Surgeon general explains evolving guidance on face coverings amid COVID-19 pandemic

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Surgeon general explains evolving guidance on face coverings amid COVID-19 pandemic

U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams joins Sean Hannity to discuss the Trump administration's plan to stop the spread of coronavirus.

This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," April 3, 2020. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: All right. Think about this -- welcome to "Hannity" -- a lot of breaking news this Friday night. One month ago today, what were we thinking about?

Voters in 14 states, they went to the polls. Remember, it was Super Thursday if you're Joe Biden, Super Tuesday. But in all seriousness, what a difference one month can make, the world has changed. So much has changed.

Pat Buchanan, great column, points out: The shocking events of the last few weeks could very alter the character and the course of this republic.

This is a transformational time. You're watching daily the books being rewritten on how the world and we will deal with pandemics. Very important decisions, life-changing decisions happening now. Got to make sure we get as much right as we possibly can, nobody is perfect, but we will all be on board.

Now, tonight, no matter what horrific path this pandemic takes, the cure, we have to keep our eye on this, cannot as the president been saying, be worse than the crisis. We need to solve the serious medical emergency as quickly as possible, get this country back on track and what that means is let Americans go back to work and do what they do best, and that is lead the world.

In the meantime, this program, as we've been telling you, we are dedicated each night, facts without fear, the good, the bad the ugly. We're going to tell it all to you.

And coming up, we will be calling out tonight some of the most reprehensible, repulsive, despicable behavior from Democrats and, of course, their allies in the media mob, the same people for three and a half years, the same people showing the worst side of America during a national emergency. And every American tonight, when you learn what we're going to tell you, you should be livid at their conduct in the middle of this national emergency.

Media mob doesn't want to cover the president's comments in a national emergency and what they do talk about. They have earned the utter contempt that most people have for them. We will name names tonight.

Also, meanwhile, Pelosi, Schiff, oh, let's see, Ocasio-Cortez, Schumer, they're all -- they're all playing their same old a radical game, radical behavior. It's deplorable. Congress first delays desperately needed relief dollars. In other words, they are holding hostage money for hospital workers, small businesses, large businesses, American workers.

Why? Oh, because they wanted the change the election laws and use that money as leverage and immigration laws.

And then they want to fund the National Endowments for Arts, and the National Endowments for the Humanities, and the Kennedy Center, which ended up firing people, and NPR that won't cover the president's daily briefings and PBS, they hold up money for that and then the middle of national emergency? What are they now calling for? Investigations?

These people are out of their mind. You cannot trust them. This is hurting the country, what they've been doing and this is even worse.

Also tonight, we have a message, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, you need to listen to me tonight, along with Senator Schumer, Comrade de Blasio. We will explain facts about what is an epic failure on all of their parts. Cuomo needs to release hydroxychloroquine.

And, Andrew, you believe in the right to choose, right? How about Americans, how about New Yorkers, to use your phrase, how about New Yorkers having the choice if they in consultation with their doctor want to take hydroxychloroquine that they'd be allowed to do so. You're sending them to the hospitals? Bad idea, along with the ventilators you failed to buy. We'll get to the details.

Also, we start with our facts without fear tonight, and we have confirmed cases, COVID-19 rising in the United States, more testing than any other country across the globe. Over 275,000 cases in the U.S. around now 7,000 deaths. Today, 3,000 new cases in Long Island alone, according to "Newsday". I live in Long Island.

Johns Hopkins University has documented at least 10,000 recoveries in the U.S. Anthony Fauci now is pouring cold water showing study showing up that 240,000 Americans could be killed, saying you really cannot rely on the models because they were too many variables.

Breaking today, the CDC is now recommending that all Americans wear face masks, that's new today, or other facial coverings when traveling outside the home. And it's all comes as the president utilizes the Defense Production Act to ban certain exports of critical medical supplies. He did this because 3M -- they were selling masks made -- American-made masks, N95 masks, to other countries. Hello?

And, by the way, the company CEO said stopping international shipments would have significant humanitarian implications. That -- we didn't elect you for that. Americans need the masks. Who are you to decide that?

Well, now, they have no choice, rightfully so.

And U.S. company should not have been giving those masks abroad when this country so desperately needs them here. The president was right to take action. Now the U.S. is even allowing imports of what are called KN95 masks, the Chinese alternative to the critical N95 masks and we do know the production GM, Ford and others, they are beginning to crank them out as well.

