tom hanks and his wife have tested positive in australia while there for a film "squawk box" begins right now. >> good morning,everybody. welcome to "squawk box." i'm becky quick coming to you from cnbc headquarters. we are coming to you from separate locations because of coronavirus. we are doing this out of caution. this is what we'll be looking like but not going to change what we do which is bringing you the news you need. a big part is to make sure we continue to do that even if one of our sites is contaminated

testing limit down down by 5% as far as they are allowed to trade down before the open the number to watch this morning is down 136 for the s&p. we have touched those lows and bounced off. we are not far off dow futures are down by 4.74%. nasdaq down 4.6% after the opening bell, there are other circuit breakers you with watching. they would be kicking in with trading halting over a period of time down 7% this morning if that were to happen, you'd see a 15-minute halt after trading started. next is if markets dropped by 13%. then the third level is after

20%. that would be a halt of trading for the day. we have not seen these tested since 1997 until the last week of trading that's what we are watching so closely. if you take a look at the treasury market, you see the 10-year note is 0.71%. >> we got back to .8 or so yesterday. with the yield, i was hoping they would have sold off >> talking to folks yesterday worried about what looked like it was better than going and maybethere could be problems >> why >> unclear but there were a number of notes going on that felt like liquidity issues

>> we haven't had those. >> i dare to speak about those there are people with real concerns or speculations and we have to keep our eyes on the 10-year. in terms of what is indicating, it may not be indicating what we think. >> i did take a quick look at december 2018 to get in my head we close on the dow 23.5 then we were below 22,000. as scarey as 2018 was, it didn't even come close to the back drop we are having right now with recession fears. >> that's right.

i don't remember the markets feeling this kind of panic this is very different >> there is more general health, lifestyle panic. the market is reflecting a lot of angst >> the human toll is scary ulisen to merkel and what we are talking about here the duration probably allows for the economy at that point to come back. three months, four months. >> i'm not going to put the rose colored glasses on >> you don't need to panic >> i've been saying this for the past week if not longer that i think there is an issue here i'm not sure a lot of our viewers appreciate even the number of people who fwetweeteds

what the president said with a decision regarding europe. why don't you think that this can go on many months across the country in real ways the only sliver of hope now in terms of being in this market is whether there is an announcement that somehow one of these drugs unlikely to be a vaccine that a drug emerges. there are good examples of this. >> i don't think you are talking about the stock market now -- andrew, why do you think the markest playe markest -- smartest players have been seeing things you are not siege. >> they have been out. >> the market may not be showing

the smartest you are making the case that you are seeing things none of these other people have considered >> the market has been wrong ever day for anybody who is the smartest person in the room a week ago is clearly not that smart today >> a week ago, we are down probably. >> you are still not at december 2018 >> what exactly are you saying >> i still think from the highs, it is not unlikely we could get to 30% >> we talked about that possibility. >> andrew, there is a note out from bank of america talking about the marketfunctioning. saying it may require a large

policy response from the treasury or the fed. they have seen it get shaky since the concerns back in 2011. causing dealers to widen the bid offer spreads. they say we should care about this because it does threaten the ability for some to result in large scale liquidation >> there is december of 18 we are probably close. by the end of the day, we don't know where the dow could be. >> i wouldn't even venture to guess. >> i won't guess where we'll even open. things will move quickly >> not just open but 4:00. in the news, there is the nba, tom hanks. these things are happening so

quickly. >> you have to decide that every major event is going to be canceled the nba is over, the garden will get closed theaters will get closed this is not just in new york, l.a. and chicago >> you heard about broadway. >> i put my money on the knowledge of the market rather than -- >> i wish you were right except if we were having this conversation a week ago and look where we are >> the headlines change so rapidly -- >> president trump, keep your whits about you and we'll see what happens the world can only end once. nothing you can do anyway. president trump addressing the nation with sweeping travel restrictions in an effort to stem the spread of the pandemic. >> to keep new casesfrom

entering our shores, we will suspend all travel from europe to the united states for the next 30 days the new rules will go into effect friday at midnight. these will be adjusted subject to restrictions on the ground. there will be exceptions for americans who have undergone appropriate screenings and will not only apply to the tree mepdious amount of trade and cargo and other things as we get approval >> eamon jafers joins us now with more. >> good morning. right after the speech, this travel restriction will not apply to trade and cargo but just to people traveling from europe to the united states. they cleaned that up right after his speech not introducing the sweeping stimulus many were hoping for he

did say he'll be pushing forward on help for sick pay >> to ensure working americans can stay home without fear of financial hardship, take an emergency action to provide financial relief this will be targeted for workers that are ill. taking the legislative action to extend relief. >> more on how that will work we'll push for more on that. in remarks, in addition to that travel ban for the next 30 days. the president advised nursing homes to suspend medically all

unnecessarily visits and providing capitol and liquidity deferring payments for certain individuals and businesses we'll look for more about who is impacted and on what basis and finally calling on congress. that is to eliminate the payroll tax. that is about $$1 trillion in revenue. he wants to eliminate advisors or eliminating permanently those fund goes to support social security and medicare we'll look for all those details and unveil proposals through the week back to you.

>> pandemic sending shock waves through the sports world ncaa announced it will hold march madness without fans and then the nba season suspended after a utah jazz player tested positive this was the scene last night when the game was postponed. >> the game tonight has been postponed. you are all safe take your time in leaving the arena and do so in an orderly faction. thank you for coming out tonight. >> this is video of mark cubon getting news on the sidelines and rushing to tell the bench to tell the team. after the decision to sustapend the season >> nobody at the mavericks is an expert

this is not the situation to fake it until you make it or sound important. the nba has experts in the area and they are working with experts from the government. we have to defer to them that's what we'll do if one player or two already have it, we have to act accordingly. i think the nba made the right decision >> they will use the break to determine the next steps going forward regarding the coronavirus epidemic last night, actor tom hanks and his wife have tested positive they are in australia for preproduction of a film. he said rita and he had been a bit tired. they had what felt like colds and body aches

rita had chills that came and went slight fevers too. they were tested and are positive they will be isolated. both are 63 years old. their son released a statement thanking fans and is confident that his parents will recover. >> i think this made it real for a lot of people. >> the double whammy with them and the nba player >> for me, the head of global council visiting train stations

and going forth. he and his wife both have the coronavirus. >> let's realize, you heard the symptoms of these people and they are both 63 never to minimize what happened. >> two issues. when you are over 80, it is disturbing of 5% or 6%. >> first of all, i'm not sure people are appreciating. if you have it, you are by fault

a carrier. >> you should read some of the stories. there are stories of people having different organ failure >> i saw lung damage but that is people over 80 >> there are stories of younger people having problems trust me, i think it has been minimized. virtually ever day by the president of the united states we may not have but i'm not sure the public fully appreciates the true damage of what this will be economic and health damage >> in south korea, they've done such a great job of testing. that is the model too to test everybody to actively figure out who needs to be quarantined and who doesn't.

>> that is of huge importance. >> getting an update on the latest headlines about the parent democratic. >> yesterday marked a true turning point. world health organization calling covid-19 a pandemic. saying it is alarming levels of inaction to address it this morning, case numbers surpassing thousands italy is still the world's hardest hit outside of china with more than 12,000 cases and 800 deaths it ordered all nonessential businesses to close. spain has report cases germany with 459 cases 37 people have died.

cities and states making greater moves to try to slow the spread. san francisco canceling gatherings asking what the penalties are for not abiding? >> the penalties are, you might be killing your grand dad if you don't. i'm seer yois about this >> some serious language there we don't have a picture of how many we'll tested. that doesn't account for how many we are getting from academic labs. kbieling the data and yesterday, it was about 16,000 a day. also pointing out that the cdc

has changed regulations about how it is processed. perhaps even doubling our capacity to test people. even as it expands, it is spotty around the country not everybody has what they need there was a hospital on from st. joseph, they treated the first person in the state. what they need is testing, testing, testing thank you. good to see you. we are starting to hear worries about a race for cash as companies max out their credibility lines i'll go straight to you this is

natural in terms of getting ahead. all of the companies with strong balance sheets it is a precaution where companies may go to reissue debt. >> the bankers were in washington with the president. what are you hearing >> the banks are in as strong a

position they are harder and harder to ignore talking about the slow down on top of what piles on from 245 lines are being drawn down but it doesn't seem like too much of a problem or too much yet becky was hearing more on this

very issue >> have you heard anything about anxiety about dysfunction in the bond market right now? >> yeah. but i'm hearing more of a concern that it could happen it is more of, hey, 23 this continues, will it happen? >> when you look at the market today, it looks like it will be a lot of selling how do you even begin to analyze it >> if you don't need to sell, don't sell this is a time that it is scarey out there. we don't know what is coming

andrew if you are invested, stay invested these are companies you can start picking up confidence will come back. it is hard go in and invest. opportunities are there and coming up even more. >> what are you looking for in terms of how far and long this stretch is >> it is 20% now we hit 20% or a little less certain stocks can do worse look at companies like disney and

lowes. these can do well over time. there are really good companies. it could be selling. we've seen that in a couple of days these things are vicious and fast talking about these longer, options will abound. >> futures look like they are not flirting they are down about 5% across the board. >> coming up is progress for a vaccine. talking to the ceo of emergent

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>> world health organization declared the outbreak. talking about the race joining forces to also speed up the development of treatment for the novel coronavirus with hopes of human testing from solutions president and ceo. the one thing that is

frustrating, i think, bob is the science and the state of the art for where we are i figure we can identify something but you still can't rush it without doing clinical trials for safety. we are told at the earliest of these, do you accept this as a positive or do you expect something sooner >> a couple of things. as you correctly pointed out, we have partnered and bring to the market protecting against coronavirus. secondly, we are using our own

platform which has been proven to be safe and effective it bring the treatments against those that protected against things like anthrax and botch lism through this technology, we hope to be available to patients later this summer. i don't disagree with the fact that this is going to take some time this is precisely why we have chosen to get into this market why we have been doing this for 22 years something we are committed to

and confident we can bring to the market quickly >> until you get through those, you can't use it widely or could you use it for compassionate reasons we are all wondering if we are able to do this clearly what we are looking at to do in the hyper immune. leveraging decades of experience when i said we'll be in patients later this summer, we think we'll be able 23 proven to be a

high confidence working to make that product available through through emergency use or compassionate use cap ability to be able to use with sick patients >> beyond your own work, what are you optimistic about >> i'm encouraged that there are a lot of companies in this space now. it is a testament.

many companies are offering their technologies. >> i appreciate that walk me through a time line. what do you see. like in south korea, that mall area drug seems to be working. what gilead is doing seems to be working. what is the time line in your mind >> i think the time line laid out by health officials suggests that they are pew tick options vaccines will take more time, 12 to 15 months there are no more immediate help, unfortunately. >> thank you back to the markets now. futures have been testing down

you'll see the dow futures are down by 4.99%. t >> circumstance cut breakers at that point, if it is down more than 7%, we'll see a halt after 15 minutes if you saw the market drop by 13%, you'd see another 15-minute halt a halt of another 20%, you would see the markets halt for the day. joining us on the line, you told us you would not be buying

yet, you thought we'd see a decline of 20 to 30% is this the time to jump back in yet? >> not for most. sirn investors are finding opportunity. activities coming to a halt i saw the flashing yellow light we now. the flashing yellow light.

