New Hotspots and GM Working to Make Ventilators

to travel for fourteen days. In other news, GM and Ford are working to make more ventilators, and new polls show Joe Biden and Trump in a competitive race for Julia Manchester, political reporter for The Hill, joins us for more. Thanks for joining us, Julia, Thank you for having me. We're continuing our conversation about coronavirus and it's spread throughout the United States. We've been seeing a lot of hot

spots on the coast, most notably New York. I know they're kind of the epicenter of this right now, but on the West coast and the East coast that you know, there's high numbers and as the needs for more protective equipment for medical workers and ventilators, things that we need to treat patients. The spread of the virus is starting to get down into Middle America. Now there's new hotspots that are people are talking about. Absolutely, you're seeing the virus.

Really we don't really know if it's necessarily moved, because remember this is something that can be very asymptomatic, so you could have it for a long amount of time or a certain period of time and not realize you have it. So what I think is really happening is you're seeing a lot more testing being done, but you're also seeing continuing, you know, some travel between the states as well. I mean, it's not like the entire country has been shut down one so you're seeing that a lot.

And actually where I am here in Florida, we're really

starting to see the impacts of it. Remember I'm in Central Florida right now, but in South Florida, there are a lot of New York, part time New York or New Jersey residents going to their winter homes in Florida, are going back and forth, and we've seen a lot of hot spots really pop up in South Florida, and a lot of that is attributed to the epicenter of it being really in New York right now, and you've seen Governor Rohnde Santa's here, and we've also seen this

happening and happening in Rhode Island as well. They've been ordering people who have traveled from the Tri State area the New York area to quarantine themselves for two weeks about fourteen days, So that's really been an impact. And you're also seeing it happening in other states as well. Michigan is a huge state that's thought to be a

big epicenter as well. Louisiana. Louisiana, I thought, I think is very interesting and I kind of see some comparisons between Louisiana and Italy because in Louisiana, it was kind of thought that this really started because of the Mardi Grass celebrations earlier this month and the large gatherings of people, and that was thought, you know, in Italy, these large gatherings um in early March, er I guess late February was part of that. So it is starting to become

and it has been a nationwide problem. But I think overall, the more testing you the more positive cases are going to be reported. Yeah, and those travel restrictions. As you mentioned, you know, it kind of leads us into something that happened over the weekend. The President said he was considering quarantine measures for New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, seeing as how it's kind of an epicenter there. Then he backed off of it. I think some of the governors

were mad. Andrew Cuomo said it would cause chaos if they actually put on full, complete lockdowns. But after that, shortly after that, the CDC issued travel advisory saying anybody traveling from there needs to quarantine themselves for two weeks. I also wanted to talk about vital equipment that hospitals and states need right now. The President had activated the Defense Production Act, but it wasn't until this past weekend that he actually said that he's directing General Motors to

start producing ventilators. And there were some back and forth between them, but it seems that Ford and General Motors are both working with companies right now to help make these medical devices so they can supply them to the states. Definitely, and you saw the President get praise for that move, even from Democrats. Joe Biden said he congratulated President Trump for finally invoking the order. We are implementing the order. We know that he technically invoked it earlier this week,

or it might have been late last week. But you know a lot of his critics still say this should have been done earlier. This he should have been putting more pressure on these companies earlier to produce this equipment. But right now we're going to see them really start to create those ventilators to send out to the states. We know that medical equipment is a huge concern across the country and even in urban centers like the New York City area of the Boston area Michigan, for example.

So I think this is definitely good for right now, but I think a lot of people are questioning why this really doesn't wasn't done earlier. And you mentioned Joe Biden. I just wanted to bring him up for a moment. It's a weird time to be campaigning for a general election almost I know Senator Bernie Sanders is still in the race, but it seems like Joe Biden is so far ahead right now, at least with the delegate count.

So he's his campaign has gone completely digital. He's kind of trying to contrast himself with the response to the President Trump to this crisis right now, and there was a new Washington Post ABC poll that has them running pretty close Joe Biden and President Trump a registered voters.

The interesting in that is that Trump is more trusted to handle the economy, which is a very tricky situation right now with what we're dealing with, and Biden is more trusted to manage healthcare policy, which is also something that we're kind of dealing with right now. So this is kind of the latest from the polls. Yeah, and I think what you're seeing right now are there two strengths.

You know, remember President Trump has always how did the fact that there have been stock market gains at least the macro economic level, and it is his administration, which they're absolutely has been, whereas Joe Biden has really pushed this healthcare measure. I mean, during the Obama administration, Joe Biden very much was involved in the writing and the passing of the Affordable Care Acts. So that's definitely both

of their ranks being played out in this. And you're seeing Joe Biden really trying to push this issue of public health and the need to improve public health. He has set up his own public health advisory on the campaign, and you know, to the digital part, his campaign has very much um try to revamp their presence in the digital landscape because it's really the only place they can have a presence at this point, right So you're seeing

them come out with a newsletter, a podcast. This is them really trying to counter program President Trump, but also really try to keep themselves, keep the Vice President Biden in the public eye, and they're really pushing his executive experience as vice president, his experience as a leader dealing with crisis. He often talks about what he did too in the Obama administration to combat the Ebola epidemic and the swine flew in two thousand nine and maybe parts

of two thousand and ten. So they're definitely pushing that. However, it's difficult because you see the networks airing President Trump's conferences with people like Dr Fauci, Dr Deborah Burkes, who are very popular with the public right now. They are seen as very trust in public figures, and I think that definitely helps the Trump campaign to have those people by his side. Julia Manchester, political reporter at the Hill,

Thank you very much for joining us. Thank you I'm Oscar Emiras and this has been your daily coronavirus update. Don't forget that. For more top news stories, you can catch me on the Daily Dive podcast every Monday through Friday, so follow us on my heart radio or subscribe wherever you get your podcast