The president also announcing that the federal government will cover hospital costs for uninsured COVID-19 patients. Everybody will be covered.

As we speak, hydroxychloroquine is frequently used now nationwide by hospitals to treat the disease. With positive preliminary results and, by the way, of 6,000 doctors surveyed, they agreed, the one thing they agreed on, this is the one thing they are saying that they would use to treat people that have it. We'll get into the details with Dr. Oz because after threatening any doctor who prescribed this potentially life-saving medication, finally, Michigan's governor is now reversing course and begging the federal government for more of the drug.

Andrew Cuomo, you need to listen.

And on the economic front, small businesses can now apply for forgivable emergency loans today to keep their businesses afloat during that crisis, this crisis, and it brings us to facts that should concern every American tonight. You tell you the good, the bad and the ugly. Make no mistake, the economy is suffering. Those numbers on the other side of the health issue are going to be extraordinarily scary to every American.

The unemployment rate is nearly up an entire point. It will get worse, and this report does not reflect the most recent job losses. A quarter of all small businesses are now considering permanently closing. That's what the 2.2 trillion was for.

In the epicenter of the disease, death continues to mount. Yesterday, New York did see its biggest single day increase in COVID-19 deaths to come. We've been warning you these couple of weeks will be rough.

And, of course, New York is not the only state suffering with growing hot spots that we have to pay attention to in Louisiana, Michigan, Connecticut, and Florida tonight.

Also, while the toll of COVID-19 continues to rise, the response from great Americans across this country is inspiring. It is nothing but remarkable.

Which brings us to our facts without fear hope segment today. Now, breaking today, scientists at the University of Pittsburgh believe they think they found a potential coronavirus vaccine. Of course, production of any vaccine will be many months away. That's why treatment in the interim, hydroxychloroquine, for example -- Dr. Oz will explain more later -- is imperative, especially in light of what we are seeing in the data that we are accumulating, albeit you can't have a clinical study.

And, meanwhile, Italy appears to be flattening the curve finally as a state cases have now slowed ever now since the national -- nationwide lockdown there.

Back here at home, so many great Americans, it's inspiring to watch them rise to the occasion. Tom Brady teaming up with a nonprofit to distribute 10 million meals to those in need.

Even Leonardo DiCaprio, good for you, Leo. He is helping launch another $12 million food donation program.

And one celebrity chef has promised to give doctors and nurses free meals when his restaurants reopen. That's awesome.

And get this -- an artist in Brooklyn, New York, is working day and night on her own 3D printer to turn out face shields for medical workers. Awesome American.

Heroic actions are now underway all over the country. This pandemic is a serious crisis. You see the best in people, the overwhelming majority, and then you see the worst in others.

Soon, we will, this is the United States, we will be on the road to recovery. We'll beat the disease and as I have said many times, this too shall pass.

All right. Joining us now with more facts without fear, the U.S. surgeon general, Dr. Jerome Adams.

OK. Why have we had such --

(CROSSTALK)

DR. JEROME ADAMS, U.S. SURGEON GENERAL: Good evening, Sean.

HANNITY: Thank you, sir, for -- I know you're working day and night. I know nobody is sleeping.

Why has there been so much confusion on the issue of surgical masks?

ADAMS: Well, that's a great question and it's important for the American people to know that the task force always makes recommendations based on the science.

And the science originally told us that people who wear masks are not protecting themselves from the virus. We actually recommend that people who have symptoms or people who think they may have the disease to wear a mask so they don't spread it to others. And the WHO, the CDC and my office all initially stated that.

What's changed? Well, what changed is we found that there are significant number of people who have asymptomatic spread of the virus, and so the CDC changed its recommendations today and they now suggest that the general public consider wearing masks when they're going out in public so as not to spread disease to other people, particularly in situations where they may be closer than six feet from each other.

A couple of really important points that I want you to know. Number one, this does not replace social distancing. The most important thing to do is to still stay home.

If you're going to wear facial covering, please make sure you don't touch your face and that you wash your hands so you weren't contaminating yourself. And leave the N95 in the surgical masks to the health care professionals because they need them to take care of high risk patients. A cloth facial covering is what the CDC recommends, that works just fine to protect other people from you because we're all in this together. You wear a mask to protect me and I wear it to protect you, Sean.

HANNITY: Can you tell Americans tonight that we have enough masks, that we'll have enough ventilators? Do -- I mean, these are important questions. And I know we've been getting the daily briefings. We know what GM is doing, we know that the Defense Act was utilized by the president for ventilators and now today as it relates to 3M.

