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New York Governor Andrew Cuomo Gives Updates On New York Coronavirus Cases; Georgia Reopens Salons, Gyms, Bowling Alleys And Tattoo Parlors As The State Death Toll Rises; Calls Growing Nationwide For More Antibody Testing; Rep. Donna Shalala (D-FL) Is Interviewed About Reopening Of Florida; U.S. Navy Recommends Reinstating Fired Captain; Sixth Grader Prints 3D Masks In Kitchen. Aired 12-1p ET

Aired April 25, 2020 - 12:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[12:00:00]

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But there is an acknowledgement within the states that everyone is going to be on their own timeline. The major goal is to not undermine one another's success in dealing with the infection rates within the states.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is there a timeline on when --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, there isn't a timeline.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can you talk through the April 29th date for - central state workers report back on that date if there was an extension from March 16th and then April 12th.

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): Yes, we'll be speaking to that in the next couple of days. Just a quick clarification, the tests at the pharmacies will be diagnostic tests, positive/negative, not antibody tests.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And those will be conducted at the pharmacy?

CUOMO: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not just collected there? They'll be conducted there? So you'll be able to go to a pharmacy and get a test?

CUOMO: You'll be able to go into a pharmacy and get a test. The parlance is the sample will be collected at the pharmacy. The pharmacy then sends it to a lab. The lab conducts the test. So the labs conduct the - the pharmacy collects in this new terminology.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A quick question just in terms of what we're seeing in terms of new infections, it's been five weeks since the New York on pause order took effect. Yesterday we saw 8,000 new cases presumably that's because of heightened testing. We're also seeing 1,300 people come into the hospital.

Do we have any demographics, any research on who is getting infected? Are these essential workers or these people that are being infected by family members? Are they people that are being infected in communities? Do we know where people are getting sick, if people are staying home?

CUOMO: We know on the hospitalization data, you know how many people come into a hospital. You know what hospital they go into and where that hospital is? I don't know if you have demographic data. Do we get the herd data? Do we get demographics?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We don't have broad demographic data. We basically have locations based upon where they are hospitalized.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So we don't know where they are getting sick, I guess is the question?

CUOMO: No. We know what hospital - you know what hospital they go into? Assuming the hospital they are going into is there - is located near where they live, but you don't know where they are getting sick, no. But they don't know where they're getting sick either by the way. Somebody walks into a hospital you say, where did you contact the virus? They're not going to be able to answer.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Eventually we'll have that data. It's aggregated now so we can do it in real time. So we can present to the public every day the hospitalizations and things like that. Patient data gets submitted on a much greater lag but for us it was who is going to the hospital now? What are those percentages is?

So we can monitor the infection in real time. The patient specific data which has more of the demographic data comes in but much more slowly. So that's going to be a much more retrospective look but we're trying to monitor in real time. Hospital capacity issues, intubation issues, ICU issues so we looked for just the raw numbers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Then we have to believe that there is kind of widespread community spread still going on, right?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is why the contact tracing that we're going to do is going to be so helpful. When we start to talk to individuals, we're going to learn a lot about who they were exposed to? Perhaps someone they were exposed to was in the hospital. We're going to get a lot more information and that's why that is so important.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It seems like many of these nursing homes before the pandemic had problems with staffing and poor quality care. Do you think the Department of Health did enough leading up to this pandemic to ensure that they had quality care and enough staff?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've addressed this. Look you have the nursing homes. We continue to reach out to the nursing homes we were doing that all along. If there was any concern, we were contacted. We reached out to them. We did investigations. As I mentioned months before we actually even did video checks to be sure that they were doing everything correctly.

And we provided information that they needed. But as the Governor said previously, a lot of this is the nursing homes, if there was a concern they needed to look into getting what supplies they needed. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But do you think that your Department should have done more in general leading up to this pandemic to ensure that they, you know, have enough staff? That's clearly going into this, there weren't enough people.

