And up to 200,000 deaths. The president listening to his medical advisers and he has adjusted policy. The social distancing rules will be extended until april 30th. Therefore, the shutdown of the economy will continue well beyond easter. The president says the recovery will start by june 1st. On the markets, expect continued volatility. We have certainly seen that already today. At one point early this morning, futures showed a loss of a couple hundred points. Now we are looking at a gain at the opening bell of a couple hundred points. That would be almost 1 . A similar gain, better gain, actually, for the nasdaq, up about 1. 25 and the s p also up over 1 . A rally at the opening bell. Investors seem to like the idea of more pain now so we get out of it faster. The other big financial story is the price of oil. This is apart from the virus. This is the price of oil. Look at it. Its down to 20 a barrel. Earlier it hit 19. 20. 48 is the price right now. The saudis have declared war on American Drillers and at this point, they appear to be winning. More on that later. But look at this. The price of gasoline coming down truly rapidly, about two cents a day. The National Average is now 2. 01 per gallon. In oklahoma, the cheapest state for gas, the average is all the way down to 1. 58 a gallon. Time to update the progress of the virus. Remember, it first arrived in the United States in Washington State. Seattle now offers some hope. The mayor there says quote, we have slowed the rate of transmission. That is good news. At the end of february, seattle became the first place to advise people to keep social distance. Five weeks later, the policy appears to be working. Perhaps that is a lesson for the whole country. The more stringent the restrictions, the sooner we make progress. All right. Keith fitzgerald is based in the seattle area and has been reporting on the situation there for some time. He joins us now. Keith, how are the people of Washington State taking their fiveweek lockdown . Tell you what, stuart, initially seattle residents were skeptical because this is a progressive city, a lot of things that make this the democratic socialist republic of the northwest worked against us. Now everybody is in sort of a positive mood. Its scary, theres a long way to go but it appears to be working and theres a confidence that sort of is working its way through the system. People are beginning to associate these measures with the fact that hey, maybe we really can get a handle on this. Stuart now, in Washington State, thats where you are, you have been there for some time, obviously, do you think you can see the other side of this . Well, tell you what, im a lot more optimistic than a lot of people so yes, me personally, i can see it but i believe that a lot of my neighbors, a lot of the folks that live here, are also beginning to think about what this looks like on the other side. Stuart all right. Keith, hold on for me. I will get back to you in a moment. We will talk about the market. Lets get more Ashley Webster is with me. If you look at the shot it looks like the man is outside but i dont know whether hes outside or not. Ashley i am. I am. Stuart ashley, yes, you are, tell me about this travel advisory for people leaving new york, new jersey and connecticut. Ashley yeah. The cdc has said they would like People Living in basically the tristate area, new york, new jersey and connecticut, to refrain from nonessential travel for the next 14 days. In other words, if you dont have to travel out of the area, please do not do it. It kind of comes after the president walked back his comments that he was considering a quarantine of new york. That drew the ire of new York Governor Andrew Cuomo who says thats like the federal government declaring war on us. So thats not happened. But the cdc says those People Living in the tristate area, please do not travel but it does not apply to critical workers and those that are needed to keep the infrastructure in place. Stuart ashley, can you tell me the roadblock on i95, i think it was at the florida georgia border, what happened there . Ashley yes. Exactly. Well, the state of florida decided they want to monitor whos coming into their state, especially those vehicles with new york license plates. So they set up a checkpoint and it didnt go well because they said it completely interrupted the flow of traffic. Its a big trucker route. I dont know if any of you have ever taken i95 south but its all trucks all the way and the backup went for miles. Eventually they had to break down that traffic stop and let the traffic go smoothly and get that jam cleared. They did reinstate it a number of hours later but a little less restrictively. It just gives you a sense of the fear out there, the containment effort, that now any car with the new york license plate is definitely on the radar. Stuart thanks, ash. Lets go to susan li. Shes with us this morning. I believe theres a new virus test from abbott labs. Tell me more. Susan just approved by the fda and apparently it gets you results in just five minutes, up to 13 minutes depending how much actual coronavirus you have in your bloodstream. Its an actual physical box and they will be available on april 1st, 50,000 tests a day and testing has been lagging in this coronavirus pandemic for people to try to detect whos actually got it and who dont. This is very positive and promising, i would say. Stuart whats the news from Johnson Johnson . I believe their stock is up. Have they got an announcement . Susan up 4 premarket because they are starting to test the Coronavirus Vaccine. Human trials by september according to j j in conjunction with the health and Human Services department, billion dollar investment for them. They say actual physical