By late morning into the afternoon with our high temperatures today reaching into the upper 60s. More on this coming up in a few minutes. Mike, youre tracking the commute. Any issues for drivers . So far so good. Let me show you a couple of live looks out there, show you the contrast in some areas, though. San rafael, the curve coming toward us with those headlights. A smooth, steady flow, good volume. If you continue 101 down across the Golden Gate Bridge you have to wait for the cars to appear. There you go. For more on the reason why traffic is so light, well send it right back to you. The white house this morning still falling short of ordering everyone to stay home but they are urging all americans to avoid being out and about for the rest of the month. President trump saying that he probably wont leave the white house for 30 days as the coronavirus begins to peak. Today in the bays tracie potts is live for us from her home in washington with the governments latest projections. Tracie . Reporter marcus, those latest projections are some grim numbers of how many people could die, how many lives could be lost, because of this virus. But, as you noted, the government is also saying that we could slim down those numbers, reduce them with our own behavior. 240,000 thats the new white house prediction of how Many Americans could die from the coronavirus. Its going to be a tough couple of weeks coming up. Reporter Health Experts believe we can literally flatten this curve and cut the death rate in half or less if americans stop crowding places like beaches and bars. Not only are you putting yourself in danger but youre putting society in danger because, as you get infected, you may be inadvertently and even innocently infecting others particularly those who are vulnerable. Reporter the federal government is leaving stay home orders up to each state. So far 32 states have them covering three out of four americans. We know what works. What works is to stay home. Reporter social distancing, staying six feet apart, is now recommended for the rest of the month, and the cdc is rethinking whether Everyone Needs to wear a mask. You can use a scarf. That would be very good. Reporter lawmakers are preparing for a fourth coronavirus package. Democrats want to include money for the Postal Service for upcoming state primaries. Well probably be moving to vote by mail. Reporter across the country hospitals are seeing the worst of it. People packed in like sardines, 30 to 40 patients coughing on one another. Reporter as america prepares for covid19 cases to soar. So we have hot spots in some areas. We have other areas where the numbers are starting to flatten out. Bottom line, marcus, the government is saying this is going to get worse before it gets better. We keep hearing that and hearing new york is still complaining they dont have enough of those ventilators. Also im hearing the federal government is holding on to 10,000 of those units. If thats true, why dont they just send them . Reporter right, 10,000 from the national stockpile, because they say this is going to get worse in the next couple of weeks. There are going to be a lot of people a lot of hospitals and a large demand. They dont want to run out too soon. New york says they need those ventilators now. The white house, the response team, is saying there is no one there who has died because they didnt have a ventilator. We certainly know its hitting new york hard. Tracie potts in washington for thus morning. Tracie, thank you. Talk about supply and demand there. A lot of bay area counties are scrambling to make sure they have enough room for the coronavirus patients. I want to check in with today in the bays sharon katsuda. She is live in san mateo this morning. At the event center there, show us what theyre planning on doing there, sharon . Reporter well, laura, there are so many announcements being made this week from the county regarding how theyre going to deal with a growing number of coronavirus patients. This facility will become a 250 bed hospital, field hospital, for coronavirus patients who have fewer needs than icu patients. The San Mateo County board of supervisors are expressing much concern about the need for more staff and ppes especially at seton hospital recently leased by the state to care for covid19 patients. County Health Experts say the county is running low on icu beds. We have 309 covid19 positive cases, also about 70 persons under investigation by our Public HealthCommunicable Disease investigation team. 10 fatalities reported to Public Health, and of these nine were older adults, six were female and four were male. We have about five icu beds available at this time out 66 icu beds in the county. Last week we told you about a high school in martinez that will become a care site for covid19 patients if needed. Contra costa county has announced two other care sites. The Contra Costa County fairgrounds and the pavilion in richmond. And its very interesting yesterday the county Health Experts here also asks for Nursing Homes to be very compassionate and understanding when it comes to the elderly patients who have recovered from covid19 in the hospitals. Theyre asking Nursing Homes to please take back those patients who have recovered from the hospitals from covid19. Reporting live, im sharon katsuda, today in the bay. Sharon, thank you. Well, Santa Rosa Police mourning the death of one of their own due to complications from the coronavirus. A memorial is growing outside the Department Headquarters for detective mary lou armer. She worked for the department for nearly two decades most recently in the Domestic Violence unit. Six have tested positive. Experts say uc davis are testing an experimental drug that they say could have been key in one coronavirus patients survival. A 40yearold woman they treated last month from Solano County had no Chronic Health problems. She was the hospitals first case. As her condition worsened, they received permission to use the experimental drug which was tried for ebola patients and used previously on animals. The drug is still going in order for official guidelines to be changed there has to be a very studied evidence provided that the drug indeed works. The patient is now fully recovered. Clinical trials are under way but doctors say it could take weeks to confirm if the drug is effective. 