as demand dips and price wars loom with brent reaching its lowest level since 2002. awe quarry tet of eurozone banks scrap their proposal after the ecb wants to preserve cash until october in a bid to maintain liquidity the number of confirmed coronavirus globally has risen 723,000. the death toll has risen to 34,000 germany and france have started lockdown with germany. the number of deaths in italy has fallen for the second straight day tough restrictions remain in place. elsewhere china says it has posted a drop in new cases for the fourth consecutive day as beijing battles against a second outbreak of the virus. how are the markets reacting to it >> markets are trading on the back foot in europe. we are seeing some pretty substantial losses coming together in the early hours of trade. ftse 100 down 2.6% in the germany the dax is holding up a little better, down just 1.4%. a few sectors are getting a particularly hard hit this morning after some analysts weighed through the impact of the virus and what it could mean on the sectors in particular aerospace and defense. let me take you to these stocks. you can see substantial moves lower. airbus shares down 9.4%. aig down 8%. and tala down 0.7% jpmorgan has come out in the last couple of hours and slashed their ecb saying it will take two years to recover from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic investors reacting to what that means. we're seeing the airlines come under pressure air france down 5% ryan air down 3.6% ez jet saying they're grounding their entire fleet of aircraft as they deal with the impact of the virus and try to mitigate costs as they work with the government on liquidity measures to shore up their balance sheet. let's take a look at banks next. banks are also under particular pressure here in europe. some major moves you can see to the downside bank of ireland down 11% we've got societal general down 6.7. a number of european banks come out s ing and not give it out in dividend payments. uni credit and shares are down 7% oil next, let's take a look at how the majors are performing. we have some pressure for bp and shell both down around 2%. this comes in lock step with a decline in the oil price we've seen wti and brent come off pretty sharply as investors weigh out what this downturn in demand means for it the supply/demand balance in the energy markets they're coming out with some pretty disappointing outlooks there. >> thanks for that. the people's bank of china lowered the seven-day reverse repo, an effort really to support the liquidity of banks in china let's talk about that and the impact on trade in asia. matt it with us. >> most of the markets shutting up for the trading session we saw a real mixed performance. a number of markets across the asia-pacific doing their own things a number of key measures to prop up regional economies. the pboc cutting by 20 basis points this is the biggest easing we've seen there since 2015. in the singapore flattening the band in which currency is allowed to move. it's the most aggressive we've seen in over a decade. moving the currency effectively to zero. not helping out thesingapore market trading down by 4.4%. south korea auns noing stimulus measures as well cash payments to families. 9.1 trillion yuan is the price tag. it helped push the south korean market into positive territory south korea will enact a supplementary budget market rallying up by 7% because we got more stimulus measures out there. an additional 130 billion australian dollars to support workers in the form of a $1,500 to company to maintain their staff during the coronavirus a downturn the asx 200 the outperformer today, up by 7% at the close back to you. >> terrific, matt. thanks for hanging onfor us. let's move on. ecb vice president says so-called corona bonds are not the only or most effective instrument to fight the economic impact of the virus. it comes after german's finance minister made clear he does not consider joint eurozone debt the preferred solution instead he said the esm is the right way to share the burden. of course, they've been talking about direct credit lines via the esm to individual countries. the early reaction in the debt markets, let's have a look at the sovereigns the movement has been largely to push yields across european curves lower with the exceptions prachz italy and grease. from the bund we're negative 0.53 on the on the german bund at the moment. let's have a look at the broad er spreads from the bund to the oet. you can see a well graphically represented the fact we've seen other yields moving lower italy a little higher here at 1.3930 that indicates, perhaps, a widening of the spread between europe's safe haven sovereign and the italian paper, which is why you're hearing the italians, the spanish and others urge the eu to reconsider using the esm for some form of corona bond issuance steve will join us from outside downing street good morning to you. i just wanted to pick up on that we are seeing very modest movements at this point but, perhaps, an indication that there is a sense of a split here between the peripherals once again and the call >> yes, i think we're seeing, obviously, a lot of volatility in the market at the moment and we'll see italy start to trade a little wider on the back of this because there are some arguments going on within the eu remember, we still have the ecb is buying all of the debt across