Almost committed the perfect murder. And who better to do that than a Police Officer . Than a Police Officer. Thats all for this edition of dateline. Im natalie morales. Thanks for watching. First up on msnbc, new shutdowns. Some of the largest cities and states across the country taking historic action to combat the coronavirus. Tens of millions told to go home and stay home. Details on when and where. It may work and it may not work. I feel good about it. Any hope . The search for a treatment separating fact from fiction, are any of the drugs being tried now going to help . Downward special from wall
street to main street. Businesses and commerce come to a screeching halt. Details on the dramatic Ripple Effect and how long it will last. The conflicted images of states like california that are shut down while here in clear water, florida, spring break continues has finally hit a breaking point. Still defiant, spring breakers hitting the beaches in the face of a worldwide pandemic. What this weekend is expected to bring, next. Good morning, everybody. Stranger all the way over there separated by the two boxes on this saturday, im kendis gibson. And im lindsay riser. Corey is working from home today and well catch up with her a little later. This morning, there are 18,922 confirmed cases of coronavirus across all 50 states. The death toll climb to go 242. And at this hour, more states
are dramatically ramping up restrictions. Overnight, illinois issuing a stay at home order. That impacts some 13 million people. As several other states are expected to do the same, President Trump saying the federal government is providing help. Were providing historic support to Small Businesses and to the states. The states need support. Normally, they would do this themselves, but because of the magnitude of it, the federal government has gotten very much involved in terms of getting the equipment they need. So were helping them. Its a responsibility they have, but we are helping the states a lot. New york city mayor bill de blasio calling the city the new hety center of this crisis. The number of cases in the city topped 5,000 overnight. And the white house confirming last night a staffer who works in the Vice President s office tested
positive for coronavirus. The white house saying neither President Trump nor the Vice President had close contact with that person. Meantime, on capitol hill, high stakes negotiations as republicans and Democratic Senators raced to draft a 1 trillion rescue plan amid the outbreak. Monica joins us with more. Talks went through the night with Top Administration officials. Are they any closer to a deal. Thats right. They went late into the night here in washington, d. C. And, unfortunately, did not reach a deal, but theyre hopeful that that will come later today. I can tell you the bipartisan groups had made significant progress on this, but they werent, unfortunately, any closer to nailing down the specifics. And, of course, this is phase three of this deal and its a 1 trillion stimulus package. And at issue, 500 billion for taxpayers, critical, that a lot of people are hoping and waiting on as this economic slowdown
continues. 50 billion for the airline industry, 300 billion for Small Business and then another 150 billion for other industries that have been impacted by this. So, of course, a giant price tag on this. But some of the sticking points have come down to things such as unemployment insurance. Speaker nancy pelosi and treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin have been hashing out the specifics and we expect to hear more from them later on this morning on that. And, monica, the president yesterday announced new measures to combat the spread of the virus. What is that about . Sure. Earlier in the week, the president had signed this, but he hadnt actually invoked it. He said in a worst case scenario, he would be using it to direct companies to produce more of these critical personal Protection Equipment materials that weve been hearing about. Were talking about ventilators,
masks, gloves, all of these kinds of things weve been hearing about from health care workers. But take a listen to how he framed it. When he was asked about specifics, he couldnt provide any initially. Lets take a listen to that. Vent laters, masks, respirators. Things that we need. Including some of the very important emergency. I would say ventilators, probably more mask toes a large extent. We have millions of masks which are coming. And which will be distributed to the states. The states are having a hard time getting them, so were using the act. The act is very good for things like this. So this is a case where the president is, in fact, now invoked this. And we heard as one example from him that General Motors has committed to making some of these respirator products, they said, in order to help fight this pandemic. Im sure its something that the president and other members of the Coronavirus Task force when
