At a worse time for lebanon. The country is already in a deep recession. For many businesses like this, this will be the final straw. Judy all of that and more on tonights pbs newshour. Major funding for the pbs wshour haseen provided by before we talk about your investments, what is new . Aubrey is expecting. We want to put money aside for them. Lets see what we can just. Changing plans. Mom, are you painting again . You could sell these. Let me guess, change in plans . American cruise lines. Consumer cellular. Hewleiam and flora foundation. Advancing ideas and supporting institutions to promote a better world at hewl and with the ongoing these individuals and institutions. This program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by bucontons to your pbs thank you. Rs like you. Judy stark headlines tell our top story tonight. The pandemic dominating the United States and the world. U. S. Coronavirus cases have reached 4300. 78 deaths. Gatherings of more than 10inst shuttering. Ore businesses are wall street crashed again with the Dow Jones Industrials or 13 . Ling nearly 3000 points amid all of this, President Trump warned that the crisis could linger into july or august. William begins our coverage. William in much of theil count, life is shutting down. Hugearts of the country areei doing part to try to slow the spread of this coronavirus. New york citys times square was eerily quiet. Floridas theme parks were ghost towns. Businesses, restaurants and bars from coasttocoast closed their doors as governors in multiple states ordered full closures or drastically cut back hours. Seven counties in andround san million residents to shelter in place. Novi l home except for crucial tasks until at least april. In the centers for Disease Control and prevention, they made the call to cancel all gatherings of 50 or more people over the next few weeks. Measures like these could slow a virus, some people remain on shore. On shore. I want us all to remain healthy but i am also concerned about how i will pay my bills. Food Distribution Centers like this are helnng those need. In terms of this epidemic, america is two weeks behind ital country that is overrun with infections where hospitals are overflowing and over 2000 people have died. Despite the Surgeon Generals warning for americans to maintain super social distancing, some elected leaders advised of the oosite. Here is what devin nunes said on fox news. There is a lot of concerns with the economy here because people aregocared t out. If youre healthy, you and your family, it is a greatime to go out and go to a local restaurant. He president reiterated the message that Public Health officials have been urging this for days. My administration is recommending that everyone engages in schooling from home p whensible. Avoid gathering in groups of more than 10 people, avoid discretionary travel and avoid eating and drinking in bars, restaurants and public food courts. There are also reports that the Trump Administration believes a foreign disinformation camayign is undeo so fear of a coming nationwide quarantine. Rumor tha white has officials denied. Still, closures and the u. S. Supreme court postponed arguments, including one over subpoes for President Trumps financial records. It is considered the first such recess since the spanish flu outbreak. There are some glimmers of progress. Testing is being ramped up to prioritize medical workers whoh might work wfected patients and Senior Citizens who are most at risk. President trump told governors on a Conference Call today t to geir own respirators and ventilators and not wait for the federal governthnt to provide. Some hospitals have erected tents outside of their facilities to prepare for the increased demand and care. Most patients infeed with coronavirus have recovery without any repcussions. In order to limit him in contact, more than 10 states offer drive through viral testing. U. S. Researchers in seattle also administered the first experimental coronavirus vaccine. Health officials have warned it will take at least a year before any vaccine is ready for widespread use. Elsewhere around the world, numerous other countries announced strict new policies on the movements of tens of millions of people. Canada announced it was closing itsor border to any noncitize resident. Emmanuel macron ordered all citizens to remain at home for two weeks except for essential activities. In spain, the nation with the fourth highest infection rate, they have been on National Lockdown since saturday. The peace corps temporarily suspended its operations. Thats as it evacuate all of its volunteers from all untries. I am william right now. Judy we returno track the white house response to all of this. There wis a briefing afternoon. The president seemed to take a different tone today. That is right. President trump was complete different in his tone and the ppway he wasaching coronavirus. Much more somber. Ser in the past, he downplayed the virus. He said a miracle might wash away the virus and tould be cases going down to zero. Today he said there mig be a recession because of coronavirus. He also said that u. S. Hospitals might be overwhelmed. He said this couwa last all the to august and maybe even longer. He was telling people that you need to be vigilt. There are three big people big things people want you to do. Stay away from bars and restaurants. The third was please dont gather. Dont gather in more than 10 people. If you have a large family, you have to separate even if youre the same home. The president is there with numbers of the tasforce. What were they saying today about the status of testing and about the situation with regard to the ventilators that will be necessary if people become very sick . The president and Health Officials said we are entering a new phase in testing they will roll out 1. 