Like a nightmare that doesnt end. Families hunkering down for the next two weeks. How bad will it get its been very frightening. This is a character test for all of us. Announcer this is an nbc news special report. The coronavirus pandemic. Good evening, everyone, welcome tonight. A special look at what has suddenly forced its way forefront of all of our lives. One of the biggest crises weve ever faced, the coronavirus pandemic well bring you the latest on the outbreak and in collaboration with facebook well be answering some of the questions most important to you what concerns you most about the coronavirus pandemic go to our Facebook Page to weigh in our panel of experts will answer your questions throughout the hour were all in new and uncharted territory. Just tonight governor good afternoon newsom of california, the biggest state in the nation with nearly 40 million people, has issued a stay at home order for the entire state this is the new normal well go to jo ling kent now in california with more on that breaking Development Reporter lester, thats right. This has just been issued in the last hour. And the whole idea of this stay at home order here in the state of california is to prevent and stem the spread of covid19 known as coronavirus what we know is the stay at home order starts tonight it goes through april 19th and it requires the closures of malls, playgrounds, nonessential businesses, to shut down starting tonight at midnight however if you do have gatherings of between two and nine people, those can be in a confined space, in a private space, say, in your home the other good news is, because we are in california, you can still go for a walk. You can go to the grocery store, to restaurants, as long as youre practicing six feet of social distancing. Here in los angeles weve seen it come over this time, but it does begin at midnight it starts tomorrow jo ling kent with that breaking news, thanks very much. This is our new normal except its not normal we direct a statewide order for people to stay at home that directive goes into force and effect this evening. And we were confident, we are confident, that the people of the state of california will abide by it. Were living through a time unlike any other in american history. Tonight, the nation is facing a mindboggling array of unprecedented challenges theres risk to lives and livelihood the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting economic fallout have americans frightened, anxious, and confusedimive never seen anything like this. But in the history of our country. This is something that has never happened nbc news medical correspondent dr. John torres. Peoples lives will be affected, from a financial perspective, psychological perspective, and economic perspective. Nearly every american has been affected in some way. Major cities essentially shut down reporter these dramatic disruptions to daily life reverberate from cost to cost. Nbcs stephanie gosk. Reporter things shutting down that a few weeks ago would have seemed unimaginable, from wine country in San Francisco to vegas. Among those hardest hit, hotels, bars, and restaurants. Derek thompson of the atlantic says owners and employees are beside themselves. Theyre terrified, and they should be. The industry sees job losses of 5 to 7 million in three months so many new jobless claims that some states websites have crashed at times nationwide, the number of confirmed u. S. Coronavirus cases has surged the tristate new york metropolitan area has more than 5,800. As Governor Andrew Cuomo said, thats because more people are being tested but it doesnt mean that thats the rate of increase in society. Still, one of the biggest concerns is new Research Showing the threat to young people nbcs tom costello reporter we have some very Important News from the cdc. 40 of the people who are hospitalized are actually younger people, 20 to 54 and in one large new jersey family, unimaginable tragedy Seven Members of the fusco family contracted the disease. Four of them, the mother and three children, have died. Three others are hospitalized. What that highlights is just how contagious this disease is, just how deadly this disease is. Another major concern, the chance of exposure to Health Care Workers dr. Frank esper of the cleveland cloi clinic were trying to prevent sickness coming to the health care provider. If we get sick, there may not be enough people to treat the individuals coming in sick we need gowns, we need face masks, we need goggles, and gloves of course today the total number of deaths in italy surpassed those in china, which was where the pandemic started but there was some possible good news the Chinese Government said there were no new local infections in china for the First Time Since the pandemic began four months ago, a possible signal that draconian containment measures there have finally taken hold one of the most trusted voices in this crisis has been dr. Anthony fauci, the director of allergy and Infectious Diseases and someone who has been on the front lines of Public Health good to be with you i want to talk about the learning curve, about transmission is it your best belief that contact would either be surface contact or coming in close proximity of someone who is expelling droplets the latter is clearly the driving force of the outbreak. Certainly theres been tests showing that it can live for a limited period of time on areas like door knobs and places like that but the Real Driving Force of the outbreak is either a direct sneezing or coughing on someone with droplets that generally wont go the six feet. Hence we talk about being six feet away from someone another reason we say wash your hands is because often people cough in their hands, shake your hand, then you wind up touching your nose and your mouth, which is the reason why you should wash your hands frequently and right now nobody should be shaking hands with each other these days i really mean that they should just not do that give the elbow bump or what have you, but dont shake hands the reason i ask, were all scurrying about, im probably 20 feet right now from the