We are going to be reaching in the upper 60s for the inland areas. In the north bay, looking at 60s in clear bay. Lets get to mike with the commute. Traffic looks smooth arpdz t around the bay area. The roadways are clear. The green is showing all around the bay, and theres a good volume ofl. I will give you a little surprising note that chp tweeted out for all of us, and again, that might be a surprise for some. Thats coming up. This morning the number of coronavirus cases is increasing in the bay area. There are now more than 2,600, and 68 people have died, and the hot zone is Santa Clara County just shy of 1,000 cases. Nationally there are now over 216,000 cases, and over 5,000 deaths. New york accounts for over 1,300 of the deaths, and nearly 9,000 people have recovered so far. And running out, the stockpile of masks, gowns, and other protective gear nearly depleted, and tracie potts is live with that, plus the fight brewing on capitol hill. Yeah, that fight is about spending more money to support the economy, and interesting nancy pelosi and the president on the same side of this one, but we begin today with the critical hunt for supplies for healthcare workers all over the country that just cant find it. Nurses protesting in san jose, and healthcare workers across the country in fear. I worry about taking this home to my family. Theres not enough protective equipment to go around as they fight the coronavirus. Tell the governors, get it yourself if you can, from your local companies and local warehouses. President trump says the federal government and states are in a bidding war as manufacturers jack up prices. The National Stockpile is now nearly depleted. The only weapon we have the is social distancing, and we have seen evidence that social distancing can work. Floridas governor took heat for not pushing social distancing to clear crowded beaches. Now he has issued a stayathome order after out pacing 45 states with the most cases. The uss Teddy Roosevelt has sailors with the coronavirus. Mitch mcconnell is saying no to another bill, after approving 2 trillion, hes wondering how to pay for more. There has been around 5,000 people in the United States who have died as a result of the coronavirus, and the estimate is slightly above or slightly below 5,000, but the bottom line the top Infectious Disease expert, dr. Fauci,t. The city of San Francisco is doing more to help flatten the curve. Its next move is to help further distance the hundreds of homeless living out on the streets. They are going to move people. This is so interesting, tom. It is. Like tracie was just talking about, its about social distancing. This is not bringing in people off the streets, but its from People Living in shelters. Currently city shelters are only able to accommodate three feet between each cot, and this will give them the added space to give six feet between people while sleeping, and meanwhile Santa Clara County opened fair grounds to the homeless populati congested situations, both off the streets and into shelters and into wide open spaces and decrease the risk of spreading the coronavirus. The city has leased hotels, and they are trying to get two more large building leases like this one in place to get more Homeless People in the shelters and spread out. Live in San Francisco, thom jensen. The government stimulus checks should be out and rolling out soon, taxpayers who have direct deposit attached to the tax filings will receive the money that way. Taxpayers can expect anywhere from 1,200 to 2,400 based on their income and filing status. Its based on the latest tax filing, either 2018 or 2019. You can check out our stimulus calculator on nbcbayarea. Com. And Eric Swalwell is having a facebook q a. The uc and Cal State College admission is relaxing call edol testing for next year. Applicants are suddenly dealing with dramatically different situations out there, and in some cases the tests themselves have been completely canceled. Some schools have been slow to adjust to online teaching, so everybody has to adjust. San francisco residents, some are struggling to make it in the bay. Supporters are now asking to cancel rent to those suddenly out of work from the stayathome order. In a statement the company says it does not oppose such an effort but that effort must be united and carried out at the state level. One grocery train offering special hours. This one specifically for some of the frontline workers. Starting this morning save mart, food mart and luckys will allow First Responders in california to shop one hour before and one hour after posted store hours, and all they need is proof of their credentials. In alameda, people are being asked to do one thing to let essential workers know they are appreciated. I love this. City leaders are asking everybody to applaud every single day for one minute at 7 00 p. M. The goal is to thank First Responders for putting their lives on the line. Just clapping for all the people out there, the Healthcare Providers who are providing essential services. Residents are also putting teddy bears on the windowsills, as people walk by they have a sense of comfort. When i take my dogs for a walk you do see teddy bears in the windows, and kids go and count the little bears. Its cute. Love seeing that. I think we should all give them a round of applause ourselves big time. Oh, my gosh. Its amazing what they are doing. It really is. We thank you all so much. 5 10 for you this morning. I want to get a check of that forecast. Meteorologist, kari hall, working from home this morning to get us up to speed. You said rain was in the forecast in the upcoming days, but not yet, right . Not yet, and because we have dry weather for a little while we see a lot of pollen floating through the air. Our pollen count is pretty high, especially with tree and grass pollen, so we will see that continuing until that rain moves in this weekend. Temperature wise today, i know a