to the united states after president trump introduced a travel ban on the uk yesterday. woman speaks spanish on loudspeaker. and spanish police use drones with loudspeakers to tell people to go home. the foreign office advises against all but essential travel there too. hello, a very good afternoon. if you have just joined hello, a very good afternoon. if you havejustjoined us, welcome to bbc news. the health secretary, matt hancock, has warned that the measures the government will take to combat the coronavirus will disrupt the ordinary lives of almost everybody in the country. he confirmed that in the coming weeks people over 70 and vulnerable people would be asked to self isolate, staying at home and cutting down contacts. here are the day s other main developments: matt hancock said ministers would ask the nation s manufacturers to switch to the production of ventilators needed to treat people who develop severe symptoms. more doctors would be trained in their use. supermarkets in the uk are urging customers not to panic buy during the outbreak. they say there is plenty of food available. and the foreign office has advised against all but essential travel to the united states following the us government announcement imposing restrictions on travel from the uk. the foreign office is also advising against all but essential travel to spain, and the balearic and ca nary islands. easyjet is the latest airline to cancel all flights to spain, beginning tuesday. ryanair is also limiting the number of flights to the country. here s our political correspondent, nick eardley. for weeks now we have all been told to wash our hands more, but the government is increasing its response to coronavirus. already, if you have a persistent cough or fever you are to stay at home and new measures could be coming soon. many of them will be focused on those most at risk, in particular the elderly. they could soon be asked to shield themselves from the virus by staying away from other people for months. protection of the vulnerable and elderly by asking them to stay away, to stay at home, that is in our action plan, but we do not want formally to say yet that people should do that, and the reason for that is simply this length of time that they would need to stay self isolated, stay at home, to protect themselves, it is a very big ask. it is a very long time. the scottish government says its plans for the elderly focus on reducing contact rather than complete isolation but soon families are likely to be asked to isolate together, too, if someone in a household show symptoms. engineers will be asked to produce as many ventilators as possible. the government needs more and has said it will buy as many as can be produced. there are also plans to take over beds in private hospitals if the nhs comes under too much pressure. i think this response is going to be one of the biggest challenges that our generation faces. some questions are being asked about the response, though, including about the idea immunity can be built up by protecting the most vulnerable while others get a mild illness. ministers say that is not the plan, despite the government s chief scientist suggesting it was part of the approach. labour wants more information about how decisions are being reached. we do that not to undermine the government, because we want the government s strategy to succeed, but it is important we can all reassure ourselves the government is taking the correct approach. the prime minister is holding talks with officials this afternoon. emergency legislation will be published in the coming days and new measures are likely to be introduced soon. our political correspondent jessica parker is here. in terms of the scale of this, it is still quite hard to grasp because it is constantly moving. presumably meetings continue over the weekend in whitehall, phone conversations between the uk government, the scottish government, the welsh government and the northern ireland executive, all different moving parts, and trying to keep everybody calm and focused on sensible precautions at the right time? yes, you have a few different elements in play, you have the number of stories and lines coming in from all over the world as countries take different and very drastic approaches for how they deal with the virus. you have quite a lot of speculation and varying reports as to what might happen here and then you have the official line is coming from the government. we know borisjohnson met coming from the government. we know boris johnson met with officials coming from the government. we know borisjohnson met with officials in downing street yesterday and we understand he is doing that again today. one of the problems has been over the last 24 48 hours, the issue on messaging. during a public health crisis, communication becomes incredibly important. people need to know what is going on and this thing about the over 70s being asked to stay at home, that was spilling out yesterday through some briefings, there were reports about it and matt hancock was asked about it today, saying more on that within weeks, but i would imagine, from the perspective of the government, it is not ideal to have it spilling out from unsourced briefings and the health secretary not being too specific about when it might happen and as nick hardly mentioned, there is the variance with what the scottish government are saying on theissue, scottish government are saying on the issue, they are saying that elderly people could be asked to reduce social contact but not pushing the message they could be asked to stay at home altogether. as matt hancock was saying, it could be four months if it did come to pass, which is a really big challenge? yes, four months is the figure that has been reported on quite widely. i have not heard him say four months specifically but he did not push back on that either and it is a big ask for a long time, he said. the government has been repeatedly suggesting they do not want to go too fast with the more drastic measures because they think people might tire of it and the measures will become less effective if people stop taking them seriously. there is an opposite view that if drastic measures are needed they need to be implemented quickly and fast but i think we are going to get more from the government this week. you will get this emergency legislation said to be published. i would expect to hear more about the plan to ban mass gatherings. set. there has been a slight difference with scotland, saying that gatherings of more than 500 people should be stopped this week. thank you very much. dr maxjonas is a consultant in intensive care medicine at the university hospital of southampton. hejoins me now from southampton. thank you very much for being with us on bbc news. let me ask you first of all if you can explain to us the value that a ventilator might have in treating somebody with severe symptoms from coronavirus? of course. about one in 20 people who are infected with the virus will require some form of enhanced critical care, and some of those will need help breathing and that is where the ventilator comes in. the ventilator is just a sophisticated device for helping gas getting into the lungs and helping it to get out as well. where you at all surprised by the figure that was announced today that at present the uk has about 5000 ventilators available? today that at present the uk has about 5000 ventilators available7m does not surprise me. we have not beenin does not surprise me. we have not been in this situation before. 5000, for what we would be currently using them for, would probably be a surplus but the situation has changed because we have a virus that attacks the respiratory system in people that need intensive care, so we are short and we will need to do something about that.|j we are short and we will need to do something about that. i do not know if you can answer this question but i will put it to you and you can tell me sharply if you cannot. is it possible for manufacturers of other goods of this kind, basically electronically operated, but have a certain number of moving specialist parts, is it possible for them to turn to production of this because my understanding is that there is not a domestic manufacturer of ventilators? there is not a domestic manufacturer but i imagine that certain manufacturers in the uk can make parts. all the ventilators that i know, and i have been to several production lines, they are built on a production line in germany, switzerland and america and they have parts from other countries that are bolted in any production line fashion. the important thing is to go back to the 1940s, the 1950s, the uk led the way in creating bits of equipment, and they got when problems by putting bicycle gears into ventilators. there is innovation. you can do that. if you look at the manufacturers quoted, rolls royce makes systems for delivering gas into aeroplanes, which is how we fly at 30,000 feet, so they have experience and hopefully giving the blueprint, they can produce something that is as rugged as a gcb and as luxurious as a rolls royce. rugged as a gcb and as luxurious as a rolls- royce. that rugged as a gcb and as luxurious as a rolls-royce. that would be a good combination. jcb. can a rolls-royce. that would be a good combination. jcb. can you a rolls-royce. that would be a good combination. jcb. can you talk about plans for dealing with an access number of cases, rather than what would be the case forjust flow? everybody has pointed out that this is different to influenza. we are naive to this. we have not seen it before. i think the important thing about all of this, and i know that there are political aspects and people saying other things, it is to have one clear voice. my confidence comes from the fact that chris whitty is a genealogist used to dealing with infectious diseases. he will be told by history but we could not be in better hands if we get it right. that is the first thing. we have got to recognise the nhs is only part of the issue. it is also down to the population not only relying on the nhs, but the nhs will relying on the nhs, but the nhs will rely on the population. they have got to do the things that make it safer, isolating and washing their hands, and the other things, we will have to see how it develops but i am hopeful if the strategies which chris whitty and have and his tea m chris whitty and have and his team have sorted out, we will be able to decrease the peaks to allow us to spread the site. that is sketching out to some extent where we might be going. thejourney we are on is one that lots of people would find difficult to grasp because we do not get these kinds of major public health emergencies in this country that often. what sort of advice are you offering, friends, patients, about how to mentally deal with what is going to be a long period of heightened stress? that is a really good question. ifind it difficult. i am over 60 and i have other issues so i am in a higher risk group myself. my view on this is if we are sensible and we work together and a lot of people have compared this to world war ii and the blackouts, we need to work together as a country, which is really important, we need to help ourselves and help others, but what i think is important is you socially distance yourself if you re worried about contact and you are in a higher risk group, and by that i mean more than two metres, you wash your hands frequently if you touch things which you have picked up, and just the basics like that will reduce the number of transmissions. we are still not entirely clear about the transmission mode of this virus, but i believe if we are sensible as a population and work together and do not panic buy and do all the things which are inevitable because of the anxiety raised by the communications to date, we will get through it, and ifeel that the message, especially to the elderly because i have seen publications out there, the nhs will do everything we can to adapt and over, and have a bed for any patient that comes through and i think if chris whitty gets it right and we follow his advice and do not have political interference, actually we will get through this. dr max jonas, that is a good, upbeat point to end this interview on. thank you for being with us this afternoon on bbc news. i hope we get a chance to speak again soon. to get more on the impact of the virus on travel, our correspondentjenny kumah is at heathrow. it isa it is a place people are spending a bit longer in, some people at least, than they were hoping to, i would imagine. you ve been talking to passengers about frustrations for those who are not going away. there must be frustration with the uncertainty of people coming home. what sort of disruption is their at heathrow at the moment? this is having a massive impact, in particular flights to and from spain have been hard hit this weekend. a number of airlines have announced they will be either reducing flights to spain or stopping them altogether, so today, for example, ryanair say they will be reducing flights from midnight today, through to midnight on thursday. we also had easyj et to midnight on thursday. we also had easyjet this weekend saying it will cancel flights for the rest of the months from tuesday. it is running a normal service up until then but they will be operating a number of return flights. further afield, they will be operating a number of return flights. furtherafield, more disruption is anticipated as the us government has said it will be banning travellers from the uk and republic of ireland. that ban comes into force in the early hours of tuesday morning. today, we have heard the foreign office is advising against travel to the us, in all but emergencies. lots of airlines very concerned about the impact this is having also on their businesses, particularly with those flights to the united states being vital rates to their business. one more thought, if there is any possibility of compensation for travellers. a lot of people will end up travellers. a lot of people will end up having to spend extra money, but equally there is currently abroad, who can t actually get home at the moment but what sort of help might be available for them? it very much depends on the airline and your insurance policy so the advice is to check with the airline and they will ta ke check with the airline and they will take their cue from the foreign office. if the advice is to only travel in an emergency, you have to check if you are insured and covered for that. the airlines are saying in the meantime that they are struggling, calling on the government to offer them financial support. today the trade body airlines uk called on the government to stop its prevarication and bean counting and the government says it is working with the sector to support workers, businesses and passengers and they say they have done things like influence of the eu commission to relax flights and they said the treasury stands ready to help all businesses including the airline industry impacted by the coronavirus. jenny kumah in heathrow, thank you very much. in spain, where nearly 300 people have now died, a state of emergency is in force. for the next 15 days, people will be confined to their homes, apart from going to work or shopping forfood or medicines. kathryn stanczyszyn reports. another european capital city almost deserted. spain has declared a lockdown, meaning people are banned from leaving home except for buying essential supplies and medicine, orfor work if they can t do so remotely. authorities have decided to use drones to encourage those out on the street to return to their houses. schools are shut, museums and sports venues closed, and restaurants and cafes can only do home deliveries, a huge adjustment for society. a week ago, we were fine. we were all dancing, partying, out on the streets, and, within seven days, we are now confined to our homes. so this is something very serious to consider, and the spanish culture is to be outside, so it s very hard for people. the uk has advised against all but essential travel to spain, but british citizens there already are being allowed to fly home. with 191 deaths, spain is europe s worst hit country after italy, with confirmed cases rising by 1500 injust 2a hours. italy has now recorded more than moo deaths. it began a nationwide lockdown almost a week ago. yesterday, there were coordinated outpourings of gratitude across spain and italy for health professionals battling the coronavirus. the state of emergency in spain will last for two weeks. it could be extended as the spread of coronavirus continues. kathryn stanczyszyn, bbc news. away from spain, other european countries are bringing in new restictions to combat the spread of the virus. france has announced the closure of all public places that are non essential to public life. that includes restaurants, cafes and cinemas. long distance train, plane and bus travel is going to be progressively reduced over the coming days. local elections have taken place across the country today, although turnout appears down by 5%. germany is to close its borders with france, austria and switzerland tomorrow, although goods and commuters will be able to cross between the countries. in austria itself, where around 800 cases have been reported, gatherings of more than five people have been banned. and in the vatican, the pope will carry out the traditional easter week celebrations without worshippers because of the pandemic. us airports have been thrown into chaos as new coronavirus health screening measures for people returning from mainland europe come into force. long queues formed as travellers waited for hours for the screenings before passing through customs. the uk government is advising against all but essential travel to the united states. president trump has tested negative for the coronavirus, the white house says. mr trump underwent a test days after hosting a meeting at his florida resort with a brazilian delegation, some of whom had the virus. several cruise ships are reported to have casesof suspected coronavirus. more than 600 british passengers are on board the braemar, which is off the coast of the bahamas. 20 guests are in isolation, having shown flu like symptoms, after five people tested positive for covid i9. there are also 20 crew members who are isolated, including a doctor. the foreign office is working with fred olsen cruise lines to help bring uk citizens home from the vessel. supermarkets are urging shoppers to stop stockpiling during the coronavirus outbreak. the british retail consortium is asking customers not to buy more than they need as our business correspondent katy austin reports. queues outside supermarkets and shelves emptied of essentials like loo roll, hand wash and long life foods show many shoppers have not heeded the official advice that there is no need to stockpile. people at this store in london felt there had been an overreaction. there s no nappies, toilet paper, nothing, nothing. so it s going to be a struggle. i think that somebody needs to put kind of a cosh on it and say, you can only take so much. it s a little bit over the top, frankly. one of my friends said, like, you ve got to get bog roll, tea bags, and i was like, why? don t know, she s frightened me, so i ve come out to get it all. supermarkets have had to adapt quickly by speeding up supplies, increasing warehouse space and they re running online delivery services at full capacity. they are also being allowed to extend their delivery hours, but still many shops are limiting the purchases of the most in demand products. here at aldi, customers are being asked not to buy more than four of anything. now they ve written to customers, asking them to be considerate in the way they shop, telling them that buying more than is needed can sometimes mean others will be left without. shoppers are reassured, though, there is enough for everyone if we all work together. the risk is that we alljust buy that little bit more than we actually need, and, if we all did that, then that would cause more of a problem in terms of making sure that we ve got the right supplies coming through the system. today s letter is a plea to all customers to stop panic buying for fear of overstretching the system and leaving the most vulnerable without what they need. katy austin, bbc news. a group of voluteers is working to ensure vulnerable elderly people confined to their homes by coronavirus in porthcawl are not forgotten. they aim to drop off essentials and offer emotional support over the phone to people in isolation, relieving some of the pressure on local gps and the nhs. madeleine moon is one of the founders. i asked what gave her the idea. i was thinking of this because i had done a lot of work when i was working in defence around resilience planning. and keery marlow, who s a local retired police officer and community activist, had been thinking of it two streets away. kerry marlow. we came together and we have had a fantastic response from meetings at the surgery, talking to church representatives, talking to the local veterans‘ hub. everybody is keen to do this and one of things we can do is take some of the pressure off the supermarkets. we can have local volunteers, perhaps some of our younger citizens in the town, going to the supermarket and picking up orders and delivering them. we are setting up a system which we are trying to make absolutely safe and secure for people so that scammers cannot get in. because of course a lot of people who will be knocking on the door, because it s a volunteer scheme, will be strangers, people they haven t met before, and there is always the potential for that to be exploited, isn t there? there is, and what we are saying is that there will not be any money transferred between the volunteers and the people we are supporting. for example, we will not be touching any of the restricted drugs. so any pharmacy visits, where we pick up medication, it is going to be medication that it is safe for a volunteer to walk through the streets with and leave outside somebody‘s house. we will not be doing interaction on a personal basis. it will be a case of a knock on the door, confirming yourfood is here, your medication is here, and then the person will back away while they watch and see that the person receiving it pick it up so we know it has gone inside and will not be stolen. it sounds like a great idea and presumably you re also encouraging things like phone contact, skype and things like that? it can be hard enough living on your own when you are elderly, and this will be that much harder with all the uncertainty and potential panic and people s general unease which is a natural reaction to an unpredictable situation like this? the important thing about this is it is not one person doing it. kerry is doing amazing stuff, because he has the technical expertise and he s got people working with him doing that. we have people who are going to organise on a ward basis, so the volunteers won t be roaming all across porthcawl, they ll be walking from the political ward basis, so they are more likely to be people that you would know anyway. i am sorry to interrupt you, it s a great idea and more power to your elbow. i hope other communities will think on these lines and perhaps we will see a network of contacts developing between communities. briefly, if people want to find you in the porthcawl area, how do they make contact? we have a porthcawl response to coronavirus facebook page that kerry has set up and basically, what will happen is the surgery will direct people to us. that was madeleine moon talking about a new volunteer service they re working on in porthcawl to help those self isolating to pensioners who may need extra support while they are inside. a pill which prevents the transmission of the hiv virus will become available on the nhs in england from next month. prep, taken daily, stops hiv being passed on through unprotected sex. the pill is already free in scotland to people who are at the highest risk of contracting the virus. i was iwasa i was a little early when i went to the weather but i can go to it now with darren now. hello, as the sky is clear and winds dropped there was a frost on the way for many tonight, some rain to clear from the south east, showers following tend to die out. but the cloud will probably move south away from scotland into northern england and eastern england and that should just about keep temperatures above freezing. frost is more likely elsewhere with lowest temperatures in scotland. for many, it starts dry and sunny on monday, the cloud breaking up in northern and eastern england but it will increase in scotla nd england but it will increase in scotland and northern ireland as the wind picks up and we have some rain in during the afternoon. still dry for england and wales after the cold start with some sunshine, temperatures up to ii or 12 degrees. on tuesday in the rain in the north will be much lighter as it heads into england and wales but it will return more steadily and heavier in northern ireland and western scotland. in east england, thanks to a south westerly wind, temperatures could reach 14 or 15. hello, this is bbc news with shaun ley. the headlines: the health secretary warns that measures to combat coronavirus will disrupt the lives of everybody and older people and those with health conditions will be asked to stay at home. the protection of the vulnerable and elderly by asking them to stay away, to stay at home, that is in our action plan, but we do not want formally to say yet that people should do that. british companies are urged to join a national effort to produce more ventilators and other medical equipment at speed . supermarkets urge shoppers not to buy more than they need, saying there is enough for everyone if people are considerate. the foreign office advises against all but essential travel to the united states after president trump introduced a travel ban on the uk yesterday. man speaks spanish on loudspeaker. and spanish police use drones with loudspeakers to tell people to go home. the foreign office advises against all but essential travel there too.