they brief here at noon today will be pressed on. We hope to get more answers for you. Google has a website and the website just finally came up online. We were with going to get the ships that have all those beds and those are still weeks away. Well see what this brings about. Monica, thank you. Live in union square, good morning, nora. What does this order from andrew cuomo mean for new yorkers . Here in union square, tents are going up for the saturdays Farmers Market that is always happening and its still happening here. The Farmers Market sells produce and that is deemed an essential business along with pharmacies, health care, businesses and other grocery
stores. Some of them have adjusted areas, but basically 100 stop on nonessential businesses is an uptick in the severity. This is putting a halt on anything that can put anybody at risk here in new york city. Basically, theyre keeping mass transit open to get nurses, doctors, essential personnel to their work, but the governor advised nobody else should be using mass transit at this time. Theres over 40 deaths here in new york city and more than 5,600 positive cases. So you played the sound earlier of mayor bill de blasio being the center of the epidemic here in new york. Hes saying these numbers equal about a third of the total cases in the United States. So new york is really a hot spot right now and the government officials are trying to take as many precautions as possible. Just across the river, though, lindsay, new jersey governor says hes going to tighten up the screws on social distancing
rules and the Connecticut Governor has taken similar steps, as well. It will be interesting to see what kind of precautions everybody is taking at that Farmers Market today. And also deemed essential, reportedly, Liquor Stores in new york. Thank you. Nbcs Garrett Hague in the meantime is live for us in chicago. Garrett, how are people there react to go this new statewide stay at home order that came in overnight. Well, kendis, this will be the final step in whats been a slow walk towards chicago and the illinois chicagoland area shutting down as restrictions have tightened and tightened and tightened. Today, that order to stay at home goes into effect at 5 00 this evening. We expect to see a continuation of what weve seen over the last couple of days. People going out to shop, to buy their essentials. That will still be allowed after this order goes into place. But as rumors have spread, people have been going out and trying to take care of as many
errands as they can as early as they can. Here are some of the shoppers that we spoke to yesterday. Take a listen. I think i have everything at home, you know, well still be able to go out 1k3g9 food and stuff. So should be all set there. And i think were ready for it just as the announcements and updates. Im not going to lie. Its something happy. I know i should be eating healthy, but im, like, sad so, you know, brownies make me happy. I think we all get that. Listen, the mayor and the governor, other Public Officials have been telling people theres no need to panic, no need to horde, no need to overstock. The grocery stores, the pharmacies, all essential services will be continuing at this time. Theyre hoping to tamp down on the panic and try to keep as many people off the streets. Temperatures in chicago are not expected to break freezing until about 3 00 this afternoon. It will hopefully help keep
people off the streets today, but the bad news continues for this area. United, the air carrier based here in chicago announced overnight theyre cutting their International Flights by 95 . The city getting ready for spring, but prepare to go hunker down like its winter. Guys. United joining many of the other big carriers, including delta which has cut its flights by 75 . Garrett headache, thank you. And Janice Mackey frayer is live in beijing. Janice, youve had some of your own quarantine misadventures that youve been updating your twitter followers on. Coronavirus seems to be slowing down in china. Does it seem like things are going back to normal over there . For a Third Straight day, wuha wuhan has recorded a day with no new locally transmitted cases. That is a big deal when you put it in the context of the some 81,000 cases across china and 3200 deaths. Most of them, of course, being in wuhan and surrounding hubei province. So some businesses there are now being allowed to open. The city has been in lockdown since the 23rd of january so its been pretty much two full months now. Some families are now able to venture out with a special pass, they can do some shopping, but they only get two hours to do so. But this is being seen as a step out of the very dark days of the pandemic here. In the rest of china, the concern still remains imported cases. These are cases that are now coming from other parts of the world with people who are returning to china from italy, from the uk, from the u. S. , people like me who are coming back into the country are now being required to quarantine for 14 days. I am in isolation. The rules, since i came back, have since changed and now anybody coming back into the country has to be quarantined in isolation at a socalled government facility which is basically a series of hotels around the city. The main concern here, of course, is that theyre trying to get the economy back on track. This is the worlds second largest economy. Its the heartland for so many supply chains. So they are trying to ease the economy back on track, but they dont want to trigger a second wave of infections. Lindsay. Janice, i wanted to ask you quickly, you know, china has been expelling some journalists in the country. What are you saying to people who are questioning the information and the numbers were getting from china . There has been some questioning of the information all along. We know that in addition to countries waging a war on this pandemic, there are also information wars, a media war between the u. S. And china, and
