How do you enforce that . We have put into place a series of orders in making it clear what a stay directive is. As ive mentioned, we have had a number of orders put in place and we have asked our residents and businesses to abide with them all. What you see from residents and. Hey continue to be concerned we are asking shoppers to limit your trips, maintain social distancing in those stores, and of course to wear a face mask. Critical ofvery that 2. 2 trillion tax, saying people were once again being shortchanged. How so . For the first time in the purposes of federal, the district was treated like a territory. We are not a territory. We are in fact a in the american system. The governor, and the county executive all at once d. C. Residents pay taxes, federal taxes, unlike the territories, in fact, we pay them at a rate thats the highest per capita in our system and more than 22 states in total. So this bill very curiously did not give us statelevel funding like we get for education and housing and transportation, every manner of federal funding. And it asked us to in fact gave us what was equal share of what the territories are receiving. So what we need corrected, and we will continue to work with our congresswoman, senators from our surrounding area who also recognize how bad this is, to make sure thats corrected. That washington, d. C. Gets its equal share of funding and this reference to being a territory is stricken. Host and mayor bowser, this is the headline from usa today in which africanamericans also hispanics and poor americans are disproportionately suffering from covid19 and dying at a higher rate. My question is why . Guest well, i think what this virus has demonstrated and its really putting a bright light on the Health Disparities that exist in america, i knew immediately when i saw that diabetes and hypertension were underlying conditions that would hasten the effectiveness of this virus and make it more deadly, i knew then that africanamericans would be disproportionately affected in our city. And i imagine across the country. What we know is that this is not a new phenomenon. On the Health Disparities that exist in america, i knew immediately when i saw that diabetes and hypertension were underlying conditions that would hasten the effectiveness of this virus and make it more deadly, i knew then that africanamericans would be disproportionately affected in our city. And i imagine across the country. What we know is that this is not a new phenomenon. But this covid virus and pandemic is making clear disparities in a have existed in our country in a long time. E wont solve it during this covid pandemic but we all must commit to getting access to good food and high quality medical care a priority in our country. Host and of course the president saying he wants to reopen the economy as early as next month. Whats your best time frame . Whats your best estimate for washington, d. C. , and other surrounding areas . Guest well, i think what all of the experts are saying is that you just cant open back the economy or the country all at once. And i would agree with the president that we all want to get back to normal just as soon as possible. But none of us wants to lose the impact of the last month of social and physical distancing, certainly not us in our city or in our country. So were really looking to the c. D. C. And experts and im looking to my own Health Officials to tell us when were seeing sustained periods of decreasing infection. And then i have to say, steve, is that having systems of testing and tracking are going to be key to being able to get back to normal. And we still need a federal program to do that. Were still lacking tests and the ability to do widespread fast testing. Were working within our government to figure out how we can get a tracking system so that were able to follow the people who have experienced this infection and are resistant to it and others who have not. And thats going to be key to how we get back to normal. Host mayor Muriel Bowser is the mayor of washington, d. C. , joining us from her home and taking the stay at home directive literally and seriously. Mayor pouser, we thank you for being bowser, we thank you for being with us. Guest thank you. Host lets look at the numbers across the country what were seeing with coronavirus cases. There are confirmed cases in new york, which is leading the country with more than 160,000 cases. Followed by new jersey with just over 51,000, michigan with 21,504, california has nearly 20,000, pennsylvania just over 18,000, and a similar number in louisiana. Dr. Nahid bhadelia is joining us via zoom from her home in massachusetts. She is an Infectious Disease physician and also the medical director at Boston University school of medicine special pathogens unit. Dr. , we appreciate you being with us. Guest thank you for having me. Host i want to begin with your expertise with ebola. Because you were on the front lines with that virus. How do you apply the lessons from that to coronavirus today . Guest thank you so much, steve. Its interesting. There are every day, you know, someone asks me that question of whether those experiences are similar or not. And when covid19 started, i would have said well, not a lot. Its a different kind of disease and thats actually ch easier to transtransmit covid19 than it is ebola. Ottowa break and epidemics, part of the 2014 epidemic and working in jaugged at the border of the d. R. C. With the ebola epidemic and what you notice is what mayor bowser said and it carries over covid as well every time theres a big pandemic or an outbreak, what it does is it makes society fracture ploong existing fault lines. If there are weaknesses in our Health Care System, if there are social injustices or lack of access to certain things, if there are lack of redundancies in our system, thats what an outbreak does. And so the similarities between ebola and covid19 even though theyre different diseases, and very Different Health