$1.5 trillion injected into the american financial system to stem the market meltdown. where do you come up with that kind of money in a hurry? 577 delegates to be won this week, including in florida and ohio. how will they vote? and one little word. foreign. it changed the tone and meeting about trump's oval office address about coronavirus. "velshi" starts now. good morning. it's sunday, march the 15th. i'm ali velshi. there are now 60 covid-19 deaths

in the united states and at least 2,955 confirmed cases, according to nbc news, with the number going up literally by the minute. 49 states, washington, d.c. and puerto rico now have confirmed cases. but the president isn't one of them. he was tested yesterday after coming into contact with the brazilian official, who has been confirmed to have covid-19. there have also been multiple confirmed cases of the disease at mar-a-lago. the white house says trump is testing negative. just yesterday, the white house began taking the temperatures of those in close proximity to the vice president and the president. another policy change from the white house starting tomorrow, the united kingdom and ireland are being added to trump's european travel ban. >> americans in the uk or ireland can come home. legal residents can come home. but as the secretary will detail, they will be funneled through specific airports and process. >> this has created havoc at

airports both in the u.s. and abroad with a crush of people rushing into or out of the country. the travel ban coupled with new enhanced screening procedures for people returning from europe, iran, and china has created scenes like this. these are the customs lines at chicago's o'hare international airport. look at that. thousands of people packed together, no social distancing at all after returning from high-risk countries. the acting secretary of dhs, because currently we don't have a confirmed dhs secretary, says they are, quote, aware of the long lines and working to add additional screening capacity. but that's clearly not the answer the illinois governor is looking for. he says the lines are, quote, unacceptable and need to be addressed immediately and that the quote, federal government needs to get its blank together now. joining me now in london, linda yew, a fellow in exhibition at st. edmonds hall at oxford, university. she's also the author of "the great economists," how their ideas can help us today.

linda yew, thank you for joining us in washington, d.c. the sign editor for national geographic is a ph.d in cell biology and pathobiology and his latest piece dives into one of the more common questions going around. these underlying conditions make coronavirus more severe, and they are surprisingly common. and with me here in the studio, deen obeidallah, columnist for the daily beast and host of "the dean obeidallah show." welcome to all of you. thank you for being with us. s sikahn, let me ask you first. you've done a lot of reading about this. about people with underlying conditions and how you can make coronavirus worse if you get it. what are they? >> i think it's surprising that the underlying condition that's most associated with fatality is actually cardiovascular disease. you know, the heart and the lungs are incredibly interconnected. and so what studies in china have found, you know, looking at thousands and thousands of cases, is that conditions like

hypertension, heart failure are the ones northeast likely to lead to somebody being -- you know, having a severe case of coronavirus. >> linda, let's talk about what's gone on in the last few weeks economically. the world is on edge. in fact, i was just talking to dean moments ago, people calling into his radio show, a number of them are concerned about the health effects of the coronavirus. many more are concerned about the economic effect of coronavirus, not just with what's gone on in the stock market in the last few weeks, but these worries about whether or not this has tipped us into a global recession. >> there's a very good risk that we're probably already in a global recession, if not now, than in the second quarter, in the next three months. the reason is because this is a very rare occurrence where you just have almost a sudden stop of economic activity in the affected countries. it's not just supply, it's not just demand, it's just people staying home. people not making purchases. but i just want to add a little

bit of a silver lining on this. if you look at what's happened in china, after this curve, the epicurve comes down, there can be a pretty quick rebound in terms of economic activity. so if you look at apple stores reopening in china six weeks afterwards, this is not like ten years ago where you have a long, drawn-out recovery from a banking crisis. this is v-shaped, and that's much more likely this time. >> dean, what are you hearing from people? >> you hear concern about the virus, of course. people with pre-existing conditions. but what you hear more than anything is this concern about economic anxiety. so you have a fear of the disease first, add on top of that economic anxiety, people have called the show and say, i have a small business, i don't know if i can survive. i work for a small business, i don't know if it's going to be here. i had a trucker call, i'm bringing toilet paper, and my manager said, don't tell anybody

