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Don Lemon Tonight

Trump Extends Social Distancing Guidelines Until April 30; More Than 139,000 Coronavirus Cases In The U.S., At Least 2,400 Deaths; NYC Now Reporting Over 32,000 Cases Of COVID-19; Coronavirus Pandemic; Food Safety Tops During Covid-19 Pandemic. Aired 11p-12a ET

Aired March 29, 2020 - 23:00   ET

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

DAN RATHER, HOST, AXS TV'S "THE BIG INTERVIEW": --Important point, Don, when someone who's close to you, as Maria was to all of us at CBS passes on, it drives home the point that this is serious. It's deadly serious. With a deadly seriousness of a sort that none of us have had to face in our lifetimes before. The closest we come to it was the early days of World War II, when it looked like we might lose the war if we didn't get ourselves together.

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Dan Rather an honor, and a pleasure, sir. Thank you so much for the words of wisdom. We appreciate it.

RATHER: Thank you, Don.

[23:00:00]

LEMON: And this is "CNN Tonight." I'm Don Lemon. It is the top of the hour. President Trump announcing tonight that he is extending social distancing guidelines until April 30th as a coronavirus pandemic worsens all across this country.

Originally, the President said that he wanted to reopen the nation by Easter Sunday, which is in June two weeks, but he now says that goal was aspirational. Coronavirus, spreading rapidly in the U.S. Now more than 139,000 confirmed cases. More than 2,400 people have died in this country.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease experts saying today, that the United States could see millions of cases of coronavirus and 100,000 or more deaths. President Trump acknowledging, that saying that if we can hold the death toll down to 100,000 or less, we have done a good job.

And we're learning tonight that opera legend Placido Domingo is hospitalized in Mexico with coronavirus. He said to be doing well. Musician John Prine, the country folk singer and songwriter also hospitalized with symptoms. In a statement his family says that his situation is critical.

Joining me now is CNN's White House Correspondent John Harwood and our resident fact checker Daniel Dale. Good evening to both of you. John you first. President is now extending social distancing until at least the end of April, acknowledging that 100,000 or more people in this country could die from the corona virus. What is behind this change? JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: What's behind the change, Don, is the overwhelming medical and scientific evidence that was presented to the President by Deborah Burks by Anthony Fauci, others on the task force, that says the absolute worst thing you could do is to declare victory at Easter time. Pull back see the virus mushroom after that, inflict even worse damage from a second shutdown of the economy than you do from the one that we're soldiering through right now.

So credit where due, the President made the correct decision from all the medical and scientific evidence. His behavior at the press conference was very bad and we've talked about it since then. But if you got to choose between good behavior and a bad decision or bad behavior in a good decision, I think any American would take the good decision.

LEMON: Yes. John, you know, just days ago, the President said that he wanted the economy back up and running by Easter. Let's listen to what he said earlier, and then we'll talk about it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: Was there any dissent from your top economic advisors and your decision to leave the guidelines in place till the end of April?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No. And this is before we heard the 2.2 million people. I mean, we had a lot of people were saying, maybe we shouldn't do anything, just ride it. They say ride it like a cowboy. Just ride it. Ride that sucker right through. That's where the 2.2 million people come in - would have died - maybe. But it would have been 1.6 to 2.2, and that's not acceptable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Okay, that was weird. Ride it like a cowboy. I mean, who was - what? Who was saying that Dan?

HARWOOD: Well, remember, I mean, we've had different people making this kind of argument. You had the British Government in the beginning saying well, we'll all get herd immunity if it spreads through the population and now has shut it down that way.

But the argument the President is talking about was made by people early in the outbreak as this started to get worse, and started to impact the stock market. We all remember the CNBC commentator Rick Santelli, saying well, maybe it'd be better if everybody just got it. And then we wouldn't have so much damage to the American economy.

Obviously, that is an unacceptable price to pay. And, again, credit where due, the President embraced that that was an unacceptable price to pay and make the correct decision to keep at this difficult work we as a nation have undertaken?

LEMON: Yes. Mr. Dale to you now. So give us the facts, if you will. Is this a new projection, or is the President just acknowledging it now? DANIEL DALE, CNN REPORTER: It's the latter, Don. So Trump didn't say specifically what study he'd seen. But that that 2.2 million number matches with an Imperial College, London study that was released just under two weeks ago now.

