#RolandMartinUnfiltered - 4.9 Blacks die at high rates from COVID-19; Unemployment skyrockets; Feds pull $ from virus testing

Episode Date: April 12, 2020

4.9.20 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Why are Blacks die at higher rates from COVID-19? Emergency medicine doctor explains what we need to know about the spread of the #coronavirus; All pandemic deaths in St. Louis were African Americans; DC Mayor changes the definition of essential businesses; Unemployment skyrockets; Feds pull $ from virus testing sites during pandemic + Crazy a$$ doctor attacks teen girls Support #RolandMartinUnfiltered via the Cash App ☛ https://cash.app/$rmunfiltered or via PayPal ☛https://www.paypal.me/rmartinunfiltered #RolandMartinUnfiltered is a news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Să facem o pătrunjelă. Să facem o pătrunjelă. Thank you. Hey folks, today's Thursday, April 9th, 2020. Coming up on Roland Martin, unfiltered. More African Americans impacted by the coronavirus in St. Louis. 12 people are dead. All African American. Instructural racism. The region African Americans are dying the most. We're here from a policy expert who says

yes. The numbers are out when it comes to unemployment numbers. Oh man, they are brutal. We'll be joined by Dr. William Spriggs, of course, top economist, Howard University and AFL-CIO. In D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser has changed the definition of essential businesses. We'll tell you what the new guidelines are. Trust me, folks, you don't want to miss this. Plus, federal support for coronavirus testing sites have ended, but the pandemic is still going on. And as always, crazy-ass white people, including one doctor who attacks a black girl

because he didn't like their practice of safe distancing. Mm, it's time to bring the funk. I'm Robert Martin on Filter. Let's go. because he didn't like the practice of safe distancing. It's time to bring the funk. Roller Martin on filter. Let's go. He's got it. Whatever the miss, he's on it. Whatever it is, he's got the scoop, the fact, the fine.

And when it breaks, he's right on time. And it's rolling. Best belief he's knowing. Putting it down from sports to news to politics. With entertainment just for kicks, he's knowing. Putting it down from sports to news to politics. With entertainment just for kicks. He's rolling. It's Uncle Roro, y'all. It's Rolling Martin. Rolling with rolling now.

He's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best. You know he's Rolling Martin. All right, folks. It has been another brutal day when it comes to coronavirus in America. As of today, there are 459,448 cases of COVID-19 reported in all 50 states in three U.S. territories. At least 16,357 patients with the virus have died, 16,357. That's 1,894 more than yesterday. Nearly 25,000 patients have been recovering. In his daily briefing, New York Governor Andrew Coleman was optimistic about the flattening of the curve in the Empire State. We are flattening the curve by what we're doing, and we're flattening the curve so far. We should all be concerned, especially New Yorkers. Well, we're flattening the curve.

That's good news. It is good news. Well, now I can relax. No, you can't relax. The flattening of the curve last night happened because of what we did yesterday and the day before and the day before that. This is all a direct consequence to our actions. If we stop acting the way we're acting, you will see those numbers go up. And I show the projection models because we can't handle the worst case scenarios. We can't even handle the moderate case scenarios with all we've done. So it is essential that we keep that curve flattened because we don't have an option of handling the curve if it goes higher. The additional good news is the hospitalization rate does suggest that it's coming down and we are flattening the curve. We had 200 net increase in

hospitalizations which you can see is the lowest number we've had since this nightmare started actually. Change in ICU admissions is the lowest number we've had since March 19th or so. So all of this data suggests that we are flattening the curve so far and the numbers are coming down so far. Number of intubations is down. Three-day average on intubations is down. Three-day average on intubations is down.

So, so far, our efforts are working. They're working better than anyone projected they would work. That's because people are complying with them. Listen to that. They are complying with them. You think? Now, of course, we're all trying to flatten the curve by social distancing and washing our hands. Unfortunately, the disease continues to spread. Celebrity hairstylist Charles Gregory has died from the disease. Tyler Perry did multiple tweets about how sad this is for him and all the folks who work at Tyler Perry Studios and people who actually work with him as well. And if y'all have those photos, go ahead and show them. It actually was just, to talk about, just devastating that, of course, it was March 25th. He posted a photo

talking about contracting coronavirus. This right here, Newsflash. I've just been diagnosed with the coronavirus. This is a no joke, people. And then, of course, posted a photo a few days ago. And then Tyler Perry posted this on yesterday about Charles Gregory. Guys, go to the photo, please. That this was, of course, him doing Tyler's hair for the movie Vice, where he played Colin Powell. And I'm going to read what Tyler wrote because it's important. He said, today, it's with a heavy heart that I inform you of the passing of one of our crew members, Mr. Charles Gregory. Mr. Gregory was a hairstylist that had worked with us for many years. The man was warm, loving, and hilarious.

We all love to see him coming and hear his laughter. Charles lost his battle with COVID-19 today. It saddens me to think of him dying this way. My sincerest prayers are with his family. While everyone can contract this virus, it is black people who are dying from it in much larger numbers. This thing is real black people. He goes on to say, I heard a black person say black people don't get it. That is a lie. You can get it and you will get it if we don't do what we are being told to do. A 26 year old black woman, go back to a 26 year old black woman died the other day. A 44 year old black man died the other day. Not to mention the hundreds of people that are dying

every few minutes. Your age does not matter. Your health does not matter. You could be totally healthy and you could die. Now, listen to me. You have been right by my side since I started in this business. So please hear me. Please hear me. OK, this is what he lays out here, trying to get people to understand. So please hear me with your heart. I love us. I love our humor. I love our culture. I love our hair. I love our skin. I love everything about who we are, all of us. And I love us all too much to watch us die on the vine because we are the last to know and we are not taking this pandemic

seriously. Black people, we are at a disproportionately higher risk of dying from this virus. Please, please, please. I beg you to take this seriously. You have to socially distance yourself. That means stop hanging out. Stop congregating. Stop doing anything that will put not only your life in danger, but also the lives of so many others. Stay home. Socially distance yourself and stay alive.

If you won't do it for yourself, do it for someone you love. And for those who love you. My mother always told me not to wait for help. Be your own help. Of course, that's been liked by around 16000 people. That particular post and has been seen actually has been liked by 256 16,000 people, that particular post. And it's been seen, actually it's been liked by 256,000 times. And so listen to exactly what Tyler Perry said. Joining us right now, folks, is Dr. Valda Crowder, an emergency medicine physician who has treated COVID-19 patients. Dr. Crowder, welcome to Roland Martin Unfiltered.

Hi, how are you? Doing great. First and foremost, give people a sense what this thing, what it looks like as you are treating people and dealing with them. Take us inside that emergency room. Inside the emergency department. So I would say about half of the patients that I am seeing in the emergency department and I work in a rural area. So about half of the patients that I'm seeing are COVID-19 patients. Their symptoms are ranging anywhere from like a mild bronchitis. People also get a stomach flu, like a nausea, vomiting, diarrhea. There are some people that are just very nervous and may just have mild sort of sinusitis symptoms. And then you have those that are

actually really sick and having difficulty breathing and need more intensive resuscitation measures. And what's crazy about this is that there are some people who are asymptomatic. There are others who are slightly ill and others who get gravely ill. Some it happens in three days. Other it takes two or three or four weeks. I mean, that's what's so crazy about this coronavirus, COVID-19. Yeah. So in Iceland, where they actually tested the largest majority of

their population, the most per capita tests that were done, they found that 50% of the people that were COVID-19 positive were completely asymptomatic. One of the earliest signs of COVID-19 is a loss of your taste or smell. And then you have those that are actually, that actually get extremely sick and short of breath. Yes. So, so, so with that, um, and knowing full well, in terms of there's just this broad range, is it the fundamental problem still that right now with all the touting you about Trump and Mike Pence and all of them, that we still, frankly, have not tested enough people in this country? We have not tested enough people. We are, in fact, let me, I brought this with me.

This is the diagram of what is needed, like the decision diagram for testing. Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold up. Hold that up again. Just back up from the camera and hold it up again. Wow. Okay. What is that again? This is the decision tree that they gave me for determining whether or not a patient needed a test or not. So when I came to work last weekend, they handed this decision tree to me. I said, if you wanted me to actually follow this, I should have actually gotten this a month before I started working to actually really figure this out. And so they're, because we don't have enough tests, there's all of these crazy algorithms and everyone is testing

differently. Every state is different. It is really, really a problem. The and it's a problem in the communities and it's also a problem in the correctional setting. And so with that huge chart there, I mean, I mean, surely doctors are sitting here going, I can't go through this whole checklist and and to go here, here, and here. And so what have y'all been saying to folks who put that out? Like, no, we're on the front lines. We're seeing it. This is how it should actually look. Oh, no. I said I'm actually ordering the test based upon what I think the clinical parameters should be based upon what I've actually heard about this test. And I hope it falls within this parameters. But if it doesn't, someone can come down and talk to me about it. And no one wants to come down to the emergency department because they know that we're seeing so many COVID patients. They don't want to come down and talk to us about anything. So, you know, they didn't, they didn't, they didn't, they didn't say anything,

but that is what they gave me when I actually first came to work. Wow. That's, that's, that's kind of crazy there. And so and what still bothers me, I saw that big old news conference in the Rose Garden and we were going to have parking lot testing at CVS, Walgreens and Walmart and all. None of that's happened. Yeah, none of that's happened. Yeah. So but it's also the problem. Is it also a problem not only with that, but do we have enough testing centers? Like, for instance, so let's say if we all of a sudden started testing, you know, a million people a day. Do we have enough places to actually process the test? And because I'm hearing reports, I got a test, but I found out 12 days later. And then I was reading the other day where they were saying that Abbott has these tests, but these systems, these rapid tests, but aren't even being used.

Yeah. So we had a system to test that actually takes several days until the FDA approved a rapid test. So the FDA approved a rapid test last Friday. So for that rapid test, you actually have the proper, you have to have the testing kits and the proper equipment. So there is an FDA-approved rapid test, but it hasn't been yet rolled out to everyone. So that is the issue with the testing. And you are to stay quarantined until you get the results of your test. So I think even when we come out with a rapid test, I'm not seeing the infrastructure that we need to rapidly test the people that actually need to be tested the most. Hmm. Let me also ask you this. You have these daily briefings.

You have Dr. Birx, Dr. Fauci. We don't waste our time with what Donald Trump has to say. Are they putting out the appropriate information? And if not, what should be coming out? So one is, I think what clearly needs to come out is that you can be asymptomatic and be COVID positive and give it to other people. And there's a large percentage of people that are actually in that category. I think the other thing that should be coming out is that this can present with gastrointestinal symptoms.

