[Applause]
this has become a nightly event in
Madrid medical personnel and other
emergency workers taking a moment to
applaud one another a morale boost from
the frontline of Europe's second biggest
outbreak one in which some 10% of
Spanish health workers have themselves
been infected with corona virus but
Madrid's grief for its departed is far
less see let alone heard it happens in
crematoria like this one or like so much
else here behind closed doors with over
2,000 dead in Spain so far the municipal
funeral home here says it's run out of
equipment to safely collect bodies and
it will stop from tomorrow the Spanish
capital has now begun its second week in
lockdown
the most obvious presence on otherwise
empty streets are the police finding
motorists if they can't justify the
importance of their journey only trips
to work to a supermarket to a pharmacy
or to a hospital are permitted with
Spain's Prime Minister now planning to
extend this state of emergency until
April the 11th Spanish soldiers entered
nursing homes today to disinfect them in
some places it was too late the Ministry
of Defense says troops have found dead
people inside almost 400,000 elderly
residents are cut off from their
families in homes which often lack
ventilators and some care home staff are
too scared or too sick to come to work
themselves the gnawing fear here as in
so much of Europe is that if cases
continue to rise the hospitals may not
be able to cope this conference centre
on the outskirts of Madrid is being
turned into a giant military hospital a
thousand beds are due to be in place in
the next 48 hours though eventually they
hope to have space for five and a half
thousand patients this morning the first
ambulances bringing
new cases started to arrive I'm in a
terrible state that we have to go on we
have to fight may everyone find the
courage in holiday resorts hotels are
now emptying after the government
ordered them all to close by tomorrow
yet with so many planes grounded and
flights canceled many foreign tourists
who left it too late are still trying to
find a way of getting home police on the
island of Majorca offered their own
antidote to enforced isolation
[Music]
serenading local residents confined to
their homes standing in doorways and
watching from windows
but Italy remains Europe's epicenter
this is a social distancing cue for a
supermarket in rainy sicily after the
islands grocery shops closed at the
weekend they're waiting above all to be
able to say the worst is over for the
discernible trend of a slowing death
rate finally to emerge and in one
crematorium in northern Italy over a
hundred coffins lined up and awaiting
disposal so many Italians dying that
army trucks are on standby to help
remove the dead Te'o recommended or mus
repertoire T in theory we're used to
seeing this because our job is dealing
with coffins this situation is also
difficult for us now we understand the
exceptional nature of this crisis we
realize how many families in the most
affected areas are suffering in France
the Army has been deployed to build a
field hospital in the eastern city of
Malou
30 intensive care beds have been readied
after local hospitals were overwhelmed
neighboring Germany and Switzerland have
said they will take French patients if
necessary and the French Navy has been
sent to the island of Corsica evacuating
those with breathing problems those
patients on drips or ventilators or in
need of oxygen in order to get breathing
space to intensive care units which
otherwise could not cope well now in the
United States in the last hour senators
have again blocked a 1.8 trillion dollar
economic stimulus package has Democrats
say that they were still negotiating
with the Trump administration about what
it should include our Washington
correspondent forum Kennedy has more
well John there are now 41,000 cases of
the virus here in the US third only to
China and Italy and incredibly more than
half of those cases in one single state
that's New York that is grappling to
deal with this crisis which really makes
the Senate's failure to pass this
emergency funding bill even more stark
the Democrats say that they won't let it
pass because it focuses more on the
welfare of corporations than it does on
hospitals and ordinary people the talks
are ongoing hopefully they will come to
some agreement later on today that's
what they're promising we know that
President Trump is desperate for them to
reach an agreement he really wants to
flood the market with billions and
billions worth of dollars we know how
worried he is about the impact all of
this is having on the economy
incidentally as Paul was mentioning
there here to the economy The Wall
Street has wiped out practically all of
its gains since the president came to
power in fact all of those gains have
now been completely wiped out and he has
tweeted today we cannot let the Cure be
worse than the problem itself though I
have to say there are many people
including the medical experts within his
own inner circle who would say that the
cure given the spread of this virus
cannot be tough enough
medical supplies being loaded onto the
u.s. naval ship mercy a giant floating
hospital with a thousand beds headed for
the Port of Los Angeles
the epicenter of the viral crisis in
California over the weekend the state
was declared a major disaster zone
freeing up billions in federal funding
as it's near 40 million residents remain
in lockdown further north the National
Guard was deployed alongside the young
in a food bank in Sacramento it's
usually manned by elderly volunteers but
with them now in isolation and demand
for food supplies rising they had to
call in the military something that I
never thought would happen in my
lifetime and just to know like them
being out here just shows how serious
this issue is just because the world
shut down doesn't mean that need has
shut down in New York City a huge
conference center is being converted
into an emergency hospital amid warnings
that 3,000 intensive care beds will
somehow need to grow to 30,000 across
the state to cope with the massive
influx of infected patients its biggest
challenge the dwindling supply of
critical medical equipment like masks
and ventilators we're a country not
based on nationalizing our business
despite proudly signing the defense
production Act to require companies to
make those supplies President Trump
remains reluctant to use it for fear it
will look too socialist call a person
over in Venezuela ask him how did
nationalization of their businesses work
out not too well but with nearly 21,000
cases in New York State alone and a
hundred and fifty-seven deaths
its governor said now was not the time
to worry about perceptions yes it is an
assertion of government power on private
sector companies yes but so what this is
a national emergency
over on Wall Street an eerie quiet
descended as traders for the first time
ever began an indefinite period of
trading from home but that didn't stop
the screens from turning red as a
promise trillion dollar-plus
economic relief bill failed to
materialize Democrats in Congress said
the new law favored corporations over
ordinary people and voted against it
Republicans predictably said they were
playing party politics the bill now
contains a huge number of changes that
our Democratic colleagues requested
including major changes we were this
close this close it's not just Wall
Street waiting for economic relief to
layoff 50 people it it's just
mind-boggling
I had a layoff my husband across America
millions of small businesses like this
comedy club in Washington DC have made
the agonizing decision to shut up shop
they hope temporarily
I can't keep people employed here if I'm
gonna whether as a business this storm I
don't want to cry now and I was trying
to practice this so I wouldn't but it
was just heart wrenching and the
uncertainty for my staff and I can't
help them and I want to help them is
it's brutal her staff now among the near
700,000 Americans making unemployment
claims a tiny fraction of what's
expected in the weeks to come and it was
students on spring break sunbathing not
social distancing in Florida last week
that led to this state government taking
matters into its own hands and banning
bathers from the beaches