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Record 3.3 Million Americans Filed Jobless Claims Last Week; U.S Coronavirus Death Toll Nears 1,000; New York City Becomes Epicenter Of Virus In U.S. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired March 26, 2020 - 10:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[10:00:00]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, I'm Jim Sciutto.

Let's get right to the news and the news on the economy. The numbers are even worse than most economists expected. A record 3.3 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits just in the last week. That is four times the record in U.S. history. Beyond the staggering economic cost of the coronavirus fight, the rising number of lives lost. Now, approaching 1,000 people across the country, 13 of them in a single New York City hospital in a single day.

The city is anticipating so many deaths now in the coming weeks that they built a makeshift morgue with tents. That's what those pictures are over there at Bellevue hospital. The last time we saw that in New York, that was after 9/11.

New York is hit the hardest so far. But to be clear, this is a nationwide threat, and we're beginning to see this. Numbers spiking in New Jersey, in Louisiana, in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida, Georgia, and some of them are the people trying to help treat those infected. In just three hospitals in Boston, more than 100 employees have now tested positive for the virus, these, of course, the healthcare workers we're depending on to treat the victims. They're facing it themselves.

We're covering this story, every angle of it around the country, around the world as only CNN can. But let's begin with those job figures, CNN White House Correspondent John Harwood, CNN Business Anchor Julia Chatterley.

I want to play this for both of you, these were comments from the treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin, just a moment ago that might surprise folks listening. Have a listen.

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REPORTER: And I am curious as to what your thoughts were when you saw that 3.3 million number this morning.

STEVE MNUCHIN, TREASURY SECRETARY: You know, to be honest with you, I just think these numbers right now are not relevant. (END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: These numbers are not relevant? John Harwood, that's 3.3 million Americans who don't have jobs anymore.

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, there's no question about that, and in fairness to Steve Mnuchin, I think, Jim, what he was saying was it's not relevant to the underlying condition of the economy. It is a crisis right now, and that's why Congress last night -- or the Senate last night unanimously passed a $2 trillion fiscal relief bill to try to get us to the other side, get workers and businesses to the other side of the health crisis.

I think Mnuchin's belief, and I think the belief of J. Powell, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, is that if we can get to the other side on the basis of public health and the threat of the virus, then the economy can function reasonably normally again. There will be some permanent losses for sure because of businesses that go under and that sort of thing, but they're trying to minimize that. I think that's what Secretary Mnuchin meant by that comment.

SCIUTTO: Understood. Okay, fair to have the context there.

Julia, let's talk about trend lines here. This is one week but one pretty shocking week. Again, to say, 3.3 million jobless in one week is four times the record in this country. You've got to go back nearly 40 years to that record. Is this one week where we expect to see several like it to follow whether there's one estimate you lose 14 million jobs by summer?

JULIA CHATTERLEY, CNN BUSINESS ANCHOR: It's a really important question. Remember, the framing here is very important. This is deliberate. We are creating this situation by the measures that we're taking in order to suppress the virus. So that's one thing, you would expect this.

To John's point, the hope is that this survival package that we've just announced will cushion and prevent companies, small and medium- sized enterprises, letting their workers go to try to suppress those claims numbers rising again. But the other critical element here, and it so important, the expansion and the extension of the unemployment benefits.

They're going to catch a whole swathes of people working in this economy that we've never captured before, the gig economy, Uber drivers, the freelancers, self-employed people. So if these people come in and start asking for unemployment benefits too is they should and will do, that's going to bump the numbers up. So you've got a lot of different elements here.

The science on this is going to be terribly imperfect to gauge at this point, Jim, but I have to say, it's tone dead to say this is irrelevant. Quite frankly, it's devastating for the people involve. And, you know, if I told you, I really thought my own job would be in peril, quite frankly.

SCIUTTO: I hear you.

John Harwood, let's then talk, because a lot of folks watching right now are among that 3.3 million, or may soon be going forward. This stimulus package, what specifically does it include to help bridge the gap -- forget the companies -- for individuals? Extensions to unemployment insurance, but also increased unemployment pay and payments for a period of time, right?

[10:05:03]

HARWOOD: That's right. $600 of increased unemployment pay, which was a universal metric they used to smooth out the differences between the states. But, yes, more unemployment benefits, longer unemployment benefits. In addition to the the $1,200 checks that individuals are going to be getting either through physical checks if they don't have direct deposit with a financial institution, or through direct deposits. The administration hopes that this money can get out the door and into those accounts within three weeks, a month.

