Now on wall street, more pain for investors this morning. Stocks plunging in the first halfhour of trading despite an Interest Rate cut initiated by the fed. The three governors of new york, new jersey and connecticut will be making a joint announcement. Were going to bring you that news as soon as we get it. Our nbc news team is live and ready to go this hour. Our reporters are spread across the entire country, have every angle of this story covered for you, joe fryer, kathy park, Gabe Gutierrez but it is another day of turmoil for the markets and that is where we begin. David gura joins us live from the new york Stock Exchange. The bells ringing, you were starting your live shot and the ticker did not move. It was immediately halted. Where do you see things going now . Reporter this was a precipitous drop right out of the gate. Ive been here for the last week or so and weve had that Circuit Breaker activated twice. It hit that 7 threshold. Trading has resumed on wall street. The s p is down 9. 7 . The next threshold would be 13 . There is a lot of anxiety pervading the markets right now. The fed chair cutting rates, announcing that the fed was going to cut rates last night in emergency action, adding new liquidity to the marketplace and ensuring that dollars can trade for easily. I was struck on the emergency telephone Conference Call that he convened last night at how unprecedented a moment this is. Yes, we all remember the financial crisis of 2008, but this is something that has a much longer time frame and you were alluding to the fact that weve seen so much economic dislocation here over the last few days. New york city Public Schools are going to be closed, investors trying to reckon with all of that and what that means. When i had a chance to ask the fed chair about this, i was curious about how he thinks all of these things. He acknowledged the fact that hes doing all that he can with Monetary Policy but nodding to the fact that Congress Needs to do what it needs to do. There needs to be fiscal policy in place for it to work out. And so thats the significance of that move last night. And investors still trying to process what all of this means on a Stock Exchange that is emptier than it has been. We had to fill out a medical questionnaire. I was going to say, you would have to wonder how many tools are in the toolbox for the feds to try and, you know, save off what were seeing happen right now in the markets. Well get back to the markets a little bit later on in the program. Lets go to joe friar outside a hospital in burbank, california. Lets talk a little bit about what is happening on the medical front here and the health care system. Obviously growing concern as to whether the nations hospitals will be able to, will be ready to treat what is expected to be a wave of new patients in the coming weeks. Reporter yeah, thats right. And theyre bracing for the future. Were here in burbank where theyve changed things up a little bit. When you pull up to the emergency, there will be a triage nurse who greets you and asks you some key questions, have you been out of the country recently, have you been with anyone who is tested positive for coronavirus. If you answer yes to those questions and any of other symptoms, then youre going to get directed to some makeshift tents where they can ask you more questions and begin treatment outside of the building. Theres an effort to make sure that people who could potentially be infected with coronavirus arent inside the building at least immediately until they learn more about you and whether you need more immediate care. One of the biggest concerns they have is the worry well. People who dont have severe symptoms but are showing up to hospitals even though the best advice is for people who dont have severe symptoms to try to stay home. The worry is what is to come at hospitals around the country. Will they have enough hospital beds . Will they have enough protective equipment for those who are working in the hospitals, ventilators and more. Earlier today the ceo of Rush University hospital in chicago which is on the front lines spoke, take a listen to what he had to say. I would say the time is actually now regardless of what the numbers are going to be to prepare for the worstcase scenario. History will look back on this and say if they have too many beds, so what. If we didnt have enough beds, people could actually die. Reporter and one of the things of course, some people are talking about, including new york Governor Cuomo is whether the military should get involved. The u. S. Corps of engineers getting involved to build makeshift hospitals that can treat people to help brace for this surge that is expected in the coming days and weeks. Ayman . Joe friar in los angeles. The big question today is here in new york city with governors from the tristate area expected to make an announcement. Kathy park joins us. Schools closed across new york. The mayor has ordered the closure the Largest School system in the country. Its also had an Economic Impact because bars and restaurants have also been limited for Indoor Dining and as we just mentioned, we are expecting this announcement to take place at around 10 45 a. M. , the governor of new york, expected to announce that. What more do we know about what measures both the city and the state of new york are prepared to do . Ayman, its hard to say. It seems like the headlines keep changing by the hour. But as far as the School System goes, this is the largest public School System in the nation, closing all the schools down in the city impacts more than a Million Students plus their families. This goes into effect starting today all the way until april 20th, at least. Mayor bill de blasio received pressure for not closing the