care systems, they take advantage of those aspects that of our Health Systems that were vulnerable to begin with. And then two, they take advantage of populations that are marginalized. They impact those populations that may not have as much access to health care. There might be not as much Baseline Health literacy or ability to get insurance or whatever else you might consider might be that that might put those patients at additional risk. So those two similarities and the other is what i didnt expect is, you know, the fact that when we were working in in west africa and sir lee own the dearth of physical resources. There was a lack of Human Resources. At one point one. Deployments that i had with World Health Organization i was the one of only four physicians. And we had about 100 ebola patients. And a handful of National Nurses and we were running out of personal protective equipment. And i would never have imagined that five years later, that there would be this scenario where there are places in this country where similar, you know, refrains are being made about personal protective equipment, about just physical resources to help sour patients. Host and were seeing in so many hotspots, most notably in new york, certainly in boston, the influx in the pressure this is having on hospitals. So what firsthand experiences can you share with our listeners and viewers . Guest yeah. The way that a lot of hospitals have sort of moved in handling this, most hospitals before this epidemic occurred had pandemic preparedness plans. They had to be updated, you know, based on what resources we had currently. They looked at the modeling thats out there and what weve done is weve tried to build prepare and build for a surge from a human Human Resources perspective, from Health Care Workers, for physical resources. And then wosh for what areas we can expand as the number of patients go up. What were finding is thank god we did physical distancing when we did in boston. We exerted those policy Public Health policies around the same time that new york did. And we were lucky because we didnt have as many cases at the same time when we purt those policies into place. But we are still seeing so many patients. Massachusetts currently has almost 17,000 cases. And 1,600 people that are hospitalized. You know, in peacetime as you will, people joke that in boston, you could throw a stone and mitt a hospital. But right now, thats still not enough. Were not there yet. But a lot of the hospitals were getting to a point where we have to start thinking about somehow to be innovative about both space and people and things to keep providing good care. Host dr. Bhadelia is a graduate of tufts University School of medicine and studied at the Fletcher School of law and diplomacy. And trained at mount sinai hospital in new york as well as columbia presbyterian. Shes joining us from her home in massachusetts. Lets get to your calls. Vickie in austin, texas, good evening. Vickie with us . Well try one more time for vickie. Caller yes. Host randall. Well go on to georgia. Good evening, randall. Caller good evening, how are you . Host fine. Thank you. Caller good. I wanted to mention that if youre not aware, which you may or may not be, this is Public Health week. And the comment about the lines, acturing along yesterday was violence prevention day for Public Health week. And one of the things that we did at the university, im at Georgia Southern university and college of Public Health as a graduate student working on my second doctorate and i practiced dentistry for 30 years and snow Public Health and did a presentation on conflict management in stressful times. And hopefully folks around the country are doing that because its very important as you know , we see it not only in the hospitals in the Health Care Workers we see the stress in the people that are working in the shops and in the Grocery Stores and the gas stations that are taking care of us and the stress that theyre going through. And its really hard on them. And so hopefully some other people out there are promoting the conflict side of their resolution of conflict side of this whole situation. And hopefully we as a country are going to learn to be a little bit more genteel and a little bit more humane. It has been said peace is not the absence conflict but its the humanely handling conflict through new jersey and other factors. And thats a very rough paraphrase of the dalai lama. Host thank you for the call. Well get a response. Guest yeah. I just want to echo that. Isnt it interesting that we are a society of individuals who are now we have fallen into this habit where we lived in our in closed spaces and ordered everything in and watch five all the time and now were being basically punished with this whole same concept. Stay home. Watch tv. Get food. And dont go outside. It tells us if anything, i think this tells epidemic pandemics how dependent we are on each other. And the caller is exactly right. The psychosocial impact is that this is immense. And so its not social distancing. Its social support. And physical distancing. And thats just so important to to really put out there. Because we do have to be there for each other in those environments, whether its like this over the internet, but we have to keep being present and start keep addressing the fracture plines as was mentioned from just psychosocial pressure. Host do you look at the data . We keep hearing that line bending the curve. Are we approaching that point . Guest so, you know, i think its important to Start Talking about what is the peak and what is the curve, right . When people talk about bending the curve what theyre saying is we know this is a brand new virus. And nobody is immune to it unless you have gotten it already and dont have a vaccine yet. So if we had nothing happen, everybody would have gotten sick at the same time. Because of the way this disease spreads. Its capacity to be to through droplets or ability to spread through