steve: thank you for that. great discussion tonight. thank you for joining us do, please, come back again next sunday when "the next revolution" will be televised. ♪ ♪ >> national emergency, two very big words. a big war. it's a medical war. >> a war we fought for 100 years. >> this virus killed more people than ebola. >> controlling the contagion. >> light and dark areas. >> what do they do? >> [inaudible] we saw the death rate skyrocket within several weeks. >> we didn't know anything about vaccines in 1918. by 1967 we did. >> of course, it wasn't a

reaction in the sense that the actual epidemic or pandemic never materialized. >> what should we do? >> approaches to emerging pandemics need to be rational, sober and guided by scientists. we need to learn from history. >> from new york, here is harris faulkner. harris: reporting a block from times square where 50 million tourists visit each year. from across america and around the globe, it's normally crowded. bustling, in fact. the sort of place that scientists worry about as they study the spread of harmful viruses like the deadly bug that's upended life around the world in 2020, the coronavirus or covid-19. ♪ ♪ harris: the origin of the outbreak, wuhan, china. more specifically, it's believed a large food market selling seafood and live animals. the flu viruses used to dealing with usually start with birds.

the coronavirus appears to have jumped from a more exotic animal in that market to a human worker or shopper. >> the coronavirus is a little different because coronavirus, unlike the influenza violence is a family -- virus, it's a family, it's a mutation that merged with a human virus or some other small mammal virus, and they had a baby, and the baby had a little bit of both, and we don't recognize that at all. it's a completely different ball game. and for that reason, it's difficult to cope with it. harris: it was new year's eve when chinese officials first reported dozens of cases of a new pneumonia-like sickness. >> just like any kind of common cold or flu you might have, cough, shortness of breath, runny nose, sneezing, fever. you also get some g.i. symptoms like nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. harris: but it was clear to anyone paying attention, this new viral strain was a lot

worrisome than a common cold. >> i became aware that there was a new coronavirus that was circulating, a mutation -- [inaudible] i flew down there, spent some time with my colleague, people at the cdc and the government, and then went up to beijing where i worked with some of my former colleagues. harris: john january 11th, ten days after dr. ian lipkin arrived in china, the death of a 61-year-old man, the first official is victim. on january 12th the world health organization reported chinese authorities had found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission. >> nobody knew it was going to spread widely. unfortunately, it did. harris: the next day, thailand

had its first covid-19 case. two days later japan announced it too had been hit by coronavirus. on january 20th, the same day, a prominent chinese scientist said it was capable of spreading from person to person, south korea joined the ranks of the infected. the next day after that, america saw its very first case. a patient from washington state who had recently returned from wuhan. >> we had a washington state resident, a man in his 30s who was in wuhan, china. harris: on january 23rd china imposed a lockdown of wuhan and 47 other cities. on january 30th the world health organization declared the virus a public health emergency of international concern. ♪ ♪ harris: one day later, the first cases of covid-19 infection

popped up in rome. february 2 end, president trump -- 2nd, president trump's travel ban took effect, suspending all flights coming from china. february 19th, iran announced the covid-19 contagion had arrived. even infecting the cub's deputy health -- the country's deputy health minister. days later, italy began imposing town by town lockdown. it soon became the second most affected country right behind china. by then more than 80,000 people and at least 40 countries had the coronavirus, and at least 2,700 people had died in the outbreak. at this point it was too soon to know how much worse the coronavirus outbreak would get, and the virus was not the only threat the facing america. there was the potential for panic that any pandemic can bring. i'll get back to covid-19 in a

moment. i want to go here though, an in-depth look at how the united states has battled viruses before. some of the stories will be familiar to you, others have largely faded from our collect i recent memory. collective recent memory. all can help us understand the current crisis. we'll given with the deadly pandemic in modern times. it came to america 102 years ago. >> coming up after the break -- >> the weak link fighting a pandemic is when the hospitals get sick, when the nurses and doctors are ill, when everyone who goes to the hospital feels ill, you go there and die, and that's a catastrophe. ♪ ♪ at leaf blowers.