europe they have pretty much said they would buy more and more and more i think that's the backstop we need to be aware of. it would be great if europe could come together and issue a bond that is cross thif co-lateralized i think we'll get there but it will take time to work out those mechanics. >> what is pushing the markets here we've had this flurry of unanticipated announcements from both central banks and fresh announcements, almost by the day on fiscal policy very hard for markets to grapple with so much information at one time what is the fundamental driving prices at the moment >> i think one of the main fundamentals we have at the moment is pure fear and people looking for a space where they can know they'll get their money back i think that's why we're seeing core bonds are doing okay. we also know it's very well supported by the ecb i think from that perspective, again, people want to have something that's liquid. i think liquidity is paramount at the moment. do you have cash, things that you can sell i'm not saying for a longer term investor there are great opportunities coming out and you need to look for those. the amount of monetary and fiscal policy is being thrown at this situation is pretty much unprecedented. and we would really have to take many months for us to finally go through what does all that mean, but i think in general the central banks are trying to ensure markets remain open, fixed income remains liquid so when we get through this virus time period, the economies can restart. that's the biggest point we have to get the virus under control and then the economies will need to have the financial measures and liquidity to be able to restart and start growing again even though there will be a sizeable hit. >> david, good morning from downing street i was disparaged about what point rating agencies making any moves on uk economy and debt is at this moment in time is, number one, you have central banks buying every bit of sovereign they can get their hands on, and as you mentioned, investors want to make sure they can get their money back, hence, trying to flood the sovereign markets putting their money in there as well. does it matter what the rating agencies matter at the moment? if it doesn't matter now, when will it matter >> i think the market situation is incredibly fluid. i'm not surprised rating agencies are making movement but i don't think moving within the investment grade area from aa to aa minus doesn't make a lot of difference to investors at the moment the agencies want to show they're on top of things i agree, everything is so fluid at the moment and the amount of spending packages coming out are so large tofet a lot by central bank buying. the central bank, ecb and fed have pretty much said they will buy as much as necessary to keep the economy and markets functioning. >> are you concerned at all about inflationary pressure building as a result of this or is that so far into the horizon that it's not a necessary consideration at this point? >> i think one of the outcomes could be inflation that's further out what we have to ensure now is we have an economy with the ability to rebound once we're through this i think that's probably the most important point. also remember we've had deflation or lower inflation for quite some time, disinflation. we have a little inflation, es especially given the amount of debt we've issued, wouldn't be a bad thing in the long run. it's something to refocus on after we're through this crisis. this is deflationary on the world. >> i want to take you back to the start to geoff's original question as well because you said something that piqued my interest you said i think we'll get there on corona bonds. if weer do, at the peak of this crisis osh after the crisis, what does that mean for individual sovereigns on the periphery as well? if there's a common bond, i wonder what the relation will be >> that's a great question and it comes down to what does that common bond fund is it for all funding, for certain parts of funding, maybe health care funding will do in a common manner. as we know, money is fungible. if you can issue in a particular interest, it may take the pressure off other instruments i think it's really down to the mechanics and what does this actually mean to european issuance in general, i think it would be quite beneficial for the periphery and not quite as beneficial for the core. this is a crisis that europe can utilize to help bring europe closer together. one of my fears is that they don't do that and they'll create bigger divisions within europe i don't think europe will break apart because the ecb is buying everything but this is an opportunity to make europe more together rather than creating more divisions >> david, we're going to let you go, thanks for joining us. what a swanky setup with those monitors he's got. >> he does. >> trading from home. >> he could be trading -- he could be doing a number of different things you made an astute observations, parallels to air traffic control. >> now you let the audience into insight how we spend our hours that was naughty. >> we like to see where people are filming from just as much as the viewers do. >> and the headset as well very, very air traffic controller i'm sure david is busy busy, busy, busy i don't know how you get your kicks. is this you or me? you doing this >> i think it's you but i'm -- >> ad lib. we'll