5 07. The impact of the coronavirus is reportedly causing a big financial issue for San Francisco. According to the chronicle mayor london breed now saying the pandemic may create a budget deficit of more than 1 billion. Over the next two fiscal years it could reach 1. 7 billion. Mayor breed is also now working on a plan to curb the citys spending and try to close the gap. A live look at sfo this morning where new changes take effect today in response to the coronavirus the International Terminal will only use one of its two concourses due to a huge dropoff in travelers. Area a is now closed. Only area g is being used. The change will remain in effect at least through the end of may. 5 08 and now is the time to look at the weather and traffic for you this morning. Meteorologist kari hall is at home giving us that forecast that we all so love especially when its nice outside, kari. We do have some really nice weather across the bay area but i wanted to show you what its like for all of our friends and family elsewhere across the country because this also has a big impact on whether or not we can get more people to stay at home and looking at the high temperatures we are going to see it cooling down for parts of the east coast. We are looking at new york city, 54 degrees today while here in the bay area were looking at some mid60s, and theres a lot of 70s across the south so that beautiful weather really makes it hard for people to stay in. And so, mike, as we track the commute for essential drivers, they also have some nice weather for getting to work. Thats good because folks are traveling at higher speeds and i worry about a crash at higher speed, more damage. Not right now, no problems like that. In fact, we have an issue, lets slow it down a bit and were talking about the j. Mack ferry in the north bay, the rio vista area. I know its not a major ferry system but for folks its critical to get over the water. There you go. The j. Mack is affected because they have a shortage of captains for the ferries not a shortage of riders. Those folks have to get over the water. Theyre reducing service for the time being. Back out to the roadways, the bay bridge getting over the water and not a lot of folks doing that. A steady flow. It looks light. You still have track on the span. Back to you. Thanks, mike. 5 10 for you that morning. And the pandemic intensifying across the globe. Still ahead on today in the bay, the strict action cuba is now taking to stop the outbreak from growing. Reporter youve probably heard about zoom bombing, the idea someone could come into your conference call. Well talk more about it coming up. But first, dont forget another great resource for coronavirus related news is our nbc bay area newsletter. Youll get all of the top headlines sent in one email straight to your inbox. Sign up. If i could do one thing, id make sure there were more textbooks in schools. Im a teacher. Ive seen the need, but my girlfriend here likes to say. Dont just talk about it, be about it. And were about the 2020 census. Because when everyone gets counted on the census, it helps inform public funding in our neighborhood for the next ten years dont just talk about it be about it complete the census online, by phone or by mail. Shape your future. Start here at 2020census. Gov. Comphas you covered withee, fast, reliable internet. Finity with advanced security to help keep you secure online. And with the most tv shows, movies and streaming apps all in one place. With simple Digital Tools you can get the help you need or even trouble shoot your services on your own. Download the xfinity my account app or just say help into your xfinity voice remote. We are working to make things a little easier on everyone. Download the xfinity my account app today. Right now at 5 13 lets head over to the east bay and check out our temperature trend for walnut creek. Well have a nice cool start, mostly clear sky, and a lot of sunshine as we go throughout the day. We will talk about how a lack of flights in the air could impact our weather forecast. A weird link but its something we are going to talk about coming up in just a few minutes. You know, with everyone on video chats these days, its very easy for hackers and pranksters to tap in. And scott mcgrew, at least one state Agency Looking into the problem. Reporter thats right. No one is going to hack into our chat over nbc, but when it comes to those consumer level chats there does seem to be a problem. You may have heard about zoom bombing. This is when somebody uninvited comes into your zoom video conversation. There is a way to stop that, but many people dont set up zoom properly. The new York State Attorney general is looking into zooms privacy practice. Zoom says it welcomes those questions. Now zoom is one of the only stocks to do well over the past few weeks. In fact, its stock has about doubled since the market debut almost exactly a year ago. The stock is doing so well other companies with the word zoom in their names have seen their prices spike as investors buy the wrongstock. Now were looking fornt to the. Yesterday the hardest quarter since 2008 ended. In fact, the hardest First Quarter in the whole measurement of the dow 30 industrials. Lets talk about a bit of noncoronavirus news, and that is cars. The white house is going ahead with a plan to get rid of obamaera standards for new cars, lowering the bar on emissions and thus gas mileage. New cars will have to be more efficient but the bar is lower. President trump made fun of Auto Executives who still support the tougher emissions calling their companies politically correct in the and their executives foolish. He doesnt name them by name but likely ford, bmw, honda and volkswagen. Marcus and laura, california set its own High Standard and all Car Companies are alarmed at the idea of having to build basically california cars and then other cars. Ford and bmw, honda and others have said well just stick to the california standards and that has angered the white house as you have seen in that tweet. All right. Thanks, scott. 