Raymond Arroyo on keeping the faith amid coronavirus crisis

close

Video

Raymond Arroyo on keeping the faith amid coronavirus crisis

Fox News contributor examines how faith leaders are adapting to COVID-19 quarantine.

This is a rush transcript from "The Ingraham Angle," April 10, 2020. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

BILL HEMMER, FOX NEWS HOST: It is 9:00 p.m. here in New York City, the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States. And I'm Bill Hemmer reporting live for the next hour.

Sean took the day off. In the spirit of Easter, he is forgiven.

Here is where we stand as of tonight -- breaking earlier, the president is creating a White House task force that will help determine how and when we restart our economy. This as the death toll hit a grim milestone, more than 100,000 dead worldwide. In the United States, meanwhile, the death toll is now more than 18,000.

In California, however, it appears that state is flattening the curve, and that is where we begin tonight with our chief breaking news correspondent, Trace Gallagher.

Trace, good evening.

TRACE GALLAGHER, FOX NEWS CHIEF BREAKING NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Bill.

Today, during the coronavirus tax force briefing, Dr. Deborah Birx noted how California is an example of how to flatten the curve and bend the curve. In fact, for more than a week, the number of new infections and new debts in California has been very steady. And when it comes to patients being admitted to ICUs, which is a key barometer on curve-flattening, California is seeing numbers come down.

Here is the state's HHS secretary. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK GHALY, CALIFORNIA HHS SECRETARY: Our peak may not be as high as we planned around and expected, the difference between what we are seeing today in our hospitals may not be that much different than where we are going to peek in the many weeks to come.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GALLAGHER: But still, Los Angeles County extended its stay-at-home mandate until May 15th. Meantime, across the country, there is a great deal of focus on the number of total cases and number of deaths, but when it comes to flattening the curve what is most important is the percentage of increase in the number of cases.

So, take a look this -- from April 6th to 7th, we had a 9 percent increase in cases across the country. From seventh to eighth, it dropped to 8.5 percent, then to 8.1 percent the next day, and today, we are down to 7.8 percent. So, fewer people getting sick is exactly the right direction.

I also want to point out some potential hot spots in coming day that include Delaware, South Dakota, Maryland, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania. But just importantly, the dire situations in New Orleans and Detroit appear to be stabilizing.

Bottom line, Friday night, Bill, we have more good news than bad -- Bill.

HEMMER: Trace, nice to hear that. Thank you. Good to see you too. Trace Gallagher in L.A. Thank you.

Testing will likely play a critical role in the coming days and weeks ahead. The host of "The Dr. Oz Show", Dr. Mehmet Oz is with me now.

And you've been a workhorse on this. Good evening to you yet again, Doc.

How much --

MEHMET OZ, MD, "THE DR. OZ SHOW" HOST: Good evening to you.

HEMMER: How much consideration have you given to how we reopen parts of the country, Doc?

OZ: I've been thinking about it a lot because we have to do it in a medically sound way. You know, when you come out of the operating room, you don't get discharged home, especially with major surgery we just went through where we pulled the emergency brake, you're going to be in the recovery room for a while.

So, what happens in the recovery room? First off, testing is absolutely essential. I spoke to Abbott in the last 24 hours. They are making a million of the tests every week that take six hours to figure out if you have infection with the COVID-19 virus. They are making about 50,000 a day of the kits that can detect within 5 minutes if you've been infected.

But those kind of advances, and kudos to them for making these tests, while hugely beneficial, because once we know who is sick, then we can begin to do part two, which is to make sure that they are quarantined, separated, given the help they need so they don't infect ten people getting home, and plus, people who they know, who they've been close to -- and I define close to as more than 10 minutes, less than 6 feet away from somebody, you were just -- you were too close that means. And then those folks have to get pulled out and quarantined as well.

And if I a little bit, and we're just talking about it, that's -- with those numbers coming down, is we have to make the hospital system comfortable so it can accommodate people who get sick just in case you have errors that occur, you can still accommodate the sick bunch.

HEMMER: Also, there was some breaking news that you had a bit earlier today. There was a study in France with hydroxychloroquine, about a thousand French people. What -- what did they tell you about their conclusions on that, Doc?

