Four Reported Cases in U.S. of Coronavirus Not Related to Travel; U.S. Health Facilities Prepare for Possible Coronavirus Pandemic; World Stock Markets Falter over Fears of Coronavirus Spread
CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to Saturday. Good morning to you. It's February 29th. I'm Christi Paul.</s>VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Victor Blackwell. You are in the CNN Newsroom.</s>PAUL: We want to get to our top stories for you this hour. First of all, we know there are now at least four coronavirus cases in the U.S. that are not travel related. These are new cases.</s>BLACKWELL: Also, voting happening right now in South Carolina, the Democratic primary, 54 delegates up for grabs.</s>PAUL: And the U.S. has just signed an historic agreement with the Taliban that could eventually lead to thousands of U.S. troops coming home.</s>BLACKWELL: For the latest on the new coronavirus cases we're joined by CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen. Elizabeth, we now have these four cases that are not travel related. I wonder -- we also know they've not been in contact with anyone who has the virus. Is this now just kind of freely spreading through communities?</s>ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Right. It's actually called "community spread," and that's exactly what's going on here. Once you're finding patients who are getting coronavirus and they didn't travel to China or any other coronavirus hot spot, and they don't know anyone who did, they just got it from somewhere. Infectious disease experts have told me, look, we need to start thinking about this kind of like the flu. When you get the flu, you don't necessarily know who gave it to you. Sometimes you do -- oh, my husband got the flu and then I got it. But sometimes you just get it because it's just out there. And now that we have more tests available, which was not the case even days ago, we're going to see more of this.</s>PAUL: So when we think of the flu in your perspective here, we think of kids being most vulnerable. It's kind of the opposite with this case, is it not?</s>COHEN: Yes. With flu we often think of the very old and the very young. And this, you're absolutely right. For this virus and this could change because things are always changing with this virus, but even looking at the experience in China, it seems much more to be something that is devastating for the very old. For example, there was a study that looked at a cluster in a Chinese family, and the two children had no symptoms whatsoever. They were infected but had no symptoms whatsoever. But the grandfather passed away. So it's interesting to see that, that it's not the very old and the very young from what we can tell.</s>BLACKWELL: So we know that the World Health Organization, the head of the WHO says that this could become a pandemic. What are the preparations now for that potential?</s>COHEN: Right. So the preparations are, as far as you and me and individuals, what we should be doing, it doesn't really matter what you call it. It really is common sense. Washing your hands, staying home if you're sick, and don't get near someone -- I know this sounds obvious -- but if someone walks toward you and says, give me a hug, how are you, and they are sneezing, have a fever, do not hug them, do not shake their hands. Really, this is common sense stuff. It doesn't matter that it's not being call a pandemic just yet.</s>PAUL: But we know California is monitoring these, I think with 8,000 people who flew in from overseas on regularly scheduled flights. If they -- so does that mean that if they come into contact with somebody they are automatically at risk? What is the incubation period here?</s>COHEN: So the incubation period is believed to be about five days, but the range is pretty high. That's sort of what they believe it is approximately. So it's really important. So those people should be quarantined. And so hopefully they are not coming into contact with other people. But it's important to say that these 8,400 people, these are contacts of people who flew in, and the chances are they are going to be fine. When folks have been tracked all over the country who are contacts of travelers, they have turned out to be fine. In fact, the only two contacts that turned out to have coronavirus were spouses of people who had coronavirus. When they tracked their -- traced their friends or the people close to them, those folks did not turn out to have it.</s>PAUL: Good to know. Elizabeth Cohen, thank you so much. Good to see you.</s>COHEN: Thanks.</s>BLACKWELL: As we mentioned, the World Health Organization says coronavirus has, quote, pandemic potential.</s>PAUL: And U.S. health providers this week raised their level of readiness for a possible pandemic. Hospitals and clinics have been taking a look at their supplies. They're wondering if they're going to have enough for a worst-case scenario. CNN's Natasha Chen is with us now. Help us understand what is happening in terms of preparation, because I know that they are running drills now as well.</s>NATASHA CHEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Christi and Victor, we are talking to some metro Atlanta area hospitals who tell me they're running live actor mock scenarios. And we visited one clinic yesterday that ran mock patient drill with one of their staff members.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I recently traveled outside of the country, and I'm thinking I possibly was exposed to the coronavirus.</s>CHEN: This is a drill, and this woman does not have the coronavirus.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Could you put one of these masks on? Just wait right there and I'm going to come around and get you.</s>CHEN: She's actually a medical assistant at an American family care clinic in Marietta, Georgia. Like many hospitals and health care providers across the U.S., this network of clinics is running drills with mock patients to practice responding to a coronavirus outbreak. Were you surprised when you heard that American family care clinics were doing drills this week?</s>DR. ADIL ANSARI, CLINIC PHYSICIAN: No. I was anticipating this was going to happen eventually.</s>CHEN: That moment came when their chief medical officer, Dr. Benjamin Barlow, heard this phrase from the CDC on Tuesday.</s>DR. NANCY MESSONNIER, DIRECTOR OF CDC'S NATIONAL CENTER FOR IMMUNIZATION AND RESPIRATORY DISEASES: It's not so much a question of if this will happen anymore, but rather more a question of exactly when this will happen and how many people in this country will have severe illness.</s>DR. BENJAMIN BARLOW, CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER OF AMERICAN FAMILY CARE CLINICS: That actually is what sparked this for me, because I've been thinking about it. We've been preparing in the background. But as soon as they said that, it was when we decided, all right, let's roll it out, and let's get moving.