CUOMO: That's not - let me - that's not clear. Look, I did nursing home investigations as Attorney General. There has been - there's a constant tension with nursing homes. Any vendor to the state, vendor to the public where they are providing a service and they are getting paid for a service and the constant tension is are they actually providing that service?

Should they be doing more? Should they be doing better? As Attorney General, we also did video cameras in patients' rooms to see - hidden video cameras. How many times was the staff coming in? Was the staff doing what they were supposed to do? Were they turning the patient, et cetera?

So this has been a field of regulation and scrutiny and investigation that goes back decades. It's a field that over when you look at the past there have been "Nursing Home Scandals" in the past. So it's a highly regulated, highly investigated field. The Department of Health and the Attorney General it's a big staple of what they do.

[12:05:00]

CUOMO: This crisis overwhelmed the nursing homes. And when I say no one is to blame. Look, you had a virus that preys on vulnerable people - concentration of vulnerable people in a nursing home. But the regulations still apply right, even though you're in the middle of a global pandemic. The regulations still apply.

And for the nursing homes, one of the central regulations is, if you cannot provide appropriate care for that patient, you must transfer that patient. That's the - that's the rule. And if you can't find the place to transfer the patient, then the Department of Health will find a place to transfer the patient.

Another nursing home another facility but that's the - that rule does not change. Now you can say, look, I can't provide care because of this pandemic, because my staff is out ill because I can't get supplies, because I don't have masks, because I can't quarantine properly whatever reasons.

But if you can't provide care, you're not supposed to be keeping that person in your facility. And that's what most of this is going to come down to. Now they're going to do an additional investigation to see what happened if there were other instances because there were other regulations also. You have to inform patients and their family. That's a regulation.

I understand your staff was stressed and this was a horrendous period. But that it didn't waive any of the regulations of good conduct of business.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: --they have limited access to testing. If we're offering testing at pharmacies why not offer the same thing at a nursing home?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're working on that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just to be clear, we've done, nursing homes can do testing, it's local options where we set up testing in other places but we've done 28 sites for nursing homes, and we are expanding that by another 15. So we're adding as much testing capacity as humanly possible.

CUOMO: Let's take one more. I'm going to put on my mask and go hiking, hiking with a mask. By the way, I have a whole collection of really beautiful masks that have been sent to me from people all across the country. I'm going to show you. Mask art is a new - a new boutique specialization that's developed. Mask art. Go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: --elections and special elections last night in Queens and Syracuse on the - are still good go? Is that - do you --?

CUOMO: Legally, I can't affect a congressional race, a Federal race. Is that right?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, there also a law says that the Governor may call a special election for the legislative races and so - but with the Congressional, it's a shall. So we were mandated to. So that's why that one race is the only one that will remain as special on that day.

CUOMO: Difference between may and shall, all the difference in the world. Go ahead, Jessie last question.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You said yesterday that you would be evaluating making a decision on the on pause order in the coming week. Could we anticipate that that decision the on pause whether to extend would also be coupled with the decision on say regional re openings or plans like that? Will that be part and parcel?

CUOMO: You can anticipate anything you'd like to anticipate. I do not control your anticipation level. So you can anticipate whatever you'd like. They're not necessarily linked. So we'll make a decision at the right time because people need notice. But I don't think there's any specific linkage between them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A scenario where certain industries, construction, manufacturing and such might be opened prior to, say, retail or mass gatherings or stuff like that?

CUOMO: Yes, by definition. By definition nobody is going to say, okay, region "X" is open and everything opens automatically. So the phased approach, that's what we're talking about, phased in timing, phased in industry, phased in activity level. Remember we did that matrix. Essential - how essential is your business but how safe is your business? And that's the matrix. Wear a mask. Wear a mask.

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN HOST: New York Governor Andrew Cuomo there saying he's off to go hiking now after trying to give some perspective to so many people who are saying, including his daughter, he says, who were saying, I just can't do this anymore. He's calculated, it's been 56 days, while New Yorkers and the rest of the country have been dealing with Coronavirus. But putting in perspective, he said, based on World War I, World War II, the depression and even Vietnam, they dealt with it for two to eight years now.