OZ: Well, Didier Raoult, the world famous infectious disease specialist who works in Marseille, met with the French President Macron for three and a half hours yesterday and he sent us the data that he reviewed which was about the first 1,061 patients. They had a 96 percent success rate of getting rid of the virus within 10 days, it means those patients are not infectious anymore. This is with a combination of hydroxychloroquine, which is a malaria drug, together with azithromycin, which is a Z-Pak.

And he also showed, this is important, that there wasn't a lot of complications with using those drugs together. That's vitally critical because if the side effects, they're meaningful, then you're going to be cautious because you don't know for sure the benefits are going to be there.

And I got to say, just breaking news an hour ago, I got a pre-print of a paper of 950,000 patients that concluded that the use of this drug hydroxychloroquine was safe. This multicenter study reinforced what people have been saying for a long time, which is this drug has been around since 1955. It does not have a profile that concerns people. It's already used for 300,000 lupus patients every year. These doctors however did warn that when combined with other medications, like antibiotics, azithromycin, that you want to get an EKG and more cautious.

So, net-net --

HEMMER: Wow.

OZ: -- it looks like the drug is safe, we're not sure if it works but increasing data from France and from China makes me comfortable that what most doctors are doing is reasonable, which is talk to your patient about it, if it makes sense, and people who are not that sick yet and but also not completely healthy, that middle ground may be benefited.

HEMMER: Uh-huh, very interesting. We'll keep an eye on that. I'm going to speak with a modeling expert in the moment from the University of Washington.

How good are the models when you consider the virus is adapting and moving and changing? How much stock do we put in those, Doctor?

OZ: Well, the models are the best we've got to go with. And, obviously, they are a little bit more malleable than we would wish because you can rapidly change by an order of magnitude what our expectations are. That stated, I'm pretty confident we would've had a much worse outcome if we hand shut the country down.

The variables that come into play are whether we can actually test and assess how widely spread the virus is. In New York, we missed the boat because -- and it spread so much further than we anticipated, because we had no data. California as you're pointing out got there a little bit of ahead of time, but just because the nature of California, it wasn't as easy for it to spread. The subways aren't there, the elevators, the places that really cause problems in New York.

So the models helped us predict what's going to happen in 24 days, because that's how long it took us to get ahead of this. We do the math. That's what it took in Wuhan, China to work. So, modeling is vital, otherwise you're completely without guidance.

HEMMER: With regard to New York, we lost a staggering 777 people yesterday, that's the fourth day in the row we've been up over 700 per day. Hospitalization number however is down. The ICU number is down significantly.

Is New York then as a city or as a state, are we on the backside of this do you think?

OZ: Can't quite say that yet, we may have to wait until Easter day or the day after. It's going to be in that range, I'm hopeful.

On the ground talking to colleagues who are running ICUs on the frontlines, it doesn't feel lighter yet because we're -- we're not getting less patients, it's just less people in the ICU's net-net because some are being discharged. But the number of people coming to you who are ill and some needing breathing tubes is relatively consistent.

My hope is that once we reached that stable point which we seem to be at now, then we'll start to slide down the slope and it's a lot easier skiing downhill than uphill.

HEMMER: When you speak to doctors and you find out how much damage is being done to the lungs and the human body, what does that tell you about the virus?

OZ: This virus is different. First of all, it's more contagious than any we've ever seen but it's a lot different than what we expected. It doesn't make the lungs wet and baggy like a sponge might be. It actually has a remarkably destructive effect but in a dry lung.

And for that reason, doctors are struggling with the best way to use ventilators for example. Maybe you don't want as much pressure as historically you would typically use. So, doctors are calling audibles continually.

But I've got to say, you may remember Governor Cuomo sounds like a doctor he speaks so much about the health issues of the state, but Governor Cuomo spoke about an 80 percent mortality rate with ventilators early on. The mortality at my hospital, New York Presbyterian, is more like 50 percent, which is I think is reflective of the fact that physicians have gotten much better at treating these problems.

That's still not great and we can do better I think and I'm hopeful with new insights the dry pneumonia that's happening with these patients, we'll figure out even more innovative ways to get folks through there. But the number issue that not getting infected, the number two issue is to figure out ways of slowing the infection down so less people get that ill.

And you get -- back to the earlier question about what we do about this when we come out of this in May, the older members of society that have comorbidities, that's were almost all the deaths are. Then we're going to be especially cautious about what they're doing and whether they get infected for probably a year, because if we can't take our eyes off that ball, that really hurts.