But I think what everybody wants to know, like New York, 3,000 cases where I live tonight, new cases today. And Americans just want to know that the equipment is going to be there for front line workers, those that put themselves on the line and people want to know that those that get really sick will have the ventilators if they need them.

And how important would it be to get enough hydroxychloroquine to New York so that Andrew Cuomo's executive order forcing people into hospitals when people in consultation with their doctors want to take it won't have to go to a hospital, which is not necessarily the best place to be?

ADAMS: Well, you ask a great question about supplies and we are working number one with the stockpile to make sure places like New York City are getting what they need when they need it. And that's not to say that you're going to get 30,000 ventilators. That's going to say -- that's to say if you need 200 ventilators tomorrow, we're going to make sure you get 200 ventilators tomorrow so everyone has a ventilator.

Well, the president is also working on the supply chain and using the Defense Production Act to create new supplies, we're working on reallocating supplies locally.

But the most important thing for people to know is the way did not run out of ventilators is to make sure so many people don't need ventilators and that's why we extended the guidelines for another 30 days. We need to drive down demand.

HANNITY: All right.

ADAMS: We need not so many people out there spreading the disease to each other so we don't run out of supplies.

HANNITY: Question.

I have Dr. Oz on my radio and TV show. We've talked a lot about hydroxychloroquine.

You've been reading about it.

ADAMS: Yes.

HANNITY: What are your thoughts?

ADAMS: Well, I think there's promising data out there and Dr. Oz and I talked, Dr. Torres, Dr. Gupta, we talk all the time along with other people on the task force, and there is some promising data out there. We also want to collect data to make sure --

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: Would you take -- Mr. Surgeon General, if you have -- if you contracted this, would you take it?

ADAMS: Well, if I contracted it, I wouldn't necessarily take it right away. I would talk to my doctor. I have risk factors and many people know that I've talked about the fact that I'm pre-diabetic and I have a lung disease.

I would talk to my doctor and determine whether or not we felt my course was such that I was someone who should take that. But I think every patient should have the opportunity to talk to their doctor about this and make a decision that's right for them since it's still in experimental drug at this point, at least for this --

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: All right. That's a good point. Everyone has their own underlying issues and consulting your doctor is key on that.

All right, thank you. We hope we can get the equipment that we need at the time we need it. Thank you, sir, for all you're doing.

Now, each night, we're going to update you with the latest facts without fear, including information your not going to get from the biased mob in the media. And their sick, their ugly, twisted world, this pandemic -- they're using it as another opportunity to do what they do every day and that's bash President Trump. How many times have I said it? If he cured cancer, they'd criticized him for that. I think I've proven correct unfortunately.

Now, misery seems to love company. Joyless Behar trying to get California Governor Gavin Newsom to say bad things about the president. Unfortunately for Joyless, it did not go as planned. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOY BEHAR, "THE VIEW" HOST: Do you feel like you have to feed this guy's ego to get the respirators and to get PPEs? Is that what's going on?

GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D-CA): All I can say is from my perspective, the relationship has been strong and I'm not doing it to kiss the ring and I'm not doing it in a way, you know, that -- I am just being forthright with the president.

He returns calls, he reaches out, he's been proactive. We've got that Mercy ship down here in Los Angeles that was directly because he sent it down here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Every -- by the way, if there's a lesson there for Andrew Cuomo, you know what, Andrew, the president is giving you those hospitals you take photo-ops in front of. Yes, he's been building all the things that, well, you didn't do yourself.

Governor Newsom, by the way, is a far left Democrat. He has about, well, 68 lawsuits I think he said pending against the Trump administration. Not really a fan of Donald Trump, but he's working together and he's leading his state and making it more safe and secure, done a much better job than they've done in New York, I'll tell you that.

And he's telling the truth, putting partisan politics aside. He should be commended tonight.

Cuomo, on the other hand, he has been complaining each and every day. And sure, he's going to show up for a photo outfit, let's see, the Javits Center hospital that Donald Trump and the federal government constructed, the Army Corps of Engineers, he's accepting thousands of ventilators, and he threw in a warehouse, millions of masks and gowns and going around on TV and take a photo-up in front of the ship, the Comfort that, by the way, only had 20 people today, I'm not sure why, and bash the administration and demanding they do their job, yesterday tweeting: We do not have enough ventilators period.