[12:10:00]

WHITFIELD: Let me now join our expert panel here, including CNN Politics and Business Correspondent Cristina Alesci CNN White House Reporter Sarah Westwood and Anne Rimoin Professor at the UCLA Department of Epidemiology. Cristina let me begin with you. More seriously, the Governor did say that while the number of deaths is on the decline, the numbers are still at an alarming 437 Coronavirus victims.

CHRISTINA ALESCI, CNN POLITICS & BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: That's right Fredricka. We got the typical Cuomo, yes, but. Yes, it's good, but we still are not out of the woods yet. That's the message that we consistently get from the Governor of New York.

Look, the headline out of this, the big news out of this is that the state is going to start antibody testing. And it's going to prioritize the health care workers on the front lines in the hospitals that really got the crush of the Coronavirus patients.

Elmhurst Hospital in Queens where I'm from, that hospital gauge national recognition for just the amount of patients that it was caring for, so Elmhurst is going to get the antibody test. Bellevue, Montefiore - the health care workers that are basically the ones that are really trying to, you know, care for these people in volumes that were much larger than other pieces and other hospitals in the state.

He also walked the public through a pretty big puzzle on diagnostic testing. Again this is the testing that determines whether or not you have the virus. On that front, he said, okay, we're in the process of getting the pieces of equipment that we need to do the tests.

Now we're ramping up collections by partnering with pharmacies and if you put the two of those things together, we can ramp up and make these tests more available to a greater group of people. So he's talking about frontline workers beyond just health care workers.

He's talking about the firemen, the policemen, even the people who are dealing with grocery delivery. He's talking about that kind of testing that is necessary. It's clear to Governor Cuomo in order to get the economy back up and running safely.

To your point we've got the facts. We also got some colorful perspective from him. He says he hears the frustration and the questions from people. When am I going to get back to work? When am I going to get my next paycheck? Is my business going to survive this?

And he said look. It's been 56 days. If you look at what the other generations, what other generations have had to deal with, you are talking about crises that lasted much longer basically trying to put this all into perspective for New Yorkers. But it's been a tough slog for New York. No doubt about it, Fred.

WHITFIELD: And the Governor underscoring that you know phasing in reopening will be phased in very gradually. Sarah Westwood, contrary to what we're seeing in the State of Georgia, Oklahoma. They are beginning their reopening right now Governor Cuomo saying not quite ready to go there yet.

SARAH WESTWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: That's right, Fred resisting a little pressure from the White House there. He also talked a little bit about regional coordination. Something he's talked about before coordinating with New Jersey, with Connecticut, when it comes to reopening when it comes to really all the aspects of the Coronavirus response.

And that's something that we've seen from a number of states. Clusters of states that are Governors getting together saying they're going to make decisions based on their regional concentration of Coronavirus cases about reopening. Not because of pressure from the White House.

We saw those coalitions of states start to pop up when the White House and President Trump specifically really started to push this line that they wanted to see economic reopening. But we did see Cuomo have a sort of positive tone talking about the Federal Government, talking about his meetings this week with the White House and President Trump and Vice President Pence in his conversations, and he seemed happy with the division of labor at this moment between the Federal Government and the states when it comes to addressing testing.

In the past we've seen Cuomo be pretty critical of the White House, critical of the Trump Administration because he thinks that in the past, the White House has put too much pressure on states to take the burden when it comes to ramping up testing. That Cuomo has often said that should be the Federal Government's job to offer more support.

But here we saw him being - praising the White House here. But, yes, as you mentioned Georgia is an example of where the White House sort of has flip flopped on whether that state should open. President Trump this week seemed very supportive of Governor Kemp's decision to reopen the businesses before changing his mind at the urging of members of his task force. The question of when New York and others will open still seems a long way off, Fred.

WHITFIELD: And, Anne Rimoin, a couple of you know medical front issues that the Governor tackled there from the antibody testing that will take place in the hospitals in the hardest hit areas, and then this coordination with pharmacies to collect diagnostic testing.

