It's Brian Lehrer, and this is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios. It's Wednesday, April 8th.

As the pandemic peaks in New York and around the country, there are also glimmers of hope in the long-term numbers.

We'll talk about those paradoxical statistics this morning, but the warnings from public health

officials to stay home this week are even more intense than before.

And I want to make sure you've heard that call.

The mayor of Los Angeles, Eric Arsetti, is now telling agencies, if you must go

shopping this week, you'll be required to cover your face. And remember, that's to protect others

if you're asymptomatic but affected even more than to protect yourself. And I want to play

a longer than usual soundbite. This is over two minutes

to begin today of Dr. Deborah Birx from the White House Coronavirus Task Force, who urged Americans

for this week to not even go shopping at all. At the White House briefing on Monday,

she gave an emotional and very personal answer when asked why she went that far.

You know, out of respect for every single health care worker that's on the front line,

whether they're a nurse, a doctor, a respiratory therapist, the phlebotomist, the persons who come in the rooms to clean,

you know, out of respect for them, we as Americans should be doing everything possible.

And what I meant was if you can consolidate, if you can send one person,

the entire family doesn't need to go out on these occasions. We really need, this

is a highly transmittable virus. We've been saying that we want every American to know that what they're doing is making a difference, but we need to have solidarity of commitment from everyone to really, so, you know, maybe once every two weeks we can do a grocery store and pharmacy shop for the entire family.

So it was really about we have to do everything we can.

I know I see on the TV stations the level of human suffering in the hospitals.

Dr. Fauci and I and Admiral Gerard have spent our lives taking care of others.

We need to take care of each other now as Americans and do everything that's in those guidelines.

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