So you get nausea, vomiting, diarrhea. It's not just respiratory symptoms. So you get nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. It's not just respiratory symptoms. So if you're sick with either respiratory or gastrointestinal symptoms, you should know that you could be COVID-19 positive. The other thing that I think is really important is that people who have a home nebulizer for asthma, they should not be using their home nebulizer if they have an asthma attack. You cannot tell the difference between asthma and a COVID-19 infection. And if you use your nebulizer, you've aerosolized it all over the house. So you need to either use it outside or inside, use an inhaler with a spacer or aerosol. Gotcha. Okay. For those of us who are at home, we're not doctors. They're seeing what we do.

You've got allergy season. Now you've got this cold weather that's blowing through the northeast. Now we thought winter was done, but now it's not done. And so if you're at home, what should you be looking for? One of my former colleagues, she had a fever for more than a week. Then she found out really it was a sinus infection. Someone else was tweeting about that. They started freaking all out. Same thing, a temperature spike. She also had a sinus infection. And so what exactly should we at home be looking for before we decide to try to go to emergency room or try to call our doctor, what should we be doing?

Well, I would say one is if you actually get sick, the first thing is you actually want to. It's more likely that it's going to be something other than COVID-19. But because COVID-19 can be so deadly, you want to almost assume it is COVID-19 and call your doctor. Use either a telemedicine or a telehealth platform and actually get a prescription to get tested. I tell people, really, you do not want to go to the emergency department unless you're really, really sick, like you're short of breath, you can't stand up, you can't walk. You really want to stay away from the hospital settings because if you're negative, there are positive patients in the hospital setting. So you don't want to expose yourself to something that you don't need

to be exposed to unnecessarily. So. Got it. All right, then. Well, look, we certainly appreciate it. Thank you for the advice. I know it's it's crazy out there. And unfortunately, folks like you are on the front lines in this war and just trying to keep up every day. Thank you. Dr. Valda Crowder, thanks so much. I certainly appreciate you joining us at Roland Martin Unfiltered. Folks, again, when we look at what's been going on, the numbers are staggering with the people who are being impacted, who are falling ill. And then, of course, when you look at this, frankly, just lack of leadership that's coming from the White House, it is just it's just utterly

insane with what is happening every single day. The craziness is coming from there. You would think you would think when you talk about this coronavirus task force, they would be about giving the appropriate information that ain't happening. Joining us right now on our panel is Dr. Greg Carr, the chair of the Department of Afro-American Studies, Howard University. Also, Erica Savage Wilson, host of Savage Politics Podcast. And later, we'll be joined by Recy Colbert, Black Women Views. Greg, I want to start with you. It is this is a story out where Mike Pence has decided he's not going to allow any public health officials from the White House to go on CNN until CNN carries full briefings. includes his comments and that of Donald Trump. You have Trump, who stands at the podium yesterday and talk about let's end the partisan politics. Yet he stands there and he takes shots at Democrats, says sleepy Joe Biden.

He touts people like Kevin McCarthy, saying hope he's going to be speaker of the House. I mean, it goes on and on and on. Now you have the Wall Street Journal, who put out an editorial today saying enough with these briefings. They are an absolute waste of time. And then they're actually nothing is actually happening. And what's now interesting is the Wall Street Journal is owned by Rupert Murdoch. Wall Street Journal is a conservative newspaper. They're taking shots at Trump. And then, of course, he puts out a tweet, which is what he does. And he puts the tweet out.

And I'm going to pull up in a second, Greg, to read it. And it goes to show you what happens when a dear leader does not like when people criticize him. This is the tweet. The Wall Street Journal always forgets to mention that the ratings for the White House press briefings are through the roof. Monday Night Football bachelor finale, according to New York Times, and is only way for me to escape the fake news and get my views across. WSJ is fake news. So damn the fact that we've had thousands of deaths. It's about his ratings, Greg. Absolutely, brother. We're not living in the same world we were in two months ago.

I'm actually very encouraged by the vice president's directive because there's really no need to listen to anyone during the White House briefings. Unfortunately, even the heads of the medical heads of the medical heads of the task force. If for no other reason, then what we're seeing is we're past network television being the center of attention. We're past cable. You've jailbroken that now.

More people are getting their news from various different sources than any time in world history. So I'm encouraged by this because it's really a barometer, I think, of the desperation of this administration. They're losing. They're desperate now. What do I mean? Their objective is to win the November election. And a little bit later you're going to talk about things we need to do to make sure that

the vote goes on in November. That would be up to and including canceling the vote, as we see, as you're always talking about those judges, we see how these judges sided against people and had them out there risking their lives in Wisconsin with the backing of the Supreme Court to vote. Pence is desperate. Trump is desperate. They don't know what else to do. CNN should, of course, say, well, fine, we won't put your briefers on.

Yesterday, we heard Gavin Newsom in the media. You know, and I know you're going to talk about this a little bit later, but California, he said the word nation state. He said, we're a nation state. We're going to go get ventilators from other countries. And when we get surplus, we're going to redistribute them. The United States of America is a federated state. It is a nation only in our imagination. Donald Trump is trying to win reelection from the podium of the White House every day during prime time.

And people are turning it off and more people are turning on Roland Martin unfiltered. More people are going on the internet for their news. And Mike Pence's move is a move of desperation, which I take as a good sign. Erica, what we're dealing with now, his numbers, his poll ratings, numbers are going down. Joe Biden, according to a poll, is a nine point lead nationally when it comes to registered voters. People are now seeing exactly what's going on. We got this one story that we'll be dealing with where they're shutting down testing areas. I mean, just to understand what they're doing, the kind of craziness that is taking place in this country, it just makes no sense whatsoever when you look at what is happening. I mean, look in it with the middle of the coronavirus pandemic and the federal government

is going to end funding for coronavirus testing sites on Friday. A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said, quote, many of the community based testing sites are not closing, but rather transitioning to state-managed sites on or about April 10th. The agency and the spokesperson for FEMA says the CBTS program originally included 41 sites. It was intended as a stopgap to bring testing to critical locations, especially for healthcare facility workers and first responders. The HHS spokesperson said the transition will ensure each state has the flexibility and autonomy to manage and operate testing sites within the needs of their specific community and to prioritize resources where they are needed. That's a whole bunch of mumbo jumbo.

The bottom line is here. The federal government in this case, Erica, has decided states you're on your own. We're not going to be responsible for this. You're on your own. You need equipment. Go find it. If you need to do go find it. Yeah. You come back and talk to us. I mean, the abdication of responsibility and leadership has been absolutely stunning. But this is what happens when you put a thug in the White House. Absolutely. And then you also employ his family members. Remember, Jared Kushner was the mind behind deciding how the coronavirus pandemic was going to be addressed here in the United States. And so in the spirit of Passover and tomorrow being Good Friday, I was just it

came to mind and I went back and I studied it. John 10 and 10 talks about in the A clause, the enemy comes only to steal, kill, and destroy. This regime, this autocratic administration, this whole power grab, this is what black, brown people, all of us with good common sense who understand the background in this nation, were arguing about against back in 2015. So all of the folks that sat out the vote, that listened to people, that have large platforms, that dictated what they should and should not do with their individual vote, for those individuals, especially the 53 percent that ushered in this whole regime, Here we are. This is exactly what we were talking about. And so what Dr. Carr talked about and where people are drawn in getting their news, that is a positive sign, because what it does say is that Americans are really paying

attention to the king of chaos and making a decision, especially since that word that you use, autonomy, now we have individual presidents governing their state, so to speak, that they are understanding that we do need infrastructure. Government is not as all horrible as it was made out to be, especially when you have something of this size where people, there are people that are local state executives that are making decisions about something that impacts all of us. And so as we move towards November and continue to move through this novel virus, I hope that even with what we saw in Wisconsin, which was very unfortunate,

that people will begin to become a lot more serious about what little democracy that we have to hold on to and try to make that happen in November with the changing over of presidents. Well, Reesey Baumland is here. First of all, we know elections matter. But for all of those MAGA people who hate government, the Tea Party people, isn't it amazing when a moment like this here, all of a sudden, oh my God, where's government? Yeah. And unfortunately for them, they are mostly governed by red state governors who certainly are not taking this as seriously, even though the administration is accommodating them with their request for PPE, their request for ventilators. You saw Governor DeSantis down in Florida got 100 percent of his request met while the epicenter down up in New York was getting hung out to dry. So we are seeing that we need a functional federal government.

We are seeing where local state officials do make the difference. administration wants to pick and choose when they want to be king of the castle, when they confiscate PPE and other items that are ordered at the state level so that they can give it to the corporations to sell to the states at a higher price, or when they want to stay hands-off, which is about the testing. The testing needs to be done on a much broader scale. The states are already overtaxed trying to do the job that the federal government is supposed to be doing. So to give the states quote-unquote autonomy with testing when the states don't have autonomy with the PPE and the ventilators, it's a contradictory message. It seems like there is an agenda here to undercut the states. But what Trump doesn't understand is that we are the United States of America. And this pandemic, which was thought to have started in terms of people coming over from Asia,

actually came as a result of people coming over from Europe is what they're now reporting. We cannot isolate. We cannot have a red state versus blue state response. There's no safe haven if we don't as a country get it together. All right, folks, Black people in about every state with racial data available have higher contraction rates and higher death rates from COVID-19. Those numbers could be about more than following the rules of social distancing. This guest believes they are structural conditions that create health disparities that make us more susceptible to contracting and dying from the virus. Joining us right now is Dr. Rashawn Ray, David M. Rubenstein Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Dr. Ray, first and foremost, we've all of a sudden, again, the last few days, a couple of days,

the briefings from the White House, and they're talking about African-Americans and other health issues and what creates that. And Fauci said, look, we're not going to be able to solve these things right now and overnight. But as I have been saying since this outbreak, this thing, this coronavirus has exposed so many elements, so many things in America that this nation has ignored. And it's now front and center. And this is one of them. I mean, without a doubt. I mean, as we know, there's an old saying that when America catches a cold, black people get the flu. Well, in 2020, when America catches coronavirus,

black people die. And part of what we have to realize is what's coming out of the White House, as well as a lot of mainstream media, is aiming to highlight these preexisting conditions, trying to act as if black people have some type of defect or deficit. But instead what I argue and what research overwhelmingly shows is that structural conditions

actually manifest the underlying preexisting conditions that we know to exist. Black people live in neighborhoods that are extremely unequal. They don't have healthy food options. They don't have green spaces. They don't have places to exercise. They don't have good lighting. They don't have places where they can get pharmacy prescriptions quickly. And then you couple that with the fact that black people are overrepresented when it comes to working these quote unquote new essential jobs. So black people represent

about 20 percent of bus drivers, train drivers, grocery store workers, factory workers and the like. And then, of course, we have to add on the climate issue and the fact that we live in areas with very high levels of lead, very high levels of pollutants, and then we deal with over-criminalization and policing. So until we deal with these structural conditions and the fact that we are dealing with a place, a place issue, not necessarily just a race issue, what we need to do is actually to put triage places, testing places, treatment facilities in predominantly black neighborhoods. And I think that black churches can be a place that can really build on some of President Obama's

legacy with some of these promise zones to build health equity zones in these particular facilities and in these neighborhoods to do something about what we're seeing. Well, not only that, you have to deal with that because that impacts so many other different things. It impacts our health system. It impacts us economically. The reality is if you are able to improve the life conditions and the life expectancy of African-Americans, now that changes outcomes in our neighborhoods, it changes. You're not going to see black men dying much earlier than black women. You're not going to see both dying earlier than white Americans as well. And so it's actually in the nation's best interest to really begin to deal with these things. But Dr. Ray, the problem is this here. America likes to look at something

and say, OK, let's kind of let's not even fix this. Let's touch upon this. But we're going to ignore the other three or four or five different things actually contributes to that. So you can focus on one thing. But if you don't deal with the other issues here, that ain't changing. I mean, without a doubt, you know, one of the big things we're seeing with the outcomes now is is really an intersectional effect. Race and gender are coming together. So we knew very early on that it was an age issue. We now know that men are more likely to contract it. And now we know that black people are dying at very high rates.