lot of people are trying to get out and get fresh air, and we are starting out in concord with chilly temperatures, and as we go throughout the day low 60s in the forecast. I will track more on the rain in a few minutes, but mike has a look at the morning commute from home as well. I am not commuting to work, but folks have been telling me even though the roadways are clear, they are having people tailgate and weave through traffic. And i know we are familiar with the fact that people have been going faster than they should, but look at the foreground. They tweeted out the picture of the tickets, and in the foreground you see, 117 miles per hour, and these are real tickets given out. They could take that license away on just the first offense. So lets get to the maps, and you can go 65, and theres no major problems. Back to you. . Mathanks, mike. The major changes costco is making starting tomorrow. This is to limit the crush of shoppers. Hello, i am dolly pardon, the book lady from the imagination library. Something good for you as well. Starting tonight, dolly pardon kicks off her good night with dolly series. She will start reading her Favorite Book to fans. She will talk about her 1 million donation to vanderbilt medical center, and thats at 7 00 this morning right after today in the bay. 5 12 for you right now. Theres much more ahead. Theres no place like home. Especially when xfinity has you covered with fast, reliable internet. 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. Starting out with a clear look across San Francisco and the bay area. We will have a look at this and a cooldown with weekend rain coming up in a few minutes. The job data is heading our way giving us a picture of how hard the virus is hitting our economy. We have a look at jobless claims. Those come every thursday. Good morning to you. As i was saying last thursday this is something we dont normally pay that much attention to, and now we pay a lot of attention to it because last thursday we learned more than 3 million americans would lose their jobs, and we get fresh data on that today. Tomorrow we get data on jobs gains, and thats the monthly report, the one we used to talk about all the time. That will be for march, so its going to be a mixed bag. Many in california, those of us here took the virus seriously at the start of the month, and many others in the nation did not. You recall President Trump was very grim about the virus, and this would be on tuesday, so that turned wednesdays markets rough and stocks sank, but the dow is expected to gain more than 300 points on the open. The City Department of health tweeted this picture out thanking tesla for its donation of ventilators. Closer examination of the boxes shows they are not the ventilators doctors call invotive. Musk has called the coronavirus silly, but he has since started to take the disease more seriously. Its not that the machines are not helpful, they will be useful, but its not the ventilators we in the media or the president or dr. Fauci, when they say ventilators, its not what we are talking about. Thanks, scott. 5 17 this morning. A new response to the pandemic from costco that plans to limit how many customers can enter the stores. Starting tomorrow, no more than two people can be let in for each card shown at the door. They close now at 6 30 p. M. Dr. Anthony fauci being honored with his own bobblehead. The hall of fame and museum if wisconsin is selling these online. The museum says it will donate 5 for every dr. Fauci bobblehead sold in support of the 1 million mask challenge. Tweet us your videos and images at somethinggood. He made it. Hes officially made it now. He has his own bobblehead. I am glad people are listening to what he has to say. They are. I would totally buy one of those. I know you would, mike. A lot of people are always looking and listening to meteorologist, kari hall, and today another nice one out there for us. Yeah, we do have another Beautiful Day in the forecast. I am so glad that we are seeing this and some rain. If you want to know what it looks like with my behindthescenes setup here at home, i posted it on my facebook, twitter and instagram. I would love to see your beautiful weather shots around the bay area since we cant get out and enjoy too much, its also nice to see other peoples views out the window and in their backyard. Lets check on the weather for the rest of our friends and family across the country. Its been chilly for the plain states. Look at bismarck, 22 degrees as a high. More people are sheltering in place and trying to social distance and everything like that, and then looking at the south, the temperatures reach into the low 70s today. We are looking at very warm weather in a big chunk of the country. We are tracking another storm system coming in for the weekend and that will bring in cooler temperatures and rain. We could see rainfall potential reaching over half inch for much of the bay area, asperpespecial we go into monday and tuesday before the storm system moves out. For the sierra snow pack, we see some progress, and its about half of the normal amount we normally see at this time so we still have some work to do. The good news is we still have snow in the forecast. Were looking at the possibility of one to three feet over the next several days, so a good amount of snow with one storm and a decent amount of rain with the bay area. We will see our temperatures in the upper 60s for today and then by the time that rain moves out for the weekend, we are going to see mid50s for the inland areas, and for San Francisco, expect a high of 56 degrees on saturday as that rain returns. I will have more on that. Mike, you are tracking the morning commute, and so far it looks light. Yeah, on the freeways things are moving smoothly. A lighter volume so people can go some speeds, and chp are seeing people going too fast, over 100 miles per hour, so be careful. Watch for the posted