clinical tests could start in september and that means also approval possibly for use by early 2021. We know moderna has another trial, preclinical trial under way for a possible Coronavirus Vaccine but again, a lot more Drug Companies are getting involved with this. Gilead also has remdesivir, this potential drug that could help of course alleviate coronavirus. Stuart thanks, susan. Progress on that front for sure. Dr. Kate tulenko joins us now. Doctor, the abbott labs test seems like a breakthrough. What do you think . Yes, so its different in two ways. One is maenas mentioned it can results in five minutes and two, doesnt need a laboratory. You can process tests in a clinic, nursing home or even parking lot testing center. That will make a huge difference. Stuart it seems like the effort against the virus is now being led by health professionals, that the president is listening to them. Would you agree with that . I think we are all encouraged that the social distancing guidelines have been extended to the 30th. I think that will make a big difference because it will give the Health System time to increase its capacity and give us time to increase the testing and also look at emerging treatments. It was interesting that the American Enterprise institute yesterday published its road map for reopening the u. S. And it had everything that you would expect to see looking at increasing testing, looking at maintaining social distancing during the opening, looking at increasing the Health System capacity and very interestingly, recommending a Data Platform so that all the states can get accurate, timely Data Available to the federal government and to businesses and anyone who needs to make decisions around the coronavirus. Because currently, the cdc is not updating its website on a daily basis. Taps w thats why you see people relying on the Johns Hopkins website. This access to data will make a big difference. One thing i would like to see expanded in the American EnterpriseInstitute Proposal is the rapid increase in production of the emerging treatments. For example, i would love to hear how many doses of remdesivir can gilead produce in the next month and how can producers of the interleukin 6 inhibitors scale up as well. One thing we learned from the hiv aids epidemic is early treatment is prevention. If you can get to people early and treat them, you will prevent them from spreading it to others and also, you can probably reduce mortality as well because we know once people are on ventilators, the mortality rate is about 50 . Assist doctor, thank you very much for joining us. We do appreciate it. Breakthrough from abbott labs. Got it. Now, on to senator bill cassidy, republican from louisiana. The new hot spot in the country appears to be new orleans. Whats the situation there with the hospitals . Yeah, so good morning, stu. We are increasing capacity. Theres going to be an offsite hospital, if you will, set up but clearly we have a lot of cases. Per capita, new orleans, the parish in which it is, the county in which it resides, is the highest in the nation on a per capita basis. So weve got a major problem here. We are doing our best to cope. Stuart are you asking for the federal government for help building Field Hospitals, for example . On the phone absolutely. There will be a Field Hospital that will be established here, our hospitals are coordinating with one another so that those facilities which are where you normally get a colonoscopy or get your orthopedic procedure are now being enlisted to also help so theres a variety of things being done but ultimately, if the number of cases continues to increase, they will overwhelm our facilities which is why we need these additional facilities. Stuart senator, in view of all these cases coming out of new orleans, do you wish that mardi gras had been canceled . On the phone you know, we live life forward. At the time there was no indication from the federal government that there was anything in the United States except the pacific northwest. So i think in the first the first thing that was canceled was south by southwest which was two weeks later. I think its better to say using the best available information, everybody went with how they did. I will say the mayor did begin canceling parades after that but thats after cases began to turn up. Its hard to imagine a future, if you are being told the future is okay. Stuart senator bill cassidy joining us on the phone. Thanks for joining us. We appreciate it. Lets go back to susan for more on the Health Insurers humana and cigna. Susan thats right. We heard that at the press conference yesterday if tn the e garden they are saying if you have coronavirus we will waive all copays, all payments involved in coronavirus treatment which i think is very generous and when Mark Meredith of fox pressed on whether or not thats true, the president said yes, it is. Thats something patients should obviously look at, talk to your underwriters when it comes to these copays and possible payments, they are affected by coronavirus. Stuart thank you, susan. Check out the market as we head towards the opening bell. It looks like weve got braa broadbased rally. Dow up 200, nasdaq up 100, s p up about 30. Next, treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin. So you only pay for what you need [squawks] only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. From anyone else. So why accept it from your allergy pills . Flonase relieves your worst symptoms which most pills dont. Get allinone allergy relief for 24 hours, with flonase. Stuart joining us, treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin, joining us on the phone. Mr. Secretary, this program has been deluged with Small Business owners asking us