What this means is this virus is really colliding on the lives of black men. And part of what we have to realize is that if we actually want to change it, we have to deal with the structural conditions that underlay this. What this means is, first, we need to collect better data. Second, it means we need to set up places in Black neighborhoods. Third, it means that we actually need to give people hazard pay. We actually need to give people a living wage. These sort of things will reduce the exposure that Black people are under. And in the states that I've analyzed, Black people are about 74 percent more likely to die from coronavirus than their percentage in the state. I mean, you look at Louisiana, it's over 70 percent. Chicago, over 70 percent. Milwaukee County, over 70 percent. This hasn't even hit the Deep South yet. So part of to your point, we can't put a Band-Aid on something that's a huge scar.

Part of the American legacy is that racism is baked into the recipe of our country. And if we're actually going to deal with that, we need to change the recipe. This is an opportunity for the United States of America to correct this. But I think similar to what we've seen after the Civil War, with the end of slavery, similar to the GI Bill after World War II, this will be another time where we won't see America properly deal with race in the way that they actually should. Questions from our panel. First off, Erica, you got a question for Dr. Ray? Yes, Dr. Ray, thank you so much for the work that you do.

I'm not sure if you're familiar with Doherty County, Albany has the highest number of corona cases in, of those 50 deaths that have been reported in a town that's about 77,000, 90,000 with the county, that 50 of those people have been black and women. So what do you see happening when you talk about the deep south in the rural communities, especially in states like Georgia, people normally think about Atlanta. But when you start going down south into the agricultural rural areas, what are you seeing in ways that are really promising for places that are really understaffed, have a lot of people that live outside of the area that really depend on services like hospitals, things of that nature. What are you seeing in ways that

do say, okay, things are happening well to help address coronavirus and make people more aware in perhaps areas where information doesn't flow as well? Or are you seeing things that are exponentially more problematic happen in those areas? Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, I think unfortunately right now, things are potentially going to get bad in the Deep South. I grew up in Atlanta. I'm from Tennessee. I think about these areas all the time. And there are a couple of things that you highlighted that are important. First, most counties in the Deep South do not have one hospital bed in those counties, not one hospital bed.

And in this regard, we're just not talking about, you know, rural people. We're talking about rural white people, rural black people, you know, in the Deep South, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and the like. The second thing, when we were talking about these essential workers, essential workers are more likely to also be women in certain professions, whether it be housekeeping, whether it be certain types of cashier and sort of service jobs. Black women are overexposed there.

So essentially what we're doing is we're sending black women to work to get sick to bring that sickness home to their communities because we know they're more likely to do the housework and the caregiving at home. I think what needs to happen is right now we need governors, we need mayors, we need county executives to take swift action to get CVS and Walgreens and other companies to set up mobile units in rural communities so that we can start getting people tested now. Before, we have several

New Orleans and several Louisianas. As we know, after Mardi Gras, most people who live in New Orleans, they work in the service industry and look forward to Mardi Gras, most people who live in New Orleans, they work in the service industry and look forward to Mardi Gras. Well, of course, they did a shutdown after that, exposed all these people, particularly black people, in those areas. We're going to start to see that same thing throughout the Deep South and Arkansas and other places. Mayors like Frank Scott of Little Rock has been doing an excellent job. I mean, one policy he put in place as kids are being homeschooled is that he actually put a quarantine during the day. It was a great type of policy decision where he said from like 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., you actually have to be in the house doing your work. We need those type of

progressive policies if we're going to actually get out of this and make sure that Black people don't continue to die from COVID-19. Recy, your question for Dr. Ray. Hi, Dr. Ray. One of the things that Senator Kamala Harris worked on before this pandemic was racial bias as it relates to the Black maternal health crisis. We know that part of who determines who gets testing is you have risk factors, and you also have judgments that are made based on the severity of the symptoms we know based on racial biases in the system in the system that oftentimes black people aren't taken as seriously in terms of the severity of their symptoms what can be done in terms of re-evaluating the risk scoring or raising awareness to physicians are making it such that the the limited testing that is available does take into account

the race issues, the preconditions that Black people have so that Black people can get the testing so that they can get admitted so that they do survive. And so that part of the issue too is at some point there might be rationing where there are certain factors that will determine who gets care or not. Want to make sure that Black people don't get rationed out of healthcare because people feel like, well, they have all these risk

factors, they're not a good candidate for surviving coronavirus. You know, you just made an excellent point. The maternal mortality rate, the gap between Black mothers having babies between black mothers having babies and white mothers having babies, is one of the most unfortunate and sad statistics in American history. You have women like Serena Williams and Beyonce going to have babies,

almost dying, because there are a couple things that happen to research shows. First thing is, as you noted, black patients are oftentimes spoken to instead of having a conversation with them. The second thing that actually happens is there is an empathy gap. There is a fascinating study that asked people on a scale from one to 10, what is your pain? Say a black person and a white person says an eight. Research showed repeatedly that health care providers will give black people less pain medication. And I kind of think about that in the context of my wife having our boys and the fact that people might not necessarily be giving black women pain medication. So part of what that means, particularly as we think about the fact that black people only represent 4 percent of all physicians in the United States, that number hasn't changed in like 100 years.

So when we look at the health care system, what we need is a complete overhaul. We need to continue to do implicit bias trainings with health care providers. Health care providers have some very, very warped stereotypes about our bodies. They don't think our blood coagulates the way that it does. The white people, they think our skin is thicker like animals. I mean, a host of things that lead to some of the outcomes we see. And as it relates to COVID-19, there's one really, really big thing that's important. Pay attention to this language coming out of the White House, where they've been talking about if things get full, and we can see this in the Deep South, as hospitals get full, if they don't roll this out properly, they're going to start turning away people with pre-existing health conditions. Well, who is that going to impact? That's primarily going to impact black people. So as black people go to hospitals, and of course,

that's even getting over the fact that we deal with medical mistrust and the fact that we have a legacy of Tuskegee and Henrietta Lacks and this sort of thing, that once we get to the hospital, we need to make sure that protocols are put in place, that we are treated equitably and get the same care and medication that other people do. I got about 90 seconds if I go to my next guest. Greg Carr, your question for Dr. Ray. Thank you, brother. It's Paul Robeson's birthday, so it's good to see all these alphas on this conversation since Paul Robeson was an alpha. Dr. Ray, I'm a big fan of yours, brother. And I'm thinking about one of your colleagues, Derek Hamilton at Ohio State, who has proposed that there should be structural fixes.

You've identified structural fixes. What can the people watching this show do to push policymakers to engage in structural fixes so that, as we say, it's not a repeat of the New Deal, it's not a repeat of Reconstruction, it's not a repeat of the Great Society? How can we fix this structurally? The structural conditions are what we need to focus on, right? And of course, if we lay it out, that's what alphas are definitely about. And part of thinking about that is what we need to do is there is an app. It's called The Countable. People should download it on their phone, The Countable.

It allows you to put in your zip code. It pulls up all of your federal policymakers. You can send them emails, call their office, send them messages on a regular basis. Do that. Do that every day. Tell them what you want. And part of what we need here is raising the minimum wage. For example, in Tennessee, the minimum wage is $7.25. People can't even afford rent in Nashville, let alone health insurance coverage. So what we need to do is contact our policymakers, make sure not only our vote counts,

but make sure our voice counts after we put them in office. All right, then. Well, sir, I certainly appreciate it. Thank you so very much. Dr. Rashawn Ray, David M. Rubenstein, fellow at the Brookings Institution. Appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you for having me. All right, folks. More than six point six Americans, more than six point six million Americans lost their jobs last week. Folks, 16 million jobs have been lost in just the past three weeks. Economists expected 5.25 million people to file for unemployment benefits by the end of last week. Oh, that number is huge. Now, of course, as I said in the previous two weeks, the shutdown cost close to 10 million people their job.

The largest unemployment increases were in California, up 871,992. New York, up 286,596. Michigan, as well as Florida. And what we're seeing here, and we're going to talk to, so next we're going to talk to Dr. Bill Spriggs, of course, Howard University economist. Actually, he joins us right now. Bill, glad to have you back on Roller Martin Unfiltered. As you study these numbers and you have Donald Trump over here who keeps going Wall Street, Wall Street, Wall Street stock market. When most Americans are not even in the stock market. What what are these numbers telling you about the state of our economy and who is most impacted by these numbers?