do that a little later. let's move on here whether you want to spend your time thinking about aircraft or something else, i don't know, but what we've been asking our audience this morning is how are you keeping yourself busy when you're working from home or not working from home, perhaps we've had a number of interesting pictures, not least radishes being sent in we will show you those a little later on thank you for all your contributions later this morning, tell us how you're wiling away the hours. email us squawkboxeurope@cnbc.com or tweet us @squawkboxeurope. still ahead, europe divided. spain hits back over remarks from the dutch finance minister as the bloc struggles to coordinate a fiscal response to the fall from the coronavirus. i recently spoke to a group of students about being a scientist at 3m. i wanted them to know that innovation is not just about that one 'a-ha' moment. science is a process. it takes time, dedication. it's a journey. we're constantly asking ourselves, 'how can we do things better and better?' what we make has to work. we strive to protect you. at 3m, we're in pursuit of solutions that make people's lives better. yes. this moving thing never gets any easier. well, xfinity makes moving super easy. i can transfer my internet and tv service in about a minute. wow, that is easy. almost as easy as having those guys help you move. we are those guys. that's you? the truck adds 10 pounds. in the arms. ok. -yep. transfer your service online in a few easy steps. now that's simple, easy, awesome. xfinity makes moving easy with two-hour appointment windows, even on nights and weekends. go to xfinity.com/moving to get started. welcome back let'sup date you we have news out of the german engineering association. it's an update on how their members are doing in terms of grappling with the coronavirus the engineering association says the proportion of companies whose operations are affected by the virus has risen to 84% from 64% two weeks ago. they say one in two affected companies suffering from, quote, serious or noticeable disruption tole supply chain, particularly prevalent in italy, germany, china, france and the u.s. so, italy, 75% germany, 57% france, 36%. and the u.s., 25%. situation in china, though, and south korea seem to be easing slightly there's something more positive in what they've said the engineering companies are reporting a significant increase in orders from chinese customers. the eu meaning to rally together after a failed attempt on thursday to forge a joint fiscal response to the virus pandemic nine member states including france, italy and spain are sticking to their demand the eurozone should issue shared debt instruments to even out the economic burden. a fiscally conserve ty bloc led by germany is opposing the plan. we're joined by a team of reporters for the latest on how european leaders view the u.n.'s role in responding to the crisis let's start with annetta let's start with germany's position, which has been very firm all the way through there is no need for an esm-issued coronavirus bond at this point >> yes, that's exactly the german line. germany wants to activate the esm. within that there's an instrument which is a credit line countries could tap if they need oney, it's a credit line which would last them two years and here comes the problem. the countries need to repay that credit line within that time frame. that's why some economists are arguing it's not the best instrument to deploy right now because we literally don't know how long that crisis will last and whether the countries in question would be able to actually re pay the money in due time once that credit line is activated, those countries would also be able to tap the outright monetary transaction mechanism from the ecb, which then could buy endless amounts -- in their country if that was needed that's germany's position. they stand firm on that. they want to use the existing mechanism and they don't want to go into that uncharted territory to issue joint bonds at that point in time because they say there's no need for it they have the money with esm we can activate the credit line in due time and we should use those instruments which are available right now. back to you. >> thank you very much for bringing us the latest one side of the debate around joint issuance pedro sanchez has also called for strong cooperation between euro european nations to fight the pandemic with european leaders over how to pull through the crisis. >> translator: the answer cannot only be national consequently it must be a europeeurop european response. it has to be a response all in the same boat. dutch, portuguese, italian or german. >> charlotte reed joins us with more talk us through spain's position when it comes to joint debt issuance and where they stand now on this divisive topic in europe >> pedro sanchez very vocal this weekend. unusually so in a way for spanish government spain very supportive, very pro eu this time the tone is changing slightly and saying, we need to see solidarity if not now, when this is not 2008 this is 2020 this is a different kind of crisis we need solidarity you have pedro sanchez this weekend saying europe is at risk if solidarity is not shown if the single market is only for the good days, not the bad days. he said they need proof of real commitment that echoes as well some tweets we saw from the spanish foreign affairs