on end, all while waiting to be screened for coronavirus. and several cruise ships right now, they are stranded, barred from docking, following new confirmed and suspected cases onboard. several are now being denied port in new zealand, the bahamas, chile, and brazil. the top infectious disease expert here in the united states warns daily disruptions like these could last for months and warns that the u.s. needs to be proactive in fighting the virus spread. this is a bad virus. certainly, it is conceivable that if we don t do that, you could get as bad as italy. but i don t think we re going there, if we do the kinds of things that we are publicly saying we need to do. we need to be very serious about, for a while, life is not going to be the way it used to be in the united states. we have to just accept that, if we want to do what s best for the american public. we expect the white house to address these issues and more during a press briefing. that s happening at the top of the next hour. we ll, of course go live to the white house for that. let s begin with the turmoil taking hold at some american airports. cnn has a team of reporters covering the confusion and the chaos that americans are certainly enduring as they return from overseas. cnn s omar jiminez is joining us from chicago s o hare international airport. omar, what was the situation like there? well, wolf, right now, officials are trying to get a handle on what was a very, almost disturbing situation coming in last night, as a major influx of flights landed here at o hare airport, one of 13 doing advanced screening for the coronavirus, as people come back into this country. there s a major influx of flights coming in, and major backups at customs. hundreds of people packed into a tight area, which as we know from health officials at this time, is the exact opposite of what should be happening. now, on the local level, because of that, governor jb pritzker for illinois and chicago mayor lori lightfoot says they are now requesting from the federal government more screeners so what we saw last night does not happen again tonight. and let s remember, this all stems from the european travel ban that we have seen here and some of the confusion that americans have had trying to get home. we spoke to a few students who were studying overseas as part of a study abroad program, and they say one of their biggest issues was just finding reliable information. so if i m an american and i don t get out of here by midnight, i m just stuck here? how does that work? that doesn t make any sense? and if there s a process for me getting out after that 12:00 a.m. deadline, that s fine. but there s no process communicated. there s idea about what we were supposed to have done if we had not gotten out. and one of the few things we were waiting on to make sure what happens tonight isn t like tomorrow night is the city officials say, they are talking to the faa about doing things like staggering flight arrival times to try to stem some of the flow when we expect more flights and even more passengers to land tonight, wolf. some of those passengers had to wait for hours and hours, through the before they got to customs for the screening in very, very tight quarters, that s dangerous right now. i want to go to cnn s kristen holmes, she s over at washington dulles international airport. kristen, the acting commissioner of customs and border control, he s now commenting on these very long and dangerous wait times. what s the latest? well, that s absolutely right. and dulles, again, one of those airports where you saw those massive lines last night. people waiting for hours in the exact opposite of conditions that you would expect in a pandemic. i want to pull up this statement you just mentioned coming from the acting u.s. customs and border protection. i want says cbp recognizes that the wait times experienced yesterday at some locations were unacceptable. as we work collaboratively with federal, state, and local agencies to address the spread of covid-19 and some of the resources of our partners are stretched thin. cbp continually adjusts its resources in realtime as needed and we will continue to do so. the big question here at dulles is whether or not they will actually be able to do that before tonight. we know that there are several european flights, that s where they come in in the evening and we ll wait to see whether or not the people getting off these line flights are able to get through customs in an orderly manner. kristin, we ll check back with you. hopefully they ll be able to fix this problem, because it is a serious and potentially dangerous problem, these people right on top of each other. cnn s polo sandoval is over at new york s jfk international airport. polo, what s the situation like there? reporter: well, wolf, right now, we re trying to figure out if there has perhaps been a shift in the strategy or at least a methodology here that we re seeing officials carry out these kind of health screenings. when you hear from passengers here at one of the busiest airports in the country, they ve recently been telling us they re noticing something different, where some of these officials are perhaps asking these questions to these passengers, fresh after the plane actually lands. these passengers are essentially being told to remain in their seats, are asked exactly where they travel to. and these health declaration forms are taken from them, and if any do exhibit symptoms, they could be referred to cbp officials. that to lighten the load of people who have been waiting noin those cramped hallways. an officer said, despite these slight modifications, this is still adding up to a massive headache to many travelers. it was rough. they put us in this line and this guy was take forever for each guy going through and he had to walk certain people to go through for clearing and he would close his gate, i was waiting for at least an hour and a half to two hours to just get through customs. you re in a big crowd, everybody is real close. i don t even know what to do anymore. reporter: acting dhs secretary chad wolf did speak out early today saying that he completely understands that this is happening. they re currently working to try to expedite this process, working with the airlines and also trying to increase their screening capacity, wolf. this is a serious issue, indeed. polo sandoval, kristen holmes, thanks very much, guys. meanwhile, the white house is now scrambling to manage this growing and very dangerous crisis. today the nation s top infectious disease expert told cnn he would not rule out supporting a temporary national lockdown to slow the pandemic. it s something already taking place in other hard-hit countries around the world. would you like to see a national lockdown? basically, people you can t go out to restaurants and bars, you need to stay home? i would like to see a dramatic diminution of the personal interaction that we see in restaurants and in bars. whatever it takes to do that, that s what i would like to see. cnn s jeremy diamond is over at the white house for us right now. jeremy, we re standing by for a coronavirus briefing from the trump administration, right at the top of the next hour, a lot of new developments unfolding right now. big questions facing the administration, as it tries to figure out the next steps in this fight against the outbreak, what s the latest? what are you hearing over there now? that s exactly right, wolf. and so far what we ve seen from this administration is a big focus on these travel restrictions. first, those with regards to china and then those with regards to europe, as well as the united kingdom and ireland, which were added over the weekend to that list of countries. and then we also saw focus on rectifying the lack of testing around the country. that is still definitely something that this administration is focusing on. playing catch-up here to try to get more testing available across the country. and also to set up some of those mass testing centers that the president referenced on friday. but there is also an increasing focus at the white house, we re told, on this question of social distancing. and on how to encourage americans to really take more precautions in their daily lives. we were already seeing the daily impacts to americans across the country. and this morning, as you mentioned, dr. anthony fauci really not ruling out the notion of some kind of a national lockdown. in fact, we re told that there have been discussions at the white house concerning the possibility of some kind of national lockdown, but those discussions have not reached a serious point at this stage. there s also a focus, really, on the messaging here. what more can they do from a messaging perspective to really make clear to americans that this is within their own hands to try to do more to prevent the spread, to mitigate the spread, really, of this virus across the united states. and so we will be waiting to see during this briefing in about an hour, wolf, whether the administration delivers a more concerted message on that front. i understand the vice president, he s expected to be at the briefing. what about the president? sometimes he shows up as well. that s right. yesterday, the president s attendance wasn t announced at that briefing, but he did show up. we ll see whether the president plans to make the same kind of surprise appearance today. what is clear, the president beyond focusing on the administration s response to coronavirus when you say twitter feed has really been business as usual. despite the outpouring of calls from his own top officials for an end to partisanship, for an end to criticism and bickering, the president is really continuing with his own hyperpartisan combativeness on twitter. he is, for one, talking about the possibility of pardoning his former national security adviser, michael flynn, accusing the justice departments of having lost a memo relevant to flynn s case. he s also going on the attack against the former vice president joe biden for the obama administration s handling of the h1n1 flu pandemic. and the president is also attacking the top democrat in the senate, chuck schumer. and also, of course, wolf, going after the media, despite the fact that we have seen his administration talking so much about how much they news the news media s help here to get the message out about all of this. of course, wolf, we will continue to do that despite the president s attacks. you would think he would put some of that on hold as the country, indeed, the world is going through this global pandemic right now. but he s tweeting a storm on those issues, as well. jeremy diamond over at the white house, thank you very much. there s breaking news coming in from germany right now, where that country says it s effectively closing several major border crossings, including those with france, austria, and switzerland. cnn s fred pleitgen is in berlin for us. fred, what are the german authorities now saying about taking these really drastic measures? reporter: well, absolutely drastic measures, wolf. the german authorities are saying, are acknowledging that this is something that s really unprecedented, post world war ii europe and post world were ii germany. a lot of countries are starting to shut down. the germans closing a lot of those borders. they re saying that cargo traffic, for instance, trucks between the borders is still allowed and people who have to commute between these borders are still allowed to go, as well. just for our viewers, in the u.s., right now here in the u.s., is almost like crossing state lines in the u.s. the borders basically hadn t existed up until today. but come tomorrow morning, those borders will be back in place and people who do not live in germany and do not have a good reason to go to germany, are not going to be able to get in. and this, wolf, has come especially towards the end of last week, the measures, the restrictions have really gone into effect. schools here in germany are now shutting down until the end of april, they say, wolf. fred, we ll get back to you. germany and other countries in europe taking drastic measures right now, as well. meanwhile, here in the united states, several local and state governments are voicing their deep frustrations with the federal government s response to this outbreak. the new york governor, andrew cuomo, wrote an op-ed in the new york times, pleading with president trump to step up efforts saying, and i m quoting cuomo now, mr. trump, don t let bureaucracy get in the way of fighting this virus. break the logjam, let states fully take over testing so they can unleash hundreds of labs tomorrow and bring testing to scale. it is the only way we will have a chance of keeping up with this rapid spread of this con teenagteenag contagion. thank you for joining us, governor cuomo. in that op-ed you just wrote, you made three specific suggestions to slow the spread. you said localized testing, federal shutdowns of schools and businesses and mobilize the army corps of engineers to expand hospital capacity. do you anticipate, governor, that the president will take your advice? i certainly hope so, wolf. i had a good conversation with the president on testing and he s actually allowed new york state to start doing it own testing. but here s the big point, we have been behind on this disease since day one. it was happening in china, we knew it was happening in china, what was happening in china. we knew someone was going to get on an airplane and come to the united states of america. we ve always been behind. they say, don t fight the last word. we have to get ahead of this. everybody talks about flattening the curve. and we re doing everything we can to flatten the curve, the testing, the density reduction, et cetera. i believe on any projection that that flattening of the curve is not going to be enough. i don t see it as a curve. i see it as a wave. and the wave is going to crash on to our hospital system. our hospital system does not have the capacity to deal with any of these projections. these people, wolf, all need intensive care. they need ventilators, it s a respiratory illness. i always have 60 people in intensive care. i only have 600 available intensive care beds in the state of new york. we re already at 60. now, a state cannot build hospitals in this period of time. we can, we can use the army corps of engineers to come in, retrofit dormitories, retrofit old facilities, and come up with medical facilities that could at least take some of the people out of hospital beds into these medical facilities to free up capacity. what happened in italy was the health care system game overwhelmed. we will be overwhelmed, every number says it. we were slow on testing. let s not make the same mistake and sit here six weeks from now and say, we should have been building more medical facilities, because we left people on gurneys in the hallway. yeah, it s a real serious problem. and older people are already nervous that if they come down with the coronavirus and they go to the hospital, the medical personnel will focus in on the younger patients and they re worried about that, as you well know. you ve also called, governor, for federal guidance on shutting down schools. you re leaving school closings in new york state up to the local school districts. why not do what several other states have already done, cancel classes on a state level. in this state, wolf, and you know this state, it s a different picture all across the state. we have down state new york, we have upstate new york, we have some counties that virtually have no cases whatsoever. and then i have new rochelle in westchester that has the highest cluster in the united states of america. so in the areas where it is dense, we are taking action. we just said the nassau schools, suffolk schools, westchester schools were going to close. i said the new york city schools should close and must close. but in new york, it s not as easy as just saying, close the schools. i want to make sure we have child care capacity for our central workers. we need our first responders coming to work. it can t be that we close a school and the police officer calls up the next morning and says, i can t show up because i have to stay home with a my child. we do need to have child care, we do need to have the food programs in place. many of the schoolchildren in new york eat breakfast and lunch at school, but we have to close the schools. so we will be closing schools, new york city, nassau, suffolk, and westchester county. that s all of down state new york. and then we ll see what happens upstate new york. we ll see what happens, the new jersey governor, phil murphy, is looking to establish a statewide curfew right now. the mayor of hoboken, new jersey, is doing the same thing. do you see your state, new york state, imposing a statewide curfew at some point? curfew, that word makes me nervous. we have already started having businesses reduce their capacity, reduce their size. i see that continuing. i could see setting a time for businesses to close earlier than usual. but, you know, curfew, depending on what you mean by that, it depends, but the word has a bad connotation to me. governor murphy s a good friend of mine. we work together. and it is very important that states coordinate these efforts. and that s why i would like to see the federal government do more, because when every state, wolf, comes up with their own policies, you just have people shop among states. new jersey creates a curfew, i don t. everybody will drive to new york. you know, connecticut does something, i don t, everybody will drive to connecticut. so that s why it would have been nice to have a federal government that really stepped up to the plate and said, once and for all, this is what we re going to do. all schools, all stores of this size, et cetera. i do believe this is a federal role. none of these other countries, china, south korea, italy, none of them have done this with 100 different strategies from different states and local governments. this is a federal responsibility. let local governments do the testing. make the set rules. make the decision on schools, make the decision on businesses, and get the army corps of engineers building medical facilities. it s going to be too late, and we re going to regret that we never did it. you mark my words, wolf. the new york city council speaker, cory johnson, governor, he s calling on a complete shutdown of nonessential services, including bars and restaurants. do crow see that happening at some point down the road in new york state? i could see businesses being closed over a period of time, right? i make my decisions based on science and based on data, so these are not political decisions to me. they are data-related decisions. as those numbers continue to go up, do you have to have more and more restrictions? yes, you do. and you make an important point, what may be good in new york city may not necessarily be good in my hometown of buffalo, new york. i know you re incredibly busy, thanks for spending a few minutes with us. buffalo is doing okay, wolf. don t you worry. i have buffalo. you take the country. let s hope it stays like that. thanks very much, governor, for everything you re doing. coming up, a standoff at sea. cruise ship passengers strand on ships with nowhere to dock. and next hour, we ll hear directly from the vice president, mike pence, and other members of the coronavirus task force. we ll have live coverage of the briefing from the white house as soon as it begins, we ll see if the president shows up, as well. . proof i can fight moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis. proof i can fight psoriatic arthritis. .with humira. proof of less joint pain. .and clearer skin in psa. humira targets and blocks a source of inflammation that contributes to joint pain and irreversible damage. humira can lower your ability to fight infections. serious and sometimes fatal infections, including tuberculosis, and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened, as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. tell your doctor if you ve been to areas where certain fungal infections are common and if you ve had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don t start humira if you have an infection. humira is proven to help relieve pain, stop further joint damage,. .and clear skin in psa. want more proof? 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well, eventually, you think they will be, wolf, but it s just a question of where and when at this point, a number of different ships being affected right now. yao got the silver explorer, a ship docked or quarantined currently off the coast of chile with one confirmed case. the silver shadow off the coast of brazil, one confirmed case also quarantined. the gold princess often the coast of new zealand. there are suspected cases onboard and that ship is being denied entry to new zealand. the worst of the ones, at least so far, though, wolf, is going to be the braymar, a ship with hundreds of people onboard that s currently anchored about 25 miles off the coast of the bahamas. that ship is in negotiations according to the british government to try to dock at either the united states or in cuba to let those passengers off. at least five cases onboard that ship so far confirmed positive for the virus. and this is why government officials in the united states are saying, do not get on cruises. a lot of these cruise lines have shut down operations, wolf. the reality is, these are just floating petri dishes where the disease or the virus can easily spread. it s clearly a disaster on these cruise ships. thanks very much, matt rivers in mexico city for us. let s go to spain right now, where the prime minister s wife has now tested positive for coronavirus. the country is on virtual lockdown, as officials scramble to contain the outbreak. now the second biggest in europe, just after italy. scott mcclain is in madrid for us. scott, what measures are you seeing there? hey, wolf. the number of cases jumped up significantly today. we re now at nearly 8,000. almost half of those are in madrid. yesterday, the prime minister of spain announced some pretty strict restrictions on people s movements. stores, restaurants, businesses, they are all closed with very few exceptions. people are not even allowed to leave their houses, unless they are going to the grocery store or going to work. this is the main square in madrid. normally this would be packed with people. there are hardly anyone out. you see the odd bike go by, food delivery person. you ll also see police officers and they are handing out tickets to people who are out, who don t have a good reason to be. those tickets start at about a hundred euros. we even saw in one case today, one of those police stops escalate into a full-blown arrest. the airport when i came in today was nearly deserted. that s only going to get worse as airlines are starting to announce they re scaling back their flights to spain or in some cases shutting them down altogether. one other thing to mention, obviously, the hospitals are quite busy. the ministry of health just announced tonight they are now opening military hospitals to treat the general public. the great fear here in the united states is what s happening elsewhere in europe, could end up within a week or two happening here in the united states, as well. scott mcclain in madrid for us, thank you very much. up next, tough new restrictions on residents and businesses in hoboken, new jersey. i ll speak with the city s mayor about the coronavirus curfew. and next hour, right at the top of the next hour, we expect to hear directly from the vice president, mike pence, and other members of the coronavirus task force. we ll bring you the briefing live from the white house, as soon as it begins. what s this? 