what you have in your truck, because toilet paper is a new currency in today's world. that's what they were talking about. you have to add one other thing. i know i'm on a political channel. the misinformation by donald trump and the outright lies have added to the anxiety. you have experts on saying in america we would advise other countries in these times, have one unified community message. that will encourage comfort and confidence. donald trump, i mean, it's from -- and i won't be able to remember this, the first case on u.s. soil was january 20th, we knew about it. january 22nd, donald trump is saying, i've got this, we're fine. we are two months in and we don't have a testing protocol set up so you have infected people walking around. so you have trump, his words saying everything's fine, to this is a hoax, to literally lying to that press conference and he pointed to mike pence and he said, we have 15 cases and soon it will be zero. he knew that was a lie, yet he told the american people, it was a lie. doesn't matter if you like trump or not, you hear this, you don't

know what's going on. uncertainty is the greatest anxiety driver and that's what we have happening. >> you have published a lot of articles in national geographic about this and there are places where people can go where there is reliable information. are you seeing a remarkable uptick in the number of people who are going to you, your site, your articles for this kind of information? because it does stand, as dean says, in stark contrast to what we've been hearing from the administration, really until the last couple of days. >> yeah, i mean, what we're seeing is a real hunger for evidence-based information. i mean, a lot of our coronavirus stories have broken traffic records over at "national geographic," a lot of the people they talked to at other news outlets, people are really seeking out this information. and it's understandable. i mean, if you're looking at the disease progression curves in countries around the world, you know, the united states, it looks a bit like italy, it looks a bit like iran, but we're just ten days behind. you know, so within a week and a half, we could have a situation that's very similar to what we're seeing in some of the

hardest-hit places overseas. >> linda, we saw fed action over the last two weeks. we saw them cut interest rates at a much faster rate than they normally would in between meetings. we have seen the fed inject money into the economy in the last couple of days. what does that do to a situation that is not fundamentally a financial situation, right? we don't have a financial blockage the way we did in 2008, when the federal reserve got involved and central banks got involved. how do whe help the economic situation, when, in fact, it's not a situation that's based out of economics. it's a situation that's based out of a public health concern that is causing behavioral changes. >> yeah, that's absolutely right. i think what we need to see and this is what the fed has already done is just to make sure there's cash available, liquidity in the system. because what happens in this kind of crisis is that even though it's not a banking crisis, a lot of businesses will final it hard to continue, because business will be down.

people just aren't buying things. so what you want to do is keep alive the businesses which are viable and just being hit by this crisis. and to do that, you need to help them with cash flow. so there is more that could actually be done in terms of making sure that people of, this probably requires agreements by banks. if you look at what's happened in the uk, basically, the central bank -- listen, if you're a commercial bank and you will help give a loan to an sme or make it easier for them to repay their current loan, we'll give you very cheap money from the central bank. and i think that is something that is certainly worth thinking about. and it's very similar on fiscal policy. so looking at the package that's now being debated, passing the house and going to the senate next week, if there are measures to help viable businesses and it could be through, you know, making sure that taxes are not due, even considering helping businesses by giving them what's called short time work, you see this in germany, you see this in

france. basically, if you put people on part-time work, but pay them full-time, the government actually gives you a tax credit to help you through this period. so the takeaway is, do not allow healthy businesses to go down during this period. >> dean own dalbeidallaobeidall in the middle of the 2020 primary season. on tuesday when the primaries are over, a number of candidates from the presidential candidates all the way down ballot have said, we're not going to have parties. they're not glad handing. it's st. patrick's day on tuesday. people are not going to be pressing the flesh at parades. what do you think this does to politics? >> it's changing. and i have an open offer to joe biden and bernie sanders to come on my show anytime they want and we can talk about these issues. >> and you'll maintain social distance. >> i'm great at emotional distancing, so now i'm just taking the social distancing. what we were just talking about. you saw linda with financial help for people. i want to remind people, people on my show say, donald trump's

farmer bailout went to the big corporations and not the small farms often. they have a concern about whatever bailout we have, the trump administration is doing it, it will go to bigger companies, not gig economy people. my friends who have lost their gigs as comics, entertainers, events. it's changing the whole campaign in a way we didn't think about it. two weeks ago, i think i was on your show before south carolina and said, covid-19, this -- how you handle it and how people's perception might have an impact. and exit polling showed that. more people thought joe biden can handle a crisis over bernie sanders. it's changed the game. and i think we have this issue in a campaign that no one expected. a month ago, no one thought we would be talking about, how would a candidate handle a global pandemic. and would this election be partly a referendum on crisis management? and i think it's going to be, going forward. >> one of the things we've been talking about with respect to this disease is that lots of people will get it. that's not a question. not everybody needs to die from it, but lots of people will get it. and if we manage it properly,