Well, first thing it tells me about planning. So let's let's step back from even what the numbers are telling me in terms of the economy. In February, the economy was doing fine. But we understood in January and in February, we had warnings. If you look at what was going on in China and South Korea and Italy, that they were getting to the point with the coronavirus fight that they were going to have to shut down public activities. So if you know that and you know you're going to say,

I want to stop public gatherings, I'm going to close restaurants, I'm going to stop sporting events, I'm going to stop concerts, I'm not going to have movie theaters, I'm not going to have people going to the shopping mall. Don't you think, don't you think if you know you were going to do that and that there are 15 million people working in those industries, don't you think before you would shut them down, you would say, okay, I understand I'm about to shut down your job, your business. Here's what's going to happen. This is how money is going to still come to you. This is how you as a worker are going to stay attached to your company. This is you, the manager of the company. When we open back up, how are you going to be able to open back up? Because your light bills were paid, your workers were paid, you're going to be ready to turn the lights on. Don't you think that's what you would have done? Now, what has me

upset is that instead, we just said, okay, we're going to shut down these businesses. And then we got shocked, shocked, amazed. Oh, my goodness. Fifteen million people are claiming unemployment. What did you think when you shut down 15 million people? Yeah, it's going to happen. And now and now what we're dealing with, Bill, you have three hundred fifty billion dollars set aside in this bill. Not enough. Now the Federal Reserve announced they're going to pump in $2 trillion into the economy. Did anybody do any math on the number

of small businesses in America to understand how many people were likely going to apply for this money? And then not only that, you only have a handful of banks who are set up. So the banks are now saying we don't have any infrastructure to handle this. The SBA is saying we can't handle the onslaught of all these applications at one time. And so now the small businesses who desperately needed the most, who are not sitting on the cash reserves of major companies, they actually are going to be in a worse situation. These numbers are going to be, I think, even greater in 30 days. Well, that's right. But this all gets to planning. You don't tell people three weeks after you told them to shut down,

oh, I'm going to create a new loan facility. This three weeks too late. What am I supposed to do for those three weeks? And the legislation hadn't passed. So I don't, I can't even imagine what I'm supposed to do. Unfortunately, many of those companies got separated from their workers because confronted with, I don't know, I have no clue as a business owner. I have no clue where the money's going to come from for the next three weeks. Maybe this is eight weeks, 10 weeks. I have no clue. So I'm letting you go now. You can go claim unemployment insurance. Once you get separated from the employer, our economy is in trouble. Now, these initial claims

are still overwhelmingly dominated by accommodations, hotels, food and restaurant workers, that's 12.6 million people. And then people in non-grocery retail, all of the shopping malls. And that's why you see Macy's furloughing its people. So you get to this critical point. and now what about, well, restaurants rely on food wholesalers. What happens to those food wholesalers? What happens to the delivery truck drivers who drove for those food wholesalers? What about the energy that was being consumed by all of these companies and everybody staying at home? We're now seeing layoffs taking place in Wyoming. So these are industries which were predominantly low wage. These were the

lowest wage industries in the United States, predominantly female, predominantly women of color. So these are the people being hit hardest first, and then you see the spillover effect to these other sectors, energy, wholesale, trade. These are the areas that are being hurt now. So going forward, fortunately in the numbers that just came out, the number of new claims, as big as they were, they were over six million, are easing back from those first two weeks where we got the first wave of people applying. The problem with the small business loan was it wasn't targeted to the businesses that were being asked to shut down. Every small business was eligible. Right. Including, no, there wasn't

enough money because if every small business can have access, then every small business was eligible right including no there wasn't enough money because if every small business can have access then every small business is going to line up and the ones that are the most sophisticated and have the strongest ties to their banks they're the ones who jump line and they're the ones that the banks like to deal with anyway but they're not the ones necessarily in trouble right and if i mean perfect example um uh you know we've reached out to i've heard from different people. One of the issues that they're facing is that if you don't have a pre-existing relationship, meaning if you don't have loans from that bank, frankly, they're not talking to you. They're also going after, yes, those much larger businesses.

And so you might have a you might have a checking account at that bank. But if you don't have a loan relationship, frankly, you're on a lower pecking order. And so there are small businesses, frankly, that don't have loans. They're cash businesses as well. So they're writing checks on their personal account. It's a whole different relationship than somebody out there who has 300 employees. Who's called small? Yeah, take barbershops and beauty parlors, right? Many of them are cash businesses, so they may not have had loans from a bank.

Man, I'm telling you, it is a tough situation here. And again, when you have understaffed federal agencies, when you have idiots at theed federal agencies, when you have idiots at the top who only care about big business, this is one of the fundamental problems that we're dealing with. Bill Spriggs, I certainly appreciate it, man. Thanks a lot. Thanks for having me on. All right. Thank you very much. Folks, I talked about what Congress can do. They're looking at having a new bill to infuse more money into it. Joining us right now is Dr. Joyce, excuse me,

Congresswoman Joyce Beatty from Ohio. Congresswoman Beatty, how you doing? I'm doing well. Thank you, Roland. And thanks for all you're doing during this critical time that we have. Well, I appreciate it. You certainly have been living on conference calls.

Most members of Congress for the past few weeks because of this. Give our folks who are watching and listening an understanding of where Congress is. That $350 billion that was in that last bill for small businesses is expected to run out. Now Congress is saying we've got to look at something else. And so where do we stand with that? Well, we definitely have to look at something else, because when we put the three hundred and forty nine billion dollars in there and you look at the categories, when you start talking about five hundred and less, you're not talking about black businesses and small businesses.

You and I would know I'm a small business owner. So is my husband. Five hundred employees for us. It's not even thinkable. So when you think about those barbershops and those people who own beauty salons and the people that do all kinds of things in our community, the money will run out before it gets to them. And when we think about those who are independent contractors and those 1099 workers. They were not thought of early enough. There wasn't enough dollars.

So right now, we're going back to the drawing board. And this isn't even a CARES Act 2 or a stimulus 4. This is something that's got to fill the gap from when the guidance were written. We have people that we made promises to that the money would immediately get into your bank account. We know when you're a small business owner, you don't have 15 days, let alone 30 days that you can go without dollars coming into your business when you've been shut down because of this COVID-19 pandemic. So right now we're saying we need to put more money, not only more money, into this new piece of legislation, but we need to carve out something that's for real small businesses. We need to make sure that there's not only dollars for the unemployed,

for unemployment, but there is a process. We allocated the money, and when it got back to states across the United States, they weren't equipped to handle. I think today we're up to something like 16.6 million people who have filed for unemployment. We had in a few days 6.6 million applying for unemployment. The people here in my district, they couldn't handle it. They weren't ready. They weren't equipped to be able to process that many people. And it's the same thing with the bank loans. There are small businesses that were supposed to be releasing the application for those independent contractors, those 1099, next Monday. And we know when you start thinking about the volume

that's out there, let alone those who can get the $10,000 supposedly to go immediately into their bank account. When we're thinking about those individuals that are going for the loans that are forgivable and you walk into a bank and a bank says, oh, yes, I have your account here, you're in good standing. But then they pull it up and look at it and would say, oh, but you've never had a loan with us. It's not working. So we have to not only put more money in it, and thank goodness for the Congressional Black Caucus, who has been out in the forefront raising our voices during this time. And we have certainly been sounding the alarm that we are in a different kind of sense of emergency

because black folks have been in the emergency all along. We already knew before this pandemic came along that the average person didn't have an extra $400 to get through. So this is not new for us, but it is problematic when we think we're fixing things. And so the Congressional Black Caucus has been in the forefront. I can tell you that Congressman Jim Clyburn has been fighting for urban America and been at the forefront along with Hakeem Jeffries. So at least we are in a better position that we have African Americans who are out there. Congresswoman Maxine Waters has rewritten most of the financial services language that we can be sure that at least our voices are heard. People like you, Roland,

not afraid to speak up. So maybe this happened for a reason, that our voices can be more than just hollering and screaming, but our voices are going to be at the table. And we have to make sure that we are looking out for the least of us. I'm looking at a story here, Congresswoman Beatty, by the Associated Press, where they say, as you just said, you know, black members of Congress and others are making it perfectly clear that they are not going to be jumping on top of this new bill. Their headline says is here. Senate Democrats saw President Trump's 250 billion dollar business virus aid package demanding protections for minority owned businesses and matching money for health care providers and state and local governments. Obviously, that is the Senate bill. But still, the reality is,

when you look at these big businesses that are jumping to the line, black folks and black and brown businesses have to be dealt with and taken care of to ensure they're not getting left out in the cold, especially when we're the ones who are also dying at a higher rate. Absolutely. Let me just add one thing to that. We're also now calling. We know that there are disparities. It didn't take this pandemic for us to know that. But we are now mandating that we

have to have the racial breakdown. Because when you look at communities and cities across the United States, and we might make up 30 percent of the population, and then we have 80 percent of the people contracting the virus and dying of it, there's a problem with that. So the new bill that's coming out is definitely asking for more money to go to small businesses, small businesses to be defined as independent contractors, 1099. It's also calling for making direct payments for those to get their unemployment check. And one of the things that we have to look at, we can't do business as usual. You can't say it's the IRS and you can't say it's only

the big banks who are giving the dollars out. Let's open it up so credit unions can do it. Let's make direct deposits. If you're going to give me a loan and it's forgivable, let it be through a different process than I have to go to the IRS. You know, we have to be on top of this with the U.S. Treasury, with the Small Business Association. And we know for many of us, the SBA was always difficult for us to work with. It wasn't like we had great relationships and we could get things. And for many businesses that just started in the last five years or in the last six years or even the last two years, this is very new for them. And we're making it too complicated. We're talking about portals and going online,

assuming that everybody has easy access to that. And so those are some of the things that the congressional black caucus is doing. We are having our very own fellow town conferences. Congresswoman Bass has been out front. She was on the call today with media. She's been on the call with black media, and she is making it very clear that it is black folks because we are the Congressional Black Caucus. Now, we are partnering with our brown and yellow brothers and sisters with our tri-pockets, but there's a reason that we have the congressional black caucus, and that is for us to do something. We're bringing together all of the black elected officials. We're just coming off of our African-American summit,

which was amazing. I can tell you here in Ohio, Congresswoman Marsha Fudge and I and our House Democratic leader, Amelia Sykes, on Monday, we're having a teletown call calling on African-Americans in the state of Ohio to get on board and to get with it, because it's going to take all of us. I've got some questions from our panelists. I'm going to start first with Recy Colbert. Recy? Hi, I'm Congressman Betty. I applaud the great work that the CBC is doing. What about the way that people don't get to, you know, benefit for something that truly is intended to go towards people of color and specifically black people? Well, I think one of the things that we're going to have to be careful is when we use the language and we define it as small and minority business, which would include African-American businesses. That's

step one. We have to break it out from the mega businesses and the mega companies and make sure that we at least put it in that playing field. And then we're going to have to have people like you and me and Roland and everyone else getting the information also to black businesses, because so often it's the lack of opportunity, but it's also the lack of information, that if we're still struggling with the language, think of those individuals who are just starting their business. So I think that's where we're starting with putting the money in.

We're starting with a different definition of what makes you a small business. So I think that's where we're starting with putting the money in. We're starting with a different definition of what makes you a small business. We're also opening up a window of opportunity for 1099 and independent contractors to be in the first allocation. So at least that puts us in the room that we can be in that first allocation process. And then it's going to take all of our not-for-profits. We met with our civil rights leaders. We had a long conversation with the national president of the Urban League. We're looking at the NAACP action network. Black media can play a huge role. And we know that's another problem, because every time we get a Roland Martin and he expresses himself, the next time we know, there are fewer in number.