nearest person its not in the air, its not just floating in the air you know, there is some indication that it might be what they call aerosol which means the virus is in a droplet that is so small that it can stay in the air for a while. But its generally felt there may be an aerosol element of transmission but the overall transmissibility is through droplets and the kind of things like hand touching and touching your nose and your mouth but you cant rule out completely that it goes a certain distance in the air. We have watched this virus burn through asia and europe is there something youve learned by those experiences that is being applied today that you think works . Yeah. I definitely thats the reason why we have been recommending these mitigation issues and mitigation means, you know, physically separating people from each other. We know what happened in china they were devastated they had a massive curve that went down. Italy is suffering terribly right now. The only way you stop an outbreak from spreading profusely in a population is to do to the extent possible physical separation of people from one another thats inconvenient, it has economic consequences. But if you look at what the devastating effect of not doing that is, you realize you really should be doing that dr. Fauci, testing doesnt hurt someone whos infected, theres no treatment for the disease but it gives you a heads up as to what people youve been in contact with and protecting other people given the limited amount of testing, are you somewhat working in the dark here well, you know, in some respects you dont know what the full penetration in society is but literally within the last few days to several weeks and into the future, were going to see a lot more capability of not only having testing out there but actually implementing it even in the absence of testing, and i dont mean that there should be absence, we should be testing as much as we can, that doesnt stop you from doing the mitigation strategies of separation so its a twopart thing you want to test, but you also need to mitigate, even if you dont have tests available and one more question, you mentioned italy a moment ago is there something about the demographic makeup of italy versus the United States that would suggest a different outcome when it gets here on a large scale, larger scale . No. You know, thats a great question, mr. Holt the reason i think that theres a real problem, one of the things we did right was very early, cut off travel from china to the United States, because outside of china, where it originated, the countries in the world that have it are through travel, either directly from china or indirectly from someone who went someplace and then came to that particular country our shutting off travel from china, and more recently travel from europe, has gone a long way to not seeding very, very intensively the virus in our country. Unfortunately, italy did not do that they had an open border, they let people in. And until they really knew they were in trouble, then the cat was out the horse was out of the born aarn and that was it. Dr. Anthony fauci, always good to speak with you thank you for your service in this, thank you. A panel of experts will be answering your question throughout the hour. Dr. John torres, joseph fair, Business CorrespondentStephanie Ruhle, vicky nguyen, and nbc and msnbc medical contributor dr. Kavita patel i want to pick up on something dr. Fauci said jeff, this idea that it could be in the air from someone sneezing or causing does that explain why this has been so contagious not necessarily this really comes down to the coughing and direct contact. As dr. Fauci mentioned, very small droplets can suspend in air for a few moments but i have to emphasize the overwhelming number of cases come from the direct contact, when someone sneezes or coughs and that comes into direct contact with your eyes, nose, or mouth, or you cough in your hand, and you shake hands with someone dr. Torres, a question from cheryl on instagram. How can front line medical professionals protect their families when they go home after a shift at the hospital . I think we all worry about that. With er doctors, its the same thing we faced in the h1n1 epidemic we had in the 2009 time frame. Its a big worry, you dont want to take it to your families. You would essentially undress before you went in the house, put all clothes in the washing machine, start the washing machine, get in the shower, take a shower and dress back in your clothes and then you see your family at that point thats the best way to protect yourself you want to make sure, overemphasizing the washing of the hands. Throughout date, youre touching patients and surfaces. We cannot overemphasize washing the hands and clean all the areas. If youve been in the car, clean the steering wheel, other things like that that the family might get into we need these folks on the front lines. Dr. John, thank you. From katie on instagram, dr. Patel, is it safe for pregnant women to deliver at the hospital with a lack of ppe, personal Protection Equipment couldnt it easily be spread there . I deliver in two weeks, she writes lester, this is a very important question because this could go on for months, and people will need to feel that their hospitals are taking the precautions. Most hospitals, not only are they going through what they always do every day to make sure theyre clean and kind of keeping with current sanitation standards, but most hospitals, urban and rural, are actually doing what we would call respiratory isolation for patients suspected with coronavirus. That includes their own Health Care Workers the message to pregnant women is to have these honest discussions with their obstetricians in advance and understand exactly what their doctors are doing to take care of them. But rest assured that the country is absolutely prepared not just to take care of coronavirus patients but remember, there are a million hospital beds that have patients in them all the time for all sort of things including delivering babies safely an important point, thank you. Dr. Joseph fair, from paula on instagram, what makes this virus different from all others that its caused these lifealtering changes worldwide . Youre a veteran at dealing with pandemics and epidemics. 