HEMMER: Well, last question for me. The surgeon general said earlier today, we're going to test about one in 100, one in 150 Americans. He said, we're not going to test all 330 Americans, I'm sure you're aware of that. Dr. Fauci was also asked about this immunity card, he did not dismiss it.

Is that the way we are going in America, carrying him immunity card that says you no longer have it and will not get it, Doc?

OZ: Well, Dr. Fauci was very guarded when he answered that question, if you actually listened to what he was saying. And I think he's right. It's not the obvious step to take, other countries are doing that. If a lot of other people have already been infected, maybe it makes sense to keep track, but I think most people just do the right thing if they're infected or not.

The bigger question is finding people who are currently infected, not the ones who are infected last month, although it's good to know that because you can start to predict who could safely go to work and whether we can get herd immunity. But herd immunity takes place at 65, 70 percent of the population minimum and much more ideally to truly be able to protect everybody.

So, I'm focused not on the antibody tests, although it would be good to have, but on the nasal test, the test of the actual virus itself. That is essential and that is the one major gap that we have been living through, because without that, you don't have eyes on the target, you can't figure out how to make decisions and it's not fair to our leadership at any level if we don't give them guidance.

HEMMER: Yes.

OZ: We've also need an active public health service who can go out there and help people who are infected, not contaminated everyone they meet going home.

HEMMER: If you get some sleep this week and you're going to need it. Back at it again. Thank you, Dr. Oz. Nice to see you tonight. Thank you.

OZ: Thanks, Bill.

HEMMER: Jonathan Serrie was in Atlanta, reporting outside the CDC for us.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JONATHAN SERRIE, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Bill, we are nearing the end of what the federal health officials knew would be a difficult week for the number of COVID-19 deaths. This is the delayed result of large numbers of people admitted to hospital ICUs in New York over the past two weeks.

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D), NEW YORK: I understand intellectually why it's happening, it doesn't make it any easier to accept.

SERRIE: New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is urging Congress to create a hero's fund to compensate hospital employees and other frontline workers in a pandemic response, and public health officials say every day Americans embracing social distancing are reducing the numbers of new cases nationwide.

DR. DEBORAH BIRX, WHTE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS TASK FORCE COORDINATOR: You can see for the first time that in the United States, we are starting to level on the logarithmic phase like Italy did about a week ago.

SERRIE: In a moment of levity for the children of Maryland, Governor Larry Hogan issued a proclamation declaring the Easter bunny an essential worker. As we go into the holiday weekend, officials are urging families to celebrate by themselves in their own homes to help America continue to reduce the spread -- Bill.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HEMMER: I like that message. Thank you, Jonathan Serrie in Atlanta, on that report.

This week, a key model is showing major signs of improvement as the death toll has now been revised down multiple times. The professor behind the model is Dr. Ali Mokdad from the Institute for Health and Evaluation or IHME, University of Washington.

Doctor, welcome back and nice to see you again. We spoke earlier in the week and thank you for coming back here.

Why did the model change so dramatically from Monday to Wednesday? It was all good news but why did that happen?

ALI MOKDAD, PHD, HEALTH METRICS SCIENCES PROFESSOR: We have seen positive news from Italy and Spain where the peak went higher and down faster and we implemented this new data, included them in our model. We have seen better practices at our hospitals when it comes to need for ICUs and ventilators. Our physicians are doing a better job of triaging patients and we are seeing positive news, declining number of deaths in our health facilities.

HEMMER: Wow, so many of us we go to your website and check out your information, we find it critical to our understanding, as you know you're well aware. What do you -- what is the state of play in America tonight as you look at your model?

MOKDAD: So, when they look at our models tonight, we are -- the worst is behind us as a country. So, we are going to go down in terms of mortality. Some states will peak a little bit later but California, my state, New York are going to go down in terms of numbers of mortality. So, which is very positive, as we move forward that the worst is behind us as a country. For some states, it will take a week or so.

HEMMER: Well, so, Doc -- I just want to get this right. You said twice, the worst is behind us.

Is this the first time you have felt that way or did you feel that way earlier this week?

MOKDAD: No, this is the first time that our data is showing the mortality will be declining from now on and the peak of deaths in the United States has occurred yesterday and it will go down from now on.

