well John this is a day if not the first
than of staggering proportions not seen
since the height of the global financial
crisis traders said that they knew
things would be bad when they saw the
extent of the oil price declines
overnight so when the markets opened
here there was only really one way
things could go what was most surprising
though was the extent of the declines
which triggered as you mentioned there
John what's known as these circuit
breakers that automatically kick in and
shut the market down that is a very very
rare event here on Wall Street the idea
is that it gives investors a chance to
stop and try and take a breath but when
the markets reopened the screens
immediately went green then as they are
now still behind me as you can see
what's perhaps most worrying John is
that investors really have been pricing
in a global economic slowdown now for
weeks because of this spreading
coronavirus what traders are now saying
though is that the market is pricing in
a full-blown recession the new york
stock exchange it is a historic day of
trading here and uncertainty is recent
we're looking at declines across the
board here in this market there's no
other way to say it they're calling it
Black Monday traders in New York braced
for the worst and within seconds it came
[Music]
at the open shares plummeted to levels
so low it triggered the stock exchange
to automatically shut down this morning
there was definitely some panic in the
air started last night when you started
to see the futures trading down and
everyone was worried about where the
markets were going this morning there
was panic coming through the phones on
the floor traders just trying to rush to
get to the point of sale to get rid of
their stock this was definitely in the
oil markets where I think people started
to fear a global recession so you have a
market that's falling out of control you
have oil markets that are falling out of
control and you have no idea with the
backdrop of a virus globally where all
the chips are going to lie when it's all
said and done the latest panic came as
investors here and around the world
reacted to a crash in the oil markets
and the onward spread of the corona by
unchecked around the globe as the market
reopened after a 15 minute pause Wall
Street's leading share index the S&P 500
tumbled more than 6% markets were
already spooked by the virus and his
impact on the global economy but adding
to their fears and escalating spat
between Russia and Saudi Arabia over oil
prices itself in response to a drastic
fall in demand in the wake of the corona
virus at a meeting of the major oil
producers last week the plan was to cut
production to stabilize the market but
last night Russia refused and instead
ramped up production and slashed prices
not to be outdone Saudi Arabia quickly
followed oil prices tumbled that stunned
the stock markets and the rest is red
ink on the screens the US stock market
followed a pattern set across the world
the foot see in London the DAX in
Germany and the Nikkei in Japan all
tanking trillions wiped off the values
of stocks in drops not seen on most of
the world's markets since the financial
crisis of 2008 investor sir I think a
frightened offer another big crisis this
is the first time that the global
economy and the global markets are being
tested since 2008 there's a really big
moves and clearly the implications are
dramatic the worry is the usual tools
are having little effect the dramatic
cut in US interest rates last week
failing to have its desired impact as
parts of northern Italy went into
lockdown in the US similar action may be
needed here though President Trump who
visited the Center for Disease Control
on Friday stuck to his line that the
markets were simply reacting to a dose
of fake news and that life and the
economy go on
what President Trump is you saw they're
going out of his way to try and pump up
the stock market and play down the
threat of the coronavirus it even saying
that the oil price declines are a good
thing for consumers of course they're
not good for us oil producers and he's
reminding us of the numbers of people
that die from the ordinary flu every
year and of course there as you saw
pointing the finger at journalists who
he says are responsible for hyping this
story and causing the markets to tank in
an election year we know he's going to
do everything he can to try and keep the
economy strong traded here I should say
though are not blaming journalists they
are talking to a very real fear that all
of this could lead to a global recession
they are hoping that the White House
today will step in and say something to
try and calm things down
we know that the vice president Mike
Pence is due to hold a press conference
to update everybody in a couple of hours
time what the traders and others are
looking for is some sort of reassurance
that they will offer paid leave for
families who are being forced to take
time off or maybe even step up and prop
up ailing industries like the airline
and the travel sectors which are being
hit particularly hard you can see from
the screens behind me there that most of
those stocks are very much in the red
the problem is that whatever financial
assistance they provide all of that is
welcomed but what traders really want to
see here is the development of a vaccine
but as we know as we've said many times
before that that is at least six months
to a year if not further away Matt jabal
thanks very much indeed well Kati Marton
is the markets editor the Financial
Times she's with me again now Katie the
last time we spoke it looked bad but
this looks a lot worse now why is that
what are the underlying reasons why this
is so much more serious well as you as
you say the market has been in trouble
for a couple of weeks based on the
coronavirus people have been starting to
price in the risk that maybe we're going
to get tipped into a global recession by
the shutdown that's happened in
manufacturing and travel around the
world because of this virus then the
OPEC thing comes along and one investor
that we spoke to this morning described
it as throwing a
made into a bloodbath so this is great
if you like mixed metaphors I suppose
but what it means is that you're adding
an extremely uncertain situation into an
extremely uncertain situation and the
impact on markets has been pretty
horrible today now the Saudis have done