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[ barking ] all right. this just coming into the situation room. in response to the coronavirus, the illinois governor, jb pritzker, is now ordering all bars and all restaurants in chicago, indeed, throughout the entire state, to close beginning tomorrow night for two weeks. listen to this. i know how difficult this will be on small businesses around the state. this is another hard step. but we must do everything that we can to safeguard the health and safety of the citizens of the state of illinois. and that requires urgent action. i tried earlier this week to appeal to everyone s good judgment to stay home, to avoid bars, not to congregate in crowds. it s unfortunate that many people didn t take that seriously. the time for persuasion and public appeals is over. the time for action is here. the move follows the city of hoboken, new jersey, which is implementing similar measures. a statewide curfew starts tomorrow. all residents are being told to stay in their homes from 10:00 at night until 5:00 in the morning, unless they are required to work and all restaurants and bars in the city must stop serving food and alcohol. only takeout or delivery will be allowed. the mayor of hoboken, new jersey, is the city official who implemented this new lockdown. mayor, thank you so much for joining us. earlier, zeke emanuel praised you right here on cnn for taking these steps. tell us why you decided, mayor, to impose this curfew, these new restaurant restrictions. thank you for having me, wolf. as mayor, my primary responsibility is to protect the health, welfare, and safety of our residents. there is nothing more sacred than the sanctity of human life and that in my view proceeds or takes precedence over all other concerns. so we had a situation similar to what the governor of illinois was ascribing where people were not heeding warnings that we were trying to push out to the community related to social distancing and we had to take measures that were appropriate to protect and save lives. how are the residents of the businesses reacting, mayor, to this lockdown? there has been a ground swell of support from residents who are very thankful that they feel that they have a government that represents them and that they have a government that wants to keep them safe. i am also, and it is not lost upon me, that this will have a severe impact on small businesses and the employees that work for small businesses. so we are very actively working, both at the local level, as well as trying to impress upon officials at the federal level to take the necessary actions to help small businesses, to help the employees that work for them. well, let s hope that help comes from the state, the federal government, local authorities. because these folks will need as much help as they can get. as you know, the governor of your state, phil murphy is saying, he s looking at a statewide curfew, he says, very seriously. you ve already made the move. do you think your state and other states should do the same thing right now? you know, as a mayor, i am literally on the front lines and all mayors across the country, we are on the front lines of our community. every mayor should do whatever is in the best interests of their community. i felt this step was necessary to protect the safety of our residents and to literally save lives wolf. and i would encourage other mayors to prioritize the safety of their residents over politics, over businesses, over anything else. and if this can offer some encouragement to other mayors to take bold leadership, to protect human life, then it is well worth it. if we can save just one or two lives through these measures, which might seem aggressive at first, but are for the benefit of human life protection, then it s well worth it. i m sure you re going to save a lot more than just one or two lives. thanks so much, mayor, for what you re doing. mayor ravi balla of hoboken, new jersey, thank you very much. thank you, wolf. we re waiting for this briefing over at the white house on the coronavirus response. we re told new measures are about to be announced. the vice president, mike pence, members of the coronavirus task force, they are about to brief reporters. we ll have live coverage right here in the situation room. sure, principal is a financial company. but think of us as a protect your family as it grows company. a put enough away for college company. and a take care of your employees company. we re a help you ride the ups and downs of the market company. and when it s time to retire, we re a we ve been guiding you toward this all along company. think of us as all these companies, and more. principal. retirement. investments. insurance. billions of problems. morning breath? 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[ microphone feedback ] sobering new figures are signaling just how rapidly the deadly coronavirus is spreading around the country. right now, the number of u.s. cases topping 3,000 as the nation s top infectious disease doctor and the fight is issuing a very dire warning. are you thinking that hundreds of thousands of americans could die from this? you know, i say that and it sometimes gets taken out of context. but we have to be realistic and honest. yes, it is possible our job, our challenge is to try to make that not happen. but to think, if we go about our daily lives and not worry about everything, that it s not going to happen, it could happen and it could be worse. it might make a point that people sometimes think that you re overreacting. i like it when people are thinking i m overreacting. because that means we re doing it just right. elizabeth cohen is a cnn senior medical correspondent. dr. james phillips is a cnn medical analyst. dr. phillips, you re here with me in the situation room. you notice there s a little distance now. we re not as close as we used to be for understandable reasons. but what do you think of that warning we just heard from dr. fauci? 100,000 potential deaths here in the united states? it s the messaging that i think we ve been waiting for for weeks. it s exactly the truth. that s why we ve been out here trying to get this message out. and at the risk of being called alarmist by folks, we can see the math. we know epidemiology. and we know the true risks to our health care system. as i ve said before, individual actions by americans are going to be the sole decision between the health care system being stressed and being broken. and what that means is, if the health care system breaks, ambulances will be delayed, heart attacks and traumas won t get care in time. emergency beds and hospitals will be taken up by covid patients, and therefore sibling cell disease and heart failure won t be treated appropriately. if we look at the surgical world, emergency surgeries will be the only ones available, not the non-emergent things that people need. the individual actions taken by americans, and now increased actions taken by our governors to shut things down are the only answer. it s important you know, elizabeth, huge question on the minds of americans right now is, where are the test kits? why is this country, the greatest country in the world, struggling to keep up with demand, while so many other countries aren t? well, first of all, wolf, i want to say, it s going to get better. doctors are telling me it will get better. wolf, it s all about trying to play catch-up. i was talking to the manager of a german test manufacturers, and he said they started sending out tests january 13th. and now we re sending out about a million tests a week. that is one manufacturer in germany. we weren t even close to that on january 13th. you can see now, we re a bit stuck. we certainly are. elizabeth cohen and dr. james phillips, i want both of you to stand by. there s more news we re following right now. what to do and what to do as far as the coronavirus is concerned and when to see a doctor. join our own dr. sanjay gupta for coronavirus fact vs. fiction. and at the top of the hour, we ll hear from mike pence and other members of the coronavirus task force. we ll bring the briefing live from the white house. we ll see if the president also shows up. this.whole world .of people .adventurous people. and survivors. it was interesting to think about their lives. their successes. and.their hardships. i think that s part of what i want my kids to know. they come from people who. were brave. and took risks. big risks. no pressure. 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well, i do think that this is going to be a unique opportunity for joe biden and he s really shown what he is likely to do tonight in a speech that he gave last week, where he draws a contrast between himself and president trump and how he says he would handle this situation. biden is in a unique position because he has actually been in a white house wile dealing with a global pandemic and global health crisis. i think you ll hear a lot about that from biden. but i think for bernie sanders, it s also an important moment for him to make the case for his signature policy position, which is medicare for all. he has been really talking about this repeatedly over the last several days, and saying, the reason we re in this position that we re in where we don t have enough tests and we can t really get our arms around the situation is because there is this fractured health care system. but for both of the men, it s going to be a commander in chief test. and how sanders really is able to make the case for himself is what i m going to be looking for. because unlike biden, he has not had the sort of executive experience, and i think that biden is going to be making that case tonight. i m wondering, ab, if it s going to be high ground, if they re both going to be civil with each other, talk about the emergency right now, or whether they re going to go at it and really fight. well, i don t think the former vice president will be get down at that level. i think ab s right, he has to be confident and talk about a stable response to a pandemic and what he would do if he were in the presidency right now. and he has that experience which affords him the upper hand. there s no question. it s a different debate than bernie sanders had hoped for. bernie sanders is going to come in to dirty up joe biden. he s looking to scrape up more delegates and leading a revolution. he s going to talk about the iraq war, talk about all the unfairness that his supporters, you know, are asking for a revolution to fix. so it s not going to be a night for bernie sanders to be nice to joe biden. and i don t picture him trying to strike a unifying message about beating donald trump, either. i think that s going to be biden s job, so the sanders supporters feel that they have a home in the biden campaign, but they have totally different objectives tonight. and i think bernie sanders is going to be spoiling for a fight. let s not forget, tuesday, there are four presidential primaries in key states with a lot of delegates at stake. sanders did tweet today, it is at this moment that we must remember, we are all in this together. so that s the high ground. yeah. he does have to portray to americans that he has what it takes to bring the country together at a moment like this. putting joe biden aside, one of the challenges that sanders faces in this has been born out in our exit polling from last week s election night, is that when voters are asked, who do you think is best positioned to lead the country during a crisis like this, he loses out to joe biden. so he has got to really kind of make the case to people that he cannot only address the issues, but that he can actually be a unifier. a.b. mentioned how he is spoiling for a fight, and i think that is true. but there is going to be a need here to see someone who is not just a fighter at times like this, but someone who can bring together coalitions to actually get things done at a time when americans feel like they need it the most. yeah, bernie sanders, a.b., he s 78. biden is 77. if you re over 60, they say, you re more vulnerable. i suppose that will be an issue coming up in the course of this debate, as well. it s not really one that joe biden can take advantage of. i don t think he s going to be able to really pick on bernie sanders age, but he should make note that it would be responsible for him to remind the audience that they re both, you know, potentially in a vulnerable population. but again, to sort of repeat the message, bring it back to, we need to unite as a country, need social distance, to protect our elderly, people with underline lyin conditions and defeat trump. lon as long as biden just keeps to what the audience wants to hear, i don t think he has to worry much about sanders. let s remember, president trump, he s 73 years old, not exactly a spring chicken, either. stick around. there s more we re following. a.b. stoddard and abby phillip, we ll get it right. coming up in about ten minutes or so, we ll hear directly from the vice president, mike pence, other members of the coronavirus task force. we have live coverage coming up from the white house, just ahead. en i rent a car, i never compromise. too shabby! too much! i can rent this? 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(ashe just braved jea career changey. and now she needs the right ride and she needs to save money. so she came here, filtered by make and model, and was able to get a great price. truecar. buy smarter. drive happier. tech: don t wait for a chip like this to crack your whole windshield. with safelite s exclusive resin, you get a strong repair that you can trust. plus, with most insurance a safelite repair is no cost to you. customer: really?! singers: safelite repair, safelite replace. for the same medications as the vet, but up to 30 percent less with fast free shipping. visit petmeds.com today. welcome to our viewers here in the united states and around the world. i m wolf blitzer. this is a special edition of the situation room. we re following breaking news. the
district, which has canceled classes for the next month. new york and los angeles are among cities in seven states that are also closing bars and restaurants. cdc is recommending that people cancel or postpone any events with more than 50 people for the next eight weeks. vice president mike pence says that new guidelines on social distancing, still new guide loons beyond the limits on 50 people gatherings will be unveiled today. this is a moment for facts, not fantasy. the president clearly does not feel the same way. scientists, doctors, researchers will tell you that this statement you re about to hear from the president is not true. it s a very contagious, it s a very contagious virus. it s credible. but it s something that we have tremendous control over. we don t have control over it, tremendous or otherwise. in a few hours, the vice president will announce the new social distancing restrictions. we do not know what they are yet. let s begin our coverage with brynn gingras who is at a school in new york city that will be closed for weeks. brynn, if not longer. reporter: that s right. it s undetermined at this point. we re going to have to see how it goes according to the mayor. alisyn said that new york city is the largest school district in the entire country. when the mayor announced the decision to close schools, he said it was a painful one and a decision he never thought he would have to make. there are schools across the country, john, closed for a couple weeks. in this case, in new york, it s a month for now. in other case, it s for the entire school year. i think a lot of americans can relate to bill de blasio at this point and are making tough decisions they never thought they had to make as they navigate this new reality. the reality of a sweeping coronavirus pandemic setting in for many americans. we are, in essence, home isolating 5.3 million people. we re guided deeply by what s happening, not just by anxiety, not just by fear. reporter: new york city s mayor closing all public schools until at least april 20th. impacting 1.1 million children. there is a real possibility that, by closing our schools now, we may not have the opportunity to reopen them in this full school year. reporter: this move as the city took another drastic step. limiting restaurants and bars to takeout and delivery service mirroring efforts taken in states like illinois and ohio as the cdc discouraged events with more than 50 people for the next eight weeks. i tried earlier this week to appeal to everyone s good judgment to stay home. to avoid bars. not to congregate in crowds. it s unfortunate that many people didn t take that seriously. new york has the second largest number of coronavirus cases in the nation. and the governor is asking president trump to allow the military to step in, fearful the state s medical systems will soon be overwhelmed by an influx of patients. we can use the army corps of engineers to come in, retrofit dormitories. what happened in italy was the health care system became overwhelmed. we will be overwhelmed. every number says it. we were slow on testing. let s not make the same mistake. chaotic scenes playing out in airports across the country as people arriving from europe face new advance screening procedures. it s very it s not ideal considering what the contagion is. voters in four states are still scheduled to head to the polls tomorrow. others in future contests like louisiana and georgia postponing their primaries. inside the white house, president trump urging americans to relax. it s a very contagious virus. it s credible. but it s something that we have tremendous control over. the nation s top infectious disease expert issuing this warning instead. the worst is ahead for us. it is how we respond to that challenge that s going to determine what the ultimate end point is going to be. at cnn s democratic presidential debate sunday, senator bernie sanders directly firing back at the president. first thing we ve got to do whether or not i m president, is shut this president up right now. he s undermining the doctors and the scientists trying to help the american people. reporter: and this morning, we so far have seen a couple people walk into the school behind me. that s because the district is offering a grab and go food system for the thousands of kids in this school district who need it. we also have learned that there is going to be opportunities for internet to be set up in homes so kids can take advantage of virtual learning. of course, these are all emergency measures that are being taken not only here in new york but cities across the country. john and alisyn. brynn, thank you very much. joining us now is dr. sanjay gupta. sanjay, let s start with the numbers. you know, i even hesitate to put these up because we don t know how accurate they are. 3500 cases as of this morning. confirmed cases. 65 deaths. in terms of the 3500 confirmed cases, how do we know if testing still is inadequate? where are we with that? it continues to be a problem, alisyn. as long as we ve been talking about this, we still don t know. the reality is that i think when you talk to most public health officials, they ll say, look, based on what we re seeing, based on the patients coming into hospitals and clinics and things like that, the numbers are not just higher but they re exponentially higher. several fold higher here. that the virus is circulating in communities. which is why i think the testing is still going to be an important question. i m glad that the testing is ramping up. we hear about the commercial labs coming online. it s quite likely people will start being able to get tests. i m not sure it will be that relevant as it was three, four weeks ago. what s relevant now is all about hospital preparedness. about making sure people can get care when they show up. we know what we re seeing around the world. there s precedent for this now. there s been a lot of focus on the testing. that s the metric of success. but that was like two weeks ago, metric of success. metric of success now is are we prepared? sanjay, overnight the cdc issued these guidelines restricting gatherings of over 50. i listen to you and i get the sense you don t think that s enough. that that number might be too high. might be too high or at least it s arbitrary and i ve heard you say we need to behave as if we have coronavirus. why? look, i think the 50 number is arbitrary. i m glad they re putting definition on this. the more general guidance to socially distance yourself and as i talk to people and hearing from colleagues, you know, that s still a vague thing. the fact that they put any kind of number on it, i think, gives an air of seriousness to this that maybe a lot of people were still missing here. but i think that the idea overall of what we need to do, i think, is becoming increasingly clear. people say you sort of have these triggers, you know. now we re going to do 50 people gatherings, now we re going to mandate work from home and now we re going to do this. the point john, and we ve talked about this and i think it s an important one. these measures work if you do them early. they re not necessarily a reflection that things are getting worse. they re a reflection of you don t want things to get worse. you can put the measures in early, which is some of what they re doing now. we ll hear what happens today with the newer recommendations. that s when they re going to work. i ll even put a number on it, john, based on some of the modeling. if we get beyond 1% of the country as having been diagnosed with the infection, you know, the social distancing measures, they ll still have some effect. but it will be greatly diminished. that s why you have to do these things now. we want to ask you about two frightening developments. emergency room physicians. two doctors, one on the east coast, one on the west coast, are in critical condition this morning. one of them on the east coast is in his 70s. on west coast a man in his 40s. a doctor in his 40s. i think there s a misconception circulating out there and i think it has given us a lot of us solace that it may be false comfort and that is that people in their 40s don t get really sick from this. if you re under 60, you don t really have to worry. so what do these cases tell you? weshlgsll, the first part ofs health care workers who become even exposed to this virus, they you re going to take those people out of the workforce for a period of time. obviously, if they get sick, it s really sad what s happening. and i guarantee you these are not the only two. these are the only two we re hearing about right now. there s other people getting exposed to this virus and are starting to feel symptoms. i think also i agree with you, alisyn. the numbers overall coming out of china still suggest that roughly 80% of people will recover from this virus. but there s two things to keep in mind. the fact that you recover doesn t mean that you won t necessarily get sick. we are hearing now that people who recover may still have longer term impact on their lung function. also, you know, i don t know the story with this e.r. doctor in his 40s or her 40s. but if people have preexisting illness, lung disease, hypertension most commonly, those put you at higher risk. underlying conditions regardless of age is something to be mindful of. if there s something in your medical history, either because of illness or because of medicines you re taking that sort of weaken your immune system, you ve got to really take this seriously. for now, what that means is probably staying home and greatly reducing your likelihood of getting exposed to this virus. ultimately, many of us will be exposed but hopefully over time. sanjay, we have a lot more questions to ask you over the course of the show. don t go anywhere. in the meantime, all of these closures so taxing on families. causing a lot of anxiety. we re joined by dr. jody gold. she s a psychiatrist who works with children and adults. jody for a lot of us, it s here. the kids have been home for a few days and we re coming to grips now with what it means. how do we prepare ourselves mentally and emotionally? first of all, we need not panic. we ve got to stop the panic piece. having said that, it s okay for anxious. we re allowed to be anxious at this moment. but we need to manage our anxiety and recognize that we can do this. basically every day people ask me how do you build resilience and grit in your kids and family. here we are today. we can all begin to build resilience and grit and empathy. i think this is an opportunity for us to do that. i also want to focus on the fact that on all this anxiety. we have this thing called anticipatory anxiety. anticipatory anxiety is when you re anxious and