HEMMER: Wow. On this Good Friday, that's good news.

MOKDAD: It's very good news for all of us and it's time for all of us to start thinking about recovery and how we can bring our economy back.

HEMMER: Well, that's not the next part of my question because you and I were going back and forth the other day and you said, listen, I've got family and friends who are suffering too and with respect to them as well, if you are doing a new model next week that will break down I believe the different parts of the country to tell you who and where you can reopen the economy and where it's best to keep it closed for the moment.

Can you -- can we under -- can we explain how that will work, Doctor?

MOKDAD: So, we're looking at different scenarios of modeling that we will release next week. One of it is we start going back to normal before a certain time or after. So, May 1, June 1, what will happen? That's one.

The second model that we have been asked to do based on the data we have right now for certain states that they have nonessential business closure, we know what the definition of nonessential business closure was. Certain business that weren't closed in one state but in another, if we bring them, what will happen to the death rate and the circulation of the virus again?

HEMMER: So, that can help the team at the White House determine who goes open for business again, could it not?

MOKDAD: Yes. And it's important for us as we talk about reopening our businesses. We're not out the danger yet, we need to stress that. We need to do it in phases and make sure we bring some people in and check, there is no circulation of the virus. Testing is very important, public surveillance is important, case investigation, and after that, we feel more comfortable, we release more people.

The careful (ph) here is we know we're going to ask the most essential workforce to go back and we don't want to put them at risk, this is the basis of our economy so we have to be very careful who we asked to come first. We test them, we check there is no virus, then if we feel comfortable, we can expand our relaxation measures and so on.

HEMMER: Well, I'm just going to take this headline "the worst is behind us", and fly into the weekend that way.

Doctor, so good to see you. Dr. Ali Mokdad, University of Washington, we'll speak again next week, OK? Thank you, Doctor, for your report tonight.

In the meantime, the president is announcing he's training a new task force, Austan Goolsbee and Stephen Moore will weigh in on that. And a live report for Casey Stegall as we continue on this Friday night.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HEMMER: So, one of the state's hardest hit by COVID-19 is the great state of Louisiana, Casey Stegall is watching that. He's in Arlington for us tonight -- Casey.

CASEY STEGALL, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Bill, good evening.

Boy, what a difference a week makes. Louisiana state health officials, as you know, started this week with a very short timeline of when they thought they were going to run out of hospital beds and ventilators.

Tonight, that is no longer the worry, at least if the trend continues. And the numbers don't change and they keep moving in the right direction. But there has been great heartache across Louisiana, 755 people have died from coronavirus and more than 19,000 have tested positive.

The government losing one of its own, Reggie Bagala, a state representative, he died yesterday. The 54-year-old was just elected back in January, then hospitalized last week.

Today, President Trump also said is looking more like the extra 1,000 temporary hospital beds won't be needed there, a thousand beds already went online at the New Orleans Convention Center at a pop-up hospital and while the government says there is light at the end of a long tunnel, he says it remains imperative for people to stay home and maintain all social distancing rules despite it being a holiday weekend which they say could tempt some people with worship or gathering with friends to break the rules, but maintain you have to stay the course to see the numbers continue to level off -- Bill.

HEMMER: Thank you, Casey. Casey Stegall, Arlington, Texas, tonight, good to see you as well. Thank you.

Today, President Trump said the decision on when to move to reopen the economy will be, quote, the biggest decision I've ever had to make. Austan Goolsbee is with me now, former economic advisor to President Obama. Also with me, economist Steve Moore with us tonight.

Gentlemen, good evening to both of you.

The big headline today was the economic task force of will be announced Tuesday of next week. Steve, I imagine we'll get a leak or two between now and Tuesday. What would you expect or perhaps what would you hope to see on that?

STEPHEN MOORE, WALL STREET JOURNAL EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBER: Well, Bill, congratulations, you made my weekend with that previous segment about the worst behind us, that is the best news I've heard in many months. So, congratulations on that and let us hope that trend of declining rates continues.

HEMMER: Hope he's right, that's right.

MOORE: Fantastic news.

Incidentally, the problem here that the president has to deal with is it looks like the worst of the death rate and the infection rate is behind us, but the economic carnage from the shutdown is only just starting. We've seen 16 to 17 million additional Americans put on unemployment lines. So, this has come at a very heavy cost and Donald Trump if you're watching, please get this economy up and running as quickly as possible.