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dr. dto do a lot right now. that we're asking americans so we're asking everyone to be selfless for others so that we can protect those who are most susceptible to this virus. dr. jerome adams: a question i often get asked is, "why should young people care about the spread of coronavirus?" well we know that people with underlying medical conditions over the age of 60 are at highest risk, but they've got to get it from somebody. dr. anthony fauci: social distancing is really physical separation of people. dr. deborah birx: it's what we refer to when we ask people to stay at least six feet apart. dr. anthony fauci: not going to bars, not going to restaurants, not going to theaters where there are a lot of people... it all just means physical separation so you have a space between you and others who might actually be infected or infect you. dr. jerome adams: we all have a role to play

in preventing person-to-person spread of this disease which can be deadly for vulnerable groups. for more information on how you can social distance please go to coronavirus.gov

harris: we all wish we had more certainty about how the covid-19 pandemic will ultimately play out. but you know it's complicated. and as you're about to see, our best experts haven't always been right about past outbreaks. there is no disputing, however, the tragic e benchmark they all want to avoid. we hit it just a little more than a century ago. ♪ ♪

harris: in 1918, amid the up precedented death and destruction of world war i, a new deadly threat emerged that claimed the lives of soldiers and civilians alike. >> the famous spanish flu of 198 was an influenza virus. the introduction of a new virus that had not previously been seen by much of the world's population. and whenever a new virus enters the population and there's no pre-existing -- it can take off like wildfire. it took out many, many young men, particularly those who were on transport ships and military camps. and these sorts of situations where you put people in very close proximity e is conducive to spread of infectious diseases. harris harris despite its name, the spanish flu, it did not originate in spain. >> at that time we were in a war

situation and there was a lot of press censorship, so the spanish start reporting on this flu-like illness, and that's how the spanish flu term was coined. it was a virus that was likely derived mostly from -- it came from birds and jumped directly into humans. and when it went into humans, it had a very high mortality rate. that was not necessary hi always due to the flu, it was due to a lot of secondary bacterial infections with we had. harris: questions for the medical community. with crude medical technology, they were left to wonder what was causing this sudden and devastating outwith -- outbreak. we also had very few tools to deal with the disease. >> nobody even knew what a virus was in 1918. there were no virologists to give us guidance. >> not only did we not know that the flu was caused by a virus, we had no antibiotic, no

antivirals, so this had a high mortality around the world. because it was so contagious, 50-100 million people died around the world, and it was cataclysmic. it's something we worry about happening with other pandemic viruses. more people died from spanish influenza than died in the war. this virus killed more people than bullets. harris: with so many sick, american hospitals were ill-prepare to handle the influx of patients. >> the weak link is when the hospitals get sick. when the nurses and doctors are ill, when most of the hospital feels ill, no longer it a hospital, it's hospice. you go there and die, and that's e a catastrophe. and that ended up happening many 1918 because there weren't the people to take care of a lot of sick people. harris: before it was contained, the spanish flu claimed 675,000 american lives. some argue with so many oldier withs worldwide contracting the virus, the spanish flu actually

hastened the end of world war i. >> the german general staff actually gave the flu a lot of credit for the fact that they lost the war. that may have been their excuse but, in fact, there were many illnesses and deaths among the troops in world war i. and it probably did help to end the war. harris: it did, in fact, leave us with lasting lessons about containing the spread of viral diseases. >> one of the best lessons of the impact of social separation and distancing, we had it in the 1918 spanish flu when philadelphia, one of the earliest places the virus was identified, did not provide any kind of separation. they allowed a big parade to happen with 200,000 people that fall, and you saw the death rate skyrocket within several weeks in philadelphia whereas the similar scenario in the st. louis, as soon as the first person was identified, within two days they banned everything, all social gatherings.

and by separating people out despite the aggressive and frustrating experience businesses didn't want that to happen, they saved a lot of lives because the mortality rate in philadelphia was dramatically higher. we can impact dramatically the course of the illness ourselves. >> before you see a large number of cases, the decisions that our public officials make can make, really make the difference between life or death. it's not how many places you close down, it's how soon in the process you do it. >> after the 1918 pandemic e, we had a lull. when a new pandemic virus emerges, it's because the gene shufls, and we saw one of those shuffles with the asian flu. harris: up next, we'll jump to a pair of outbreaks in the 1950s and '60s. americans today can learn a lot from the asian flu and the hong kong flu. >> we didn't know anything about

vaccines in 1918. by 1957, we did, we were just developing penicillin and also viruses. so suddenly, doctors and epidemiologists had some tools other than social distancing. harris: keep watching. billions of mouths.