And their hope is that in the meantime, the knowledge that it's coming will at least be reassuring to people the -- but we certainly could, to your question to Julia earlier, we could have more weeks like this. Look, there are 160 million people employed in the United States. If you start shutting off businesses purposefully for a public health objective, as we are doing, you're talking millions and millions of people, and economists that I've talked to you said that we should count on unemployment going north of 10 percent. Of course, it was about 3.5 percent coming into this crisis. Everybody needs to brace themselves for this.

And Congress has taken a step to try to reassure. The House is expected to pass it tomorrow. President Trump will sign it. But we've got some tough times at the moment and tougher times ahead.

SCIUTTO: Listen, you see it in the empty streets, and I know folks at home stay it wherever they are. Those empty streets, empty businesses, people not going to work. John Harwood, Julia Chatterley, thanks to both of you.

Let's get now to CNN National Correspondent, Brynn Gingras. She is at a New York hospital, where worker say the facility just busting at the seams.

And, Brynn, New York, not just an epicenter of the country, WHO has described it as an epicenter in the world right now for this pandemic. Tell us what that means at just one hospital trying to cope with this.

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jim, well, then this is the center of the epicenter. And that's what we're seeing right now, and that's what the hospital has describe as that basically, as. We just saw within the last 24 hours 13 deaths alone at this hospital. I mean it's an incredible crisis that's happening on the ground here in Queens, the Borough, in New York City that has the most coronavirus cases.

I'm getting out of the way again so you can kind of see what this line that showing behind us. We're seeing about ten people go in at a time to those two tents. Those are the triage tents, places where those patients who sometimes have been waiting here for hours, they were lined up even before 5:00 this morning when we got here, came here to get a test or they're actually going to see a doctor. But that line just never slows down. And that's what we're seeing here on the front lines.

And, you know, there are reports that inside the E.R. here at this hospital, it's being described as apocalyptic. Well, I can tell you, Jim, just being outside here all week with my crew, it doesn't feel much better outside either. I mean, you would be hard pressed to find someone walking down the street or around this hospital without a face mask on, not even just walking but in their cars, on bicycles, everybody is taking these serious precautions because of what is happening in this particular community.

We know that there are resources that are being flooded to this hospital by the New York hospital system, with doctors and nurses, and again, I want to point out that one nurse I talked to who was leaving her shift who said, she is just in a constant state of paranoia that she has the virus herself and that she possibly may give it to someone else. And it's just incredible to hear that, because on the other side of that, the governor has said that 40,000 people have volunteered, some out of retirement, to come back and help all these doctors and nurses on the frontlines.

SCIUTTO: Yes, that's another element to the story is people stepping up to do their part, and that's encouraging. Brynn Gingras in New York, thanks very much.

Well, if you think this is just a New York problem or a coastal problem, it's not. Let's talk about Louisiana. It's now emerging as one of the nation's hot spots here. The state seeing an alarming spike in coronavirus cases, including more than 400 cases in just the last 24 hours. That brings the total number there to 1,800 statewide which probably understates the numbers given how limited testing is.

Joining me now to talk about this is Collin Arnold. He is the Director of New Orleans Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. Thank you for taking time out of your day. I know you've got bigger fish to fry, but let's talk about Louisiana, a spike in cases, nearly 1,800. John Bel Edwards, the Governor, said Louisiana has the fastest growth rate of coronavirus cases in the world today. Do you have a sense of why that is?

COLLIN ARNOLD, DIRECTOR, NEW ORLEANS OF HOMELAND SECURITY AND EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS: Well, I think, you know -- and thank you for having me. I think a lot of it is we are actually testing quite a bit more right now per capita. New Orleans area is kind of the epicenter of coronavirus in the state, and we -- you know, we really today might top a thousand cases.

[10:10:00]

We're at 827. We're going to get an update at noon from the State Department of Health, and that's 37 deaths. We're a community of 40,000 people, so we're a tight-knit community. So this is affecting everyone, really.

SCIUTTO: The residents so far in the State of Louisiana have been ordered to stay at home until April 12th. Is that long enough, in your view, or is that just a start?

ARNOLD: I don't think we're going to see the results of both the mayor's stay home mandate and the governor's stay home order probably for another week. So we're being very cautious about this and, really, we're seeing that our residents are actually doing this. We've got some independent data that's showing about 73 percent less movement throughout the city. I obviously am around through the city all day, and I'm seeing that it's pretty empty and it's encouraging that people are listening and we need them to really push through this. We know it's a very difficult thing to have to do, but it's very necessary to stop the spread of this virus.

SCIUTTO: Understood. Some folks have looked to Mardi Gras there, of course, a big event in New Orleans, as one reason why it spread quickly early on. Is that what your data is telling you?

ARNOLD: I mean, really, certainly we had over a million-and-a-half people in the city, including international visitors, you know, all attending parades daily. I think that that's obviously probably an issue for what we've seen in New Orleans.