So how many ventilators is Cuomo short? He does realize they were 50 other states that are dealing with the virus.

Now, today, during his daily briefing, the president addressed this very issue. Let's take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They should have had more ventilators. They were totally underserviced. We are trying to do -- we're doing our best in New York. You know, we have -- we have states, we have a lot of states, we have territories too, but we have a lot of states that have to be taken care of, some much more so than others. We work very well with the governor, we happen to think that he is well-served with ventilators. We're going to find out, but we have other states to take care of.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Every New Yorker needs to know what an epic fail -- Governor Cuomo has failed the state of New York on a terrible level. After all, November 2015, he was given -- will show you the report, an important report from New York state's health department, department of help.

Let me read from page 30. It says, quote: During a severe influenza pandemic, there is likely to be a projected shortfall of ventilators. 15,783 during peak week demand.

After reading this report, Cuomo, he purchased zero ventilators for New York. By the way, smallest geographical location with 11 million people, New York City. Instead, he instructed the commission to figure out ways to ration the existing 2,000 ventilators.

The number one target of terrorism, the number one at risk place in the country for disease, the most dense population has a shortage of ventilators. He wouldn't buy them, but he wasted $750 million on a solar project, another $600 million on another idiotic project, $90 million on the light bulb project, and he wouldn't buy the ventilators.

Now, because of an executive order also in New York, any prescription of the potentially life-saving treatment, hydroxychloroquine, if you want it, you've got to go to the hospital system which is already overrun. So in other words, you can't have your doctor call into your pharmacy in consultation with your doctor, he won't let that happen.

And, Cuomo, why? I thought you were pro-choice, Governor. Let America -- let New Yorkers in consultation with their doctors decide. The president when you ask him like every other time, he's building you hospitals all over the place, sending you thousands of ventilators, bailing you out, I'm sure he will send you the hydroxychloroquine, just ask.

Instead, he goes out on TV, pounds his chest, all talk, no action, blames the president and his own health department told him to buy them. He refused. He wasted hundreds and hundreds and even billions of dollars.

The mob in the media, oh, they love Governor Cuomo. They treat him like he is a hero. Well, he failed the people of New York and he treats the president like garbage. In the middle of a national crisis, there is no help to the American people, none.

How did you not prepare? The number one target of terror. Unbelievable.

The president, you know what, it's all over the media, as we now go through and a lot of the media mob in different ways and, you know, you watch on morning media what they say over there, fake news, Don Lemon, saying his crap, all over. We don't go to that.

But believe it or not, Don Lemon pretends to be a news anchor over there, and if he were an actual journalist, this was an actual news organization and he goes in a partisan hack and they didn't have a leftist agenda, well, when his fake news network was obsessed with the impeachment witch hunt, the federal government was warning Americans about the coronavirus.

Here's the timeline: December 27th, Chinese officials, World Health Organization, they saw that work there was some type of pneumonia looking like virus and they didn't know what it was called yet, people were getting sick.

December 30th -- that's when they first found out. A few days later, January 6th, the federal government started issuing warnings. It wasn't labeled corona until January 7th.

Follow these dates, January 20, CDC, its emergency operations center. January 31st, 10 days after the first known U.S. case, President Trump issued that travel ban and conducted a mandatory quarantine is followed.

Look at your screen, every step of the way, the administration took unprecedented aggressive action and got the crap kicked out of it -- racist, xenophobic, hysterical, fearmongering.

Think about it this way, Dr. Anthony Fauci -- he served six presidents. This guy has been a champion of fighting pandemics and HIV, and I mean that. Highly respected. And, you know, one of the most trusted experts in the field.

Dr. Fauci didn't realize the true threat of the virus on January 21st. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bottom line, we don't have to worry about this one, right?

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Well, you know, obviously, you need to take it seriously and do the kinds of things that the CDC and the Department of Homeland Security are doing, but this is not a major threat to the people of the United States and this is not something that the citizens of the United States right now should be worried about.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Very well respected, not to say anything bad about Dr. Fauci, he was lied to by the Chinese government. January 26th, take a look.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

FAUCI: The American people should not be worried or frightened by this. It's a very, very low risk to the United States, but it's something that we as public health officials need to take very seriously.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: And five days later, President Trump enacted a travel ban. Wow. How much worse with this I'll be?

