Coronavirus at technical name is public enemy number one. Its more of a threat than terrorism. Those who may be exposed or being held in quarantine including thousands aboard a crews ship to japan. Airline flights to and from china and other National Events around the globe are being canceled because the fear of the deceased spreading parade is also concern the virus will have a blow to chinas economy, the world secondbiggest. What kind of Ripple Effect that could be. The u. S. Economy does not seem to be overly impacted right now but that could change. In the semiannual report to congress this week Federal Reserve chairman jay powell said the risk here is not clear, but there will likely be some effect and the Federal Reserve will be watching. Careful to see if any follow could be persistent. Treasury secretary and said this is a onetime event that wont last beyond 20 20. A little earlier on foxbusiness he pointed out that it has led to the white house lowering growth projections. So what is the future of this deadly disease . Will miraculously go away when the weather warms up in april as President Trump as suggested . Will become an even greater threat to the Public Health over the coming months. Here with the latest mo we know about the virus is professor Steven Morris at Colombia University school of health. His 1993 book emerging viruses was selected by american scientist magazine as one of the top 100 science books of the 20th century. Mr. Morris thank you so much for joining us. So start explain from scratch what is coronavirus and how did it come about . The coronavirus is really a big big group of viruses theyve known for a long time and in fact among humans we have for circulating coronavirus is that we dont even really think about. They have been with us for ages. They cause flu like or cold like symptoms during the flu season. And they are just another respire tori virus that causes cold and flu. Gerry so whats special about this one . These are not human coronavirus as they are coming from other species. So there really is a Great Variety of coronavirus. And a number of different species. The one that seems to have the greatest number of diversity of them is the batch. There are many bat species and there are many bats coronavirus. Its really not the bats fault they happen to have a long evolutionary relationship. Sars originally came from a little horseshoe bat a small insect eating bat. In china. Gerry so how do they transmit from animals like bats to humans . Probably bad luck on our part. Sars for example was a coronavirus that got our attention the most as a human disease problem, that was back in 2003 you will remember, and that came from these little bats sold and live animal markets. And then somehow whether through an intermediate mammal like the. [inaudible] its about the size of a kat its actually related to weasels and ferrets. It surprised saw a sin solves in the live animal markets together with bats. It may be that it came to us through that intermediate or directly from the bat to the human. But handling these animals coming in contact with these animals enabled the coronavirus to get into human beings. Gerry and it seems to spread and parts early on, really because the Chinese Authority did not handle it very well, they dismiss the early worries that the doctors represented the authority said they did not want to take action because i did not have authority from above. So it does look like that initial takeoff was the them not taking very good Public Health and menstruation in china. Theres always a delay initially when these infections are recognized. This is the flu season after all. Many respiratory viruses are circulating now. So i think you would normally expect some delay in recognizing this is different. This is something new. But on the other hand, beyond that, there was unfortunately a delay while perhaps they were trying to avoid embarrassment or avoid having to tell higher authorities in the outside world. That gave the virus a chance to spread. Gerry why is it so dangerous . I dont mean necessarily in terms of the specifics of the biology, but why is it so much more dangerous than the flu . Millions of people die around the world because of the flu. What mixes the threatening . I think we still need to know more about it and see more cases to know whether it really is much more dangerous than the flu. Right now i am sort of thinking that the first approximation, if i had to think of the thing most similar in the way its going to behave would be Something Like pandemic influenza. We know from the studies that have been done so far, that it seems to spread more efficiently from persontoperson than pandemic influenza. But somewhat more efficiently. Maybe twice as well, maybe one and a half times as well. Gerry explain how that is done its not necessarily someone sneezing on someone or keeping poor hygiene and shaking hands. How is it transmitted from human to human . Thats whats really interesting about this coronavirus we have these old corroded viruses in humans that people have really taken for granted for the longest period of time. They really havent done much damage, we dont know about severe infection or death, or if they occur, they just are not noticed. So they are probably pretty rare but everybodys probably had experience with those coronavirus. This is a different type of coronavirus. Much more closely related to sars for example. In fact its a close relative of sars. Sars did not spread from person to person neither did the middle eastern horse for torrey syndrome virus murders. Gerry how did spread then . Those spread their hospitals settings by lapses in infection people. Gerry so this is much more in texas . Thats a problem we hadnt any experience with the coronavirus that was like sars, but spread like the flu from persontoperson. Whats really dominating the infection right now, is its ability to spread from persontoperson. There are healthcare infections just like youd expect to sars, but they were minor compared to the ability of this virus to spread. Gerry professor i just want to take a quick break there, coming up we will talk about how bad the coronavirus might get. How much it might spread in this country and around the world. And what we can do to protect ourselves. They get that no two people are alike and customize your Car Insurance so you only pay for what you need. Almost done. What do you think . I dont see it. Only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Now you can, with shipsticks. Com no more lugging your clubs through the airport or risk having your clubs lost or damaged by the airlines. Sending your own clubs ahead with shipsticks. 