tonight, lester holt with a live prime-time special report on the coronavirus pandemic. all the analysis and health advice from the experts. watch tonight at 10:00 p.m. eastern on msnbc, nbc, or our streaming service, nbc news now. that does it for this hour. "mtp daily" with chuck todd starts right now. ♪ welcome to thursday. it is "meet the press daily." good evening. i'm chuck todd here in washington. as the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the u.s. has now begun to rise rapidly. it's basically doubling every two to three days in this country. cases now top 10,000. at least two members of congress have confirmed cases. new york state, this morning, announced a spike of more than 1,700 cases in a single day. and then hours later, new york city said it was actually more like 2,800 new cases, because of a sudden spike there. as the number of tests slowly

ramps up, they are confirming what we expected. that this disease is far more widespread than we were initially led to believe. i believe the new orleans saints football coach is now someone who has tested positive. and a new study by the cdc suggests that this disease may be more threatening to more groups of people than we initially understood. it's not just the elderly who are experiencing some of the worst symptoms. out of a sample of more than 500 patients who were hospitalized in the united states because of this virus, it hit every age group other than those under the age of 19. as you can see from this data, in combined 38% of those hospitalized were between the ages of 20 and 54. and a sizable chair of icu patients were between the ages of 20 and 64. those are surprising numbers given the shortages of medical staff supplies and facilities. that group, under 64, it doesn't mean the death rate is higher. the death rate is still much higher for those in that 70-plus range. but the hospitalization rate is

much higher for that 20 to 54 group. in new york state, by the way, which is northeast confirmed cases nationwide now, a whopping 19% of all cases are requiring hospitalization, according to the governor's office. so to sum up what we've learned from the past two days, this disease is more widespread, more transmissible, and perhaps nor dangerous to more groups of people than we previously understood. although we should note that on the whole, only the sickest people are being tested, which means the sample of known cases right now may not be reflective of everyone who gets the virus. but the again, because of the big botch at the beginning on the federal level of a lack of widespread testing, we don't really know for sure. as the crisis escalates, the white house today urged americans once again to heed the warnings to stay home as much as you can. >> i want to call every american's attention again to the president's 15 days to slow the spread. make no mistake about it, that while for the american people as a whole, the risk of serious illness remains low, these

guidelines should be practiced by every american and every community, not only to lessen the spread of the coronavirus, but to protect the most vulnerable among us. >> the absolute key to this is every single american looking at the president's guidelines and taking it seriously. if even 10 or 15% of the population decides that what they're doing today is more important than the health and welfare of the rest of americans, they can spread the virus in a very strong way, because you know the level of contagion. >> it's a wartime situation facing the federal government. we learned just a short time ago the army is preparing to deploy two mobile hospital units. the state department just advised all americans that it's simply too dangerous to travel internationally and to come home unless you're prepared to stay abroad indefinitely. yes, a lot of people are scared, and yes, a lot of people seem to be ignoring the warnings as well. a combination of too many people underreacting and too many people overreacting. there's a tremendous amount of uncertainty, and the president's

performance at these briefings may only contribute to that uncertainty. today in particular he was vague about the threat and development to fight it, defensive of the press for some reason, and constantly looks for ways to deflect blame, even going so far as as to respread the name of the coronavirus with a sharpie. it contributes to the response that the government's response sun easy. even if those standing behind him is uneasy. so being vindictive and petty right now seems to be something of a misuse of time and rhetoric. joining me now are a couple of experts, dr. paul bittinger, chief of emergency preparedness at the masked general center and dr. vim gupta is a pulmonologist and public health expert. he's worked with the air force medical reserve corps and now at the university of washington. he's going to be joining us by phone. mr. bittinger, let me start with you. last week, the government seemed pretty certain as to who the

most vulnerable age groups were. over the last couple of days, i've noticed that -- and it's clear, because more data is coming in, we're not so sure. and it seems like the more we learn, the more dangerous this virus seems to be. >> well, i think we certainly know this virus is dangerous. unfortunately, we've seen from the peaks of illness in china and south korea, in italy, that this can overwhelm a community. and this really is a significant public health threat. i think we've also, unfortunately, seen that for older patients, this is much more likely to be a lethal threat. we have seen that actually underscored with data from italy, that, again, thely assocd with age and we've really seen underscored that it's patients with heart disease, diabetes, renal favor and respiratory illnesses, that those are the most at risk of dying. but your point is a good one, this does not necessarily spare

