. Because it wasn't put there by the last administration.
And I've heard that we have -- I just saw it yesterday, where they're making millions of masks a month in a factory from -- you know, in that case, it was
How did you find that? Do you find a good supply?
THE PRESIDENT: Good. Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Good. You'll end up being a star.
When we all talk about the fears, it makes it so much worse for us nurses to work. We're seeing the reality of it, but to hear it on constantly, "There is not enough. There is not enough." In reality, I'm not seeing it. I'm in a hot zone right now. I'm in
THE PRESIDENT: And so you don't see that when you hear the stories?
THE PRESIDENT: You know why? Because they're fake news. That's why. (Laughter.)
THE PRESIDENT: It's true. I really appreciate you saying that. It's so nice that you stepped up, because they're fake news.
Q Respectfully though, sir, at the beginning --
THE PRESIDENT: No, when I -- when I took over, it's different. Now, I will say this: There was a period of time, but between "
Q But what I was going to say --
THE PRESIDENT: And you can look at that from any way you want to look at it: from rebuilding the military, to cutting taxes, to getting rid of regulations at a level that nobody has ever come close to, to saving your Second Amendment, which is under siege, by the way.
So, you know, we've done -- but I really appreciate your statement. That was really beautiful. And --
Q But just on the issue of masks, I mean, I remember at the beginning of this crisis that --
THE PRESIDENT: Sure.
Q -- you all were encouraging --
THE PRESIDENT: That's right.
Q -- people not to --
THE PRESIDENT: We didn't have enough.
Q -- not to wear them in order to have it for the --
THE PRESIDENT: And you're right, but that was at the --
Q So there was not enough, at the beginning, of PPE.
THE PRESIDENT: You're right, Jeff. And the reason that we did such a good job is because we were able -- now we have factories all over doing masks and building our own masks and doing them. Because a lot of countries -- I don't want to be specific -- but they sent us masks which were total garbage and they were defective. And they sent us other equipment, which was defective.
And so now we're building our own masks. We're doing our own masks. We're making them by the millions. And Honeywell in
I didn't realize, as they put different layers and then they put it together. And each layer has a different function. I mean, you know, it's not just, like, taking a thing and wrapping it, as we said perhaps you can do in certain conditions, but certainly not inside of a hospital.
But, no, we -- we ended up -- we had an empty cupboard, and now we have full cupboards. And we have ventilators and we have tremendous testing. And we're doing the antibodies very shortly, as you probably know. That's going to also --
I mean, you know, there are a lot of people that don't believe in such big testing, Deborah. I mean, you know, you have some people that want to test everything -- 15 different ways. Mostly, that's the media because they know, you know, certain things can't be done. But we have tremendous testing right now.
When you see that chart -- I don't have it with me now; I guess they have it someplace in the room. But when you see the chart that I put up yesterday as I was interviewed by one of your friends on
So, look, you get used to that. But I really appreciate the fact that -- what you said. And we do have, we have great -- and not only do we have great equipment, but we have the -- the quality of what we have is far better than anything that we're getting, because we see what comes in. The quality of the gowns, the quality of the masks.
We have -- as of today, we got one billion gloves. Gloves. One billion. Whoever heard of such a thing? At the beginning, we had none. You know, when this all started, we had none. It's one of the greatest mobilizations. It's a war. And it's one of the greatest mobilizations. So it's been -- it's been very successful.
Q Mr. President, one more -- one more question about reopening. The initial forecast showed that the de- -- real decline in the infection curve would be about June the 1st.
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah.
Q Latest forecasts have pushed now back to August. And I'm wondering what the ramifications might be for certain reopenings, particularly schools, which begin to go back near the beginning of August.
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. I mean, I can -- I'll just address one part of that. The schools should open. The one thing you should be careful of is when instructors are over 60, especially if they have a problem. That, you should be careful. But the schools should definitely open, in my opinion.
Could you answer the other part, Deborah?
Q Yeah, we talked about this yesterday.
And so we all know about models and that's why we followed the data metro by metro. And, you know, we have represented here
So the country has moved as individuals. And what we are so proud about is how much the governors are using testing in a focused way. So they're not just diagnosing the individuals that have come to the hospital with symptoms; they're proactively going out and testing in nursing homes, in prisons, and testing everybody when they see one case in a meat-packing plant.
And this is really allowing us insight, and we really appreciate the media call- -- calling out the asymptomatic spread. Because we've been talking about it for two months, but now finally, it's really getting picked up that there is asymptomatic spread.
And that's why governors using that strategic testing to ensure that the most vulnerable -- those in disadvantaged areas of the cities and multi-generational households, those in group housing, those in nursing homes, those in prisons -- are really -- they're aggressively doing what we call surveillance and surveillance testing. And I think we've just been very proud to watch the governors pick up on the federal guidelines that called that out as a very key point in --
Q Do -- do you think we'll be in a place in August where schools, at least in some states, will be able to reopen?
Q But, Mr. President, you say you'd like to see schools open -- just to have people or teachers who are in risky age groups not go in or be more careful?
THE PRESIDENT: I would like to see schools open wherever possible, which I think is in much of the country, most of the country.
No, I -- I would say that until everything is perfect, I think that the teachers that are a certain age -- perhaps, you say, over 60 -- especially if they have a problem with heart or diabetes or any one of the number of things, I think that they should not be teaching school for a while. And everybody would understand that fully. That we understand.
But other than that, you see how well children seem to do. It's incredible. We realize how strong children are, right? It's -- their immune system is maybe a little bit different. Maybe it's just a little bit stronger, or maybe it's a lot stronger. Right? It could be a lot stronger. We've learned a lot by watching this monster.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
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