Administration of Donald J. Trump, 2020 Remarks in a Roundtable Discussion on COVID–19 Response and Storm Preparedness in Belleaire, Florida July 31, 2020 The President. Thank you very much. And thank you for being here to discuss the relentless work that we're doing to defeat the China virus and protect the people of Florida, great State. Just got the endorsement of the sheriffs, and they are amazing people. Law enforcement in Florida is very, very, very first rate. We appreciate the—that endorsement in particular. First, I want to provide an update to our response and on our response to a hurricane. So the hurricane is—I'm not sure it's a hurricane yet. It's—right now, it's sort of projected as a storm/hurricane, right? What's going to happen? Is that looking like a hurricane to you, Ron? Governor Ronald D. DeSantis of Florida I think that it did reach category 1 status, but it's kind of right on the—right at the border. The President. Let's keep it that. Let's not let it get any bigger. But it's pretty severe nevertheless. A lot of water coming in. It's approaching the Florida coast. The storm has already passed through Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, and I've approved emergency declarations for both of those areas. FEMA is closely coordinating with Florida, with your Governor, who happens to be on my right. Good job, by the way, Ron. You're doing a great job. And we're in constant contact with the Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Alabama, and anybody else that may have a problem. But we think it's going to be—it's going to work out very well. But we have FEMA all set to go. In some of those States, they're already there. I ask all of those in the path of the storm to follow the guidance of your State, local, and Tribal officials. My administration will be here for you every single step of the way. We've done everything we can do, and now we're just waiting for the storm. And I guess it's right behind me. It's following me. We're grateful to be joined by Health and Human Services Secretary, who's doing a fantastic job on COVID, or whatever you want to call it. There are many different names. All we know is it came from China and they shouldn't have let it happen. But Alex Azar is here. Thank you, Alex, very much. Governor Ron DeSantis, doing a fantastic job. Thank you. Previous Governor, and now Senator, Rick Scott, he's representing Florida very well in Washington. And I just spoke with Marco Rubio, and likewise, he's doing a great job. And he sends his regards. State Senator Wilton Simpson. Thank you very much, Senator. Great job you're doing. State Representative Daniel Perez. Daniel? Thank you, Daniel, very much. Pinellas County Commissioner Kathleen Peters. Hi, Kathleen. Pinellas County, FL, Commissioner Kathleen Peters. Good to see you. The President. Thanks very much. And CEO of Safety Net Hospital Alliance of Florida, Justin Senior. Thank you. Thank you, Justin, very much for being here. So we continue to take very aggressive action to combat the virus in Florida. And your State officials are amazing. They've been working so hard. The rate of positive cases in Florida has 1 now declined. It's declining. And hospitalizations are declining in most places, and pretty steadily. And we think there's going to be a big decline starting very soon. There is currently over 21-percent in-patient hospital bed capacity available. So there's plenty of bed capacity. And over 16 percent ICU capacity available, and some of that's going to be emptying out as people get better. They do get better, and they get better pretty fast. Statewide, we're providing additional resources and personnel to help save lives. We remain concerned about Florida, about Miami, and in a certain area of Miami in particular. But local officials are working very hard, and we think we have that one in the right step also. The test positivity rate has declined over the last week—and in some cases, very substantially—as have hospitalization levels. But we must further reduce the spread, and that's what we're doing. We're working closely with health officials on the ground to support this effort. The single best way to defeat the disease is personal responsibility. You've heard me say it. You've heard a lot of people say it, actually. I urge all Americans to protect the elderly. The fact is, you have to do the social distancing thing. It's a very important—socially distance. Wear a mask when you cannot avoid crowded places or socially distance. And wash your hands as often as possible. Almost half of all deaths nationwide have been in nursing homes and assisted living centers. And I have to say, the State of Florida, with regard to the nursing homes, has done an incredible job. Really, an incredible job. They watched what was happening in some places, even beyond our own country, the other countries. They were seeing what was happening with the elderly, and particularly in nursing homes. And, Ron, you've done a great job on that. We appreciate it. I have to say that there's been a big surge of the China virus in other countries—very big. Countries that we thought we—they were doing a good job. And they were; they were doing a great job in some cases. But big headline in the Wall Street Journal just yesterday, and an editorial, that all of a sudden they started to surge. So countries that we thought were doing great, turned out to have difficulty, big difficulty. I won't name the countries, but you know them. There are a lot of them actually. The average age of those who succumb to the virus is 78 years old. We're also closely monitoring the situation in Latin America and its impact on the United States. Latin America has more confirmed cases than anywhere else in the world. Actually, substantially more. They're having a hard time. We've sent many ventilators to Latin America. We've sent many ventilators to different countries in Europe, Africa, and all over the world. We've—we're making thousands of ventilators now, a month. We started off with essentially very little, and we've become a ventilator manufacturer, so to speak. And we're helping a lot of countries. We've sent them to France. We've sent him to Italy—a lot to Italy. We sent them to Mexico. We've sent them to Russia. Moscow is having a tremendous problem. And we've sent them to a lot of different countries—many. And we have a full supply in our country. The amazing thing is, we started with very few, and not one person that needed a ventilator did not get a ventilator. So that's a pretty amazing statistic. We have nearly 1,400 Federal personnel on the ground already in Florida, including personnel supporting nursing homes. We have doctors—military doctors—they're incredible and very talented people. And frankly, they're very brave people. But they're all over the State helping with your medical folks. And Ron asked if he could get some extra people here. We did it immediately. 2 In the last week, we've opened five new surge testing sites in Florida: in Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood Beach, Pompano Beach, and two in Miami. We're sending rapid test kits to 701 Medicare- and Medicaid-certified nursing homes in the State. We've also sent multiple shipments of protective equipment to all of the nursing homes. And as I said on ventilators—I can also talk about in Florida and Miami, they have everything they need. They have—they don't need any. We've sent a lot. They don't need any. Testing wise, we've tested almost 60 million people throughout the country, which is about six times more than any other country—close to 6 times more than any other country. We have— if you look at India, they're at 11 million. We're going to be at over 60 million. So they've done a tremendous job in testing, considering we started off with very little. It was an unknown disease, and it was an unknown test. FEMA, HHS, and the private sector have delivered more than 10 million N95 masks, 43 million surgical masks, 19.7 million gowns, and 1.3 billion medical gloves to Florida—1.3 billion gloves, Ron. We've secured 90 percent of the world's supply of remdesivir, which has been very, very successful, and have sent over 143 vials to Florida hospitals as a—really something that's very special and we're working on very hard. Operation Warp Speed—today we reached a $2 billion agreement with Sanofi and GSX to conduct clinical trials and mass-produce 100 million doses of vaccine. What we've done is rather incredible, I have to say. We have many companies—great companies—Johnson & Johnson Merck, Pfizer. Many companies are very close to getting the vaccine. We think it's going to be in a very short time from now. And we're set with our military to deliver the vaccine. We have a tremendous military delivery service, and that—we'll be doing it.