New York Hospital Struggle to Stay Ahead of Virus; Stay-At- Home Orders Issued in Florida, Georgia and Mississippi; Pence Seeks to Blame CDC, China for Delayed Response; Giant Wave of Jobless Claims Expected in U.S.
ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to our viewers joining us here in the United States and all around the world. You are watching CNN NEWSROOM and I'm Rosemary Church. Just ahead, skyrocketing cases of the coronavirus in the U.S. Doctors are overwhelmed. Medical supplies are short, and more states are under stay at home orders. So should you wear a mask? There's no shortage of debate as the U.S. re-examines its guidance. And who says social distancing can't be fun? This video of a young child and her grandfather will bring a smile to your face. Thanks for being with us. Well, the worldwide number of people infected with COVID-19 is rapidly rising to 1 million. Johns Hopkins University has recorded more than 47,000 deaths so far, a figure expected to go far higher in coming weeks. The United States has some of the sharpest daily increases anywhere. Johns Hopkins has counted 216,000 cases to date and over 5,000 fatalities. If government forecasts are correct, the death toll among Americans could eventually hit a quarter million or more. It is astounding. Stay-at-home orders in dozens of states have not slowed the disease from spiking up over the past month. The U.S. death toll has doubled in just a few days, and with more than 940 deaths recorded just on Wednesday. Well, New York has far more cases of COVID-19 than any other place in the United States. More than 84,000. Doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals are racing to keep up with the growing numbers of patients, and we get the latest now from CNN's Erica Hill.</s>ERICA HILL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On the front lines the need never seems to end.</s>DR. STEVEN MCDONALD, EMERGENCY ROOM PHYSICIAN: Everyone requires oxygen. Everyone is borderline critical.</s>HILL: In New York as the numbers grow, so does the warning.</s>ANDREW CUOMO, NEW YORK GOVERNOR: 16,000 deaths in New York. That means you're going to have tens of thousands of deaths outside of New York. It says it's a New York problem today, tomorrow it's a Kansas problem and a Texas problem and a New Mexico problem.</s>HILL: More than 30 states now have statewide stay-at-home orders. The latest, Florida, the country's third most populous state. The governor there, reversing course today amid mounting pressure.</s>RON DESANTIS, FLORIDA GOVERNOR: You know, at this point I think even though there's a lot of places in Florida that have very low infection rates, it makes sense to make this move now.</s>DR. ROBERT REDFIELD, CDC DIRECTOR: A significant number of individuals that are infected actually remain asymptomatic. It may be as many as 25 percent. We have learned that, in fact, they do contribute to transmission.</s>HILL: New hot spots adding to the strain. Holyoke, Massachusetts, is now on the radar. The governor ordering an investigation into why several veterans at one facility died from coronavirus. In Albany, Georgia, more than 20 percent of that states coronavirus deaths have been recorded at one hospital. As New Orleans cautions, they could run out of ventilators this week.</s>DR. CORNELIA GRIGGS, PEDIATRIC SURGEON FELLOW, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY: It feels like coronavirus is everywhere and it feels like we have very little to protect us from getting sick ourselves.</s>HILL: Experts and officials warning to keep the death toll down, it's time for a nationwide plan.</s>DR. LEANA WEN, EMERGENCY ROOM PHYSICIAN: We need people to do their part. Social distancing as a part of it. We also need the federal government to do a lot more, too, because that rationing of ventilators, that rationing of supplies, that's also going to be what leads to unnecessary deaths.</s>HILL: The numbers, the hot spots, the urgent need tell part of this story, but it is the personal struggles and loss that reveal the lasting impact.</s>ELIJAH ROSS-RUTTER, MOTHER DIED OF COVID-19: They took a walkie- talkie and they placed the walkie-talkie right by her bedside on the pillow.</s>HILL: Elijah Ross-Rutter and his five siblings couldn't be next to their mother to say good-bye last month.</s>ROSS-RUTTER: It's a moment that nobody really ever wants to be in. I told her I loved her. I told her everything is going to be all right with the kids. Sandie Rutter, who survives stage-4 breast cancer was 42.</s>HILL (on camera): Here in New York City the death toll has now risen to 1,941. We've talked so much about the overcrowded conditions at the hospital behind me, the Elmhurst hospital here in Queens. We can tell you that today in Central Park where a field hospital was being built, that field hospital has now received its first coronavirus patient. Back to you.</s>CHURCH: Thanks so much for that. And critics have accused the Trump administration for a delayed response to the coronavirus pandemic that has turned the U.S. upside down. But as CNN's Jim Acosta reports, Vice President Mike Pence appears to be casting part of the blame on the CDC and China.</s>JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): No longer downplaying the coronavirus as he had for weeks, President Trump is warning of difficult days ahead.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I want every American to be prepared for the hard days that lie ahead. We're going to go through a very tough two weeks.</s>ACOSTA: In an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, Vice President Mike Pence, head of the coronavirus task force, compared the crisis to the dire situation in Italy, which has been devastated by the virus.</s>MIKE PENCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: We think Italy may be the most comparable area to the United States at this point.</s>ACOSTA: But the White House is shifting the blame pointing fingers at the Centers for Disease Control.</s>PENCE: I will be very candid with you and say that in mid-January the CDC was still assessing that the risk of the coronavirus to the American people was low.</s>ACOSTA: But hold on. Back in January a top CDC official said the U.S. should be gearing up for a pandemic.