In fact, it had been credited back then, with Trump suddenly seeming to start taking this seriously rather than suggesting it would go away. But he never made any kind of explicit reference to that, that 2.2 million number until tonight.

[23:05:00]

LEMON: Yes, he was saying that - as if it was something new. It wasn't. It was also surprising to me, he said, many people didn't know that there were 100 - more than 150 countries in the world. I was like, OK. Surprise.

DALE: He always refers to many people - lots of people as a whole family or army of unmanned validated.

LEMON: I kept thinking, I think, most people know that there are more than 150 countries in the world. But I digress. OK, so, Daniel, take a listen to this exchange from the Rose Garden earlier tonight. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

YAMICHE ALCINDOR, PBS NEWHOUR, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: You've said repeatedly that you think that some of the equipment that governors are requesting, they don't actually need. You said New York might need--

TRUMP: I didn't say that.

ALCINDOR: --that might not need 30,000--

TRUMP: I didn't say that.

ALCINDOR: You said it on Sean Hannity's Fox News. You said that you might--

TRUMP: Why don't you people act - little just say - why don't you act in a little more positive? It's always trying to get--

ALCINDOR: My question to you--

TRUMP: Get you, get you. And you know what, that's why nobody trusts the media anymore.

ALCINDOR: My question to you is how is that going to impact--

TRUMP: Excuse me, you didn't hear me. That's what you're used to work for "The Times" and now you work for somebody else. Look, let me tell you something. Be nice. Don't be threatening. Be nice. Go ahead.

ALCINDOR: Mr. President my question is, how is that going to impact how you fill these orders for ventilators or for masks?

TRUMP: How can it impact--

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Good for her. She just kept going right with her question. Good for her. What did the President actually say Daniel?

DALE: Don, Trump said exactly what this journalist, Yamiche Alcindor at PBS said that he said and that he falsely denied that he said. Listen to the clip of Trump on Fox News with Sean Hannity just four days ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

Trump (via telephone): A lot of equipment being asked for that I don't think they'll need, but I have a feeling that a lot of the numbers that are being said in some areas are just bigger than they're going to be. I don't believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DALE: So this was an entirely baseless attack on Alcindor by the President.

LEMON: So, John, the President continues to feud with governors who are pleading for federal aid for their states. Why doesn't he understand that a virus has no politics?

HARWOOD: The reason Don is that the war that most preoccupies President Trump is the one that takes place within his own ego. He made that clear to all of us last week and again today. If somebody asks him a question that puts him in an uncomfortable position he lashes out. If someone criticizes him. He lashes out.

If Jay Inslee, the Governor of Washington complains about the federal response, the President said openly. I won't call him. Everything is personal with Donald Trump. He's trying to make himself feel better about a response, that's very difficult. He's getting a lot of criticism. And this is how he copes with it, is by hitting those people who he thinks I've hit him.

You know, he's always said his rule of thumb is they hit me, I hit him 10 times harder. You've got to ask yourself, whether that's what you want from a wartime commander trying to rally the nation and pull it together.

LEMON: Yes, I said last week, and some people thought it was controversial, and I got a bit of criticism for it. But I still believe my initial statement is, we should listen to the experts. For the most part, the President is inconsequential, and listen to the experts and not so much to this president.

Because he said, oh, we're going to try to get the country opened back up by Easter. And now guess what? He's done a 180 on that, and he's done that a lot this entire episode. Daniel, this is for you. Trump also mentioned New York's increasing request for masks, take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: How do you go from 10 to 20 to 300,000? 10 to 20,000 masks to 300,000, even though this is different. Something's going on, and you ought to look into it as reporters. Where are the masks going? Are they going out the back door?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Okay, Daniel go--

DALE: So the President acknowledged - yes, the President acknowledged here that this is different. Yes, it's different. It's a pandemic. New York hospitals are being slammed with patients, many of them in very dire condition, and they go through these single use mass very quickly. So there was no, nefarious conspiracy that's responsible for these increased number of masks needed.