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the senate meets monday to discuss a relief package worth a trillion and a half dollars, they hope for an early morning meeting after procedural votes on the stimulus failed and the senate sunday night, the minority leader chuck schumer said no, and so far, for the senate that meets at noon when no vote schedule, democrats and republicans plan is tilted towards corporation rather than workers in healthcare providers. japan's prime minister has postponement of the lipid games is unavoidable because of the virus that, canada and australia said their athletes were not complete unless it was moved to 2021, final decision by the

olympic committee is expected in poor weeks. now back to "america vs. virus". a fox news special. harris: we told you about the 1918 spanish flu pandemic, the worst in modern history, 50 million people dead worldwide. 675,000 of them just in america. we now move a couple of decades ahead when it comes to fighting viruses, america became a very different place. the year was 1957. the united states was a decade into the cold war. >> you get a whole new flu virus that's unfamiliar to humans, and it has the opportunity, if it can transmit from person to person, to get through the whole unit population because we're all essentially susceptible. we don't have any immunity to it. harris: first reported in singapore in february of 1957, the virus quickly spread e to hong kong that april and made

its way around asia in the following months. >> an interesting aspect of the asian flu as compared to our current covid-19 is it took about five months to start really seeing cases in the united states. and that is the big difference that we're seeing with covid-19, because right now we have international travel. there are innumerable flights going across the nobody, which is very different and why covid-19 can be much more difficult to combat. harris: by the summer of that year, the ricer had spread to coastal -- the virus had spread to coastal cities in the united states. in a few months, the number of reported cases skyrocketed. especially in young children, pregnant women and the elderly. >> in 1957 i don't think we had a sense of panic about it because by then, once it began to play out, people realized that it was different from 1918. it was going to be a very bad new, but we'd already had

experiences with flu. >> we didn't know anything about vaccines in 1918. by 1957 we did. this was the very beginning of understanding about bacteria, we were just developing penicillin and also viruses. so suddenly doctors and epidemiologists had some tools other than social distancing. harris: but developing a vaccine took time. each dose had to be grown for months in a separate egg. >> it's very tricky. they use hens' eggs, so as you're developing a vaccine, there's a lot of chance about what works and what doesn't work. >> the process early on was a fairly slow one, and people weren't sure whether vaccines were really valuable or not. so the pandemic was pretty far advanced in 1957 before a vaccine became available. >> this flu killed about 70,000

americans, and that became the new seasonal flu virus. about ten years later there was another shuffle, and we had another pandemic virus. harris: it was called the hong kong flu, and it spread quickly across the globe. >> '68 was an odd come by nation. it was h3, a new surface protein, with another surface protein, n2, that was basically carried over from '57. so that made it a somewhat milder pandemic. harris: scientists worked around the clock to develop a vaccine with little success at first. >> the problem is h3n2, which was the hong kong flu strain, h3 is really hard to grow. so so they had a really hard time getting a vaccine for h3n2. they would find that, one, the vaccine wouldn't grow. and if it did grow, it would mutate before they could actually make the rack seen. very difficult. -- vaccine. harris: the hong kong quickly

spread overor take australia, europe and eventually hitting the united states through california via troops returning from the vietnam war, killing about 35,000 americans. with a worldwide death toll of nearly one million, the hong kong flu seemed less severe than the viruses which struck before it. but consider this -- >> the h3n2 from that fairly mild pandemic, although it was a real pandemic and deaths occurred, in 1968 has probably caused more deaths in this country as a seasonal flu, the descendants of that pandemic, than the original pandemic. in 2017 we know there were probably 80,000 deaths from that h3n2 descendant of the '68 flu, probably more than ever occurred in the original pandemic. harris: the original hong kong flu reached its peak by the

beginning of 1969. it would be just another seven years before the nation faced another flu scare. this time we wondered, was the government's response worse than the virus are itself? >> of course, it was an overreaction in the sense that the actual epidemic or pandemic never felterrized. and so -- materialized. so many people who advocated the immunization program later regretted it.