SCIUTTO: Understood. Let me ask you now about help, because so many states have been reaching out to the federal government for help, not getting it fast enough, not getting as much as they need. What does your state need, and is it getting what it needs?

ARNOLD: Well, we've been part of a pilot drive-through testing program with HHS and FEMA, and we've really -- you know, we're going to have 3,000 tests accomplished by the end of the day just in Orleans Parish in the City of New Orleans. And that's a great partnership. We've been told we'll get resupplied today and tomorrow to do another week of testing, and that's encouraging.

But I think what you're seeing nationally is we need more protective equipment. Our first responders are still out there responding, some of them exposed. They're following CDC guidelines, but we need more PPE, we need more ventilators. Obviously, the hospital surge is a huge concern right now. And I'll just put out there that our food banks are running out of food. They're going to be out of food, I know ours in New Orleans in about two days. The USVA really needs to give us a waiver to get in the emergency food program, and it hasn't happened yet.

SCIUTTO: Food shortages. Final question, the governor of a neighboring state is saying stay-at-home rules is just not necessary now. Based on your vantage point, are they necessary?

ARNOLD: They're absolutely necessary. We need our people to stay home. And somebody is saying that, they're not doing enough testing. That's the bottom line. It just hasn't affected them yet, but it's in their community. It is there. This is going to be the disaster that's going to define our generation.

SCIUTTO: Goodness. Yes, I think there's a lot of evidence of that. And let me just extend my thanks to you, because it's folks like you that are doing a lot of the hardest work to keep this under control. We wish you the best of luck, we wish your community the best of luck.

ARNOLD: Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

SCIUTTO: Well, another state we're checking in on the coronavirus cases in California. They're doubling every three to four days, according to California's Health and Human Services secretary. 53 people have died so far. There are more than 2,500 cases statewide.

Joining me from Palo Alto, California, Dr. Alexei Wagner. He is an emergency medicine physician at Stanford Health Care in California. Doctor, good to have you on. What we've been trying to do today is go to as many places in the country to get a view from that community as to how it's affecting them and how quickly it's growing there. Tell us what you're seeing at your hospital there, case rate, infection rates still growing, and do you have what you need to respond it?

DR. ALEXEI WAGNER, EMERGENCY MEDICINE PHYSICIAN, STANFORD HEALTH CARE: Yes. So thanks for having me. It's been an exciting couple weeks right now, trying to prepare. I want to say that the shelter in place and social isolation seems to be working. We've had a little bit of lull in our emergency department volumes over the last couple weeks, which has really given us the opportunity to prepare. It's all preparation, it's all trying to figure out how we can build capacity in the system with ICU beds, ventilators, dialysis machines, blood banking. And this lead time with the shelter in place has really given us a chance to make the preparations we need for what we expect is going to be a surge of patients in the next one to two weeks.

SCIUTTO: Yes, and that's what we're hearing in so many communities, in next one to two weeks being key. So you're confident that when that happens, you will have, for instance, not just enough ventilators to treat those affected but how about protective equipment to keep the healthcare workers, doctors like yourself safe?

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WAGNER: Yes. So that's creating a little bit of uneasiness and anxiety amongst the healthcare providers around here. Currently, we have the PPE we need but we don't know exactly how this virus is going to last. So will it be two weeks, four weeks, six weeks? And that unknown is creating a little bit of a fear within providers around the State of California is will we have what we need. And it's making people be creative about 3D printing protective equipment and the rapid adoption of digital health to use as a way that we can interact with patients without being right next to the bedside, allowing us to reserve PPE and then letting our providers to be safe and not exposed to the virus.

SCIUTTO: Yes, I hear about -- my sister is a doctor. Talk about explosion in telehealth here which might be a lasting change. I know it's early there, but California is a state that early on issued these stay-at-home orders. In the data, are you seeing an effect from that? Are you seeing any evidence of a flattening of the curve?

WAGNER: I think we have felt the flattening of the curve, at least over the past couple weeks. We've also been ramping up testing. We have the capacity now to test well over a thousand patients per day at our home institution, and we're hoping that the flattening will continue and allow that surge to slow down so we can build the capacity we need and then also prevent provider burnout, which we're really concerned about as well.

SCIUTTO: Well, that's good news. We hope that trend continues. Dr. Alexei Wagner, good luck to you and your team.

WAGNER: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: Still to come this hour, New York City has become an epicenter of this crisis in the United States and the world. Hospitals there already overwhelmed. We're going to speak to the commissioner of New York City's Emergency Management Department, next.

Plus, the U.S. is ordering a 60-day freeze on overseas troop movement in the middle of this pandemic. We're following all the breaking headlines.