we'll go more towards 30%. we have to reassess something we haven't seen for a very, very long time not just finance but overreacting >> businesses are going to shut down two reasons for that one is the demonstration effect. what italy did is create a precedent for others in terms of social distancing. we'll see that happening and then humans are humans >> that reminds us of 2001 it was fear that stopped people

from traveling you could identify where the risk is and you had a massive government response. all of these can change quickly. what they need to change is progress of us having confidence that we can contain the virus. secondly, us having confidence our immunity will go up. vaccine does these quickly in the meantime, i am afraid we'll see the same overshooting. yesterday, it was the treasury

market >> look what happened to the emerging market etf. we are going to skr to reset slowly 9 system that is overliquid >> can you break that down a little bit what are the problems with the etfs and in the treasury market? >> what does an etf signal to those buying it? it signals you can come in and out whenever you want. it is a great invention. it works extremely well on liquid assets, the s&p and the dow. because of the enormous amount of yield because people have ventured very far. etf started getting offered on asset classes that are liquid

now but inherently not liquid. when we have a change and people try to reposition, the system cannot absorb. you get price gapping and contagion. >> so they should not exist? >> they should they should not be offered on asset classes. >> i want to get one thought from you we've been talking about this. you have said don't buy the dips >> i never really want to talk about selling especially on a panic at all given that you've been right about how far the market will go down how much farther does it have to

go regarding your prediction we be 20% to 30% down? you are a long-term investor thinking 10 years out, you shouldn't be selling right now. for those trying to figure out what to do >> you said closer to 30 and then reevaluate. >> i'm not going to close to 40. closer to 30 and we'll evaluate because of the market function, which i didn't think we'll get >> look. you know me. i'm a great believer when i came out and said, do not buy that bid people said, that is a very strong signal. i went on twitter urging caution. i am worried

having said that, in my mind, we have companies, not all but we have companies with strong balance sheet. lots of cash they are going to survive. they are going to be bargains. don't go out and sell them don't panic. there is a risk in the marketplace. we are going to come back and turn around. it is going to be a difficult journey. always make a difference between the journey and the destination. most of us get influenced by the journey. >> the overall economy in terms of the fear and the virus lasts the duration if it is three months. that is something you can deal with only three months? six months how long does it last?

the companies you are talking about will come back and you'll see a sharp rebound. >> when it comes, it is going to be such a sharp rebound. >> how long? >> that is a medical question. that's why i pushed back so hard we come down and shoot straight back up. i said, hell noch it will be like a u or a long l. >> that's what i don't understand at some point, there will be an announcement for a drug which i'm so hopeful for that will change the dynamic, how much will create a prolonged recession? >> i've written about this we have to distinguish between the financial markets and the

economy. talking about the economy. we are going into a global recession. after what has happened in the last two days, we are going to see a spread of sudden stops that trouble, unless you've worked on frag i'll states, the sudan of this world when i was young. unless you've worked in those countries, you've never seen a sudden stop. you have to get people to reengage and restart the financial markets will react much faster. we are putting so much in these markets that when the green light flashes, we are going to have such a snap back.

the the real economy will struggle to get back it will get back the key thing will be to ask what the circuit breaker was we hoped that was going to be over the weekend >> whether we get a drug or not, i don't know if that is the key thing that will turn the things around >> the key thing is that we'll shoot out and establish a bottom >> that is in terms of the crisis itself we've got some idea of the recovering or flattening you never know if you are going to be more like iran in italy.

do you think you'll know in three months whether we are going to 100 million people that was bantied about. we still don't know the pace of this we a we are still seeing a lot of people don't know they have it >> what we have seen with italy, seattle, the market is able to see what that looks like you can price that and what fear does is give the left tail a much higher probability than it actually is. >> do you think the fear can get greater than it is today >> it is going to get greater. people are going to run to the

shops. we are humans. people are going to run to the shops. then i see you guys social distancing becky is in new jersey and you are in new york. ask a ceo who has declared a travel ban, what does it take for you to lift that travel ban? >> on me being in new jersey and the guys in new york, we are all at work. we just want to make sure we are at two locations >> it makes total sense. and every company is going to do that >> with productivity and all the people working from home, in the white collar service space, productivity will go down.

things are starting to slow down across the board >> that's the economic >> i've been saying this a long time it is the cascading economic stop they just slow down. you shut down the nba season who had that in their left kalgs scenario the economics of sudden stop, the economics of fear. these are things we should re-evaluate. they'll tell you what they should be doing. look at valuations and the washing out of trades because that will be opportunities just not now. >> you look beyond the closing of the nba back to the duration. that markets will look beyond that before they know it is time to look beyond that. >> we have to underline the love

affair we've had with the liquidity risk people have gone to players they shouldn't be and now we have a reset. >> even if the feds continues to cut rates? >> becky, when p it comes to cutting the rates that is a string they should finally have a feel for market technicals. they have to get ahead of this if this market malfunction spreads, then we are looking at something else completely. my hope is that we have learn the enough we have a massive migration. it is the nonbanks that took on the risk >> hopefully the fed and others are all over this assessing minute by minute how the markets

are functioning. >> we should point out, american airlines on top. the cruise lines and airlines reacting after president trump announced we will be cutting travel here. thank you for your time. we really appreciate it. >> thank you the nba shocking the sports world last night >> the game tonight has been postponed. you are all safe and take your time in leaving the arena tonight and do so in an orderly fangshion. >> that was the scene at the nba game between the jazz and thunder. shortly after, the league suspended the season

indefinitely like everything else, we have no idea how long. >> the nba decided to suspend the entire season. the national tv contract alone is worth $24 billion over nine years. star players tweeting their shock talking about what a tough 2020 it's been so far. while team owners and executives have slammed the league office to figure out procedural and big picture questions, like health policies for players and staff, what to do with salaries will there be make goods and ticket holders, sponsors and media partners dallas mavericks owner mark cuban visible shock when he got the news it's a rapid shift when the league limited locker room access and kept media at a safe distance making fun of that development

in what is a cautionary tale pga will hold the tournament starting today march madness is set to continue for now but without fans the nhl will have its own updated statement for today. the chinese basketball association is now restarting after its own ten-week hiatus and they're demanding players including americans come back to their teams. guys, back to you. >> eric, can you speak to the issue of insurance which is really underneath all of this. it's why so many events have tried to stay going as long as humanly possible not just about returning sponsor money but returning media money, the insurance that the nba has or doesn't have and what the other leagues have or don't have >> so the contract that the players union has with the owners, there's actually a provision in there that if there are epidemics or acts of war, acts of god, all of these crazy things that would prevent the nba from housing their games, they could take back 1% of each

player's salary for each game that they missed because it's about 92 games if you average in preseason and postseason in a way that's a form of insurance. if we don't get paid, you're not going to get paid. they don't have to do that they don't have to take away that player money but they have the option to do it if they can't make up the games. a lot of insurance companies i spoke to don't have insurance for pandemics. that's a separate thing you would need to buy. that's different for insurance for fire or crime. >> your expectation is the nba will have to return money from sponsors and from television networks >> for example, ticket holders are definitely going to get their money back a lot of the sponsorship and tv money, they're doneon a local basis. you have the national contract with espn and turner, then you have international deals we know there's a chinese deal, we have deals with every country. every single one of the 30 teams, they have their own local tv deal with an nbc network, fox

sports network that's what makes this confusing. they have different contracts. that's what makes this confusing. they may not have the same deal. the knicks and lakers may have totally different deals. >> i'm trying to understand the cascade on media companies which have thus far held up relatively well compared to some of the other companies out there, in part because there's a view people are going to be working from home, at home watching tv. >> and that's why the owners when they had their conference call yesterday, they were all pretty prepared to just -- let's play the games without fans because we know that's where our tv money is coming from. it's much more important than the gate revenue in tickets. that's what they wanted to do. >> we just glossed right over the 10-week number once again we're back to trying to figure out whether we can as a society implement the same type of draconian stringent things that china did, but you're talking about ten weeks and they're coming back now. i mean, if we knew now that it was going to be ten weeks for the nba, i think a lot of us

might sign on for that. >> the playoffs start in april and end in june. if you look two or three months out. >> if crisis passes in ten weeks in general, i don't know whether we can do what china did, i'm not saying that we can, but that's a number that you -- and also over in china they have a very strong vested interest in economic activity. you wonder whether they may be doing things too early we don't know whether everybody -- whether this is the right time, whether it's totally safe or not. ten weeks, that's not even three months that's what we've been talking about, the duration of this crisis, how long it lasts. >> that's why they're trying to figure out if we get some of the season back, we don't give it up end later and start next season later versus canceling them permanently. they'll find out more today. >> you know, it's totally not pertinent necessarily, but, you know, i'm a big march madness fan. no fans, that seems like it

takes away a lot of the home team advantage that's part of the -- you know, why you watch is to see a team get on a roll that has a lot of -- if it's -- one of the playoffs is in a local area. that's going to be weird to watch. >> they will move a lot of those arenas we don't need 60,000 people to show up if no one is coming, that's another plan they'll have to figure out. >> not watching with your draft kings. >> thanks so much. >> no home team advantage. want to get to dr. devy on this and what it takes to fight this virus dr. devy is an associate professor with nyu's langone health thank you for joining us and helping us understand this one of the things we've been talking about all morning is the time line in terms of drugs that are out there, drugs that may or may not be working off label or otherwise and how you're thinking about it. >> well, i think things may get worse before they get better the focus has shifted towards slowing the spread of the viral

illness so the idea here is that if we have a ton of people coming into the hospital, that it might get overloaded. whether it's social distancing or the travel ban, the idea is to spread out those people coming to the hospital and then get more data points to develop drugs that are more effective to potentially develop a vaccine and maybe to get better testing killings the idea there would be ideally we would have something that's closer to, let's say, a home pregnancy test where people can test themselves, have a high accuracy and avoid flooding the er. >> what does the time line look like today the public, investors are looking at how long this is going to go on for joe just asked if the chinese basketball league is back in business in 10 weeks, could the nba be back in business after 10 weeks? >> it's possible, but it's hard to say one thing that can happen without drugs is that people

develop a herd immunity. the more people that get exposed to it, the more likely they'll be immune after that we see this for example, like with chicken position, that viruvie virus, they may protect others from acquiring it. >> that's the first time i've heard that given the conversation about social distancing what you're suggesting is something very different. >> well, not at this point but, yes, people let's say for example in china if we look at past viruses as well, as more people get exposed, then they have some protection. >> doctor, we're talking a long time from now. >> yeah, not right now yeah. >> doctor, do you believe the public right now, i will say up front i don't think the public, quote, unquote, gets it or at least broadly gets it enough yet, but do you think the public does given the warnings that are now being made by the cdc and to some degree by the president, though clearly i would suggest not enough and it has come

quite -- not fast enough either? >> well, i think there are two issues so some things i think people get. i see more people washing their hands. i see more episodes of social distancing i think people are working from home they are more cautious so all of those things seem very positive, but on the other hand we're seeing a lot of other things like people are getting very panicked so you have people with very low risk flooding ers to get tested that's an issue. we're hearing people stealing hand sanitizer, facemasks from doctor's offices and hospitals if we look at our neighbors in italy, there are problems. areas like prisons, jails, these are places -- i mean, nursing homes and cruise ships, we've already seen that, but the homeless, these are places where there have been viral outbreaks in the past and they are very vulnerable to that so if we look at what happened in italy, the prisoners, for example, because of restrictions, they actually overtook some of the prisons

with the prison riots and you see deaths not directly related to coronavirus but because of the violence in the prisons and then because of methadone overdoses. we've seen prisoners attacking the infirm ris in china you're seeing a higher rate in domestic violence from the quarantine as there's more fear, people take safer precautions. >> let me ask you this there's a report out literally 8 minutes ago. passenger on a jetblue flight to palm beach that originated from new york city to palm beach. is everyone supposed to self-quarantine? there was an usher that was diagnosed. the usher touched tickets. >> checking your tickets on your phone. >> exactly are people supposed to be self-quarantining after learning this that's what the public is trying to understand right now.