the infectious curve will be flatter, meaning the peak will always stay below the level at which we can provide adequate health care to everyone. if we don't handle it properly, and that included the administration not being serious about this illness and this infection, we will exceed the number of hospital beds, the number of nurses, the amount of treatment that we can give people. that seems to be something of a magic bullet here. people will get it, but if we can keep the pace of it more gradual, we'll be able to manage it. if not, we could be in serious trouble, where if you need to go to a doctor, that bed, that doctor, that nurse, that equipment may not be available, because someone is being dealt with, because of coronavirus. >> that's exactly right. we only have about 900,000 staffed beds in the united states total. so if we're talking about, you know, millions of cases of severe disease, you're going to run out of health resources pretty fast. i mean, i think the thing to

keep in mind, as well, is that there's this common popular narrative that, you know, the disease is only terrible for the older populations and for people with underlying conditions. but when you actually look at the data and when you break it down, you see that many of the severe cases are actually occurring among younger adults under 49. so there was a study in the "new england journal of medicine" that looked at about 1,100 cases, and they found the highest percentage of severe cases was actually among young adults under 49. you know, it was about 41% versus about 31% for those about like 50 to 64, and then 20% for those above that age. and so that's dangerous because, you know, death isn't the only danger. you know, severe coronavirus can lead to acute respiratory distress, which can cause permanent scarring of the lungs, and that's an injury that's going to stick with people for the rest of their lives.

there's no current treatment for repairing that injury. >> all right. we will keep an eye closely on all of these things. linda yeuy is an economist at oxford university, sikan akpan is with "national geographic," and dean obeidallah will stick with me. coming up on msnbc, a panel of experts will answer all your questions about the coronavirus. join my colleagues for another hour of special coverage. please email your questions to talk@msnbc.com or use #msnbcanswers on twitter. the coronavirus has officially stunted the 2020 election cycle. two primaries have been postponed, but florida's governor says if americans voted during the civil war, they can vote during a deadly global pandemic. we'll see about that. this is "velshi" on msnbc. t that this is "velshi" on msnbc. uppor, chantix is proven to help you quit. with chantix you can keep smoking at first and ease into quitting so when the day arrives,

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we're definitely voting. this is -- they voted during the civil war. we're going to vote.

>> florida governor ron desantis says voters will still head to the polls on tuesday despite concerns over the coronavirus outbreak. his comments come after two states, georgia and louisiana decided to postpone their primaries until later this year. florida, along with arizona, illinois, and ohio have nomin e nominating contests on tuesday, march 17th. and of those states, florida and its 219 delegates are the biggest prize. latino voters are a crucial voting bloc for both democrats and republicans in the state. the latest telemundo reporting shows joe biden winning the state in 20 points over president trump in a hypothetical head-to-head. the vice president leads bernie sanders by one point, which is within the poll's margin of error. joining me now, danielle moody mills, host of "wake af" on sirius xm and dean obeidallah is

with me as wale. daniella, i want to ask something about this to you. there may be something very reasonable about postponing these concepts, but it starts to set in the concept of democracy delayed. there may be a really good reason why we're in the midst of this and people shouldn't be going to the polls. >> i think that it is a very slippery slope for us to be on. i think you're especially looking at states that have history of voter suppression and that this is just another apparatus for them to use. there are ways for people to be able to vote and do so safely, do so, you know, by last name, do so by staggering the hours. having the ability to do mail-in ballots. there are so many different things that can be done, and frankly should have been done for the longest time that we have not taken advantage of. so i don't want people to use this as an excuse to not go to the polls in the most consequential election that we have right now. there are ways that we can get this done without canceling primaries and confusing people with the dates. because that's what i'm most

concerned about. you cancel it, everyone knows, this is a day we're voting. tuesday is the day for our primary now you're saying, oh, well, maybe it will be some time in june or august, or september. that's not okay. so we have got to be thoughtful about the ways in which we can keep people safe, but also allow them to institute their citizenship, right? and their responsibility to vote? >> what's your thought about this? florida is going to be remarkably important, not just to whomever wins it. looks like joe biden has the lead there, but for winning the election for a democratic candidate. how do you feel about how this is all playing out? >> well, as you suggest, florida is traditionally one of the most important southern primaries. jimmy carter had a breakthrough here in '76. reagan and bush had a spirited battle in 1980 and really took the gloves off. i think this is going to be a good litmus test election tomorrow to look at the hispanic