cough and sneezing and touching surfaces when youre sick. And so if we had done that, it would have overwhelmed the system and so that would have been very high peak that sort of goes on to overwhelm the helt care systems and doesnt allow them to provide the kind of care that we need to provide to sick patients. By bending the curve, were talking about or flattening the curve were talking about getting to a point where everybody gets sick but theyre getting sick at a machine lower rate. And so we can manage that at the Health Care Facility level. So despite that, so we have done that. And in a lot of states we are seeing numbers whether its new york, its certainly true in california, and boston, by putting those physical distancing policies into place. We have changed the models. We have made it through the worst Case Scenario at least not coming true for now. People asked have we reached the peak . I turn around and say i dont know, have we . Are you going to stay in . It depends on all of us and our activities and how we continue forward with that. But the peak also doesnt mean that the cases are going to stop disappearing the day after. Early on, all utches got exposed and this time was to allow people who work supposed to get sick and for us to get them to care and thats where the peak is hitting. After that, there is going to be probably a drop and then a plateau because if particularly if we start opening up some of the restrictions, people will get sick. And thats why as mayor the mayor said previously, we have to do it slowly and thoughtfully. And really link it with testing. We really have to link it with identifying people who might already have gotten this disease and are immune to it. Host next caller is john from poke city, florida. Good evening. Youre on with dr. Bhadelia. Caller yes, doctor. About 30 years ago i ran read a very famous history called a distant mirror, the 13th century and spent many chapters on the black deaths. I dont know if that was a virus or bacteria and wiped out a quarter to half of yorks population. If we let this one reign without being checked would it be the same result . Thank you. Host thank you, john. Guest can you repeat the last part . If we were to host if nothing was done to basically social distance, would we see similar results in new york if they had gone about guest not at all. Bacteria, lague, a im very much interested in some of the history aspects of this as well. Because i do think plagues are cyclical. And not in the fact that they also happen but theyre also cyclical because of the way they impact humanity and memory of them as they pass. If we had not stopped if we had not put into place physical distancing, you would have seen higher number of cases. You would have seen people getting sick who didnt expect to get sick because early on in this disease we thought only people who are older and people who have morbidity and a lot of people who are well who may not have any of those symptoms. Were still getting sick. You would have seen a lot of people rushed to the hospital and immediately a lot of Health Care Workers getting sick. And a lot of resources getting used up at hospitals and we would have no physical resources, no space, and really no Health Care Workers left because they would have all been shome sick themselves. By doing this we have created a builtin system of a system to allow the Health Care System o sort of address the illness. Host i was going to mention we were talking to dr. Nahid bhadelia and knows listening on cspan radio as well subcommittee is an Infectious Disease physician and medical director of the special pathogens unit at Boston University school of medicine. Oscar in woodland, california. Go ahead, please. Caller hello, doctor. Would like to know if any of the Task Force CoronavirusCommittee People have been to visit your hospital like dr. Fauci or dr. Berg or even the president. And if they havent would you reach out to them so you can see first hand the problems that are you guys are dealing with . I think it would be helpful for morale, too. But yeah. I would like to know, have you had any of those three been or even dr. Adams, have any of them been to visit the hospitals and see how dire the situations are at these hospitals . And i would like to mention morgues of them have there, that might affect them their opinions might be a little bit not so much upbeat all the time if the reality might set in and get them to speak a little bit more toward the truth on whats really on what the doctors and the staff are dealing with. Host oscar, thanks for the call. We will get a response. Guest thank you. So i would welcome president trump, ambassador birx, and dr. Fauci any time to come to boston medical center. I know that the hospital as well, but i think that i can see this from their perspective. This isnt this isnt an earthquake, the epicenter is in one place, right . The epicenter is all across the country. There are hospitals like mine that are going through those right now what youre seeing increased rates of patients coming in. And so i i would hope that they have visited other hospitals, a couple of hospitals and i would imagine that they must they must because theyre in d. C. As well. Dr. Fauci i can speak to personally, actually has come to Boston University in the past. Ive met him, he was at our National EmergingInfectious Diseases laboratory where i work parttime as well. And i i have Great Respect for him. And i think that he does understand the things that are happening on the ground, and its just this balance of presenting Public Health information and also talking a little bit about the uncertainty. Because there is uncertainty, right . This is one of the hard things about emerging Infectious Diseases. My entire career has been around Infectious Diseases that we dont know much about so when we take care of them were learning about them as were responding. And a central part of it is uncertainty. And i think thats the part that