Serious things that the american public, unfortunately, is going to have to get used to seeing. What were doing with the mitigation is try and blunt that, but no matter what we do, even with the i believe positive effects that were seeing with the mitigation, its going to be a tough couple of weeks coming up. The projections come as federal Health Experts consider recommending that everybody wear masks in public to help stop people who may not know they are infected from spreading the virus. This comes as the surgeon general, dr. Jerome adams says social distancing could remain in place past the end of this month. What weve always said is that everyone is on a different place on their curve. Some places arent going to hit their peak until after 30 day, and theyre going to need to continue social distancing. Other places that leaned in early may be able to relax involvement of the recommendations earlier. Meantime, the irs and the Treasury Department both say americans can start receiving pandemic relief payments in the next three weeks. A lot of questions about those payments. Im getting a lot of them from you. Id like to continue to because ben popkin and i are going to continue to answer them. You can tweet us and use velshi. Thats the way we can sort out youre trying to get an answer to a check as opposed to just sending me a regular insult on twitter. The end of the show and every day well answer your questions. Lets start with this florida stayathome order. Nbcs Kerry Sanders is with us in ft. Lauderdale. Kerry, everything in florida has been slower to come an everyone else. They were slower to shut down beaches, slower to recommend social distancing. They have not dealt with this issue of use ships which i can see one behind you. Now finally theyre issuing a stayathome order. Reporter very slow, off the mark. A lot of criticism from around the country to the Florida Governor ron desantis. Matter of fact, he issued his order about 90 minutes before a judge in the state capital in tallahassee was having a hearing with lawyers who filed a suit to try to bring about a statewide mandate for stayathome. Those lawyers saying he believes this was the governors response to their lawsuit. The details, well, as you noted, theres going to be a stayathome order for 30 days. It will go into effect beginning thursday at midnight. The beaches will be impacted. In much of the state there are still areas where the beaches are wide open. New smyrna, daytona, along the panhandle. This stayathome order will have an impact on that. You noted we have the cruise ships behind me. Were at port everglades. If you look at airports, you can see planes stacked up. These ships are empty. The two ships headed here, the rotterdam and the zaandam, 2,500 crew and passengers on board, four dead, nine positive tests for covid19 and about 200 that the cruise line says theyre treating as if they have coronavirus with their flulike symptoms. That brings us now to what the coast guard has issued in a memorandum. Its a maritime memorandum. Were going to put it up on the screen here. Its not overly complicated. Its just dense language. Let me read it slowly. To ensure the safety of persons on board and mitigate the potential of overwhelming local medical resources, all vessels operating within the seventh district aor, area of responsibility, with more than 50 persons on board should increase their medical capabilities, personnel and equipment in order to care for individuals with ilis that means people exhibiting signs of an illness for an indefinite period of time. This is necessary as shoreside medical facilities may reach full capacity and lose the ability to accept and effectively treat additional critically ill patients. What that goes to is telling the cruise lines for the ships that are still at sea, it is going to be their responsibility to get doctors, nurses, onto the ships to treat them rather than what Governor Ron Desantis has been saying all along, having the ships come in here, have people come off and potentially overwhelm the medical system here, overwhelming it before floridas numbers climb to a critical state. One other piece in that memorandum from the coast guard specifically talks about vessels flagtd in the bahamas. Vessels that are flagged in the bahamas are being told they have to go to the bahamas. Its a pretty small country really. The Hospital System would be overwhelmed, but they have to go there because thats where theyre flagged even if theyre u. S. Ships. Ali, a lot of changes coming as were speaking and a lot of concern on board these ships. People say were stuck on these ships. We feel like were surrounded by coronavirus. Those that are ill want to get medical care. Theres about 300 american passengers on board. All the others are from other countries, australia, germany, the netherlands. They want to go home. The only way to do that is get off and go through ft. Lauderdale to make their way out. Ali. What a remarkable story. None of the u. S. Cruise lines have their ships flagged in the United States. Theyre all flagged in the bahamas, panama and liberia. All of a sudden, thats not working for them. Yet another thing that might change in the post coronavirus age. Kerry sanders from ft. Lauderdale. Lawmakers on capitol hill are discussing the possibility of establishing a panel to scrutinize the white house response to coronavirus similar to the commission that investigated the 9 11 attacks. This morning the chairman of the house intelligence committee, california congressman adam schiff confirmed that these efforts are under way. He tweeted in part, quote, we need a nonpartisan commission to review our response and how we can better prepare for the next pandemic. Joining me is nbcs Geoff Bennett who joins us live from the white house lawn. Geoff, theres really been a lack of clarity from the president because theyre his own comments and own tweets well until the 12th of march where he was not taking this seriously, and then theres this new thing thats been floating for the last couple