Now the Trump campaign, after I tweeted that he hadn't provided evidence here, suggested that he was just saying what New York Governor Cuomo had said on March 6th, when Cuomo had talked about the fact that there did appear to be some theft of masks from New York hospitals.

But Cuomo, unlike Trump, didn't say that this theft was the reason that New York needed so many more masks. He was just saying that it was happening to some extent. So the comments that the Trump campaign are suggesting were equivalent or not so at all.

[23:10:00]

LEMON: He just - he doesn't get it. Anyways. OK, so John, as we just said two doctors who were on - in the last segment, or the last show, who said the same thing about - when you're in the middle of a pandemic, you use a lot of this equipment.

Even in a normal every day in the hospital, you don't use the same equipment twice. That's what they're taught. And now they're having to use the same equipment all day.

So John, you haven't - there's a new piece up on cnn.com on how the President is wobbling. This is your piece. "Wobbling Under Pressure As A Wartime President." Is that what you saw during tonight's briefing?

HARWOOD: Yes. And this is something that the President has done consistently. You know, what do we value in a wartime leaders? We value the unbreakable, unshakable will to lead the country to a national objective. And what you've seen from this President is a continual flip flopping on whether it's a serious problem or not, whether to invoke the Defense Production Act or not, whether Governors need the ventilators that they've requested, or not, whether we should back off the restrictions or not.

Now, today, he backed off and reversed the - what he suggested last week he would do. Again, that was a flip in the correct decision according to medical and science professionals. So that's a good thing. But it's not the steadiness that you - that we've come to expect to see in wartime leaders.

And it was striking the thing that you just pointed out, the statements about masks and are they going out the back door? Imagine Franklin Roosevelt attacking the naval sailors at Pearl Harbor for getting attacked. Here you have the President suggesting misbehavior from frontline soldiers is the reason that we're having this problem in hospitals, when what they're criticizing is the lack of supply and that's something he's superintending as President of United States.

LEMON: Thank you both. Facts, steady hand, consistency, accuracy, that's what we need from the leader. Appreciate it.

Now, we'll get to Evan McMorris, who has a story of the new normal for this country.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EVAN MCMORRIS-SANTORO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For Americans still self-quarantining to slow the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, word tonight that the new normal will continue for at least another month. At a press conference, Sunday, President Trump says. Despite his initial hope that restrictions would lift by Easter, the pandemics growth requires American to stay put through at least April 30th.

TRUMP: We will be extending our guidelines to April 30th to slow the spread. On Tuesday, we will be finalizing these plans and providing a summary of our findings supporting data and strategy to the American people.

MCMORRIS-SANTORO (voice-over): More tonight, the worst of coronavirus is yet to come. According to CNN calculations, there are more than 137,000 total confirmed cases in the United States. More than 2,400 people have died of the disease. The number of deaths doubling from 1,000 to 2,000 since Thursday, and the devastating figures are expected to rise. Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNN's Jake Tapper that based on modeling 100,000 or more could die.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: The number I gave out is based on modeling, and I think it's entirely conceivable that if we do not mitigate to the extent that we're trying to do that, you could reach that number.

MCMORRIS-SANTORO (voice-over): More states across the country now preparing for a surge in cases. New York remains a national epicenter, 59,313 confirmed cases of the coronavirus as of Sunday with 965 dead of the disease. Governor Andrew Cuomo says the state has not yet reached the apex of coronavirus cases, a moment he is planning for by adding medical beds, equipment and personnel to the state at a breakneck pace.

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D), NEW YORK: They still forecast the apex to be 14 to 21 days. MCMORRIS-SANTORO (voice-over): Four new 1,000 bed field hospitals

across New York City to help alleviate the taxed hospital system approved by the federal government over the weekend.

But even as the pandemic surge, spreads to new cities and new states, much of the focus of this weekend was on sniping between governors and the White House. On Saturday, Trump caught state leaders in New Jersey, Connecticut and New York by surprise when floating a vague quarantine of the New York metropolitan area.

TRUMP: Some people would like to see New York quarantined, because it's a hot spot. But there's a possibility that sometime today we'll do a quarantine. Short term, two weeks on New York. Probably New Jersey, certain parts of Connecticut.