most Public Health policy folks, when theyre trying to communicate, its a really hard thing for them. In terms of how do we share what were not certain about without without making it seem like we dont know whats going on . We do know whats going on but were learning as moving. Host how do you sayer that with your colleagues not only at different universities in the country but elsewhere in the world as this Research Continues for therapeutics, medicine and a vaccine . Guest its an interesting question, steve. Its been really interesting how vibrant the communication and between hospitals, between health care providers, between countries has been. Ill give you an example. You know, a couple of weeks last couple of weeks one of the things ive been working on is looking at the information and about technology that can help decontaminate our masks the n95 mask respirators because there are not enough in the supply chain yet and were getting to a point like many hospitals were having to reuse them and want to decontaminate them n that period of time i reached out to the university of Nebraska Medical Center and reached out to florida and i my colleagues at hopkins, and similarly, you know, when were talking about the drugs and our experiences and some of the experimental drugs with patients, we had a call a few weeks ago with hospitals all across the eastern coast with doctors sharing their medical experience of what theyre seeing on patients and bedside. Plast wednesday, when was that . Yesterday. I was on a call with my colleagues in uganda. And again, sharing some of this information and learning from them about their diagnostic tests. There is a vibrant communication chain that is not apparent in the medical field, in the scientific field, to try to get this done to try to get the science out there so we can answer the questions that are important. Host charlotte, thank you nor waiting. Corvallis, oregon. Good evening. Charlotte, youre on the air. Caller yes. Host please go ahead. Caller oh, sorry. I was wondering for if we do proper social distancing, do you think well run out of ventilators . Host im not sure you heard the question but if social distancing remains in place, what is the status of ventilators . Could we potentially run out of them was her question. Guest so part of this is the number of ventilators and also the distribution. This a question around the country as you might have heard. And in the news that it might be the the companies that are creating them may not be ready until may. And so right now, the big thing is which hospital needs it and making sure that the hospital that need it was in the same spate have the resources. Where others may have more and they dont necessarily need it. All this to say you snead more ventilators and the way the peak is currently going, were not there yet. Massachusetts, were not there yet where were having to make that decision. And were at a point where were talking about them. And so this is a dangerous place to be. Massachusetts, actually released something called crisis standards of care after having conversations at all the hospitals. And what that is is this idea that when youre in that setting where very few physical resources and trying to make decisions, you dont want to put individual providers in that situation of having to figure out who gets a ventilator and who gets precious resources. The facilities have been creating their own centers of care that reflect on how do we expand our capacity . How are we innovative and how do we split ventilators . How do we become ininnovative about our staffing and where we put people . The state has taken that scomplets bring all the hospitals together and tell us when youre close and we will work to get you the resources that you need to know and hospitals get to a point where they have to make decisions about what resources go to what patients. Host from renten, washington. Kenneth, good evening. Caller hi. Thank you for taking my call. How are you today . Guest thank you for having me. Caller good. Definitely not from an ethical or moral standpoint, but im curious of with all these vaccines, what could possibly be the longterm dreamts to our immune detriments to our immune systems while always having vaccines instead of letting the body naturally you know what im trying to say. Guest i got it. I think the trouble here is if you let the body naturally get this infection, you dont know yet what the outcomes will be with this disease. For as you as we already know, people who are older and who have medical more morbid i hadities and conditions are likely going to get sicker. But i have to tell you i have admitted patients who are my age and it takes my breath away to see how sick they are. And they have no other past medical histories. And it is shocking. And ive seen younger patients, you know. And so since we cant predict it, what were basically saying is weighing if you let the disease do its course, it may actually hurt a lot of people and not to say that not to even take into account the fact that its going to overwhelm the Health Care Systems when so many people get sick together. And then the on the other side, i think that for rksines themselves, a lot of platforms on which vaccines are currently built, the new york platforms are things that have been tested and used against other diseases. And so what is a vaccine . Its taking one part of a particular virus or something some other platform that going to elicit an immune response in your body and in the middle its putting a protein or srg else from this disease that you want to be immune from and its getting into your body. And your body sort of looks at it and comes up with ant bodies which are proteins from the immune system so that you get a memory. Without getting infected. So those platforms on which a lot of the vaccines are proven to be really safe. M. M. R. Vaccine, the vaccines and things that we have decades of experience with. So when you place it like that, i