70 of what we call emerging Infectious Diseases come from wild animals this virus came from a wild animal market in wuhan, presumably when those viruses are introduced into humans, theyre not new viruses, theyre new to science, meaning we havent seen them before, and theyre new to humans we have what we call herd immunity, meaning weve been exposed to the common coronavirus for generations, tens of thousands of years as a species, weve developed some immunity to them. However every now and then, in increasing frequency, we have new viruses to which we have no herd immunity whatsoever so our immune systems overreact to them, causing what we call a cytokine storm leading to pathology and death. What is the mortality rate of people who have to be on ventilators, what are the odds of death once sick enough to be on a ventilator . Were trying to focus on the mortality rate overall of people who contract the coronavirus in china it seems to be higher than in other parts of the world. They said 3 to 4 , people now are focusing on 1 overall in china, the study they did recently looking at critical patients was a very small study, it was around 50 mortality once they were placed on ventilators or they got to that critical stage. Tough rememb you have to remember, this was china, older people with Health Conditions well have more questions from all of you, please continue to send questions and weigh in on our facebook survey about the issues most troubling and concerning to you. When we come back, a look at what we can learn from this virus being met around the world. We hope youll stay with us. The most rewarding thing about the work we do is whenever we see a customer able to communicate back to their loved ones. That is why we do what we do. announcer were relentlessly committed to the network. So in times like this, we can all stay connected to work, school, and mostly importantly, to each other. As a doctor, i agree with cdc guidance. I recommend topical pain relievers first. Like salonpas patch large. Its powerful, fdaapproved to relieve moderate pain, yet nonaddictive and gentle on the body. Salonpas. Its good medicine. Hisamitsu. Never run good moves. Killer attitude. Or hydration. Neutrogena® hydro boost. The 1 hyaluronic acid moisturizer delivers 2x the hydration for supple, bouncy skin. Neutrogena® amake it feelh impossible to breathe. Get relief behind the counter with claritind. Claritind improves nasal airflow 2x more than the leading allergy spray at hour 1. Claritind. Get more airflow. And platelet donations and asks healthy donors to schedule an appointment to give. During this corona virus outbreak, patients are counting on lifesaving transfusions. Visit redcrossblood. Org patients are counting on lifesaving transfusions. Dramatic choir music dramatic choir music dramatic choir music its the rush of relaxation. Introducing the allnew lincoln corsair. This crisis is called a pandemic for a reason. Its worldwide in scope. Hundreds of thousands of confirmed cases in every country but antarctica our chief Foreign CorrespondentRichard Engel is tracking the outbreak and joins us now from london richard . Reporter lester, it is now in 160 countries and territories. There are only about 190 countries and territories on the globe. So it truly is a pandemic now. Here in europe there is rationing at supermarkets. Borders seem to be closing every single day in italy, the people get together, they are watching the tv at 6 00 every evening, the newscast comes and announces the daily death toll and that death toll continues to go up. Germanys Angela Merkel says this is the worst crisis her country has faced since world war ii never in peacetime has the world looked like this cities across europe now desolate the people too scared or not allowed to go out. But finally tonight, some good news from china. Its seeing no new domestic infections the bad news is the cost was freedom. In january, china locked down more than 50 million in its hardesthit province, dragging people away who didnt comply. I spoke with one of the uks top virus trackers, epidemiologist neal ferguson, himself in isolation. He tested positive for the virus today. Does the United States need to go like what china did i think in the short term, those are the only options, unless you roll out testing on a massive scale and innovative tracing of cases thats what china and now korea is doing reporter when i saw what happened in china with tremendous restrictions, is that what we should be living with until we have a vaccine . I think there are probably a range of models of how to do this the chinese have adopted one approach, it came at a significant social cost. Reporter in spain, france, and italy, theyve chosen china lite nationwide lockdowns without the repression people can go out for essentials yet the death toll continues to climb. Today a grim milestone in italy where the number of fatalities has surpassed those in china i spoke with a journalist based in rome who was one of the first to write an op ed telling americans to wake up, the virus is coming. What would you say now to an average american, a young person who is feeling pretty good and might not feel that this is going to directly impact him or her . Dont be selfish. Its the time to prove that youre not the only one person existing in this world and a lot of things depends on your own action reporter lester, professor ferguson told me one of the big dangers of this virus is its ability, its easy ability to overwhelm medical systems. That is because he says about 5 , only 5 of the people who get coronavirus need to be hospitalized but of that 5 , about a third of them need intensive care, need to be on ventilators, and that very quickly overwhelms systems. The experiences overseas certainly being watched carefully here richard, thank you lets continue with our crisis team of experts answering your questions dr. John, a question from he are i can can an on facebook if