MCMORRIS-SANTORO (voice-over): Before finally revealing new travel restrictions from the CDC, warning residents of the New York area to stay home as much as possible and the quarantine themselves for 14 days, if they do leave. Guidelines that largely echo existing regulations set down by state governments weeks ago.

[23:15:00]

Today, Trump suggests without evidence, something nefarious behind medical workers ongoing demand for more medical equipment, despite a supply chain the President insists is up and running.

TRUMP: It's a client and it goes - they're going from, you heard it, 10,000, 20,000 tops to 300,000 and that's a hospital that's always full. So I think people should check that, because there's something going on. I don't think it's hoarding. I think it's maybe worse than hoarding.

MCMORRIS-SANTORO (voice-over): "The Washington Post" reports that Florida, Trump's official state of residence since last year, and home to one of America's most pro-Trump governors, has had all of his requests from the federal government fulfilled. Other states continue to beg for supplies and equipment.

REPORTER: --is there a reason?

Donald Trump: Well, Florida, look, they're very aggressive in trying to get things, and they're doing a very good job.

MCMORRIS-SANTORO (voice-over): Throughout the country, the strain on the health system is beginning to show. Nurses in the Bronx protested for lack of supplies to protect them from the coronavirus as they work on patients. With the President telling Americans to prepare for a long fight against coronavirus, continuing questions from medical workers about whether they'll get the right equipment they need to get that job done.

MCMORRIS-SANTORO (on-camera): Behind me is the aqueduct raceway and casino complex in Queens, one of the four field hospitals being set up here in New York to help confront the apex, if and when it comes. Don.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Thank you very much, Evan, President Trump conceding tonight that the death toll in the U.S. from coronavirus could reach 100,000 or more and he was clearly affected by the grim scene at New York's Elmhurst Hospital, one of the hardest hit in the city. Here's what he said in the Rose Garden.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I've been watching them bring in trailer trucks, freezer trucks. They're freezer trucks because they can't handle the bodies there's so many of them. This is essentially in my community in Queens, New York. I've seen things that I've never seen before. I mean, I've seen them but I've seen them on television in faraway lands. I've never seen them in our country.

Elmhurst Hospital, unbelievable people. I mean, when I see the trucks pull up to take out bodies, and these are trucks that are as long as The Rose Garden and they're pulling up to take out bodies and you look inside and you see the black body bags. You say, "What's in there?" It's Elmhurst Hospital, must be supplies. It's not supplies, it's people. I've never seen anything like it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Doctors at hospitals across New York City are overwhelmed by the number of patients afflicted with coronavirus. We learned these just moments ago, one New York hospital confirming to CNN that the massive number of patients they are seeing during the COVID-19 crisis is causing a strain on the number of oxygen tanks available.

In short, this is so bad, the situation is so dire they're running out of oxygen these patients need to breathe. Some doctors at one hospital releasing a video hoping to get their message out on how bad the situation is, and pleading with people to take this pandemic seriously to help stop it spread. Here's part of that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. MONALISA MUCHATUTA: Hospitals are running out of medications. Some hospitals don't have protective gear for staff for family members of patients that come to the hospital. We're running out of medications, we're running out of equipment room and we're even running out of oxygen which is something that patients that have COVID-19 need.

DR. RAVI WETTASINGHE: A lot of people who are showing mild symptoms with this and they're going out with just mild symptoms. That's the problem with this disease, because they're spreading it, and they may go out, they spread it to the parents, their grandparents, and people who are dying with this.

And you can think of it as your lungs being filled with fluid, like you're drowning. And once you get to a point where you're drowning, you need a ventilator to stay alive and we're running out of that equipment for people. And we don't know who's going to do well, who's not going to do well. It's like you hit a tipping point, you start drowning, you do really poorly and we're running out of equipment in the hospital. Nearly everybody comes in emergency department has this and we're getting completely overwhelmed.

DR. BENJAMIN OBASEKI: Every day we're having people - younger adults come in who have very little comorbidities, the other illnesses going on, who are being seriously affected by this illness. Affected to the point to where they have to be put on a ventilator just to breathe.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Like the one does beeping in the background.

OBASEKI: Exactly. The one that's beeping in the background is a young patient, who was presumably healthy before they came. This is not something that's isolated to the old. Please here this morning and do whatever necessary to prevent this from spreading

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: New York's mayor now reporting more than 32,000 cases of COVID- 19 in the city.