So if we don't band together now and realize this is not new, but it's going to take all of us to get to where you want us to be, Because you know the federal government is not going to say this is only for black folks. But what we have to be able to do is say let's make it for the real moms and pops and to organize the businesses that we represent. And then we have to bring those funding levels and those applications. And we have to take the banks, We have to take the banks up to get on them because they're putting a lot of blockage in there. We know we don't have

the relationship as our majority folks do, so we have to hold them accountable. Greg Carr, your question for Congresswoman Beatty. Thank you, Congresswoman Beatty. This has been invaluable. And thank you for the continued work.

We know this is uncharted territory. This virus doesn't respect color, but we seem to be taking the brunt of it, as we would expect in this society. On the Senate side, certainly they're going to fight this just like they want to fight expanding access to the ballot. You mentioned the banks. Are there strong lobbying interests, specific ones that you see being a problem on the Senate side, since you probably should be able to get this through on the House side? I think we will be able to come together and negotiate because we have programs like this and people like us fighting for it. But one of the

things we were able to do, because we started calling out the banks, I don't care who you are, when you have a Bank of America saying, I'm not going to do business with you unless you have a loan, when you have Wells Fargo out there. So we were able to get some of those caps lifted off of them so they couldn't use that as an excuse. I think we will be able to come to a compromise language and where the House will get many of the things that we want because we do have strong voices on the Senate. Cory Booker and we have, of course, Senator Harris, and they have been communicating with us every day and fighting with us and Dick Durbin and other brothers and sisters who are over there. But you mentioned the disparities and how this is hitting us.

We are all consumed and rightly so with small businesses, but we have to keep us alive. We have to make sure that black folks are adhering to the guidelines and what we're supposed to do about protecting ourselves. And we have to also make sure that we get quality information and that we keep our health care systems. We already know that so often we have poor care. We already know that we are in those higher numbers when we talk about pre-existing conditions. And we have to stop using language like underlining conditions. We have to call it out. Black folks have asthma and we're diabetic and we take insulin and we have to bring it home. So you know that if you're on chemo or treatment for cancer or you're insulin dependent, then you can't be saying I'm running over here to store to the store to get a gallon of milk.

You have to send somebody else and have them get everything you need. And you have to put on a mask, a scarf. You have to cover your mouth because this is real. Anytime you look at us, when we make up 30 percent or 20 percent of a city and we have 40 percent and 60 percent of the people who are being affected black folks are in the numbers and we have to make sure that we educate them and that we make our state and our officials like the congressional black office is doing we're demanding to have the health care centers and the hospitals give us the numbers so we can put it out there and people like roland martin can be letting us know here's what's really happening and here's what we have to do.

And don't believe all of these things. The president of the United States is an idiot. And he's telling us that here are pills and things that you can take. This is the same president that told us that this was a hope and it didn't exist. And now we're dying in unbelievable numbers. Last question, Erica Savage. Erica, your question for Congresswoman Beatty. Thanks, Roland. Yes. Thank you, Congresswoman Beatty. My question to you is with the 250 million additional funds that this regime leader requested, but he has also been noncompliant and stated he would be noncompliant with oversight. My question is for the public.

What are some things that we could do as just parts of organizations to help ensure that, put pressure to ensure that there is oversight over these funds that are directed towards helping small businesses? I think it's one word, you vote. You vote and you vote and it makes a difference because here's a president clearly who does not value or respect the Constitution. Here's a president who overstepped what his real authority is because he's just using words. He has no authority to sign a bill.

And then the bill is in law. And for him to say that he is not going to adhere to having the inspector general, to having the panel, having the oversight. The good news is Speaker Pelosi continues to plow ahead. And she has been able to appoint someone that's going to be over that oversight. It's Congressman Jim Clyburn. There will be a panel of people. There will be members who will be making sure that we are trying to keep that in the forefront. We just need people to come out and use their voice and to use it by voting. If you get these folks out this idiot out of office as

our president. And I guess I'm just so emotional about this that I find myself not being able to be respectful to him as a president because he has not put himself in a respectable position to deserve it. So I think we have to just we have to vote. We are so close. There's still time for us to come together and make sure that we elect someone that will be a president of the people and that will respect us certainly more than he is and has been as black people and as women and as other minorities. Absolutely. Congressman Joyce Beatty of Ohio, we appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you. All right. Keep fighting.

Thank you very much. Folks in Washington, D.C., at a news conference this morning, Mayor Muriel Bowser asked shoppers to help keep grocery store workers safe. She wants them to limit their grocery store trips, shop quickly, and use a self-checkout lane when possible. Bowser issued an order yesterday requiring that all grocery stores comply with new social distancing guidelines. In D.C., all grocery stores and convenience stores must limit the number of shoppers, create one-way aisles where possible and cease the use of buffets.

Outdoor markets are no longer essential businesses. All farmers markets that wish to operate must obtain a waiver from the city. You know, that's actually kind of important. And we certainly appreciate that. All right, folks, let's talk about what is happening in St. Louis. Man, when we start looking at these numbers, and we've been talking about this for a very long time, how black people are being impacted. This has been happening all across the country. Nearby state, the next neighbor of Missouri, Illinois, where Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot sounded the alarm about the disparities people are contracting and dying from coronavirus members take your breath away they really do this is a call to action moment for all of us

when we talk about equity and inclusion they're not just nice notions they are an imperative that we must embrace as a city. And we see this even more urgently when we look at these numbers and this disparity. It's unacceptable. No one should think that this is okay. While we have sufficient data to see that these trends are alarming, as Dr. Hardy noted, health care providers are still not providing

total demographic information that is needed for us to have a complete picture of the impact. That must change. This is not negotiable. We must understand the magnitude of the impact of this virus on all of our communities, and it is up to the healthcare providers who are on the front lines not to skip over the boxes that provide us with the demographic information that's essential for us to understand the impact on black and brown communities. You must do this, and we will order it to happen. As I said, in St. Louis, that same alarm is being sounded. All of the people who have died there have been African-American. That's 12 people. Joining us right now is Dr. Frederick Echols, director of the city of St.

Louis Department of Health. Dr. Echols, welcome to Roller Martin Unfiltered. Thank you. We have been talking about this. We had the coroner from Albany, Georgia on this show. We've had folks from Mississippi, from Louisiana, from Alabama. We've had people from so many other states. And so what is happening there in St. Louis for all 12 to be African-American? What are their age ranges? Were there underlying conditions? Just give us some details to understand what's happening there. Yeah, so we're looking at the data really closely here in St. Louis.

For the individuals that have died due to complications associated with COVID-19 infection, the age range has been from the 30s to upper 80s. And so the age is a wide spectrum of ages that are covered in that group. But the issue is that African-American communities across the nation, not just in the city of St. Louis, are disadvantaged because of the health inequities and health disparities that existed prior to COVID-19. And so when we look at the data, this isn't anything new. We see this day in and day out, year after year. But unfortunately, communities have chosen to

ignore it when it's convenient for them. And so for the City of St. Louis Department of Health, we are adamant that this is no longer acceptable and serious actions have to be taken to address these issues. And so you talk about that range, 30s all the way up to 80s, and we're seeing this. I mean, is is do you think it's going to force people to confront? We keep saying these underlying issues because this situation exacerbates it. And frankly, I think, you know, look, we've always known if you black, you know, we talk about it. I've covered these issues for years, but it's like all of a sudden these white folks. Oh, my God. What, what, we didn't even realize these things were happening.

That's right. So our communities have essentially become desensitized to the fact that these inequities exist. And so it's up to healthcare providers, public health agencies across this nation to really stand up and be advocates for our communities so that they're empowered

to actually live healthier lives and have equitable access to quality health care services. And so what are you doing there in St. Louis to warn people, to give them information? I mean, we have been pounding the table saying don't congregate, don't go to churches. We've been playing the videos from Marlon Wayans, what Tyler Perry said earlier today. We played the Sam Jackson State of F Home video. And so what is the very concerted effort happening there in St. Louis? So the City of St. Louis Department of Health, we're utilizing all media outlets to make sure the public is well informed about the prevention measures as well as the reason why we're making certain decisions as it relates to community mitigation strategies, which are needed to slow the

progression or slow the transmission of COVID-19 in our jurisdiction. We are using non-traditional methods. So we're typically the health departments don't partner with some of the more prominent individuals that are in the limelight, so a lot of the famous individuals. So we've actually reached out to several individuals that are well-connected to the public to have them advocate on behalf of the health department, because with the health department, we're also a government agency, And so we have to acknowledge that oftentimes there's a level of distrust when individuals in our community, particularly communities of color, receive information from government agencies. And so working with individuals that have working relationships with communities is really important. In addition to that, we're also working with a couple of

agencies across the city of St. Louis, one being the Missouri Foundation for Health, Washington University, the Regional Health Commission, and the Integrated Health Network. And what we've done together is we've identified those areas with the highest levels of poverty. And we are working to implement a grassroots level campaign related to COVID-19. And this will entail having volunteers from across the region come together to canvas these communities to make sure they have accurate information so that they can be empowered and prevent exposure, being exposed to COVID-19. Any questions from my panelists, Greg, Recy, or Erica? I have a question. Erica, go ahead. Hi. So my question for you, sir, is then with these deaths, specifically with them all being black deaths, what are you or anyone from

your team, what are you all noticing in terms of compliance? And then secondly, are you also working with other professionals within your network who may have stewardship over counties or cities that are predominantly black? And what recommendations are they presenting to you? Absolutely. So we are working with other organizations across the city. So earlier today, I had a meeting with the clergy coalition for the city of St. Louis. As we all know, effectively reaching churches and getting them to actually counsel service can be a challenge. And so one part of our role is to make sure they're educated and they understand the reason why we're making these decisions.

And so it's not to be punitive, but it's really to save lives. And once they understand that, they are more likely to comply with our recommendations. Overall, within the city of St. Louis, the majority of individuals are complying to provide a platform for community members to submit complaints for their neighbors or family members or whoever that may not be complying with our executive order that was issued a couple of weeks ago. We established a platform through our Citizen Service Bureau. And so if individuals are not implementing social distancing measures appropriately in the workplace, if they're having gatherings of more than 10 people, whether it's at a funeral or a church, et cetera, we receive those complaints and we issue cease and desist letters immediately. All right. Dr. Nichols, Director of the City of St. Louis Department of Health.

