And the dramatic increase in those applying for jobless benefits. We want to hear from you. If you are a medical professional, we want to hear from you. Tweet andso send us a we are on facebook at facebook. Com spaceman. Facebook. Com cspan. We begin with the numbers tonight courtesy of Johns Hopkins university. Now, more than one million cases worldwide and nearly 52,000 deaths. Rapidly. S. , we are approaching a quarter of a million americans infected with this disease as we outpace every country including china. The death toll in the u. S. 6000. s 6000 nearly and the Unemployment Rate as the continues to spike. Six point 6 million americans are filing for unemployment and if its come at doubling what we saw nearly a week ago. The economy collapsed. Heather long writes the following the past two weeks have a race nearly all of the jobs created in the last five years come a sign of how fast and deep and painful the shutdown has been on Many American families. Job losses have skyrocketed as Restaurants Hotels and gyms have travel have shut down across the nation but layoffs are also rising in manufacturing, warehousing, underscoring how painful this is. Heather long is economic the washingtonor post and she joins us via skype from her home. These numbers go back to the Great Depression. Heather it is job dropping. Would Great Recession, we see and some of the worst months of the Great Recession about 800,000 job losses and month and we all thought that was terrible and historic. Last week, we saw eight times that amount. Six point 6 million job losses. And that is probably not a human losses andion job that is probably not an accurate count. Some people did not even realize they were eligible like the hairdressers. The only now have gotten ability to apply for these benefits so we expect these numbers to continue to grow and it is just unbelievable how quickly this has come about. Host and you break it down state by state. Hawaii, michigan, pennsylvania, kentucky, louisiana, and rhode island. Heather i think we all know given what we are dealing, sheltering in place and trying not to go out a lot, we expected to see the Hotel Industry be hardhit and the travel industry, the bakeries and restaurants. I think what surprised me and many economists could watch these numbers closely is how widespread, it nearly every part of the economy has been impacted by the coronavirus. We are seeing manufacturing layoffs and even transportation and warehouse layoffs. We think we are ordering groceries and these products but still there are layoffs going on even in places like warehouses and trucking companies. That tells you how deep and widespread this really is. Host one of the accompanying photographs to your piece available on Washington Post. Com , the food banks across the experiencing a surge. Hundreds of drivers were make were waiting to get into a food bank this week. Heather people need help right now and they are not getting it vast enough given how quickly this has all come out. The u. S. Safety net has not been adequate to address this pandemic. Congress did pass that massive bill last week, that 2 trillion bill which includes a lot more money for Unemployment Insurance which is why we want more people to be applying for this. The usual benefit before the 400 ac was just shy of week. That will go up i another 600. People can get close to 1000 in many states if they apply for these benefits. That money come of federal government has not released it yet to the state so there is a backlog, a bureaucracy of trying to get this money into the hands of people and i talked to so many workers who have been calling. I spoke to a poor taxi driver in new york city who cannot drive anymore and he has a coronavirus. He and his wife have been calling every night to try to get through to the unemployment and if it office in the state of new york and they have not been able to finish the application for a week. We heard from Steven Mnuchin and earlier today saying that the checks would be going out in the next two weeks but to underscore your point, not soon enough. Heather and that is separate. People in this country are being ways. In two key one way is the 1200 check the secretary is talking about and hopefully, as the Washington Post reported, that they will begin going out on april 9. The direct deposits will begin which is good news if they can get it out that quickly. Not everyone will get it that quickly. The separate issue is the Unemployment Benefits that we hope these 10 Million People or more who have been laid off in the last two weeks, that they will begin to access those benefits. Right now, a lot of those people have yet to see any money from that unemployment claim. Host and the charts are sobering because we had a steady Unemployment Rate and then a huge spike in the last two weeks. What will april look like . Heather it will probably get worse and that is why people are very scared about what is coming. Bese estimates seem to getting bigger and bigger whether it is from Goldman Sachs or groups like the Economic Policy institute. You know when groups as disparate as that agree on something and that it will be big, it will probably be very ugly. Moment issus at the unemployment will jump above 10 . That means it will be worse than the Great Recession. Potential he worse than the 19811982 recession. To we could possibly see up 20 million americans without jobs, laid off or severely for urloughed. And just one final point, how quickly this has all happened which is also stunning. Unfathomable and that is why our safety net has not been able to reply quickly. Getting this money out fast enough. In two weeks, we saw more unemployment jobless claims than we did in the First Six Months of the