[12:15:00]

WHITFIELD: You know how much credence do you see in that effort and what would that coordination effort is when you have like Duane Reed pharmacies, CVS who would be assisting in this effort?

ANNE RIMOIN, PROFESSOR, UCLA DEPARTMENT OF EPIDEMIOLOGY: Fred, I think that the devil is in the details here. I think it's a great idea. We need to be very creative. We need to have testing to be as widespread and available to everyone as possible.

And being able to have new points of collection where people can go, this is excellent. This is smart. But what I have not seen in the roll-out of any of these plans, not just for New York, but for, in particular, for these states that are reopening is a playbook for people.

And I think that that's what's really missing here. The general public needs to understand when we have some new innovation, exactly how does it work? Exactly how are they going to be able to access this? And I think these are all the things really important.

You also asked me about antibody testing and the health care workers. That was the other question. And I think that this is a fantastic thing that we are moving towards really having a better understanding of how widely the virus has spread thus far?

But we have to be very careful in the interpretation of these results. Antibody tests are important. Serological surveys something I do all the time in large populations tells you a lot about transmission and who has been infected to date.

But it does not tell us who is immune? And there are some very big questions about immunity. If having antibody means you're immune, how long those might last and if people can get re-infected?

WHITFIELD: All right, thanks to all of you. Appreciate it. Anne Rimoin, Cristina Alesci and Sarah Westwood I appreciate that. All right, coming up people getting tested for Coronavirus without ever leaving their home? But in some places finding an antibody test is still a challenge. We'll take a look at the problems and the delays.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:20:00]

WHITFIELD: Several states are beginning to reopen this weekend, even though health officials have warned it could lead to a resurgence of Coronavirus. In Georgia, hair salons, bowling alleys, even tattoo parlors are now open. Governor Brian Kemp says he wants the state to get back to business, despite a rising death toll in Georgia. CNN's Natasha Chen is in Douglasville, Georgia. Natasha, how are businesses reacting?

NATASHA CHEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Fred that you can imagine there's a very mixed reaction here. But there are some common themes. The owners of barber shops and bowling alleys that we talked to were surprised that their type of business is in the first wave of businesses allowed to re open on Friday.

We're seeing a barber shop behind us here with a pretty steady flow of customers coming in and you know we talked about Jenkins about how they're putting distance between people? Marking off space on their benches so people can't sit too close.

And then there's a hair salon just down from them. They are doing appointment only. And that way they can control when people actually come in. No more than one at a time. The tattoo parlor down here is also open now. We're seeing some people go in there.

So while they are reopening, we are hearing some reluctance from these business owners because their decision to open their doors is really a financial one. They are desperate to earn income because they have not gotten any financial help. And they know it's a public health risk but they have to make that calculation.

Here is the owner of a bowling alley who talked to us about the fact that he's got to make sure his 25 employees can feed their families, and he knows - he knows that that decision may meet criticism.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RANDY HICKS, GEORGIA BOWLING ALLEY OWNER: I'm sorry, you know, I'm sorry for that. I hope they don't hold it against us for no reason. We're not trying to hurt anybody. Look, we just want to get a business going. We have 25 employees that support families out of this bowling center, and we, you know, we're trying to get them back to work also.

ERIC GREESEN, BARBER IN GEORGIA: We haven't even - out on re opening. We're scared about the whole thing, but everybody is scared off basically. But we're also afraid that if we don't open and the person down the street and then we won't have business.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHEN: And he's referring there to the peak of daily COVID-19 deaths in the State of Georgia. According to the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation that peak doesn't come until Wednesday here in this State.

So you can sense that frustration coming from the business owners, maybe some surprise that they were picked to open first. But they really feel like financially, they have very little choice but to try and earn some money, Fred.

WHITFIELD: All right, Natasha Chen, thank you very much in Douglasville, Georgia. So amid calls to ramp up testing nationwide, the FDA has now approved the first COVID-19 at-home test kit that can be delivered straight to your door. The test, which tells if someone is negative or positive is developed by Lab Corp and requires a doctor's referral.