and elderly voters who really drive the politics in this state. i expect -- i'm a little surprised that biden is so narrowly ahead of bernie sanders, and i think that reflects probably the popularity of senator sanders' dedication to health care issues. that said, i think what we're seeing in florida, here on the gulf coast, which is normally just another day in paradise, there's almost an eerie quiet. this is the time when people are out boating, golfing, gardening. and i think yesterday was the day here on the gulf coast when the magnitude of this crisis really sat in in terms of the public psyche. >> what are you thinking, dean? >> first of all, ron desantis saying a state with an elderly population and a deadly virus that has a higher mortality for older people and zmdismissing i like it's meaningless is

ridiculous. but people are calling my show and saying, can trump move the november election? >> that's what the wonder is here. and that's set by federal statute. second, our instituticonstituti 20th amendment says the next president will take power, january 20th, 2021. so it means suspending federal law and the u.s. constitution for him to put off the election and not have an election of the president. >> and you feel like that will hold him back? >> no, i think it's a road block, a speed bump to the authoritarian regime that donald trump envisions. i think it would be very challenging to do that. if you look at the arc of this virus, it seems to be two to three months. let's hope that happens. but we want people to engage and get involved and vote. and democrats, if you're a democrat like me and danielle, the better turnout, bigger turnout, we win big. smaller turnout, republicans win big. will republicans do anything they can to depress turnout? of course they will. that's what they've been doing for years.

>> while i've got the three of you, you are all members of the media or former members of the media or critics of what happens in the media. howe, i want to start with you with respect to the coverage of coronavirus. donald trump has made it a centerpiece of his discussions about this, about the fact that this is media hype, part of a democratic hoax to undermine his presidency. and if you look at it, the idea that lots and lots of people are getting sick and the stock market has been cratering fits his narrative, because those are the two things he doesn't want to happen. what in your esteemed opinion has the role of the media been in this whole thing? good or bad? >> reporter: i think on balance, much better than that of the federal government and the president. i think there's been a calm, systemic approach to the coverage, contrast with the fact that we are in pa crisa crisis e there's no central planning and the president has become an uncertain trumpet. i think what we're seeing in a president who has never been

popular in a personal sense, only about mid-40s in popularity polling, i think we're seeing the slow-motion collapse of an ad hoc presidency in terms of trump's leadership. >> what do you think, danielle? >> i mean, i think -- look, i think that the media, for the most part, has been doing a very good job in trying to do what the federal government should have been doing, which is alerting to the public to the dangers of the coronavirus, to staying, you know, apart from each other, to staying home if you can, to working from home, and really giving the knowledge that the federal government is not. i mean, i'm watching press conference after press conference and i feel crazy, because i feel like they are just lying to us. why am i supposed to believe that donald trump took the coronavirus test yesterday when "the washington post" has told me that up until this point he has lied over 17,000 times? he lied from the moment that he put his hand and was sworn into office about the crowd size at inauguration that we could all see. so why in the midst of a pandemic should we believe anything that they say?

we're still waiting on tests and donald trump told us a week ago that we could get tests whenever and wherever we wanted. >> literally a week ago friday. >> literally a week ago. and two weeks ago, he called it a dmemocratic hoax. so why are we supposed to take anything this president is saying? right now, journalists have the most critical, aside from our doctors and nurses and first responders, have a critical job right now to tell the american people the truth, because they are frightened, they are scared, and there is no stability that is coming out of this white house. there is no calmness that is saying to us, we understand your fear, we have this, we are taking your safety at the utmost control. what we know is that a whistle-blower came out and said that donald trump did not want more testing, because it was going to hurt his re-election, because all he cares about is the numbers and the markets, not the american people. and adam schiff told us in his closing on impeachment that donald trump only cares about donald trump. and we need to understand that in this moment.

