And wonders how much worse will this get and how does it end . This is a moment that is going to change this nation. A moment that forges character. This is an nbc news special report. The coronavirus pandemic. Hi, everybody, and welcome. Its good to be with you. Im Savannah Guthrie in new york with hoda kotb. For the next hour, we are going to be bringing you the latest on the coronavirus pandemic, which has now infected more than 850,000 people worldwide. Including more than 186,000 people here in the u. S. And this day did start off with a sobering milestone. The u. S. Death toll passed 3,000. It is likely to exceed 4,000 before the day is over, as this virus continues to spread. And this evening, a grim projection from the white house, that even in the best case scenario, we could see at least 100,000 deaths in this country. To put that in perspective, that is roughly the number of americans that died in afghanistan, iraq, vietnam and korea combined. Well take you to the epicenter, new york city, with the latest on the search or a vaccine. And well hear from doctors in their own words and see how people are coming together in this crisis. And in collaboration with facebook, well answer your questions and we have a panel of experts. Were hs going to talk to dr. Anthony fauci about the disturbing white house projections. But well start with a closer look at this crisis like no other. Tonight, the nation is reeling, as the death toll climbs. Just hours ago, the administration said the virus could claim more than 200,000 lives. This is going to be a very painful, very, very painful two weeks. Dr. Anthony fauci asking for the publics cooperation. Lets all pull together and make sure, as we look forward to the next 30 days, we do it with all the intensity and force that we can. Dr. Deborah birx. Theres no magic bullet. Theres no magic vaccine or therapy. Its just behaviors. From coast to coast, an escalating crisis. Nbcs stephanie gosk. In the last few weeks, dr. Calvin sun has worked in a dozen new york city hospitals, over 18 shifts. Now were bursting at the seams, and it just seems that the system is about to collapse. Once again, the new york metropolitan area is ground zero. This time, not for an act of terror, but for this pandemic, which has instilled fear and horror just the same. This is new york as weve never known it. Nbcs anne thompson. What is makes this so different is that you cannot see this enemy. But you know its there. The rate of infections is exploding. As is the death toll. In just six hours monday, 124 people died in new york city alone. Calls to the citys 911 system have set records for days, and First Responders are overwhelmed. Nbc Investigative Reporter tom winter. The new york metropolitan area is going through an unprecedented Public Health and First Responder crisis at once. You have tens of thousands of cases. Hospitals are desperately trying to respond. Why dont we get started. Each morning, dr. Thomas mcginn conducts a Conference Call with 200 physicians. So far he thinks theyre holding their own, but hes not sure for how long. As i continue to repeat to everybody, the center of the storm is new york city, and northwell is at the center of that storm. And in its wake scenes no one would believe just a few weeks ago. Theres now a temporary hospital set up in central park. It opened today. One father and son team are in the vortex of the pandemic emergency. Dr. Irwin, and his youngest son are new york doctors. Basically going to battle out there. Hes an acclaimed pediatrician and Disaster Preparedness expert, who has witnessed countless tragedies. But even that doesnt really compare to the emotional toll that it takes to have a child on that front line at this particular time. His son, dr. Michael reddletter, is associate director at mt. Sinai West Hospital in manhattan. Im worried about my safety, as well. Hes been teaching me my whole life its important to contribute to society. For a few days, hes recorded his observations at the end of his shift. He spoke of a colleague, a nurse, who died from the virus. We were working side by side a couple of nights ago. So its a hard thing to understand that were losing people already. I think were all a bit shocked about what this is doing to our lives. Its not just taxing the medical system, but taxing all of us. And then tonight, the family informed us that their other son, michaels older brother, who is 52, has been hospitalized with coronavirus. But there are some brighter spots in these dark times. In teaneck new jersey, the ceo was diagnosed with coronavirus, but this week, Michael Maren was able to return to work. They all very happy to see me back. To know that this disease doesnt win all the time. And now im walking, living proof of that. And joining us now is dr. Anthony fauci, the director of the National Institute of allergy and infectious diseases, a key advisor to the president in this crisis. He was at that White House Briefing this evening. Dr. Fauci, thank you for being with us. Good to be with you. I was watching the briefing, of course, at the white house. The president put it bluntly. He said this is going to be a hell of a bad two, three weeks. You yourself said there will be a lot of suffering. Can you tell people what that means, what they should be prepared for . Yeah. What youre going to be seeing over the next week or so is that there will be the acceleration and peaking of cases, places like new york city, new jersey, new orleans and other cities, and what youll see is that even though in some cases such as in new york, where the number of new cases per day appear to be leveling off a little, you always see hospitalizations, intensive care and death that linger on. So the next couple of weeks, were going to be seeing some serious things that the American Public unfortunately is going to have to get used to seeing. What were doing with the mitigation is to try and blunt that. No matter what we do, even with the positive effects that were seeing with the mitigation, its going to be a tough couple of weeks coming up. And we looked at the models at the White House Briefing, and it suggests that if we do everything right, then perhaps the death