Trump is talking about this task force with many of the people on his economic -- you know, in his administration, people like my buddy Larry Kudlow and people like Kevin Hassett, and probably Steve Mnuchin, but there will also be private sector people, we are hoping to see somebody like Art Laffer, some of the business leaders like Steve Schwarzman.

So, you get the best advice because the decision Trump makes in the next 4 to 8 to 10 weeks will be critical in terms of the economic recovery that we're all are hoping for, for this country.

HEMMER: Well, I mean, clearly, Austan, you don't want to start and pull back again no matter what the decision ultimately is. Go ahead, what would you like to see in the task force, Austan? What do we need?

AUSTAN GOOLSBEE, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO ECONOMICS PROFESSOR: I think he really needs to get credible people who are not associated with the administration's previous positions. The president has for the last 12 weeks at least been clearly agitating to say the virus isn't as serious as people say, we should go back to work. He previously said we should be able to go out and get back to work by Easter.

And I think if he is going to form a task force to try to make this decision, it's imperative that task force have credibility and not be perceived as pursuing a political agenda.

I would also say it's not the president's decision to make, that's the thing. The virus is the boss, not the president, not the governors who are the ones that make these decisions. You have to slow the rate of the spread of the virus and do testing to enable that before we can go back. Otherwise, we're going to go back to square zero and do this again.

HEMMER: The Treasury Department is saying some of the direct deposit checks are being -- they're going out to Americans as we speak and then they suggested the majority would have theirs by April 15th, which is ironically Tax Day of next Wednesday.

Steve, just -- I'm just rattling these headlines earlier today, JPMorgan predicting 20 percent unemployment, GDP taken a hit, 40 percent in the second quarter, IMF saying the worst recession since the Great Depression.

Look, that loan program, it's been stubborn so far, it's got to work. They've got to get it right. My guess is that has to be the next level of attention on behalf of the administration, Steve.

MOORE: Well, that's right, and, by the way, those numbers are exactly why, with all due respect, I think Austan is wrong. We got to get this economy open in a safe way, not in the 10 cities that account for almost for all of the deaths, but other parts of the country that can be done safely. We have half of our businesses up and running and they found a good way of doing it without getting their workers sick.

We should be taking the example of great companies like Walmart and like FedEx that have got their people back to work.

Now, you're right, this loan program is critical because we have to save the businesses. We have so many small businesses in this country, millions of them that are this close to being bankrupt right now because they have no customers. Now, obviously, the most important thing is to get the economy open so those businesses can function.

But in the meantime, we've got to get those loans to those companies so they have some revenue so they can meet their bills.

HEMMER: I got to run. But, Austan, your name was invoked, can you do it in 15 seconds, Austan?

GOOLSBEE: Look, all I'll say is you've got to get the testing. If you don't get the testing, you will be back to square zero and have to shut down again. They've got some major sort out these wrinkles because Steve and I both agreed getting money to these small businesses and getting money to people so that nobody starves, nobody gets affected, nobody goes bankrupt and has their business if liquidated, that's got to be a goal.

HEMMER: Thank you, gentlemen.

Austan Goolsbee--

MOORE: We agree, testing is critical. I totally agree with that.

HEMMER: Noted.

Steve Moore, thank you, gentlemen. Have a great, peaceful weekend, OK? Thanks.

In a moment, Chad Pergram on what Washington has planned next. And also today, the president said he will talk about the World Health Organization next week.

Senator Tom Cotton will talk about that here, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HEMMER: So, then, is there another stimulus package in the works?

Chad Pergram joins us with the latest from Washington on that tonight.

Chad, what are they thinking about now?

CHAD PERGRAM, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Bill.

Well, there was that impasse on the Senate floor yesterday over the small business provisions here. Democrats blocked Republicans, and Republicans returned the favor. But that impasse has now sparked negotiations.

The Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, they spoke separately with Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin today. Pelosi is very concerned about underserved communities getting access to capital.

Now, Chuck Schumer says, quote, there is no reason we can't come to a bipartisan agreement by the end of next week. Bu now, you have some Republicans in the Senate saying, wait until pay. We want to see if the phase three bill works. But the, you know, proposals for the phase four, Bill -- the ideas out there are legion.