>> so dean, in this world in which the administration should walk a line between complacency and urgency, and we in the media should walk a line between complacency and urgency, and the administration doesn't do it. in other words, they have been more complacent than urgent on this matter, is it for us to make up for that with greater urgency? that's the criticism i've had, that people have made of the media at large. i hope we don't do it on our shows, but they've said, you guys are inciting panic. i've heard that as language from another network and i've heard it from the administration. i think what's happening is a whole bunch of people are telling people that the media is inciting panic and getting the temperature up and getting the volume up, but i don't think that's what we do. we have experts, public health experts, epidemiologists, viralologists to tell us what it is. >> sure, it panicked me, just so you know, that last segment that i was on. people call my show and say, i'm freaking you out, and all i'm doing is reading facts that they didn't know about. and that's because donald trump, when you have a serial liar

who's running an administration, in times of crisis, you can't look to him for leadership. and you talk about what you're doing, literally watch fox prime-time news. it's fiction time. it's blame the democrats. i'm surprised they're not blaming hillary's e-mails on that channel for what's going on. so people don't know what to believe, what to trust. uncertainty is causing more concerns. you have to report the facts. you have to fill in the void that this administration is not doing. when donald trump says, it's going to go away, a miracle is going to happen. has literally said stuff like that a week ago. from at his rally, it's a democratic hoax, to, we have all the tests we need and what we don't know is why the united states of america did not use the world health organization tests that over 60 once dcountr did. why did they delay it? people call my show, they want to know, are there donald trump donors they're giving the contracts to? i have no idea. but this is a normal thought in the world of trump where everything benefits trump, personally, financially, or

politically. so in the world we live in now, how could you trust him? >> so how does it put us in the media in an unusual position if the administration doesn't do its job and we are holding them to account, but it causes us to paint a more urgent picture than the administration does, do people have some basis to say the administration is blowing this out of -- the media is blowing this out of proportion? >> i really don't think so. i think on balance, as my colleagues have just said, i think the media has done a solid job. and here's -- let's drill down a little on panic. one of the oldest cliches in american politics is that the republicans are the daddy party. and i think what's feeding public panic, if that's the right word, is the idea that the president, our national father, is not paying attention to this global crisis. >> howell, thank you for joining

me. danielle moody mills is the host of "woke af" and dean obeidallah is a columnist for "the daily beast" and the host of "the dean obeidallah show" on sirius xm. thanks to the three of you. tuesday, the race to the democratic nomination continues as voters cast their ballots in four states with over 500 delegates combined at stake. msnbc's brian williams and rachel maddow, we'll be joined by our team of political experts, including steve kornacki at the big board. i cannot get enough of him, breaking down the results. for complete primary coverage, join us tuesday starting at 6:00 p.m. eastern right here on msnbc. and with any luck, i'll be on in the middle of the night, scrounging for those final votes. all right. so much for social distancing. cramped and cranky, hundreds of travelers at chicago's o'hare airport forced to wait hours to get screened for the coronavirus. we'll hear thed there, next. d th. >> tech: don't wait for a chip like this to crack your whole windshield.

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stoesocial distancing and missio mitigation, they're not to protect the 20-year-old or 30-year-old from getting coronavirus, they're to protect your nanny, your granddaddy, they're to protect the people you love in your lives and we need your help. >> this is the thing to remember. social distancing isn't about whether you are going to get coronavirus, it's about whether you are going to spread coronavirus. officials urging americans to distance themselves from one another in an effort to flatten the curve of how coronavirus spreads. but travelers were force to squeeze in together at airports in dallas and chicago last night. look at these lines. passengers flying back from international destinations had to wait up to eight hours in chicago, just to go through customs after enhanced screening measures were put into place following the new travel ban. joining me now from chicago's o'hare airport, nbc's wendy woolfo

woolfolk. that's kind of unbelievable, right? you're bringing people back and in theory, trying not to spread a disease, and yet for hours, people are packed in like sar dienst next to each other, which doesn't seem to meet the requirements of social distancing. >> reporter: yeah, it does take you back for a second, doesn't it, ali. as you well know, traveling overseas, a couple of flights landing at the same time, carrying a couple hundred, maybe 300 people, and on a good day in customs, you're going to get a bottleneck, but add extra screenings and a health check to that, it will become a traveler's nightmare. take a look at what happened here at o'hare last night. it played at in many of the other 12 international airports where they are funneling passengers who are returning home from europe. remember, customs is under federal jurisdiction, so after seeing posts on social media overnight, one illinois senator tweeted, this is unacceptable, counterproductive, and exactly the opposite of what needs to be done to prevent the spread of

covid-19. and this is how one weary traveler described the process. >> so our flight was meant to take off at 4:00. we didn't end up leaving until 8:00. for a lot of american citizens and other countries, they've been trying to come back to the united states since donald trump made the announcement, so there's a lot of panic and a huge amount of delay. >> reporter: the department of homeland security tweeted last night, asking for passengers to bear with them, give them patience, and they are working to add additional security and screening capacity this afternoon. it can't get here quickly enough. we have another cluster of flights coming in from europe, brussels, heathrow, stockfoholm and frankfort about 1:30 local time. and we've talked to a couple of the baggage guys who handle all of this and they say the flights are packed full. so this could play out again as we move through the afternoon.