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Im noninvasive and you use me at home. Im also effective. I find 92 of colon cancers using dna in your stool. So why wait . Cologuard is not for those at high risk for colon cancer. False positive and negative results may occur. Ask your Healthcare Provider if cologuard is right for you. Most insured patients pay 0. Gerry i am back within fetishist disease professor morse. How bad could this get . Its much more serious in terms of sars. As of thursday more than 60000 cases were reported, more coming up presumably. Sars was only a few thousand, but the mortality rate, the number people die from is lower than sars. Its clearly spreading rapidly through china, through small clusters around the world. You have any sense of how serious this could become . I think it depends a lot on what we do. Because one of the things we are doing right now, which is really unprecedented, is try to contain it at its source. And theres been a lot of talk about this theoretically with pandemic influenza even going back to the infamous bird flu, h5n1. So theoretically its a seer interesting question but nobodys tried to operationalize it, to actually get to the early cases and prevent the further transmission of these infections. It could be done with pandemic flu, and it could be done with this one. But its a tremendously difficult task. Its very arduous, very herculean task. Gerry how do we do it . I meant help take precautions but a society in a country how do we protect ourselves . What were seeing right now and most of the world, is that the Public Health authority and the medical authorities in many countries of the world, and the who the World Health Organization and others, are really trying to restrict the virus and what you generally do there is you screen people, try to find the cases of those who were infected, and isolate them, separate them and find their contacts. Recall that Contact Tracing its a very traditional method and we see it in the movies about outbreaks. But this is what Public Health generally does. A lot of chewed leather work to find who might have been exposed, who might have been affected and quarantine them or test them and await until we can be sure they are safe. Gerry how many exposures we think we may already have in the United States . One of the challenges here is many, many people in the early stages of this would travel from china even thousands from real hot itself. And that Contact Tracing we have to do. What do we know about the potential spread in the United States . So far in the United States it has been remarkably well contain. In most other countries there has been some local transmission. In hong kong, and singapore and a few other places. But considering how easily this spreads, this is going to spread like the flu or arguably a little bit better, somewhat better. Considering how easily this spreads, the attempts to keep it under control, i dont know how long its going to be possible to do that. But the attempt to keep it under control have been remarkably successful. Something thats really never been tried before and many people would have been skeptical to even have succeeded this long. Its really a demonstration of what could be done with tremendous political will and tremendous resource investment. Its hard to sustain that investment. Gerry what precautions should convince individuals be taking. Obvious at people are not traveling to china that makes good sense. The transmission has been limited so far. Should we be wearing surgical masks, avoiding crowds, avoiding going to interNational Events were maybe there would be carriers of the virus . Everyone thanks in terms of masks, but generally they are not that useful simply because in many cases people just dont know how to wear them properly and so often they cause a false sense of security and cause more trouble than theyre worth. The precautions we are recommending are very similar to what we recommend during flu pandemics. Until a vaccine or Something Like that comes along, so we are buying time right now until a vaccine can be developed and deployed, we are basically suggesting cover your coughs and sneezes, wash your hands, especially after you have covered your coughs and sneezes, that all this other times. Gerry do the elbow bump instead of shake hands . You remember that the elbow bump during ebola. And theres probably no harm to that as you know and many of these countries in asia, bowing is more traditional than shaking hands. Perhaps well do that. Gerry another quick break there and will become back we will look pass that out to see what other diseases might be on the horizon and look at the history of viruses and whether we are now better prepared for them that we were in the past. Im your 70lb st. Bernard puppy, and my lack of impulse control, is about to become your problem. Ahh no, come on. I saw you eating poop earlier. Hey my focus is on the road, and thats saving me cash with drivewise. Whos the dummy now . Whoof whoof so get allstate where good drivers save 40 for avoiding mayhem, like me. Sorry hes a baby and my side super soft . Yes. With the sleep number 360 smart bed, on sale now, you can both adjust your comfort with your sleep number setting. Can it help me fall asleep faster . Yes, by gently warming your feet. But can it help keep me asleep . Absolutely, it intelligently senses your movements and automatically adjusts to keep you both comfortable. So, you can really promise better sleep . Not promise. Prove. And now, during the ultimate sleep number event, save 50 on the sleep number 360 limited Edition Smart bed. Plus 0 interest for 36 months. Ends monday Steven Morris is my guest and how do we put this in of the last thousand years theres been repeated plant pandemics the plagues in the middle ages, the spanish flu in 1980 to 19 20 killed over 50 million people. Bob said there is aids in the 80s and 90s. Are we better prepared . Is our society, we as People Better protected . Are we healthier now . Or is this another of these massive viruses, perhaps the coronavirus waiting to happen . I think a little bit about. We are better prepared but not as prepared as we need to be. We are more aware of the situation, we understand that many of these are viruses and infections already in nature that are just getting opportunities to enter the population. Hiv