minister just after the meeting that was mentioned a bit earlier on thursday. the fed with an agreement of potential corona bonds tweeting and tagging the dutch finance minister who's holding the line of no need for corona bonds, comparing the situation in the eu as the titanic say we hit the iceberg we face the same risk. there's no first or second-class passenger. we need to come with the common solution to rescue the situation. what we heard from spain similar from france. president macron in the italian press doing a bit with the italian newspapers calling for budget solidarity, talking about equipment, et cetera, et cetera. i remember france banned exports of this kind of gear at the beginning of the crisis with italy and began an anti-eu sentiment. he seemed to address the sentiment because corona bonds and budget solidarity to deal with the budget now and reconstruction later big push from all eu leaders in spain, italy and in france for corona bonds >> charlotte, thank you for that french president emmanuel macron, as you mentioned, vowed to support italy and spain as the death toll rises in both countries. macron looked to reassure italians over the weekend telling local newspapers that, quote, france stands with italy as the country reported its highest number of coronavirus-related deaths in one day. italy setting aside 400 million vouchers for food. let's get to claude ia, who has more on italy and the response to president macron's latest appeal claudia? >> certainly this latest appeal is of help to what italy has been pushing in the last weeks and days regarding the need for europe to act as a whole, as act as one it's a very important message that needs to come in order to support those countries that need it and to give a message towards the outside. the credit line that annette was mentioning, it comes with strings attached would be a problem. what happened to italy is an unpredictable and unforeseen event. it's like an earthquake. this is not bad management that needs to be somehow scolded. this is a situation that reasons a lot of liquidity because of the nature of the crisis that we are living in. so, corona bond or no strings attached credit line accessing the esm, whichever is instrument they decide, it needs to be an instrument supported to a european level also not because it's just for italy, it's for various countries and could be for unsuspected countries important in the future because right now we are leading in terms of how we're moving with the evolution of the crisis. hopefully, fingers crossed, could have maybe touched the peak over the weekend and seeing a decline in the increases, in the daily increases. this is a long battle, a long crisis that will need that liquidity. it's important because, you know, it's an opportunity, as i was saying, to show the unity. it would be allowing the countries that have more difficulty accessing debt to benefit from the creditworthiness that europe has as one, as a whole it would be an important instrument the cost of it for some of the countries who are against it would be definitely outweighed by the benefits this would be in the future for a europe that is definitely struggling right now in terms of unity, as we were saying, as you have been commenting luckily, as one of your guests noted earlier, the ecb is buying and this is of help in the situation. there is no panic as of yet but certainly something needs to be found, a solution, you know, a european solution would be very helpful in order to face what is still to come. >> thank you so much for rounding out the discussion, as you said, a european solution would be helpful not only for italy but for the other countries that will continue to struggle. downing street exists, boris johnson's diagnosis will not hamper the fight but the battle could be a long one. we'll get to that next welcome back to "street signs. i'm julianna tatelbaum >> i'm geoff cutmore these are your headlines. the stoxx 600 dips as european leaders squabble over a right economic response to the virus while u.s. futures swing in early trade. germany's ten-year yield moves deeper into negative territory as the country's finance minister shoots down calls for jointly issued coronavirus bonds while they warn virus supply chain is serious. a quartet -- until october in a bid to maintain liquidity. oil prices continue to sink as demand dips and price wars loom with brent reaching its lowest level since 2002. welcome back, everybody. let's just update you on some of the lines that are crossing the wires here from japan. the ruling party is proposing a stimulus package sized at 60 trillion yen that would include direct government spending at around 20 trillion yen a number of ideas under consideration alongside that new stimulus package, possibly a plan to involve payouts to companies struggling to continue business due to the coronavirus outbreak that's one of a number of ideas that the company -- sorry, the country is looking at at this point we are obviously going to wait and see what kind of announcement we may get from the japanese government through the rest of the morning here it does feel as though they are starting to coalesce around a number, at least 20 trillion yen of direct spending and a potential package of 60 trillion yen, according to the kyoto news agency elsewhere we have news from toyota, the company says it success spen suspends operations at a