9 million new tests. They are still focusing on testing people who show symptoms of covid19. That is an infection caused by coronavirus. The president ordered a lot of ventilators. On the call,cr he did get icized afterwards because he told governors they would be e shouldlying on their own ventilators. The president was saying that the federal governments resources should be the last resort. They are looking at tal equipment but that should not be looking at the white hou right no for the first stock in ventilators or respiratory equipment. ju we know people have been looking to the white house for how they would handle the financial, the economic fallout from this virus. We saw what happenedtoo the markety. What are they saying about that . It was remarkable to hear the president say we might be going into an economic ren. Whthe house has been saying today that they are preparing and have announcedp to 800 billion in economic aid. That is to individuals but als to companies the president said we will have the airlines possible specifically. We should note that the senate jority leader said he is preparing a bill for 750 billion focused on the coronavirus. What we are seeing are billions and billions of dollars bei put into the coronavirus response. They are still fearing how this will work. The white house doepa want a oll tax cut. There is going to be another bill coming. There will be a third bill coming that the president will be looking at and negotiatin on. Judy so much to keep track of. Thank you. As we have been mentioning, panic rocked the World Markets today. The dow dropped 3000 points. It is down nearly one third of its value since peaking in midfebruary. The nasdaq fell 970 points and the s p 500 fell 325. John yang looks at the economic pain that is being inflicted by the widening coronavirus. John this followed extraordinary action from the d yesterday. It cut a key Interest Rate to zero. The move is aimed at shoring up Investor Confidence as restaurant are closing, sporting events are canceled and people are being urged to stay home. Director of th Hutchins Center on monetary policy. Figure for joining us. How big a deal is what the fed did yesterday . David it was a big deal. The fed basically said we will use all the monetary ammunition we have. They restarted bduying, quantitative easing. They said we are making it as easys possible for banks to borrow from the fed so they can keep lending. Was a very big deal it is everything the fed cani don terms of monetary policy. Going into recession, what is left . What can be done . It is clear we are going into recession. The fed has a few emergency h powers i not used yet. The ones it used during the 20 2008 financial crisis. Really, the game is up to fiscal policy. We need a big package from congress, tax cs and spending increases to replace the demand that hass evaporatedople are told not to go out and people are losing their jobs by the minute. We have a not so distant history with fiscal policy in times of economic turmoil. The financial crisis at the end of the Bush Administration and beginning of the obama administration. What lessons did we learn then . Adavid the lessons to learn. The situation is different. This was not caused by an imbalance in the financial system. It was a shock from outside but one of the key lessons we learned is it is important to do a lot and do it soon. Waiting to see how things develop at a time like this is a mistake. Although the government has a very big debt, they are also ableo borrow at very low Interest Rates. I think most economists say it is time for congress and the president to borrowome money, do a big fiscal stimulus and get on with it. They are worried that the political dysfunction in washington could slow it down. Talkbout that. The haggling over the details. What goes into this package . Paid sick leave . The bailing out of airlines and the financial the cruise ship induhiry . I the next step is going to be hundreds of billions of dollars. Some will go to Industries Like airlines, hotels, restaurants, businesses so they will be able to stay alive and they will be able to function when this ends but eventually some of it will go to individual households. After all, a lot of people wont see as much income because they dont work as many hours. They will be laid off. Some will get unemployment, some wont. This is something really unusual. Have not seen such an abrupt end of consumption. People told not to shop. Think how different this is from 9 11 when president bushioaid the pac thing was to go shop. Now we are told the patriotic netflix and amazon will make some money but a lot of other people will be in trouble. Thank you very much. You are welcome. Hearing a lot about to help deal with coronavirus is what is knownve as flattening the c if not enough protective measures are taken, there will be a sharply rising number of cases. Blueown in this pa spike. A huge jump over a very st timeframe. That would strain the capacity of our Health System. Flattening the lower grace well is caused by social distancing. Our doctor has been talking about th very issue. He isith the brigham a Womens Hospital in boston. He is with us now. Between washington and the states, are then ameri people being given enough guidance to induce them to do the right things . Ihink we are starting to be to urgently increase the paceed and coordination of stringency in the response. The curvere youalking about, the trajectories we are seeing are not sustainable fte our health sto manage. We do not have enough ventilators to manage a moderate or severe outbreak like this. We have to stretch out the number of cases anderrevent the nuf cases from flooding the hospitals now. To clarify, we are not saying that people wont get this virus. O a lopeople will get it. The goal is to not have so many of them gett at the same time which would overwhelm the careity of our heal system correct . Correct. The issue ibo the speed and growth oft cases, of people t get it and the severity of cases that would overwhelm our acute hospital and i see you systemss response capacity. Judy ng i am as because many can avoidnk that they this altogether. The fact is that Many Americans will get the