folks who are younger and there is a risk of critical illness for many, many groups. >> let me ask you this, dr. bittinger. what would you like to know right now that weapon don don't about this virus? >> i think i would like to know how many people are asymptomatic. you know, you were mentioning the denominator. we just don't know how big the denominator is, both for testing and actually, i think, every time we look, we find out that there are many people with minimal symptoms or no symptoms that have the disease. and it's really important to know, again, what the real risk is to the population. but it's also really important for us to know in terms of trying to anticipate what's coming. you know, as a hospital-based priority, someone trying to help lead a health care system through this, we are really trying to figure out when the peak of the wave will be, what's the peak demand going to be on our intensive care units, our ventilators, our medical system, because that helps us guide how we're allocating resources right now. >> i was just going to ask, it seems to me there's this assumption that you're going to be a hot spot there in boston.

there's a lot of anecdotal evidence of people that tested positive, that seemed to come from a both the biogen conference, the sloan m.i.t., the nba players happened to be there. there's a lot of -- when will you know how bad that situation is going to turn? is it this week that you're expecting -- if you're indeed the hot spot that we think boston might be, are we going to start seeing that this week? >> i think not necessarily this week. i think regrettably, the only time you know you're past the peak is when you're seeing a downtrending set of numbers, but we're looking every single day, sometimes twice a day at our numbers to compare where we are in the community with other hot spots, particularly italy. we've been comparing some of our numbers to northern italy, to central italy, and to see whether we're on their curve or a different curve. and we very much hope to see the payoff from the social distancing measures within the next few days. >> dr. gupta, let me bring you in here. i'm going to start with a similar question that i asked dr. bittinger, what don't you know right now that you would

really like to know that could help our situation right now? >> i would really like to know exactly what dr. bittinger said, which is, what is the rate of asymptomatic transmission? is it as a group of columbia epidemiologists already published in the article in the journal of science, is it for every confirmed case of covid, there's ten unconfirmed but possible cases all among us? if that's -- >> how could we confirm that? is there any way we can -- it seems as if our testing situation has put us in such a dire place that we can't ever do the type of research necessary to find out if that's true, correct? >> you bring up -- you raise a great point here. what's the true denominator here? what's the actual infection fatality rate? it's always going to be imperfect. every flu season, it's imperfect. because we don't have great tests in the first place for flu, much less covid, so how are we going to actually truly know

who needs to be socially distant, who doesn't? it's hard to know that. that would be the thing that i would want to know the most up-front, who is transmitting this disease asymptomatically? dr. gupta, you have familiarity with obviously with washington state, so you know, they've been on the front lines of this. there's stuff to learn from there. what can dr. bittinger's team learn from the focus at uw? >> i think what we've seen here, and i'm in icu this week and what's happening in italy is nearly happening here already. we're having surge capacity issues. we're not having the ability to really staff the way we want to staff our icus with health care workers, much less have the appropriate number of outbreak where we think it's going to go. but what we need more than anything else is health care

workers that aren't getting quarantined, that aren't getting sick. there was a 40-year-old physician just north of seattle that's now in critical illness, because hep didn't have the right pde and was getting chronically exposed. so i would say what's happening here in seattle is reality. italy is not some existential possibility. it's actually happening here right now, as we speak. >> dr. bittinger, the president seemed to case today that what he's hearing on the ground is that in these critical areas, including boston, that you guys, so far, you're getting -- you're either getting what you need or are on the road to getting what you need. is that correct? >> well, i think we're certainly trying very, very hard to do everything we can, looking ahead. i do appreciate very much what dr. gupta said, which is, this is the reality that we're facing. and i want to thank colleagues in washington and elsewhere who are a little bit ahead of us on the curve for sharing everything that they're sharing, so that we

can be ready. the reality is, we absolutely still are facing challenges with personal protective equipment in particular. we have to spend many hours out of every day trying to figure how best we can acquire and deploy and utilize our personal protective unit like masks and n-92 respirators and gowns and gloves. but what we're trying to do is manage our capacity. we started shutting down all elective procedures, surgeries, since beginning last week. and that's put our hospital at i think a better position in terms of occupancy to face the wave that's coming. but, you know, given the magnitude of some of the challenges we've seen, not just in italy, as mentioned, in washington and california in new york, you know, some of these challenges are bigger than anything that a health care system like ours has ever faced. >> dr. gupta, you brought up something to one of my producers about the psychological toll this is taking, both on health care workers, people that are quarantining, people that are isolating. frankly, my guess is this is going to become an ongoing issue