</s>DR. NANCY MESSONNIER, CDC BRIEFING, JANUARY 26: We need to be preparing as if this is a pandemic but I continue to hope that it is not.</s>ACOSTA: Pence also accused China of not being transparent enough.</s>WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Didn't the United States as a whole get off to a late start?</s>PENCE: Well, the reality is that we could have been better off if China had been more forthcoming. I don't believe the President has ever belittled the threat of the coronavirus.</s>ACOSTA: Tell that to the President who praised China's handling of the coronavirus back in February and claimed the U.S. had it all under control.</s>TRUMP: I've spoken to President Xi and they're working very hard and if you know anything about him, I think he'll be in pretty good shape. I think it's going to be under control and I think I can speak for our country. For our country's under control.</s>ACOSTA: Now top officials are spreading the word that the extension of the nation's social distancing guideline amount to an order to every American to stay home.</s>DR. JEROME ADAMS, U.S. SURGEON GENERAL: My advice to America would be that these guidelines are a national stay-at-home order. They're guidelines that say that, look, the more we social distance, the more we stay at home, the less spread of the disease there will be.</s>ACOSTA: The President has dismissed the notion that he gave Americans a false sense of security.</s>ACOSTA (on camera): You were saying it is going to go away --</s>TRUMP: Well, it is.</s>ACOSTA: -- and that sort of thing, but --</s>TRUMP: But, Jim, it's going to go away. It's going to go away. Hopefully at the end of the month, and if not, it will hopefully be soon after that.</s>ACOSTA: When you were saying this is under control and --</s>TRUMP: I thought it could be. I knew everything. I knew it could be horrible and I knew it could be maybe good.</s>ACOSTA (voice-over): Even as he's telling Americans they may want to wear scarves like masks if they go outside.</s>TRUMP: You can use a scarf. A scarf is -- everybody -- a lot of people have scarves. And you can use a scarf. A scarf would be very good.</s>ACOSTA: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told CNN, she hopes the President finally gets it.</s>REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), HOUSE SPEAKER: I pray that he does. I do think that the testing is essential. You're never going to be able to know what the challenge is unless you have the testing.</s>ACOSTA: Pelosi rejected the excuse floated by top Republicans that the President was somehow distracted by the impeachment saga which ended nearly two months ago. Even as the President continued to hold rallies and play golf.</s>PELOSI: That's an admission that perhaps the President and the majority leader could not handle the job.</s>CHURCH: Little reality check there from Jim Acosta. Well, stock markets in the U.S. are hoping to bounce back from Wednesday's massive decline. All indices have fallen by more than 4 percent but right now futures are up all across the board. In the coming hours the U.S. Labor Department is expected to release its weekly jobless claims report. Some experts believe it will show a record number of people filing for unemployment benefits. So let's go live to New York with our chief business correspondent, Christine Romans. Always good to see you, Christine.</s>CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.</s>CHURCH: So in just a few hours we will get those weekly jobless claims. How bad will they likely be?</s>ROMANS: They'll be devastating. I mean, they're going to show exactly what happens when you press the pause button on the mighty American economy and the dynamic American job market. Millions of people lost their job in the last week. And the range is everything from 3.5 to more than 6 million layoffs or furloughs in the most recent week. I think you're going to get a number in the millions. And every one of those numbers is a person who lost a job or was furloughed who is now worried about health care, about rent, about paychecks. So this is a really kind of devastating situation. And the snapshot here is going to show you that you probably have an unemployment rate in the United States right now that's already, you know, higher than 8 percent, approaching 10 percent.</s>CHURCH: Just horrifying, isn't it? And of course, as more people lose their jobs during this pandemic, the bills keep coming in, don't they?</s>ROMANS: Yes.</s>CHURCH: So what tools are available to help people cope with all of this?</s>ROMANS: So there's this gap here between when the economy stopped for so many people and when the money's going to come. You know, there is stimulus money that is coming. And people who are on social security, you're going to get a $1,200 check direct deposited. People who are taxpayers are going to get this $1,200 direct deposit into their accounts. You've got unemployed people that when they can finally get through to the states and file for unemployment benefits, they will get enhanced unemployment benefits for four months approaching as close as possible the pay that they were making before. If you are one of those retail workers that has been furloughed and you had health care before you were furloughed, the stimulus package is designed, Rosemary, so that you keep your health care. Your company pays your health care and the government pays your jobless benefits for four months here. And the idea is that when you restart the economy, you have this ready work force ready to deploy. So the important thing is that there are these tools in place to try to make people at least whole for the next few months as we get through this.</s>CHURCH: Wow. It's going to be tough. And that's going to be quite a process getting those checks out to people, isn't be it? Christine Romans, thank you so much.</s>ROMANS: You're welcome.</s>CHURCH: We'll Take a short break here. But still to come, what happens when the nurses who are treating patients with coronavirus can't get tested themselves? That is the case for one nurse in New York who wound up working while infected.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's so easy to get contaminated when you have to put on something that already has virus on it.</s>CHURCH: Her story in just a moment.