think that its actually i think its better to have a vaccine. Why do we get the diseases is a whole other thing that you have to have me on your show again about why these viruses keep coming on the national the International Stage so often. Host and youre welcome any time. We appreciate you being with us tonight. Peter is on the phone from provincetown, massachusetts. Youre on with dr. Bhadelia. Caller dr. Bhadelia, i have a question. You know, coming out of a sars epidemic, a lot of money put in to preparedness, the assistant secretary of preparedness and response at h. H. S. Had a lot of resources under his command. The hospital incident command system also came about in 20006. And it was subsequently revived in 2014. My understanding thats going to get revised again. But why arent we at the point where theres a more systemic integration of Lessons Learned, drills and exercises . I mean, crimson contagion plast year should have taught us that we wouldnt get stuck in this situation and the draft recommendation coming out. Get your stockpiles together. Get your Communications Lines set up. Make sure all your hospitals are coordinated and entire Public Health sector. Im wondering should we do a series of append sees gets revised and pull that up and do something at the assistant secretary level to make sure someone is there to ride herd on the Lessons Learned . Guest yeah, thank you for that. Ill give you a very short answer and go into an explanation. Why doesnt that happen . Money. Funding. And ill golonger answer. Theres yes. Sars made a lot of changes both on the National Level and the interNational Level. They the international helt regulations werefully revised after sars. But we faced hyphen. And we faced the west west african ebola epidemic and after 2014, the assistant secretary of preparedness and response, a whole bunch of money in identifying sectors of excellence that could take care of viral hemorrhagic fever and emerge, threat and put money in assessment hospitals to get them at least well enough to a point where they could take care of somebody who might come through their emergency room with an emerging Infectious Disease. That was a fiveyear grant. And i can tell you that right before this epidemic started, that grant was on the chopping block again. All the money that was put to Global Health security and sorry to improve capacity on the global side for ebola was taken and given to zika. And when it wasnt zika it was the next outbreak. And so part of the reason that there isnt there is institutional memory. Hospitals have this memory. The problem is to keep driving this drill and keep Health Care Workers prepared and keep this level of readiness and takes consistent amount of funding which keeps changing every time theres a new political cycle. And so what i would think one of the things that we need to do after this is really learn the lesson that this has to be completely separated and consistently funded to make sure that were always ready and those lessons are always in the forefront. Host let me conclude with a question in terms of the path forward. Because as youve indicated, we need to maintain the social distancing. We need to find a vaccine. We need to continue with more testing. We also need medicine. So with that component, what are you looking at . Whats the time frame that we would have a medicine that would treat the disease that would allow us to lead at least a more normal life over the next year . Guest steve, thanks. Thats a great question. A couple of different types of medications out there. We keep hearing about hydroxychloroquine but not the only one out there and want to give people hope that theres a lot being done. So first is medications that are antiviral. So medications that work directly on the virus, you know, to help it from to block it from getting into our cells and expanding. So in that pool, we have hydroxychloroquine thats being looked at, currently the data is still out but studies that will be coming out, randomized control trials within the next month. Same thing with Something Else called remdesivir. Another antiviral being plooked at and whether its working or not will come out in the next month. Theres some studies w. H. O. Has put into place that includes both of those drugs and also some h. I. V. Drugs. Results for that again, next month or two. Then theres a whole other class of medications that are actually looking at your immune system. One thing we know about this disease is that it can it makes your immune system rev up and damage your own body and so theres a whole set of antibodies that are aimed at calming your immune system down and studies for those are ongoing. I think those are two to three months out. And then the last bit is convalescent plasma. And taking blood from a survivor which is just a blanket of good immune cells, good immune proteins and giving it to somebody whos going through the worst part of their disease to sort of move them through that disease. And so that has also shown some promise. Big trials are under way and small trials have shown some promise on that. And if i were to be a betting person, i think in the short term, we might find that for the very sick people, the convalescent plasma might be helpful. And i think that if you if i was did not take this as medical advice at all. I think if i were to guess, the antivirals will probably just work very early in the disease. We know that from other viral diseases that antiviral medications work only when its very early in the disease and dont work when people are sick. Host for somebody whos had an exceptionally busy couple of months dr. Nahid bhadelia we appreciate your time here on cspan. She is an Infectious Disease physician, affiliated with Boston University school of medicine. We thank you for being with us on cspan. Guest thank you for having me. Host please come back again. Coming up in just a moment, well turn our attention to the economy. This is a headline from cnbc is the Federal Reserve fires an even bigger bazooka, expanding its Shopping List to include junk bonds. Sfeef leisman linebacker joining us from his home in westchester, new york. From his Daily Briefing in albany, new york, Governor Andrew Cuomo on the Economic Impact and new job numbers, 6. 