worried about something that s going to happen in the future but has not happened yet. i really think that s what i m seeing everywhere. what i want everyone to do is focus on today. you can be anxious about today. we re not running out of food. we re running out of toilet paper. our children will be educated. we ll all go back to work eventually. we need to remember about worrying what happens in the future isn t helpful. the power of now as the book says. if you stay rooted in the present, then you can stave off some of that anxiety. if you are struggling with anxiety, as so many people are, are there tips for people, what they should do, how to manage that better? of course there is. first of all, stay in the now. second piece is to try to keep a schedule. you do need to stay home. it s very important to understand that. the other piece of us staying home that s causing panic is we re closing schools and asking people to stay home. not because so many people are sick at this moment. we re doing it for prevention and what they call mitigation, the decreased risk. remember, the kids are out of school, not because their friends and teachers are sick, but because we re trying to take preventative action. next piece, if you re at home, this is a great time to keep on a schedule. don t stay in your pajamas. eat meals. if it s appropriate to leave your home, do not go to gyms. but you can go for a walk. i was running on the east river yesterday and people were keeping social distancing but they were walking and running. i want to encourage that if you re not on quarantine. the other thing is manage your media diet. check in because obviously things are changing. but think about what s good for you. first of all, i don t know why you re looking at me when you say get out of your pajamas. still says do you need to plan for i m asking for myself and my family hopefully is watching right now. noncoronavirus virus topics. you ve got to talk about something else. how do you do that? if you re at home with your kids, be mindful of this. if you re dealing with kids, meet them where they are. don t let your anxiety be contagious. i m more worried about anxiety being contagious than the virus. turn on the news, figure out what s going on. then shut it down. right after new day. watch new day. turn it back in. check in on it. make sure your kids are not exposed to too much social immediate yachlt it s concerning. i do not think that tik tok and snapchat are the places to get your information. this is a great time to watch movies. i ve been meaning to catch up on the marvel movies. great time for family time. please don t stay in a situation where your family is in a different room. this is great family time. we need to watch movies. doctors orders. i will be telling my children when i get home. dr. gold, thank you. we appreciate you being here. thank you. thank you so much. what are the administration s next steps to stop the spread of coronavirus? we ll ask the surgeon general of united states. dr. jerome adams next. fifteen minutes until we board. oh yeah, we gotta take off. you downloaded the td ameritrade mobile app so you can quickly check the markets? yeah, actually i m taking one last look at my dashboard before we board. excellent. and you have thinkorswim mobile- -so i can finish analyzing the risk on this position. you two are all set. have a great flight. thanks. we ll see ya. ah, they re getting so smart. choose the app that fits your investing style. at holiday inn express our hot, fresh breakfast helps you fuel up . to be your nephew s number one fan. where you can find games, news and highlights. all in one place, right on your tv. the new xfinity sports zone. use your voice to search every stat and score. follow the teams you love. and get notifications when the game s about to start, with the xfinity sports zone, everybody wins. now that s simple, easy, awesome. say xfinity sports zone into your voice remote today. vice president pence says new guidelines will be announced this morning regarding social distancing to prevent coronavirus from spreading. president trump, though, seems to think the situation is under tremendous control. it s a very contagious, is a very contagious virus, but it s something we have tremendous control over. joining us now is the surgeon general of the united states. dr. jerome adams. and dr. sanjay gupta is here as well when he has questions for the surgeon general. dr. adams, thank you so much. we appreciate your time. we know how busy you are. let s start there. when president trump says you all have tremendous control of the virus, do you agree this morning? well, i think that what the president is trying to convey to people and the last time i heard him say that, he was speaking after he had spoken to grocery store owners and manufacturers, was that we re hearing these crazy stories about people fighting over toilet paper, people pulling out knives over hand sanitizer. he wants america to understand that, look, we have the best people in the world working on this issue and we will get through this. he s trying to be presidential and say, hey, let s calm things down. that said, we re also wanting people to understand, we ve got to take this seriousliment you mentioned new guidelines on social distancing. you saw the presidential declaration last week. i feel like we ve turned tide on testing this week. just to put a button on this, when the president says you have tremendous control, you re saying he s talking about what he wants to see at grocery stores, not about the spread of the virus? well, i think he s trying to tell folks, hey, we ve got good people working on this and we need to be calm and take care of each other and not panic. that s something you ve heard public health officials consistently say. prepare but don t panic. it doesn t mean we aren t taking it seriously, shouldn t be leaning into this, it means if we panic i worry about this. the discrimination we re seeing, the stigma, people fighting in grocery stores can actually have the potential to harm as many people as the virus itself if we aren t careful. i think why it s confusing is because at the same time that the president says we have tremendous control but doesn t explain what he means we hear dr. fauci say the worst is yet ahead for us. that doesn t sound like anything close to containment. tremendous control has a connotation of this is becoming contained. i m glad you mentioned dr. fauci. because what i d really love to talk to the american people about are the steps to take to protect themselves. dr. fauci and i have been trying to help people understand, look, we re at a critical point. we have the same number of cases now that italy had two weeks ago. we have a choice to make. do we want to really lean into social distancing and mitigation strategies and flatten the curve or do we just want to keep going on with business as usual and end up being italy? we re constantly in the task force meetings looking at the new information that comes out each day and responding and what you heard from dr. fauci and what you ve been hearing from me is an urgency in regards to the need for us to social distance and the need for us to really make sure we re leaning into basic public health measures, like hand washing, staying away from people who are sick and cleaning surfaces. do you think we can become italy? you ve got several different models and yes, there is a potential for us to become italy. i also feel when you look at the measures that governors are taking. i was in louisiana last week. i visit wd connecticut. we ve been in florida and georgia. i think the governors are taking this extremely seriously. you saw the new cdc guidelines on social distancing, the presidential emergency declaration, we re doing the right things now so in two weeks we don t become italy. we re all in this together. we re not going to solve this problem from atlanta at the cdc or the federal government. it s going to be solved at the communities level and we need everyone to do their part and get serious about social distancing. let s talk about that. when you hear lawmakers like congressman nunez say it s, quote, a great time to go out to a local restaurant thrks weekend, what would you like to say to him about that message? well, i didn t hear that. i ve been busy working. i think everyone should refer to the new cdc guidelines that say large gatherings of 50 or more people should be halted for the next eight weeks. we know basic hand washing, social distancing are the two most important things you can do to actually halt the spread of coronavirus. so that message to go out to a local restaurant is wrong you re saying today? again, i didn t hear it i m saying [ overlapping talking ]. that is wrong to you? the write message is right message is i want to talk about something that came up. people think we may be beyond testing. our experts and i can bring sanjay gupta in, in a second. the experts are saying it s great we re getting up to speed on testing, but we may be past that. they re talking about hospital preparedness. how do you feel this morning? do we have enough ventilators? do we have enough protective gear for the people on the frontlines in the emergency rooms? well, bobcat liko owe is working nonstop on making sure we have the ability to invoke and to really lean into our pandemic response plans. we ve got thousands of ventilators available right now. we have enough surge capacity. what you ve been hearing people talk about is flattening the curve. to spread out the number of cases we have so we don t overcome our capacity. the american college of surgeons, the cdc and even i working with the american hospital association and others to pull down our elective surngs and really do things that will increase our capacity in the event that we do see a further increase in cases so that we don t run out of ventilators or hospital beds. it s really both flattening the curve so we don t have as many cases and making sure we have extra capacity locally and on a state level and federal level. dr. gupta, i know you ve been trying to figure out how many ventilators are in the so-called stockpile and if we have enough. i know you ve been focused on that. what is your question to our surgeon general? look, i mean, obviously people are trying to address this, dr. adams. we don t have enough ventilators. we don t have enough icu beds as things stand now. that s based on mitigation tactics that turned this into a mild to moderate pandemic. i understand what you re saying, we want to focus on flattening the curve and slowing down the number of patients who access the medical system at any given time. even with that, based on the federal government s own modeling, we re about 100,000 icu beds short and tens of thousands, even with the stockpile, ventilators short. i m just wondering, you re a clinician, you re a doctor. i m hearing from my fellow colleagues at hospitals now, right now, dr. adams that they re not sure if patients show up to their hospitals who were critically ill with the coronavirus that they have the supplies and have enough staff and respiratory therapists to run these ventilators or that they have enough space. i m hearing that. i m sure you re hearing that as well from your colleagues. what are you saying to them? well, what we re saying to them is exactly what i just shared with alisyn. look, this is going to take an all hands on deck response. the situation we have right now is the situation we have right now. they re leaning into increasing supplies and making sure we have sufficient capacity. you have a bill in congress that would increase the amount of ppe the amount of masks to make available to the regular public. we re talking about this all day every day at task force meetings to make sure we have the capacity. but we also need people to lean into not using up capacity unnecessarily. again, not doing unnecessary procedures or elective surgeries. sure. making sure people get their flu shots. we re in the midst of a bad flu season and every bad filled with someone who has the flu who didn t get a flu shot is extra capacity. we know we have to let you go, dr. adams. are you saying that what you believe is today we do have enough ventilators for what the need will be the next few weeks? i m saying you have several different models and of the input determines the output on the back end. we want to lean in to make sure we re decreasing the need, decreasing the demand by really talking about mitigation measures and getting serious about them. i m glad to see that governors, mayors and other folks are serious about mitigation and lower the demands while on a federal level to increase the supply. dr. sanjay gupta, you re standing by with us. dr. adams, thank you very much for your time. coronavirus.gov for updates on how to stay safe. okay. thank you very much. john? gotten in the business of mitigation before the federal government. that s one of the issues here. schools closed for millions of children, in some cases for weeks, maybe longer, honestly. the largest public school district is new york city. what will the effects be on children? we re joined by the governor of new york next. you wouldn t accept an incomplete job from anyone else. so why accept it from your allergy pills? flonase relieves your worst symptoms which most pills don t. get all-in-one allergy relief for 24 hours, with flonase. 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(vo) save over 40 hours a month with intuit quickbooks. ready to juvéderm® it? correct age-related volume loss in cheeks with juvéderm® voluma™ xc. add fullness to lips with juvéderm® ultra xc. and smooth moderate to severe lines around the nose and mouth with juvéderm® xc. tell your doctor if you have a history of scarring or are taking medicines that decrease the body s immune response, or that can prolong bleeding. common side effects include injection-site redness, swelling, pain, tenderness, firmness, lumps/bumps, bruising, discoloration, or itching. as with all fillers, there is a rare risk of unintentional injection into a blood vessel, which may cause vision abnormalities, blindness, stroke, temporary scabs or scarring. juvéderm® it the death toll from coronavirus is now more than 6500 people worldwide. there are more cases reported outside of mainland china than inside. germany, closing borders to several neighboring countries who tried to contain the outbreak. in france, president macron will address the nation tonight. all restaurants, nightclubs, cafes and cinemas in that country are closed. coronavirus in italy spiking over the weekend, more than 3500 new cases and 368 more death in just 24 hours. financial markets tanking again after the federal reserve reduced rates to near zero. at one point trading had to be halted. dow futures are frozen but they ve been down more than 1,000 points. new york city and los angeles are the latest u.s. cities to enforce social distancing by closing dine-in restaurants and bars. disney world may now be the qui quietest place on earth with everything shutting down. more than 32 million public schoolchildren are about to be out of school. if they re not already. classes have been canceled around the country. in new york city, that means more than 1 million students. joining me now to discuss, the governor of new york, andrew cuomo. thanks for being with us. we have a lot of ground to cover. we ll get through this quickly. number one, you closed the schools in new york city, westchester, napa. why and why not the whole state? good morning, john. good to be with you. first of all, you respond to the science, the data in the situation. all throughout the state we have a different situation. some counties have no cases. our densities in down state new york so i closed the schools in new york city, nassau, suffolk, which is long island and westchester. on the proviso that they have a plan to provide child care for first responders and health care workers. we don t want to see our nurses, health care workers not able to work because they have to stay home. our police officers not being able to work because they have to stay home. on that basis, with those plans, we close the schools. the cdc issued guidelines, suggesting limits of gatherings of more than 50 people. how does that address the need that you see this morning? yeah. john, i think let me say this. we ve been behind handling this disease from day one. we knew it was in china in november. then we looked like we got caught by surprise and we re always playing catch-up. the only way to deal with a situation like this is to get ahead of it. we need to see the federal government step up to the plate here and set up national rules. it makes no sense, if you look at your broadcast, all the states doing different things, cities doing different things. it doesn t work that way. in an emergency, someone has to take charge. new york state, i m in charge. that s the law. because i can t have one set of rules in new york city, a different set of rules in nassau county, surrounding counties. if you close the bars in new york city but you don t close them in nassau county, all it means is everybody drives to nassau county to a bar. so you have to have consolidated centralized authority. you can t it makes no sense for all these states to be doing different things. i make rules. people can drive to new jersey, they can drive to connecticut. we need the federal government to stand up and say, here are the rules. and secondly, john, the coming crisis is we re overwhelming our health care system. that is going to happen. that curve is a wave. it s going to break on the hospital system, we need additional beds and we need the army corps of engineers to come in here and retrofit state buildings, dormitories, et cetera, for additional hospital beds. we need more beds, we need more ventilators. that s why i want to know what you think of what the secretary of hhs said over the weekend where he refused to disclose the number of ventilators for he claims national security reasons. listen. we don t disclose concrete numbers on particular items for national security purposes. but we have many ventilators, thousands and thousands of ventilators in our system. what s the national security imperative not to tell the american people how many ventilators they have available? national security imperative is people would get very nervous if they knew how few they had. thousands and thousands, what does that mean? we re looking at an overrun in new york in the tens of thousands. that s what i said. we ve been behind this all along. the federal government has to step up. nationwide rules, school closings, bars, whatever and then understand that we have an impending catastrophe when this wave of growth crashes on the hospital system and we don t have the capacity. start now. bring in that army corps of engineers. this is what they do. they build. i ll give them dormitories. build temporary medical facilities. but then you have to do it. i m not shy but the state doesn t have the capacity to build that quickly to that level. true on both counts. you re not shy and the state does not have that capacity. governor, you keep on saying we have been behind. we are behind you say. so then how do you assess this proclamation from the president yesterday where he said this virus is under tremendous control. listen. it s a very contagious it s a very contagious virus. it s credible. but it s something that we have tremendous control over. how does that describe the reality you see? look, i think this is not the time to be hyper critical, right? i think the generous view is the president is trying to keep people calm. by the way, it s a very legitimate function for leadership. i m trying to keep my people calm. i m trying to say, look at the facts because the fear is a bigger problem than the virus right now. my way of keeping people calm is not telling them placebos. i tell them the facts. i tell them the truth. i tell them what we re doing. i say we have the capacity to do it. i go through the numbers and the facts and i say, it s going to be okay. i don t think it s enough just to say it s going to be fine and tell people what they don t believe. i don t believe that makes people calm. i believe it makes them more nervous because they doubt what they re hearing. governor cuomo, we appreciate john go ahead. when i said i was shy, i m not shy. i meant that as a nice thing. i pass no judgment. i m merely agreeing with you that you re not shy. governor cuomo, we appreciate you being with us this morning. we expect to see you again very soon. i think we can all agree on that. it s a statement of fact. statement of fact right there. we learned overnight that two e.r. doctors are in critical condition because they have been on the frontlines of trying to battle this coronavirus. the hospitals in this country, are they prepared for the worst? 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the answer from the cdc, some spread might be possible before people show symptoms, but this is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads. but in massachusetts, more than 80 people contracted coronavirus at a conference held by this biotech company. the state department telling cnn that none of the people who attended displayed any symptoms during the conference. epidemiologist is the director of the centers for disease and policy at the university of minnesota. we have conclusive evidence that this disease is being transmitted through asymptomatic carriers or people with no symptoms and trying to stop transmission is like trying to stop the wind. this study, which has yet to be peer reviewed found in singapore and a city in china infection was transmitted about two to three days before symptom onset. that makes the outbreak much more difficult to control. honestly, with this kind of transmission, we re never going to stop it. what we best are able to do is slow it down. none of the experts cnn spoke to could say what percentage of people are getting infected about the virus for people without sim tomts. cnn reached out of to secretary azar of the cdc but did not receive responses. dr. debra burke, director of the task force september a somewhat different message suggesting that people underage 20 could possibly be spreading the virus without having any symptoms. until you really understand how many people are a ssymptomac and passing the virus on, we think it s better for the entire america public to know that the risk of serious illness may be low but could be potentially spreading the virus to others. some say this is a step in the rye direction. but still. this is the time for straight talk. this is the time to tell the public what we know and don t know. the time for street talk about a virus that may be spreading in ways we hadn t anticipated. now, when a virus is spread mainly by people who are sick and really showing symptoms, it s a lot more straightforward to control it. you isolate the sick people. when a virus when asymptomatic spread is at play, as appears to be with coronavirus, as the doctor said, it s like trying to stop the wind. that s right. it s one thing to tell people with a cough to stay home. it s another thing to tell others to stay home. elizabeth cohen, thank you very much for that. john, new jersey has the most cases of coronavirus. at least 18 people tested positive. the mayor of the town is asking people to self-quarantine. joining us now are the president and chief medical officer at teaneck holy name medical center. at the moment, let s talk about you have a colleague who is in critical condition this morning. what can you tell us about him? we ve had several staff members who have developed coronavirus because of community acquired case. not acquired at the hospital? correct. acquired in the community. that s correct. one is critical ill in the icu. our thoughts are with him and all of you. thank you. what s happening with staffing at your hospital? explain to us the complication of when you have staff members getting sick. we have staffsymptomatically have to send them home. very aggressive home monitoring. temperatures and checking respiratory rates throughout the day, twice a day. we put in a very aggressive monitoring, telehealth system to check on them. then we wait and see. you were telling me before we came on it s a catch-22. you need every person, it s all hands on deck. yes. if you have somebody with symptoms. you have to send them home. what s the long-term strategy here? we re following the cdc guidelines. any health care provider who has several minutes of exposure within six feet of a possible case or a real case we re sending home. we re doing that because we believe preventing every single case is crucial. not because we re worried about that individual but we re worried about that tree of infection that happens from that individual. we re keeping the furloughed people in contact with us. we may have to loosen our guide lines because we need our staff. are you feeling understaffed yet? no, not yet. but the staff especially in the front line and the e.r. and the emergency room and in the icu, they have responded in unprecedented ways. i tell you, when we get through this, every health care obviously, we are very proud of our people but i have never seen an unprecedented stepping up of professionals this way. they re working extra shifts. they re putting, they re dedicated, committing their lives to making things better so we have an incredible positive rally of staff who want to help. that s wonderful to hear and i m sure there will be big bonuses ahead for them. you both have experience with other pandemics. you ve dealt with ebola, with sars, with mers, with cholera. how does this compare? so the important thing about this disease is we know very little about it, and that is what is scaring the public, and that is, to be frank, what is scaring our staff. we don t know enough about this disease. you know about this disease than you did about the others. that s correct. what is the answer? we re using the utmost caution. we have not had a health care worker who has come down with symptoms when we ve used appropriate ppe, when we used appropriate protective gear our staff we believe is safe. i read one of your biggest concerns is testing accuracy, so obviously there is a concern about just testing availability right now and i assume you ve had to deal with that but also if they are available, the accuracy. what do you mean? so we have currently over 68 symptomatic people. seven of them have come back negative tests, but they re symptomatic. we ve run other pcr testing through a buyer fire to rule out other viruses, they have not come up. we re concerned about a potential false negative and so if you re not monitoring people that we re testing, they re going to get a false sense of hey, i was negative and out in the community saying i don t have to observe any of this social distancing, i don t have to observe any of this isolation. i ve already been tested negative and it s false. so either way, people need to stay home, self-quarantine, correct. we appreciate you telling us what s happening in your hospitals right now. best of luck. we ll check back with you. thank you very much. john? 