for a lot of americans. >> absolutely, chuck. i don't think we've talked enough about the impact of social distancing on millennials, on the 65-year-old patient with smoking-related lung disease that i try to empower every day to protect their health. we're saying to everyone in the country that your health is contingent on somebody else doing the right thing. we're telling millennials that we're going to take away some of your agency. we're going to take away some of your personal freedoms and that's hard. that's a hard message as a public health professional to give. we're not used to giving that. so as a provider, it's challenging. and as from the patient perspective, of course it's challenging and we need our leaders to message more on why this is so challenging and to have empathy for that. because this is very -- this has unusual for us. >> last question to both of you, dr. gupta, i'll start with you and then to dr. bittinger, are we doing enough? do you want government -- do we

need to do -- do we need to do more -- do we need to do more restrictive movements? >> i think we do. >> what does that look like? >> i think we're headed towards a national lockdown. and the reality here is that wuhan saw such great progress, really, within an 8 to 12-week span, they controlled covid-19. and now they have no new cases in the last 48 hours. we are -- we are pursuing a middle of the road approach. and i think we're going to get middle of the road outcomes. it's not going to fully go away, it's going to take a lot longer. we need to approach this seriously with a national lockdown. >> dr. bittinger, are you on that -- i've heard that from a lot of medical professionals. that if they could, and they get that there's all sorts of problems that come with that on the economy and all sorts of issues, but a national lockdown for at least two weeks would go a long way here. >> i think we certainly need a lot more consistency. there are some states like mine

that have really, really shut down all of the elective procedures, all of the elective medical visits, but the restaurants and social gatherings and the ways in which people are out in public. and we're very close to a lockdown where i am, but we're not consistent. and, you know, all of these things come with a price, and so whether we truly, truly try to lock people in their homes for 14 days, like has been done, we need to make sure that's actually worth it. i think we need to be looking every single day at where we are on the curve. but we can't have as many parts of the country as we have right now without these aggressive, aggressive measures. >> very quickly, dr. gupta, i don't know if you've seen this has been making the rounds on social media about an old malaria drug, chloroquine, do you believe it can be helpful to fight at least some of the symptoms of covid-19? >> short answer, chuck, is i don't know. and so i think we need -- we need studies, ideally around a

control trial, which is the gold standard, to see whether or not there's a potential use case for chloroquine. what i'll say is, and i'm sure dr. bittinger has already seen the results sitting in boston, we were hoping that colitra would be an effective for the treatment of covid-19 and the results were very disappointing. they were not. so i reserve some skepticism about the use of chloroquine for treatment of covid-19, unless proven otherwise. >> dr. bittinger, it sounds like you have -- do you have any early thoughts on that, that that's been circulating? >> you know, i think it's so hard, because we all want to hope that there's a therapy, but we have to rely on the science and we can't draw a premature conclusion. there are hints, but there is no data to support one way or the other right now. i think, obviously, there are other investigational drugs that we're trying to look at right now. this is a time for unprecedented, coordinated action across the scientific community. we can't have individual sites

sharing data. this has to pool our data so that we learn lessons as fast as possible from the greatest possible pace and population. i think that's actually happening. but we have to share that data and get the answer out there as quickly as we can. >> i know i keep saying last question, but there's something that just came over biddinger a the massachusetts medical society. and that's why i think it's an appropriate question for you. it's the professional medical group in massachusetts saying it's a dire situation, this shortage of personal protective equipment. quote, the shortage of personal protective equipment is a dire situation. if we have active to testing kits, we cannot access them without proper ppe. are they right to be sounding the alarm as dramatically as they are? >> they absolutely are. i think, unfortunately, testing is not just the availability of testing kits, but it's a nurse or a physician or a medical provider with the right ppe to safely administer that test.