We certainly appreciate it, sir. Thank you so very much. Thank you. All right, folks. Dr. Birx is speaking right now at the White House. Let's hear. We don't cover Donald Trump. That's a waste of damn airtime. So let's go to Dr. Birx at the White House right now. Live America question. Go ahead. One more question. The doctor touches on this question of when to lean back on mitigation. There is a study out of Los Alamos this week that I hope you've seen. It's on the CDC website. It looks at this question of R-naught, which is a technical term that you understand that has to do with the reproductive rate of the virus. The study shows that the R-naught for coronavirus isn't between two and three, as had been thought before, but it's actually closer

to six, which means that one person on average is infecting six others. So with this information, how does that impact the model? How can you begin to think about when to reopen society if it's more contagious than we thought before? Well, I can tell you as the layperson on the stage, we have known from the beginning. We don't want to hear the layperson. We want to hear the stage. Go for it. We have known from the beginning. We don't want to hear layperson. We want to hear the experts. Seriously, we're not wasting our time listening to what Mike Pence has to say or Donald Trump. We want to hear from the medical experts about this very issue. I think Dr. Birx just came to the podium. Let's go back. When we've been talking about the asymptomatic group, and that's why I gave you that testing data where 11% of young people under 25 were positive,

many of them very low grade symptoms. What we will be triangulating for you is the testing data with hospital admissions. And then you'll be able to start seeing spectrum of disease because what you're not seeing in spectrum of disease is people who never even think that this is something significant that what they have. We're seeing the significant cases. When testing you can see that we're getting a lot of people with symptoms who aren't positive. And so really finding out what is the R-naught? Is it six? Is it five? And the only way to do that at this point right now is to get the antibody tests out there and go into

these places that had significant disease. When we talk about attack rates of seven per thousand, like New York, and five per thousand in New Jersey, and test the healthcare workers, the first responders, all of the nursing homes for antibody, and test the healthcare workers, the first responders, all of the nursing homes for antibody, and really get to your question. Because right now it's still theoretic. We understand they're modeling this, and we will get the data to actually look at that.

You will see what others have been presenting. So you presented the six. What others are presenting um importantly is they're modeling what's happening with mitigation and they're publishing that they are are not with mitigation is approaching like 1.3 and 1.5 so that think of what that is if it was six and then with mitigation we have it into the ones that really shows the power of the American people. No one has varied are not like that without a vaccine. But this is what's happening with really the power of the American people. Tony, you know, to everything that Dr. Berg said, but I couldn't help but thinking when you talk about, you know, what the worst enemy of an R-naught is? Physical separation.

How about one more? One more. Go right ahead. Testing capacity in the country right now to reopen in the foreseeable future? I mean, because the president talked about 2 million tests. Are we going to have the testing capacity needed to make Americans feel comfortable going back into their workplaces? I mean, it seems to me that is a pretty critical question at this point. People are not going to want to go back to work if they think their coworkers might be carrying the virus. We're not testing enough. How do we know it's safe to go back? Well, I think the American people see the incredible progress that's been made after President Trump brought in the largest commercial

labs. No, we ain't trying to hear all that spin. Bottom line is, as you heard from the doctor earlier, Dr. Valda, we're not doing enough testing. That's what we're doing. It's also impacting us in a huge way in our prisons. I'm about to show you guys this video. We were talking with Van Jones and his people, and they made this video available to us. This is a video that was shot inside of a prison. I believe the prison was in Ohio. And this brother certainly is risking a lot by shooting this video, showing his face. But if you want to see what the situation really is like inside of these prisons, wait until you see this video. First of all, the total video is about 17 minutes.

This is only about three minutes in 27, about three minutes in 22 seconds. And so Anthony, go to my iPad, folks, watch this. Fuck, you feel me? He can't even breathe. I'm about to show y'all. Hey, I'm about to pull your cover up, Don. Show this motherfucker. This motherfucker literally in this bitch dying, bro.

I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do, bro. This shit serious as fuck, man. You know? y'all gotta hit cnn i don't give a you know i ain't trying to die on this you feel me i got a little under a year left these in here dying left and right right now i'm clean you feel me i'm uh what's that called covet negative right now you did but you, who knows how long this shit last. But I'm about to show y'all this 10 shit real quick. This shit about to fuck y'all up.

They literally taking dead by damn. They don't think niggas got... Damn, bro. They don't think motherfuckers got phones and shit in here. So, you know, I can show y'all this shit that's going on. How far these motherfuckers is. You feel me? Because if I die, they gonna act like this these is you feel me because if i die they're gonna act like this you know just happen but they literally like the who ain't sick

i look at this breathing all hard and this crazy like the who ain't sick you know like me they just leaving us in this then you get sick then you go and then they're gonna tell your family damn i'm pulling off this coughing i mean i didn't call you no but i'm about to show you all this tent hold on hold on there's a big thing y'all see on the basketball court that tent right there they literally putting the dead bodies in that this is what they doing you feel me this not no game y'all think a playing it's a tent in the middle of the basketball court nah they got this laws called uh the care act for like me who not sick right so uh they like laughing for real you feel me

because i want to talk to them the care rack is for people who not a gang member, not a sexual offender, and not on death row. If you at risk of fucking catching this shit and dying, like three people I know already caught this shit and died, they can send you home on home confinement, right? So I went to talk to these motherfuckers to get on home confinement. They not going to let us on home confinement. Why? Because they got to make money off of us because they not not gonna make no money if we at home on home confirming. You know what I'm saying? So I'm in this bitch. You feel me? Now I don't know how long a nigga gonna make it. You feel me? This shit serious. So that's why I'm like, fuck it. They can

find out I got the jack. Fuck it. You know, that's what we call the farm. They can find out I got the boy. I don't even give a fuck no more, because the nigga's dying. So the nurse came in this bitch today. I talked to this motherfucker. This bitch tell me, motherfucker, be prepared, you know? Half the unit about to die in this bitch.

Like he literally told me that. They put the tent up and everything. That's where they stacking dead bodies at. This shit is not a game. I ain't on no game plan, shit, none of this shit. Like you can see my face i'm dead ass serious you know i got less than a year left i don't want to die in this bitch you feel me i don't mean to cuss or nothing so like whatever y'all motherfuckers gotta do

do it tell damn saying what up tell valerie i said i'm trying to make it y'all might not see me again i might catch this shit and die so you know you know pray whatever y'all gotta do whatever y'all might not see me again. I might catch this shit and die. So, you know, you know, pray whatever y'all got to do, whatever y'all pray to pray. Folks, that brother's, um, um, man, um, Aaron Deshaun Campbell, uh, the people that cut 50, uh, got access, uh, to that video. Uh, it's about a 17 minute video. We, we didn't show the full 17 minutes. If some of you are offended by the language, we are sorry for that. But we felt that video was way too important. Greg Carr to show. I mean, these folks are in prisons and he's saying we're

we're in close quarters. You Greg, it was stunning to watch the video because you can hear the labored breathing as he is talking of one of the other inmates. Brother, I'm sitting here stunned and not stunned. Slavery, the gift that keeps on giving. This is where we have always been in this God forsaken country. That right there, the man said it and please forgive me for repeating it verbatim but i'm gonna say it he said what y'all gonna do y'all motherfuckers need to do something in other words he's talking to me he's talking to you you put that on the air everybody watching that should not get any sleep tonight those young brothers and sisters and you

reported on this cook county has the largest number of people sick anywhere, in one place. Our people are dying. Meanwhile, these devils are worried about interrupting women's reproductive health care in Texas. And that's why I wanted to ask you about that at St. Louis. Is the Missouri legislature going to try to sneak and say you can't terminate a pregnancy now?

In other words, they are white supremacists and they're going to put these young brothers and sisters to death before they will give this up. Some of this death got to be made equitable. In other words, if everybody can catch the virus, then everybody need to catch the damn virus. Because if we're not going to do anything about that, I don't really see any purpose for us continuing to have this conversation. Recy. Yeah, that video is so beyond disturbing. A couple of things. First, I listened to a teletown hall this afternoon with Senator Kamala Harris and Donna Brazile

for Howard University. And Senator Kamala Harris talked about her. She had a conversation today with the Deputy Attorney General about this very issue. She's been advocating very strongly about her. She had a conversation today with the deputy attorney general about this very issue. She's been advocating very strongly about this. Like the gentleman said in the video, he has less than a year. That's where the First Step Act, you know, and the discretion that the Department of Justice at the Bureau presents, which the Democrats, to their credit, are trying to force this issue on on should be taking that into

account. Let's just say you are a person who has no soul, that does nothing for you, that this guy is incarcerated and he's being subjected to these inhumane conditions. Think about the worst. Because there are people, let's be honest, that don't give a shit about incarcerated people. The same thing is happening with immigrant detainees. They don't give a shit about people who they want to refer to as illegal aliens. But even if you don't give a shit about those people, there are people that work in these facilities that still go back to your communities, okay? And so they are not exempt from it. A little surgical mask is not going to make the difference. OK. That's not going to protect them from these from from the incarcerated individuals that are getting this disease and that are dying.

We see what's happening with the frontline workers, with police officers, with firework, fire department people. It's going to be even that much more exacerbated for people who are in these prisons. And so, again, this goes back to the issue of public health. It's not about, you can't just pick and choose who you care about because what happens to one group, it spills over and it happens to all of us. What's happening is absolutely disgusting. It's unconscionable. William Barr has the ability to do something about this. He's been talking about how draconian the measures are for the stay at home measures are. Do something about the draconian measures in your damn prisons, William Barr. Before I go to Erica, let me say this. There are some people, there's Energy Tyler, Haywood, Black Johnson, as well as this dude, Jimmy, on my Facebook page.

All three of y'all can kiss my ass. Because, see, right now is not a conversation about, oh, they should have made better choices, stuff along those lines. Okay? That ain't the conversation. It doesn't matter the choices you make. If you are in a prison right now, you should not be in cramped quarters. You should not have people dropping like flies in prisons because of coronavirus. Precautions should be taken. But see what I can't stand about dumb comments like this. this, yes, Heywood, yes, Jimmy, uh, yes, you other idiots is that prison guards are being impacted.

Right. Prison employees are being impacted, which means, and you heard the previous video, one, one person could affect six people. That means when they go home, they are now potentially impacting their wives, their husbands, their children, their nieces, their nephews, their parents. And so can we start with this stupidity? Oh, well, you know, they shouldn't have been there. Well, guess what? How about the black dude in Detroit who was driving a bus and a woman was coughing and he's now dead because of coronavirus. What the hell did he do? What about the black woman who I just tweeted? I'll pull a story of the New York post, 65 year old black woman showing no symptoms,

dead because of coronavirus. What did she do? See, this is the stupidity. So when I hear people say, oh, oh, the health conditions, well, you shouldn't be obese, or you shouldn't have hypertension, or you shouldn't have diabetes, or you shouldn't have this. Well, hell, we shouldn't have had Jim Crow. Come on, brother.