>> i agree there's confusion because we're not getting a clear answer from the federal government, let's say. generally speaking from the studies the idea is that these things can stay on surfaces perhaps maybe around 9 hours but it doesn't seem to be so contagious that anybody who touches the same surface gets it that doesn't seem to be the primary method of spread. >> we've got to go but what are you recommending if you were on that plane, what are you recommending >> i would say to be cautious and perhaps self-quarantine until you can be tested. i think that's the safest way. >> you do have to be tested. we appreciate your time and your perspective. it is 7:00 on the east coast this morning i'm andrew ross sorkin along with joe kernen. becky quick is at cnbc's headquarters in englewood cliffs, new jersey we are deploying our teams to alternate locations this morning and for at least the immediate future out of an abundance of caution for the safety of all employees and they come in contact with, this is what we're

going to be looking like for a while t. won't change what we do every day to bring you the news that you need to navigate these volatile markets the whole idea is in fact if somebody were to have some exposure and need to ultimately self-quarantine, that we could go on with the show. >> the show must go on. >> that's what we're going to do right now. u.s. equity futures at this hour are flirting with limit down across the board close to 5% down mere are the levels to watch today on the s&p if the s&p hits 2549 we're down 191 points circuit breakers will kick in halting trading for 15 minutes. president trump suspending travel from europe to the united states for 30 days as part of the response to stem the coronavirus and eamon javers joins us now with more i don't think we all knew that we were looking for payroll tax cuts and the like i think, eamon. that was kind of a surprise. >> reporter: that's right. i can tell you when the wall street ceos were at the white

house, they got a private medical briefing from dr. anthony fauci and the virus response team at the white house. fauci told the wall street ceos that he was very concerned about travel from europe you can get a sense through the afternoon and evening that the white house was growing increasingly announce that it does not apply to the u.k although as you point out, the president did not announce sort of sweeping economic stimulus that many were looking for last night, he did say he is going to be taking certain actions, here's what he said. >> effective immediately the sba will begin providing economic loans in affected states and territories. to this end i am asking congress to increase funding for this program by an additional $50 billion using emergency authority will be instructing the treasury department to defer tax payments without interest or penalties for certain individuals and businesses

negatively impacted. this action will provide more than $200 billion of additional liquidity to the economy. >> reporter: we're still looking for details from the white house on exactly who those tax deferrals will apply to and who might be eligible for those small business administration low interest loans so here's a roundup of what the president talked about he's advising nursing homes not to allow non-medical visits. suspending all travel to europe from the u.s. for 30 days. the small business administration will kick in. the treasury department is deferring those tax payments without interest or penalties for certain individuals and businesses and he calls on congress for that payroll tax reli relief that is a $1 trillion tax cut. that would lower the payroll tax cut from the employer to employee side. there does not seem to be appetite on capitol hill a lot of skepticism from trump

allies, like chuck grassley. we'll see how congress handles this they're expected to move very quickly with a package of their own. you can imagine in the current climate the president will sign it, guys >> eamon, obviously the cases in italy are catching our attention. hearing about other places in europe too immediately i started thinking are we going to ban travel from seattle and westchester here in new york >> reporter: that's one of the questions the white house hasn't answered yet we don't have any domestic travel bans yet. he called this a foreign virus he placed blame on other countries for not doing enough he blames the chinese. he views this as something external to the united states and has resisted any efforts to contain travel within the united states you know, he was asked whether people should stop having conferences and conventions about a week ago and he said, no, no, let them all travel inside the country we don't have to stop -- we can stop travel from outside the country but we don't want to stop travel from inside the

country. the airlines have put pressure on the white house to not encourage people to stop traveling inside the united states, but at some point that might become inevitable. we'll wait for some leadership on the white house on that. >> has anyone talked to fauci about that >> reporter: i have not heard that and i don't believe he told the wall street ceos that yesterday. >> great to see you. breaking market news, stock markets are set to extend the selloff which marked the end of the dow's 11-year bull run the futures indicated down again. the dow futures down by over 1100 points. s&p futures down by 122. the nasdaq off by 374. this is almost limit down in some of these situations the dow yesterday losing more than 1400 points that would be its second biggest point loss ever to close in bear market territory we're now down more than 20% from the 52-week high we hit which is back on february 19th mike santoli is here with more

hi, mike. >> hi, becky this market is not respecting a lot of the typical restraints on the down side. obviously we've kind of spille lower in this information deficit. i did want to look at the two-year of the s&p 500 etf though to see how far back we've gone this -- i would also say the market is not really respecting various levels every day this week up until today the s&p 500 had a daily floor at the minus 20% level from the high. that was a little fwooit cute it seems. we'll spill below that people have been watching levels near here because believe it or not it is the 200 week moving average from the s&ps. 2630, 2640 the december 2018 low it timely did bottom at the 200-week average. i don't know that we can pinch on this. we have a massive information void that the market is rushing lower to fill. it's selling first, asking questions later.

a lot of folks including of course jim cramer talking about these levels, not just the 200-week average that would be 2400 or below. maybe we can see that as a retest this is the second order effects which are getting a lot of attention. these are etfs tied to bonds and big corporate bank loans this is now that i will liquidity issue. it's going to be front and center because once you get the sense you can't sell what you want to sell, you have to sell what you have to sell, without the credit worthiness of businesses, we don't know what to make of it. you're starting to see capital market seizing up in certain areas, guys. >> all right, mike looking closely at all of these things let's talk to someone who knows markets and technical levels, everything else. vex j.j. kinehan

sarat sethi is with us as well. >> most people's problem that look at this is there is no end date people like dates of things that are going to happen, et cetera if you draw the parallel to the tariffs last year, there were days where we'd have big down days, big up days based on news. the biggest thing was, well, if this doesn't happen by july 1st or something, here are the consequences the biggest problem is there is no date where you're saying we'll have an end, we'll have improvement by then. i think with that it's making it very difficult to price things the easiest thing to do when you're not sure what the pricing will be is to sell things particularly on the back end of people having had a few very

nice years right now so i think the biggest thing for retail investors who are watching at home is to -- trading in this market is fine, but really cut your size if you are going to use stop orders, et cetera, spread them out. we are having giant ranges every single day there's no reason to think that's going to stop in the near term. >> sarat, we spoke to you earlier so you don't have to have all new insight full stuff. >> i think the volatility. they're trying to time it.

what you have and trying to chase it it's very hard to do investing it the markets are reflecting the reality that we have really stay within your allocation >> just talking in strict numbers. worst case scenario. >> are we by definition closer to a bottom? what do you think the range is when it's all said and done. if someone over shoots

>> that's really difficult to do transitory thing the people i've been with. unfortunately for regular investors. >> it's all about duration the impact and some of these industries are talking about it

for three months, that's the way to get their arms around it. >> the economy can't make that up not really be impaired including what issues we have and the ticks. we have companies it simply cannot weather three months or something like that and that's why you get the credit issue that start to rise to the surface. >> the levels. the fact is we are at massive

amounts, the five days on the down side with massive selloffs, 2011, we've had these pre-conditions >> december of 2018. >> i take solace in that.

>> right >> the back drop that's what they're talking about. >> i understand. >> the economic issue. >> how long the economic reserve is you're assuming it's going to be ten weeks. >> i'm not assuming it's ten weeks. >> what happens. let's say it is ten weeks.

>> i don't know if either of you have an answer on that >> the financial markets. at this point if it's 20, could be 25 and 30. >> the market dislocations have now started.

>> the fed can actually come out and theoretically address those things on a functional basis in terms of these various programs and this also is what we've tried to create some resilience in the system since 2008 and 2009 the banking system, it seems like it has built up some cushion in terms of capital, but guess what, you build up the capital because you might have to burn it in the bad times. >> here's the question though, it would not be rate cuts that would do that. the fed or treasury can do something different. the treasury stepping in to buy treasuries or something, too >> one thing i would say, guys, is looking at some of the places, we talk about all of this what's confusing is where should i turn what should i buy if i do participate in the market right now. one of the things we're seeing is you're seeing people to turn to more i'm going to call them old school stocks, pay dividends. you're seeing people buy apple, disney, microsoft, names that may continue to go down.

i think people have more trust in you know, someone made the point before that some of the shall we call them more high flyer stocks are things people are saying i don't necessarily want to be a part of at the moment. i want to go somewhere where i have longer term and they pay dividends i also think is a big thing for stocks if people are looking at current -- the market is open. >> they're going to do it. >> sort of a mixed outcome.

>> it will be creating it and it's undeserving you didn't start this from a point where the market was soberly and cheaply valued and was building in a margin of safety now you have to build that up. >> one quick point, we've been talking about duration scott gottleib has been coming on this program virtually every morning for several weeks just put this on twitter. we face two alternatives but hard outlooks. one is we follow a similar path to south korea or italy. you're talking about the south korea one. we probably lost the chance to have an outcome like south korea. we must do everything to avert a

tragic -- >> what we've gone, the good outcomes keep getting lopped off the end. we don't know what's going to happen. >> we don't, but i think that we need to be a little bit more circumspect with the idea that this is going to somehow -- >> i'm hoping that we find the drug, as you know. >> not going to be necessarily just a drug but there's a difference between 100,000 or 200,000 global cases and 50 million in this country. there's a difference and i don't know whether we're going to -- if you think we're going to 50 million, that's something that could obviously have a much longer duration. i don't know there's something in between those two outcomes becky, what were you going to say? >> no, i just agree with you something in the middle here we don't know exactly what it is it's hard to say what the market is factoring in. the other sort of stress factors on the market that concern me. i think at that point you're not necessarily paying attention to logic or the headlines. >> something doesn't smell right about china. either they're totally wrong or

they're so draconian and the communists can do things in terms of personal liberty that we're unable to do here. i just can't believe where it started we're still at less than 200,000 cases globally. >> i agree. >> and china has somehow got a handle on it. >> when they release the draconian measures people are going back to work, we'll see if it picks up and whether we're getting accurate reports have they been reporting accurately will we get the other numbers? we'll watch factory production, traffic and activity on the streets. i do think that's a very fair point, joe we'll see in a couple of weeks whether it's been effective. >> we will. >> yeah. >> time will tell. >> all right thank you guys for joining us talk about trading let's give you some breaking news from the travel industry right now. officials say jetblue passenger on a flight traveling from new york to florida last night has tested positive for coronavirus. that plane was stuck on the palm beach tarmac for about three hours because of a medical

emergency. local health department spoke to all passengers on the plane. those passengers were allowed to leave the airport and were told to call the health department if they had any medical concerns. we have calls in to jetblue and we'll bring you more as we have it unclear about what that means, if people would be self-quarantined, if they've been asked to do that. the full impact of the coronavirus is yet to be determined, but one industry may be prepared to weather the storm and that would be the insurance business for more on the risks, we're joined by eric denalo. he's at the guardian life insurance company of america also of course the former superintendent of insurance for new york state eric, it's great to see you. thank you for joining us. >> thank you thank you. i've recently rejoined the law firm of debonois and clinton good to see you. >> good to see you, too. let's talk about how the insurance industry is prepared on two fronts. first of all, what kind of liability do they have for canceled events, other issues

that have taken place and how are they prepared for investments? that concerns us about pension funds, insurance companies, others let's start with the risk at this point what's the situation look like >> so i just think compared to ten years ago insurance companies are in a fundamentally better place they're much more diversified and liquid they have the highest order of risk management in place and i think that their capital standards are even higher than they were ten years ago. the regulators have insisted upon what's often called redundant reserve. your excess reserves i think fundamentally as an ability to make good on their liabilities the insurance industry is in a very good place. these conditions are the exact conditions that they stress test for, they reserve to and they work with the regulators on being able to make good on their obligations, but i would say that you could see insurers start to get more and more into

fee-based businesses, get into more short-dated obligations i would think that they're going to consistently think about getting rid of sort of core -- non-core businesses for them in order to really, really focus on having as much capital for their obligations. on the asset side, so to speak, they have, in fact, i think been increasing the quality of their assets, but i think in order to get a little more yield you're going to see trends towards more real estate. clos, cfos i could see them partnering more with private equity to improve some of their capital positions. this is also a good time, in fact, for them to go to market on debt offerings because they're really highly rated and they can bring in, you know, 500, up to $1 billion and promise a fairly low interest rate on a horizon of 50, 60, 70-year repayment.