it all is tied together. and i think the ppe situation is, in fact, as dire as the massachusetts medical society puts it. and it's why we are all needing to work together in our conservation, our acquisition, our sharing efforts. >> all right. dr. paul biddinger and dr. ben gupta, thank you both for sharing your expertise with our viewers today. hope we can tap into that again soon. and good luck to both of you. thank you both. >> up ahead, italy's death toll is surging despite the country-wide lock down. how long can we expect this to go on in the united states and are we doing enough social distancing? you just heard from two doctors there who believe we should do more. i'll talk to virologist joseph fair with some answers. let me tell you, i can tell you where he stands on this. and be sure to watch the networks of nbc news tonight. my colleague, lester holt is anchoring a special prime-time event on the coronavirus. we'll have the latest on the pandemic and expert analysis and advice. we know you have a lot of questions out there and we hope to answer some of them tonight. so watch tonight, 10:00 p.m.,

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how likely is it that the 15-day guidance that you have put through will be extended -- >> i can only tell you the 14th day. and we'll have see. we'll have indications later on. >> welcome back. president trump says he does not know if the 15 days of social distancing guidelines for the nation that he laid out earlier this week will have to be extended. at the same time, we are seeing dire images from parts of europe that have rolled out even more stringent lockdowns, as the situation there worsens. in france, authorities are stopping people on streets to make sure all travel is for absolutely essential reasons. more than 4,000 people have reportedly been fined for breaking lockdown there. and in italy, the prime minister is extending the nationwide lockdown past its initial end date of april 3rd. these are some chilling images from the city of bergamo where

military officials removed bodies of victims from the region after seeing its largest single-day increase in deaths since the outbreak began, italy has now surpassed china in total death toll. >> joining me now for some insight on whether what we're doing here is enough and what we can expect the situation to continue is virologist and msnbc science contributor, dr. joseph fair. dr. fair, good to see you. >> thank you. >> you were very adamant over the weekend on a call with my staff saying -- you were basically saying, the questions i would be asking the fed is, shouldn't, you know, if you can do a two-week lockdown, we need to do it. we sort of are doing it. it's sort of -- it's forced volunteerism, i guess, is the way to do it. is it do you think we're doing enough? >> you have to look at a beach in florida for the answer to that.

you can give guidelines all you want, but unless you're actually enforcing that, it's obvious that most people are not -- most people are taking this seriously, but a very significant percentage of the population is not. and this is one of those things, the way the virus transmits and how contagious it is, unless everyone does the same thing at the same time, and i emphasize, same thing at the same time, we're not going to see a break in the transmission cycle. >> it does seem as if we continue to learn more about how this virus spreads. and frankly, things i'm hearing today are almost 180 degrees opposite of what we heard a couple of weeks ago. what is your best understanding of how this virus spreads? >> you know, from my understanding scientifically is it still spreads through direct cough, you know, cough, and the liquid droplets that come out of your mouth, nose, et cetera, and touching your mouth, nose, and eyes. there has been some anecdotal data, and these aren't exactly

peer-reviewed studies about it floating in the air, but that was with a nebulizer, where by nature you're aerosoling it. so as far as we know, it is still spread directly via that transmission route or touching an object where someone has coughed and left those droplets and then you rub your face. >> that's the other part of this, how long does this virus live on surfaces? it does seem as if it may be living longer than we thought. >> and i think, honestly, we keep getting that question, and my answer to it is, don't focus on how long it lives on the surface. focus on cleaning the surface. because as far as you know, and especially if it's not inside your home or a place that you can control access to, you need to clean it before you sit down or touch it and you need to clean it afterwards and the same person needs to do the same thing after you. so, in laboratory studies, coronaviruses can last up to nine days on surfaces. so, you know, i tend to err on the side of caution that it can last up to nine days. i don't know if that's exactly

true for sars/cov-2, but if others can do it, i'll assume the same. >> you have been in some of these quarantined parts of the world where we've had some ebola and other viruses. >> i myself was quarantined for 21 days for ebola. >> when weap quarantine those specific areas and people start asking on day 20, when is it going to end, when is it going to end? what are the conditions that you look for to end a quarantine? >> so, you know, quarantining is different from isolation and a forced shutdown of commercial activities. so i think what's on the table right now is a forced shutdown of all nonessential services. so anything besides hospitals, pharmacies, groceries, and i think included in that would be media outlets. anything but those would be shut down, and therefore people have no reason to leave, other than to get the necessities. they can still walk about, they can still gather, not together,