[23:20:00]

How did the United States of America fall so far behind when it comes to testing for this virus? The truth about testing next. And the question everybody seems to be asking is our food safe? I'm going to ask a well-known chef whether he should be worried or we should be worried, excuse me.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: OK, this is something that you will find fascinating and after this conversation, I hope you will go read the report of the reporter, writer that I am about to interview for you. But first, the introduction.

The Trump administration saying tonight that more than 894,000 coronavirus tests have been carried out in the U.S. For more than three weeks - more than three weeks ago, the HHS Secretary Alex Azar said 4 million tests would be available by mid-March. So let's discuss. Ed Pilkington, The Chief Reporter for "The Guardian" U.S. joins me now. Ed?

ED PILKINGTON, CHIEF REPORTER, GUARDIAN US: Great to be with you.

LEMON: This is a great report. Thank you so much. Let's get to it. Your reporting in "The Guardian" this weekend is titled "The Missing Six Weeks: How Trump Failed The Biggest Test Of His Life." And here's what you point to a cascade of failures essentially - especially with testing, why were we so behind with testing, Ed?

[23:25:00]

PILKINGTON: Well, that's the big question. Where did these four to six weeks go? What started me off on this journey was - you know, we've heard a lot about South Korea. How well South Korea has done.

But then I saw the line rather buried in a Reuters report that said the first confirmed case of coronavirus in South Korea was January the 20th, 2020. The first confirmed case of coronavirus in the U.S. was January the 20th, 2020. Exactly the same day.

Now, where do the two countries go? Immediately, South Korea found their first case they assembled the war summit essentially, of both government and private companies, and within about 10 days they had a mass testing surveillance system underway.

Fast forward to today, South Korea largely has a coronavirus contained. They're getting about 100 new cases a day, which is quite manageable for our health service. What did America do? America hope - well, it kind of baffles me to this moment to know what America did, because it seemed to do nothing.

It was not until February the 29th, so we're talking about five weeks after the first confirmed case in Washington State that the Trump administration allowed private and state laboratories to develop their own tests.

And in between that, January the 20th and February 29, the CDC kept a tight control over testing. It led to a huge bottleneck. Hardly any testing could be done. And as a result, the country has been walking blind. Doctors, governors, health policymakers, the federal government, Trump himself do not - none of them know where coronavirus is, in what numbers and how to deal with it, because they don't have the scientific knowledge that would allow them to get in front of the virus.

So, you know, five weeks for a virus at every three days' doubles in size, it's exponential, which is why it's such a dangerous virus. Five weeks is a massive amount of time that has been lost in this country.

And, you know, we heard Nancy Pelosi say this morning that as a result, American lives will be lost. Very dramatic thing for the speaker to say this morning. But when you kind of consider the length of time that America has fallen behind the curve of this virus, you have to assume that she's right about that.

LEMON: Well, the one thing that the administration points to is that oh, well, the they ban travel from coming in to China, and you say to that, what?

PILKINGTON: Well, the banning of travel, if you go into the detail of that actual ban, it was not as effective as Trump says it was. It was a partial ban and American citizens was still getting back into the country from China.

But, I've spoken to several scientists and health policy people who say credit where credit is due. The ban did have some impact now. Well, what impact did it have? It was never going to stop coronavirus entering the country. You could never do that with a virus that is as easily transmitted as this one. All it did was bought time. It bought time for the federal government to get its act together. It gave the federal government time to get the testing underway. It gave - got the federal government time to supply more ventilators. It gave the federal government time to buy and manufacture millions more masks to protect the frontline health workers. Again--

LEMON: And what did the federal government do with that time?

PILKINGTON: Well jump forward to today, six weeks. What are we talking about all day long? We're talking about the absence of testing. We're talking about they're not enough ventilators, people are going to die within days unless more ventilators are required. And we're talking about frontline workers going into hospitals unprotected.

I mean, I spoke to a doctor from Portland, Oregon, who said that she had written resigned herself to being exposed. Now what that effectively means, she didn't say it in these terms. What it means is she is resigned to getting sick with coronavirus, because - and this is in her own words, because she thinks the federal government of the United States, the most powerful government in the world, has not protected her.