days. The president mentioned it in his press conference yesterday, that the impeachment distracted him from this, although the impeachment was over by early february. Its not making a lot of sense which is causing people to say we need to look into why the response has been so delayed. Reporter youre right about that. Thats precisely why adam schiff says this commission is so necessary. The reporting of our colleagues Courtney Kube and Leigh Ann Caldwell who reported this first for us at nbc says this is still early days. Schiff has made clear this commission, this legislation hes drafting that would set up such a commission wouldnt happen until congress deals with the task at hand. That is drafting and ultimately passing at least one more Economic Relief package related to the coronavirus outbreak. He also says, and its entirely possible this commission wouldnt be set up until after the election if, in fact, thats how long it takes the country to get through this, what is now a cascading coronavirus crisis. But, yes, to your point, in that tweet he said after pearl harbor and 9 11 we looked at what went wrong to learn from our mistakes. Congressman schiff is saying they want to figure out what the administration overlooked so they have a plan in place, not just this administration, but any subsequent administration would have a plan in place to know how to deal with it better, ali. Geoff, yesterday the president warned america, and i want to point out the bottom right of the screen. You can see the dow, almost the tenth biggest number. Seems to be a reaction to a statement the president made yesterday that the next two weeks would be unusually rough. Even the tone of his press conference was different yesterday. He now seems to be treating this like someone who believes this is a serious matter thats going to kill lots of americans. Youre right about that. Think about it. February 26th, President Trump said this is a flu, this is a flu. Just yesterday in the briefing room, he said its not a flu, this is vicious. Well, the virus hasnt changed. But certainly his rhetoric has changed. Im not one who puts a lot of stock in the president s tone and rhetoric. Even his allies have said dont pay so much attention to what President Trump says, pay more attention to what he does. Even though his rhetoric might have shifted, there are still real questions about the response. Youve seen the president trying to push more authority, more responsibility to the states, to the governors to really care for their own citizens, but the governors have said, some of them anyway, democrat and republican, there needs to be a more coordinate dollar, more forceful national response. They can no longer deal with this patchwork approach where you have states trying to outbid each other for things like ventilators. You heard andrew cuomo say yesterday its much like being on ebay, trying to bit with a state. The governor of connecticut spoke to our chris hayes yesterday and described a hodgepodge system where they put out purchase orders for things, and they believe a truck is on the road, a plane is on the tarmac. By the time they get to the warehouse, they realize there was never a shipment that was ever delivered. This is the kind of thing, the real logjam. This is beyond any normal bureaucratic bottleneck issue. Its a real issue the administration has to identify and solve. Here we are nine weeks, ten weeks after the first case of coronavirus was discovered here in this country. Geoff, youve been doing yeomans work reporting on this. Its not easy. Thank you, sir. Geoff bennett at the white house. The white house did reveal a sobering death toll projection for the coming weeks, saying between 100,000 and 240,000 americans could die by mid june as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. They showed a slide actually which is a nice development, but its a terrible slide when you look at it. This projection takes into account the strict mitigation measures that are in place or likely to be in place over the next 30 days such as stayathome orders that are already in effect across various states. Joining me is dr. Grad, serves as the assistant professor of immunology and Infectious Diseases at harvard university. Dr. Grad, thank you for being with us. Dr. Fauci was asked by a reporter several times, a reporter like me without medical knowledge trying to understand that 140,000 to 240,000 includes mitigation measures. Thats actually the projection that, if we do all the right things, that many people may still die in america. I believe thats right. I think those numbers are not unreasonable. Without those mitigation measures, you could see the numbers much higher. In the figure we saw a projection of no mitigation efforts and then what we see is the flattening of the peak that we heard so much about or flattening of the curve with the mitigation efforts. I think an important point to make is this curve is intended to represent the pandemic in the United States as a whole. But the epidemic is local or even hyper local with different times of introduction and extent of spread in communities where the patchwork responses that weve been hearing about really influence the shape of that curve. So the extent and duration of the interventions, the mitigation efforts will really influence the shape of that curve and the number of people we see at risk. Im going to ask the control room to put that curve back up. I think its important to discuss. Its a national curve. But, in fact, the way we experience it is not national at all. In a place like new york, were up against that capacity. We know that. We know if you call 911, you may have to hold. We know there are police and First Responders that are off. We know there are hospitals that have shortages, but there are some parts of the United States where Health Care Capacity is ample. Theres not just the flattening of the curve, but this isnt one america. This is many americas when it comes to this infection. Thats right. And we know that the instruction the epidemic has been introduced into different commune stays at different times. The first case is being identified in seattle where theyve had quite aggressive measures to try to mitigate the spread and appear from recent projections to be successful in flattening the curve. Other places, like we were just hearing, in florida, where the efforts seem quite delays, and we may see a very different kind of experience. So these patchwork responses i think will also be important as we look across the country as a whole, what the numbers will end up looking like. Let me ask you, for people like you who study the spread of infectio infectious disease, all the numbers and all the data is important. That concept of without any mitigation, 2. 