please tell us how do we get our money and when do we get it. Would you answer those questions, mr. Secretary . On the phone up and running with the sba is one of the most exciting parts of this package. Ive said these loans will be available starting on friday which will be at lightning speed. We hope later today, that we will be releasing the documents and the instructions. It will be a very simple process where Small Business owners can go to any of the existing sba lenders but they can also go to any fdic insured institution, any credit union, and any fintec letter that signed up for this program. We expect it will be very easy. They will get eight weeks of payroll, plus 25 for overhead and as long as they use that money to bring back their employees or pay their employees, it will be forgiven. This is a great way of getting americans back to work. Stuart how much money will be flowing out there in the way youve described to Small Business . On the phone 350 billion. We think this covers about 50 of the private work force so again, this is a very effective way that the president has designed for us to keep people at work so that when the economy opens up, theyre ready and Small Businesses have their employees and are open for business. Stuart if the number of applications surges, is there more money available perhaps in the future above and beyond 350 billion . On the phone well, this is a very Popular Program with republicans and democrats and the president likes it a lot, so if we run out of money and this is a huge success, we will absolutely go back to congress and ask for more money. By the way, it makes economic sense because every Single Person that we put through this program, we dont have to pay unemployment insurance. So this is a great way of protecting our Small Business workers and the companies. Stuart how confident are you that the economy can start to recover by june 1st as the president suggests . On the phone well, i think the president s done the right thing listening to medical professionals that we are going to wait a little longer to make sure we kill this virus, and we are prepared. We have a lot of money, as you know, over 2 trillion to put to work, plus we can lever another 4 trillion with the Federal Reserve and the president and i are 100 determined to provide liquidity to the market. We think this existing package gets us through the next eight to 12 weeks so we are in the process of putting a lot of money into americans pockets and providing liquidity for business. Stuart but it is going to be a rough eight weeks, as we have extended the social distancing rules out through april 30th. Going to be a rough quarter, isnt it . On the phone it is. I would just say we are very sympathetic, there will be people who lose their jobs, hopefully this is a temporary issue, and through the threepart program, the Small Business program, the direct deposit checks that well have in peoples accounts in three weeks and the enhanced unemployment insurance, you know, thats a way to protect American Workers who, no fault of their own, this has nothing to do with the american economy, this all has to do with a medical disease. Stuart a few minutes ago, President Trump appeared on fox friends on the Fox News Channel and suggested that hazardous pay, hazard pay for first responders, nurses, would be considered. Are you considering that, sir . On the phone i think i agree with the president , i think that makes a lot of sense. When we get to the next bill in congress, thats definitely something we will put in the next bill. Stuart the next bill, that implies a fourth stimulus program. Are you organizing that now . On the phone not yet. We have a lot of money now that were deploying and our number one job at treasury right now, we have the team working around the clock making sure we get these programs up and running. These programs dont do any good for americans three or four months from now, so we are deploying this money now, and as we see how the virus goes forward, we are ready to work with congress if we need more enhancements or additional funds. Stuart you talked about the economy coming roaring back. You hold with that, we come roaring back after june 1st . On the phone i think so. I think we will have a rough order because we shut down major parts of the economy, but our economy was in great shape. Our economy was the economy that was really growing and leading the world and American Business is going to get through this and we are going to be prepared, and i expect that with all this liquidity we are putting into the economy to get through the next couple of months, when we reopen, we will be ready and the economy will surge back. Stuart if the economy surges back, would you suggest that the stock market does as well . On the phone absolutely. If you see the stock market, you see the bond markets, again, i have always said i cant predict where they are going to be in another day or another week, but i think a year from now, u. S. Investments are still the best investments in the world and for longterm investors, its a great time to continue to invest in the u. S. Stuart mr. Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, thank you very much for taking time out to be with us this morning. It is much appreciated, sir. Thank you. On the phone thank you as well. Bye. Stuart thank you, sir. Thank you. Peter morici is with us, economist, Professor Emeritus of economics. Professor, if i can call you that, you were listening to treasury secretary mnuchin. I was particularly impressed with the amount of money going out to Small Business, the way its going to be put out there very very quickly. Looks like this is a real dynamic program. What do you say . I think so. If he can get it out in t