6 million americans filing for unemployment, about 10 of the workforce now out of work. Heres what Governor Cuomo said in albany. Governor, millions of people are applying for unemployment nationwide and hundreds of thousands here in new york. Weve gotten consistent reports they cant get through to operators in the new York State Department of labor. This has been going on for weeks. What sort of assurances can you offer residents that they can get these benefits, particularly in times of Economic Hardship . Yeah. Look, the technology at the department of labor, the system just crashed because of the volume. Light . Its right . Its one of knows unanticipated consequences of a situation like this. And no has been here before. We will learn for the negotiation time. But yeah. You have a government government shuts down the private sector economy. You have millions of out of work. The next shoe to drop is going to be millions of people call in for Unemployment Benefits. Crashing the system that handles the Unemployment Benefits. Because youve had 100 fold increase which is what has happened. We have 1,000 people who are now working on just personnel for that incoming system. Think about that. 1,000 people who are working on processing applications for Unemployment Benefits. That was like the number we used to get of applicants. Now we have 1,000 people processing applications. Were working with google to come up with an online mechanism that bypasses any phone certification. The phone certification was important because you want to make sure that people who are applying are also qualified. So were doing everything we can. The good news is whenever you sign up, your benefits are going to be retroactive. You will not have received the check. I get that. And thats causing anxiety. But its not like youre not going to get the same benefit because you didnt get through on monday and you didnt get through until thursday. Host thats from gotch andrew cuomo in albany, new york, one of the yailt briefings we cover for the coronavirus pandemic. All of them posted on our website at cspan. Org. Joining us from his home in westchester, new york, is steve lisman, senior economics reporter for cnbc. Theres a lot to unpack this evening but the action by the Federal Reserve which has done something it did not even do back in 2008. If you could in laymans term explain what Jerome Powell the fed chair announced today. Guest it was an historic set of announcements today. And its not something, its some thing, steve. They have gone into protects to provide financing in places they never did before. Theyre going to set up this main Street Lending facility. 600 billion worth of loans theyre going to give to not really Small Business but medium sized businesses. Its businesses up to 10,000 workers. Up to 2. 5 billion in revenue. But you can imagine from 500 to 1,000 would be the bottom of that. So not necessarily your main street business but medium sized businesses that provide loans to. Theyll go and theyll buy junk bonds. That is bonds below investment grade. Theyve never done that. Theyll also have a facility to provide credit to states and local municipalities. So of the bigger states, the bigger counties that have their Municipal Bonds for financing, the Federal Reserve will buy some of those. These are places the fed never did before. Total package at least today is 2. 3 trillion. And fed chair jay powell said they may do more, steve. Host and it comes with another 6. 6 million americans filing for unemployment claims. Of those new numbers, the highest in california, new york, new jersey, michigan, and florida, and i saw the number on nbc earlier tonight, 16. 8 million americans now out of work over the plast three weeks. That is an astounding number. Guest its an astounding number. Steve, let me provide you two different ways to look at it. The first and most important way is each one of these numbers is a tragedy. And its really terrible. People do not have their work. Theyve been laid off and were talking about huge unfathomable rise in the Unemployment Rate. Thats one way to look at it. And that is a right way to look at it. Another way to look at it is that you want this number to actually be high for the following reason. People apply for Unemployment Benefits so a way they can get assistance from the government. So when i see the numbers that you laid out there, steve, about california being at one million, i think thats good. I think its bad that new yorkers only hit 350,000 relatively. I would like to see that number much bigger because that would tell me that people are getting checks. I know mario cuomo seems to be moving us eas fast as he can. Hes got a lot of other problems with perhaps they dont have quite as poignantly in california. But i will say that this is a way the congress has appropriated additional money for people to get Unemployment Benefits. Theyre more generous than they normally are. Its terrible people lose their job. You want to see that Unemployment Rate rise so people can get checks and get help and get the assistance they need to get through this very difficult time. Host our focus is on the fed action today announced by jer poem powell. We carried it on the cspan networks and the latest Unemployment Rate well get to your phone calls. Number on the bottom of your screen. Steve liesman joining us from westchester, new york. At some point we will reopen the economy. Youre talking to investors on wall street. Youre talking to main street. What would that look like . And when . Guest well, everybody i talk to and i hope people keep thinking this way, is nobody i talked to is going to be leading in the thinking of this. They are all taking