2 Million People could have died, and there was a study from Imperial College that stated that. That was out in mid march even though the president said he didnt see it before sunday. In real life, the idea of zero mitigation doesnt exist, right . Thats like a firefighter saying the building would have burned down if i didnt turn on the hose. There was always going to be some mitigation, so what is a figure like that useful for . Its helpful to understand what the worst Case Scenario might be. But then theres the question of how successful are our mitigation efforts. They may extend from all the different kinds of responses that weve seen, closing schools, closing bars and restaurants, encouraging people to stay at home or enforcing those kinds of measures to what we saw in china, a very aggressive measure to keep people at home, identify cases, trace contacts and then to use quarantine and isolation to try to really tamp down any continued spread. So there are measures we anticipate will be successful and helpful in slowing the spread. This gives us a sense of what the worst Case Scenario might be and then we have a wide range of potential impacts from the various interventions people are putting in place. Those different interventions go ahead. Finish your thought. Im sorry about that. Its okay. I was going to say, as we start to think about emerging from the lockdown that were in, in fact, the fragmented responses can be quite valuable. Theyre natural experiments where we can see which type of intervention was successful and to what extent. Perhaps that can help guide us and give us a playbook we dont have right now as we think how to emerge from the current lockdown. Thats exactly why this is really relevant and really important, because setting a date for us all in the country to emerge from this may not be logical. It may be there are many different dates depending on where you are and what antibodies people have and how the mitigation has worked. Thats why this conversation has been so important. Dr. Grad, thank you for joining us. The dow is now bouncing in and out of a level that is actually going to make it into likely to make it into one of the top ten biggest drops that weve seen in the history of the dow. Its out of it snou. Bouncing in and around there. Ill keep you posted. We have positive news, and its from italy. It could bring some hope to americans sheltering at home. After more than three weeks of strict lockdown, the head of the countrys institute of health says the virus has reached its plateau and could soon decline. The World Health Organization claims there has been a decrease in the number of daily cases reported over the last week, Officials Say they are seeing fewer new cases. So far italy has more than 110,000 cases, 13,155 people have died. The mortality rate in italy is unusually high. Its important to note that nearly 17,000 people have recovered. Nbcs matt bradley joins me now with the latest developments from rome where hes been for some time. Matt, italy, were hoping, may be too early to tell, seems to be turning the corner. Thats always the danger, right . People see the plateauing and stop the mitigation. How are officials responding to this may be a plateau. Reporter we heard from the Prime Minister of italy, he said what we expected. Theyll continue this nationwide lock down until april 13, the day after easter. This is a very important holiday. The vatican isnt that far from where im standing right now. Hes going to wait for the experts. I wouldnt be surprised if he extended it. He did say he expects theyre going to have to talk to experts and decide what to do then. Lets remember that even though it seems to be plateauing. The head of the National Institute of health said that, that all these other countries are ramping up. Were seeing in asia that the real threat there is a secondary threat of infection, a kind of echo. Thats what italians dont want to see. Ali, this country has sacrificed so much. Theyre not going to lift the lockdown and allow another wave of infections to come in or a latent wave thats been resting here to spread once again and kill off everybody who is remaining. That would be impossible. They understand very well, and thats what the Prime Minister said tonight, we cant turn or back on the progress weve already made, ali. Matt, what happens when we get out of the mandatory lockdown. Italy had problems in the beginning, particularly with a young population, a hard society to lock down. Its like america. How are you thinking people are going to handle that . This is a very westernized society, of course. Its just like america, very individualistic. Its not like a country in asia, like in china, where the government can easily and is quite capable of intervening into the private lives of its citizens. Were going to have to see them slowly, gradually easing up. One of the big problems here, ali, and one of the problems well see in the United States is that some parts of the country are carrying the virus burden. The north. Thats the rich part of the country. The parts in the south, they havent seen the disease in any real serious way. Theyve seen a spike in infections, some deaths. They have a much weaker Health System and a lot of poverty. Those people down there are already seeing rumblings. Very res