also, you know, this is a time they are buy and hold company. i could see them going deep into the market and looking at compressed or challenged quality assets and loading them on that's been a consistent theme in the last several years for insurance companies. i'm actually very optimistic about their positions. there will be -- as you say, there will be pressure which we can talk about from the inevitable claims around the virus from the potential for business interruption on the property and casualty side, but i feel like the industry is well capitalized and prepared for that. >> my question would be if they've already gotten riskier by going more into stocks or something, if you're trying to get more liquid to potentially pay claims, it's a lousy time to be trying to sell when you're already down 20%. >> yeah. but my point is that if you look at what they're permitted to invest in, like the -- like 90% of the pie is extremely

conservative, high grade debt bonds, et cetera, the regulators require the premiums to be in those kinds of instruments i'm talking about getting a marginally better yield but really, really, really a huge number of the book and it's also done under what's called statutory accounting we've talked about this as opposed to gap accounting which tends to be very, very heavily capitalized and very good at riding out short-term volatility against a long-dated match of liabilities and assets. >> one thing mohamed el erian talked about, you have seen markets that are incredibly liquid we've poured so much liquidity into the market. now some of those places are actually drying up is that a concern for any of those things should i not worry about insurance companies there? what you've said so far sounds very reassuring. >> i'm not worried because i think they've already put themselves in a very, very liquid position. the other thing to take into

account is while interest rates have dropped quite a bit recently, there's been a downward trend now for a long time and insurance companies have seen that, they've reacted to it, they are poised for a long time of lower interest rates. it's not as if it just fell off the table overnight from their perspective. >> true. true >> eric, anything else you're noticing that concerns you just about the markets they're watching over the next two weeks? >> look, i think there's going to be some debate, so to speak, among the regulators and the companies on a variety of things you know, you could already see the regulators reacting sending out inquiries. new york state department of financial services has something on its website now asking the companies about their business continuity and readiness i think from having been inside of three companies so far, they are absolutely well-placed for business continuity and being

able to work remotely, et cetera i think that the regulatory oversight has been helpful in that, again, the companies are very well capitalized. i do think that there will be inevitable fear, which i just heard on the previous segment, about, you know, morbidity and mortality claims at the companies, but i want to emphasize along with the capitalization that i think they've done really well on, they are also excellent risk managers they have factored in and stress tested for pandemic and epidemic for over 100 years since the spanish flu. i think that while the people are appropriately very scared, they should be reassured that the industry is well placed both on the life insurance and the property and casualty side for these extreme events that's why we have insurance that's why people buy insurance, and that's what the industry is

there for. >> eric, thank you very much the former superintendent of insurance for new york state appreciate it. >> coming up, former health and human services secretary kathleen sebelius will join us to discuss the outbreak and the government's response. "squawk box" will be right back. time now for today's aflac trivia question. when was opec founded? the answerhecn'ssqwk box" continues ut not what they so we're answering their questions. aflac is auto insurance, right? no. uh uh. is it homeowner's insurance? no... uhuhuhuh! is it duck insurance? nope. ahhh! do they pay me money directly when i get sick or injured? yeah. aflac! you got it. you know aflac! boom! get help with expenses health insurance doesn't cover. get to know us at... aflac dot com.

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now the answer to today's aflac trivia question. when was opec founded? the answer, september 14th, 1960 a day that will live in infamy opec founded good morning welcome back to "squawk box" here on cnbc i'm joe kernen along with andrew ross sorkin at the nasdaq market site becky quick is at headquarters we are deploying our teams for the safety of our employees and everyone they come in contact

with this is what we're going to look like, the show for a while, but it won't change what we do every day. we'll bring you the news you need to know to navigate the volatile markets hopefully u.s. equity futures at this hour, kind of in a very narrow range. down about 1200 on the dow or so that we've seen. i mean, it can only move so far but it's been bouncing off those levels s&p indicated down, as you can see, over 131 points check out the futures during the overnight session you see the drop as president trump addressed the nation and announced emergency measures to combat the coronavirus pandemic. here's the ten-year note at this hour the ten-year, which had gotten up into the 8 and change yesterday, .8 and change, excuse me, is back below .7 at .695 oil, which was the -- still continues to be a big story and a major factor in what's

happening threatening to go back under 30 again it could have a 2 handle if it goes down another 86 cents over 6% today, becky. >> watching that closely, that's weaker than it was earlier it was only down by 5% earlier this morning when i was watching, too. in the meantime, european markets are under pressure after president trump said the united states will suspend all travel coming from europe to the united states for 30 days that was for european nationals, not necessarily for americans that are there jumana has more on what's happening overseas. >> reporter: that's right, becky. very heavy day of losses as you can see behind me. the stock 600, the broader composite index in europe is down 5.5 percentage points it has taken that index two weeks to wipe out a full five years of gains in firm bear market territory. to the markets, ftse and u.k.

down 6%. yesterday a huge fiscal stimulus package in addition to the 50 basis point cut to the bank of england. not doing much to shore up markets. that index down 5.7% you can see the european industries, cac carant and xetra dax. the fed has cut 50 basis points, the bank of england cut 50 basis points a lot of questions about what the ecb can and should do to provide extra liquidity to the system spain down 6% and ftse, mib in italy is down and the index is down 5%. in terms of individual sectors, let me take you to some of the -- you can see the full map is in negative territory the banks in europe are down 7% this morning basic resources, a lot of the minors in the u.k. getting hit autos, no surprise

stuck in the global crosswinds here we have travel and leisure, the airlines sector down i want to show you very quickly what's been happening to some of the big names in europe. you can see all of them are down 7 to 9% on the back of the travel ban imposed in europe, not on the u.k. but still having a bill impact on some of the names. a lot of them are down 50% as a whole. not a pretty picture for europe. hand it back to you. >> thank you for that report imagine we'll be talking to you a lot. joining us on the squawk news line is an investor timothy lesko. how are you positioning yourself and what direction do you think this is all headed >> well, it seems so far it's pretty devastating news for the travel industry particularly, but for the rest of the industries this is a wholesale

panic selloff. it's hard to pick winners and losers when every indices is down the same amount sorry? >> you're describing this at this moment you think of this straight up as a panic selling you don't think of this as a fundamental issue? >> well, it's certainly going to be a fundamental issue we're going to have economic weakness it's hard if you close the nba and all of these travel-related businesses not to see some economic fallout probably not 25% economic fallout and also not a permanent economic fallout i think that's what people have to weed through. whether or not the changes that they're seeing and the businesses that they're investing in are permanent or temporary. as long-term investors, you have to hold your positions. >> so in terms of the things you're going -- are there things you're going to be buying today? >> we meet as a group every day when we see big dislocations we will look for opportunities certainly, you know, as value investors you're either buying

good companies at great prices or great companies at good prices maybe we're going to find great companies at great prices. >> would you buy apple now >> we own a full position in apple. for new money we would continue to own it and we would buy a position in it whether or not we decide to go over weight apple to the market will be -- certainly always be looking at that. we don't feel that this is a change in the way people communicate or the way they use the internet or the way they use mobile devices so it's hard to think this is a secular change rather than a very hard cyclical weakness. >> you've been a holder of boeing >> yes >> what do you do now? >> well, you know, each day when you wake up and you see news like this and you have big gaps down in stock prices like you've seen in boeing, you've discounted the entire aerospace section of boeing. boeing has a large defense business and it's continuing to sell other aircraft. certainly the 20, 25,000 plane

demand that people see out of asia may come down a bit, but still not going to come down below the rate of production for the two major aircraft manufacturers so right now we've been holding pat certainly it's been very, very difficult to own. >> when you guys have your morning meeting at your office to talk about the duration and the severity of what may take place, what are the -- what does that chart look like for you do you say this is two months, three months, five months? and then is there a terminal value? we talked about the nba shutting down do you believe that everybody is accounting for every league to shut down, every theater -- that's what we're all trying to understand here. >> i think that's what people are beginning to price in is a shutdown similar to what you saw in china for a period of time and maybe not what you're seeing in italy we are too large a country and too free a country, i think, to suffer the same kind of shutdown and i think that the hope is for

many investors that we bought a little time with this thing and that we may see cases begin to ebb as we enter the spring, that timing may be on our side to some extent after an initial significant increase in the number of cases, mostly because we haven't been testing for t not because it has been so devastating to the population. >> tim, great to speak with you this morning and hope to talk to you very soon again. >> thank you for having me breaking news from the travel industry. officials say that a jetblue passenger on a flight traveling from new york to florida last night tested positive for the coronavirus. the plane was stuck on the palm beach tarmac for about three hours due to a medical emergency. the local health department spoke to all passengers on the plane. the passengers were allowed to leave the airport and were told to call the health department if they had any medical concerns. we have calls in to jetblue and we will bring you more as soon as we have it.