Josh Hawley, he's Republican senator from Missouri, he says he wants to pay workers 80 percent of their salary. Now, the other big question they have to get resolved here is oversight. Adam Schiff, the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, he wants a 9/11 style commission to look into coronavirus here. That would essentially be a fifth layer of oversight. There's a commission that's built into the phase three bill already.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has already impaneled the select committee but she's open to the idea of a 9/11 style commission but she says it has to be bipartisan and after-action review has to be number one there and it will not point fingers -- Bill.

HEMMER: Thank you, Chad. Chad Pergram in Washington, we'll watch it. Thank you, sir.

The World Health Organization, as you know, is under a ton of scrutiny. One of the more vocal critics has been Senator Tom Cotton who penned a piece today at foxnews.com.

The senator is with me tonight.

Sir, good evening to you and thank you for your time on this Good Friday for being here.

You characterize this --

SEN. TOM COTTON (R-AR): Good evening, Bill.

HEMMER: -- yes, as an information war. Let's start there and go ahead and make your case.

COTTON: Yes, the Chinese Communist Party has been waging an information war against the United States. They have their ambassadors all around the world telling the countries that host them that this virus originated with American soldiers, not with the city of Wuhan and Hubei province in China.

They are also plainly engaged in some online disinformation campaigns as well. That's why it's so important that we remain clear about where this virus originated -- in China -- and the fact that China could have kept at probably just a local health challenge in Wuhan and Hubei province as opposed to unleashing a global pandemic on the world.

Unfortunately, the World Health Organization from the very first moment they learned about this virus has been covering up for China, been praising China and more concerned it seems with political correctness than actually stopping this pandemic before it spread around the globe.

HEMMER: So, I've got a number of questions. Let me see if I can get through here. If you're right and had Beijing acted sooner, how different would the world be today?

COTTON: Bill, let's -- let me just give you one example of Beijing's treachery. On January 23rd, they shut down air travel from Wuhan to every other Chinese city, couldn't go to Beijing, couldn't go to Shanghai, couldn't go to Shenzhen, but you could still travel to any city around the world direct flights from Wuhan, to include New York and San Francisco.

That meant that thousands of cases were being seeded all around the world before the WHO and China were even acknowledging human to human transmission. China was looking out for its own people by shutting down domestic travel from Wuhan while continuing to let this virus spread all around the world.

HEMMER: Yes. Well, the issue now, or soon to be, if the doctor from the University of Washington is right saying the worst is behind us here on our program here, and we start put a bigger focus on the economy. You've got a real catch-22 here because our economies are so linked to one another at the moment.

What do you do about that? What do you do about supply lines? What action do you think is appropriate, Senator?

COTTON: It's time to start delinking our two economies. Look, this happened over 30 years as a result of deliberate policy choices made in Washington, those were bad choices. We can reverse it through good choices. That has to start with the most urgent fields.

So, I have legislation that will bring back pharmaceutical manufacturing and the production of medical devices and supplies in short order. But then it has to continue to other critical fields as well like fifth generation telecommunications equipment or other advanced manufacturing and technology products.

We simply cannot allow our people to be dependent on the Chinese Communist Party for our health, and our safety, our security and our economic prosperity.

HEMMER: I have about 30 seconds left here. There was word from Tokyo that the Japanese are looking at a similar thing in terms of supply lines. The World Health Organization, I don't know what you expect next week from the president, how much consideration you've given that -- what should be looked at there if you're right and the critics in the World Health Organization are right again on this one?

COTTON: Well, we need a full accounting of what went wrong there in January and February. We need a commitment to reform and transparency in the future, and we need a change in leadership to ensure that those things happen. Without those steps, the U.S. taxpayer doesn't need to be subsidizing a leader that is in the pocket of Beijing.

HEMMER: Well, it is true that they screwed up Ebola six years ago. They were slow on the trigger and roundly criticized from just about every corner of the world.

Senator, thank you for your time and happy Easter weekend to you and your family. Thank you. Tom Cotton with us.

COTTON: Thank you, Bill. Happy Easter to you and your viewers.

HEMMER: Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

In a moment, the latest headlines from today. Just crossing a moment ago, the number of U.S. cases topping half a million. Also, the president a moment ago announcing help for Italy. We'll fill you in on that.