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(vo) go national. go like a pro. new this morning, another nba player tested positive for coronavirus, the third confirmed case in the league. good morning, the sports world is seeing another player testing positive, the detroit pistons say one of their players tested positive over the weekend, the player was not identified by the team, isolated and under the care of medical staff. the team is working with public health officials to monitor the situation and while we can t know exactly when the virus was contracted, the pistons played the jazz back on march 7th in detroit and days later, jazz all-tar rudy gobert and donovan mitchell tested positive. the yankees confirm a minor league player is in isolation after testing positive for coronavirus, the first confirmed case in baseball. there are players and organizations that are helping those hit financially by the virus, cincinnati reds pitchers trevor bauer and david car penner is organized a sand lot game in arizona saturday which led to a fund-raising effort for ball park workers. houston texans star j.j. watt and his wife are donating $350,000 to the houston food bank. steph curry and his wife teaming up with the food bank to provide more than 1 million meals to students in oakland who cannot attend schools due to coronavirus shutdowns and zion williamson late last week offered to cover the salaries of workers at his home arena for the next 30 days and davis love. they don t fit into the vulnerable category across america, they have a lot of advantages but using those platforms to try to dot best they can. i heard the zion williamson news, 19 years old, really leading there. take notice, so many people, so many jobs lost over the next few weeks. you re right. thank you very much. we re about two hours away from a white house briefing on coronavirus. what new measure also they announce? new day continues right now. the effects of the coronavirus pandemic are pretty clear across the united states this weekend. it s a very contagious virus. it s incredible, but it s something we have tremendous control over. a pandemic could overwhelm any system. this president is undermining the doctors and the scientists trying to help the american people. we are guided deeply by what s happening not just by anxiety, not just by fear but a very pragmatic response. we are in this for the long run. this is not going to end overnight. this is new day with alisyn camerota and john berman. good morning, welcome to our viewers in the united states and all around the world. this is new day. it s monday, march 16th, 8:00 in the east and knowing you ll pretty much be nowhere but home for weeks, this is the new reality of the coronavirus pandemic. this morning, there was a national state of emergency as concerns grow too many americans are ignoring warnings and failinging to practice social distancing. overnight the cdc issued a new recommendation to limit gatherings of more than 50 people for the next eight weeks. at least seven states have ordered bars and restaurants to close, limiting them to take-out and delivery only. mgm resorts announced it is suspending operations at all of its hotels and casinos in las vegas starting at midnight. the nation s largest public school system in new york city is shutting down. 33 states
saying there is enough for everyone if people are considerate. the foreign office advises against all but essential travel to the united states after president trump introduced a travel ban on the uk yesterday. man speaks spanish on loudspeaker. and spanish police use drones with loudspeakers to tell people to go home. the foreign office advises against all but essential travel to spain. good afternoon. the department of health has made an announcement in the last half an hour. 1a more people in the uk have died after testing positive for coronavirus, bringing the total number of deaths in the uk to 35. the health secretary for england, matt hancock, has warned that the measures the government will take to combat the coronavirus will disrupt the ordinary lives of almost everybody in the country. he confirmed that in the coming weeks people over the age of 70 and vulnerable people would be asked to self isolate, staying at home and cutting down on contacts with others. the department of health says they will put out more guidance tomorrow on what social distancing measures elderly and at risk people should take. here are the day s other main developments: in total 1,372 people have tested positive for coronavirus in the uk. that is people who have had a test on the test has been positive. over 40,000 people have been tested. the rest have proved negative. mtat hancock said ministers would ask the nation s manufacturers to switch to the production of ventilators needed to treat people who develop severe symptoms. more doctors would be trained in their use. in the last hour, the chair of the construction companyjcb said he had been approached to help by ministers. more doctors would be trained in their use. supermarkets in the uk are urging customers not to panic buy during the outbreak. and the foreign office has advised against all but essential travel to the united states following the us government imposing restrictions on travel from the uk. the foreign office is also advising against all but essential travel to spain, and the balearic and ca nary islands. easyjet is the latest airline to cancel all flights to spain, beginning tuesday. ryanair is also limiting the number of its flights to the country. here s our political correspondent nick eardley. for weeks now we have all been told to wash our hands more, but the government is increasing its response to coronavirus. already, if you have a persistent cough or fever you are to stay at home and new measures could be coming soon. many of them will be focused on those most at risk, in particular the elderly. they could soon be asked to shield themselves from the virus by staying away from other people for months. protection of the vulnerable and elderly by asking them to stay away, to stay at home, that is in our action plan, but we do not want formally to say yet that people should do that, and the reason for that is simply this length of time that they would need to stay self isolated, stay at home, to protect themselves, it is a very big ask. it is a very long time. the scottish government says its plans for the elderly focus on reducing contact rather than complete isolation but soon families are likely to be asked to isolate together, too, if someone in a household show symptoms. household shows symptoms. engineers will be asked to produce as many ventilators as possible. the government needs more and has said it will buy as many as can be produced. there are also plans to take over beds in private hospitals if the nhs comes under too much pressure. i think this response is going to be one of the biggest challenges that our generation faces. some questions are being asked about the response, though, including about the idea immunity can be built up by protecting the most vulnerable while others get a mild illness. ministers say that is not the plan, despite the government s chief scientist suggesting it was part of the approach. labour wants more information about how decisions are being reached. we do that not to undermine the government, because we want the government s strategy to succeed, but it is important we can all reassure ourselves the government is taking the correct approach. the prime minister is holding talks with officials this afternoon. emergency legislation will be published in the coming days and new measures are likely to be introduced soon. our political correspondent jessica parker is here. good afternoon. we can start with what we do know. there will be some kind of announcement tomorrow about social distancing. do we have any indication as to what parameters the government is looking at because some of the measures and other european countries have been pretty dramatic? yes, it is important to talk about the difference between social distancing and self isolation. obviously we have been hearing from the health secretary, matt hancock, the health secretary, matt hancock, the idea it was the over 70s, the vulnerable and elderly, there could bea vulnerable and elderly, there could be a move to ask them to self isolate. social distancing is oui’ self isolate. social distancing is our last radical step artisanal but it is about reducing your day to day contact with people in order to reduce your chance of getting the virus. we could get more guidance tomorrow. there is a cobra meeting tomorrow that will be chaired by the prime minister. we will expect some communication, perhaps further guidance from that. more broadly, looking at what has happened over the weekend, and there have been dribs and drabs of information, accusations it has caused confusion, pressure is building on downing street to take more control of the communication. to make it more structured and predictable when you re going to hear from predictable when you re going to hearfrom them? exactly, so people know where they are on a day to day basis and to stop speculation because people are very worried and scared. understandably so, the death toll has gone up again, it is what has been predicted, no surprise in the numbers but every figure is an individual case, a family who have lost someone they would probably not have been expecting to lose, certainly not in these circumstances, and there are practical nor cons of every decision the government takes, if they were to say, like ireland, as pressure comes from sinn fein in northern ireland, shut the school is, there are kids who have to be looked after, probably at home, mum and dad are working, the grandparents are looking after them and suddenly you increase the risk of vulnerability. no easy answers. if mum and dad are working or there are no grandparents, dear mum and dad have to stop working, and if they work in the health service, what impact does that have? there are a massive number of ramifications going forward. northern ireland is a particular case. there was a meeting between politicians in northern ireland and the irish government about cross border cooperation but a difference of opinion as to when schools and colleges should close a northern ireland given that is happening in the republic already. they are only one mile apart in some places. that family down the road, their kids are not going to school, but it is fine for my kids to go? that is a difficult issue playing out in northern ireland and the republic of ireland as well. where some of this stuff started, overnight in terms of isolation for the over 70s, for vulnerable people, it was advice that came out from the scientific advisory group for emergencies, a scientific group attended by the chief medical officer and the chief scientific adviser, they released information saying they thought the government would need to move towards shielding, the term that covers social distancing or people staying at home, a more radical step, but household isolation, that has been lost as well, household isolation being if one person starts to show symptoms of the coronavirus, the whole household stays at home and self isolates for a time. there is a logic to that and that has a massive impact. exactly, perhaps we ll hear from the government as to what extent they are moving towards that, emergency legislation is expected to be published as well, so there will be more clarity, but there is pressure for there to be more clarity. thank you. tens of millions of europeans are living under lockdown. in a moment, we ll look at the latest developments across the continent and be live with our corresopndent in italy, but first to spain, where nearly 300 people have now died, and a state of emergency is in force. for the next 15 days, people will be confined to their homes, apart from going to work or shopping forfood or medicines. kathryn stanczyszyn reports. another european capital city almost deserted. spain has declared a lockdown, meaning people are banned from leaving home except for buying essential supplies and medicine, orfor work if they can t do so remotely. authorities have decided to use drones to encourage those out on the streets to return to their houses. schools are shut, museums and sports venues closed, and restaurants and cafes can only do home deliveries, a huge adjustment for society. a week ago, we were fine. we were all dancing, partying, out on the streets, and within seven days, we are now confined to our homes. so this is something very serious to consider, and the spanish culture is to be outside, so it s very hard for people. the uk has advised against all but essential travel to spain, but british citizens there already are being allowed to fly home. with191 deaths, spain is europe s worst hit country after italy, with confirmed cases rising by 1,500 injust 2a hours. italy has now recorded more than 1,400 deaths. it began a nationwide lockdown almost a week ago. yesterday, there were coordinated outpourings of gratitude across spain and italy for health professionals battling the coronavirus. the state of emergency in spain will last for two weeks. it could be extended as the spread of coronavirus continues. kathryn stanczyszyn, bbc news. away from spain, other european countries are bringing in new restictions to combat the spread of the virus. in ireland, publicans in dublin s popular tourist area of temple bar have announced a complete closure of all bars and nightclubs with immediate effect. it means the area, which takes in excess of 20 million euros a week, will be closed down for st patrick s day on tuesday. france has announced the closure of all public places that are non essential to public life. that includes restaurants, cafes and cinemas. pharmacies and food shops are open. long distance train, plane and bus travel is going to be progressively reduced over the coming days. local elections have taken place across france today, although turnout appears down by 5%. germany is to close its borders with france, austria and switzerland tomorrow. goods and commuters will be able to cross between the countries. in austria itself, where around 800 cases have been reported, gatherings of more than five people have been banned. the netherlands are set to take the decision to close all schools as it steps up its measures. and in the vatican, the pope will carry out the traditional easter week celebrations without worshippers because of the pandemic. we will stay in rome. italy is the worst affected country in europe. more than 1,400 people have died there and 21,000 are infected. the country is in lockdown. sima kotecha is in the vatican city in st peter s square. it is quite a scene behind you. normally, especially on a lovely early spring day, on a sunday afternoon, not square with the fill of people. it must be a very eerie feeling? it is really bizarre. this is one of the most attractive tourist destinations in the world and it is eerily quiet. you have a couple of police cars, this whole section is barricaded with a metal fence and to my left, you have some dog walkers. the government says you can walk if you have a dog but you cannot walk for no reason at all. the stringent measures are in place across italy, restricting movement, telling people they cannot move from city to city without good reason and you cannot walk, you can walk your dog, you can run, you can go to the shop, but if you want to stroll through here, for example, you cannot do that. more than 1400 people have died across italy from coronavirus. more than 21,000 have been infected. it is a dire situation, more debts here than anywhere else in the world apart from china. some medics arrived from wuhana from china. some medics arrived from wuhan a couple of days ago, they are advising doctors in rome about how to treat coronavirus at a hospital. they are hoping they can help with the situation. there is a major frustration among some people because they cannot move around freely. these measures have been in place for almost a week, not like spain where they have just been enforced. they have been going for a few days and people are still adjusting, trying to get used to the fa ct adjusting, trying to get used to the fact that it is not everyday life. bells toll. that is charming. you can hear the bells, but many parts of italy and the square are not as they once were. all those tourist destinations around europe, significantly reduced in terms of numbers, and questions about the long term economic impact of that, but in terms of public a cce pta nce of that, but in terms of public acceptance of the measures, the few italians you have been able to meet out on the streets, what is the sense? are people accepting this, are they resentful, do they believe the arguments being advanced, are they waiting to see if there is an easing of the numbers of casualties, the number of fatalities and new infections, what are they hoping to hear? the prime minister s approval ratings have gone up since the measures were in place so perhaps thatis measures were in place so perhaps that is an indication of people accepting what he s doing. we have seen the rate of growth of infections go down in the past couple of days so perhaps a sign that the measures are working but also perhaps slightly premature to make an assessment on whether they are being effective. from the probably dozen or so people i have spoken to, there is a mixed reaction to what is happening to point at some are very frustrated, they can t live their daily lives, visit the elderly for example because they are concerned they might infect them. others are just accepting it and saying that this is how it has to be, and this is what we must do. to beat the infection. as i said, there are some medics and doctors from china here, advising the italian doctors and they are saying that the two key things that must happen to defeat coronavirus are early isolation and early detection. and if italy can do those two things and other countries can follow suit, coronavirus will be eliminated. sima kotecha in vatican city, we will see you back safe and sound i hope soon. our correspondent, jenny kumah, is at heathrow. she updated me on the disruption to services and passengers. this is having a huge impact, in particular flights to and from spain have been hard this weekend. a number of airlines have announced that they will be either reducing flights to spain, or stopping them altogether. for example, rya nair today said they will be reducing flights from midnight through till midnight on thursday. we also had easyj et midnight on thursday. we also had easyjet saying that they will cancel flights for the rest of the month from tuesday but running a normal service until then. they say they will be operating a number of return flights. further afield, more disruption is anticipated as the us government has said it will ban travellers from the uk and the republic of ireland, and that comes into force in the early hours of tuesday morning. today we have heard that the foreign office is advising against travel to the us, in all but emergencies. a lot of airlines very concerned about the impact this is happening also on their businesses. particularly with those flights to the us being vital routes to their business. jenny kumah, one more foot ifi business. jenny kumah, one more foot if i may while we have you one more thought. about any possibility of compensation for travellers. a lot of people will end up having to spend extra money, particularly those currently abroad, and cannot actually get home at the moment. what sort of help might be available for them? it very much depends on the airline and your insurance policy so advice is to check with the airline. they will take their cue from the foreign office. if the advice is to only travel in an emergency, you will need to check, if you do travel in an emergency, if your insurance will cover you for that. the airlines are saying in the meantime that they are struggling and calling on the government to offer them financial support. today the trade body airlines uk has called on the government to stop its prevarication and bean counting. the government said it is working with the sector to support workers, businesses and passengers and they say they have done things like influence of the eu commission to relax flight slots and they said the treasury stands ready to help all businesses, including the airline industry, impacted by the coronavirus. jenny kumah fair at heathrow dealing with some technical problems so our apologies at that about that. us airports have been thrown into chaos as new coronavirus health screening measures for people returning from mainland europe come into force. long queues formed as travellers waited for hours for the screenings before passing through customs. the uk government is advising against all but essential travel to the united states. that is even if you are able to get there on a flight departing from somewhere else. president trump has tested negative for the coronavirus, the white house says. mr trump underwent a test days after hosting a meeting at his florida resort with a brazilian delegation, some of whom had the virus. several cruise ships are reported to have cases of suspected coronavirus. more than 600 british passengers are on board the braemar, which is off the coast of the bahamas. 