Urgent Race To Solve Mystery Of U.S Patient's Contacts; Coronavirus Puts Markets On Track For Most Week Since 2008
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: I'm Brianna Keilar and this is CNN's special live coverage of the coronavirus. As the world takes drastic measures to stop its spread, the World Health Organization is saying the outbreak has hit the highest level of alert. In Northern California, health investigators are focused on tracking the infection of a single patient who is the first known person in the U.S. to contract the coronavirus without any contact with someone from the infected regions. What may be more troubling is how health workers came in contact with the patient before the virus was diagnosed. And in Washington, a whistleblower says the HHS Department did not adequately prepare or train its workers when they were sent to bring Americans home from China, some of whom had been infected with the virus. Administration officials though are denying that claim. On Wall Street, fear of the unknown has caused investors to hit the panic button. It's sending the markets through the worst week since the 2008 Financial Crisis. On Thursday, we saw a nearly 1,200-point drop in the Dow. And as you can see, we are down over 400 points just today. One industry to watch is pharmaceuticals, because China is the number two exporter of drugs and biologic products to the United States, one company is saying its drug has already been pushed onto the FDA drug shortage list because of production concerns in China, and more are expected to follow. Then the travel industry is being hit hard by coronavirus fears. Hundreds of thousands of flights in and out of Asia have been canceled, and now add Europe to that list as airlines cancel flights to Italy because of the surge in cases near Milan. Meantime, as he attempts to allay fears, President Trump said this.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's going to disappear one day, it's like a miracle. It will disappear. And from our shores it could get worse before it gets better. It could maybe go away, we'll see what happens. Nobody really knows.</s>KEILAR: So back to the mystery now surrounding this first suspected case of community spread coronavirus. Officials in Northern California are tracing the movements of this one patient. They're trying to track down all of the people they came into contact with before being diagnosed. Let's go to Stephanie Elam. She is there in Davis, California for us. And, Stephanie, they're also trying at this point to figure out how this patient was even infected.</s>STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Exactly, Brianna. We're actually outside of U.C. Davis Medical Center here in Sacramento, where she is being treated. But she is a resident of Solano County, about 20 miles or so away from where are now. We know she was in the community there for a couple of days before she went to the hospital there in Vacaville, which was also in that county, was there for three days before transferred by ambulance here to the medical center. The reason why all of this is noteworthy is that she was not tested for coronavirus until she got here to the medical center. So in light of that, what we do know is that her family has been quarantined and also the hospital saying that any hospital worker that came into contact with her, they are now monitoring them. Some of them are quarantined, some isolated, some are just at home monitoring their own symptoms. They are saying it is dozens of hospital workers that they are monitoring but it's less than 100 people. They're also looking at a few people she could have come into contact in those first early days and she may have been asymptomatic. They are looking at that as well. And then another big concern that has been talked about a lot, Brianna, the fact that this is the home, Solano County, is to Travis Air Force Base, where we saw those planes coming in repatriating Americans who were in China who were coming point of concern, as the governor put it. They are saying that this woman had no contact with anyone from Travis Air Force Base and that is a part of the conundrum of how she got sick in the first place, Brianna.</s>KEILAR: All right. Stephanie Elam, thank you so much for keeping an eye on that from Sacramento for us. Governor Gavin Newsom says California is monitoring more than 8,000 people right now for possible coronavirus infection, but he adds that the entire state has only received 200 testing kits. Joining me on the phone is Steve Huddleston. He's the Vice President of Public Affairs for NorthBay Healthcare, which is this facility that initially saw this first identified patient to contract coronavirus without a connection to someone who came from an infected area. Steve, thank you so much for joining us. It's significant to point out that it was 11 days between when this patient was first admitted to your facility and their diagnosis at U.C. Davis Medical Center. Your facility, NorthBay, wanted the patient tested for coronavirus. This patient was not tested. Tell us why.</s>STEVE HUDDLESTON, VICE PRESIDENT OF PUBLIC AFFARIS, NORTHBAY HEALTHCARE: Well, thank you for having me, Brianna. In fact, we did not request that the CDC test this patient while in our facility because the patient did not meet that criteria that the CDC has laid out in terms of what symptoms that patient would have before they would qualify to have the test. That occurred after we transferred this patient to the UCD Medical Center in Sacramento.</s>KEILAR: Okay, so that occurred afterward. And I wonder, with this lack of tests, knowing that you now have a community spread issue, how concerned are you? Do you have the tests that you need if people come in and are exhibiting symptoms? And they may not meet the criteria, but now they don't need to, right, with this being a community spread issue?