a back seat to the people you had on earlier, the wonderful people like the Infectious Disease specialist you had. The epidemiologists, the public Health Officials. They cannot make any forecasts that are different from pardon me those who are those being made by the public Health Officials. You have consensus figures. Consensus figures looks for some limited and gradual reopening in june. And what you do, you see that in the g. D. P. Forecasts that are out there. I just read one from j. P. Morgan looking for a 40 decline in g. D. P. In the Second Quarter followed by a 23 rebound in the Third Quarter which begins in july. So the idea that the base case being built in right now is a reopening that includes a fairly robust rebound. That we get back to work and we get back to work relatively quickly. I will say the debate thats going on now, the interesting debate is how much permanent damage is done . And a lot of that gets back to what i talked about earlier. To some of these Government Programs by the fed start to work, do they keep businesses alive so that employees, when the bar is lifted, can go back, have a business to go back to . Theres an s. B. A. Program that Paycheck Protection Program that they tried to start very ambitiously. Its had some troubles getting off the ground. Unclear how much actual money is distributed a lot have applied for it. If that program can keep Small Businesses alive, then theres a place for the people were talking about on the other side of the ledger, the unemployed to go back to. That will be critical to the outlook. And that theres not lasting damage done and what we have is a temporary shutdown, not an a deeper and lasting recession. Host that goes back to what the fed did today. I love the headline from cnbc. Com, the fed fires an even bigger bazooka. Just to give you a sense of what happened today. Well get to your phone calls. Rick from spokane, washington. Good evening. Caller good evening. Thanks for taking my call. What i dont understand is why theyre not grounding the flights . After 911 they ground owl the flights and i think its even more serious that they do it now. Theyre telling people dont go out and about unless its absolutely necessary. And yet i see all these jet planes flying back and forth. And to me it doesnt seem like it makes a heck of a lot of sense. Thank you. Host thank you, rick. Guest i can give one very small comment on that which i did. I am here in Westchester County in the landing zone for la guardia airport. I can tell that you. And there is not a a whole lot of flights going on. Theyve been reduced down to 10 , 15 , 20 , i did hear some flights are flying to fly professionals around. I dont know if thats the only reason. I think the caller has an interesting point. But there is some minimum of flights thats essential for running the economy, and probably the Health System as well. Host and the f. A. A. Announced on tuesday about 92,000 people were on planes compared to a year ago, 2. 9 Million People on a single day on american airlines. Sherry is next. Portsmouth, good evening. Caller hi there. My question is are we looking at capitalism as a society no longer being run by capitalism but by socialism . And if thats the case, why such an awful thing and why do people freak out when you galk socialism and taking care of people and making sure that your society is running equitably and fairly to everyone . Host thank you, sherry. Well get a response. Guest its a good question. And a lot of people have used this recent round of government assistance as a way to say hey, we can do this. I think theres a question as to the system that you run, the level of government assistance that you have given the circumstances. I was in favor of much more government assistance after the financial shock in 2008. Than was actually approved by the government. I think looking back, its clear that there wasnt enough of it. And maybe too much of it went to larger banks and other larger corporations. I think i think well be rethinking our safety net here. I think one of the reasons i think were going to rethink it is look whats happening with jobless claims. Very difficult for people to get them in normal circumstances. But its a safety net that we can have that could be robust to help people. I dont think were we would as a society move away from capitalism. I think what we might do is better entrench a more robust safety net program. I dont think that everybody wants to move away from let the market decide which businesses live and die. But when a shock like this comes along, and its nobodys fault, and in fact from an economic point of view, the shutting down of the economy is seen in one way as an investment in Public Health. Why do we shut it down . So people dont get sick and die. Thats the Positive Side of the ledger. The negative side of the ledger are the unemployed and the decline in g. T. P. Were going to see as a result of that essentially investment in Public Health. Host Steve Liesman senior economics reporter for cnbc suspect graduate of the university of buffalo and columbia university. Stella in las cruces, new mexico. Good evening. Caller good evening. Host go ahead, stella. Caller yes. Im just calling because i just started receiving my unemployment t took me three weeks to get it. It. Started receiving and they were saying that they were supposed to give us 600 on our unemployment. Host on top of your unemployment . Guest on top. Caller and i havent received anything. I have just been receiving what i was supposed to get. But i havent been receiving what they were supposed to get us from the 600 from the unemployment extra. So i was wondering when was it going to start to get it . Host thank you, stella. Guest i dont have an answer to that. But i think its a story ill put on my list to run down as to whether or not that comes with the first check or theres some delay in providing that. I can run that story down. I just dont know. Youre the first person ive heard