number of factories it will suspend in european factories. they will restart april 20th or later. the group says it suspends operations at the russian factory through to april 3rd and halt operations at its thailand plant during april 7th to the 17th and its vietnamese plant until further notice they are suspending output at additional plants in asia due to the coronavirus. they do mention global production falling 12.2% in february year-on-year. so, a number of announcements coming out of tokyo this hour. julianna >> let's take a look at european markets. equities under a bit of selling pressure this morning but we have bounced off the lows hit earlier this morning the ftse 100 down 1.7% the dax is now down just to 0.8% half an hour ago they were cruising lower by more than 1% the cac 40 paring back earlier losses and the ftse mib down 1% europe posting its best week since 2011 the euro, no doubt, playing into this as well on that note let's take a look at fx markets. last week as u.s. stocks rallied strongly, we saw a pullback in the dollar the dollar index dropped 4%, its worst weekly performance since 1987 we're seeing a bit of a reboun so the euro down 06 basis points with the greenback 10.79 in the uk we're seeing movement in the pound which is trading about 0.7% lower versus the dollar around 1.2370 we've traveled a long way on the back of that dollar. weakness we saw last week and investors trying to understand what drove that weakness and will it continue today we're seeing a bit of a bounceback in the greenback. take a look at u.s. futures. we've seen mixed moves in the futures market throughout the morning. now we're looking at a weaker start to trade the dow looking at a triple digit start to the open after last week's massive rally across all three of those indices we are -- we've lost some of the positive momentum that came through earlier and now we're looking at a weaker start. >> thanks very much. the data continues to come even though some of it may not seem relevant to where we are at the moment, which is a business disappointing because looking at some february numbers out of the uk, there were reasons to be a little more encouraged the consumer credit 0.9% sterling, off the pace but positive number against the 68.2 in net mortgage lending also looking strong and in line with expectations therefore, money supply growth plus 0.3% month-on-month this was all data for february even as we look at coronavirus having significant impact, the company due to send a letter to 30,000 households saying the situation around the virus will get worse before it improves as a number of confirmed cases rises to almost 20,000 over the weekend. among them, prime minister boris johnson, of course, and health secretary matt hancock steve is live from outside downing street despite those walking wounded, i guess, at this point, the business of government continues here in the uk, steve. >> reporter: yeah, look, all understanding is matt hancock and, indeed, the prime minister are working through this the update were surrounding mild symptoms we have to take that as last communication that everything is okay and boris johnson is leading the government efforts despite the coronavirus. i'm sure you know the topography of downing street. you have number 10 downing street behind me, the heart of the uk government, and number 11, where the most contentious, would be gore down brown at 11 and tony blair at 10 the flat above number 11 downing street is the larger of the two flats available. so, actually during the blair/brown era, mr. brown and his family took the larger apartment with four bedrooms in number 11 and mr. brown took number 10. i think mr. brown stayed in number 10 when they were prime minister boris johnson still has the flat there. i presume that's where he's self-isolating in terms of the news flow, absolutely, it's been quite devastating. let's be honest about it, over the last few days. on friday, 578 mortalities in the united kingdom that lept over the weekend to 1 icti -- 1,228. dr. harris was talking about the large number of deaths in recent weeks being pretty much as expected she also talked about the uk being in for the long haul listen in. >> over time, probably over the next six months, we will have a three-week review. we'll see where we're going. we need to keep that lid on and then gradually we will be able to hopefully adjust some of the social distancing measures and gradually get us all back to normal i think three weeks for review two or three months to see whether we've really squashed it about three to six months ideally. lots of uncertainty in that. >> reporter: of course, that flies in the face of all those who have been hoping both within government and beyond. on the other side of the atlantic, as well, that the peak of the crisis can be achieved and passed by easter as well it may well be there is some flattening of the curve thereafter talking about britain being prepared for a significant period of lockdown things will get worse before they get better was the message. boris johnson has been speaking over the weekend he put out a video post as well talking about the extraordinary effort that 20,000 ex-nhs staff, doctors, medics coming back to the nhs to for the fight against the coronavirus. a social distancing, lockdown measures have resulted in staggering lack of commuting train usage down 95% use since britain went into