rate in this country will be somewhere around 100 to 200,000 deaths. Thats if we do everything right. Is the social distancing being done right now in every state enough for that scenario to occur . Well, there are a couple of things about that, savannah, that deserve clarification. First of all, the mitigation and social distancing clearly works. Its worked in other countries, which was definitively proven, and were seeing it starting to really help right now in our own country, so we just need as i said at the press briefing, we need to put our foot on the accelerator, not on the brake. We have 30 days, the guidelines we need to really push. Getting back to that number for a moment, its really important. The model tells you that even if you mitigate fully, youre going to get to this rather disturbing number of deaths, the 100,000 to 200,000. However, as data comes in, the model is only as good as the assumptions that are put into it. So it is conceivable that if we really put a real full court presh with the mitigation, the data that comes out may have us modify that model. So even though we anticipate that we would get 100,000 plus, even with optimal mitigation, we can bend that curve a bit. Its within our power to do that. Let me ask you about that very thing. As we sit here tonight, 33 states have stay at home orders, but the rest dont. In your medical opinion, should every single state have a stay at home order right now . Well, what every single state should do in this country is very strictly follow the guideline groups of what we spoke about, which includes that. No unnecessary travel, telework when you can. No crowds of more than ten people. Six feet away from individuals. Are they doing that . No restaurants, no bars. Well, i dont know. Certainly some of them are, but i see pictures on tv, savannah, that you do where people are not paying attention. And thats why i plead with them, when i get up at the press conference, even though you think that this is not having an impact, not only are you putting yourself in danger, but youre putting society in danger. Because as you get infected, you may be inadvertently and maybe even innocently infecting others, particularly those who are vulnerable. So weve got to get everybody on board. We dont need beaches with people frolicking. We dont need crowded bars. We have to stop that. Just real quickly, if you could wave a magic wand, would you ask every governor to do a stay at home order . Stay at home orders are kind of complicated for people to really adhere to. What i would really like to see, and im seeing it, because certain of the governors are doing it, is just make sure everybody strictly follows the guidelines of physical separation. If we follow them, we would be in much better shape than we are right now. Theres this question of masks and whether regular folks who have to go out in public should be wearing some kind of face covering. Theres been conflicting guidance on this. Do people need to wear some kind of face covering, even if its just a bandanna when out and about . Well, the guidance thats out there has not changed, where the cdc says people who are Health Care Providers should be wearing it. If you have someone who is infected and you want to prevent them from infecting a person in the Health Care Setting should wear them. What is being actively discussed, and it is being actively discussed today and well be talking about it tomorrow, given the fact that there is a degree of transmission from asymptomatic individuals who may not know that theyre infected, we need to at least examine the possibility, as long as you said correctly, as long as were certain we dont take the masks away from individuals who are Health Care Providers, who need them, have some sort of facial covering. It doesnt need to be a chas call mask, but something to prevent them from infecting others. So this is actively being looked at. I have a question from facebook, someone says do you have an answer for him . Oh, yeah, sure. Because classically when you have diseases like influenza and other coronaviruses that are relatively benign, traditionally and consistently, what happens when the warm weather comes, viruses generally dont do as well in warm, moist weather as they do in cold, dry weather, and people tend to be outside instead of closed environments where respiratory infections can spread relatively easy. That is generally what happens. We are not sure at all, nor is there a guarantee that when there is warmer weather, well see a dmininution. We hope it happens. Before i let you go, we expended the 30day guidelines, people asked to stay at home. Do you think it could be longer than 30 days thats required . We always take it on a literally week by week basis. I believe we will be able to see a turn around if everybody strictly adheres to those guidelines in 30 days. But we always keep an open mind, savannah. We will evaluate it, just like when we came to the end of the 15days. I mentioned to you on a previous show that well look at it on an individual basis, on a week by week basis and do the same thing. I hope we dont have to extend it, but if we do, well seriously consider it. Dr. Anthony fauci, thank you for your hard work, sir. We really appreciate it. Good to be with you. Thank you. While new york has been ground zero for this crisis so far, the virus is spreading rapidly, creating new hot spots across the country. Among them, louisiana, with more than 5,000 cases and counting. Nearly a third of them in new orleans. Joining us now is louisiana governor john bell edwards. Governor, thank you for joining us tonight. Thank you, hoda. Great to be with you and your viewers. Thank you. Wow, we had some sobering numbers today. You had a news conference, and i was shocked by them. You called the numbers startling, a spike of 30 in cases in louisiana. Talk about what how sobering those numbers were to you. Well, first of all, its a very tough day here. Not totally unexpected, because we knew this was going to get worse before it gets better. Hopefully we just had a log jam that broke in terms of tests that were pending and they all came through at once. But 1200 cases in one day was an awful lot. We