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democrat jimmy carter versus republican incumbent president gerald ford. just as the political race was underway, two soldiers at fort dix, new jersey, came town with the flu. doctors confirmed they had been infected with the swine flu, a virus believed of to have started with pigs -- to have started with pigs and then jumped to humans. sign e terrorists feared -- scientists feared it was the same strain which killed 50 million worldwide and nearly 700,000 americans. in 1918. >> images of the 1918 pandemic, the worst natural disaster in recorded history, of course, you know, come right to mind when you see something that looks like it and you see it comes with death especially in young, healthy people. and many of those in world war i in 1918 were in military camps where people were put very close together and could easily spread

it. so it looked like 1918 all over again. harris: the situation looked dire. doctors determined another 200 soldiers at fort dix, new jersey, had been infected. the rush to avoid a catastrophe was on. >> people were really keyed up thinking about a new pandemic virus x they were worried this could be it. what they did is embark on a very ambitious vaccination program to try and vaccinate the country against this new pandemic e virus. harris: the cdc announced at least 80% of the nation needed to be vaccinated that. 's a herculean effort. -- that's a herculean effort. >> the typical time frame for bringing out a vaccine is more than 18 months. when you accelerate that process and you start cutting short the amount of time you have for safety and efficacy testing because you want to prevent pandemic, there's always the risk that you could wind up causing disease. harris when

president gerald ford went on television to call for a massive inknocklation of every man, woman and child in the united states, more than 40 million americans rushed to get the shot. >> fortunately, there were individuals who had reactions to this vaccine. one reaction in particular is an autoimmune syndrome which causes weakness in your limb ares and sometimes kill people. that syndrome showing up in the vaccination plagued the entire program. harris: in the end, the virus did not become the nightmare pandemic so many had feared it would. the vaccine itself ended up claiming 33 lives. >> of course, it was an overreaction in the sense that the actual epidemic or pandemic never materialized. and so many people who advocated the immunization program later regretted it. it's a difficult decision because if you see something like 1918 coming, that's a

horrible thing to con contempla, obviously. you don't want to have to face that, you want to prevent it. on the other hand, you know, when do you decide that it's going to be something really bad rather e than just something that is some coincidence as 1976 was? >> people who had been advocating the vaccination program in '76 now today would say we probably should have made the vaccine and held on to it for a while, stockpiled it to see what would happen and then start giving it out quickly. >> there was no pandemic, and you had a flawed vaccine, and that's haunted our whole pandemic response, and it came back up again in 2009 when we embarked on a program. harris: the stock markets were near record highs when covid-19 struck, we know that, and now they're reeling. so what if the pandemic hit right after a financial crash? it's actually happened. and the effect on wall street

might surprise you. >> the nba suspending game play. >> out has impacted hollywood, it has impacted capitol hill. >> this is like no other. >> now go inside the lives of people living in quarantine. >> you haven't seen each other in ten days. >> we still have a long way to go. there will be many more cases, but we'll take care of that. >> fox nation brings you three specials diving into a world of pandemics past, present and future.

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harris: could coronavirus be 1918 all over again? all indicators suggest that we are on much more solid ground than back then. but in recent days, wall street

with has swung disturbingly out of control. this pandemic, as we know, struck when the market were near historic highs. so a question, what then would happen if one came right after a financial crash? we saw it 11 years ago this month. the year was 2009. two children in california were diagnosed with a new strain of influenza. the virus had originated in mexico. it was dubbed the swine flu. because it was imto the 1976 -- similar to the 1976 strain. however, the pork industry said that name was hurting business and pushed hard for a change. >> the we are continuing to closely monitor the emergency cases of the h1n1 flu virus throughout the united states. as i said this morning, this is obviously a very serious situation, and every american should know that their entire government is taking the utmost