Great Recession. Quicklyhappening so that our system cannot respond and is not capable of handling this volume of people. Host the story available tonight at Washington Post. Com and in tomorrows newspaper. Heather long, economic correspondent for the Washington Post. The book is titled deadliest enemy our war against germs. Joining us from minneapolis is dr. Michael osterholm, director of the center for Infectious Disease research and policy at the university of minnesota and we thank you for being with us. Dr. Osterholm thank you. Host let me begin with something you have been saying repeatedly we need a unified National Approach to combat coronavirus. Why are we not seeing that . Dr. Osterholm i dont know. It is unfortunate we are not because i think it is what is needed in this very dark spot. There are several aspects to it. First of all, what are we doing right now . What is happening in those cities which are in a sense on fire with this virus . This virus is going to stay around potentially for many months. If you recall in 1918 when it was first introduced in the spring, it took almost until 1920 before all of the people around the world were largely exposed to it and either recovered, were immune, or died. I dont think we have a sense at all that it is happening. I could see activity maintaining itself at a very high level for many more months to come. , you quotee book bill gates who essentially predicted where we are today five years ago. He said if anything kills over 10 Million People in the next few decades, it is most likely to be a highly infectious virus rather than a war. Not missiles, but microbes. Beensterholm we have concerned about this for many years. I wrote pieces in 2005 published in the new england journal of medicine all living out that we were not prepared for a pandemic and laying out many of the things happening today. I wish it was 2005 again because we were better prepared back then than we are today because of the fact we have so decimated any kind of elasticity or Surge Capacity to our Health Care Systems. We have gone to justintime deliveries from supply chains. If you look at it, the world is much more primed for having this kind of impact. In my book in chapter 19 i wrote and i cant say i take any comfort in this but it reads like what is happening here. The virus is playing out as we proposed it would. Host when did you first hear of covid19 and when did you know it would be a pandemic . Dr. Osterholm that is one of the big challenges because today we are having a lot of discussions about who knew what, where . We began to keep track of it in december. Me as working at the Infectious Disease research and policy center at the university of minnesota. We pretty much know from our own intelligence what is going on. In that last week, we noted that in wuhan, china there appeared ersbe a sars or m like outbreak. By the end of january, it was clear it was not either of these. This one looked much more like an influenza like outbreak where transmission was very robust well before one may have got sick and many more people were getting infected just by breathing the air of being around someone. On january 20, a put out a statement to a group of organizations we consult with and said this would be a worldwide pandemic. It is coming. Get ready. On february 3 we put out a subsequent document saying because of the time it would take other countries to have the multiplication of the case it has an incubation period of on average,ays it looked like people were transmitting to about two, or 2. 5 people. By day 15 come you had a cases. We said it would take a month before we have enough cases in one area that we would know it was happening. So by the end of february, cases were popping around the world. Where the virus was introduced early and there was more transmission, we were going from 1000 up to 2000 of to 4000 and then to 8000. Like new york and like italy. Everything unfolded as it was. Ais outbreak has not then surprise to us. I am surprised when i hear the leadership of this country saying they were not warned or that china withheld information or that the cdc did not give them adequate information. There was more than enough adequate information out there that had nothing to do with intelligence sources. Host let me ask you about the numbers that came out earlier this week from the cdc, nih and the white house with the next dictation we could have between 100,000 up to 240,000 deaths in the u. S. Is that feasible in your mind . Dr. Osterholm it is quite the opposite. I think that is not a good representation of what is likely to happen. You have to understand these statistical manipulations of the numbers to try to understand what might be happening. The old line goes all models are wrong but some give you helpful information. The model they are using came from the university of washington assuming we had virtual wuhan like lockdown in place and it would last 45 months. You are talking about people that could not leave their homes for many weeks. Virtually no public transportation. No working. No nothing. That was the assumption with those but that is not realistic and wont happen in this country. If you look at the other side of it, you have the Imperial College of london and Harvard University which set it at between 1 million and two maya. The problem for a lot of people in the public is they dont understand models. Even those that work in the business dont understand those models. A lot of black box. I go back to my iowa roots. I say forget about the models. Let us do some quick math. You can see it in front of you. 320 Million People in the u. S. Let us say half of them will get infected. That is what we expect in the first eight months. When it is 60 Million People. 