limit wherever you go, folks. No major issues for the freeways, and in the north bay we are looking at a smooth drive, but in napa theres a deadly crash near linda vista, so be careful. A car went off the roadway overnight. I will let you know if theres any other news we can bring to you, and the loss of anybodys life, of course, is a concern. San rafael, this is the reason why we are able to maintain the speed limit around the bay. Coming up, we have a concern about one of the transit lines and well talk about why coming up. Coming up, breaking news to tell you about involving passengers on two cruise ships hoping to dock on the florida coast. Other countries turning them away. There was just a Big Development in the weeklong fight to allow them to disembark. First, american journalists reporting abroad away from their families, and janice fryer reunited with her family after 50 days of reporting in china. Heres the emotional moment. Its 5 25 right now. We continue to follow break ing news out of florida where two cruise ships have nowhere to dock with sick passengers onboard. Now they are headed to ft. Lauderdale. More than 200 passengers now have possible symptoms and four passengers have died. A deal is basically done to allow those passengers to finally disembark. Floridas governor allowed the ships to dock, but local authorities were not even giving the green light. A separate story playing out in san diego. International passengers stuck on a Carnival Cruise ship, many from south america. One spoke by phone. The passengers have nowhere to go once they get off the ship because their home countries have closed their boarders. Florida is the newest state to issue a statewide stayathome order. 45 states are under some restrictions, and the governor made that decision yesterday to curve infections, and that order is expected to last at least 30 days. And then the coronavirus pandemic is taking a toll on countries across the world, and globally we are approaching 1 million cases, and 48,000 deaths. The u. S. Is leading the world with the most cases, however italy has the most deaths with nearly 10,000. In spain more than 10,000 people have died. 950 deaths yesterday, marking the highest one day increase thus far, and at the same time spain labs are increasing test capacity and have shortened the time to process those results. 5 27 for you right now. Up next, the top stories we are following on today in the bay. A live report on the new recommendations being made across california this morning. Plus a dmv dilemma. The problems many californians could face today among the statewide office closures. Because you cant get to the theater, were bringing the theater home to you with xfinity movie premiere. Such news. I know what this is. This is a real thing. Our Brand New Service that lets you watch movies at home, while theyre still in the theater. Oh, mister elton. Ahh he has figured out a way to be invisible. They picked the wrong woman. Just say xfinity movie premiere into your voice remote to bring the theater to you. Whaso lets do the rightver chanthing, today. Ow. Lets stay at home. Lets wash up. Lets always keep our distance please, six feet apart at least. Lets look after ourselves, as well as others. It will all be worth it. We can all do our part. So those on the front line can do their part. And when this is over, we will all, continue, to thrive. I know its difficult but we are having a lot of suffering and deaths, and this is inconvenience from an economic standpoint, but we just have to do it. Right now at 5 30, the nations most trusted doctor speaks about the steps americans need to take to stop the threat of the coronavirus. The debate rages on. Should everybody now wear face masks . Garcetti in a bold move says yes. Thank you for joining us for today in the bay. I am laura garcia. I am marcus washington. Theres more coming up on the coronavirus pandemic, but first i want to get a look at your forecast from kari hall working from home this morning. Are we looking good today . We are looking good. We have enjoyed beautiful weather, and we are still looking at clear skies in san jose. I know people are looking for opportunities to get outside and also just get out in the backyard for a little while and get fresh air, and also a lot of people have been doing things like grilling outside, so thats a great idea. We are going to have nice weather for that today. Once again, i am tracking rain in the forecast. We will get a look at that coming up in a few minutes, and mike, we will have a look at the earlymorning commute. The commute, as you expect, as we look at our maps, green sensors all around the bay area. As we move over towards the Contra Costa County drive and the bay bridge drive, theres a good amount of vehicles driving out there. And ac transit, we have a special note from that agency, news coming from their personnel file coming up. Thank you, mike. Its 5 32 right now. The number of coronavirus cases is increasing in the bay area. There are now more than 2,600, and 68 people have died. The bay areas hot zone remains to be Santa Clara County, now just shy of 1,000 cases. Nationally there are now over 216,000 cases, and over 5,000 deaths. New york accounts for over 1,300 of the deaths, and nearly 9,000 people have recovered so far. Sthaoeufp meantime, new for you this morning we are hearing more about the spread of the virus from dr. Anthony fauci. Bob, not uplifting news for us as the deaths worldwide are doubling. Correct, marcus. The director of the World Health Organizations predicts within the next few days there will be 1 million confirmed cases worldwide and 50,000 deaths globally. The director said he was deeply concerned about the rapid escalation of the coronavirus, and Vice President pence said our trajectory if you look at the curves of the acceleration of cases, hospitalizations and deaths, its superimposed corrected for population. Its a really