20 guests are in isolation, having shown flu like symptoms after five people tested positive for covid 19. there are also 20 crew members who are isolated, including a doctor. the headlines on bbc news. fourteen more patients who tested positive for coronavirus have died, bringing the number of deaths in the uk to 35. the health secretary warns that at some point in the coming weeks older people and those with health conditions will be asked to stay at home to protect them. british companies are urged to join a national effort to produce more ventilators and other medical equipment at speed . supermarkets are urging customers not to buy more than they need after numerous reports os shoppers stockpiling. our business correspondent katy austin has more. queues outside supermarkets and shelves emptied of essentials like loo roll, hand wash and long life foods show many shoppers have not heeded the official advice that there is no need to stockpile. people at this store in london felt there had been an overreaction. there s no nappies, toilet paper, nothing, nothing. so it s going to be a struggle. i think that somebody needs to put kind of a cosh on it and say, you can only take so much. it s a little bit over the top, frankly. one of my friends said, like, you ve got to get bog roll, tea bags, and i was like, why? don t know, she s frightened me, so i ve come out to get it all. supermarkets have had to adapt quickly by speeding up supplies, increasing warehouse space and they re running online delivery services at full capacity. they are also being allowed to extend their delivery hours, but still many shops are limiting the purchases of the most in demand products. here at aldi, customers are being asked not to buy more than four of anything. now they ve written to customers, asking them to be considerate in the way they shop, telling them that buying more than is needed can sometimes mean others will be left without. shoppers are reassured, though, there is enough for everyone if we all work together. the risk is that we alljust buy that little bit more than we actually need, and, if we all did that, then that would cause more of a problem in terms of making sure that we ve got the right supplies coming through the system. today s letter is a plea to all customers to stop panic buying for fear of overstretching the system and leaving the most vulnerable without what they need. katy austin, bbc news. one of the big questions that came out of the interview with andrew marr and matt hancock was mr hancock saying the government will ask the nation s manufactures to switch to producing ventilators which are not currently made in the country at all, because they are needed to help treat people with severe coronavirus symptoms. dr maxjonas is a consultant in intensive care medicine at the university hospital of southampton. earlier, i spoke to him by phone and i asked him to explain the importance of a ventilator. about one in 20 people who are infected with the virus will require some form of enhanced critical care, and some of those will need help breathing and that is where the ventilator comes in. the ventilator is just a sophisticated device for helping gas getting into the lungs and helping it to get out as well. were you at all surprised by the figure that was announced today that, at present, the uk has about 5,000 ventilators available? it does not surprise me. we have not been in this situation before. 5,000, for what we would be currently using them for, would probably be a surplus but of course the situation has changed because we have a virus that attacks the respiratory system in people that need intensive care, so we are short and we will need to do something about that. i do not know if you can answer this question but i will put it to you and you can tell me pretty sharply if you cannot. is it possible for manufacturers of other goods of this kind, basically electronically operated, but have a certain number of moving specialist parts, is it possible for them to turn to production of this because my understanding is, and correct me if i m wrong on this, that there is not a domestic manufacturer of ventilators? there is not a domestic manufacturer but i imagine that certain manufacturers in the uk can make parts. all the ventilators that i know, and i have been to several production lines, they are built on a production line in germany, switzerland and america and they have parts from other countries that are bolted in in a production line fashion. the important thing is to go back to the 1940s, the 1950s, the uk led the way in creating bits of equipment, including the east radcliffe ventilator, and they got round problems by putting sturmey archer bicycle gears into ventilators. there is innovation. you can do that. if you look at the manufacturers quoted, rolls royce, jbc, etc, they make systems for delivering gas into aeroplanes, which is how we fly at 30,000 feet, so they have experience and hopefully, given the blueprint, they can produce something that is as rugged as a jcb and as luxurious as a rolls royce. that would be a good combination if they get it that way round! can you talk about management issues in terms of hospitals and gp surgeries in particular, for dealing with what is likely to be an excess number of cases, rather than what would be the case forjust flu? everybody has pointed out that this is very different to flu because, from a human race perspective, we are naive to this. we have not seen it before so our immune systems aren t there for it. i think the important thing about all of this, and i know that there are political aspects and people saying other things, it is to have one clear voice. my confidence comes from the fact that chris whitty is a genealogist used to dealing with infectious diseases. he will be told by history but he s thinking very carefully and we could not be in better hands if we are going to get it right. that is the first thing. we have got to recognise also the nhs is only part of the issue. it is also down to the population not only relying on the nhs, but the nhs will rely on the population. they have got to do the things that make it safer isolating if they have symptoms and washing their hands, and all the things that have been communicated on a daily basis. the other things, we will have to see how it develops but i am hopeful, if the strategies which chris whitty and his team have sorted out, we will be able to decrease the peaks to allow us to spread this out. that is sketching out to some extent where we might be going. the journey we are on is one that lots of people would find difficult to grasp because we do not get these kinds of major public health emergencies in this country that often. what sort of advice are you offering friends, patients, about how to mentally deal with what is going to be a long period of heightened stress? that is a really good question. i find it difficult. i am over 60 and i have other issues so i am in a higher risk group myself. my view on this is, if we are sensible and we work together, and a lot of people have compared this to world war ii and the blackouts, we need to work together as a country, which is really important, we need to help ourselves and help others, but what i think is important is you socially distance yourself if you re worried about contact and you are in a higher risk group, and by that i mean more than two metres. you wash your hands frequently if you touch things which you have picked up, and just the basics like that will reduce the number of transmissions. we are still not entirely clear about this virus and its transmission mode, but i believe that if we are sensible as a population and actually work together and do not panic buy and do all the things which are inevitable because of the anxiety raised by the communications to date, i think we will get through it, and i really feel that the message, especially to the elderly because i have seen publications out there, the nhs will do everything we can to adapt and overcome and have a bed for any patient that comes through and i think if chris whitty gets it right and we follow his advice and do not have political sort of interference, actually we will get through this. max jonas talking maxjonas talking to me from southampton earlier. with football matches off, panic buying taking place, and fears of increased pressure on the nhs, coronavirus is affecting us all. but it s also brought out a great deal of community spirit, as alexandra mackenzie has been finding out. they sing at this london nursery, children are learning that washing their hands is important, but it can also be fun. they re filming a music video with a specially composed song about hand washing. they want to encourage families around the world. excellent! i think it s important to wash your hands because then you will get all the germs in your hands and you will get ill all the time. wash your hands to get off the germs. there is germs spreading around because people are sick. so to avoid the germs you have to wash your hands. the message seems to be getting through to these youngsters. washing our hands often helps us slow down the spread of covid 19 and other germs. if i can save the lives of one child, if they are going to see ourcampaign, and the importance of it, then i would be so happy. here in stenhousemuir in falkirk, it is the elderly who are being looked after. shop owners jawad and asiyahjaved have spent around £2,000 of their own money on hand sanitiser, wipes and masks for some of the older people in their community. david, this is for you and your wife. i m concerned because of my age, but i also think the job they re doing is magnificent. whatever age we are, the next few weeks are likely to bring a great deal of uncertainty as covid 19 tightens its grip across the uk. now it s time for a look at the weather with darren bett. hello there. as skies clear and winds drop there is a frost on the way for many parts of the country tonight. we have still got some rain to clear away from southeast parts this evening. the showers that are following tend to die out, but the cloud will probably move south away from scotland into northern england and eastern england and that should keep temperatures above freezing but a frost more likely elsewhere with the lowest temperatures in scotland. many will start dry and sunny on monday. the cloud even breaking up across northern and eastern england but the cloud will increase in scotland and northern ireland as the wind picks up and we see some rain moving in during the afternoon but still dry in the afternoon for england and wales after that cold start with some sunshine during the day. temperatures up to around 11 12 degrees. we move the story onto tuesday and the rain that was in the north will be much lighter as it heads into england and wales but it returns as some heavier and steadier rain into northern ireland and western scotland. for eastern parts of england, thanks to a south westerly wind, temperatures could be as high as 14 or 15. hello, this is bbc news with shaun ley. the headlines: 14 more patients who tested positive for coronavirus have died, bringing the number of deaths in the uk to 35. the health secretary, matt hancock, warns that measures to combat coronavirus will disrupt the lives of everybody, and older people and those with health conditions will be asked to stay at home. the protection of the vulnerable and elderly by asking them to stay away, to stay at home, that is in our action plan, but we do not want formally to say yet that people should do that. british companies are urged to join a national effort to produce more ventilators and other medical equipment at speed . supermarkets urge shoppers not to buy more than they need, saying there is enough for everyone if people are considerate. the foreign office advises against all but essential travel to the united states after president trump introduced a travel ban on the uk yesterday. sport and for a full round up, from the bbc sport centre, here s karthi. good afternoon. it s been a strange weekend for sports fans with most professional sport called off. premiership rugby is now considering a 12 week suspension of top flight rugby due to the coronavirus outbreak. a special meeting will take place tomorrow when clubs will discuss a range of potential next steps, including a four week suspension as well as continuing to play until government advice on mass gatherings changes. the pro14 competition has already been suspended. ferrari has suspended its formula one team operations and closed its car factory until the 27th march as a result of coronavirus. in a statement, the company said it has taken the decision to protect its workers. ferrari is also experiencing serious issues with its supply chain which can no longer allow for continued production. other f1 teams are still working for now, despite the uncertainty over when the season will start. netball‘s superleague is the latest league to postpone fixtures due to the pandemic. matches were played yesterday, but the three remaining games due to be played tomorrow have all been called off. the league s board and all clubs will meet on tuesday to consider options for the rest of the season. the wife of arsenal manager mikel arteta says he s feeling fine after contracting coronavirus. lorena bernal added she sympathises with people suffering from the disease and those who have lost loved ones as a result of it. in a social media post she explained arteta s symptoms were relatively mild. my my husband is feeling fine, he is well. it is true that he had symptoms of a virus, but those symptoms of a virus, but those symptoms would have never stopped him from going to work in a normal situation. he would havejust him from going to work in a normal situation. he would have just taken ip proven paracetamol and he would have gone to work so really, it is nothing major. iburprofen. some temperature, some headache, but that is it. police have today confirmed that jan vertonghen‘s family was held at knifepoint during a burglary that took place while the player was on champions league duty with tottenham in midweek. the belgian defender was in germany for the second leg of spurs last 16 defeat against rb leipzig. men wearing balaclavas forced their way into the house while his wife and children were inside, stealing a number of items before leaving. metropolitan police are appealing for information. rugby league s super league is continuing, with castleford hosting champions st helens. the latest score is castleford 14, st helens 4. they are adjusting to the second half. just into the second half. meanwhile, the rfl chief executive, ralf rimmer, says leeds could face punishment for cancelling their game at catalans dragons after one of their players showed symptoms of coronavirus, which subsequently was shown to be a negative test. yes, it is a possibility. we spoke with leeds at some length this week oi i with leeds at some length this week on that particular issue. we have applied to guidelines which the government has asked us to observe and leeds took a unilateral decision not to travel to that fixture, so that willjust not to travel to that fixture, so that will just follow not to travel to that fixture, so that willjust follow due process i io. “ that willjust follow due process i io. “ process that willjust follow due process no. “ process now. leicester riders have won the women s british basketball league trophy for the third year in a row. they beat durham palitinates by 70 points to 66 in a replay of last year s final, thanks to a game high 23 points by match mvp sara hinriksdottir. if you re lookning for some live sport today, you can watch the men s trophy final between seven time winners newcastle eagles and semi professional solent kestrels on the red button and the bbc sport website now. it is finals day at the all england badminton championships in birmingham and it is viktor axelsen of denmark who has been crowned champion for the first time in the men s singles. axelsen, who is the world number seven, beat the top seed in birmingham, chou tien chen, in straight sets to become the first danish winner of the men s title since 1999. very emotional about it, too. that s all the sport for now. i ll have more for you in the next hour. thank you. some latest news from the netherlands which says it will close schools from monday until the 6th of april. that ban will be extended with bars, sports clubs, shops and coffee shops being shot from tonight. the dutch prime minister will address the nation from tomorrow. in the uk, the battle has risen to 35 after 14 more people died having tested positive for the virus. the health secretary says people aged over 70 will be asked to self isolate in the future in order to shield them from the coronavirus. he was speaking on the andrew marr show on bbc one. let s listen again to the full interview. i m joined now by the health secretary, matt hancock. welcome, matt hancock. it is good to be here. you were here two weeks ago and when we were speaking then 36 people were infected in britain and nobody had died. what do you think of the situation two weeks hence? so far we have seen over 1,000 people affected on the formalfigures. we think the figure is higher than that. much higher? that is right. sadly now we have seen over 20 people have died and we are working round the clock to protect life and to keep people safe, in particular to protect the vulnerable and those who are most vulnerable to this disease, the elderly and people with pre existing health conditions. it is a 24/7 effort. when we spoke a couple of weeks ago, some people were surprised at the extent of the measures we were saying we were prepared to take, that we set out in the action plan. no longer. now people are saying these are the sorts of measures that we need. on thursday at the press conference, we were told around 10,000 people were probably infected. what is your guess about that number now? it will be a little higher than that. we can see the number of infections is rising and that is why we are moving through the action plan to take the further steps that are needed. we have always said that we will do the right thing at the right time and guided by the very best science. they are the bedrock of the whole response and to do so as transparently as possible, answering whatever questions people have. in transparency terms, is it accelerating now? are we heading towards an exponential part of the growth? on thursday the chief scientific officer was saying we were four weeks behind italy. is that the case? we do think it is accelerating and we expect the numbers to rise. thankfully that rise so far has been slower than in other places in europe. that is in large part down to the amazing work of public health england and the contact tracing. but of course we want to beat this virus and stopping it would take some quite extraordinary interventions that you don t normally have in peacetime. i think this response is going to be one of the biggest challenges that our generation faces. the sort of measures that are needed are simply not the sort of things that you normally have to contemplate. let me ask you about some of them. there has been a lot of talk, and you mentioned the elderly earlier on, and quite soon anybody over the age of 70 will be asked to stay inside their house for up to four months. is that a realistic thing to do? the protection of the vulnerable and elderly, by asking them to stay away, to stay at home, that is in our action plan. but we do not want formally to say yet that people should do that. the reason for that is simply this length of time that they would need to stay self isolated, stay at home, to protect themselves, it s a very big ask. it is a very long time. we do know that if you ask people to do this sort of thing, then they can tire of it. we know it has negative impacts and real negative impacts. sorry tojump in, it is notjust all of those millions of people staying inside their houses, it is also presumably anybody who is caring for them. there are five million carers in this country, 600,000 people caring for someone with dementia, but there is no point asking them to stay inside their houses, unless they are taking the same measures for those bringing in food and helping them change their beds and so forth and bring in other people. you have got to make sure that if people stay at home they get the help they need. that will notjust be the social care system, we are putting a huge amount more extra cash into the social care system, but it is not so much about the money it is about having the people. we will need a massive community response. lots of others will have to shield themselves as well. millions of us will have to stay inside our houses for four months. how long before you say this has to happen? that will be in the coming weeks. next week possibly? i will not go into any more detail on the timings because we want to be ready to say that when we judge, based on the scientific advice, that the time has come. but we will be taking further measures. really the plan is to try to bring the number of infections down and try to bring the nhs capacity up. the nhs capacity that we need is very specific. i know there is a debate about the funding of the nhs in the past. frankly, the fact we have got the most numbers of doctors and nurses at the start of this is a good thing, but the nhs capacity that is needed is very specific because this is a respiratory illness and we need ventilators and we need the people who can operate them. we have been buying up ventilators since this started. just before i come to ventilators, on older people, a lot of people will be watching this programme wondering, should i visit my elderly relatives, my parents, my grandparents, and a lot of carers wondering for how long can i visit these people in this house? what is your advice? they cannot wait for ever, they need to know what to do. our advice is very clearly if you have a symptom, no matter how mild, then you must stay at home, both to protect yourself, but also to protect others. this is the central message, alongside the message of washing your hands. those are the two things that right now we are asking people to do. who will look after these people? who will look after sick people, particularly older people staying at home? this is what we need, both the formal social care system and the whole community to do. getting through this will be a national effort. i don t mean those words lightly. every single person in this country will be affected, they will have to do things. this is the great dilemma. say there is somebody living in the same street as me and they are elderly and isolated, and they need care and help. do i go in to help them or not? if you are healthy, yes. risking getting the disease myself? and then spreading it? sorry, if you are healthy and they are healthy, please go and help them. there are ways you can help without yourself getting infected. the infection comes if you are within two metres of somebody, but making sure that they are ok, making sure that they have got the food they need if they cannot go out shopping, these things are critical, and you can do that without risking infection yourself. are you going to ban mass gatherings? clearly, in our action plan, that is one of the steps we can take. the government said on thursday this was not necessary and could be counter productive, talking about football matches and so forth. the fa went ahead and pulled them anyway, and lots of people are wondering should they go to a local club, gym or pub or whatever, and people are looking for advice from the government about what kind of gatherings they should now avoid. yes, i understand that and we will do the right thing at the right time. what we are doing is changing the law and we will publish the bill this week coming. we will change the law so that we take the power to be able to close mass gatherings if we need to and take other action that you just normally would not, but we might have to in order to respond to this virus. do you foresee a time when we will follow france or spain and close all restaurants, bars and other shops beyond pharmacies and supermarkets? we have not ruled that out. we will do what is necessary, because the top priority is to protect life and you do that by protecting the vulnerable and protecting the nhs. that is the goal. we have got our plan, we set it out in public a couple of weeks ago. we are approaching this with the maximum possible transparency, including there is now a website and where all the infections we know of have been. the really difficult decision is to what extent you try to control the spread of the disease, allowing it to spread but at a rate that the nhs is able to cope with. or, as some other countries have done, the exponential rise is so great, throw everything at it, close all the schools and gatherings, close the tube and transport system, close the borders. you have not taken that decision, but that in itself is a bit of a risk, isn t it? the goal is to protect life and the measures we take have to be sustainable and making sure they are sustainable is a critical part of deciding when you bring them in. but we will stop at nothing to fight this virus. i think people have got the impression otherwise, we will stop at nothing to fight this virus. like many other countries in the world, and i am talking to other health ministers and medical officers around the world, we are taking the steps that we think are necessary for our country right now. i welcome the debate. i don t mind having a debate about it because every time i hear somebody talking about it, i listen and i try to find out if there is something we have not thought of and something that we need to consider. all that matters, all that matters, is getting this response right. and you talk about extraordinary measures we would not normally be discussing, you said that several times. are we talking about the police on the streets? soldiers on the streets? arresting people who are sick and not self isolating ? are we talking about closing borders and the airports? we will