whos actually been receiving it. Its good that you got it. She said she was in arizona . Host new mexico. Guest new mexico. Hold on. She is one of lets see, 26,000 a small state. So thats one of the reasons why 26,000 this week, 27,000 the prior week. So actually it went down in new mexico week to week. Thats pretty interesting. Anyway, i dont know the reason why that extra 600 did not come. Host and not sure if you saw cspan2 today but the Senate Republican leader Mitch Mcconnell trying to put on the table a 250 billion supplemental aid for the s. B. A. And other businesses that needed the money at the request of Steve Mnuchin that was shot down by democrats. Whats the back story . Why do they need the additional money and will they get it . Guest so they might need the additional money once this additional 350 billion runs out. Theyre forecasting because of a takeup in the program and the large number of applications that came in, to the banks, that theyre going to run out of money. Pelosi is arguing from the democratic side was that you had to run out. Yet there was still time to discuss it. And i think they wanted additional things a little more back and forth on the political side. I think theyll probably get additional money for this program. I will say they have some bugs to fix. Ive heard a lot of complaints about it. It looks like theyre sort of getting into the ability to apply for the funds. And also for the s. B. A. To approve it. Its unclear how much dispersal is going on and people getting the money in their accounts. I think theyre going to have to do some horse trading there. I dont follow the political side all that closely, steve. What i do know is that this particular set of relief and stimulus bills has come with far more bipartisanship than the last one. And i think theres generally on both sides that the government do as much as it can, as much as it needs to be done here. So i dont really suspect that if the money is shown to be needed that it would be held up and paid. Host our last caller from ridgecrest, california. Youre on with Steve Liesman from his home in new york. Caller hi. Im calling about the p. P. P. Program and unemployment insurance. Im one of those people that is selfunemployed. Nonessential. Nd as it appears now, im able to collect on any kind of assistance. And my understand something state of california is still in in talks with the department of labor. Regarding unemployment for sole proprietors or independent contractors or gig people. Host Steve Liesman what do you know about this . Guest well, i know that they passed in the bill the ability of selfemployed and gig workers to get unemployment insurance. It gets right to the heart of my comment earlier that we have to rethink the way we do unemployment insurance. We have a beautiful safety net for the u. S. Economy in the 1950s where everybody worked at a factory job and if you lost that job, you would go and get in line and get unemployment insurance. People dont work that way anymore. The safety net has not kept up with it and i feel terrible for this person. And many, many more millions like this person out there. I would suggest one of the things senator mark warrer in son before and he has been trying i want to say noblely for many years now to try to update the whole taxation system, to update the safety net system, the unemployment claims to the realities of the economy and the technology that we have today. I dont know, i suspect there is some provisions for sole proprietors to go to the p. P. P. Program. All i can tell you is talk to a and call your bank. Keep trying with the state of california. I think theyre going to get around to doing it. It is allowed im sure by law for it to happen. But all of these states that have two problems. And you have to have a little bit of sympathy there. I know as hard as it is for a person waiting for it trying to get a check. They have the same constraints on work that everybody has. Theyre trying to remain healthy themselves on the one hand. On the other hand theyre absolutely overwhelmed with requests. And that comes up against the third element sheer which is that they have new rules that theyre trying to implement that theyre not used to. I think theres some paycheck verification you have to show. They dont have a means of doing it and they have to really revise and reduce it. The unemployment claim system for how people really work today. Host we will follow up on senator warner and Steve Liesman from westchester, new york. Center economics correspondent for cbs. As always we appreciate your cspans washington journal, live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Morning, dr. S emily landon, university of chicago medicine chief Infectious Disease epidemiologist will join us to discuss the latest in the u. S. Response to the coronavirus pandemic. About lawney talks enforcement issues during the pandemic. Captain john rose truck of the usns mercy discusses the role of the u. S. Navy hospital ship is playing in the fight against covid19. Watch cspans washington journal, live at 7 00 eastern this morning. Join the discussion. New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy gives an update on the States Coronavirus numbers and policies to fight the pandemic. Live coverage begins at 10 30 a. M. Eastern on cspan. Up next, new york Governor Andrew Cuomo updates the states response to the coronavirus pandemic. The governor announces that 799 new yorkers died on wednesday, another single day record for the statement but that the rate of hospitalizations and icu admissions continue to show evidence of decline. Cuomo important to take it over a at where we are in context, the perspective because we are starting to see a shift and i want to make sure people actually keep the shift in perspective. And understand where we are in the scope of our journey through this situation. Since ween 18 days closed down new york. I know it feels like a lifetime. I tell my daughters every day