And, you know, my jaw dropped when I heard her say that, because it's such a terrible indictment of a country that proudly and up to now correctly prides itself in being a country that looks after its own people, and a country that that uses science to protect its own people.

Now we've seen, I think part of the story of this missing four to six weeks is the Trump administration has been on an anti-science drive, and I don't think the President listened to his own scientific advice. And I think that's a huge piece of the problem here.

LEMON: Yes. Well, Ed, listen, we're out of time. But I'm telling you this is - I'm encouraging everyone to go read this report. Ed Pilkington, it's in "The Guardian" this weekend. It's called "The Missing Six Weeks: How Trump Failed The Biggest Test Of His Life," and you will understand why we are at the point where we are now, you will understand.

[23:30:00]

Thank you for writing it and thank you for appearing on this program be well.

PILKINGTON: Don, thanks so much.

LEMON: Thank you. People across this country wandering tonight whether delivery, takeout and homemade meals are safe as coronavirus spreads. We're going to bring you everything you need to know to keep your food safe. Next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: One of the biggest questions I hear when I talk to people about the coronavirus is about food. How do I get it safely? And is my food itself safe? More on that tonight from CNN's Amara Walker.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AMARA WALKER, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): With most restaurants across the U.S. shuttered, many of us are turning to food takeout or delivery. But how safe is that?

DR. BENJAMIN CHAPMAN, FOOD SAFETY SPECIALIST: My message around takeout really is, go ahead and do it. It's a really safe alternative.

WALKER (voice-over): Dr. Benjamin Chapman, a Food Safety Specialist at North Carolina State University says there's no evidence that Corona virus is transmitted by food or food packaging, even if coronavirus somehow makes its way into your meal.

DR. ANGELA RASMUSSEN, VIROLOGIST, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY: In general, eating food is low risk and there has not been any evidence to show the coronavirus is transmitted by eating food.

[23:35:00]

WALKER (voice-over): And although the heat from cooking is more likely to kill off the coronavirus, Dr. Angela Rasmussen, a Virologists at Columbia University says, the risk of contracting COVID-19 through a hot or even cold meal is extremely low.

RASMUSSEN: Coronaviruses in general are not stable at high temperatures, so it is highly likely that cooking food will inactivate the virus. Cold foods, we don't know how long the virus remains infectious on cold foods. However, for things like produce that you would presumably wash prior to eating, that should rinse off any virus.

WALKER (voice-over): Dr. Rasmussen adds, if the virus is ingested, our stomach would actually get rid of the virus.

RASMUSSEN: When you eat any kind of food, whether it be hot or cold, that food is going to go straight down into your stomach where there's a high acidity, low pH environment that all So we'll inactivate the virus.

WALKER (voice-over): CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta says that if you order food from a restaurant, there are some precautions you should take.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: What we've basically done is when we receive food, we'll try and take off some of the packaging actually on the porch even - and leave it out there and then when we come in, we sort of wipe any of the surfaces that any of the remaining packaging is on, and then obviously wash our hands.

I mean, again, keeping in mind that it's hand touching, and then the enhanced it to face. So that's how we've sort of approached it and it seems to have worked. I feel pretty good about it.

WALKER (voice-over): Dr. Celine Gounder, a Clinical Assistant professor of Medicine and Infectious Diseases at NYU Bellevue agrees that it's human interaction, not interaction with food that poses the greatest risk.

DR. CELINE GOUNDER, NYU CLINICAL ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE: I think the highest risk moment in getting food delivered to you is actually the face to face interaction, if you have one, with the delivery person. So, ideally, you would be able to pay them online, tip them online or whatever platform you're using for ordering food and then have them leave it outside your door, wait till they leave and then you get the food.

WALKER (voice-over): If you prefer to head to the grocery store to put together a homemade meal, wiping the products down and washing your hands are key.

GOUNDER: I would suggest wiping down the external surfaces of canned or wrapped foods. You should be washing your fruits and vegetables produce anyway, soap and water is just fine for that. Making sure you sanitize your hands after you unpack your groceries is also a key step here.

WALKER (voice-over): Amara Walker, CNN.

(END VIDEO CLIP)