but they can still go outside, they can still take a jog or a run. but, you know, that means all nonessential services. souldn't be, for example, going to the gap and shopping or wherever you do clothing. >> let me stop you there, correct me if i'm wrong, is only -- we don't have that many places that have actually gone that far. i think the state of maryland is heading there. and it does sound like new york would like to. >> san francisco has done that, as well. >> but very few. you think the whole country needs to. >> i -- you know, for me, we have it in all 50 states. this is not something i would say lightly, because i know what it means for the economy. but if you take a week to plan it and get the safety nets in place for the people that are not going to be able to get food and water and everything else that you need, call up your national guards in each state, each governor has the power to do so, that's what they're there for, to save lives of each person in that state. and take resources like fema and i think we can project the damage of a 14-day nationwide

shutdown of nonessential services -- and i emphasize, nonessential service, not a quarantine, because our laws really wouldn't allow for that right now. it would have to be under martial law to do that, and we're not there yet. but if you did that, you could have a projected number of what the damage is going to be to the economy versus letting this go on for months and no projection whatsoever and it's just going to keep spiralling and keep on spiraling our economy, as well. >> do you believe without that, we're going to basically experience a series of sort of speed bumps? you know, we may not have spikes, but we may have like five humps. >> i think, you know, we're going to have spikes. i don't think it's going to be humps. you've seen the cases jump to 10,000 just in a couple of days, right? and if you go back to episodes where you and i were speaking earlier, that's exactly what we predicted would happen. and that is still, i emphasize, without testing everywhere. and you know, we keep hearing the tests are everywhere, but you also keep hearing, people can't get tests. so i don't know the reality of where all of the tests are

available right now, because that information is very hard to come by. but without those tests, we can't isolate, we can't get the sick to the hospital when they need to be, and we can't isolate who needs to be isolated. so the best practice is social distancing right now. and people just aren't doing that everywhere. >> i've got to reemphasize this. the initial mistake was the lack of testing, right? the reason we're so blind is that, correct? >> it was the lack of testing, it was the focus on china. it was actually an american that brought it back to the united states. it wasn't anyone from china. and it was the singular focus on china, when, which, you know, anyone who has been to china know that chinese don't just come to america, they go all over the world. so someone from china or someone from italy that was coming from china brought it back to italy and then i'm sure we had cases coming from europe into the united states. we had no screening whatsoever of any individuals, much less anyone from europe. >> joseph fair, our science -- one of our newest and most impressive science contributors

these days, thanks for coming on and sharing your expertise. >> thank you. up ahead, with two members of the house already testing positive, is congress about to start working from home as well? arstt working from home as well? . and sometimes, you can find yourself heading in a new direction. but at fidelity, we'll help you work through the unexpected. with financial planning and advice for what you need today... and tomorrow. because when you're with fidelity, a partner who makes sure every step is clear, there's nothing to stop you from moving forward.

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bipartisan that it must be a workers' first proposal. workers first, that's our motto in what we're proposing. >> welcome back. that was senate minority leader democrat chuck schumer on the senate floor earlier this afternoon. and moments ago, senate majority leader mitch mcconnell announced the latest proposal on the senate floor, which we'll dive into in just a moment. but after two members of congress confirmed they have the virus, one from utah, one from florida, so not very close geographic proximity, and one from both parties, by the way, each side of the aisle, prompted others to quarantine or self-isolate, congress first has to figure out how it's simply going to conduct business, prompting members of both chambers to look at the possibility of voting remotely to reduce the risk of exposure. joining me now to shed some light on how remote voting in congress might work is our justice correspondent, pete williams. pete, there's a legality issue here, i assume, number one. but i also assume that these are

things, the last time i checked the constitution, the house and the senate can decide how they conduct their business on their own, i believe, but what is the ruling here on remote voting? >> i think the answer is, it seems to be that they can do this if they want to. now, the constitutional provision that is at issue here is actually a different one that says a majority of each house shall constitution a quorum to do business. so that raises the possibility that if you don't have a majority sitting there in the house or senate, you can't do business. but here's the deal. both the house and senate are the judges of whether there's a quorum president. and in the senate, they always just assume one is present, unless someone objects and says there isn't. and the same applies in the house. so if members really want to do this, they probably can get away with it, if somebody went to court and said, no, you passed this law and did it unconstitutionally, because you had remote voting, then i think the question is, would the courts step in and say, well,

we'll decide what a quorum is? and i think the answer to that is no. there seems to be only one supreme court case on this from 182 1890. and the supreme court basically said, the constitution has prescribed no method of making this determination. in other words, it's up to the house and senate to say how they can tell whether there's a quorum. there doesn't seem to be a legal impediment to it, at least not at first blush. >> and if there's a video uplink and people are on zoom, or whatever video. i mean, that can -- the constitution -- obviously, when the founders wrote this, there was none of that. but who's to say, how do you define a room? could the room be virtual? >> exactly right, that's the same point. and the people i've talked to about this who are considering this say it would be only for matters of public health, only for the coronavirus, only for a short period of time. so you're not going to have votes on naming a post office for somebody this way.