Now, get this, just breaking tonight -- yes, the ever so clueless and out of touch, quid pro quo Joe. Remember him? He's, you know, running those bad podcasts of his, TV podcasts. Initially called the ban xenophobic, hysterical, and fearmongering?

Look at this news. Yes, Joe Biden now supports the president's travel ban with China. That's two months and three days too late, Joe.

Now, every Democrat running for office needs to be asked the same question. You people in the mob and the media, asking him now in retrospect, was Donald Trump right? This was bold, this was unprecedented, untold thousands of Americans didn't contract the virus and many others didn't die.

And China lied to the world. That's why Dr. Fauci didn't know. It's not his fault, but still the president got it right five days later. They lied about the number of cases, the amount of deaths, the way the disease has spread, they blocked U.S. researchers, more researches, important. The World Health Organization spread their lies and propaganda. They were a disgrace, we should have nothing to do with them down the line.

One study in the U.S. found China had been honest sooner, that study 95 percent of all of this could have been prevented.

The mob in the media, they don't care about truth. They're just worried about scoring cheap political points as demonstrated by fake news Acosta today. Take a look.

(BEGN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: Where is Dr. Fauci?

TRUMP: I don't know, but every time you asked that question, whenever he's not here, look, you say, where is he, and you'll say, is there a problem? No problem whatsoever.

Every time he's not here. Sometimes I'll ask him to come because that's the first question that you and a couple of others from the fake news establishment ask is, where is Dr. Fauci? We're doing great.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Here with more, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

You know, China, horrible. Joe Biden now supports the travel ban, the xenophobic one, really? A little late, Joe.

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): Well, the thing I see, Sean, the president's action about stopping the flight from China saved millions of lives. What we need to be focused on right now is the health of the American public and what you're watching what the president is doing, is he's taken leadership day in and day out to make that happen.

We need to be working together, unlike what Speaker Pelosi is doing. She now wants to create a new commission to oversee this when in the CARES Act, it created three oversight committees already. A pandemic one made up of inspector generals that's headed by Glenn Fine, we got an appointment by the president confirmed by the Senate for five years, another individual to oversee it, and then we have a congressional special committee to oversee it that's appointed by every leader inside Congress.

She needs to focus on helping. If you really want to know why she's doing it, look who she wants to appoint to this (ph).

HANNITY: Let me ask you this.

MCCARTHY: Yes.

HANNITY: First, they withheld money (INAUDIBLE) Americans, hospitals, workers needed, for the Humanities and all those crap. And now they are starting another investigation. This is how sick they are. Because that's - - that is like psychosis on a level I can't even describe during a national health emergency.

MCCARTHY: Sean, I wondered when I saw that number this week, that 6 million more Americans lost their jobs, how many of them could have kept their job had Nancy Pelosi not held this up? You know, today, when we took out for small business just starting the program, unheard of that it was this fast, $5 billion got processed for small business today. That could have been a week ago had Nancy Pelosi not held this up.

HANNITY: Yes. Now, they want another investigation. They don't want to wait, in the middle of a national emergency. I've never seen anything this sick in Washington, and that says a lot.

Kevin McCarthy, thank you. Appreciate you being with us.

MCCARTHY: Thank you.

HANNITY: Up next, we are going to hold China accountable. You know why? Because this all could have been prevented.

Also Dr. Fauci says it is, quote, mind-boggling that the wet markets still are operating there. We'll have that report.

Dr. Oz on the medical breakthrough and the hope -- what is available, straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: All right. Now, the coronavirus is exposing deep-rooted corruption, lies, outright propaganda in China. Calls ramping up to shut down the country, what they call a wet market, exotic animal markets, that are believed to be the direct cause of our current pandemic.

Listen to Dr. Fauci from earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FAUCI: I think they should shut down those things right away. I mean, it just -- it boggles my mind how when we have so many diseases that emanate out of that unusual human animal interface that we don't just shut it down. I don't know what else has to happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: The disease, in fact, originated in China, that's just a fact. The disease first rapidly spread in China, that's a fact. China lied to you and to the entire world, that is a fact.

We have this pandemic in large part because of their deception and the deception of their cohorts spreading their lives and propaganda from the World Health Organization. These lies hurt the world. They lied and people around the world died. China should be compensating the victims' families all over the world for the destruction and the chaos they helped cause.

And tonight, Senator Marsha Blackburn has another idea, have Beijing waived some of the U.S. debt as well.

Joining us now for reaction is the senator along with China expert, Gordon Chang.