It also comes as government officials continue to push for more anti- body testing on people who have already had Coronavirus. Here's CNN's Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Across the State of New York, health officials arranging for blood tests to try to answer this question - how many New Yorkers have already had Novel Coronavirus? It's called antibody testing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: They had the virus. They developed the antibodies. And they are now "Recovered".

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN: If someone has antibodies, it's possible they are immune to the coronavirus.

[12:25:00]

COHEN: If enough people are immune, the economy could start the process of safely opening back up again. Thursday, Governor Andrew Cuomo announcing that the state has done 3,000 antibody tests, but it's not going as fast as anyone would like.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIUOUS DISEASES: We're getting better and better at it as the weeks go by, but we are not in a situation where we say we're exactly where we want to be with regard to testing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN: Part of the problem? The U.S. Food and Drug Administration relaxed its rules and allowed dozens of companies to sell tests without first proving that they can get accurate results. So it's hard to know which tests will work. Just four have been officially approved. Representative Lloyd Doggett, a Texas Democrat, is Chairman of the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. LLOYD DOGGETT, (D-TX): So any Charlton or any snake oil salesman can go out and promote an antibody test without the slightest bit of verification for that test. This will lead people to think that they are safe when they are not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN: The National Institutes of Health is working with other federal agencies to validate some of the tests on the market now but in the meantime, there just aren't nearly enough reliable tests to go around.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're doing the hard work.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN: Northwell, one of the major New York Labs doing antibody testing saying they have the capacity to do about 25,000 antibody tests per day. But right now, they only have a few thousand test kits on hand. They are expecting more next week.

Across the U.S., it's every community for itself. Most public health labs are not yet able to do antibody testing, according to the Association of Public Health Laboratories. Other communities scrambling too, the Hoonah Indian Association in Alaska, for example, has been waiting weeks for the testing kits that it ordered to arrive.

On the other hand, this private lab outside of Atlanta has been doing drive-through antibody testing for days and testing giant Lab Corp says it will start the process of widespread testing next week across the U.S. in clinics and doctor's offices.

All in an effort to see how many people might be immune to Coronavirus to help officials decide when it's safer to resume more normal activity. Elizabeth Cohen, CNN, Atlanta.

WHITFIELD: And because you still have so many questions about how to navigate all of this, coming up at 2:30 today, right here on CNN, a panel of experts will join me to answer your coronavirus questions. Go to cnn.com to submit your questions on health, family life and your legal rights. Again, that's at 2:30 eastern right here on CNN.

[12:32:15]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: A task force in Florida has given the state's governor recommendations on how to reopen the economy there. Now Governor Ron DeSantis is asking for input from Florida residents before deciding how and when to restart the economy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): I'm not concerned about specific dates as much as I'm concerned about getting it right. So even if we have what we certainly have with IOI and the positive downward. And I think if you look at the test results, when you consider some of these had massive amounts of negatives, I think you'd see similar but I think it's less important about that. Then it's important about doing this in a thoughtful, methodical, and safe way.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: All right with me right now is Congresswoman Donna Shalala. She is a Democratic Representative from Florida and the former Secretary of Health and Human Services under President Bill Clinton. Good to see you.

REP. DONNA SHALALA (D-FL): Thank you, Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right. So do you think your home State of Florida is in a position to reopen anytime soon?

SHALALA: Absolutely not. We simply haven't done enough testing yet. We have not starve this virus down to one where one person is infecting another person, so that you can actually follow and see where the connections are.

But mostly, we haven't done enough testing yet. And that's misleading people about whether we're ready to open or not. And of course, everybody wants to get the economy going. But the fact is, you can't get the Florida's economy going, unless our surrounding states and everybody else is ready to go.

So we're going to have to be patient and we could do this. But the federal government has to step up and buy these supplies and they're just not doing that. This is the wild, wild west down here in Florida, with hospitals competing against each other to get supplies with the state, desperately trying to buy supplies from all over the world.