take the powers to make sure we can quarantine people if they are a risk to public health, yes. that is important. i doubt that actually we will need to use it much because people are being very responsible. people need to be responsible. there are some areas where i think people really need to think about the impact on others of what they are doing, making sure that if you are buying food and loo roll, you buy what you need because there is an impact on others. you don t hoard. the food supply and security, we think that is strong. but we have got to make sure that everybody acts responsibly. one of the great controversies has been the so called herd immunity issue. sir patrick vallance, the chief scientific adviser, said on thursday, that you want some immunity in the population, we need immunity to protect ourselves from this in the future. a lot of people can understand that, but is allowing this to spread to achieve herd immunity in any way government policy? herd immunity is not our policy, it is not our goal. our goal is to protect life and our policy is to fight the virus and protect the vulnerable and protect the nhs. that is what we are doing. of course there is a scientific debate around scientific concepts, but i want to be absolutely crystal clear that we will do what is necessary to protect life. some people heard this idea of herd immunity and thought, it is ok for young people to get this disease and pass it on and become immune. no, because the consequence of the infection rate rising too fast is very clear and that is why we need to bring the infection rate down at the same time as doing the work to increase the nhs capacity especially in the areas of most need like ventilators. let s talk about these ventilators, who will build them? car makers will be asked to make them, for instance? yes, and specialist engineering. we have high quality engineering in this country and we want anyone with the manufacturing capability to turn to manufacture of ventilators to do that. that in itself is like a wartime measure, turning over all manufacturers to specific things. i suppose even if you get tens of thousands of new ventilators around the country, you still need lots of new nurses, i think five nurses per ventilator plus doctors who take eight years to be trained. do we have anything like the medical staff of any kind to run this? yes. they say you don t. i was going to explain how because of course we have the number of doctors we have, we want to bring people who are recently retired back into service and for instance release doctors from some other duties and get them back into the health service, but also the clinical needs that people have when they are suffering from coronavirus are very specific. it s about ventilation because it is a respiratory disease, so we will be stopping some other activity and asking doctors who normally do other things to re train to use the ventilators. and you can do that quickly enough to have effect? we would do it as fast as we can. a bit like the manufacture of ventilators. we are not saying there is a maximum amount we want to do because if we have enough ventilators for the uk, other places around the world need them too. is it possible some elective surgery will have to be cancelled? yes, of course. and is the nhs going to open other facilities, like lombardy in italy? they are looking at hotels and putting in effect emergency hospitals. yes, some people are saying should you build a hospital. actually we have seen many hotels are empty so we have ready built facilities for looking after people, but the critical thing is they need oxygen supply and the ventilation equipment, whether it is invasive ventilation orjust the mask on your face. so what matters is notjust the space, it is making sure the equipment and the trained staff are there as well. there is a massive effort going on to make sure that capacity is as much as possible. what about army field hospitals? i am open to all options, but the current plan, the current area where we need most people is actually the people and the equipment. the physical buildings are there. many hotels around the country are currently empty, and we have hospital buildings. so for instance, one of the first things we will do is turn operating theatres that normally would be doing the sorts of operations that in this emergency can be delayed like hip operations. they have oxygen supplies in them because they are operating theatres, and they can be turned into wards. that s one of the examples of the ways we can change the nhs because the specific needs of this disease are now clear. matt hancock talking to andrew mark this morning. time now for the weather. hello there. it is going to be turning colder tonight, it is probably going to be the coldest night of the next few. we are seeing cooler air coming down across the uk. we have also had a few weather fronts on the scene. this one here has been bringing some outbreaks of rain towards the south east of england. behind it, the cooler airfollows as we change the wind direction from a south westerly to a north westerly. for many of us, we are seeing the cloud beginning to thin and break, but we will get clearer skies arriving overnight. we lose the rain in the south east of england. the showers that are following behind that become fewer, largely becoming dry but probably an area of cloud moving down from scotland into northern and eastern parts of england, and that should just about keep temperatures above freezing. elsewhere, clear skies and light winds, there will be a frost, the lowest temperatures are likely to be in scotland. for many, tomorrow will start sunny, the cloud breaking up across northern and eastern parts of england, but increasing through the day in scotland and northern ireland as the wind picks up, and through the afternoon, some rain moves in as well. into the afternoon, it is still dry for england and wales, quite a bit of sunshine around. after that cold start, temperatures could get as high as 12, perhaps even 13 degrees. the weather front bringing the rain into the north west on monday is going to hang around over the next few days. it is going to get so far, then it stops, then we will see the rain coming back in again. this is the picture on tuesday, with the weak weather front bringing more cloud into england and wales, perhaps a little rain and drizzle, and then returning as thicker cloud and steadier rain into northern ireland and western parts of scotland. for eastern areas of england, it may well be dry for most of the day and because we are getting more of a south westerly wind returning, those temperatures could be higher, at 14 or 15 degrees. milder air to the south of that weather front, colder air to the north. that weather front will bring rain overnight, tuesday night into wednesday morning. heaviest overnight because as the rain moves southwards, it becomes very light and patchy. it is mainly over the hills, but there will be more cloud around. colder air comes down across the northern half of the uk, some wintry showers in northern scotland, but ahead of the weather front, although there is more cloud towards the south east of england, temperatures may reach 15 or 16 degrees. but probably only briefly. the week ahead is all about this rain arriving in the north west, stacking its way southwards. ahead of it, some mild weather around the middle part of the week and later on in the week, it does get colder once again everywhere. this is bbc news. the headlines at 5pm: 14 more patients who tested positive for coronavirus have died, bringing the number of deaths in the uk to 35. the health secretary warns that measures to combat coronavirus will disrupt the lives of everybody and older people and those with health conditions will be asked to stay at home. the protection of the vulnerable and elderly by asking them to stay away, to stay at home, that is in our action plan, but we do not want formally to say yet that people should do that. british companies are urged tojoin a national effort to produce more ventilators and other medical equipment at speed. supermarkets urge shoppers not to buy more than they need,
the rule, you get in your car, you drive 15 minutes, you re in a different jurisdiction, subject to a different set of rules. so in new york, you cannot shop new york city versus westchester versus nassau versus albany. it s one set of rules for the entire state. and it should be one set of rules for the entire nation. and that is the role of the federal government and national leadership. and it is lacking. the federal government should put one position in place, and coordinate it with the states. if the federal government isn t going to do what it should do, then the states have to try their best. right? and the best way is for me, not only to have a uniformed policy within the state of new york but, to the extent you can, cooperate with surrounding states so you all have a common set of practices, right? i don t want to close down bars in new york but connecticut leaves the bars open. why? because then many people will get in their car and they ll drive to connecticut to go to a bar, which is the last thing we want. now, we have people who are drinking and driving. it makes no sense. i don t want to have one set of rules here and a different set of rules in new jersey because i close down the bars, you ll get in the car and drive to new jersey. it makes no sense. well, then get the states to coordinate themselves. yes, very hard to do. luckily, we have set a template where our regional states work together. many of you came to our regional meeting on marijuana laws. and i have a good relationship that i ve developed with the surrounding governors. so we have actually deployed that here. and i just did a call with governor phil murphy of new jersey and governor ned lamont of connecticut, and we are adopting the same policies. so there is no benefit to try to shop new york versus connecticut versus new jersey. there will be no more gatherings of 50-plus people. so if you were hoping to plan a graduation party, you can t do it in the state of new york. you can t go do it in the state of new jersey. and you can t do it in the state of connecticut. casinos. we all have casinos. if i close micahy casinos but n jersey keeps their casinos open, we re going to have the same problem. all casinos will be closed, effective 8:00 p.m. tonight, and they will stay closed until further notice. on all these closings, they are all till until further notice. and, hopefully, i can coordinate with the other governors so we can have the same opening period just the way we had the same closing period. gyms are closed, effective 8:00 p.m. tonight. i know that s a specific hardship for the people in this room because i can all see you are in masterful shape. buff, even. there are other ways to exercise. theaters, closing at 8:00 tonight, until further notice. any bar or restaurant closes at 8:00 tonight. however, there is a silver lining for these establishments because we re also very aware of the economic consequences. for these establishments. so the state liquor authority is going to change its rules. they ll have guidance up by 5:00 p.m. this evening that will allow bars, restaurants, distilleries, to sell their products off premises. so whatever you could get, whatever you could order, in the bar or restaurant or distillery or winery, you can purchase through takeout. and we hope that goes a long way towards alleviating any economic hardship. stay home. and order from your favorite restaurant. order from your favorite bar. order from your favorite winery. order from whatever establishment that you were thinking of patronizing. just order it and stay at home. and, again, the state liquor authority will change their rules to allow that. it s not currently allowed. we re we will only allow it during this period of closure. but i think it will help those businesses. as you know, we ve done a lot of work with the wineries and distilleries to grow that industry in new york, and i want to make sure we protect them. now, everybody is at home. and they re at home with their kids. my kids are a little older. but i remember the old days when you re in the house with a number of young kids. the house can get very small, very quickly. the kids can get very rambunctious, very quickly. we re going to waive all park fees in all state parks, local parks, county parks. so you want to get out of the house, great. go to the park. the weather s changing. take a walk. enjoy. enjoy your family. and do it in an environment that is not a dense environment, which is exactly what the parks provide. other actions. all local governments must reduce their workforce by 50%, minimum. i m directing all local governments to allow their nonessential personnel to stay home, work from home, with a 50% minimum. local government can go higher than 50%, but it must be a 50% minimum. work from home, which is the same thing i m asking private businesses. if we can ask private businesses to do that, government, i think, leads by example. so not just for new york state government, which will do this also, all local governments, nonessential people work from home. and a minimum of 50% of the workforce must stay at home. second, i m directing local governments to make sure that all their local police departments and emergency management services are supplied with masks. surgical masks. police officers who are encountering people in all different circumstances. ems workers, who traditionally wear masks. police officers, who traditionally do not. but i was at the new rochelle drive-through testing center the other day. and, you know, if you re a police officer, you are walking up to a car. you re stopping a driver. they roll down the window. by definition, you are within more than six feet. you don t know who you re talking to. people are positive who don t even know that they re positive. i want all the police officers who are showing all first responders are showing great coverage getting up great courage getting up and going out and doing their job every day. i want them to know that we understand the situation they re putting themselves in. and we re providing the necessary precautions. so every local government must provide their local police department, ems workers, with masks. new york city. nassau, suffolk, westchester, and rockland must have childcare, educational services and meal plans in place by midnight. we said that those schools will be closing. but we need to take care of the negative, the downside of closi closing the school. this is not this is not an easy decision. there are negatives when you close a school. most notably, you don t have childcare for essential personnel. you don t have childcare for healthcare workers. remember remember, please the greatest challenge and the greatest damage is going to be done by an overwhelmed healthcare system. nurses, healthcare workers, 11-99 members don t have alternatives to childcare. public education is, also, this state s childcare system. it s this nation s childcare system. and it s not that easy to say, well, let them get a babysitter. they can t afford it. it s hard to find. and we would have created a true negative situation if we lost healthcare workers or first responders because we closed schools and they had to stay home with their children. this is solved easily enough. you re closing schools. don t close all the schools. leave a couple of schools open or parts of schools open to provide childcare for the essential personnel. we also have to have meal programs and meal services in place and educational services in place. on that condition, i ordered the schools closed. but it s on that condition and i want those plans, and i want them in place by midnight. and they have to be approved. we strongly advise that only services and businesses that are essential stay open after 8:00 p.m. grocery stores. gas stations. pharmacies. medical facilities. we want people home. we want less density. we strongly advise this. this is not mandatory. but it is strongly advised. and it s not mandatory at this time. and it may be in the future. but it is strongly advised at this time. testing. we have had a phenomenal increase in testing. we ve been able to use our laboratories. our emergency management team has done a very good job of reaching out to our state labs, getting them on track. getting them coordinated. our testing numbers are way up, as you ll see. next week, by the end of this week, we think we re going to be up to about 7,000 tests per day. which is an exponential increase of what we have done. i made the suggestion to the vice president. i made it to the president. i, often, tell you when i am unhappy with the federal response to the state. the fairness dictates that kudos where kudos are due. and, here, the vice president and the president responded very quickly. so i want to thank them for that. we started a drive-through testing facility in new rochelle, westchester, where we have one of the highest clusters. it s one of the first in the united states. i believe, actually, the first on the eastern seaboard. it has worked very well. it s safe for everyone. you drive up in your car. you never get out of your car. you re tested in your vehicle. they take the test kits back. the time that it takes to take the test is actually faster than we thought. doesn t normally happen in government. we allotted 15 minutes per car. it s actually running ahead of that schedule. we want to replicate that because it s just smart. the worst thing is a person walking into an emergency room. if you are positive, you infect other people. if you re negative, you may get infected by walking into the emergency room. so this is the best way to test someone. we said we were going to open one on long island after the positive new rochelle experience. we re also going to open one on staten island. staten island does not have an abundance of hospitals. staten island is a community where people drive. and staten island, i believe, is an appropriate location for this. i also think that staten island feels that they have not gotten the level of attention of health services that they need. and i ve spoken to max rose, i spoke to senator andrew lanza, and i believe this is going to make a difference. we re also open one in rockland county on the same theory. we re going to a new phase in this entire process. we talked about early detection. we ve talked about testing. we talked about containment. you see those numbers are going up. that means you re moving towards a mitigation phase. and you re moving to a phase where you must expect a significant inflow into the hospital healthcare system. now, again, this is the great curve they talk about. plus or minus. flatten the curve. flatten the curve. flatten the curve. that s what all you hear. that s what you hear every day on tv. you see this curve. we must floatten the curve. the concept is right. flatten the curve. slow the spread so the health care system can handle it. when they say this, i don t think of a curve. i think of a wave. and the wave is going to break, and the wave is going to break on the hospital system. we are doing everything we can to flatten the curve. i believe we ve taken more dramatic actions than any state in the united states. i believe we ve had the most effective response of any state in the united states. i don t believe we re going to be able to flatten the curve enough to meet the capacity of the healthcare system. so in this business, plan ahead. plan forward. anticipate what s coming down the road and get ready for it. expanding the capacity of the healthcare system. for a state. is virtually impossible. building a hospital is a very elaborate, extensive, expensive undertaking. again, we need the federal government to play its role. the federal government has tremendous capacity. i was in the federal government. i was a cabinet secretary. i worked with the military. i worked with the army corps of engineers. they have tremendous capacity. this is what they do. this is what they do. they build airports. they build the bridges. they build hospitals. this is exactly what they do. deploy the army corps of engineers to come work with states to build temporary medical facilities. get us back-up beds. so when the hospital is overwhelmed, we can have some of the people who are in the hospital beds go to a back-up medical facility. it makes all the sense in the world. and if you don t do it, you know what is going to happen. you re going to overwhelm the hospitals. you only have 53,000 hospital beds. you only have 3,000 icu beds. why? because our health system is basically a private system. they don t build capacity that they don t need. they don t build extra icu beds just in case. an intensive care bed is very expensive. they don t build a wing of icu beds that sit vak cant for ten years on the off chance that there s going to be a public health emergency and you ll need the beds. they don t. it s not economic. it s not their business model. so we don t have them. we have the capacity that people use day in and day out. and that s not just new york. that s every state in the united states. you now have this influx. you can t handle it. you overwhelm the hospitals. you have people on gurneys in hallways. that is what is going to happen now, if we do nothing. that is what is going to happen now if we do nothing. and that, my friends, will be a tragedy. we know what lies ahead. look at the numbers from china, south korea, and italy. you don t have to guess. you just have to project. the numbers are on a chart. our numbers are on a chart. just extend the current trajectory. just go dot, dot, dot, dot, and you ll see the numbers rise. and you compare those numbers to our hospital capacity, and it s still math at the end of the day. and it doesn t work. the federal government must do this. assume the federal government doesn t do what the federal government is supposed to do. which would not be a wild assumption, as it hasn t happened to date. well, then as a fall baback, th states have to do whatever they have to do. and the state has to mobilize to create back-up medical facilities, and that is what we are going to do. we re going to organize the national guard. the work with the building unions and work with private developers to find existing facilities that could most easily be adapted to medical facilities. meaning what? meaning dormitories. meaning former nursing homes. facilities that have that basic configuration that could be retrofit. even that is not easy because you have the construction element, and you also have the equipment element. it is very, very hard to get medical equipment now. because everybody on the globe is trying to buy the same medical equipment. everybody wants to buy a ventilator. everybody wants to buy oxygen. everybody is trying to buy the same equipment and it s terribly scarce. that s why i go back, again, to the capacity of the federal government, which operates and maintains a medical-emergency stock. where they have stocked medical equipment for domestic issues or for wartime. right? when you go to war and they set up a wartime hospital, they have equipment. they have it stockpiled. that s why they re uniquely suited to do this. but, in any event, we re going to do the best we can. i need, first and foremost, to find available facilities that can be converted. and i m asking local governments, especially in the most dense area, to immediately identify a number of beds in facilities that are available. frankly, i hope they re surplus because we don t have this is very expensive, and i don t want to pay money for acquisition of property and real estate. but we need the communities at our most effective to begin finding available beds. new york city. we estimate, conservatively, we, at this point, should identify 5,000 additional beds. nassau, 1,000 additional beds. suffolk, 1,000 additional beds. westchester, 2,000 additional beds. why more for westchester? westchester has the new rochelle cluster which, as you know, has significant number of people who tested positive. we will do everything we can. but we need federal assets, and we need federal assistance. i am very proud of this state government and what it can do. and we have done things that no state government has done before. we ve built bridges. we build airports. we ve responded to emergencies. but know what you can t do. we don t have the billions of dollars that you would need to implement an immediate emergency hospital construction program. this state can t do it. no state can do it. to increase hospital capacity of the existing hospitals in the meantime. doh is going to be suspending its regulations to allow existing hospitals to increase their space and capacity. doh has regulations about how many beds per room, how much space between beds, et cetera, how wide a hallway has to be. those are going to be suspended so hospitals can actually use their physical space with more efficiency. we re leaving it up to the hospitals for their discretion and prudence in making these decisions. but we do have to get very aggressive about them better using their existing space. i want the private hospitals to be on notice that we may soon be cancelling elective surgery. we are not doing it now. elective surgery is between 25 and 35% of the beds. some of the elective surgery is critical. some is not critical. the noncritical, elective surgery may be cancelled on a mandatory basis. i m asking them now, as a precaution, to start to plan to cancel elective surgery that is not necessary. we will need that capacity in the hospitals when those numbers peak. michael dowling, who was the former health commissioner for the state of new york. phenomenal fellow. he worked with my father and was in my father s administration. he was health commissioner. he was deputy secretary. he s just a jewel of a human being. and he s one of the best healthcare professionals in the united states of america. he runs north well now, which is a magnificent organization. but michael and ken raske. ken raske runs greater new york hospital association. they coordinate all the hospitals. i asked them to convene all the hospitals and, now, start developing the maximum-surge capacity. so if a hospital s capacity is 500, okay. what if we bring in more beds? how many more beds can you hold? what if we brought in more staff? et cetera. we also have a number of efforts going on, on finding more staff, more doctors, et cetera. not just for the surge capacity but, also, for the additional facilities we may open. these are the new number of tests. we re up to 7,000 tests. so it s a dramatic increase. 