schools down sooner. He mentioned this was a tough decision because families would be scrambling to find childcare. He also mentioned that a lot of students rely on the school meals. So we heard from the mayor earlier this morning on morning joe. As far as how this will role out, take a listen. Were providing meals all week at the schools, pickup meals, breakfast and lunch. Were going to have to create feeding stations of some kind Going Forward of different types. Were doing Home Deliveries for seniors. Were closing down Senior Center programming but using Senior Centers as kitchens to get meals out to seniors at their home. In addition to those grab and go meals that will be available for the students as long as the closure remains in effect, eventually students will be moving toward this Remote Learning program. So teachers over the next couple of days will be coming up with this plan. They will be coming to the schools to come up with a better idea of how they will move forward with this. Obviously there are thousands of students who dont have access to the laptops and tablets. That accommodation will be made as well to make sure everyone is still learning. Lets crossover to Gabe Gutierrez and officials are urging everyone to selfquarantine after a spike in the number of cases in the area. Gabe, what more have you learned about the procedures taking place there . Reporter over the weekend, the mayor here took the extraordinary step of urging everyone in this small town, about 40,000 people, to selfquarantine. If you can believe it, here you see the sign that were seeing in many of the businesses here, takeout or delivery by uber eats only and those are some of the restrictions that went into place over the last couple of days. What happened was, last week, when some of the schools had closed in this area, the authorities noticed that people didnt seem to be taking this very seriously. People are still gathering and so that became the reason that the mayor over the weekend urged everyone to selfquarantine. Yesterday an executive order was signed that many of the businesses here would have to close, hair salons, nail salons, limiting the number of people that are able to go into the supermarkets. Allowing just 25 people and the largest supermarket, 50 people. Just this morning, ayman, we saw Police Officers going door to door here in downtown new jersey telling Business Owners about these new restrictions. And they are urging them to take this very, very seriously. Some of the businesses, if they do not have enough room to allow for social distancing, to allow the customers to be six feet apart, theyre being asked to close as well. Again, right now, this is the busiest street in new york, a suburb of new york city. About 40,000 people. The mayor taking that step, urging people to selfquarantine, urging them not to go out and to, you know, visit with friends or family, keep those gatherings small. This is something that were seeing play out in communities across the country. The Financial Impact here on main street of so many communities will be impacted for weeks if not months to come. Its an eerie feeling. Its hard to imagine thats main street in new jersey. Lets go to kari sanders. Its a scene thats repeating itself across the country. Stor stores struggling to keep shelves stocked due to a panic thats sweeping across the country. Reporter everybody understands now that this coronavirus is contagious but also so is fear. And that is what is driving people to run to the store, to load up. The president of the United States, donald trump, said that it appeared from his conversations with grocery executives that people are buying three to five times as much on every run as they normally would. Here this morning there was a line of about 25 people waiting for the doors to open. When they went in, they were pleasantly surprised to discover that there had been supplied delivered overnight, the shelves were stocked, there was toilet paper, so folks had an opportunity to go ahead and buy what they needed. But there are so many people that the shelf is almost empty. But other supplies, at least at this store, are doing well. One of the things we havent heard a lot of in recent days is we have not heard a lot from the executives on camera of the grocery stores. But in texas, the ceo of heb as well as a ceo from kroger will be at a News Conference talking about some of the details. Final thing we might point out, we decided to put a test to ourselves to see what we could do. It took us six stores, three hours, and we were able to find bleach, toilet paper and hand sanitizer. The shelves are bare in some places, but here, stocked. Thats a good sign. Its a good sign. Let me ask you this question. I dont know if youve had a chance to get a sense. People are concerned that maybe theres a run on some of these supplies in areas where there are peaks or spikes of a coronavirus outbreak. Do you get a sense from where you are in florida that fear is driven by numbers or is it just a sentiment . Is there an outbreak of the coronavirus down in the areas that youve been reporting from to say people are really trying to bunker down and stay at home because of this outbreak . Reporter so im in the orlando area. Its a big vacation area. A lot of people are not paying close attention to the numbers. The true concentration of cases are down in Broward County and thats where they decided to put the National Guard to help one of the hospitals there set up tents to deal with it. Were not seeing what youre suggesting, were not seeing that people are getting maps out looking at numbers and saying, its bad there, lets buy here. Its not so bad here. It seems to be across the board, from alaska, florida, maine, all the way down to california. That