March 20 coronavirus news

3M says it has doubled its global output of N95 respirator masks during the coronavirus outbreak.

According to a statement on Friday, the company has doubled the output of respirators to a rate of 1.1 billion per year, or nearly 100 million per month.

3M is also increasing investments in the US on an effort to expand its global capacity by over 30 percent in the next 12 months.

Mike Roman, 3M chairman and chief executive officer, said the company is mobilizing resources and output to help US healthcare workers.

According to the statement, the company is also receiving increasing reports of fraudulent and counterfeiting activities involving 3M.

Vice President Mike Pence discussed the administration’s efforts to secure more masks for health care workers as well as more ventilators for sick Americans who may need treatment.

“We continue at the President’s direction to pursue every means to expand the supply of personal protective equipment,” Pence said.

“We have a policy of procuring, allocating — as well as conserving — the resources that we have in our system,” he said.

Pence teased a “a major procurement from the federal government of N95 masks” coming over the weekend.

He also highlighted “new alternatives to increase the supply of ventilators” in the US amid fears that the health care system does not have enough to keep alive the number of Americans likely to become seriously ill at the height of an outbreak.

Pence said part of those efforts involve a push to “free up other ventilators” in use in the system.

“We’ve literally identified tens of thousands of existing ventilators that can be retrofitted and converted” to help coronavirus patients Pence said. 

As part of the concerns about insufficient ventilators, Pence said “we want to continue to urge every American… postpone elective medical procedures.”

President Trump announced that the Department of Education will not enforce standardized testing requirements for the current school year. Trump said this will be for all students, elementary through high school. 

Trump also announced that interest will be temporarily waived on student loans and federally held student loan payments will be suspended for 60 days.

"We have also temporarily waived all interest on federally held student loans," he said at the daily Coronavirus press briefing. "Today secretary Devos directed borrowers to suspend loans and student loan payments without penalty for 60 days and if we need more we'll extend that period of time."

Just one day after putting the responsibility on the states to get their own supplies, President Trump appears to now be saying the federal government is going to help states get crucial medical supplies.

"We have millions of masks which are coming which are distributed to the states. The states are having a hard time getting them," Trump said.

On the medical supplies, he added: "They'll be here soon and we'll ship them directly to states."

More context: Yesterday at the daily coronavirus task force news conference, Trump said, "The governors are supposed to be doing a lot of this work and they are doing a lot of this work" to get medical supplies. He continued, "The federal government is not supposed to be out there buying vast amounts of items and shipping. You know, we're not a shipping clerk."

President Trump does not think a national lockdown order is needed as the US continues to deal with the coronavirus outbreak.

Trump's remarks Friday afternoon come after New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said 100% of non-essential workers should stay home.

Trump added: "We are working with the governors and I don't think we'll ever find it necessary."

Top US infectious disease doctor Dr. Anthony Fauci, a member of the White House coronavirus task force, said he "strongly" supports the New York governor's decision to mandate that 100% of non-essential workers stay home in the state.

Fauci, a New Yorker himself, added: "I know what New Yorkers can do. We're tough."

He called on all New Yorkers to cooperate with the mandate.

More context: Earlier today, Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued a mandate requiring all non-essential workers to stay home in the state. The number of positive cases has surged to over 7,000 as the state has ramped up testing, the governor said.

Deborah Birx, a physician and public health expert, spoke Friday about some of the "concerning" trends she is seeing across the globe during the coronavirus pandemic.

Birx specifically discussed Italy, where the number of deaths related to coronavirus has surpassed China.

More on Italy and China: The number of deaths in Italy reached 3,405 on Thursday, the Italian Civil Protection Agency said at a news conference — 156 more than China's toll, which, according to Johns Hopkins University, stands at 3,249.

The total number of cases in Italy rose to 41,035 with 5,322 new cases, officials added.

The grim figure comes hours after China marked a major milestone in the battle to limit the spread, reporting no new locally transmitted coronavirus cases for the first time since the pandemic began.

President Trump said he kicked his usage of the Defense Production Act "into gear" on Thursday evening after saying he would only invoke the measure in a worst case scenario.

Trump told reporters he'd moved the National Response Coordination Center — an office within the Federal Emergency Management Agency — into the "highest level of activation."

"We are helping the states a lot," Trump said during the daily coronavirus briefing.

More on this: There remains some confusion around Trump's use of the Defense Production Act, which he signed on Wednesday but later said he wasn't yet invoking despite shortages of medical gear and equipment.

On Thursday, Trump said it was the responsibility of individual governors to ensure their states have sufficient levels of supplies.

The DPA allows the federal government to direct industries to produce necessary equipment, but it remains unclear whether Trump has provided that direction yet.

President Trump expressed support for measures taken by Gov. Gavin Newsom and Andrew Cuomo in California and New York, respectively, to address the coronavirus pandemic. 

Trump said he’s been watching what's happened in California, where Newsom issued a state-wide lock down.

On Friday, Cuomo announced that all workers in non-essential businesses across New York state are required to stay home in an effort to combat the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.