Come on, Roland. We shouldn't have had slavery. Come on. We shouldn't have the new Jim Crow. Come on, brother. I mean, we can go down the line. We shouldn't have economic barriers that keep black folks from having platinum health care plans. If y'all really want to go down that path.

Erica, your comment on this. I'll keep it brief because I have little patience for people blaming and othering people. And I'm just going to continue to say this over and over again. When you elect a Klansman, this is exactly the son of a Klansman. This is exactly what you can expect. Though that brother, I had to walk away. Hearing that brother actually advocate on behalf of a dying brother, and that is a black body. And just thinking about you, you brought this to light, Roland,

but when you think about prisons that actually are the economy for cities and states, right, and white rule areas where you have all of these black bodies that really are the bread and butter of how they exist and they get the census count off of these bodies. And so we've all said it, but everybody matters. This virus is not a great equalizer, but what it does do is it puts us all, no matter who you are, in a just as easy as it is to other our brothers and sisters that are in prison populations is damn sure easy to do it for black in any other category as well. So people need to definitely be real, real careful about the words that they speak. They may come back to visit them very soon. Folks, not only that, again, there are people

who, it's amazing the people out here who said all kinds of stuff, and all of a sudden they get impacted by all of this. Now let's talk about the issue of voting. If you want to understand, we've talked about this on many occasions, what happens when you talk about access to the ballot. So, so check this out. This tweet, the orange one sent out this morning after watching Fox and Friends. Republicans should fight very hard when it comes to statewide mail-in voting. Democrats are clamoring for it. Tremendous potential for voter fraud and for whatever reason doesn't work out well for Republicans. The reality is they are just saying publicly what we've always known.

Now, remember, folks, in the CARES Act, $400 million in emergency funding was put in there to help states prepare for their elections for the COVID-19 pandemic. Joining us right now is William Roberts, Managing Director of Democracy and Government Reform at the Center for American Progress. William, glad to have you on the show. I mean, here's what we're really dealing with. Well, we're dealing with Republican Party that desperately wants to shrink the populace. If they can shrink black people and young

people and brown people, also knock out some of the older voters, they're saying we can win these elections. That's what's going on here. No, absolutely. I mean, once again, the president and his

acolytes are saying the quiet part out loud, which is that the way to be super disenfranchisers and to steal another election is to make sure that people don't have access to the ballot during this pandemic. And, you know, you started out with what was in the CARES Act, that $400 million is going to go down to states who have the option to start to do something right, to turn this around. But they need more money. We're estimating that states are going to need around $4 billion actually to put into place things like expanded vote by mail and also to have some in-person voting, which is necessary for communities of color, for people with

disabilities and for folks who do same-day registration. So we've got to have a balance here. But make no mistake, they are coming for people's votes in 2020. And the reality is you saw what happened in Wisconsin. They want that kind of crap. They want people scared. We don't even know. I mean, we know already.

And here's why they did that. They saw those early states. They saw the dramatic voting numbers in South Carolina, the dramatic voting numbers that were in Super Tuesday states. They saw what those numbers were and they said, oh, no, no, no, no. We need because they were all focused on that Supreme Court seat in Wisconsin. That's why they said, no, we're going to go forward with this. I keep telling Democrats, liberals, progressives, whatever the hell you want to call yourselves. The Republican Party does not care about fairness. They don't care about what's morally right. They do not care. They only want to win. So, William, how do we counter thuggery?

Michelle Obama said when they go low, we go high. I'm sorry. When somebody want to scrap, you got to scrap. Fair, fair. Well, one of the things we can do to fight back right now, because we do know that you had a lot of conversation earlier about what are the mass nations in Washington. We do know there will be additional coronavirus bills. And so right now, what we need people to be doing is to be speaking with their elected officials to fight for this additional funding, right? If you think about expanding, you talked about Wisconsin. Wisconsin was a perfect storm of the governor trying to do the right thing and figure out how to protect people, but also protect the vote. And as you said, Republicans, not only in the legislature, but the Supreme Court, being more worried about the balance of power with that Supreme Court seat. So what we need is an influx of these funds to states to be able to expand mail-in ballots, as I said. Also provide people protection,

right, protection at the polls, because the reality is in our communities and many others, there are folks that are going to want to go out and exercise their right to vote in person. And so we've got to make sure that there's a way for them to do that safely. But we really, really need, I mean, it's 2020. We need to expand the way that people can vote, drive up voting, and also expand the way people can register, because we're concerned about people not being able to do same-day registration with these rules changing. And so you can look at states that do voter registration online. But this really has to be strategic for folks between now and November, because you have to understand, as you said, that Donald Trump and his folks in Congress and around the country have, again, said the quiet part out loud. They've said, oh, if we expand people's access to the ballot, we might lose. And so while we're out

here trying to protect people's health and safety, which is a paramount concern, we've also got to be out here fighting for our democracy. There's so many things going on right now, you know, with Trump firing the inspectors general and all kinds of things. I mean, this is really a fight. People say it all the time. It's trite. It's a fight for the soul of our democracy. This is a real fight for the soul of our democracy. And if people don't understand what's at stake for 2020, then we're going to be in trouble. So one of the things we could do is to have people press their members of Congress to put some additional funds in. Again, billions of dollars are needed for states to start to implement this stuff.

Obviously, that is important. You talk about, you know, obviously putting pressure on these elected officials as well. But I'll also say at the end of the day, you counter, you counter this, even with every single thing they want to put in the way, here's the deal. Absentee balloting is exists right now. And so if you're scared about going out and vote, give people an understanding. And now some states are different. Okay. Um, in Texas, I can just request an absentee ballot i get absentee ballot um where what are some of the more treacherous places uh that make it difficult to get an absentee ballot and some of the hoops you got to jump through uh and since who those states are so there's there's some there are some states that do have um what you call no excuse absentee ballot right right, which you said you can

just go out, say, for whatever reason you need a ballot. You don't have to give them a reason. It's no excuse. But there are other states that do make you give an excuse or make you prove certain things. And so my colleague Daniel Root actually wrote a great report that came out that sort of lays out a host of these issues, including, you, including which states are good on this stuff, which states aren't. And so one of the things that we're working on and CAP and along with our coalitions is talking to states and state legislatures

to say when the initial shutdown from coronavirus is over and state legislatures are able to go back and do some additional business, we really need states to be able to do those kind of things and open up access to no-excuse absentee voting, because you're absolutely

correct, that's another way for people to be able to exercise their right to vote right now. A question for any one of my panelists, Erica, Recy, or Greg? Yeah, I have a question. Oh, go ahead. Reese, then Greg.

Reese, go ahead. Okay. You touched on this a little bit earlier, but in our community, we have a culture of really taking pride in the election day experience. I kind of feel like now is the time to start trying to shift that mindset and really start pressing the importance and the convenience, honestly, of absentee voting. What kind of things can we be doing now to really change, starting to change the culture and inform people about their individual states and what they need to do to get absentee ballots. You know, you're absolutely correct.

I was born and raised in West Philadelphia and went to one of those souls to the polls churches growing up. And so you're right that in our communities, folks are used to and have pride in going out in person to vote. You know, what we need to be doing, first of all, is reiterating that conversation that y'all had before that coronavirus is real, right? And so to the extent that you are able to protect yourself and to the extent that states are able to put in protections for you with this additional federal money that we need,

you know, we can figure out a way to get you out there. But more importantly, I think now is the time to be working with our traditional organizations in our community, nonprofit organizations and organizations designed and dedicated to getting out the vote in black and brown communities to talk about this shift that is necessary. We're in uncharted waters. Everybody's in their homes. We're in uncharted waters. And so what we really need to do is to have those validators that people trust, those organizations to be talking to people about the way that you can get your absentee ballot,

but also to be trying to organize different ways, because voting is about community also, right, in places where we come from. People like to go out and vote together. And so figuring out new and creative ways to do it digitally, to have, maybe you can have a Zoom party, right, where folks are filling out their absentee ballot or something. I don't know. But trying to figure out creative ways to let people know that it's just as important, whether you're going out and pushing a button or pulling a lever, or you're putting your ballot in an envelope and mailing it off. Greg. Brother Will, very quickly, you know, I'm always, man, mad respect and proud of you, brother. I'm glad you mentioned the coalition that you all are working with. I'm thinking about the fact that we know they're going to

steal the election. They're going to try. We know we're going to fight like hell and we may not get any more money. What in terms of on the ground practices can we engage in? It's kind of along the lines of what Rixie said, but I guess I'm asking not only what can we do on the ground, but how can we take a different attitude toward fighting these folks? I'm talking about people now who may go to early voting and find their names are not on the roll, for example. I mean, what does that bring the lawyers in the coalition in to begin to challenge that? I'm thinking about people who will request the absentee ballot and not know if it's counted. I mean, what's the attitudinal shift we need to engage in at this point so that we're no longer

saying this is necessarily a fight for the soul of our democracy, because this place has never had a soul, but rather saying, you're going to fight dirty, so we're going to come over here. And Roland says this all the time. I'll end with this, with the question. He says, you know, every year you should re-register to vote as if you're not on the roll. I mean, should we now begin to take almost a kind of military attitude toward the vote and exercising it? Well, always good to see you, Doc. One of my favorite professors from Howard, folks who don't know.

But I think you're right. I think this is about a posture shift for the average everyday voter and for those organizations that we count on to do voter protection and those kind of things. And I really think, you know, even now, I think people need to be preparing, especially in states that we know that have a history, right, of having these owner's voter ID laws and other hoops and, you know, trickery, which we know are just modern day poll taxes.

You know, we really need to be preparing now in a battle mode almost. Like, you know, your vote is your opportunity to push back on everything that we see going on from the folks in the Trump administration on, you know, a whole host of issues. And so I think that the organizations that, you know, are in the traditional posture of preparing, you know, a little slower and getting ready for their traditional election day activities and voter protections are sort of throwing out their playbook right now and really realizing, as you said, that this is a fight that people need to be preparing right now. You're right that people need to be checking up on their own voter registrations right now. People need to be prepared for if they, both if they, you know,

send in their ballot or if they decide to go out and try to vote in November to make sure that they've got, you know, all of their information ahead of time. And I'm looking for hopefully some of these other organizations that have, you know, deeper pockets and other resources to be helping out in states, you know, for instance, in Florida, where, you know, there are court cases back and forth about whether or not Governor DeSantis' order, which is essentially a poll to ask about the previously incarcerated folks, goes through, right? We need folks with resources to say, okay, if you're going to throw up these roadblocks, we're going to throw down some resources to help people overcome them, right? So I'm going to put in some money in these states to make sure you get your ID, and I'm going to make sure that you're able to get out and vote or that we track, you know, when you sent in your absentee ballot and checking to make sure it's in, those kind of things. But you're right, it's a completely different posture for November, and it starts now.