>> wendy woolfolk in chicago for us. thank you for joining us. cases of coronavirus and fatalities across the united states are on the rise, including in new york, which has now confirmed its first death. according to the magazine "foreign policy," state officials told the united nations everyone in new york should assume that they have been in contact with covid-19 and predicts the threat that the virus could remain active until september. but officials in new york are hoping to slow down the outbreak with a new technique, drive-throughs. officials argue this makes testing faster and easier than before. with me now is msnbc's chris pallone, who's in new rochelle, new york, for us at one of those drive-through locations. how's it working out, chris? >> reporter: yeah, very well so far, ali. we're now in the third day of this drive-through testing ongoing here in new rochelle, amidst the news that new york state released late last night that there are now two people who have died from coronavirus in the state, one, a 64-year-old man up in rockland county, just

north of new york city, who apparently passed away on thursday. health officials say that that man did have underlying health conditions that contributed to his death. and yesterday afternoon, we also learned that an 82-year-old woman passed away in a brooklyn hospital yesterday some time. she was suffering from emphysema, as well. and we found out that she had been in the hospital apparently since about march 3rd. so what's going on here in new rochelle? the governor opened this testing center, this drive-through testing center on friday. the idea is to keep people who might be infected with coronavirus contained to their vehicles. you can see behind me there's a sign that tells people as they approach to keep their windows closed. and as they approach the police officers at the gate, they are -- officers are approaching, wearing masks. the people are instructed not to roll down their windows, and if it is confirmed they have an appointment, they are allowed in where there are six lanes of testing, testing taking about 15 minutes for people coming in and

out of here. it's by appointment only. people who believe they may have coronavirus are instructed to either contact their doctors or there's also an 800 number for them to contact officials and see if they can get an appointment to get in here. and the whole point is to ramp up testing throughout the state. right now, new york state has had about, just shy of about 5,000 tests since this has all started in this location. they're doing about 200 cars a day. they hope to get that up to about 500 to 600 cars a day and they're even considering adding a second drive-through testing spot somewhere in long island, possibly at jones beach, ali. >> chris, what's the issue with the containment area in new rochelle? how does that work? we're told people can freely move around. the national guard is there, but they're apparently not there to maintain quarantine, they're there for other purposes. so when one goes to new rochelle, what does it feel like? >> reporter: yeah, so that's a few miles north of here. that is the area where the first

state coronavirus patient came from and about 178 people in that area have contracted the virus. the state imposed that containment zone. and what it basically means is that schools, churches, synagogues, large gathering places are closed down. however, as you mentioned, restaurants and businesses are still remaining open. and there's no restriction on movement. it's not very strict. it's an idea to keep people home, keep them away from large gathering spots. but you kind of alluded to the problem with that thing. there are still people going to the gym and going to coffee shops and things like that. it will be interesting to see if there are any further restrictions placed. but the good news is over there, there are about 10 to 11 days into this since that first case was detected. so it's certainly possible that they might be coming out the tail end of this now. >> chris, good to see you. thanks for joining us this morning. nbc's chris pallone. from u.s. to europe, the coronavirus knows no borders.