becky. >> trying to put myself in the place of those people on the plane. don't worry. go about the business. if you have any problems, call the medical department, see ya. the pandemic sending shock waves through the sports world yesterday. first the ncaa saying it would hold the tournament without fans and then the nba suspending its season the jazz/thunder game let's take a look at thescene when they announced last night's game was postponed. >> the game tonight has been postponed. you're all safe. and take your time in leaving the arena tonight and do so in an orderly fashion thank you for coming out tonight. >> all right this is a video of dallas mavericks owner mark cuban getting that news on the sidelines of a game about canceling the rest of the games for a while. rushing to tell the bench to tell the team. here's what mark cuban said afterward of the nba's decision

to suspend the season. >> nobody at the dallas mavericks is an expert on infectious diseases or their spread so this is not a situation where you fake it until you make it or try to sound or act important the nba has hired people with expertise in those areas and they're working with people from the government and other expert areas -- other people with expertise so we have to defer to them and that's exactly what we'll do you know, if the nba -- you know, effectively if one player, two players, whatever it is already have it, you know, we'll have to act accordingly. i think the nba made the right decision. >> the nba said it will use the hiatus to determine the next steps for moving forward in regard to the coronavirus pandemic, whether they'll be coming back at some point. that's not the only news we got yesterday, andrew. >> should also say we expect to hear something from the nhl. the nba taking a stance on when it appears the policy makers are

not. meantime, actor tom hanks and his wife rita wilson have tested positive for coronavirus. they're in australia tom hanks said he and rita felt a lit tired like they had cold and body aches rita had chills that came and went slight fevers. they were tested for the coronavirus and found to be positive now they will be tested, observed, isolated for as long as public health and safety requires both hangs and wilson are 63 years old. son collin hangs released a statement saying he's confident his parents will make a full recovery but for many americans this made this very real. >> i think, guys, the ultimate will be when we can get tests that will confirm these things when you hear information like that, cold, chill, slight fever, i would feel more comfortable if we could test a lot of different things my daughter, her preschool, on monday she was one of eight kids in 22 who actually showed up

one of the kids tested positive for flu but i'd feel a lot better if we could test everybody to say, hey, let's check it out out of an abundance of caution. >> we can hope in the next couple of weeks it seems like, cross your fingers, we have better testing. >> we're torn between hoping for a huge denominator and hoping for a zero denominator. >> right it makes it much less deadly if it's already out there and widely circulating. >> makes you wonder, china, 1.4 billion people really 100,000 cases or is it millions of cases with .1 mortality rate? >> right which would make it look a lot more like the average flu? >> exactly >> look, i think the danger is what happens when it gets into older populations. >> right >> when it gets to people who have compromised situations but those aren't the only cases. >> no doubt. and the flu is tragic. >> right. >> every year when you think of 80,000 people that die -- >> the difference is we have no

herded immunitimmunity this is brand new. it spreads much more rapidly than the flu and it sticks around longer. there's a lot we still don't understand about it. >> i would also suggest not only do we not have enough tests to tell whether you have it right now, but we don't have a test to figure out whether you had it at some point, which is going to make this whole mathematical argument that you're making more complicated. when we come back, former health and human services secretary kathleen sebelius is going to be our guest. we'll speak to her about the virus and how we're all handling it take a look at futures across the board we are down 5%. the dow will open up off 1200 points a proxy for the economy under lots of pressure the past month as rates fall and markets deal with the coronavirus citi, bank of america, morgan stanley, jpmorgan all down now more than 30% in a month as companies begin to start to draw on credit lines.

th mnstalk about what atea when "squawk" returns as well. [ fast-paced drumming ]

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if you're just waking up this morning, check out what's been happening with the futures. they're down sharply on fears of the coronavirus. trading limit down by 1,191 points we would open down 131 on the s&p and nasdaq off by 396

points meg tirrell joins us with the latest on the outbreak and the latest headlines there meg. >> reporter: good morning again, becky. as the president announced the ban on travel from europe, the state department issuing a level 3 global health advisory from americans to reconsider travel abroad due to the global impact of covid-19. even countries where cases haven't been reported may restrict travel without notice this as the world health organization calling the disease a pandemic yesterday for the first time as it's now reached 118 countries infecting more than 127,000 people and killing 4700 director general saying today they're deeply concerned some countries are not approaching the threat with the level of political commitment needed to control it emphasizing that it's a time for countries to done down on actions like robust surveillance and reducing transmission by isolating as many cases as possible this as china declaring its

epidemic past its peak according to johns hopkins data the country's had almost 81,000 cases, 63% of the world's total and almost 3200 deaths joe? >> i hear you say that, meg. it just bogless the mind 1.4 billion people they know there are only 15 new cases? what does that number even mean, meg? do you have any confidence in that number? is it real >> reporter: it's the only number we've got. >> i wish i knew i really do wish i knew that was a fact that would make me feel much better, right? >> reporter: i agree with you. even if the number is real, joe, i think what a lot of people are saying is that as china starts to come back online, people return to work, movement is less restricted, they are watching it closely to see if the epidemic resurges. >> one of the things dr. fauci

said is he's discounting china mortality. >> we're all about 1%. it's ten times worse than the flu. >> still ten times worse than the flu. >> i'm not convinced it is 1. >> you mean it may be lower? >> i'm hopeful that it's below. >> on the other hand, i definitely want a lower mortality rate, but that would also indicate that it's out there and there's no kind of bringing it back and no way of containing it anywhere. >> you know, if you listen to angela merkel -- >> i was surprised that the leader of a country -- >> would say that publicly >> maybe -- >> i'm assuming it's what she's been told by scientists. >> i thought that was honest. >> might be dead wrong but it's honest. >> i thought it was leadership in a way that we have not had in this country on this issue. >> look, we read that she was saying eventually 70% of the german public could get it that could be years from now. >> that could be years but when you read the headline --

>> look. it's probably the case our point is to overwhelm the spread so you don't overwhelm the hospitals. >> even after president trump's speech last night -- >> you've been saying it just say it. >> no -- >> go ahead. you have been. you're dying to. >> not there to separate you two today. >> fine. i got it obviously we needed a lot more tests than we've had from the cdc. >> hopefully we get that. >> and i would even argue a lot more communication to the public about what's going on. >> got a press conference every day with the task force that they have on >> up until they were holding their tongue on much of it and when we had people like larry kudlow and the president speaking publicly making fun of what was happening. >> i know. andrew, if people want to see this perspective, there's two great channels for this. t >> the problem is it's a

disservice not to talk about it as openly as we need to. >> let's have someone who will probably agree with you. kathleen sebelius, former governor of kansas and former hhh secretary. what more needs to be done in your viewpoint by the government >> well, we need to test like crazy, and we're still way, way behind we're testing cases as they self-present, but we need surveillance in communities and i think south korea's a great model. they did blitz testing, drive-through testing. they have kits everywhere. then we'll have a pattern and frequency but we are still way behind the curve that's step one. step two, let the scientists tell us what we know we have the best experts in the world. everybody wants tony fauci to come to their country and figure out what's going on. he's right here. so let him talk to us regularly. >> i've seen him on every day

being as blunt as he -- i can't remember the last time i didn't see him on on any given day. >> which is -- which is very helpful. finally he's out there i think we need to hear from the cdc. we need to calm people down about what makes sense i have no idea why we would have a president kind of attack europe as opposed to working with europe. we need global information this is a pandemic we need to be sharing information. what do they know that works what do they know that didn't work what are their patterns and frequency? >> what do you mean attack >> well, i found last night the tone to be this is kind of europe's fault so we're requestigoing to -- they didn't get out ahead of it. i find that a disturbing note at this point would he have disease all over this country so we need to have a global team sharing information regularly, trusting each other we're working towards a vaccine which will be a global effort to

get people vaccinated when a vaccine finally comes online we need to start talking about how to cope with this. how to know what's going on in the united states. what we don't want is for countries to say we don't want anybody from the united states to come here we have as much disease as anybody. >> what do you think the original flaw with the cdc was because that's where the absence of testing a month ago or three weeks ago could be traced back to that. who gets held accountable for that was it a faulty reagent? have you heard with your connections that you still have in government exactly what went on with that >> i really don't know what went on what i know is cdc did amazing testing during h 1 n 1 and then several years later did zika testing beautifully. something went very wrong. why we didn't immediately use w.h.o. tests, buy tests from

south korea, figure out how to expand our testing capacity, i don't know but that -- we missed that wave. so now we have to really work on containment and mitigation figuring out where the disease is, following the hot spots, and giving employers information about what makes sense for their work force, giving school guidance, giving parents guidance because right now folks are making up their own information and that is pretty dangerous. the other thing we haven't talked about at all, there's a lot of conversation about what insurance companies will or will not pay for and without co-pays and deductibles. we have 27, 28 million americans who have no health insurance at all. where do they get tested they don't have a primary care doctor where do they go i'm hoping we are pushing test kits to community health centers and urging people to go there. we just imposed by this administration a public charge rule saying if you use government services, we'll put

you at the back of the line for the possibility of becoming a citizen. those need to be lifted. we need to make sure people get food assistance, they get testing, they stay home when they're sick some of the policies we need to revisit so people who need testing can get it, we allow people to stay home with some economic support and we make sure they don't get punished for it. >> secretary sebelius, thank you for being with us this morning. >> sure. >> industry. a jetblue passenger from new york to florida has tested positive for coronavirus we're joined right now on the squawk news line by another passenger who was on that flight, scott rodman scott, good morning. thanks for calling in today. >> no problem. good morning how are you? >> good. what happened last night

>> the flight was about 75% full and a woman on the aisle and a gentleman on the other aisle he was wearing a mask and gloves there was really nothing to it, but then all of a sudden as we landed we were sitting on the tarmac for two hours and they took him off the back of the plane. i happened to go usethe restroom he was standing back there then they got his wife and brought her to the back of the plane and then finally tweerp able to disembark and get off but then they had the health department there to talk to the rows that were in close proximity to him and kind of went through the next steps which were questionable. >> did they say why? do you have any idea why they actually checked him at that point? was he exhibiting a fever? >> from what we were told -- from what we were told, he had been tested for the virus two days ago and got a text message

on the plane while he was on the plane. >> you've got to be kidding me >> yeah. kind of wild if you've gotten tested and you think there could be something wrong you would go get on an air splaen crazy when he was sitting on the plane he got either a phone call or text message saying it was a positive test. >> wow okay that brings it to a whole new level. how are you feeling this morning? >> so far feeling okay you know, i think we were all a little concerned as we got pulled into a meeting room to meet with the department of health afterwards and we were told that we're fine to go do whatever we want. >> they didn't tell you to self-quarantine? you were sitting close to him for what is it a 2 1/2 hour flight, with a couple hours on the tarmac after that? >> yes we were told because he wasn't sneezing or coughing at all that we're fine and we can go about -- they're going do check

in with us. >> do you feel comfortable with that >> not at all. i'm visiting my parents in florida and my mother is a diabetic and at risk and to tell us that we're totally -- i personally went over to the woman, to the doctor and asked -- and explained my exact story and she said, it's a personal decision if you want to stay with them i said, that's -- i need a professional opinion she said, i would stay, try and keep your distance but if you exhibit any symptoms at all, leave the house immediately. >> at that point maybe it's too late you said you went back to the bathroom he wasn't coughing he wasn't sneezing not necessarily -- he was wearing a mask are you touching any of the same surfaces >> it's certainly possible again, he was just standing in the back there and i don't know what he was touching throughout the flight yeah, that's what's making it scary is we're not getting --

the information we were told last night is not matching the information you're hearing from the professionals throughout the country on television and in the papers. >> what did jetblue say to you >> jetblue hasn't said anything? the captain maybe came on, three or four times, didn't give us any information. we were surrounded by police cars, ambulance. they wouldn't let us go into the terminal but nobody was telling us anything. the flight attendants -- i didn't even see the flight attendants we got yelled at multiple times we were told to sit down they told us to sit down there was nothing from jetblue whatsoever. >> so no health officials and no one from jetblue, no one has offered you any way to not stay with your parents? >> no one has made that -- no one has done that. i called the covid-19 hotline last night when i got back and found it on the palm beach

health department. they told me i have to wait and call the health department this morning, that they didn't really have much information and i'm supposed to be getting a phone call from the health department today. >> are you staying with your parents? >> fortunately, they have a separate guest house at their house so i'm able to stay out there where i'm not in direct contact with them and now we're just trying to figure out the next steps and wait to see what the professionals think we should be doing. >> i think i heard you cough how are you doing? >> so far feeling okay trying to not let my mind play tricks on me and -- but there's definitely -- definitely a nervousness and just kind of the unknown. i don't know what to do. >> scott, it sounds like you are taking the best precautionary measures you could take. want to wish you well and hope you will check in with us and if

you hear back from the health department, jetblue, let us know how things are going we appreciate your call today. >> i certainly will. i appreciate you having me. >> scott rodman, a passenger on the jetblue plane coming from new york to florida last night, i believe palm beach he was on a plane where they found another passenger that did test positive. as we heard from him, that passenger got the notification that a test he had taken a couple of days earlier came back positive we have reached out from jetblue. we haven't heard anything. >> it's 8:02 on the east coast i'm joe kernen with andrew ross sorkin becky quick is in englewood cliffs if you're wondering why the show looks different, we are deploying our teams to alternate locations out of an abundance of caution. this is what we will look like

for a while. it won't change what we can do every day. as you see, you're still in the middle u.s. equity futures, i'll tell you, on the dow, down 11,191.22, that's popular because that's been there. >> is that limit down? >> limit down. we are seeing some trading, at least we had been in the s&p down 135, 136. now that's down. we'll keep an eye on that. >> i think that is limit down. >> that's limit down on that because that's not changing and the nasdaq looks frozen. >> it's supposed to be down 5% the reason you see it down a little more is on the other side of it. so you need to be looking at the left-hand side of the futures change. >> yes >> with those projected losses, here are some key levels to watch today for the s&p 500.