>> i'm actually a big advocate of letting these guys vote from their offices in their district, but that's a whole another point. thanks, pete. let's turn to now the substance of what congress has to deal with, what they could be voting on. leigh ann caldwell is not working remotely. she is on capitol hill. so leigh ann, tell us about what mitch mcconnell has rolled out and what kind of reaction is it getting from democrats? >> well, the rollout just happened moments ago. it's something we've been anticipating for the past 24 hours. but i think the highlights here are that included in this bill are those payments, direct payments to people. they are capped at income. $75,000 of income per person, will get about 1,200. it will phase out, capping at $ $99,000. a married couple will get about $400 per child. that's how the direct payments

watched out in this legislation. other parts of the legislation, there's loans, about $250 billion worth of loans to industry, including $58 billion for the airline industry. there's also a lot of assistance for small business, as well. what's not included, chuck, is a payroll tax. these direct payments to people, to americans, is in lieu of the payroll tax. so that is not included despite the president so wanting that. the democrats' response, well, this was a republican bill. and some democrat sources are telling me that it's not a way you negotiate is by unveiling a bill and then coming to democrats and asking what they want included, but this is how it's happening. republicans are saying it's going to be bipartisan. we'll see how bipartisan it becomes and what sort of priorities the democrats get put into this. >> one question i have, whether this is covered, unemployment insurance. because a lot of this, you're going to try to figure out what are people's income. okay, but if you worked in a

sort of contracting job or a job that worked on tips and your income said one thing before, but that is not your income right now, "a," how do you prove that and will you get compensated via unemployment insurance on the same level? >> reporter: i'm so glad you brought up unemployment insurance, because there's a lot of republicans who are actually talking enthuse aiastically aboa big improvement of unemployment insurance, saying these direct checks will work best in tandem with unemployment insurance. unemployment insurance is also something democrats are really prioritizing as well. republican sources are telling me that they didn't include that in their version of the bill, because they expect the democrats to come back with a big unemployment insurance package. so that's something that we do expect to be added to this bill in some form. but it's going to be the democrats that are going to have to do it. and i'm also told, this is kind of the republicans' opening

offer. there could be a lot of back and forth. but how much back and forth? they're trying to act really quickly. but unemployment is going to be a big part of this bill, if i could predict, chuck. >> i was just going to say, and to me it looks like an opening bid, because i think the income levels were somewhat lower than i expected them to be, and perhaps republicans know that, and they're ready to move up. my guess is you're going to see this get closer to the 200, 250, 300 range, rather than where it sits now. we shall see. leigh ann caldwell, an interesting run up there. coming up, we'll talk to colorado's governor about how his state is responding to the health crisis and what he thinks about the president's idea to have the federal government take equity stakes in private companies that get a coronavirus bailout. keep it here. ♪

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first of all, governors are supposed to be doing a lot of this work and they are doing a lot of this work. the federal government is not supposed to be out there buying vast amounts of items and then shipping. you know, we're not a shipping

clerk. the governors are supposed to be, as with testing. the governors are supposed to be doing it. we'll help out and we'll help out wherever we can. and we can buy in volume and in some cases, great volume. >> welcome back. hours after calling on governors to take the lead on their state's response to the coronavirus, president trump and vice president pence spoke with a group of 17 governors about what help they need from the federal government right now. joining me now is colorado's governor, democrat jared pollis. he was not one of the 17 governors who spoke with the president earlier today, but he is governing a state that has had a bit -- has been hit a little bit harder than other states early on in this pandemic. governor pollis, good to see you, sir. i just want to get you to respond to the president there, how is this relationship between state and federal going? i'm guessing on the administration-to-administrat n administration-to-administration level, it's going well, probably less so on the personal level.