Senator, I agree, they lied to the world. You know, I played Dr. Fauci. Dr. Fauci was being lied to by the world. You know --

SEN. MARSHA BLACKBURN (R-TN): Well, what we know is that China -- the Communist Party knew that they had this virus. They knew it for 51 days and, Sean, as I have talked to some of the activists who are fighting against the Communist Party in China, they have said it was unprecedented.

They knew they had this. But to protect the party and to protect the Chinese New Year and a celebration, they tried to keep it quiet and then they had an outbreak.

And, of course, they should compensate us. They should waive some of their debt (ph). They should compensate these victims and these families, where they have lost family members because of their deception, because they lied, because they were not transparent, they refused the help of the CDC and the WHO and they should be making compensation.

And, of course, Gordon Chang knows that better than anybody. He is one of our experts on this issue.

HANNITY: Yes. Dr. Chang?

GORDON CHANG, CHINA EXPERT: Yes, certainly --

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: I can't introduce you any better than she did.

(LAUGHTER)

CHANG: Well, thank you, Senator.

Yes, and she is absolutely correct. China actually knew sometime maybe the second week of December that there were human to human transmissions. It didn't actually acknowledge this until January 20th, and during that time, this virus spread out of China.

This would've been a local outbreak contained in Wuhan were it not for the actions of the Communist Party. And the senator is absolutely right -- one way or another, China must pay. It should just voluntarily contribute it's holding up treasuries back to us and if not, we should be working in conjunction with the other major issuers of currencies around the world to seize their obligations.

If we do this in connection with the holders of pounds, Swiss francs, euros, and yen, we have a solution.

HANNITY: Well, you know, look, at this point, we don't know. I would like to know that we're getting real data.

Do we have any idea if they're telling us the truth now, Senator?

BLACKBURN: We do not know, but it's interesting as I've talked to the activists this week, they are watching the individuals going to the funeral homes to receive the urns, the bodies, the ashes, of those that have lost their lives, and they are watching that as the funeral homes have open their doors.

I think a week from now, we will have a better idea, and, Sean, as we look forward on how we respond to this, you know, President Trump has done a great job managing this rescue and moving us to recovery. We need to begin to talk about an exit strategy. We need to be talking about how we are going to bring manufacturing back to the United States, how we bring our pharmaceutical manufacturing back, and our supply chains, and that is also a way that we can make China pay.

HANNITY: All right. I want to thank you both. We'll follow the story more closely.

BLACKBURN: Absolutely.

HANNITY: Sad -- the world would have opened their doors. We had Secretary Pompeo said, we would have sent our best people, but they lied to us. They lied to the world.

People died. Could have been prevented, a lot of this could have been prevented.

When we came back, the president spoke again today about hydroxychloroquine at the task force briefing. Dr. Oz joins us with a medical update to keep you and your family safe. You don't want to miss that.

Also big news on convalescent plasma, we'll tell you about that straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We continue to study the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine and other therapies and the treatment and prevention of the virus, and we will keep the American people fully informed of our findings. Hydroxychloroquine, I don't know, it's looking like it's having some good results. I hope that would be a phenomenal thing but we have it right now, and approximately now, it's increased to 1,500 people.

We have a tremendous supply of it, we've ordered it in the case that it works, and they could have some pretty big impacts. We'll see what happens.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: All right. The president earlier today talking about hydroxychloroquine, and those studies. The mob and the media, well, the ones who have beaten me for discussing any possible treatment are now backtracking very quickly because after initially mocking the president and anyone who talked about it for suggesting, hey, there's some evidence here, anti-malarial drug, journalists are now acknowledging, oh, it might be able to treat coronavirus.

Here now, the host of -- well, what is a must watch TV, Dr. Oz is with us.

You know, there was a 2005 study, SARS was very similar. SARS was a coronavirus. 2005, that showed promising results.

Two questions and I'm just going to hand this off to you.

MEHMET OZ, MD, "THE DR. OZ SHOW" HOST: Yes.

HANNITY: One is --

OZ: Right.

HANNITY: -- people are scared tonight, talk about what the real chances of death are for example and talk about what we know about hydroxychloroquine, sir.

OZ: Let's talk about the medications first because they were two really good ideas that are out there, one just approved by the FDA for widespread use which is convalescent plasma which you touched on earlier, and the other is this hydroxychloroquine. And the interesting thing about hydroxychloroquine as it's been around for a while, it's an old malaria drug, so it's been studied a lot.