160 Million People. If we look at them and you look at what happened in china, europe and here, 80 of the cases will have mild or moderate disease to the point they will not even seek medical care. You have 20 that will be severe enough that they will seek some kind of medical care. 10 will be hospitalized. Go intoneed to intensive Care Medicine and 1 will die. Million is a large number. We are talking about 1. 6 Million People. I think that is a fair number which is not that far off from what the Imperial College and harvard have said. I would not count on the 80,000 i think that is an underestimate by a longshot. And the assumptions getting us there are not valid at all and yet we continue to use it. And i am surprised that the media has not challenged that. Host we appreciate you being with us, dr. Mike are dr. Michael osterholm. The book youf write the ability to transmit a micro by breathing into our lungs is the most dangerous. We call this airborne transmission. In real estate they call it location, location, location. In Public Health it is airborne, airborne, airborne. Your comment . Dr. Osterholm that is absolutely the case and that is what is happening. The National Academy of sciences just put out a Statement Last night to the white house in response to questions asked that basically said air airborne transmission, even just talking is part of this whole transmission. This is one again that confuses people because there is a lot of debate out in the Science Community that is not based on good information. What any by that is if you talk to the people that really study transmission of viruses in the air, they all agree that these aerosol particles that can float for sometime around a person are part of the transmission. Why is that important . The only protection against respiratorse n95 and we wont have nearly enough for our Health Workers let alone for the public. Host good evening. Caller hello. Thank you, steve. I am really concerned that we were not told earlier that this is airborne and it is not touching it is not the glove we had to worry about, it is really the fact that you are breathing air that someone else has breathed out from their lungs and i dont understand why we were not told that earlier. I think people would have been able to understand that separation was really an important thing to do if they had been told. Host we will get a response. Dr. Osterholm thank you. I think you raise a legitimate point. Within the world of science, this has been a point of debate. The World Health Organization still says airborne transmission does not exist. Even though experts around the world no longer hold that to be a credible statement. I dont want to ever say that handwashing is not important. It is really important. Continue to do that. I think though that people were given the message over and over about that being an important mechanism of transmission. It comes out of the nature of giving someone something to do to protect themselves. It is much harder when you are in a room with 10 other people and you dont know if someone is infected and potentially blowing this out just talking, that makes it much more uncomfortable. We have to tell people the truth. One of the things i have had a hard time with is if you tell someone that, they will panic. I have not seen anyone panic. No riots. No one pulling guns or knives. Being veryee people frightened and confused in terms of why you werent told. The air is very important and that is why we talk about sheltering in place and separating yourselves from others in the public. It is very important. Do not misunderstand that. At the same time, the mere fact that you have touched things has really overextended the risk there and unfortunately, we have a lot of people taking extreme measures to literally scrub down everything with bleach frequently every day and it is unnecessary. When you see these pictures in asia and particular of people in their white suits spraying down roads and buildings, it has no real impact on transmission. It is separating yourself from others breathing the same air you are breathing. ,ost from provincetown massachusetts, peter. Good evening to you. Caller after 9 11 there was a lot of work done on incident command coming unified structures for command in emergency situations. We saw the creation of the incident management system. This particular show opened with a comment by the doctor about the fragmentation that has been so prevalent throughout the response to this particular pandemic. System came out of all that in 2006. It was revised in 2014. We just had the contagion exercise where there was mention of seeds coming in from that work. I want to ask the doctor out of this particular very strong instilled withou some optimism that we will get back to a more unified system . The Hospital System will come back into its own . Or will we continue to stumble along . I saw the move i saw the news this morning about the role of mr. Kushner as a new coordinator in the pandemic, i was struck that it wont happen. I am hoping you will say obvious. Dr. Osterholm thank you, peter. You are well informed. I could not be a more strong supporter of incident command then you are. It is very important. It is how we need to get through this. First of all, even though we have an incident command structure here, many of us from the Public Health have been very concerned about the absence of cdc prevention. These are epidemiologists. Things that the people on the task force do not understand. Anytime you have a command structure, bringing all of the senior decisionmakers, the people who have some part of this response, all around one table, it is very important to have the cdc there. Right now