>> chuck, it's good to see you again. i wish it was under better circumstances. i think that quote you just showed from the president there really shows this gab. to say the federal government isn't a shipping clerk, we're a mighty and proud nation. we're the wealthiest nation in the world. we should have, of course, across our 50 states, that's what we have the cdc for, and yet, really, we're on our own as governor. now, we're scrappy. i'm doing my best in colorado. we stood up to first of the nation drive-through testing facilities. we're getting additional masks in from home depot. we've worked with our grocery stores to provide shopping for seniors and vulnerable population in the morning. and we're doing everything we can. but you know what, chuck, we have freedom of movement in this country. and until we have a national strategy, people are going to come and go from washington, california, and texas, and until you do this in a cohesive way, you'll have a lot more trouble containing the spread of the virus. >> all right, so, then what you want to see. you're not the only one that's been upset about this. i've heard it from other governors, i've heard it -- we've had the governor of

maryland, he's doing a harder lockdown than the governor of virginia. and that doesn't work, considering these are border states. what do you need the feds to be saying and doing in order to sort of even out this -- even out these rules? >> well, certainly, again, helping with equipment, personal protection equipment, ppe for the surgeons and the hospitals, that's gloves and masks and gowns. we can use help in that regard as well as working on a national industrial strategy, around increasing production. it doesn't mean that in all 50 states, they should have to replicate retooling for manufacturing. we ought to figure out the best economy of scale to do this in a way that meets a need that is universal across our nation and increasingly across the world. >> tell me about the situation in your state. when do you fear the spike hitting colorado? >> so we're working with epidemiologists, professors at the university of colorado.

they provided me several models, scientific models. so what we're looking at, depending on -- we've been very bold about the social distancing measures here. we've closed down our in-restaurant dining. we're moving to do the same nail and hair salons. that's happening in the next day's schools. what we're looking at is how that delays it. we know it does and we have some data points from other countries that have taken additional measures. but part of the frustration, chuck, that i think frustrates everybody on this, is we're in many ways chasing a ghost. all the data we have is going to be seven to ten days old in terms of where the virus is and who has it, because of the time it takes from being exposed to when people might need hospital care. >> do you feel as if you are -- at what point in this surge are you going to need outside help? do you think you're going to need the national guard? do you want the army setting up a military hospital unit, if necessary? what are the things that you may need -- are you going to have any asks of fema, for instance.

>> yeah, fema is part of our emergency command center. we also have already activated the national guard under my command. they've helped with the logistics around testing, some of them are cross-qualified as medics. we've also activated a volunteer corps, over 3,000 coloradans, helpcoloradonow.org. so we're really doing what we can to stand up all of this on our own. but again, we welcome a national coordinated response, as every country that has seen this through successfully has had. we still await that assistance, but again, that isn't standing in the way of governors in general, republican and democrat, and specifically us in colorado, from taking the steps we need to reduce the severity and the duration of this public health crisis and this economic crisis. >> some viewers may not realize this. before you got into politics, you were in congress, but you were a very successful tech entrepreneur. so i'm just curious, put your businessman hat on here for a minute. you heard the president today

say, look, if you want to bail out, you know, be prepared for the government to take an equity stake. what do you think of that? is that the right approach? >> well, that kind of thing rubs me the wrong way, chuck. you know, we saw that with the auto bailout. i was very proud of ford for not taking the money. gm and chrysler did. look, i think that the government should not be a owns the means of production. i'm not a socialist like donald trump. so i think that's a very dangerous way to go. and i think that rather than these corporate bailouts, we should talk about helping people, chuck. that means workers and small business owners, it means everybody. frankly, i like this idea of sending everybody $2,000. i like the idea of temporarily increasing s.n.a.p. benefits, emergency loans to small businesses, especially those in food and hospitality that have been interrupted. i think those are the kinds of measures, rather than trying to use this as an excuse to implement socialist measures across corporate america. >> governor polpolis, democrat m

colorado, good to talk to you. good luck with this and stay healthy. >> thank you. up next, how will history judge this crisis and what can we learn from pandemics of the past to guide us to a better future? we're going to get some much-needed perspective after the break. r the break. i thought i was managing my moderate to severe crohn's disease. until i realized something was missing... me. you ok, sis? my symptoms were keeping me from really being there for my sisters. (announcement) "final boarding for flight 2007 to chicago" so i talked to my doctor and learned humira is for people who still have symptoms of crohn's disease after trying other medications. and the majority of people on humira saw significant symptom relief and many achieved remission in as little as 4 weeks. humira can lower your ability to fight infections. serious and sometimes fatal infections, including tuberculosis, and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened, as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where certain fungal infections are common and if you've had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections,