</s>HUDDLESTON: Well, the guidance that we're going to follow, of course, is now being directed by the public health experts and under the guidance of the CDC, which has now sent a contingent of experts into our community and they're working very closely with our clinicians. How that protocol will change over time, and we expect that it will, is still pretty much in a state of flux. I think this case has probably caused all of us and including the CDC, to reconsider when those test will be administered to patients moving forward.</s>KEILAR: Are any of these health workers there at NorthBay who came into contact with this patient during what appears to be the incubation period, are any of them showing symptoms?</s>HUDDLESTON: Well, we're not certain how many or if any are having any serious symptoms. I mean, this is the cold and flu season, so just like everyone else in the community, many people in the work force have shown symptoms of flu-like measures. But the Department of Public Health is the one monitoring all of our workers now that they are no longer -- we've sent them home, and they're now under the care of the Department of Public Health. They will be the agency that will now monitor their condition on a regular basis, daily basis, from this point forward.</s>KEILAR: So do you know if they've been tested for coronavirus if they're exhibiting symptoms? Because it sounds like you're not ruling out they may be exhibiting symptoms. The issue is, is it the normal flu or a standard cold or is the coronavirus?</s>HUDDLESTON: No. Our understanding is some of our individual workers have been tested.</s>KEILAR: They have been tested. Okay. Steve Huddleston, thank you so much for joining us. And right now, Let's take a which can of how the coronavirus crisis is affecting the stock market, down over 450 points right now. Closing out the month today with a drop like this, coupled with other massive drops this week, means it is the worst month since the Financial Crisis of 2008 for the stock market. Let's talk to Diane Swonk. She is joining us now from Chicago. She is the Chief Economist for Grant Thornton, an audit, tax and financial advisory service. And tell us about how -- I wonder how you are seeing this, because we're getting mixed signals, right? Goldman Sachs has predicted U.S. companies will see zero growth for the year due to the virus. The president's director of his National Economic Council, Larry Kudlow, says he doesn't think this week's stock market drop will have much of a long-term impact. So what are you expecting?</s>DIANE SWONK, CHIEF ECONOMIST, GRANT THORNTON: Well, actually, what we know from other epidemics, like the Ebola epidemic, the World Economic Forum has actually done estimates on what it does to economies. And it is pretty devastating what this do, and we're talking about something that's global in scope. 80 to 90 percent of economic losses that we endure are due to the behavioral response of what is really a sort of political paradox for firms and for governments. The line between prudence and panic is do you close things down to stop the spread of the virus, which is what they're doing, and quarantine people to stop the spread of the virus because that's an imminent health threat, but that also undermines economic wellbeing of the global economy. And I think that's what we're seeing ripple through the stock market now is that this is global in scope, it has real economic cost to it that are not easily recouped. If you don't buy a sweater in February, you're not going to go back and buy a sweater in April. If you don't show up at a game of public sporting event, as they're saying in Italy now, playing the events, but not allowed to show up in the stadium, you're not going to re-buy that same ticket and go back and recoup that loss for those stadium in the near future. So this is really something that's a very different kind of economic shock and it's hard to deal with with the simple tools of fiscal or monetary stimulus, because they're designed to get people out spending right now. But how do you get people in quarantine to actually spend or the fear factor that lingers after that?</s>KEILAR: Yes. Okay, so lost sales are truly lost, which is alarming. When it comes to the Fed, because we've heard a lot of discussion about this, how do you see the Fed fitting into a solution? And that may speak to the point you just made as well.</s>SWONK: Well, their tools are limited. That said, on the margin, companies that have a lot of debt, which frankly we have a lot of corporate debt in the United States, it's not very highly rated right now. Those companies, to blunt the blow, it's not a cure-all, but lowering short-term interests by the Fed can make debt a little cheaper and easier to service going forward to blunt the blow. They can't reverse the blow, which is very important, and even tax cuts or handouts like Hong Kong is doing don't make much difference if people are still afraid go out to the stores. But it can blunt the blow and also calm the panic that we're seeing take root in the financial markets. So we do expect the Federal Reserve to cut rates because, ultimately, they have a mandate to respond to a weak economy and we will get a significant weakening in both the global and U.S. economy in response to this.</s>KEILAR: All right. Diane, thank you so much for that reality check. Diane Swonk, we appreciate it. And around the world, governments are in crisis mode. Schools are being shut down, Friday prayers canceled, even Disney Parks in Tokyo are closing. We're going to take you there. Plus, the Trump administration under fire for once again downplaying this outbreak. And 2020 rivals swarming the trail just hours before the critical primary in South Carolina. Hear how much is being spent in this race.