went up to 239 deaths from about another 54 just over the last 24 hours. So those numbers are very alarming. Yeah. Governor, you talked about the desperate need for ventilators. You said that in louisiana, you could run out by the 4th or 5th of april, which is this weekend. I know you asked the federal government for 5,000. You said you knew you were going to get a piece of the pie. You got a call from the Vice President , and he said you werent going to get 5,000, you were going to get 150 ventilators. Is that sort of the piece of the pie you were expecting . Well, you know, i wanted to make sure that we got a piece of the pie. Obviously, we continue to work other angles. Were ordering from private vendors, as well. We got in a hundred yesterday. Were woefully short of what we need. We need a couple of thousand ventilators just in the new orleans area. And its not the state that will run out in a few days, it will be the new orleans region. But we have growing cases here in baton rouge, and also over in lafayette, up in shreveport. The number is well over 200 now. So the other regions of the state are just ten days, two weeks behind new orleans. How much does a ventilator usually run not during this time . There are different types of ventilators, but a really good ventilator should run about 25,000. Theyre 50,000 and more now, that all happened in the last few weeks. Cant believe the prices are doubled. Lets talk about your extended stay at home order. You want people to stay at home. Ive been hearing you, youre repeating it over and over. And yet i see people having second line funerals, i see people gathering. How do you get the message out to people in louisiana to stay home . Well, thats obviously difficult. First of all, we have an awful lot of people that are complying. I want to thank them. But we have some people who are not complying, as well. Maybe the numbers that came out today will do the strike. Y do the trick. Some people are just slow to develop the sense of urgency we need them to have. But these numbers are sobering, so maybe that will help. I think a lot of people may think, that this is a city problem, a new york city problem, a chicago problem, a new orleans problem. You said something that 60 of your 64 perishes have cases. This aint just a city problem, is it . Absolutely not. By the way, the four perishes that dont have a case, they have coronavirus. They have covid19. They just dont know it yet. And this is going to be all over the country. And nobody should think of this as being somebody elses problem. That is a recipe for disaster. We all have a role to play. Every single individual in this country has a role to play. I know thats going to happen. Youre a tough guy. You were in the 82nd airborne. I know youre tough. I know folks in louisiana are tough. But even tough people can get scared. What kind of reassurance do you have for your state . Were just going to be very truthful and transparent to people. And we are going to get through this. And between now and then, its going to get tougher, not eas r easier, and pretty soon, well get back to where we can hold hands and hug and do those second lines like we want to. But we shouldnt be doing them right now. I do look forward to that day, too. Governor, thank you so much. We appreciate your time tonight. Thank you, hoda. Appreciate you. All right. We do have a lot of people with questions, savannah, we have and panel of experts answering your questions throughout the hour about the challenges facing our hospitals, our Health Care Workers. And about what lies ahead as this pandemic spreads. So nbc news medical correspondent dr. John torres, nbc news investigative consumer correspondent vickie wen. And joining us is stephanie ruhle. Epidemiologist and nbc news science contributor dr. Joseph fair, and nbc news contributor dr. Vin gupta. Welcome all. Lets get you started. We have our first question for you, dr. Torres, from generjean from facebook. How worried should she be because her 12yearold daughter has asthma . So the two biggest things we know that affect people with coronavirus and make them have worst outcomes are age, and chronic medical conditions. Asthma falls under that. So the fact she has asthma, puts her at higher risk. But she is 12, which is the aim group that has the lowest risk. So even though shes at low risk because of her age, she does need to practice extra precautions. And if she does get coronavirus, they need to keep a closer eye on her for breathing problems. If they start noticing that, she needs to be checked. Okay. This one is for dr. Gupta. Lisa writes dr. Gupta, what say you . I think shes doing the best she can, and thats what all American Families are doing, especially in states that have passed shelter in state laws or advocated social distancing. Theres only so much you can do. So my advice, if youre coughing or having symptoms, fever, shortness of breath, a cough, to wear a mask at home. Thats a case where, especially with the cdc revising guidelines, if you have an asymptom mattek Family Member, wear a mask. Otherwise, infection control, making sure youre washing your hands. That is going to be key. And cleaning the house. Those are the right things. This is many ways just good infection control, good hand hygiene is the best you can do, especially living in close quarters with other Family Members. We have a question now for dr. Joseph fair. Nicky asks this well, we say that because coronaviruses are typically part of the cause of the common cold. Coronaviruses and rhino viruses. We have a cold and flu season that drops off in the summer and comes back in the fall. The reason it drops off in the summer, it has something to do with temperature and humidity, but we have longer sunlight hours. Uv is a natural disinfectant that activates both coronaviruses. Shes right about the vaccine. We have a minimum of a year to 18 months to see a vaccine. So dont put yourself in the vaccine being an end to this. That being said, we can expect to see a resurgence of the virus in the fall. I think everyone would probably free that we will see that resurgence in the fall. So we have to focus our efforts in the summer and getting testing, re