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since you're heading off to dad... i just got a zerowater. but we've always used brita. it's two stage-filter... doesn't compare to zerowater's 5-stage. this meter shows how much stuff, or dissolved solids, gets left behind. our tap water is 220. brita? 110... seriously? but zerowater- let me guess. zero? yup, that's how i know it is the purest-tasting water. i need to find the receipt for that. oh yeah, you do. welcome back. as the coronavirus pandemic sweeps the globe, we're seeing how countries respond the same crisis. places like taiwan, singapore

and south korea do seem to be having some preliminary success. other parts of the world, including the united states have not seemed as prepared. according to my next guest, that may be in part simply due to lessons learned by recent outbreaks. so for more on how history may give us insight and how we pull through this, i'm joined by neil ferguson, a senior fellow at the hoover institute, stanford university. so neil, it seems there are two things that southeast asian countries had going for them in this that we didn't. number one was simply experience with sars and h1n1. but the other thing you point out, they are states where there isn't as much freedom as we have here. there is a lot more sort of social following if you will by the governments. >> well, it varies a lot. we're talking about an east asian experience. it began with disastrous

mismanagement in city of wuhan, the province of hubei in the people's republic of china. then they used draconian measures to bring it under control so it didn't go exponential in any other chinese province. but the really interesting cases are free societies of east asia, taiwan, south korea also the somewhat less free cases of hong kong and singapore. and all those countries or city states, the response has been much more successful than in any western country, to the extent that really, the covid-19 pandemic has been cleaned in those countries. taiwan is right next to the people's republic of china it's a democracy. there has been one fatality in taiwan since this outbreak began. so they are clearly doing things right that we have been doing wrong in most western democracies. >> is it -- one of the points that i thought was interesting that you made was in some ways, we have -- we're too libertarian.

we have too much freedom here, that one of the reasons why taiwan and south korea had some successes, they were able to digitally track things quicker and better, and we just don't -- we don't legally have that ability here. >> well, you'll never get me to say something on air against individual freedom. >> i know. >> but i think the key here is two big things. number one, the experience of sars seared east asia. but because sars was so lethal and so quickly revealed symptoms, it did not spread far into the rest of the world. so the 2003 lessons weren't learned in the western world. instead, we had in 2009 h1n1, swine flu, which although it killed quite a lot of people worldwide, is nothing like as deadly as covid-19, which is another variant of the sars virus. and so i think our recent experience did not set us up as

well as it set up the east asian countries. but i think there is another issue here, and that is the way to contain this as the south koreans have shown, even if it does get out of control, which it briefly did because of so-called super spreader in south korea is you have to test on a massive scale. we've utterly failed to do that. we're still playing catch-up on testing. it's only through mass testing that you can identify how widespread the virus is, because people can carry it without symptoms. and in fact, a recent study of the chinese experience showed that 86% of people who were in fact carrying the virus were not detected as such. so the south koreans were able to do something which is to test on a large scale and then to chase the social networks, the contact lists of everybody that they found to have the virus. and that's what we have to do here. and that will involve some limited violation of privacy. we need access to the social media data, the location data of anybody who tests positive.

that's what we need. >> and i don't know if we're ever going to catch up to that. neil ferguson, there is a lot more i want to get to you about, but unfortunately, i've run out of time this hour. but i'm going to be bugging you for a longer conversation in the near future, so i appreciate it. and i'm going to be right back. >> look forward to it. life isn't a straight line. and sometimes, you can find yourself heading in a new direction. but at fidelity, we'll help you work through the unexpected. with financial planning and advice for what you need today... and tomorrow. because when you're with fidelity, a partner who makes sure every step is clear, there's nothing to stop you from moving forward.

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that's all we have for tonight. there is a lot more. we know you have a lot more questions. so guess what? we're going to start with "the beat" with ari melber right now. he hopefully will answer some of those questions. ari, it's all yours. >> we will try. thank you very much. as we begin our broadcast tonight, the coronavirus outbreak is crossing a grim milestone across the united states. now tonight we have context for you on the new numbers. we have these reports on the government's new warning to americans. and later tonight, we have something positive and constructive. our report on what you can do now tonight to