if the levels are breached, circuiting for a brief period of time refresh treasury yields, just about 7% on the ten year. in an address to the nation last night president trump announced new strict travel restrictions from much of europe beginning this weekend that move is aimed at slowing the speed of the spread of the virus and it comes after the world health organization declared the virus a pandemic. eamon javers joins us with much more on this eamon, people were watching very closely that address >> reporter: yeah, they were, becky. the president announcing the sweeping travel ban from europe, but the president said two things that appeared not to be true i want to clarify those as we go through the speech text here

the president said the travel prohibitions will not only apply to the tremendous amount of trade and cargo and various other things anything coming from europe to the u.s. this would apply to cargo coming from europe. after the speech he took to twitter to correct that. here's what he said on twitter the president saying ultimately very important for all countries and businesses to know that trade will in no way be affected by the 30-day restriction on travel the restriction stops people not goods. secreta secondly, the president said leaders of the health industry have agreed to waive all co-payments for coronavirus treatments he said they will extend the treatments our meg tirrell reached out to the health industry. they said, no, we've agreed to provide -- suggestion spend co-pays for testing. they agreed to waive co-pays for

testing, not treatment treatment is being considered a covered benefit in accordance with the person's plan no treatment today but there is treatment for symptoms we cover treatment for symptoms as we do for other infectious disease. important to clarify those two important points as we try to get our arms around it back to you. >> thank you for that, eamon for more on america's response joined on the squawk news line by tom friedman, "new york times" columnist thanks for calling in. you watched the president and you've seen the reaction from the eu and some of the countries that were not happy about the comments the president made. was it enough? >> i watched it, andrew, like any citizen and small investor

and was hoping to be reassured i was not rae assured and the way i look at this, we have five problems we have a logistics test around tests, we have a cure problem which doesn't exist, we have a bailout problem, a global disorder problem and an oil problem. if i had had a chance to write the president's speech i would have begun by saying i'm asking jeff bezos to take a leave from amazon and asking him to get test kits manufactured and distributed. i'm asking bill gates to take a leave from microsoft and oversee all efforts to come up with a rapid cure for this virus. number three, i'm suspending my campaign for re-election i'm inviting nancy pelosi and chuck schumer to camp david. we are not going to come out until we agree on a national program for some kind of economic bailout i'm calling on the g-20 do set

up a permanent committee of collaboration between all of our countries. i'm calling on saudi arabia to immediately to cut its production to shore up the price of aisle this is not the time to crash our fracking industry. i think steps like that, whether you chose my five or any others which addressed all five problems would have translated into a little more confidence right now. what people feel right now is they have no confidence that we've got our arms around this problem. >> i appreciate all of the points i want to go to the political one about getting nancy pelosi and others down to camp david. he talked about payroll tax, holidays, the other stimulus methods. do you think they'll work?

>> i don't think anything works until people feel we've got testing -- that we have our arms around this problem mp my focus would be on testing and creating a manhattan project around a cure. it's outside my skill set, andrew, to know which sort of economic payroll tax or whatever is the right economic response that's one i want to study >> let me ask you about the geopolitical relationships, which is something i know you know a lot about, which is to say as we try to come up with a cure but also to try to talk to our historical lies, the relationship between you may be

strained by the comments the president made we have an oil issue here. how do you see those two issues playing themselves out >> there's simply no trust between our allies and this president. >> the way the president has approached the trade war from the beginning has created a lot of tension between us and our additional allies. i'd be lifting all the tariffs in china temporarily suspending them. let's get the supply chains as normalized as possible. >> wow and in terms of the way -- i know you're not a doctor, but in terms of the lecht and severity of this situation, they're looking at the situation in south korea, the situation in china, okay, the professional basketball team in china is

coming back online ten weeks later. do you believe those numbers do you think that's a realistic model to think about given the fact that they've done some draconian things that i'm not sure we -- we clearly haven't done i don't know i share joe kernen's skepticism about that a country of 1.3 billion people. >> 50 new case-- 15 new cases, m straight face. >> it's hard. >> i was taking that as a good thing maybe that there are so many people we may not know about but maybe we don't know about the mortality rate either. we have no idea how many people are succumbing i don't know if we know anything, do you, tom? >> that's why i'm really skeptical. what we do know is two things

can work one is just incredibly pervasive testing and the other is incredibly pervasive social distancing and, you know, south korea really led the way on testing. that allowed them to limit their social distancing. china did social distancing. i think we have to do voluntarily the kind of social distancing china's doing things. at the same time, we have to get this test bottleneck resolved. a friend of mine e-mailed me this morning, his daughter had a fever. she went to the local doctor's -- the hospital to get a test they had no tests. this is in new york city imagine if you're in rural montana or wherever. >> tom, the conundrum is from what we're hearing and reporting, it sounds like we are several weeks away from having

it en masse in terms of the kind of numbers you'll need to make sure you have it in the numbers. >> that's what you're seeing reflected and in the dow futures. people are doing the math. we have a shortage of the masks that you need if you're treating someone with the disease or testing for it it's a push at world war ii level to get the tests and the equipment that we need and i would say somebody brought this up, i think it was becky this morning, i'd be setting up field hospitals right now if these numbers are anywhere near what we expect they are just the little things that happened in the last 12 hours, jetblue flight, tom hanks, the nba. i think today, andrew, you're going to see all of those kinds

of things amplified. >> tom friedman, thank you for joining us this morning. >> pleasure. travel industry story that we've been talking about all morning that tom just referenced officials say a jetblue passenger on a flight traveling from new york here to florida last night tested positive for coronavirus. we just spoke to a passenger on that flight who said everyone else on the plane was allowed to leave the airport without taking additional precautions. >> from what we were told, he had been tested for the virus two days ago and got a text message on the plane while he was on the plane. >> you've got to be kidding me >> kind of wild. if you've gone and gotten tested and you think there's something wrong and you go and get on an airplane is crazy. when he was sitting on the plane he got either a phone call or a text message saying it was a positive test. >> wow. >> you have calls in to jetblue and we'll bring you their response, if we get one, or when

we get one let's take a closer look joining us is seth kaplan and david kats for gaming, lodging and leisure at jeffries. i'll start with you and then we'll get to seth. most airlines are down significantly, the stocks. are you as an analyst at jeffries saying stand back or are you at this point saying there's some value here even if it's not the exact bottom? which is it? >> right we are -- we are standing back and re-evaluating, you know, all of our coverage, which i should be clear does not include airlines you know, we are much more on hard assets of hotels, both on the c corp and real estate side as well as gaming. >> great

did we ask you that beforehand anyway, as long as you're on the line, how about same question for that then your answer is you're standing back? >> yeah. yeah look, if we look at the hotel companies that are the most prominent involved, hilton hotels, for example, a number, about 2/3 of the hotel companies we cover have taken the extraordinary step of pulling their guidance, not revising it but pulling it altogether. the rest of 2020 we really don't know what that's going to look like i think more importantly what we don't know is what 2021 is going to look like what is the new normal we will come out of this but what should we be valuing the stocks on on 2021 so, you know, math is hard we've been focused more on the balance sheet risk and those larger companies, the ones that are earning fees like hilton

marriott, their balance sheets are relatively secure. but, you know, again, wall street, as you know, doesn't do well with uncertainty. and, you know, this is about as uncertain a time as i can recall. >> yeah. all right. so, seth, for you in the airline issues, are they near -- are they near the inherent value or is there any such thing with airline stock? >> having covered this industry for 15 years and having watched it my whole life, up until recently it seems like things never ended up being as bad as they seemed at first i could name countless crises over the years where we worried a lot and it wasn't that bad and then these past two years we've had two things that turned out to be worse than we ever imagined the max grounding and this obviously eclipses that in terms of where do you go a month ago people were looking at airlines, where's the

exposure, flying to china, now it's just the flight, it's a balance sheet. delta, southwest, investment grade airlines in this country yeah, at this point, hey, you tell me what's going to happen with the virus and i'll tell you the rest of it, right? we're looking at such granular things when the biggest variable at all, none of us know what's going to happen. >> carnival shares have been halted they're citing news pending. right now you're looking at united airlines. trading is down 16%. carnival shares down by almost 16% before they were halted as well i want to say going back and forth with doug katz who was at the airport to meet a passenger who was coming off the jetblue flight that came from new york down to palm beach where they had a case of korch firmed coronavirus for one of the

passengers on board. he confirms what we heard from mr. rodman earlier in the day, that they were told by the doctor that they don't need to self quarantine or change their routine but they were told by an airport executive maybe there should be a self-quarantine of 14 days. if what we're hearing is correct, a passenger got on the plane when he had just been tested, if that's the case, it raises all sorts of questions for not only jetblue but all of the airlines about what they should be doing at this point. a lot of people can't get a refund for tickets they purchased previously this seems like it would put a huge sort of risk factor for any of the airlines out there. what do you think? >> delta was the first airline to say, doesn't matter when you bought a ticket. not a refund, credit for future travel

southwest always does that yeah, at this point, exactly that really surprises me nobody is under any kind of precautions. it would have something to do with proximity to the purchase >> not necessarily if the passenger got up and touched something in the bathroom if you're serving one passenger and another passenger -- >> sure, no, no, no, absolutely. that's what i was going to say it's not particular to an airplane it's any situation like that, right? if you were in a movie theater full of those same people, you would want to see that same -- we know it's not airborne. we know you're not going to get it because the person 15 rows behind you sneezes, exactly, but if they touch something, all the rest of it that really does surprise me

i was thinking earlier i was in the room when doug parker, ceo of american airlines made this statement, u.s. air lines are never going to lose money. i remember looking at other journalists and i was like, are you sure you want to make that statement? >> yeah. >> that's not nearly as good as the valentine's day gift of climate change from ed bastian we'll see how that billion dollars over ten years, we'll see how that plays out, whether they still plant all of those trees down in africa. >> look, these airlines so far haven't taken all of the steps they would have taken if this was right after 9/11 and they were struggling to get out of the way. and they -- look, if you could

assure them that this is going to be a two, three, four year issue. for some of these airlines anyway, goodwill you build up with your employees as you head into labor negotiations. they haven't furloughed anybody. after 9/11 it was days after airlines were cutting i think it was 20% of their work forces here we have something that's potentially so much worse in the sense that with 9/11, once it passed -- i was flying around, cheap airline tickets, i know i'm the safest i have he ever been one person was on a flight the other day, eight people on it. the difference here is that when does this end? sure, there's a scenario, we hear about those green chutes in china where domestic travel apparently recovering as the numbers of the virus itself --