And they used it right after the SARS epidemic hit in 2002, and in cell cultures, primate cultures, fairly sophisticated studies, it seemed to inhibit the ability of the virus to enter cells. It seems to change the hospitality of the cell to the virus and it also probably changes the immuno-response to the virus once it's in the cell. All of that excitement never resulted in much because the SARS went away.

But now, it's been used in several different settings. I spoke to with Didier Raoult, the well-respected French physician who did some of that early work that alerted a lot of us to this reality. And he's up to a thousand patients now in Marseilles. He's an outspoken gentleman and he's going to talk next week when he pulls the data together, but he thinks it is heading in the right direction.

But that's not a controlled study. This week when the controlled study came out, I thought there'd be a sort of an embrace of it because they have to see significant improvement with less fever, less coughing and improvement, significant improvement in pneumonia, all again statistically significant.

It sort of slipped away and I think we need a little humbleness here. Medicine advances mistake by mistake. So, masks, they're back, right? I mean, go figure.

Masks make sense. Obviously, people in hospitals wear them for a reason. We don't have enough in hospitals, but the CDC very wisely says, put cloth on your face. It's better than nothing in there some pretty good data saying significantly better than nothing.

Same with this medication, if we find out that it worked in a different country managed to figure it out, I think it's OK. The fact that some of them have it in the national protocol, I just learned Turkey has in their protocol, other countries do as well. We should be opening our minds to this idea especially with so many doctors choose it as their number one option outside this country.

And then this hyper immunoglobulin concept is fantastic. This is 100-year- old therapy. It was used for the Spanish influenza, the last disease as bad as this one.

HANNITY: Convalescent plasma.

OZ: Even today, we're shocked. Convalescent plasma, Dr. Hannity, that's right.

HANNITY: Yes. Well, what I mean by that, so people may not know. So, in other words, you contract the disease, you build antibodies, you recover. OK, you donate your plasma, then they infuse the plasma into patients that are very sick and with the antibodies, and we are seeing positive results there.

OZ: Well, JAMA, our biggest journal, had a nice paper of five fake patients who are deathly ill being primarily used for patients already on a ventilator. They're the sickest of the sick and four of the five of them have done well, from what I understand. One of them -- we're not sure about.

But now, the FDA is saying, go out and just use this. And lots of hospitals has organized this. America's good at this. That's going to make this into something that can work for hundreds of hospitals, so everyone is encouraged to go to the blood bank. You ought to donate anyway.

I haven't left my basement in two weeks except wants to go with my family to donate blood, because we need blood, America. So, why you give them, if you've already had COVID-19, donate some of your plasma. It will give it to someone who is barely holding on, just the precipice of life and doesn't want to fall into the dark abyss, help that person up with your immunoglobulin. They save your life, you can save theirs.

HANNITY: Let me ask you, quickly, a lot of people are afraid tonight, you said something is on the radio show that give perspective in the last minute we have, the prospective part, of course, we're vigilant but the perspective in terms of most people that get it, I'll let you take it from there.

OZ: Fifty percent of the people we believe who have COVID-19 have no symptoms and don't even know they're sick. The remaining people, let's take those guys, 40 percent of them, have pretty minor illnesses. I mean, they know they've got it and they're not happy about it, they felt kicked around, but they recover without too much difficulty.

Then the next 10 percent end up going to the hospital. Of them, all right, of them, a quarter go to the ICU and of them, about half get intubated, get the breathing tube. And that's the group we are most worried about. But everybody else does pretty well.

So, it's a serious illness, we deal with it, I'm dealing with it. I've lost patients with it. I understand the pain that causes but the vast majority of Americans are going to do fine with the illness, but we have to be hyper-vigilant to make sure we protect the folks who are most prone to lose for us -- losing them. If they do that --

(CROSSTALK)

OZ: We'll be a team.

HANNITY: Last question, look, I don't want to drag you into my political world because you're a doctor and I know you're up 24 hours a day, you don't sleep. You're talking to doctors around the world. Can we please release the hydroxychloroquine to patients in New York without forcing -- Nevada saying they're forcing them in the overburden hospital system, do you -- Andrew Cuomo, please, I'll say it nicely, let people get to their pharmacy in consultation with their doctors.