1,600 new tests. what happens when the testing capacity increases? the number of positives increase, by definition. so the number of new cases has gone up 221 to 950 cases. and you can see new york city is increasing. westchester is still disproportionate to the population. of westchester. that still represents the new rochelle cluster. nassau, 109. suffolk, 63. rockland, 16. albany, 12. orange, 11. duchess, 10. monroe, 9. ulster, 7. number of new cases, new york city and westchester. some in nassau. some in suffolk. but you ll see the cases rise in the most-dense areas. because that s where people are transferring the virus among themselves. counties with new cases today. allegheny, ontario, and wyoming. so you see the spread continues. most-impacted states in the united states. we are now 950. number one in the country. 676 for washington state. again, these cases are more a an example of how many tests you re doing and who you re testing, rather, than a raw number of cases in that area. our deaths have increased to seven. washington is the next highest at 42. total deaths in the united states, 67. hospitalizations, 158 out of 950. that s 17% of the cases. when we talk about hospital capacity, just take that 17% and it s always, if you notice, 14%, 15%, 16%, 17%. run that 17% against whatever you think the total infected population will be. and then compare that to our hospital capacity. and that will keep you up at nights. hence the situation dr. zuker and myself and my colleagues are in. again, perspective, perspective, perspective. i went through the numbers in italy. i went through the numbers in south korea and china last night. you look at all these numbers. they re the same story. you look at the deaths in new york. it s the same story. people who had underlying illnesses, if they got the flu in a normal season, they would be in grave trouble. instead, they got the coronavirus and they had existing illnesses and they passed away. remember, before any of this, somebody would pass away in a hospital, an older person. and you would say how did they die? and you say pneumonia. how d they catch pneumonia? well, it wasn t really pneumonia. it s they had heart disease. they had emphysema. they were struggling with cancer. and then the pneumonia becomes the accelerant to a bad situation and that s what s happening here. any of my colleagues, additional points? why don t you make them? melissa? no. robert? questions? you said gyms will be closed. can you elaborate on that? and also, did you confer with city hall or mayor de blasio on this? because he was at the gym this morning and just wondering if he knew about the fact that you re going to he can be in the gym this morning. you can be in the gym this afternoon. you can be in the gym this evening. you just can t be in the gym after 8:00. already as is with social distancing? yeah. you can use the gym. have you been using the gym? are you asking me if i go to a public gym? yeah or in general. i have my own workout routine that i have developed over a number of years that i do alone. so i don t do it in the gymnasium. go ahead. i m sorry, governor, have you heard back from the white house about the matter of deploying the army corps of engineers? we re having ongoing conversations. none have been conclusive. what s the overall prediction or projection for the number of people who could, potentially, get this in new york? and what s the overall projection for the need for hospital beds? i mean, i know we ve got like a cap of like 50,000 or so beds. but what s what s the need looking like at this point? yeah. it s an unfair question for commissioner zuker because it s anyone s guess. but i will recommend this to you. google that question and you will get a range from 40% to 80% of the population. merkel said, what, 70%. 60 pr%. 60% of her population. 40% to 60%. so take 40% to 60% of 18 million. take a hospitalization rate of our sample, of about 17%. and then compare that to 50,000 hospital beds. you will, then, break out in a sweat. maybe hives. you will feel great anxiety. panic attack. and you ll be right. what what are the plans in place? i know you have restrictions downstate but i dove in todarov. the empire plaza seem to be full. government s yesterday policy. today s policy is nonessential workers, a minimum of 50% of the workforce, for our state government and every local government in the state. governor, are you requesting the federal government shut schools, shut businesses, shut bars, restaurants? it seems like that s where you re headed with this. i want federal guidance, jesse. you can t have one state taking actions that are different than other states. there are ways to do it. you could say if your state has a density index of over x. if you have more than this many cases, then this. but when you leave it you know, this is like the reverse federalism. this is a national pandemic. and there are no national rules. so, literally, the national news broadcasts today would cause somebody to panic. everybody, on their own, with all these hodgepodge just say you don t even have to make it mandatory. just let the federal government say here s what we think you should do so i know what connecticut is going to do is massachusetts is going to do and pennsylvania s going to do. or they re likely to do. so i do the same thing. look how much damage you can do. i close down my bars. jersey doesn t close down their bars. everybody drives to jersey to drink. everybody drives home. it makes no sense. by extension, did you try to include massachusetts, vermont, pennsylvania, other regional states in this? i did not get there, here. you know, we are the tri-state area. part of it goes we have contiguous with pennsylvania exempt also. we did convene them for the marijuana regional discussion. we started here. we will be expanding. but this was quite an elaborate undertaking because you had to align three states policies. so this is not just consu consultative. we all actually adopted the same policies, jesse. i don t ever remember this happening, period. so presumably, is this mayor de blasio announced last night. this preempts good morning, i m chris jansing here at msnbc headquarters in new york. and right now, local governments are scrambling to impose their own measures to contain the spread of coronavirus, which is exactly the case made in the last half hour by new york s governor andrew cuomo. calling for more guidance from the federal government arguing that right now it s chaos. that is just one of the headlines. also, for the first time today, 1.1 million kids in new york city are not in school. it s also been another wild day on wall street. markets have been crashing. the dow dropping more than 2,000 points at the opening bell. triggering a 15-minute halt to trading. and as you can see behind me, the markets are still in turmoil. also, this morning, the number of cases of coronavirus continues to rise. at this hour, there are more than 3,600 known cases in the u.s. that s almost 2,000 new cases since this show s broadcast on friday. and officials say with more testing available, the number of cases will, absolutely, spike. right now, we are waiting for any new information from the white house. a briefing by the coronavirus task force that was set for later this hour has now been pushed to this afternoon. 3:30 p.m., eastern time. and of course, we ll have that for you. but in the meantime, i want to turn now to former acting administrator for the centers for medicare and medicaid services servic services, or cms, during the obama administration. he is warning in exactly a week s time, a lot of our hospitals are to be overrun with the coronavirus. i want to start with the basic premise that was laid out by governor cuomo. he says it s chaos. it feeds the feeling that things are out of control. and, more than that, he says it makes no sense having every local and state government trying to figure it out on our own. do you agree with him? well, i think everybody s feeling a little bit of this chaotic feeling. not just the policymakers but everybody at home. and you know, i think he s doing an admirable job doing all the things that he thinks he needs to do. i think the federal government is doing its best now to try to to get to the same place. and to some extent, we all need to take a deep breath and sit back and ask ourselves what matters the most right now? what matters the most right now is saving lives. vulnerable populations. the thing that we can all do, without any federal government guidelines, is to hashtag stay home as much as possible. socially isolate because governor cuomo is right. there is no healthcare system in the country that is capable of handling what would be a tsunami of cases that we ve seen in italy and other countries. and because we none of us have immunities yet to coronavirus and because each of us passes to more than two people when we get it. even young, healthy people who think they re fine to go out, fine to go to bars, fine to go to restaurants may not be and may end up infecting somebody who gets sick and ends up getting perilously sick. we just heard his concern about the capacity. how certain are you that our hospitals could be in trouble within a week? or are there steps that can be taken in the coming days to mitigate that? well, first of all, it s very important to note that this is going to hit every city at different times. so when we say a week, you can look and see where seattle it today. you can see where boston and new york are. you can see where cities are. you may live in the city where this may not come to you until june. it may not come to you until july. it may not come to you until may. that has everything to do with how well people isolate. how much movement there is between cities. how many people are traveling to your city from foreign countries and a number of other factors. so this, in italy, this is not hitting every city at once. but when it hits, it hits like a tsunami, as as both governor cuomo, as well as others, have said. hospital systems, our medical system, our medical infrastructure, is not prepared for this. and to be fair, it s that whole saying about you don t you don t build the church for easter sunday. so it it you should be expected to not be prepared for this. so what does that mean? that means it s going to require the grit and ingenuity and optimism and collective spirit of all of us to do a number of things. including, agreeing that we are not going to be part of spreading this virus and that s why this #stayhome effort that we launched yesterday with 16 healthcare leaders around the country provides 30 pieces of recommendation for individuals, for state and local officials, for healthcare workers. it s it ran in usa today yesterday. and these are some of the most important things we can all do now because the tsunami is not guaranteed. the tsunami is something that is coming in the future, if we don t stop it. and we need to act severely if we want to stop it or at least slow it down. well, andy slavitt. i recommend people go. they can see your twitter feed. they can see the site. there is a lot of great information there but i think the bottom line is, you know, everybody s responsible to play their part in this. and i thank you for, once again, sitting around waiting for the the governor. listening to him and sharing your expertise. we appreciate it. thank you, chris. the state of washington, meantime, is joining the list of states now largely shutting down bars, restaurants, clubs, theaters, other social venues. the governor s order will also limit the size of public gatherings to 50 people. a drop in the initial limit of 250. and as of this morning, there were more than 770 cases reported in the state. at least 42 deaths. the highest numbers in the country. and the bulk of them are in the seattle area. joining me now is seattle s mayor jenny durkan. it s good to speak with you again, mayor durkan. we just laid out some of the measures your governor is putting in place. if you had a chance to listen, the governor of new york has joined with the governors of connecticut and new jersey to get ahead of the curve. what are the things you think are most critical now? i know some of the things that you have already done is to have an emergency order to stop evictions for people who may be struggling financially. stop water and electricity from being turned off. what does your experience tell you about what others might be looking ahead to? so, chris, thanks for having me. i think that we are seeing, across the nation, what we ve been living here in the north west now for just two weeks. i m really proud of our governor taking these steps. we re working together, with him and others, to see if we need additional restrictions in seattle. people to to stay home because if you stay home and stop the spread of this virus, we can stop the impact on our healthcare system. i disagree with governor cuomo a little bit. i don t think this is a competition. i think we re all in this together. and we need to be doing this methodically. people should not panic. we need to be fearful in terms of if we don t do the right things, what will happen. but not fearful as a nation. so act urgently. stay home. my i tell you i am inspired every day by our first-line healthcare workers and responders. and here, in seattle area, they have really been on the front lines. and i talked to vice president pence over the weekend and told him we had three urgent needs. number one, we need more personal protective equipment for our hospital staff and first responders. we need second, we need more testing. and, third, we need a plan for mass sheltering and medical care for the homeless population. both for humanitarian reasons and so that there does not become an outbreak that would crash our system. we are working through it. it is going to be hard and a strain on everybody. but folks can make a difference. they can make a difference by staying home because, by doing that, if we flatten that curve and slow the infection rate, we can help the people who really are the heroes right now on the front lines. you also retweeted something from the king county public health department that, frankly, i didn t think about. and, that is, that the cancelled blood drives have put the local blood supply in danger of collapse. one of the things i ve heard from some medical professionals is not to forget while coronavirus is escalating, those beds are being taken by people who get sick. people are still having other medical issues. there are people who are still, unfortunately, going to have heart attackings. people who are going to need emergency surgery. can people go and donate blood? tell me about this emergency call that was put out where you are. absolutely. and thank you for missing it. nationwide, there is going to be a shortage. and anyone watching in washington state, you can give blood safely and you can save lives. the limits are we re really running out. and, nationwide, that s going to be an issue. and you re right. our hospitals were already, you know, doing full days business just with accidents and heart attacks and other medical needs. we are still going to have those needs. so we need people to give blood. and we re working, also, with our private industry to see how do we start developing a broader way to deliver meals to people who can t get out of their homes, to the kids who need nutrition, to the seniors. this is going to be all hands on deck. all of us are going to have to do something. everybody, the first thing starts with staying home. we re trying to set up what we can to protect the most vulnerable who on the healthcare side and the most vulnerable in our economy. we will come out of this. but how we come out of it depends on how everybody acts today. and i have a lot of faith in people doing what they need to do because that s how we ve done it before. and i think if we continue to act with that kind of spirit, it s going to be hard. many people will suffer. but at the end of this, i think we will see that there can be a collective will for good and kindness. mayor jenny durkan. great way to end the segment. i thank you for taking the time to talk with us. we appreciate it. thank you, chris. coming up, we learn more about this virus every day. a doctor will join me next to answer some of the big questions you may have to protect yourself and your loved ones. o we can sp, knowing we re prepared for tomorrow. wow, do you think you overdid it maybe? overdid what? well planned, well invested, well protected. voya. be confident to and through retirement. there s a company that s talked than me: jd power.people 448,134 to be exact. they answered 410 questions in 8 categories about vehicle quality. and when they were done, chevy earned more j.d. power quality awards across cars, trucks and suvs than any other brand over the last four years. so on behalf of chevrolet, i want to say thank you, real people. you re welcome. we re gonna need a bigger room. thousands of women with metastatic breast cancer, which is breast cancer that has spread to other parts of the body, are living in the moment and taking ibrance. ibrance with an aromatase inhibitor is for postmenopausal women or for men with hr+/her2- metastatic breast cancer, as the first hormonal based therapy. ibrance plus letrozole significantly delayed disease progression versus letrozole, and shrank tumors in over half of patients. patients taking ibrance can develop low white blood cell counts, which may cause serious infections that can lead to death. ibrance may cause severe inflammation of the lungs that can lead to death. tell your doctor right away if you have new or worsening symptoms, including trouble breathing, shortness of breath, cough, or chest pain. before taking ibrance, tell your doctor if you have fever, chills, or other signs of infection, liver or kidney problems, are pregnant, breastfeeding, or plan to become pregnant. common side effects include low red blood cell and low platelet counts, infections, tiredness, nausea, sore mouth, abnormalities in liver blood tests, diarrhea, hair thinning or loss, vomiting, rash, and loss of appetite. be in your moment. ask your doctor about ibrance. be in your moment. and you may know us from your very first sandwich,esh, your mammoth masterpiece, and whatever this was. oscar mayer is found in more fridges than anyone else, because it s the taste you count on. make every sandwich count. our understanding of the coronavirus continues to evolve and as local governments are taking drastic steps to contain the spread of the virus, it s only natural that you will have questions, particularly about your health and safety, so let me bring in dr. loopy roy, clinical assistant professor at nyu langone, who s here to answer some of those questions. we were just talking about the fact that we heard this presentation by the governor of new york, graphics, laying everything out about what he s doing and why, and you say there s a very big part of this that is that communication. yeah. communication is key. it really is. and one of the key pieces of communication that need to be contained to everybody is that we need to act, act aggressively, but act calmly as well. what does that mean? i ve been speaking to a lot of my medical and public health colleagues about this, and what we re really concerned about is that if we don t act really aggressively and that means social distancing, staying at home and other key preventive measures we will go the direction of italy, and we really don t want that. this is the flattening of the curve. and what does that mean? staying home if you don t have to be at work or if it s not something really critical, like health care, first responders, things like that. so, acting aggressively. and everyone needs to take this very seriously. yeah, let s explain to people, because we ve been seeing cities, and now we ve seen the three states that are closing bars and restaurants, they re closing gyms, they re closing casinos. 1.1 million students in new york are not going to school for the first time. and then we re also seeing reports of, up until this happened, bars that were still full. we saw aoc, who has a big following among young people, having to tweet out, people, stay home. yeah. explain again to folks who haven t quite gotten it yet why this is not something to take lightly. yeah. so, unlike, say influenza and by the way, the flu still affects and kills more people, but we don t unlike the flu, which had prevention we had a flu vaccine it had a good rapid diagnostic test, and we had treatment. remember, we had like tamiflu. we had medications. we don t have any of those things for this novel coronavirus, covid-19. what we do know is that the most effective measure is prevention. and again, we talked about this yesterday. as a country, we re not really accustomed to being aggressive when it comes to prevention. so, this is why and we can t just have a couple of people being preventive. it s going to be a collective response. one of the things about the students, and the governor has brought this up, the mayor brought this up, of the 1.1 million students, i think 100,000 of them are homeless. talk a little, because i know you work with them. talk about the concerns for marginalized populations generally. yeah. i m so glad you raised that question, chris. so, i was a former primary care doctor with boston s homeless population, i worked at rikers island taking care of incarcerated men and women. now i work as an addiction medicine doctor. so, these men and women really experience will experience the same acute and chronic health care conditions that all of us do, but they re already stigmatized. they experience shame and guilt and isolation at baseline. now, can you imagine what s going to happen with this global pandemic, where they re getting these messages that, oh, you know, stay away, don t come, don t touch, don t come to the hospital. you know, it s going to make things worse. and again, they already avoid hospitals, or many of them have higher acute medical needs. and so, it s yet another reason why health care facilities really need to be protected and super supported in terms of getting health care facilities and resources available for the underserved, neglected populations. dr. lipi roy, so great to see you again. thank you so much for coming in. in the next hour, democratic senator mark warner of virginia joins my colleague, andrea mitchell, to talk about the emergency coronavirus bill. they ll break down what s in the package and what they think is missing. we ll be right back. what ty hets missing. we ll be right back. turkey. so chantix can help you quit slow turkey. along with support, chantix is proven to help you quit. with chantix you can keep smoking at first and ease into quitting so when the day arrives, you ll be more ready to kiss cigarettes goodbye. when you try to quit 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overly aggressive and get criticized for overreacting. stress test. with the number of sick and infected rising dramatically over the weekend, experts warn of the strain on hospitals. the looming crisis is that curve that everybody talks about is