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foreign virus, chinese coronavirus, wuhan virus. those are terms our president has been using to discuss the spreading pandemic of covid-19. the administration's labeling of this virus as foreign is undoubtedly playing into the rising xenophobia about it. over the last few weeks, we've seen people from highly infected nations targeted, singled out, and treated like social pariahs. due to the virus' origins in china, people have taken to avoiding chinese restaurants, chinese people, chinese markets. for weeks, our administration let us to believe that we were e miles away from this foreign virus spreading through china, iran, and neighboring countries, but as it spread, moving to european countries like italy, panic here began to set in.

the world's got a troubled history of letting racism take over during health crisis. since the days of the plague, minority groups have been blamed for the rise and spread of disease. jews and muslim ottomans were blamed for that black death that plagued europe. chinese immigrants were accused of spreading smallpox in san francisco. in 2020, we know better. it's not always been that way. president trump made a point to tell americans after 9/11 that in the face of tragedy and fear and the unknown, muslims were our fellow americans and they should not be discriminated against. by contrast, on wednesday night in the oval office, trump snuck in a single word, "foreign," to remind americans that this virus came from somewhere else. during this national crisis, trump isn't cautioning us to check our racism, but is rather stoking xenophobic sentiment through his words, his policies, and his actions. as you know, the virus is democratic. it sees no race, nationality, or

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this morning, new coronavirus restrictions are the new norm in europe. spain imposing a nationwide lockdown on its 47 million citizens as the number of confirmed cases there spiked overnight to nearly 6,000. residents are still permitted to go out for food, work or health care related matters. the wife of the spanish prime minister has tested positive for covid-19. italy remains the hot spot in europe with more than 21,000 infected and nearly 1,500 dead.

the streets of milan are relatively empty. in france, where 91 people have died, cafes, restaurants, cinemas and most shops are closed by government order. on saturday, the mike pence announced the expansion of the american travel ban to include britain and ireland, which shuts off travel from nearly 30 european countries. in baltimore, a visiting professor at george washington university school of public health and formerly baltimore's health commissioner, good to see you again. thank you for being with us. what's your take on how things have developed in the last 24 hours in the united states? >> there has been a shift in how we are perceiving this crisis. we see the up in numbers escala. people are not taking this seriously enough. we have been closing down schools and asking people to stay away from big crowds. we're still seeing people congregating in bars and cafes. we need to take the social

distancing very seriously. there is a very small window for us to act. how many people die in the coming weeks to months will depend on the types of actions that we are taking now. i know that so much of what we are asking for seems extraordinary. it's asking people to change their way of life, their social habits. but this is the time for us to come together and make these small sacrifices in our lives. or else we are going to pay for this later with lives. >> we are getting, in the absence of the federal government having given -- provided good guidance, we are having state and local officials providing that guidance. it varies across the country. some people are limiting gatherings of 200, 250, 500, 1,000, some indoor, some outdoors. i assume there are best practices that should have been guided by the federal government in the absence of which local governments are doing as much as they can. the variations are great. how do we know what the right thing to do is?

>> you are right, that the federal government should be issuing very clear guidance, including on what the triggering ar is, at what points should schools and businesses be closed. the problem is that, we don't have testing. even if the triggeris exist, we don't know the numbers reflect the situation that's going on on the ground. even if there's one positive case, there might be lund hund undetected. we don't have a system, a federal public health policy in this country. we have this patchwork that make no sense. diseases know no boundary. it doesn't have one school district closed and another is not. >> what's the best answer? do we have anything that looks like federal public health policy in place? do you get a sense based on the president's press conference

friday that something will develop out of this or we will get better testing? >> i hope that we will. at this point, we need clarity. we need deadlines to be met. we need the messaging to not be so muddled and inaccurate. and i think in the meantime, we as citizens have to take matters into our own hands, because even if the federal government is not being clear and even if we live in local jurisdictions that may or may not be clear themselves, we can at least practice social distancing. we can keep good hand and face hygiene. we can stay away from others and limit our own social interactions, because it's right now that our individual actions will make a big difference in the trajectory of this disease. >> good to talk to you. in baltimore, a visiting professor at george washington university school of public health and formerly baltimore's health commissioner. we will see you in our next hour. in the next hour, i will speak

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...simple, easy, awesome. [ barking ] welcome back. there are 60 covid-19 deaths in the united states. at least 2,955 confirmed cases according to nbc news. that count continues to increase. 49 states, washington, d.c. and

po puerto rico have confirmed cases. this has led to states and city taking drastic measures. the mayor of hoboken instituted a curfew. georgia postponed its elections. these kids in california have altered the lemonade stand. look at this. >> hello. would you like a toilet paper roll? mom had extra. she let us use it for -- to sell. >> "the wall street journal" poll gives hard numbers on the feelings about covid-19. it reveals an amazing 99% of respondents say they have seen, heard or read about the novel coronavirus. 53% say they are very or somewhat worried or they or someone in their