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SCIUTTO: Even as the virus spreads around the country, New York City remains the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. And we saw another surge in cases overnight, hospitals are being overwhelmed, supplies are already running low. Take a moment to watch this video. It shows what it's like inside Elmhurst Hospital, which had 13 deaths in just the last 24 hours.

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DR. COLLEEN SMITH, EMERGENCY ROOM DOCTOR, ELMHURST HOSPITAL: Leaders in various offices, from the president to the head of health and hospitals, saying things like we're going to be fine. Everything is fine. And from our perspective, everything is not fine. I don't have the support that I need and even just the materials that I need physically to take care of my patients. And it's America, and we're supposed to be a first world country.

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SCIUTTO: That's not a unique outlier perspective. We've heard it from so many doctors around the country.

Joining me now is Commissioner of New York City's Emergency Management Department, Deanne Criswell, so good to have you on, and we appreciate it because I know you got a lot on your plate. DEANNE CRISWELL, COMMISSIONER, NEW YORK CITY EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT DEPARTMENT: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: First, I want to get your reaction to that, when you hear from a doctor saying, here we are, first world country and I can't get the resources, the equipment, the help I need.

CRISWELL: I think she's spot on. We are starting to see some equipment and supplies flow in, but we asked and anticipated this need weeks ago and we're just starting to see it come into our city. And, really, what it's doing right now is buying us time, which is what we need right this minute, but we're going to continue to need more, and we need to figure out how do we continue that flow of resources in here so we can take care of those patients that need it most.

SCIUTTO: Tell us what it's like -- there is a scramble now. CNN reported yesterday the president is now reaching out to countries abroad for ventilators, the most basic equipment. You hear of state versus state, hospital versus hospital. You got New York to handle. How do you -- how does one source 100 ventilators if you need them? How do you find them?

CRISWELL: We need thousands of ventilators, not hundreds. We need thousands of ventilators. And I understand that this is a need across the country, and there's a very tough job for the federal government to figure out how are they going to distribute such a scarce resource.

I think one of the things, again, that needs to happen is use of the federal authorities to the Defense Protection Act if they can mandate -- maybe they have and I'm just not up to speed on what they have and haven't -- that some companies start to build these for us. They have that ability to do that through these laws.

SCIUTTO: I want to ask you about the trajectory of infections in New York at this point. Andrew Cuomo said yesterday not seeing a slowing, actually seeing an acceleration. Is there any evidence that the shutdown, the stay-at-home orders, are beginning to flatten the curve, as it's known, to slow the rate of infection?

CRISWELL: You know, my focus right now is not necessarily on the number of new positive cases. We're testing more and we're going to continue to have those numbers go up. And we're going into this assuming that everybody, if you were to get tested, could potentially be positive. Our focus is on that 20 percent that are going to be the most sick from this and really watching the numbers of people that are getting hospitalized, and that changes every day. The numbers that go into ICU and that change every day increase exponentially and the numbers that eventually die from this disease.

[10:25:03]

Those are the numbers I have to focus on so I can plan for the resources.

Really, the total number of cases, it's going to continue to go up because we do keep testing but I have to focus on that piece of it so I can get the right people, the medical staff, the supplies that they need, and then the facility surge phase so we can treat them.

SCIUTTO: Are you already running into situations where you have to say no, where you can't get the equipment that a hospital needs to respond to this?

CRISWELL: We are not there yet, but it's through the ability to be creative, to redistribute it across our hospitals. The biggest thing I need right now is to be able to decant patients from our current hospitals into like what they're building right now at the Javits Center so we can open up the space in the hospitals to get the best care for them.

And we do have resources on the ground right now to help build that out, but, honestly, the discussion and the planning for what it's going to look like is just taking too long. They need to get these facilities up and running now so we can relieve the pressure from the hospitals, move those patients that don't need to be in there for COVID-related care so I can start to increasing the level of care in the hospital system itself.

SCIUTTO: Understood. Well, again, we always appreciate when you take the time to talk to us. We want to get the word out for you so you're getting the help that you need, but I also want to thank you because I know you're working and your team is working damn hard at this.

CRISWELL: Yes. This is definitely a whole city approach, without a doubt. Everybody is doing things that they never even in their wildest dream thought that they would be doing. It is a disaster that nobody could have anticipated.

SCIUTTO: Yes. The doctor -- well, actually an emergency preparedness person from New Orleans just moments ago said this is the crisis of our time. Deanne Criswell, good luck to you.

CRISWELL: Thank you very much.

SCIUTTO: The U.S. military has been brought to a halt by coronavirus troops, ordered to stay where they are as the virus spread. We're going to have more on the national security impact of that around the world just ahead.

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