All right, William Roberts, Manager and Director of Democracy, Government Reform, the Center for American Progress. We appreciate it, thanks a lot. Thanks for having me. All right, folks, I want to play this video real quick. The folks at Meharry Medical School actually put out this video talking about COVID-19,

some really great information. And so, if you don't have it, guys. You should see it. It's connected. Yeah, and I'm about to play it. All right, so here we go. One of the things that's disturbing about the COVID-19 virus is that four out of five people who get infected are

infected by someone who does not have symptoms. People who study virus spread assign them what are called basic reproductive numbers. COVID has a value of about four which means that for every person who's infected on average up to four people might become infected by the person who's transmitting the virus. That means that the number of people infected could possibly double every six days. And if you do the math, that would mean that a single person after 60 days could be responsible for a million infections. So this is serious. The scientific underpinnings of what people are being asked to do are based on what we know about how the virus is serious. The scientific underpinnings of what people are being asked

to do are based on what we know about how the virus is spread. The first thing we know is that the virus can survive for hours and hours on certain surfaces. So that if a person who has COVID touches a doorknob or handles a utensil or does other things and leaves the virus on the surface, the virus can stay there for up to, in some cases, up to a day.

And that's why the washing of the hands is so important. Human beings, by habit, touch the face many, many times a day. And there's something called the T-zone, which constitutes your eyes, your nose, and your mouth. Most of our skin is keratinized, which means that viruses cannot infect them because they're essentially not living.

But your eyes, nose, and mouth have mucus membranes, and those cells are perfectly happy to accept viruses becoming infected by them. Coronaviruses are indigenous to bats, and because of the genetic differences between humans and bats, those viruses don't normally affect humans. They require an intermediate host.

So what happens is the coronavirus infects another animal, adopts to growing in mammals, and then it's able to infect humans. For SARS, it was cats. For MERS, it was camels. And for this virus, we don't know what the intermediate is. But the main point is that unlike those other viruses, this virus is adopted to be able to be transmitted from humans to humans. In the case of COVID-19, we are in fact the vectors because we're transmitting the viruses to each other.

So the goal is to eliminate the vectors, and that means that we have to protect ourselves, and by doing that, we protect everybody else. So I'll be the vector. Really, by doing what we're doing, social distancing and not being vectors, we're actually protecting a large segment of our society. So each one of us can play a big role in saving lives.

By taking care of ourselves, we're actually taking care of each other. And that's what this is really all about. All right. Well, I really appreciate the folks at Meharry for that video. Remember we showed you the video of the Italian mayors going off, cussing folks out, trying to get their attention when it comes to coronavirus? Let's just say there's always a different flavor when it comes to people of African descent. Check out this fella in Uganda who is in a gray car. This brother is not happy with some of these kids and their parents.

Let me tell you one thing. I am not going to be nice to some of you motherfuckers. Listen to me. I am not going to be nice to some of you motherfuckers. Let me tell you. We have a pandemic. Coronavirus is a pandemic. Parents, can you fucking get your kids out from the street?

It's fucking annoying. Some of you motherfuckers you fucking get your kids out from the street? It's fucking annoying. Some of you motherfuckers, you have your kids out there, and it's fucking 9 p.m. I just cannot understand what the fuck is going on with some of you. For God's sake. Some of your kids are there. They are catching disease. Some of your kids are there.

They are distributing the disease. You you need to go get your kid you know grab their nuts grab their dick and twist that nuts you understand it's annoying we have thousands of doctors that are dying for us today doctors are sacrificing their life we have nurses who are dying for us today. Okay? So we have some of you motherfuckers, your kids are fucking at the park. It's 9pm. Some of you motherfuckers, you know, you're having your kids, your kids

are out there at the beach. They're fucking unguided. Can you fucking understand you have a state of emergency? Some of you bastards are out there distributing your disease. You're catching disease. Can you fucking stay at home? Let me tell you, when you move, coronavirus will move. When you stay, the coronavirus will go away. Can you fucking stay at home, motherfucker?

I just can't fucking understand this. Some of you are fucking distributing your motherfucking disease out there. Bastards. I'm not going to be nice to none of you motherfuckers. Stay at home. Stay at home. We have nurses who are sacrificing there. We have doctors who are fucking sacrificing there. Some of you motherfuckers are just running on the street just like a motherfucker. Bastards.

It's fucking annoying. Stay at home for God's sake, Jesus Christ. I just got to understand what the fuck is wrong with some of you parents. Go and get your fucking kids. Grab them on their nuts. Slap them. Beat them up. It's fucking annoying.

You know what? Let me see you outside. I'll put a bullet in your ass. Let me the fucking see you outside. I'll put a bullet in your ass. Let me the fucking see you out. Rolling. Remember that scene in the Mac? My man said, we can handle this like some gentlemen, or we can get into some old gangster shit. Now, you started, this is the blackest show in the world. You started with James Hildreth, a man who went to Oxford, a man

who went to Harvard, a man who was on the faculty of Johns Hopkins, and one of the leading scientists in the world, very calmly explaining like a gentleman. And then you went to the root of where Samuel Jackson came from. And so only in Roe and Martin unfiltered are you going to get the whole black

story, brother. I'm grateful that you put them two together. We ain't done. Here is the prime minister of one of our Caribbean countries letting folk know. Y'all, just go ahead and play the video, y'all. Simply stop moving. If you do not have the type of bread you like in your house, eat crackers.

If you do not have bread type of bread you like in your house, eat crackers. If you do not have bread, eat cereal, eat oats, sardines. You're supposed to have a two-week supply for hurricane. And at the beginning of this, I said, prepare your disaster kit as if you were for a hurricane. That meant some people went out and buy toilet paper and water. The water is not going to stop. The toilet paper is still in the stores. What you need is food. You need to ensure that you have food because if I have to take everybody who is saying that at least 50 percent, shut it down completely regardless. Food will also not be possible for two weeks for you to buy because the workers in the food market will also have to stay home. Keep that in mind.

But do not run to the supermarket today to buy for a month. As I said, buy for one to two weeks. I will allow the supermarkets to be open for the rest of the week. Come Monday, my proposal is that we do a staggered approach whereby a segment of the population will be allowed to move while the rest... I love her.

She sounds like a black mama. You ain't got bread? Eat crackers. Simply stop moving. That is the line that took me out and it was the first thing that she said. It didn't make absolutely, it didn't make sense. Stop moving.

Reesey, I had to play both of those videos. You know, I'm a big fan of the F-bombs, but I'm also a big fan of that Black Momma, you know, Stern, Warner. You know, I mean, I use my colorful language, but she was just as effective. So shout out to the primates for there as well. Greg, it was clear. She said

if you ain't got bread, eat crackers. Brother, look, I'm with Erica and Recy. That sound like my mother's mother. That's it. It ain't even gotta be loud. she's in the choir stand you in the front row looking out that's a look brother and if you put black women in charge of america some of these people might actually live come on look i'll try to look y'all

let me be real let me be real clear what we're trying to do with this show we got great panelists we've had uh we great guests y'all got a bunch of the four bosses We got great panelists. We've had great guests. Y'all can bet you the four of us, we had great panelists, great guests. But the whole point of this is this, and I'm telling y'all, because first of all, my man Kenan sent me the numbers. Our YouTube numbers are up. Our views are up. They're up

on Facebook. They're up across the board. Y'all, let me be real clear. This is why also you've got to support what we do. Y'all, these other networks ain't talking about us. They only only in the last 48 hours did they all of a sudden realize black people were dying from coronavirus at a higher rate than anybody else. reason we have been showing you these black experts every single day black doctors black microbiologists uh black health experts black economic experts black voting experts so it and let me tell you something that ain't hard to find so when you watch the cnn msnbc and fox news and all the rest of them you swear we don't even exist but we need to have our black experts talking to black people that's why this is important

that's why we've got to be filling out our census that's why we've got to be as greg said i don't care if you y'all I fill out a voter card every year. Y'all asses ain't saying I moved. Nope. You ain't saying, nope, ain't happening. I'm going to beat you at your own system. Okay? That's why this show matters.

We put up our cash app number and y'all i'm telling you look i'm just i'm just going to be as real clear and transparent as possible radio one urban one the parent company of radio one parent company of tv one parent company of interactive one. I was at TV one for 13 years. I was at Tom's on a morning show, reach media for 11 years. Yes. Two days ago, they laid off 400 people, 400 people.

So in all these places, you're not getting the Cleveland plane dinner dealers gutted that joint, all these media people. Our job here is we need to be here every single night dropping the knowledge and the information because I'm telling y'all that brother, they

had my Harry out there on these networks with the brother said last night about creating that black consortium of these black medical places and then going after and then working with North Carolina A&T creating that black consortium of these black medical places and then going after and then working with North Carolina A&T and FAMU. You ain't hearing that on MSNBC and CNN. This is about us having a place in the platform

and speaking to our issues, our concerns. And y'all, we've had five CBC members this week. I guarantee you ain't seen five on the other network. So go to our Cash App, dollar sign RM Unfiltered, paypal.me forward slash rmartinunfiltered. Y'all, we're going to be here every day giving information. It's 1,400 of y'all watching on YouTube right now. Y'all can get right there on YouTube.

You can do any of that because here's what I'm not trying to do. I just got to be real honest. I'm not trying to lay off any of my people. Y'all, we only have a staff of seven people. We do all of this with seven people. And we're trying to sit here and keep giving y'all the best information that we possibly can every single day. And so please support what we do. Our goal, I told you at the end of the year, 20,000 fan clubs. Here's the piece. That's 400 a month. If I can get 400 people in a month of April,

we meet our goal. That's our goal. Our goal is to get 40 people to give 50 bucks each foot. And that covers you for the rest of the year. You can pay monthly. You can pay for the whole year. But we've got to have black platforms that we support that are speaking to our issues that are showcasing our black experts. Greg Carr, Reese, Erica, I appreciate it. Thanks a bunch.

I want to thank all the guests we had today. Y'all, I'm telling you, you ain't you see all that with those networks. And let me also say it ain't no other black media outlet doing what we're doing. That's right. Line them up. I put this show up against every black media outlet in America. And I dare to say, to see if they're having the kind of content

that we produce every day for two hours right here on Rolling Mark Unfiltered. I'm going to see you guys tomorrow. We got to go. Ha! for two hours right here on Rolling Martin Unfiltered. I'm going to see you guys tomorrow. We got to go. Ho! Thank you. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes.

But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated I get right back there and it's bad. Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers, but we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. A wrap-away, you got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else, but never forget yourself. Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth.

Never stop being a dad. That's dedication. Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the recording studios. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.