precautions and preparations. >> the 2009 swine flu was believed to be a species jump from pigs to humans. it's an h1n1 but not the same h3n1 -- h1n1 that caused the spanish flu. we were very worried because it's pandemic strain. we had never seen it before. we didn't know how bad it would get, and as it started to spread, people got more and more concerned. harris: 980 schools closed across 24 states affecting a half million students. however, there was nowhere near the panic we're seeing now. as for the economy, the financial markets were watching the outbreak cautiously. >> the stock market was just emerging from what's called triple bypass heart surgery. the economy had exploded due to the subprime mortgage crisis. stocks were at their bottom and people were left wondering, could this hammer the stock market even more?

harris: but the threat was not so great that people couldn't joke about it. >> sanjay gupta's going to mexico to track down patient zero. that may be the most adorable spreader of mass death since the outbreak of '96. [laughter] harris: that said, some state health officials in texas and tennessee, for example, prepared for the worst; hospitals setting up triage tents in partses anticipating a serious epidemic. by june the virus had, indeed, spread to 74 countries. but the reaction in the united states remained measured. by august the cdc advised against school closures. new york mayor mike bloomberg embraced that recommendation. >> shuttering schools will be considered a last resort because it creates major disruptions and forces many parents to miss work and lose the money they need, for example, to put food on the

table. harris: september 1st, president obama had good news to report. >> we're also making steady progress on developing a safe and effective h1n1 flu vaccine, and we expect a flu shot program will begin soon. >> it was made in about six months. the swine flu vaccine in 2009 worked. it helped to staunch the spread of the virus. harris: in the end, 60 million americans were infected with h1n1, and 12,000 of them died. >> very unfortunate that anyone died from it. but your typical seasonal flu kills much more than that. not all a pandemics end up being as serious as we worry about. harris: the same could be said for the economy back then as well. >> even we were surprised to see that by the time the pandemic was declared over in august of 2010, the dow had risen 40%. stocks had been so undervalued due to the financial crisis that

people continued to buy with a few gaps in between, for sure, but the market survived. harris: when we come back, coronavirus, the policy, the politics and the pandemic. ♪ ♪ what's important to you?

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harris: it's an election year, and we ae living in very partisan times. we saw the tough rhetoric even as our nation was first mobilizing against covid-19. we can live with the politics if we get the policy right. ♪ ♪ >> president trump, good morning. there's a pandemic of coronavirus, where are you? where is your plan? it's just amazing. the crisis grows and grows, we hear nothing. >> it's not the panic among the population, it's the political venom that's being produced by

the politicians, and that is more worrisome because we have to come together and agree on solutions. and right now you hear this constant political carping essentially since the president's first televised speech on this eshoo. >> there's no reason to be panicked on this. >> we have this uncertainty, and that's getting people very worried that we may not be prepared to deal with this. >> the world health organization has just in the past hour designated the coronavirus now a pandemic, sending the dow jones down now well north of 1,000 points, it hit about 1,200 shortly ago. harris: on march 11th, the president addressed the nation in presume time. >> after consulting with our top government health officials, i have decided to take several

strong but necessary actions to protect the health and well-being of all americans, to keep new cases from entering our shores we will be suspending all travel from europe to the united states for the next 30 days. harris: what followed has been an extraordinary series of cancellations and closures. school districts and hundreds of college campuses shutting down, major sports associations like the nba, the nhl, the mlb have halted their regular seasons. new york's broadway, shut down. disney world in orlando, closed its doors for just the fourth time ever. the last time you may remember, 9/11. >> i think it's -- [inaudible] people aggregating, talking to the each other, breathing on each other. sports teams canceling because people come together, breathe on each other and don't pay