virus statistics themselves perhaps get better, right. it's not eradicated. in a couple months people feel okay traveling again even going back to 9/11. you knew that that day was the worst day. now who knows. >> all right thank you. appreciate it. i'm sure we'll be speaking again soon unprecedented development in the sports world that we brought you all morning due to the coronavirus, the nba announcing it's suspending the current season after a player from the utah jazz tested positive for the virus. this was the scene at the jazz/thunder game when last night it was postponed abruptly. >> the game tonight has been postponed. you are all safe and take your time in leaving

the arena tonight and do so in an orderly fashion thank you for coming out tonight. >> julia boorstin joins us with more on the story from los angeles. hi, julia. >> reporter: the nba suspending its season until further notice is not just bad for the nba and the players, it will have ripple effects across the media and advertising experts. now it's not just about the advertising in the games it's also the loss of that game's halo effect on their entire lineups because nba games are rare live programming. the networks use that to promote their other shows as well. this is why turner and disney spent a reported $24 billion for these nba rights we could see ratings declines at

espn, abc and tnt at a time when people are more likely to be at home and have a wealth of streaming options that are ad free needham's laura martin knows this is a negative for the paid tv providers live sports are a reason people pay for the programming. advertisers could pull back spending on coronavirus and the stock markets slide. now the big question is whether the nba playoffs happen. that's going to add revenue and we'll see what's happening with the nhl. it is holding a conference call with the playoffs ahead of its conference call. >> thank you for that. we'll continue with this conversation we'll try to bring you back into it for more on what the nba suspending the season, we're

joined by richard greenfield good morning, richard. >> hey, andrew. >> new math. i don't know if you're doing new math on all of your companies this morning, but how has it changed? >> this is a real problem for everyone it all depends on a few things the leagues get paid regardless. whether or not games are played, the nba, the nhl, major league baseball this is what happened when there were lockouts. as julia was saying, advertising goes into free fall. there's no advertising revenue if there's no gain the bigger question is the tv@market across television has held up remarkably well. this could be the outside catalyst that causes the dam to sort of break for the ad market.

that's something we're watching. how does the outside shot work for the television the retransmission fees, the affiliate fees that are paid by cable and satellite operators to these cable networks >> right. >> the nba season is 9% over the nhl season is over 80% over, so they've satisfied their minimum delivery requirements, so the tnt, the espns, they're going to get paid their fees by cable and satellite operators. the part i don't know, andrew, is what happens if baseball doesn't happen and the rights fees are in danger the longer this lasts. ad revenue would come back.

>> another question i have for you, you look at a lot of the streamers. netflix has held up remarkably well during this period. you would think that this would be a boon for the new disney+ service because more people would be at home wanting to watch these services, however, there's also the issue of production, which is to say a lot of these -- a lot of these networks need shows and a lot of those shows, i'm imagining, over the next several months, the production of them is going to slow we've already heard about a number of shows which have either postponed the beginning of their own production. what does that mean for childur and everything else. >> that's the brilliance of them developing content all over the world. there's 180 of them and there's a tremendous amount of content not in the u.s., not in spain. certainly there's no production in china

i think that's a meaningful benefit. obviously if the entire world comes to a halt for production, if you think about the amount of content they have in their libraries, there is a lot of stuff that you and i and joe and becky haven't burned through on netflix. you know, i think services like disney+ are going to be tougher where they haven't really built up fresh content new service, one new show "mandelorean." it will keep younger kids busy the netflixs, amazon prime, hulu, they'll be meaningful. the big content, if last night's tv production slows, they don't have global resources. >> what does this do with the launch of peacock, and quibby is supposed to be up and running

next month >> well, look, i think -- obviously with peacock, you know, in many ways it creates -- first of all, two things one, we don't know the level of production that's in the can for peacock right now. so that's a huge question. remember, peacock is only launching. if you had a handicap, what do you think happens with the ol b olympi olympics >> i think it's going to be very tough. we have numbers that will be breaking hope to talk to you soon. >> rick santelli standing by at the new york -- chicago, cme what's up? >> reporter: everybody looking for the big jump in jobless claims that isn't meant to be. we move from 215 to the new number 211,000 so minus 4,000 and continuing

claims move from 1.733 to 1.722 million. so at least with the jobless claim number, many were thinking this would be the front lines to see how the coronavirus is metastasizing within the economy and the indirect effects not showing up at least there. ppi for the month of february, producer price index, a big drop down .6 and that would make some sense. down .6. we strip out food and energy, it's down .3 they were much better and they're up for january we can see something is affecting the pipeline and many maybe are going to move to the notion of how the affects may be having some effect

year over year numbers, that's up 1.3 that's a half a percent light. ppi, up 1.4. that's .3 light. we see these numbers, indeed, retracing a bit. fowler index is having a big rate they have come off of some of their higher numbers we're flirting with 80 basis points yesterday we filled in a gap from monday's session from of 0 to 65 basis points all of these things where good consolidation if you are looking for rates to firm up a bit is a good sign. that seems to have diminished a bit. we are a long way above the low ticks we had which were 24 basis points for a two-year on monday and 31 points for it. >> thank you very much, rick the world health

organization now declaring covid-19 a global pandemic in a wall street journal op ed, dr. scott gottleib and michael strain argue that here in this country funds should be used to mitigate the problems. joining us is scott gottleib and michael strain guys, i want to talk about your op ed in a minute. scott, while we've got you here. i have a bunch of questions i need answered. i've been waiting all morning on this first of all, you've been running numbers at aei to come up with the number of tests that have been administered in the united states. what do you see now? how do you find those numbers? >> it's not tests being administered, it's the capacity of the labs offering the tests we've come at a number that we believe based on all the laps that are offering a test upwards of 17 thousand patients a day.

17,000 aren't being tested a day. part of the problem is certain labs have the capacity and we need to figure out a more efficient system for shipping around samples for places that have a lot of demand like new york can tap the capacity for places that don't have that much demand california has capacity but not as much testing demand lap corps has gotten testing up quickly. we need to be working with them very, very closely to get those tests on what we call their automated platform so they can substantially increase their through put. they are the swing capacity. they have the capacity to change the dimension. they're committed to do it i've talked to their fda officer. they should be doing everything they can to get them on platforms to dramatically increase zbleeng it takes two to three days we talked to a passenger who was

on a jetblue plane from new york to palm beach. he was sitting very near another passenger who from what he tells us found out he had tested positive for coronavirus and he got a text notifying him that it came back positive what's going on? if you know you're being tested for coronavirus? what are you doing getting oen a plane? how come they're doing that. >> i don't know why they were administered a test and traveling on a plane i don't understand where they were around that this is part of the challenge. this is why i think if you look at the outcome that south korea is having, they were able to implement broad based screening, quarantine people, infected, mildly symptomatic, or people who had contact and bend the curve on their epidemic and a very, very badoutcome. italy on the other hand was late to the game and we're seeing

catastrophic consequences. we have a chance to a stlaert. every day that goes by that we don't contract screening in place prod lbroadly and we don't it in place, it's not just mitigati mitigation, it's also social distancing at an individual level. people not having dinner parties for a month. we'll get through this this is a one or two-month affair but we need to take the steps to make sure we don't have a large ep dimmock. >> you've been making these warnings daily what's the reaction you get from them about why they haven't pushed harder given that you also want them to push harder even today >> right i don't want to betray the conversation i had with the folks at the white house i any we have a difficult system in this country where a lot of authority is given to local and

state public health officials and local and state leaders to talk about their public health if you are looking at this as a national interest. you might slow seattle's economy so there's not much going into that region. when you're looking at it in the context of seattle, you might make different decisions we need to think differently that's what michael strain and i wrote about. congress has a role to play in supporting cities and states to take the tough decisions to slow their economies by slowing not just the cities but the individuals who are hurt, particularly lower income americans. >> local authority's being told to take over on this the mismatch of guidance they are given is crazy again, back to this jetblue flight based on what we have heard this morning talking to a passenger who is very nearby, that passenger who tested positive for coronavirus, not only if this is all to be -- if this is all true, not only did that coronavirus patient get on a

plane, travel after he had been administered a test and before he had gotten the results back, but then when he lanted all of the passengers on the plane were told, don't worry about it you can go about your business from the doctor they saw after the flight what is that >> based on the reporting i've heard, i don't know how that scenario happened. i don't know how a passenger was under suspicion, was awaiting results, got on a plane. i don't know how they were allowed to disembark and not be followed i think it demonstrates that we are at a tipping point to do track and trace and quarantine people who are under suspicion for having coronavirus it's a very difficult and dangerous moment that we're at in terms of this, having the potential to accelerate to a point where we overwhelm our health care system keep the scope of this epidemic down and we don't become overwhelmed by what happened in

italy and wuhan. >> let's talk about the op ed that you and dr. gottleib put together again, what should congress be doing making sure that they are getting funds to these local authorities? and what else? >> congress should be thinking about things they can do to help local public health officials make the right choices and to help people make the right choices to protect public health in addition, the same steps would help protect the equally vulnerable you're an hourly paid worker you don't go to work, you should get paid whampt would that do? that would allow you to stay home if you were feeling sick without going into work and affecting your colleagues and not choosing between getting other people sick and paying the rent the same thing is true with some of our social employment programs right now unemployment says people who are receiving ui benefits be actively searching for work right now, we don't want them

actively looking snap environments are similar. something important is that the federal government pick up a larger share of the tab for medicaid state budgets are going to be under tremendous pressure. states may be reluctant to divert spending from other priorities to their public health system. states can't run deficits in the way the federal government can they need to pick up a much bigger share and help stads do there's a lot of stuff that will be affected by severe outbreaks. >> dr. gottleib, you were very recently in this administration as the head of the fda what are the odds that any of these sort of suggestions that you've made, the recommendations that you've come up with will make their way quickly through >> i had the opportunity to brief members of congress, the republicans in the morning two days ago and then the progressive caucus in the afternoon, the democrats had very good discussions with members of congress. i think there is movement to try

to get something done. our view about this is we should spend money to buy the kind of public health care outcome that we want. rather than providing financial assistance on the back end, i'd rather spend the money up front to try to get a better outcome to the american people in terms of public health. >> you said just a little bit ago in this very interview that you think this is a one to two-month issue. really >> well, look, this epidemic is going to course its way through our population if we let it course its way through the population and don't do much to mitigate its spread, it will be shorter but the peak is going to be much greater. it will overwhelm our health care system. that's when you see more deaths. what we need to do is flatten the epidemic curve, push down on it and we don't have a big surge. you reduce the total number of

cases and you keep it below the point where the health care system gets exhausted. this will end. this will be a very difficult month in march but we will get through this. >> that's something zsh. >> becky, can i add -- >> michael, that's a new -- that's a whole new concept, don't you think, becky >> yeah, i would agree. >> i hope andrew was listening he said even if it's not mitigated, even if you don't bent the curve it's still a one to two-month -- >> that goes back to our economic analysis. >> iran will let it get through it they'll let it coarse through. >> we have an idea if it's a slow bleed it will last years. >> it will come back we'll have outbreaks in the fall hopefully you'll have a point of care and we can control the outbreaks. >> you don't have to have a really good mitigation program, it's of short duration

i didn't think that. >> like i said, it will come back in small outbreaks in the fall hopefully we have better tools but if you let this coarse its way through the population, you let it infect 40% of the population, eventually enough people have had it that it stops spreading. >> that's what i was going to say. you are not advocating for that. >> no, absolutely not. the death and disease would be overwhelming we can't let that happen that's what's happening in iran. what you want to do is try to slow the spread of this. you keep the number of cases lower and keep them below the point at which hospitals are overwhelmed. >> does that mean social distancing. >> exactly. >> people not working, working from homes or schools being closed you're talking about that taking a month or two in order to get to that outcome? >> no. the more you implement those social distancing techniques, the longer it will be. it won't be extended by months, it will be weeks instead of 6 weeks, it may be 8 or 10 week there are a certain number of people who are susceptible and