There's no systematic way of doing this. It's clearly a federal role. Clearly, we did this during World War II. And we've got to have these tests be more uniform, and we got to know that they're accurate. So we're very far away from getting any of that done. Can we do it? The states are capable of exercise of -- of certainly executing if they had the supplies.

WHITFIELD: But contrast that with the messages you're hearing from the White House with the president says, you know, the states, you're on your own, you should be able to handle this. You even have the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who's saying, you know, if it's getting too tough, you know, and you can't rely on the federal government, then you need to consider bankruptcy. What do you say to those messages coming from, you know, your colleagues, federal leaders?

[12:35:04]

SHALALA: They're outrageous. And certainly not conducive to solving this huge pandemic that we have in getting our arms around it. The federal government clearly has a role. And Representative Raskin and I have introduced a bill which says the federal government has to be the purchaser of all of the PPE equipment, everything we need, including the tests. They have the buying power to get the prices down, to get the distribution system going. That's their role.

They also have world class scientists that can give the states advice. And the states ought to come in for advice, have their own strategies. And the federal government ought to fund the execution of that. Right now, it's everybody's out there on their own and that's no way, this is a pandemic. It's the president of the United States that declared the national emergency. And it has to be organized that way. It just doesn't work well.

Look, are the states able to do this? Listen, in 1947, the City of New York vaccinated five million people in two weeks. It has the supplies. It put together the organization, five million people in two weeks. The states are capable of executing this. They need discipline plans, but more than anything else, they need the federal government take its appropriate role.

And its role is to give us scientific advice to approve plans from the state, but more than anything else to be the purchaser here.

WHITFIELD: And yes, there's the Vice President-led task force, but do you believe as former secretary of Health and Human Services that, you know, HHS should be having its own separate kind of press conferences, or, you know, science medical-led briefings to inform the people of, you know, where the nation stands on the, you know, medical and science-led data.

SHALALA: You know, Fredricka, I would never have a press conference in the White House or rarely have one. I would get the politicians out of the way. We've said this from the beginning. Put the scientists in front.

When I work with Tony Fauci and with the Surgeon General, I told them all to put their white coats on, and I got out of the way, and let them talk about whatever the outbreak was, because that's who the American people trust. And I think it's extremely important that the politicians, look, we've got a President that's giving us quack advice.

But, and I feel a little for the Vice President, but the Vice President is talking too much. We want to hear the scientists. We want to hear the public health officials. We want them to give us crisp, clear information. And it may be that they've got to get out of the White House, get over to HHS, get the politicians out of the way, and let us get very good advice from these world class scientists and physicians.

WHITFIELD: And then back to the politics hat. You know, you were just appointed to be a member of the Oversight Committee, rather, you know, to keep tabs on the stimulus aid package, and a new relief package, you know, was just signed this past week. Do you believe it's enough?

SHALALA: No, of course, it's not going to be enough. And I'm worried about how it's being executed at the same time. The whole point of this was to maintain the paychecks of the American people, whether it's through unemployment compensation, which my state has been a mess, because we had a system, a U.I. system that basically was a legacy system. We have not been able to get the checks out to people. It was designed to say no, not to say yes.

And there are lots of people working on it. And the governor clearly inherited it, but he's got to get these checks moving out. And, yes, V.A. system went to the big boys first. And now we've got the focus very clearly. And we did set aside, Democrats demanded to set aside for the smaller businesses.

In my community, I represent the beaches, all those restaurants, the hotels, the port, and thousands of people in the hospitality industry, small, very small businesses, consultants, and they're really frightened and they need to get their money. And hopefully with this latest bill that we passed, the day before yesterday, we'll be able to get more money out.

But it could be that we use the wrong platform. So it could be that the unemployment system wasn't ready for that much money. And that the SBA was the wrong platform. It could be that we should have gone to the IRS and simply said, you get the payroll information for all these companies. You just send them a check to cover their payroll.