And we will take your questions with our panel of doctors, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HEMMER: So, welcome back.

This just crossing the wires. The number of COVID-19 cases here in the U.S. now hit half a million.

Also, the president moments ago ordering the U.S. government to provide humanitarian relief for Italy, we'll keep an eye on that.

And there are signs of hope as New York saw its first daily drop in ICU COVID-19 patients. Governor Cuomo calling that cautiously optimistic.

Rick Leventhal live in New York tonight with more details on this as well.

Rick, good evening.

RICK LEVENTHAL, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Bill.

Another one of the quietest Friday nights you'll ever experience in Manhattan and, yes, we have some signs of the curve may be flattening -- some very, very potentially good news and also some stark reminders of just how deadly the coronavirus can be. And we'll get to those numbers in just a minute.

But, first, this good news that the number of patients in intensive care actually dropped for the first time since the virus became an issue here in New York City, it's been going up every single day and today, between Thursday and Wednesday, it actually dropped by 17 patients. That number as "The New York Times" pointed out is very small but its significance is great because consider just a week ago, the number of patients being checked into ICU was up 300 every single day. So, on a steep hill up and now potentially it's on the way down.

So, the death toll, the number of dead in New York is just staggering, about half of the deaths across the country have happened in this state. And here in New York, 599 on Monday, up to 731 Tuesday, 779, Wednesday, 799 yesterday and a slight drop to 777 today.

But horrible news for the city as it tries to handle all of the bodies, but the best news we've heard today is the curve may in fact be flattening. But the message of the governor and the mayor wanted to deliver is that social distancing is working. That people need to keep 6 feet or more away from each other for this thing to be beaten -- Bill.

HEMMER: Nice to see you, Rick. Rick Leventhal in the streets of New York City tonight. Thank you.

I'm sure many of you at home still have a lot of questions about this. Tonight, we'll try to give you some answers. We asked viewers to submit their questions on Facebook and our panel of doctors are here to address some of those.

And good evening to Dr. Nicole Saphier, FOX News contributor, and Baylor College of Medicine professor, Dr. Peter Hotez.

Good evening to both of you. And thanks for being here.

Ladies first, Nicole. Here we go -- this is Justin from Arizona with the first question.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUSTIN FROM ARIZONA: Is this virus mutating like the flu? And can you catch it again once it mutates or once you have survived it, will the antibodies you created help you fight off the new infection?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HEMMER: It's a great question, a lot of people want to know, Doctor. What do you think, Nicole?

NICOLE SAPHIER, MD, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, Justin being from Arizona which happens to be my home state, that is actually a great question and the truth is we don't really know. Right now, the data is showing us there are about three different strains of this virus circulating around and in fact the strain on the East Coast seems to be different from the West Coast, though East Coast being from Europe and the West Coast being directly from China.

So, the truth is there's probably more than three strains circulating around. The theory is if you are infected with one of the novel coronavirus strains, that you probably have more general immunity to this virus and it will likely be that you are more immune to other strains. However, just think of it like the common cold, which is also caused by the coronavirus, how many times can you get a common cold, and those tend to be different strains of the coronavirus.

So, it's possible if you have been infected with this coronavirus which caused COVID-19, it's possible if you were to be re-infected with another strain, you may have another mild outcome since you do have some sort of immunity to it, but if I'm being honest, we don't know.

And the truth is, we'll only know as we go further along in the process. The going theory right now is if you have been infected with the virus that causes COVID-19, it does confer some sort of immunity, so that's what we are going to go with and that's what we're hoping for.

HEMMER: OK. All right. Good answer there. We'll take that.

Bill from Texas with the next question. Watch here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL FROM TEXAS: My question is if I have a small collection of masks that I use for myself and for my family members, what's the best way to sanitize those masks so I can reuse them?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HEMMER: Well, it would save us a lot of work. Dr. Hotez, do you have an answer on that?

PETER HOTEZ, MD, TX CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL CENTER FOR VACCINE DEVELOPMENT: Yes. Actually, the CDC has a nice website now about cloth masks for use at home. They do recommend cloth and it turns out just plain old washing in the washing machine seems to be adequate.

A couple things to be careful, though, you want to not use cloth masks on kids especially under the age of two primarily because of the choking risk. And also individuals who are debilitated and can't remove the masks themselves, be very careful about that. So, look at the website, it actually tells you how to construct the mask.