will get it. you're delaying the point at which they get it. you want an epidemic that doesn't peak as high and extends longer if you look at the epidemic from south korea, that's what they bought themselves. they have 8,000 infected patients and 60 deaths italy has 12,000 infected patients and 800 deaths and counting. >> michael, let me just ask you from the economic perspective. that feels like the kind of risk/reward scenario that we are running on a daily basis here. how extreme of measures should you take for social distancing, for shutting schools, for shuttering businesses or quarantining people? it seems like every official says there are more worries and have you run numbers on this >> i think that's right. i think society is as free and open as the united states, there is a natural limit to social distanci distancing i support everything that scott says, you know, schools are

closing, businesses are restricting hours or are closing, airlines are restricting flights. you know, at the end of the day people are going to go to the grocery store, they're going to go to the pharmacy if there are restaurants open, some people are still going to go to restaurants. the question is, what is the economic impact of this? if scott is right, this is a two-month issue, we avoid a bad economy. this is a bad first half of the year where the growth rate might go down 0.5. if there's a big fiscal stimulus t will not go down that far. growth below 1 and then in the second half of the year assuming this is largely behind us, there will be a slight rebound we'll be growing closer to potential and when we look back at 2020 we won't have seen a recession. >> michael, dr. gottleib, want to thank you both and we'll see

you both. we have breaking news to bring you on two different issues the ecb out with news. it is keeping its interest rates unchanged for now. unchanged is where we land at the moment we'll see where this heads in the next several days and weeks. meantime, want to give you breaking news on carnival cruises. i imagine this is a little -- had to be expected princess cruises has suspended cruises for 60 days. the company plans to be back in operation, it does say, beginning with cruises deparlting on may 11th, 2020 we'll see whether that proves to be too ambitious or perhaps accurate given some of the time lines. >> the nba announcing it is suspending its season indefinitely joining us on the "squawk" line is mark cuban. you know more than we do, mark, about what the nba is thinking, but any idea about what a

suspension means in terms of the duration or they don't know either >> nobody knows. i mean, we'll just wait it out i mean, for all the reasons dr. gottleib and your other guests have been discussing all morning. this is the ultimate definition of a black swan event. whatever we suppose is just a guess. >> when you hear that china is going back, they're going to play again after ten weeks, does that seem possible, that it could be that short? is that you're planning for? >> no. the owners will decide effectively we'll see what the science tells us dr. gottleib was talking about how the virus spreads throughout the country in different communities and we'll learn from that and see what happens and try to be agile and act accordingly. >> when you were there last night, you had no idea that any of this was happening or when you found out? >> no. no i mean, i'll tell you exactly

what happened. before the game i went and spoke to the team and one of the guys asked me, you know, what do you think the chances are that the season gets suspended? i told him, 5%, 10% at most. i didn't think it was a likely outcome. then when it happened, i was like, wow. i obviously was stunned. it just -- you know, it -- then the minute i heard it was just like my mind started racing. okay, what all has to happen what can we do to make sure we're putting our players, fans, customers in the safest possible position >> mark, i have a terrible question but we've also been talking about this all morning in terms of the economic cascade effects and the insurance that the team, league, sponsors, networks may or may not have, what do you know >> i checked our insurance and it doesn't cover it. i'm waiting to hear back on the nba, if they have anything there's nothing that i have, even some basic business interruption insurance isn't going to really do much -- have

much help at all and in terms of cascading effects, you know, we had already been discussing in how to deal and support with our hourly workers because obviously if they're not going to have games or events, they're stuck and having discussions with the hour-to-hour folks last night, they were obviously concerned. we'll put together a program for them, but downstream in terms of vendors and small businesses in the area and then what happens from there, i mean, this is new territory for all of us and so it's hard to predict and in terms of duration, is it 30 days? is it 60 days? how long will this last? how long will it impact? everybody is guessing. what i've told all of our people, one, safety first. two, be considerate. i'm lucky. i don't need to worry about the next dollar or last dollar when in doubt be supportive of the small business or hourly

worker three, be agile because this is new territory for everybody. pay attention but be as smart as we can and work closely with the nba because we -- the nba has hired experts to deal with the experts at the cdc and hhs and t is useful to us. >> mark, i want to thank you so much for calling in today. i think your comments have been spot on. we really appreciate it. >> my pleasure, guys thanks for covering it >> in the meantime, steve liesman has more on the ecb moves today. what can you tell us >> yeah, becky correctly reported there wasn't a change in the interest rates, but they did offer several long-term lending operations in order to put more liquidity into the system there will be an additional long-term refinancing operation, and then they're going to do one of these tltros. this is tltro-3, which is supposed to launch june 20th an additional $120 billion worth

of asset purchases that's what we have now. a three-part plan. temporarily, tros long term plan another longer term approach at $120 billion looks like a three-step process here leaving the interest rate unchanged which is an interesting thing. i think it defies a bit what the expectation was. i don't see necessarily -- i don't think the markets reacted all that well to what happened because of the lack of a change in interest rate we'll have to see whether or not the purchases or the asset purchases by the ecb do the trick here it is interesting, this is lagarde not bringing interest rates further negative, at least at this point. >> does it surprise you, steve >> it did. certainly, another notch down in rates was the top thing on all of the analysts' expectations, all of the analyst reports i read the other things were expected, they seem larger than maybe expected i didn't have an average of what the expectation on the street

was, but these other refinancing operations certainly were expected, and they did seem to meet expectations there. not seeing the expectation on the rates, and we'll have to listen at 9:30 this morning, as the new ecb president christine lagarde, explains why keeping the rates the same >> hard to gauge, because we're trading limit down thank you. >> steve, before you go. you still with us? i wanted to get your thoughts, because we had some concerns overnight about perhaps dysfunction or at least speculation about dysfunction in the bond market here in the united states. have you heard anything about that there was a report coming out of bank of america, but i also heard about a number of phone calls taking place with hedge funds last night >> so this is the story i reported at length on monday, as there being large spreads between the bid and the ask in the treasury market. you don't have to know anything except to know that the federal reserve came in with, by my account, an additional $175

billion of additional money, liquidity, into the market through a variety of different operations that should tell you enough, andrew, that there is some concern about the functioning of the market, and that's why they're essentially flooding the zone here with liquidity to try to see if they can get that. i did speak to tepper on monday, and he said hey, you have this kind of volatility, you would expect these kind of bid ask blowouts here, and we'll see if we can get some sort of normalcy with the amount of liquidity that's putting into the system, andrew >> all right, steve liesman, thank you. becky, just looking at boeing, i think we'll take a quick look. >> incredible. >> the futures are called down limit on the dow if you just took into account boeing being down almost another $30, that's a pretty big move in the dow in and of itself and i'm doing the math on the market cap, and if this is an accurate number of 563,000

shares, i thing it's about a $90 billion company at this point. >> stunning. >> then i along to see long term, you only need to go back to 2016 to get to some similar numbers on boeing. it had an unbelievable run-up from $100 a share to $400 a share. >> we should note that jpmorgan put out a report, they ended their overweight call on boeing today. cutting their price target for the company by $160 to just $210 >> $50 above where it is right now. guys, if we can go back to the etf charts we're trading limit down for the futures because they can only trade down 5% and that's all that's allowed if you're watching the etfs, it shows you more of where the market would be. dow etf down by 6.6%, we should point out the circuit breakers, again, would kick into trading

if the market major averages go down by 7% that's when you have a freeze of trading for 15 minutes that's what we saw earlier this week for the first time since 1997 joining us right now on the squawk news line is mike novogratz. and mike, what do you think? you have been watching this stuff for a long time. seeing this activity today, would you be somebody stepping in to buy at these levels or stit wailing to see? >> we probably do get a bounce at one point today because fear's at max level. trump did not do a great job of massaging our fears last night >> we have been saying for a few days that fear is at max level we have been proven wrong every time >> that's true, and listen, you know, we have never really had a global complete economic shutdown and so you kind of have to throw a little bit of the old paradigm out. you know, you look at how far things have moved from moving

averages, how the vix and everything else. it feels to me like we're getting closer you have to be awfully brave and awfully small to dip you toe in here the crypt okurancy markets are down 20% to 30% today. bitcoin, which hadn't been working for a while as a hedge against, you know, debasement of monetary policy and fiscal prof gsy, now it's just get me out, and so in almost every asset class you're seeing wholesale liquidation. when it ends, you know, i'm not sure like i said, it feels today we probably do get one bounce because i think the fed comes in relatively soon, either pre-meeting or at their next meeting, ecb disappointed a little bit today, but we'll see in the press conference. >> mike -- sorry, go ahead >> that was it >> you said you would have to be

brave today to be dipping your toe in are you dipping your toe in anywhere >> a tiny bit. you know, the nikkei down is 17,500, it takes it all the way back to 2014-'15 they're going to come in with their move next week, and i'm guessing they're going to buy a ton of stocks as the central bank so you know, we have markets that fall 40%, 35%, 30%, you normally get some bounce >> what concerns do you have, if any, about just the stability of the markets? we're hearing that some markets are getting stretched in areas, including even the treasury market >> listen, the treasury market yesterday or the last three days was wild i mean, the 530 yield curve, which is relatively stable, moved 50 basis points back and forth. in essence, like a velociraptor, devouring people's pnls.

we'll watch that closely today currency markets, you know, you've got currencies like the mexican peso, anything tied to oil, have had their worst week in ten years again, all of this stuff looks like it's at zenith panic levels or pretty damn stretched >> were you surprised to see the ecb not cut rates, and what does that mean? >> i was i think they realized cutting rates wasn't going to do much, ten basis points i think they're going to come out with, you know, much more aggressive fiscal -- i'm sorry, much more aggressive repos and liquidity for the system we'll see what else they buy and there's a lot of pressure. i think you're going to see a handoff to fiscal. there was a story today that marco was open minded to breaking the budget. what you're really looking at in europe is will the germans open up the checkbook and start writing big checks that would be promising.

>> what fiscal moves would you like to see here you heard the president outlining some of his plans including a payroll tax cut. >> you know, i think -- unfortunately here a little bit, it feels that you're going to have to see the fed cut, you're going to have to see a much more aggressive fiscal, and you'll see the democrats are going to get onboard or not get onboard we're in an election year. there's no love lost between pelosi and trump and you have to see a little better, and maybe a little more time, leadership around the panic that's just starting here. >> sure, go ahead. >> i mean, i do think, if you look at the other countries that have gone through this, china being the best case because they started earliest, the virus does come and go after a period of time as long as you take precautionary measures so i don't think it's the end of the world. but new yorkers were, you know, packed in restaurants this weekend. the theaters were packed, and

all of a sudden, it's a big shock. my kid's getting sent home from school he's a senior. they were all bitching last night. there's emotional shock everyone is going through that i think is translating into the market. >> mike, we're out of time, but thank you, and we'll talk to you soon >> be well >> we are out of time. thank you. make sure to join us tomorrow. "squawk on the street" is next >> good thursday morning welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm carl quintanilla cramer is add cnbc global headquarters, as we too change the way we're operating out of an abuddance of caution. the dow bull market ends europe down 6% we'll get some ecb headlines over the next few moments. ten-year, 68 basis points. it was a month ago today we saw the dow post a record closing high now in bear territory. last night in his addres