Now, the numbers in those models have led governors and mayors across the country to issue orders for people to stay at home, orders that affect roughly three quarters of all americans. In florida, which has a limited staytoat home order, the Broward County commission is meeting to decide whether two cruise ships with coronavirus cases onboard should be allowed to dock in ft. Lauderdale. Governor ron desantis says hes opposed to the move, despite social distancing and lawsuits, wisconsin says its going to hold its president ial primary on april 7th. Thats a week from today. The state is encouraging voters to use absentee ballots and warns that there could be a delay in counting those votes. And even though its been only four days since President Trump signed the 2 trillion domestic pandemic relief package, House Speaker nancy pelosi said on morning joe that lawmakers are working on yet another bill. This third bill, fourth bill fourth bill but third face will be about recovery. Again, always addressing the emergency and mission aspects of it, but to talk about how we go forward. And in a way that is specific to the coronavirus. There are still plenty of questions about the most recent bill. You can send benpopken or me on twitter the questions. Use the hashtag velshi. Well try to answer all of your questions about the checks that youre getting because of the bill. As we enter the final hour of trading for the day, for the first day of the sorry, its the last day of the First Quarter of 2020, take a look at whats going on the dow. Its been a very up and down day. The dow is off about half a percentage point. Taking a look at the other major indices right now, you can see, all of them are down. Ill keep you posted through the course of the hour. All right, confirmed cases of coronavirus cases in new york state jumped by more than 9,000 overnight. That brings the total to more than 75,000 people in new york state with coronavirus. This state continues to have the largest number of cases in the nation. The vast majority of them are in new york city and the immediate area. And now the citys overwhelmed hospitals are getting some muchneeded help. The christian charity, samaritans purse, has set up an emergency Field Hospital in central park. Its the first such facility to be erected in the park since the civil war. Nbcs ron allen joins us now from central park. Ron, give us a sense of how this hospital is going to operate, who its going to accept and when its going to start accepting patients. Reporter thats an amazing bit of context, nothing like this since the civil war. Theyre putting the final touches on a 70bed hospital that will be staffed by about 70 medical personnel, their own volunteers. They have their own water system, their own power system. This noise that you hear over here is a big fuel truck thats powering the place. Theyre supplying them with their own, looks like oil fuel. About ten minutes ago or so, we saw someone who looked like a hospital official from mt. Sinai across the street come, perhaps taking a final look through, because weve been hearing all day that theyre going to start accepting patients. Coronavirus patients only, some time today. Some time this afternoon. These they have an icu, they have ventilators, about a dozen or so of them. And staits also important to pt out that this is in some ways a very symbolic, as well as significant effort. But given the numbers of hospital beds that the state needs, according to the governor and the mayor and others, were still a long way from where we need to get. The last estimate was about 75,000, on the way to about 140,000. Weve seen a lot of relief around the city today and yesterday. For example, the navy ship, the comfort, that pulled into port yesterday with a thousand beds. The jacob javits center. That huge multiblock Convention Center thats going to have several thousand beds there. Today, we learned about the u. S. National tennis center, where the u. S. Open tennis tournament is usually played. There are at least four or five other places around the boroughs, on college campuses, at a racetrack, where theyre trying to set up beds. You do all of that, youre still tens of thousands of beds away from the goal that the governor has set for this impending apex. So, again, still, the race against time continues. Here, a heroic, valiant effort. They expect to see some patients coming over very soon to do what they can to help. Ali . All right, ron, thank you very much for your coverage there. Ron allen, outside the Field Hospital in new york citys central park. All right, the sheer volume of calls coming into Emergency Services in new york is so high that some callers are being put on hold. And making the situation yet more dire, there are more than 280 members of the Fire Department here in new york who have tested positive for covid19. 15 of the police force is out sick. Fema has had to send in a fleet of ambulances to compensate for a shortage in new york. Nbc news Investigative Reporter tom winter is following that story for us. Tom, six Straight Days of record emergency call volume, exceeding that, that we saw during 9 11. The federal government is sending in these vehicles. What about the actual resources, the people, needed to drive in the paramedics . Exactly, ali. The good news here is that theyre sending the paramedics and the emts with those ambulances that you were just showing. Theyre being staged now. The Fire Department and Fire Department officials telling nbc news that initially these ambulances will go out on what they call lower acuity calls, meaning less urgent or less of a priority calls. Somebody that might be injured, somebody that might be sick, but is not necessarily having a heart attack or trouble breathing. Basically, work these ambulances into the system, and then tackle that issue that you pointed out, which is calls holding. So sometimes during a very busy periods during new york city, we may have for a couple of minutes in an hour, a couple of calls holding. That means that somebody who has a less serious injury or who is ill and wants to have an ambulance check they can out, they may be waiting for moment. That number fluctuates. We were into the hundreds yesterday. 