lockdown bus usage down 75% as far as equipment getting to the front line, the communities minister talking about the huge amount of equipment that is finally getting to the front line, including 140,000 gowns, 2.3 million pairs of eye protectors as well there are hopes that finally, finally testing will really start seeing a sea change soon 17.5 million virus tests for use hopefully by the middle of next month have been ordered by the uk government and also we're hearing that the uk government seems to be getting some traction on its promise to get to 25,000 tests a day. it is still way, way below that. back to you both. >> thanks very much, indeed, for that all the talk about the lengthening of the crisis doesn't seem to help sterling. we've seen the pound knocked back somewhat. the dollar picking up a little bit of a bid as the market tries to get its head around this idea that this now could be a six-month event at least well, let's continue the conversation around the uk's preparedness direct are of institute for government, a think tank that looks at how efficiently goths are managing policy. how do you think this government's doing >> after a slowish start it's doing pretty well. the slowish start is because they wanted to keep things open, keep things going. it's moving much faster. the testing you're stribing is one of the stickier points that hasn't moved as fast but it's moved pretty fast on the social distancing and it seems to have got really quite a bit of public support behind it. of course, it's moved pretty fast on the ambitious economic measures essentially to keep paying the salaries or a large part of the salaries of a lot of the economy and try to do something self-employed, too on the big steps it's done the first ones pretty fast, i think. >> ultimately, i know the crisis is somewhat away, the end of the crisis is somewhat away but ultimately won't it be judged on the death count and the number of infections and will there be questions asked about the strategy around ventilators and the speed with which some form of testing is developed? >> there will be all kinds of questions of government in the end. one of the extraordinary thing about this is every government in the way is being judged they're all facing exactly the same threat and responding in really different ways, some of them so, they're all judged against each other yes, it will be judged by the number of deaths from coronavirus. also more subtly and not what people are looking at at the moment, by the number of deaths from other things that might not have happened if it hadn't been for all of this. in a sense, no one is doing a tradeoff and also judged by the economic response, what it's done to help the economy hibernate, if you like, after this and come out quickly. all those things yes, ventilators and testing will go into that. i think testing is the big one because until you've got testing, any government is really trying -- almost got an unemergenciable situation. all they can manage is the medical response, trying to deal with severely -- increasing numbers of severely ill people as they turn up at the hospitals and trying to do something about that once you've got a test, a particular test for who's had it, you begin to have something you can manage as an exit from this >> you said the government after a slowish start is doing much better now as well, but the checks and balances on the government, of course, are so important as well, in your former role as a journalist, you know that as well. during second world war parliament was hit 14 times with german bombs and this time around we don't have the same checks and balances with parliament as well do you have concerns about that? >> yes, i really do. there are a lot of questions about why legislation very carefully thought out legislation while the civil contingencies act brought after 9/11 which gave government a lot of powers to deal with civil emergencies and also gave parliament a lot of checks why that wasn't appropriate. mps of all parties did sign onto this, emergency powers, but the fact is they are really, really very sweeping. and give immediately government all kinds of powers to intrude into people's lives, including possibly digital surveillance. there's potential for that in the legislation. even though many people say that's not needed for this and it's -- parliament doesn't have -- it's got an up or down, yes or no approval of this every six months it doesn't have a way of amending that legislation. so, i think as we begin to work our way through this, that is one of the huge questions about this, of whether government, which has been very quick to take these powers with enormous public support and parliamentary support and whether it gives them back again. >> is there any argument -- obviously, we had a conclusive general election late last year with overwhelming mandate in the post brexit world for mr. johnson and his plans, but is there any argument for any national form of coalition, is there any precedent where you think we should have the brightest and best from all parties in government now? >> there's an awful lot of incentive for labor to propose that you can give them a way in and a way to look statesman like labor is handicapped by two things at the moment one, they don't have a leader since the coronavirus hit labor leadership, election is one of them the other handicap is any criticism