5 16 for you that morning. Something good to talk about and a friendly reminder to everyone in the bay area. A vacaville family decided to do some chalk work outside of their home while sheltering in place. The little girl, addison, wrote a message to everyone. It reads, stay at home and stay safe. Dont you just love seeing things like that . I love that. Its really sweet. And the coronavirus cant stop the fun for one little girl in nashville. She took to the streets to have a very intense dance battle with a special competitor, her grandfather. Thats right, she sees her grandpa every day because they live across the street. With all the social distancing they had to come up with creative ways to see each other besides using face time. If you have something good to show us, just tweet us your videos and images at somethinggood because we need a lot of something good these days. I love that. And grandpa was up for the challenge, too. Right . Exactly. I hope he doesnt fall. Thats not so good, right. All right, lets get a look at the forecast. Kari, something to dance about just outside your door with your family maybe. Just with your family or on zoom or Something Like that. Weve had some great weather conditions out there. A live look at san jose as we start out on this wednesday morning. We are going to have mild temperatures and going into the afternoon it warms up nicely. So we have enjoyed beautiful springlike weather as our highs in the north bay reach into the low 60s. Well see some upper 60s for the south bay, even a few spots reaching up to 70 degrees which i think is the perfect temperature. No need for blasting the heater or the air conditioning. We are able to maybe save some energy that way. Then as we look at the next approaching storm system its still way off the coast and going into the next few days. That will be moving in as we head toward the weekend. So its just in time to help us with our social distancing. I know on the weekends people want to get outside but right now is the time to stay in. So over the next seven days we are going to see dry weather for the next few days and then by the time we get to the weekend, yes, some scattered showers will be moving in, muchneeded rain at this point because we are in a moderate drought. We are going to get about a quarter to half an inch of rain. And speaking of the drought, i wanted to show you the Sierra Snowpack because today is a very important day in the weather department, the Sierra Snowpack right now with some of those manual sensors, we are seeing them at about 53 of the normal snowpack. So the surveyors expected to go out there. Im not sure how the pandemic is going to affect the survey, but its something well be watching for today as they take those measurements of snow. And then as we go through the forecast we are looking at that weekend storm to bring us some pretty decent amounts of snow. We could see the possibility of a few feet of snow in the sierra going into the weekend and early next week. Lets check out our sevenday forecast for the inland areas reaching into the low 70s for today, upper 60s for friday, and then as that rain comes in it will be cooler with upper 50s and lower 60s and San Francisco will reach into the low 60s for the next few days. I wanted to take this time to talk about how the pandemic is impacting the accuracy of our weather forecast. This may be something a lot of people didnt know but us in the Weather Community know that the commercial flights that are now being grounded in europe and the u. S. , they take measurements like air temperature and wind data and its not getting recorded at this point. And that information is fed into computer models and helps create the forecast. And to put this in perspective we had, according to the website flight radar 24 on sunday, march 1, around 2 00 in the afternoon there were they were tracking about 6,800 flights around the world. And at about 2 00 in the afternoon this past weekend there were about 2,800 flights in the air. So thats a 4,000 flight drop. And so that just goes to prove that the impact the coronavirus is having impacts how we forecast our weather. This may take a long time to recover because it kind of goes on initial forecasts and it goes down the line into the future. This is something well be watching as we see the spring storms fire up and enter into hurricane season. Now, mike, from the air to the roads and the trains, whats happening out there . Well, kari, like you, i need that data as well to do our reports, both of our industries, theres a whole ecosystem around. Scott showed video a few minutes ago regarding gas usage and that video clogged roadways, what could have been taken up to a month ago as well. Well check on gas prices and the effects of whats going on as far as what it looks like on the roadways. A live look at how things are shaping up over in oakland where you still have traffic on the nimitz. Going under the nimitz, that webster tube may be closed for another couple minutes. The crews should be cleared by a few minutes ago. Again, you can use the bridge at fruitvale. The richmond bridge, the much bigger bridge over the water flows smoothly. No problems there or on the peninsula. Palo alto 101. Back to you. Thanks, mike. 5 21 this morning. Coming up next h the crui dozens are sick. Several counties and countries have now turned it away and now its heading to florida. Next, what the governor there is saying. 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