Trump: Cloroquine Is An 'Incredible' Drug, COVID-19 Vaccine May Have 'Horrible Impact' If Not Fully Tested

"What do you have to lose?" he said. "I'm not looking at it one way or another. But we want to get out of this. If [hydroxycloroquine] does work, it would be a shame if we didn't do it early."

"What do I know? I'm not a doctor," he added. "But I have common sense."

The president has for days opined on the potential efficacy of hydroxychloroquine when taken with azithromycin.

[...] "I want people to live, and I'm seeing people dying," he said. "And you know the expression when that's happening. You should do it. What really do we have to lose?"

- Hahn gave an update about the drug and what he was seeing in different trials and real-world results.

- Then Navarro got up. He brought over a stack of folders and dropped them on the table. People started passing them around.

- "And the first words out of his mouth are that the studies that he's seen, I believe they're mostly overseas, show 'clear therapeutic efficacy,'" said a source familiar with the conversation. "Those are the exact words out of his mouth."

Navarro's comments set off a heated exchange about how the Trump administration and the president ought to talk about the malaria drug, which Fauci and other public health officials stress is unproven to combat COVID-19.

- Fauci pushed back against Navarro, saying that there was only anecdotal evidence that hydroxychloroquine works against the coronavirus.

- Researchers have said studies out of France and China are inadequate because they did not include control groups.

- Fauci and others have said much more data is needed to prove that hydroxychloroquine is effective against the coronavirus.

- As part of his role, Navarro has been trying to source hydroxychloroquine from around the world. He's also been trying to ensure that there are enough domestic production capabilities inside the U.S.

Fauci's mention of anecdotal evidence "just set Peter off," said one of the sources. Navarro pointed to the pile of folders on the desk, which included printouts of studies on hydroxychloroquine from around the world.

- Navarro said to Fauci, "That's science, not anecdote," said another of the sources.

Navarro started raising his voice, and at one point accused Fauci of objecting to Trump's travel restrictions, saying, "You were the one who early on objected to the travel restrictions with China," saying that travel restrictions don't work. (Navarro was one of the earliest to push the China travel ban.)

- Fauci looked confused, according to a source in the room. After Trump imposed the travel restrictions, Fauci has publicly praised the president's restriction on travel from China.

Travel data of passengers arriving in the United States from China during the critical period in December, January and February, when the disease took hold in that country, shows a stunning 759,493 people entered the U.S.

"This is an astonishing number in a short period of time, illustrating how globalized our world has become. Just as people can hop continents with amazing ease, the infections they carry can too," said Dr. Vinayak Kumar, an internal medicine resident at the Mayo Clinic and a contributor to the ABC News Medical Unit.

Those travelers from China included more than 228,000 Americans returning home and hundreds of thousands of Chinese nationals arriving for business, academics, tourism or to visit family.

[...] President Donald Trump restricted travel from China effective Feb. 2, which likely saved lives. But by the time the president acted, much of the damage had already been unleashed, and some 18,000 Americans returned home from China in February and March, after the restrictions were in place. It's unclear how intensive, if at all, the screening was for the Americans coming home at that point.

[...] ABC News examined data from December, January and February on travelers entering the U.S. from eight of the hardest-hit countries: 343,402 arrived from Italy, 418,848 from Spain and about 1.9 million more came from Britain.

Combined with those from China, that's more than 3.4 million people from just four countries -- nearly half, about 1.5 million, Americans returning home. Travel from Italy and Spain wasn't shut down until March 13, with U.K. arrivals restricted a few days later.

In a new interview, Bill Gates authoritatively states that mass public gatherings will not come back "at all" until we have mass vaccination. Who made him king of the world? https://t.co/u2nTgFZcRg pic.twitter.com/Vmq5udBVJn

— Roosh (@rooshv) April 4, 2020

March 2017@RealDonaldTrump confronted Bill Gates on the safety of vaccines when he was considering a safety commission headed by @RobertKennedyJr to look into the ill effects of vaccines.

Gates said, “No, that’s a dead end. That would be a bad thing. Don’t do that.”

/1 pic.twitter.com/AxbwoQuaqq

— 2ndfor1st (@2ndfor1st) February 1, 2020