was a prime example, it probably originally came from a chimpanzee and semi got infected while perhaps hunting and then it was able to get into the human infection into the human population by a number of human behaviors. So we obviously have a great deal as we change the environment and we have better tools now, 20 or 20 five years ago we started the program for monitoring emergence degrees there is no way for people to communicate when they had something unusual. If you they say in new york if they see something say seven craters almost impossible and and we try to speed up that process and their ways now to do that even faster. At the same way the world is much more enter connected more than a hundred years ago when we had the spanish flu we had more exotic foods traveling around the world. I wonder to what extent has globalization on the way the world has become more integrated to set increase the threat to it . Absolutely thats why we need to be really vigilance and have better systems for early warning. And take them seriously, know what to respond to and how to respond appropriately. I think were still learning that. We have better technological tools, but also the dangers are greater because there are places where we are encroaching on environments to be exposed to new infections. That can be around the world savannah capability of moving on a plane within 20 four hours come hear from some remote place. Gerry will one thing we know about the viruses as they have all been spread by emerged accidentally people one thing people worry about is biowarfare and the fact that there are some of these whether they are viruses or toxins or whatever the people could spread and cause huge damage. Do we again have a sense of the potential threat for malicious actors who could do this kind of thing . So far, i think nature has been way ahead of us in this respect. It is been a much greater innovator and headed has had more time and material to work with. And so the attempts for example just after world war ii, or just during world war ii, and just after to try to develop a biowarfare programs, the United States as you know got out of this business in 1969, and strictly works on defensive areas. The reality is its not easy to do. So i think nature has always been at least one step and often more than one step ahead of us. I think the same procedures, the same Warning Systems and readiness would be effective against any Infectious Disease outbreak. Gerry weve got a wrap up at a final question when do we think this coronavirus outbreak will be done . Some people say once the weather improves in the summer and all this things we associate with the winter it will go away. Are you optimistic this a be relatively shortlived it will be clear by the summer . No im not actually. We dont know. However i would not want to pin any hopes on Something Like that because we just dont know enough about this. I think we need to continue what we are doing now, continue trying to develop vaccines and continue trying to contain it to the extent that its possible. As long as we can as we buy time right now. Gerry the vaccine would not be available for some time correct . Probably about a year. But there are some candidates on the horizon. Be a professor thank you very much for this very interesting insights and your knowledge on that. Just ahead, it took just a few days for the impeachment acquittal to give his enemies some new and ammunition. Ill explain next. Wherever we want to go, we just have to start. Autosave your way there with chase. Chase. Make more of whats yours. The new rx. Crafted by lexus. Lease the 2020 rx 350 for 419 a month for 36 months. Experience amazing at your lexus dealer. Lease the 2020 rx 350 for 419 a month for 36 months. But when i started seeing i knew aboutthings,emors. I didnt know what was happening. So i kept it in. He started believing things that werent true. I knew something was wrong. But i didnt say a word. During the course of their disease around 50 of people with parkinsons may experience hallucinations or delusions. But now, doctors are prescribing nuplazid. The only fda approved medicine. Proven to significantly reduce hallucinations and delusions related to parkinsons. Dont take nuplazid if you are allergic to its ingredients. Nuplazid can increase the risk of death in elderly people with dementiarelated psychosis and is not for treating symptoms unrelated to parkinsons disease. Nuplazid can cause changes in heart rhythm and should not be taken if you have certain abnormal heart rhythms or take other drugs that are known to cause changes in heart rhythm. Tell your doctor about any changes in medicines youre taking. The most common side effects are swelling of the arms and legs and confusion. We spoke up and it made all the difference. Ask your parkinsons specialist about nuplazid. Gerry next week a federal judge will sentence roger stone, former Campaign Advisor to President Trump who is convicted to lying to congress a witness tampering. The initial sentencing recommendation by prosecutors a seven to nine years in prison was even some liberal jurors agreed quite harsh. The Justice Department has every right to review and alter these kinds of decisions and it did just that. Suggesting this we can revise recommendations that a lighter sentence to be fair. The judge took us make her own decision, whatever the prosecutors say. But all this took place against the background of yet another twitter to raid by President Trump who called the charge is horrible and unfair. The president s view like everyone is entitled to his own view but his words had larger consequences than yours or mine. Those words can undermine public faith in the integrity of the criminal process. Faith it is essential to trust is a very institution of democracy. Attorney general william barr was right to say on friday that the president s tweeting makes it impossible to do my job. His words were discrediting a perfectly fair decision by the Justice Department. In one single tweet, the president undermined his own case, damage the Justice Department edge at reputation and handed his political opponents another weapon in which to attack him. While thats it for us this week, for the latest show updates be sure to follow and twitter, facebook an instagram paired i will be back next week ill back next week here on wall street journal at large. Thank you so much for joining us. Jack welcome to barrons roundtable where the sharpest minds on wall street meet to get behind the headlines and pr