</s>CHEN: They are drilling everything, taking the patient to a designated room by the exit, testing a swab to rule out the regular flu, bringing in a doctor for further screening, and everyone putting on and removing gear at the right times.</s>ANSARI: It really doesn't allow anything to kind of go through. It's a little bit better than some of the standard masks that you would use.</s>CHEN: But will there be enough of them during a pandemic? The Food and Drug Administration said it is currently not aware of specific widespread shortages, but it has heard reports of increased market demand and supply challenges for some protective gear. While this clinic said they have enough, doctors and health officials across the country say they have received notices about current or anticipated shortages, especially N95 Respirators. In the meantime, drills with mock patients --</s>ANSARI: From here you would immediately go home. We would give your information to the health departments.</s>CHEN: -- are being done at some hospitals around the metro Atlanta area. Others say they regularly practice for general pandemics, which can apply to a coronavirus outbreak.</s>BARLOW: I don't think we should be overly excited about it, but being prepared is the best way to go when you are facing possibilities like these.</s>CHEN: The National Nurses United Union said yesterday that 124 nurses and health care workers at U.C. Davis are now self-quarantined after they were exposed to one patient there, and they stress the importance of facilities being prepared with plans and resources like we just saw. Christi and Victor, back to you.</s>BLACKWELL: Natasha Chen for us. Natasha, thank you.</s>PAUL: Let's talk about global markets, too, because they are rattled by all the uncertainty around this outbreak. This was the worst week for stocks since the financial crisis in 2008.</s>BLACKWELL: It's also putting pressure on supply chains, especially in China. Joining us now, CNN global economic analyst Rana Foroohar. She's also a global business columnist and associate editor for "The Financial Times."</s>PAUL: Rana, thank you so much for being with us. I want to take a look at some of the things that we use on an everyday basis that people may not realize we depend so highly and heavily on China to receive. Medical devices and drug ingredients, but they are the first in exporting medical devices, the second in exporting drug and biologics to us. The Commerce Department in 2018 said China accounts for 95 percent of U.S. imports of ibuprofen, which is Advil, and 70 percent of acetaminophen, which is Tylenol. What would the disruption of these imports look like here if that does happen?</s>RANA FOROOHAR, CNN GLOBAL ECONOMIC ANALYST: We know it's already happening, and it's happening in ways that you can see and in some that you can't, sort of like the virus itself. Sixty percent of companies that are doing business in China say that they have had severe disruptions to their supply chains. You've already seen a lot of them trying to move production to places like Vietnam or Mexico. But those countries can't pick up all the slack. And that's one reason the investment bank, Goldman Sachs, has now predicted that they're not going to see any profit growth in major American firms this year. Before the coronavirus, just to compare, they were expecting six percent profit growth for U.S. companies. That's one of the key reasons why you saw this huge decline in the stock market this week.</s>PAUL: Goldman Sachs warning even of a recession at one point, saying worst case scenario. When you throw that word out there, that really hits a lot of nerves. How realistic is it?</s>FOROOHAR: Well, at this point, it depends on how quickly the virus spreads in the U.S. and how businesses and the government responds to it. So if we get to a situation where people are being asked to stay home, where workplaces are shuttered, where kids are out of school, and parents have to stay home in order to care for them, that means that people can't be working. They can't be spending. And in an economy like ours that has made up 70 percent of consumer spending, when people can't get out to the stores, that's a big deal. That's when you could really start to see a risk of recession being quite real.</s>PAUL: When you talk about the response from the U.S., we know that the next Fed meeting is in about three weeks, and Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said if the coronavirus seriously damages the economy, he could move to perhaps implement some stimulus measures. This is exactly what he said. "The coronavirus poses evolving risks to economic activity. The Federal reserve is closely monitoring developments. There are implications for the economic outlook. We'll use our tools and act as appropriate to support the economy." Now, if it does cut the interest rate by half a percent, which is what is expected, that would be the first emergency rate cut since 2008. What kind of impact would that have, and how long might it take to feel some effects of it?</s>FOROOHAR: Yes, that's a great question. Well, for starters, we are really back at the worst week in the stock market since 2008. Unfortunately, over the last decade, the Fed has already used a lot of their firepower. We've had a decade of relatively low rates and easy money being pumped into the markets by the Fed. So my expectation is, and the markets are expecting this, too, that if you see a rate cut, you might see a slight rally. But I think the underlying story doesn't change. If we are still worried about those factors that I mentioned before, work places being closed, consumers not being able to shop, supply chains disrupted, I think that we're going to see the markets quickly dip again. And I think at best you're going to get a double "w" shape where they're up and down, at worse you might see more of an "l" shape where they're down. And then what's interesting, and what I'm thinking a lot about, is where does that leave us for the presidential elections in November.</s>PAUL: Yes, we'll see what the political implications of that could be certainly. Rana Foroohar, always so good to have you with us. Thank you.</s>FOROOHAR: Thank you.</s>BLACKWELL: Still to come, the South Carolina Democratic primary. Polls have been open for a little more than three hours now. The state party chair says there are signs of stronger turnout than 2016. So who has the edge? We're live in Charleston, next.</s>PAUL: Also, it is one historic handshake. Take a look at it here. Representatives of the U.S. and the Taliban agreeing to work toward peace in Afghanistan. You hear the cheers there. What this new agreement, though, says about U.S. troops coming home and conditions being met.