attention to general hygiene concerns because they're cheering for their team. that's exactly how bad infections get spread. >> i am officially declaring a national emergency. two very big words. harris: the frenzied buying of toiletries, groceries and face maskings had added to the panic that experts feared could lead to understocked and overwhelmed hospitals. >> we want to make sure that those who need a test can get a test very safely, quickly and conveniently, but we don't want people to take a test if we feel that they shouldn't be doing it. and we don't want everyone running out only if you have certain symptoms. harris: march 15th, an unreal visual on tv screens across america. the final democratic debate became a below the fold story with joe biden and bernie sanders in a studio with no audience attacking president

trump's response to the crisis. >> the first thing we have got to do, whether or not i'm president, is shut this president up right now because he is undermining the doctors and scientists who are trying to help the american people. it is unacceptable for him to be blathering unfactual information which is confusing the public. harris: march 16th, the first volunteers were injected with an experimental coronavirus vaccine. it was record time to get trials up and running. >> i'm also pleased to report that our vaccine candidate has begun the phase one clinical trial. this is one of the fastest vaccine development launches in history, not even close. we're also racing to develop antiviral therapies and other treatments, and we've had some promising results, early results but promising. to reduce the severity and the duration of the symptoms. >> the covid-19 vaccine discovery process is going very, very quickly. we are actually breaking records.

>> bringing a lot of new technology to bear on this problem. >> the vaccine's candidate that was given the first inning next -- injection took place today. this is now 65 days, which i believe is the record. what it is, it's a trial of 45 normal individuals between the ages of 18-a 55 -- 18-55. the trial is taking place in seattle. there will be two injections, one at 0 day, first one, and then 28 days, and the individuals will be follow for one year both for safety and when it induces the kind of response that we predict would be protected. >> that same day china reported its lowest rate of new covid-19 patients since january. and according to johns hopkins university, out of 80,000 plus expected in china, more than 67,000 had recovered. however, italy with more than 60

million living you were lockdown still saw its daily numbers rise. they were well on their way to surpassing china's total of infected patients as well as their death toll. meanwhile, here in the united states thousands of test kits became available and with them a promise of a clearer picture of how the virus is spreading. >> new the swift action of the fda at the encourage. of aboves around the country -- of golfs around the country, now state health authorities can authorize labs in their state and expand existing testing capabilities. harris: march 17th, west virginia announced its first case, bringing the total to 6,421 americans who tested positive. 108 were dead. of those infections, more than 1300 were in the state of new york whose democratic governor andrew cuomo made a plea for national unity. >> we're not democrat, we're not reare publics -- republican, we

are americans at the end of the day. that's what we are and that's who we are when we are at our best. enter -- so this hypersensitivity about politics and reading ever comment and wanting to pit one against the other, there's no time for this. harris: one thing the experts underscore is that we're not in 1918 anymore. >> to compare it to what we saw with the spanish flu where youd had 500 million people infected, we have to remember that we live in a very different time. penicillin wasn't even developed until 1928. not to mention the food systems and people didn't wash their hands and when they are sick they know they're contagious. we live in a completely different era of knowledge.

>> emerging pandemics need to be rational, sober and guided by scientists. we need to learn from history in order for that to happen. it doesn't mean were going to see another worst-case scenario 1918 flu or the swine flu or something in the middle like the 1968 flu. this virus concerns me, but i don't know the full extent of the damage it's going to do and we need to do everything we can as a society to prevent that. we need to shine a light in dark areas and try to be optimistic that with more information people will get normalized to what they're experiencing. we've never had an event like this in our history. this is the first time in the planets history that were all talking about the exact same thing with the exact same perspective. >> this too will pass but this does feel like it could be one

of those big events that permanently changes the way we do some everyday things. even if there is a new normal that's all for us here in washington. "fox news sunday" with john roberts. >> i'm john roberts in for chris wallace. tens of millions of americans directed to stay home as coronavirus cases in the u.s. rise above 20,000. and lawmakers work on a nearly 2 trillion dollars rescue plan. >> want to give workers money, and whichever way the best way to get it, i want to keep the businesses open. >> as congress debates a financial relief package, american life grinds to a halt. manufacturing, travel, main street and wall street all feeling the effects. >> never before has our society changed so much. seemingly overnight. >> we don't deal with the health crisis, nothing we do will make the economy any better. >> we will ask treasury secr