WHITFIELD: Instead of the banks dispensing the money. So --

[12:40:05] SHALALA: -- that wasn't capable of handling these numbers.

WHITFIELD: And Congresswoman let me ask, you know, because you may -- you're in a position to respond to critics who are asking for you to resign demanding for you to resign from the Oversight Committee because you failed to disclose talk -- stock sales last year. Can you explain how this happened and why you should stay on the Committee?

SHALALA: Well, first of all, what I failed to do was to meet the deadline to, I sold my most of my portfolio to protect myself last year from any conflict of interest. So there were a lot of sales of my portfolio. What I failed to meet was the deadline to report that even though my disclosure statement clearly said what I own.

So I missed the deadline, but I was trying to do the right thing. I was trying to get rid of all my individual stocks and put them in funds, so there'd be no conflict of interest. And then on top of that, put a blind trust. And what I failed to beat was the deadline. You're supposed to report these things in a month and a half, I think, and I'll get them all reported.

But it was a reporting problem. And, you know, I'm, really, really angry with myself that that happened. It shouldn't have happened. But it's not like I wasn't transparent about what I owned. I was just trying to get rid of all of it. Because I -- it's very difficult to own individual stocks and not get yourself into a conflict of interest situation.

WHITFIELD: All right, House Speaker Pelosi has said, yes, House Speaker Pelosi said she, you know, maintains her confidence in you and doesn't believe that you should resign, but we know that may not potentially silence your critics.

Congresswoman Donna Shalala, thank you so much. Appreciate it. Stay well.

SHALALA: You're welcome.

WHITFIELD: All right, coming up, he was fired for sounding the alarm about the spread of coronavirus aboard his aircraft carrier and now, defense sources are telling CNN the Navy is recommending Captain Brett Crozier be reinstated how defense secretary Mark Esper is responding.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: A second U.S. Navy warship is now battling a major coronavirus outbreak at sea, at least 18 sailors are assigned to the USS Kidd have tested positive for COVID-19. A specialized Navy medical team is now on board the ship conducting contact tracing and isolating individuals who may have been exposed.

The Navy destroyer is currently performing a counter narcotics mission off the coast of Central America and will return to port to be cleaned and disinfected. And at least 840 sailors are assigned to the USS Theodore Roosevelt have now tested positive for the coronavirus.

And now the Navy is recommending that the fired captain who sounded the alarm about the outbreak on that aircraft carrier be reinstated.

[12:45:06]

CNN Pentagon Correspondent, Barbara Starr has more.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: The Chief of Naval Operations Four Star Admiral Michael Gilday has recommended that Captain Brett Crozier get his command back and once again be in charge of the aircraft carrier, Theodore Roosevelt.

Crozier was dismissed by the now fired former acting Navy secretary after he got upset about closures, complaints, and worries that sailors aboard the Roosevelt were not being properly cared for in the wake of the coronavirus breaking out on the ship.

Now, after an investigation of several days, the Navy is recommending that Crozier be reinstated to his command. But it isn't going all that smoothly because that recommendation went to Defense Secretary Mark Esper who declined to accept it right away.

A Pentagon statement says in part, that Esper intends to thoroughly review the report, and we'll meet again with Navy leadership to discuss next steps. He remains focused on and committed to restoring the full health of the crew and getting the ship at sea again soon.

So Esper wants to read the full investigation before he accepts the recommendation of his own Navy leadership. There are now more than 850 sailors on the Roosevelt crew who have tested positive for the virus as the carrier remains tied up in port in Guam.

Barbara Starr, CNN, the Pentagon.

WHITFIELD: All right up next, children on a mission to protect doctors and nurses on the front lines of the pandemic why a family's kitchen is being transformed into a makeshift assembly line.

And a reminder, CNN's Bill Weir takes us on the road to see just how America will be transformed by the climate crisis join him for a CNN special report, "The Road to Change: America's Climate Crisis" tonight at 10:00.