there is the sense that the last shots vnts yet behave not yet b. Thank you. Joining us now is sadah omuer, director of the institute for global health. Welcome to you. Thank you for being here. What is your sense right now of how the Coronavirus Response is going . Are the steps that are being taken at least locally here by the administration enough to kind of flatten the curve that weve been talking about for some time . Things like social distancing should help, but there are other components that need to be added right away, ideally, things like quick testing and not just testing, but isolation of contacts, Contact Tracing and
figuring out which of these contacts are positive and then recommending isolation right away. Weve seen governors in three states tell people stay home, only leave for absolute emergencies. If youre not an essential worker. Now, do you think extreme measures like that are essential and should more states follow suit . Unfortunately, more states will have to follow suit. Because we are an interconnected country. Viruses go from state to state. Unfortunately, states are looking at the prospect of restrictions on movement and socalled social distancing. Hopefully, you know, the hope was that people would comply with these voluntary orders. Hopefully compliance will
increase. But states might find it necessary to have shelter in place kind of orders going forward. Well, does that also mean you have to stay inside . Yesterday i went for a walk. It was a beautiful 75degree day in new york and there were a ton of people out. Theres no way everybody was three feet apart. Technically speaking, if youre going outside and youre maintain ago distance, that should be okay. But the problem happens when everyone tries to go outside at the same time. So, you know, we will have to have a balance of responsibly exercising these kinds of opportunities of going outside. So if that doesnt happen, then, unfortunately, a few states will have to are likely to escalate to a situation where they ask people to stay at home unless they have specific functions to perform outside the home. A lot of people have been paying attention as theyve been watching. If we can pop up that graphic and youll see the number of cases here in america. And, obviously, it seems as if we are we are on that trend that is similar to italy if we can take the shot, youll see what im talking about where we have some 14,000 cases. But i look at that and i also think thats because were getting a lot more tests. I think the important number right there are the number of deaths. What is more important for us to Pay Attention to right now . So this is just a sentinel event kind of a situation. So events that tell us a little bit more about what is going on underlying these numbers, but are not the complete picture. So yes, debts and reportdeaths reported cases are important, but we should interpret them with caution. Because we dont know the denominator. Should interpret th caution. Because we dont know the denominator. Even if we look at deaths, not just the number of deaths, but based on the availability of tests, the kind of people we are
testing, were not testing contacts that aggressively, were not texting people in the community, we are testing people who present with reasonably severe symptoms, etcetera, and even that is patchy. So were just looking at parts of this puzzle, not necessarily the complete puzzle, not necessarily the complete picture. And with this sort of lockdown do you think say through memorial day, july, beyond . Its too early to say. And thats why its all the more important that these lockdowns respect peoples liberties in the sense that those who cannot go outside and earn a living are you know, have a stimulus payment that congress is discussing, that we respect genuine need for people to go out. If they need to be restrictions on the movement of everyone else, so on and so forth. So this is not a thing that will go away in a week or so. Well have to deal with it for a little while. The period of, you know, how long that period is going the be, that depends on what happens in the next few days to a week that tells us about the trajectory of this outbreak and then you can have reliable models to say how long, you know, this kind of stuff would be necessary. All right. Appreciate your time. It was interesting kind of seeing that shot, as well, of times square. Completely dead at this hour. Look at it right there. Crossroads of the world. Its crossroads for one person right now. Delays in testing making it hard to know exactly how many people have coronavirus. Why some countries were so ahead of the curve and how the u. S. Is rushing to get tests out quicker. Plus, the new questions about four u. S. Senators and why they sold stocks right before
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have been and now we are all producing numbers.