HEMMER: Listen, we could go all night. I just want to come back to a headline we got about 30 minutes ago, Dr. Saphier, from the University of Washington, the big model everybody looks at, including the White House -- the man who runs the website said the worst is behind us. That was his headline tonight, how do you take that?

SAPHIER: I mean, Bill. I mean, I love looking at any glimmer of hope as possible and I do think there is time to be optimistic in that time is right now. You know, we still have a little bit of a tough road ahead and we have to be careful not to jump on this and just go outside and have a party and everybody get together.

HEMMER: OK.

SAPHIER: But the truth is, that all these actions that everybody has been doing, all this painful social distancing is working. Our health systems are not as overrun as they were just a couple of days ago. We are having fewer hospitalizations, fewer people in the ICU, we are still going to be seeing some deaths.

But I'll tell you, in the next few days, next week, the numbers are going to be down. So, this is a time during Holy Week to be optimistic and know there is light at the end of the tunnel.

HEMMER: That's a good message.

Dr. Saphier and Dr. Hotez, thank you very much to both of you coming on tonight. Thank you.

President Trump delivering an Easter message from the Oval Office a bit earlier. We will show that to you and more in a moment, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Though we will not be able to gather together with one another as we normally would on Easter, we can use this sacred time to focus on prayer, reflection, and growing in our personal relationship with God, so important. I ask all Americans to pray that God will heal our nation, to bring comfort to those who are grieving, to give strength to the doctors, nurses, and health care workers, to restore health to the sick and to renew the hope in every person who is suffering. Our nation will come through like never before.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HEMMER: From a bit earlier -- from a bit earlier today, the Oval Office with President Trump. Earlier tonight as well, I was on the streets of New York City here in town.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HEMMER: We're out here on Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. Normally, you can never walk out here especially on a Friday afternoon at 5:00. It's Easter weekend.

To that direction is Central Park and the Trump Tower. And on this direction is the heart of the American Catholic Church, St. Patrick's Cathedral behind me. And with Good Friday today, normally, you'd be getting ready for this great celebration for Easter Sunday and then around noon time, you get the Easter parade after all the parishioners come out of the church for Sunday mass.

But for now, New York is a very different place. After nightfall, it gets - - it gets lonely, there's not many people around. A few stragglers here and there but New York is a different town just like perhaps your town is for now.

But on this Easter Sunday, St. Patrick's Cathedral still stands tall and waits for the faithful to come back.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HEMMER: I want to bring in theologian and FOX News contributor Jonathan Morris tonight with an Eastern message.

Nice to see you, Jonathan, and good evening to you.

JONATHAN MORRIS, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Thanks, Bill.

HEMMER: What are you thinking about on this Good Friday?

MORRIS: Yes, I think you mentioned it right there on Fifth Avenue, it's a lonely. It's lonely. And what a great opportunity for us this year like no other year to experience what Jesus Christ on his way to the cross experienced, which was probably not only physical pain but loneliness, loneliness. Maybe the deepest human suffering and so many of us are isolated right now.

And I think we're able to -- whether you're Christian, Jewish, or another faith, to understand that it's true suffering that joy and resurrection, like we -- like we celebrate as Christians on Easter Sunday is experienced.

Gosh, you know, like, just very simply, Bill, I remember as a kid, I come from a family of seven kids, my parents would have us be quiet between 12:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. on Good Friday to commemorate the three hours that Jesus hung on the cross by tradition before he died. It was so hard to keep us quiet.

This year, 2020, we are able to be quiet and experience the loneliness that felt as a great preparation for Easter Sunday.

HEMMER: Yes. I know when you're a priest, I think you ever said a mass on an empty church. It will happen this --

MORRIS: Oh, no.

(CROSSTALK)

HEMMER: -- however.

Happy Easter to you. Jonathan Morris, thank you.

Back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HEMMER: So, to each of you, a joyous Passover from this past weekend. A blessed Easter weekend upcoming, I'm sure will be different. Maybe that's not all bad.

I'm back Monday at 3:00 Eastern. As we say, set your DVR and never missed a report.

Brian Kilmeade is in for Laura tonight as we say good night from New York.

Content and Programming Copyright 2020 Fox News Network, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2020 ASC Services II Media, LLC. All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of ASC Services II Media, LLC. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.