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[12:50:15]

WHITFIELD: The worldwide shortage of personal protective equipment or PPE has not only gotten the attention of giant manufacturers to modify their business templates to help increase production. But it's also inspired the most unlikeliest of heroes who are spending their shelter in place time helping those on the front lines.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Normally on a Tuesday, 12-year-old Vince would be in gym class. Now, these are far from normal Tuesdays. So Vince is working his makeshift assembly line in the family kitchen using a 3D printer he got when he was nine, and another one donated by the library where his mom works. Vince is making PPE face masks for those fighting the pandemic.

VINCE: So this is the thing that you take off the 3D printer.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The sixth grader got motivated after a neighbor who's a nurse put out a plea for PPE.

KATIE MARR, NURSE, MT. SINAI HOSPITAL CHICAGO: I put a post on Facebook saying if you, like, if you have a 3D printer or if you can saw, we could use a masks, these eye shields.

VINCE: I watched her dog when she goes on vacations, and like I thought I was just be another way to help and like the least thing I can do during this pandemic.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For nearly three weeks now the printers have buzzed along. At first, it was taking nearly three hours to print each frame.

VINCE: Me and my dad were like, no, that takes way too long.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A few tweaks to the program, and production time was cut down to about an hour a piece.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On materials on the back row at once.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All over the country, people are stepping up to help fill a critical need for PPE. Phillips Tschammer and Eric Race are high school engineering teachers in Illinois District 214. Along with several colleagues, they took home the school's 3D printers and got to work making headbands for face masks.

ERIC RACE, TEACHER, WHEELING H.S.: I have four printers, and they're running constantly 24/7.

DAVID SCHULER, SUPERINTENDENT OF DISTRICT 214, ILLINOIS: It was an opportunity and a moral imperative to help save lives in our community.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The district partnered with the local community college that has idle laser cutters, good for making masks.

AVIS PROCTOR, PRESIDENT, HARPER COLLEGE: The fact that we have these tools here available to support producing 5,000 PPE's and beyond, I think is a calling that we must answer.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: John Kerman (ph) would normally be teaching welding class, but now he is manning the facemask cutting assembly line.

PHILIP TSCHAMMER, TEACHER, BUFFALO GROVE H.S.: It's getting to the point where we're just trying to produce as many as we can as quickly as we can.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hi Jeff, how are you? UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Last week, they delivered their first shipment to the Buffalo Grove, Illinois Fire Department.

DONNA, VINCE'S MOM: Some have gone to the ICU unit at Elk Grove Hospital, some have gone as far as Nashville, Tennessee, Dearborn, Michigan, and San Marcos, California.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And one place very close to home.

VINCE: My grandma's nursing home. They recently had their first COVID- 19 case.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And let's not forget those first ones Vince sent to his neighbor's hospital.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You never know who's got your back, you know, this little 11-year-old neighbor got my back.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Fantastic and as if these heroes we're not doing enough already. We learned this week that Vince is planning to set up a GoFundMe now to raise more money to feed hospital workers. And in such a challenging time, it's pretty heartwarming to see so many people doing so much good.

All right around the world families of all shapes and sizes are adjusting to a new reality. In Nepal, CNN Hero Maggie Doyne is quarantined with 54 kids at her nonprofit children's home, while also offering life saving food and aid to those who are starving outside the gates.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAGGIE DOYNE, AMERICAN PHILANTHROPIST: Two babies were running children's home for 54 kids.

Sheltering in place and lockdown means different when you're in this part of the world. Rampant food shortages, it's really hard when there's mothers struggling and children are hungry. Every single day, it seems to get worse.

Homes had been broken into for food. People were surviving on salts and chili powder. I've never felt so scared or overwhelmed, but I've never felt more hope that we could do something and mobilize to make this situation better for many, many people. We're just hoping that more help is on the way

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:54:59]

WHITFIELD: Wow. To see how a family of 50 plus stay safe and to learn more about Maggie's life saving mission during COVID-19 go to CNNHeroes.com right now.

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[13:00:03]

WHITFIELD: Hello again, everyone. Thank you so much for joining me. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. We begin with a new warning from the World Health Organization.