6500 plus medical calls by the Fire Department. I dont want to alarm anybody. If theyre in new york city and having a heart attack, a cardiac event, having trouble breathing for any particular reason, could be, of course, tied to covid19, those calls are prioritized. Youre going to get that ambulance and youll get it quickly. On top of that, if youre not having flulike symptoms or a covid19 call, they can also send the firefighters, who are trained paramedics here in new york city to go there and also work on those calls, too. But its definitely a concern, ali, as these call volumes and the amount of ambulances needed in new york city remains really high. Right. And just to remind people, because its not the same way in every city, in new york, the paramedics, when you call 911 for an ambulance, it gets dispatched to the Fire Department. Tom, thanks very much. I do encourage people to follow tom wurinter on twitter. Hes keeping up with all of the massive and hard to get your head around statistics. At this hour, cruise line officials are working to dock multiple ships that are stranded at sea, because of the coronavirus outbreak. One of them is the zaandam, which is currently making its way past jamaica, hoping officials will allow it to dock in florida. Officials say four passengers on that ship have died. Several others have tested positive for covid19. Nearly 200 other passengers are currently experiencing flulike symptoms. Its sister ship, the rotterdam has more than a thousand people onboard and is also hoping to dock in florida. But floridas governor, ron desantis, does not want them to come. I think a lot of these are foreigners. We cannot afford to have people who arent even floridians dumped into south florida, using up those valuable resources. Back on march 13th, the Cruise Lines International association announced it would suspend operations for 30 days and direct cruise ships at sea to end their trips. At that time, the cruise line International Association reported 40 ships with nearly 90,000 passengers were out at sea. The association now says 3. 6 of its total flee of 277 ships are completing their trips. That means right now, about ten ships are still at sea and five ships are currently in the process of disembarking. Which means there are five that are not, of which we have just mentioned two. Nbcs Kerry Sanders joins me live from ft. Lauderdale. Kerry, this is an issue. There are people who are very wary about this, it was about three weeks ago that the president said, he didnt want the cruise ship off the coast of San Francisco docking, because it would increase the numbers of people with coronavirus. I would assume that our thinking about this has evolved since then . Well, what you see right now, according to carnivals chief martime officer, bill burke, he is representing, because carnival owns holland america, hes representing and saying that right here, ft. Lauderdale, port everglades, it is the port of last resort for these two ships. As we go live into the Broward CountyChamber Meeting right now, they are discussing issues around allowing these ships to come here with those onboard, four dead, eight who have tested positive for covid19. 200 who have flulike symptoms that they say this is carnival now saying, may must assume that they all have coronavirus. Whether they allow those ships in here and let the passenger off. One of those passengers onboard making a direct plea to county commissioners to please allow the ships to port, allow them to dock, allow them off. Because i am a u. S. Citizen. And i should not be denied entry into the u. S. You do not even know if i am sick or not. I am healthy and you really dont care. Youre just saying, you dont want us to come back to our house, back to our county, back to our home. I dont understand that. Reporter if this is a wartime, if were fighting a war against coronavirus, this is very much a wartimetype decision. Do the county commissioners decide that they will sacrifice, essentially, those onboard, prevent the ships from coming in, and hope that they can deal with coronavirus onboard those two ships with the doctors that are onboard, potentially more people dying, or do they allow the ships to make its way to the port here, to dock, allow the healthy passengers off take the sick passengers where, onboard to be treated, potentially to the hospitals here . Thats what the governor fears. That those sick passengers come off, and when they come off, they take up bed space that folks that live here in this part of the state will need. There are a number of foreign nationals onboard. In the hundreds. Were talking about folks from australia, from new zealand, from belgium, from the netherland. When you add them all up, the governor will say, why would we want to make space in our hospitals for them. And finally, when i point over here and we take a look at the crowned princess, this ship came in this morning around 8 00 this morning. At 8 30, a 911 call was made to the broward paramedics. They said, we need help. We have a member of our crew whos exhibiting covidlike symptoms. They had to come here and take him off. And the Port Authority really got no advanced notice and needed the Broward County commissioner. So theyre all little antsy about what theyre going to do. And really, i would say, i dont know who makes the decision here, because no matter what they do, theyre going to have people who are upset with them. But they say that they may make the decision as early as today, ali. And kerry, of course, this its sort of strange that this comes as a surprise and its catching people offguard, given that this is so much of what florida does. Kerry sanders, thank you for your reporting, in ft. Lauderdale. And most top Cruise Ship Companies are not eligible for relief from the 2 trillion stimulus bill. President trump has touted the possibility of them getting it, but they dont qualify, because a majority of the companys largest publicly traded cruise lines are incorporated offshore, panama, liberia, thats where their ships are flagged, meaning they do not pay federal income taxes in the u. S. And typically do not follow u. S. Regulations. Just days after President Trump signed the 2 trillion relief bill, lawmakers are talking about the need for yet another bill. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says discussions are already underway on a fourth piece of legislat n legislation. Republicans including Mitch Mcconnell say the current bill should be allowed to work first before new measures are conferre considered. Joining me now, Maryland Democratic senator Chris Van Hollen who sits on the appropriations and budget committees. Senator, good to see you. It was pretty clear to everybody when that third bill was passed that there was going to have to be a phase iv. And i guess to some degree, we dont know what effect of phase iii has been yet. We will not know for some time so how do you think congress should be proceeded on what the fourth phase, the next phase of relief is for americans . Well, ali, its good to be with you. And as we focus on the urgent situation facing hospitals and health care providers, shortages of ppe, shortages of testing, were also beginning to hear of additional demands on the system that will need to be addressed, i think, on in a fourth round, especially when it comes to state and local governments that are really stretched to the limits. Theyre on the front lines of this fight in providing a Public Services during this time of need. You may remember that Mitch Mcconnell, the republican leader in the senate, didnt want to put any funds for state and local jurisdictions in round three. In the end, we were able to get a good down payment, but my guess is, more will be required. Ive also been focused on the homework app. To the extent that were going to have to go towards more Distance Learning in our schools, weve got to make sure that we have every child have access to that. This is something that many of us were fighting before the coronavirus. But this epidemic has exposed this gap. We need dedicated funds for that purpose. So those are just a couple of examples. Interesting tweet from the president today. He said, with Interest Rates for the United States being at zero, this is the time to do our decadeslongawaited infrastruc bold, 2 trillion. Be focused solely on jobs and rebuilding the one great infrastructure of our country, phase iv. Interesting, because this president has held infrastructure week several times during his administration, but it is one of those things that actually has bipartisan interest, right . There are moments of crisis in which you take advantage of free money that the government has access to with these kind of Interest Rates. Do you support the idea, obviously, once were past the social distancing and staying at home, of a major infrastructure undertaking . Ali, i do. In fact, the Senate Democrats put forward a very robust Infrastructure Modernization pl plan, well over a year ago, as have house democrats. The president , by contrast, has actually cut funds for infrastructure on a net basis in his budget requests. So its good to here him talking about this. You may recall, when there were meetings at the white house on infrastructure a while ago, the president punted, because he didnt want to think of any way how to pay for it. This is the moment. When you have low Interest Rates like this, this is the moment both in terms of terms, but also the needs around the country both in terms of infrastructure and jobs coming out of this downturn, where that would be a very important bipartisan effort. Soy welcome that idea. Its good to hear the president coming back to the table on it. Something he talked about during his president ial campaign, but really dropped the ball after that spop this may be the moment we can get together to work on that. Mitch mcconnell was talking to my friend hugh hewitt earlier today and that they were talking about the chinese and whether they were honest about the whole thing. Mitch mcconnell said to hugh hewitt that the reason everybody the eye wasnt on the ball on this is because it was during the impeachment trial and that it it diverted the attention of government. I just want to bring up some dates here. On february 6th, the senate acquitted donald trump. On february the 26th, 20 days later, almost three weeks, the president said the 15 people within a couple of days is going to go down close to zero. On february 28th, a month after that, almost, he said, one day like a miracle, its going to disappear. On the 28th, he also called this the democrats new hoax. And on march the 12th, the president said, its going to go away. I think its dangerous for Mitch Mcconnell to suggest that impeachment was impeding the government response to coronaviru coronavirus. Its totally reckless and irresponsible in addition to being totally untrue. It wasnt impeachment that caused the pyatt to disband the office at the white house that was supposed to be the Early Warning system and toplevel response to this kind of pandemic. And it certainly wasnt impeachment that even before that caused the administration and the cdc to cut the administration of some of our Health Experts that were part of our