OZ: You know, early on, I understand what the concern was. It was folks with lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, couldn't get their medications. We're pumping a lot more pills into the system. It doesn't make sense for the governor to restrict it anymore. Plus, doctors want to prescribe it. I know personally because we've had quite a few patients in New York who want it. Don't make them do illegal things to get medications they believe maybe helpful. Will it work? We need larger trials but for now, it's the best tool we have, it seems.

HANNITY: OK. Well said. We would love to have a clinical trial that takes three years and improve it perfectly, but we don't have time. Lives are in jeopardy now.

Thank you for sharing all that information.

And for those who don't know, I want to say this about Dr. Oz, I've talked to him at 1:00 in the morning, 2:00 in the morning, and he's up, and he's reading and he's talking and he's on "FOX and Friends" and he's on with us and he does my radio show, and his own show. He's working hard for the country. Thank you.

Coming up, Democrats reportedly worried about their chances in November, they have good reason to. You won't believe the latest Biden blunder, oh, and Joe Biden's campaign said tonight they support the president's travel ban to China. A little late, guys -- straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: The ever confused Joe Biden's basement broadcasts, they're at worst by the second, more stumbling, rambling, incoherence. Here's the latest installment and, by teh way, now supports Trump's travel ban that's xenophobic, racist and fearmongering.

Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What is President Trump's level of culpability? What's his level of responsibility say, toward the illness and fatalities we are witnessing every few minutes these days?

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I put it slightly differently. What is his responsibility and what -- if there was, you know, in allocating responsibility is, you know, his -- I'll let history do that.

We need to get direct cash relief payments out to as many people as possible as quickly as possible. Again, this may sound straightforward, but no American should have to wait a single minute's of Donald Trump put his signature on a physical check.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: OK, and get this, after calling it xenophobic and hysterical and fearmongering, Joe tonight says he supports the president's bold decision. Oh, Joe.

OK. You are two months and three days too late. How much worse would it have been?

Former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, FOX News contributor Tammy Bruce.

I literally watched tonight, Tammy is laughing, I'll go with you, Tammy, I'm like it's not funny because he -- I wouldn't have even said it at this point because it's so ridiculously late.

TAMMY BRUCE, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: It is, but you know what this shows you is the impact of identity politics, how it crushes leadership. Joe Biden at that point was placating and pandering to individuals who wanted to hear about racism and issues of identity, and that's where he went. It kept him from being able to look at the issue itself.

Donald Trump gets into trouble because he leads, because he makes decisions based on what's in front of him and what's best for the American people. Very often, that is going to conflict with identity politics and the agenda of the left, but he is free to do it. So when we are looking at really any individual who still feels that they belong has leaders in the Democratic Party and will pander to that framework of identity politics, it makes a dynamic like this involving foreign policy almost impossible to address.

So this is what when we think about the election in November, this is about leadership. We know that the American people are responding well to what the president is doing regarding the virus and I think that it's this kind of decision that separates out President Trump from anyone the Democrats would be choosing for November.

HANNITY: It's incalculable, Reince, how much worse this would be, exponentially worse, how many thousands and thousands of Americans would have contracted it, how many would have died.

Joe, you're clueless, you're confused, and you're late.

Your reaction?

REINCE PRIEBUS, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: Well, I mean, one of the biggest problems that Joe Biden is having its what's called the enthusiasm gap in politics and I think most of the listeners know what I'm talking about. These are the very excited people within your party that want to get behind you, put up the yard signs, go wild for you.

Joe Biden is at 24 percent as of last week. To give you a perspective, Hillary Clinton around the same time was up 46 percent. He is nearly over 20 points --

HANNITY: And they try to kick them out and put someone else in there?

PRIEBUS: I don't know, but every time Joe Biden opens his mouth, the enthusiasm goes down. The only thing he needs to do is be quiet and show up at the convention and show up in October and find out how all this turns out.

The president has all of this on his shoulders the world economy, the health of the country, all the decisions coming up in the next few weeks with the doctor saying one thing, the business leader saying another. They can't get any more important and lonely for the president than where we are today, but, yes, Joe Biden is obviously out to lunch.

HANNITY: Thank you both.

BRUCE: And right now, the right man at the right time is the White House.

HANNITY: When we come back -- I got to roll, though. Tammy, hard break, got to break.

Thoughts of the week, straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: All right. As I said that the start of the show, only one month ago, Super Tuesday, a lot of change has happened last month. Never forget, they're not worse, land of the free, home of the brave. We're going to get through it. A couple tough weeks.

Let your heart not be troubled, Laura is next. Have a great weekend. See you Monday.

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