of the government, which is the role of the opposition, seems to be undermining the national emergency. enormous incentive for them to suggest it i think a government with this majority, there isn't much incentive to do that, but they are short of top people. boris johnson very carefully selected his cabinet to include only those who agreed with his version of brexit, a very narrow tribe on the back benches of the conservative party alone so, you're hearing quite a lot of calls at the moment for the government at least to try to stretch out to include figures like jeremy hunt, who was the runner-up for prime minister b job. and others around. i think they need to show they are encompassing all kinds of views. at the moment they probably, just in pure political calculation, have too much support to find that attractive themselves. >> fair enough thank you very much. really appreciate you joining us this morning steve with us as well. all right. still ahead on the show, president trump walks back his goal of reopening the u.s. by easter as fears rise over an incoming spike in cases. more after the break ubs announced it will stick to its previously announced dividend for 2019. it comes after the swiss market regulator urged banks to reconsider payout proposal the swiss lender is set to pay out 73 cents per share to its shareholders unicredit, ing and bank of ireland after instruction to preserve cash. the ecb said on friday european banks should avoid pairing shareholders until friday. unicredit deferred share buyback. president trump strengthened social distancing until april, after the white house's leading infectious disease expert, dr. fauci, warned deaths in the u.s. due to covid-19 could reach 200,000. trump walked away from a plan to lock down the state of new york along with parts of new jersey and connecticut. he instead advised those in the region not to travel to prevent spreading the infection. our nbc colleague tracie potts joins us live from washington, d.c. pretty significant step from president trump to extend these guidelines does this mark a shift in strategy in washington >> reporter: it certainly marks a shift in the president's plan to jump start the economy. remember, he said he wanted everything moving again by easter, a couple of weeks from now, but that's not in line with the science. it's not in line with what the health experts with seeing and what they're saying about where this virus is headed when they look at the curve, so to speak, what they're telling us is we have not hit the peak death rate yet you mentioned dr. anthony fauci says we could see 100,000, maybe even 200,000 deaths here in the united states. right now it stands at just over 2,400. so the president as a result o that in consultation with the white house has said that social distancing, people staying away from one another, needs to happen for longer, until the end of next month. that peak death rate experts think won't happen for another two weeks, which means with more testing, we could see a significant increase in the number of deaths here in the united states over the next couple of weeks. also there are still questions about supplies being in short supply and high demand in some areas, especially big cities like new york where we're seeing a lot of people affected by the coronavirus. >> thank you so much as always for joining us and giving us the latest coming out of washington. now, all morning we've been asking you what do you do to pass time in quarantine to get that much-needed monday motivation we know steve has been very active in his garden you can follow him on twitter, you would know that. i'm not sure what geoff's been up to in his gauquarantine. >> nothing watching movies, eating too much >> let's take a look at some responses from you karen tells us she reads backs, follows the news and that the now ivan says hi from the netherlands from her living room where she's watching cnbc in the background thank you. that's good to know. rich got in touch with us via twitter to let us know he's been quarantining at his boss's house in malibu. could be worse, indeed >> a lot of people decorating. steve, i know you've been doing the gardening. any chance you're going to open a tin of paint >> reporter: done it done it. my eldest daughter's bedroom has been painted got rid of all the pink, young girls gone through that, and taking the dog out every morning. that's my morning. >> maybe you shouldn't have front-loaded we're looking at a longer quarantine maybe you should have rationed those tasks. >> reporter: i moved out of london, what, seven years ago so i swapped my small apartment for a very, very big garden. there's always going to be work to do down there, trust me. >> i know he has a problem with his deer as well so he'll be putting up more fencing, i would guess. if you manage to grow some things in your raised beds >> reporter: make a mean courget, big whoppers. >> looking forward to receiving some in the autumn. let's take a look at u.s. futures as we round out this european programming a mixed start in the u.s breaking news. investors bracing for another wild week as covid-19 cases exceed 700,000 dr. anthony fauci says the nationwide count could hit 200,000 in the months ahead. this as president trump extends social distancing guidelines weeks past his original easter deadline and in energy markets, crude sinking to its lowest level in r years