coronavirus, correct . It appears to be so. Has a high reproduction rate, it has a high infection rate. A lot of those cases might be mild but a lot will bsevere. Especially for people in highrisk. Americans should be distancinghemselves, staying at home. What do you say to those people who say i really need to continue whatever work i can continue . I need to get out because my family is depending on me . They will be some of the really difficult choices we all face moving ahead. On thene hand, these seem to be voluntary choices. We are saying that somerk people are g from home. Some companies are trying to have their workers work from home. As we saw in san francisco, there will be involuntary measures that will start to close down and distance people from each other physically. Wwhile peop work in nonessential services may want to continue that work and i am very sympathetic to it, unfortunately, the speed and the rise o ethisdemic may make necessary more iesoluntary closr restrictions. Judy a lot of people are asking a question that is impossible to answer. How do you answer that . Last . I is a hard question but it is one we need to start grappling with. This looks to be many weeks to months. It is hard to imagine that there is there is evidence from other countries that we cant control this we can control this in just a week or two. It is really hard to predict the dynamics of any particular epidemic but this one is almost i think it is imp that we all have a new social compact around coming together by staying apart. Quickly, finally, to those who are concerned about whether therare enough hospital beds, enough venlators for the most seriously ill, what do you say . We have according to the american hospitalia asson a little more than 900,000 beds. We have about 50,000 medical icu beds that are staffed and another 50,000 other types of icu beds that are staffed. In total, about 160,000 beds. Moeven in rate scenario, if it all came at once, we would not have the capacity. What is needed now is for people to take the Community Mitigation and social distancing strategy is to flatten the turve and spret out so that if the cases do emerge, it can at least emerge over an increased amount of time. Otherwise, this will be very difficult on our Health System and Health Care Worker judy thank you very much, dr. Thank you. All over the country are taking unprecedented steps to limit the spread of the coronavirus in their state. Larry hogan of maryland ordered all restaurants, bars, gyms and movie theaters to close in his state. He joins us from annapolis, the capital. Weome back. What are the main steps you have taken in response to this . About 11 days ago we declared a state of emergency. We have taken a number of unprecedented steps. I think i was the firstovernor in america to close all of our schools. Today, we took a whole other host of steps. As the doctor was just talking about, trying to spread out this curb and bend theurve, we have to stop the spread. We closed all bars, restaurants, movie theaters, gyms, that is an unprecedented step. It will cause tremendous hardsh on a lot of peop and it mayeem extreme but we think it is absolute necessary to protect the lives of thousands of people in our state. We also called up a number, we have 1000 activated members of the natial guard today. We are trying to rapidly activate 6000 new hospital beds in our stateo address the other issue you were just talking about. Eth surge on our hospitals and the possibility of not being able to handle the capacity. We are trying to open some hospitals, add additional beds. We are waving license requirements wnsse nursing liis expired. We are waving them from other states and activating people. All kinds of steps thaare unprecedented. With all of that, do you believe you have done everything you could do . Every day, we try to take actions. We have take actions every day for the past two weeks. We think we are doing everyday we can do. Come up wi another thing wewe have to do. I have been trying to make the decisions as quickly and time is not our friend in this. Mean that some people will live and some will die. We are trying to make them as quickly as we can. We have a Coronavirus Task force made up of some of the smartest doctors in our task force. We are trying to b take tt medical advice. We have been getting somect din from the federal government but we are just making theecisions and taking actions on our own. Judy the president is saying to the governors that it is better for you to reach out number of ventilators youre going to need for people who become serioroly ill with virus. Do you think that is the right approach . How are you dealing . I am not sure that is the way he said it. I am the c National Governors association. We had 48 governors on call. I think he misspoke when he was talking and some of my colleagues may have put that out there. I am not sure what he meant to say but part of that is true. The governors are takingto steps et our own ventilators but we also need the federal government to get us as many as they can as quickly as possible. We did get a load from the stockpiles from the federal government last night. It inot nearly enough. We dont have nearly enough. Neitrr do any of the ot governors. We have to get as much help from the federal government as quickly as possible. We made that point very clear with the president. We are taking actions on our own to get these things from private sectors d other sources. We dont have time to argue about who is whose responsility it is. We just have to get things done a matter how we get them done. How worried are youbout the 6 million citizens in your state . We are worried. We dont want people to panic. I understand these stepsnge are taound really scary. They are disruptive. Ioant people t understand that most people that get this virus are going to be ok. Its not really going to be that bad. The sbaptoms wont be tha we are trying to protect the people whore vulnerable. Our older citizens, people with Underlying Healt