people are buying, buying, buying because they keep hearing this could go on for a while and the fear is, we need to have supplies in the home. Exactly. Thank you very much. Lets crossover to Blain Alexander in atlanta. Obviously, that is one of the worlds Busiest Airports, but what is the situation there this morning . Well, this morning what youre looking at is the worlds Busiest Airport looking like a shell of itself. Were in the International Terminal and as you can see right here, it is practically a ghost town. Just within the past hour or so, i was in the domestic terminal, more people over there, but nowhere near what we are used to seeing on a busy monday morning here at the worlds Busiest Airport. I want to direct your attention to this door behind me. This is the area where passengers come through after going through customs. In atlanta, this is one of 13 airports that are receiving flights from china, iran and from parts of europe where the passengers are going through the advanced screening and that is what we saw over the weekend that was creating so many delays in places like chicago ohare and new yorks jfk airport and down in dallas. People waiting in those areas for hours waiting to go through the screening. Here in atlanta, i spoke with an official who told me that the wait times were only about 10 or 15 minutes above average. But that enhanced screening is going to continue for the foreseeable future, ayman. Thanks to our team for kicking that off. Thank you all. Coming up, were expecting to hear more from new York Governor Andrew Cuomo at 10 45 a. M. Were going to bring that to you live. President trump on his side set to speak to the nations governors next hour. Were going to talk about Gretchen Whitmer about what she wants to hear from the president next. Just over a year ago, i was drowning in credit card debt. Sofi helped me pay off twentythree thousand dollars of credit card debt. They helped me consolidate all of that into one low monthly payment. They make you feel like its an honor for them to help you out. I went from sleepless nights to getting my money right. So thank you. bobby youre concerned that its going to cost you money. Ouble, so thank you. ben to this day, i only paid what i had to pay for the device. When i go back, everything is covered. Theres so much youre missing by not having hearing aids. vo well find you a hearing aid that fits your lifestyle and your budget at one of our 1,500 locations. Call 1800miracle to start your 30day riskfree trial and schedule your free hearing evaluation at your locally owned miracle ear today. State and local officials taking sweeping new action to limit the spread of the coronavirus. This morning a growing number of bars and restaurants closing or being told to close. Michigan joining at least five other states that had already announced closures and multiple major cities introducing their own restrictions including, new york, boston and new orleans. 33 states have shut down Public Schools or moved to online studies. Theres no federal push for widespread closures. In fact President Trump is set to speak with the nations governors in a teleconference in about an hour from now. Joining me now is michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer where the confirmed cases climbed to 53 today. Thank you very much for taking time to talk to us. Let me start with the decision this morning about some of the closures, you know, for the bars and restaurants in your state. Walk us through how you came to that decision and are we at a point, do you think, that we should be seeing these closures happen nationwide . Well, none of these decisions are taken lightly and theyre all informed by the best science, best practices, how do we keep the most people safe. As we see this virus is growing fast. The federal government hasnt been prepared. We on the state level are getting aggressive. Ive been on the phone with my colleagues from ohio and illinois and wisconsin, this is really important that we show leadership. We need to flatten this curve. It doesnt come without hardship. Thinking about what it means for kids getting meals, kids missing out on education, hardship for parents who are working. Same goes for our small businesses. But the fact of the matter is, we have to get aggressive on the front end to preclude Community Spread or to mitigate it. As we see this growing, we know that social distancing is the most important thing that we can do. And every one of us has a responsibility on that front. And so these are not easy decisions but theyre the right thing to do. We have to be aggressive on the front end to mitigate the impacts on Peoples Health and on our economy. Youre probably aware that the tristate area, including new jersey, new york and connecticut, all of them going to be announcing the closure of gyms, bars, restaurants and really kind of confining their services. What should happen if people or businesses as weve seen in some parts of the country dont comply with these new restrictions from state officials like yourself . What would you do in the state of michigan, for example, if bars and restaurants and others dont comply with your directive . We saw this weekend, people crammed into bars to celebrate st. Patricks day. Its the opposite of what the best medical experts recommend. Thats why i was on the phone with the chair of my Liquor Control Commission because we license all of those places and that is really where weve got the power over ensuring that they comply with this order. This is about our Public Health. This is about the long term and our economy and thats why Everyone Needs to comply with these orders and were going to use every tool in our toolbox to make sure that they do. Let me ask you, youre expec