this before you know to lower the old
price flood the market with cheap oil
hoping the demand would pick up yeah and
they'd end up with a bigger market share
that calculation may not work this time
yeah so if you want to look on the
bright side you could say look we've had
a 30% drop in oil first thing this
morning it was about 20% down by the
time I left and this is a huge gift to
consumers of oil the world over if you
want to look at it that way you could
say look this is a great stimulus into
the global economy so we're not driving
anywhere fly anywhere that's the thing
and it's a bit like the help that
central banks have been trying to throw
into the system the the Federal Reserve
in the u.s. cut interest rates last week
which we weren't expecting again it's
difficult for that to help if there
isn't the demand there for travel and
general economic activity so the fact
that the Saudis and the Russians have
been playing this war this game over oil
does that make the recession that much
worse well what people are worrying
about in markets is we've seen stock
markets drop very heavily as your report
was just saying we've also seen stress
in the high-yield bond market in the
States and there's lots of quite small
energy companies in the US shale oil
producers this is exactly who Russia is
going after and they borrowed lots of
money for their exploration and all the
rest of it they're going to find that
debt very difficult to pay back with oil
trading at these sorts of levels and
that's our worry about the domino effect
of what could happen through corporate
America because the big problem as far
as I can understand is a corporate debt
you know the amount of money the
companies have board has gone from 3
trillion in 2007 to 6 trillion now huge
mountain of debt yeah if they can't pay
that service that debt what happens to
the economy well people have been
warning for months that the US
high-yield debt market isn't is an
accident waiting to happen that there's
loads of companies out there that have
massively loaded up on debt while it's
been cheap and it would only take a
little trigger to push them over the
edge this is the trigger so that market
was particularly fierce again today so
to be absolutely clear we are heading
for a global recession yes or no that's
not fair you know everything
give us a give us your best hunt there
the market certainly thinks so if you
look at the US government bond markets
that's definitely what the what people
are pricing in now and the kind of Falls
that we saw today is that a slump or a
crash
it's definitely crashed territory the
oil price move was the worst since the
first Gulf War in 1991 this has not been
a normal day in the office and even by
the standards of the past couple of
weeks which have taken a few years off
my life frankly it's been pretty tough
and as we heard from Siobhan there's
only so much that central banks can do
get fix this explain that briefly that's
the big concern central banks have cut
interest rates absolutely to the floor
since the great financial crisis of 2008
there really isn't very much room to cut
them further so if anyone's expecting
them to come in as the cavalry that's a
difficult calculation there could be
more coordination between them that
might help but it's not easy Kati Marton
thank you very much indeed
John so now here Boris Johnson says the
UK is making extensive preparations to
move into the delay phase of the plan to
contain the spread of the coronavirus
trying to push the peak number of cases
into the summer when the NHS is better
able to cope speaking alongside the
prime minister the government's chief
medical adviser warned that soon cases
of the virus would spread really quite
fast quote at which point anyone would
even a minor fever may have to self
isolate afterwards for seven days a
fifth death from the virus was confirmed
in the last hour our health and social
care correspondent Victoria McDonald has
this report
from a school in rugby to a worker at
Transport for London to two people in
Wolverhampton new cases have covered 19
confirmed today and then this afternoon
the death was announced of the patient
at the Royal Wolverhampton hospital and
another at Epsom and st. Helier
University Hospitals Trust both in their
70s both with underlying conditions a
statement made to emphasize that
although highly contagious the risk of
death from covered 19 is far higher and
older people with other serious health
problems today the emergency Cobra
committee met and confirmed that the
country remains in the containment phase
but the chief medical officer issued a
stark warning we are now very close to
the time probably within the next
10 to 14 days when the modeling would
imply we should move to a situation
where we say everybody who has even
minor respiratory tract infections or a
fever should be self isolating for seven
days afterwards and this is going to be
the next step we have not yet reached
that step but we are going to be
reaching that step in the really quite
near future but in the meantime the NHS
will be doing this at the moment we are
screening everybody who's in intensive
care for coronavirus if they have
symptoms that are compatible with
coronaviruses so if they have a very bad
pneumonia and we'll be extending that
out now as from tomorrow - everybody who
has a significant enough pneumonia or
other respiratory tract infection to get
into hospital at all a blurring of the
already fine line between preparing and
scaring with this warning from the Prime
Minister watching what is happening
around the world our scientists think
containment is extremely unlikely to
work on its own and that is why we are
making extensive preparations for a move
to the delay phase we're preparing
various actions to slow the spread of
this disease in order to reduce the
strain it places on the NHS the four
phases as we are coming to know well are
contain delay research and mitigate so
the concern I think that all of us have
is really essentially what our Italian
colleagues have found in terms of large
numbers of patients who need access to
medical care
clearly the NHS is gearing up and there
are lots of plans going on and we as
general practice are gearing up for that
but we only have a limited capacity and
obviously we are concerned also to make
sure our staff stay well because
obviously we potentially could become a
patient ourselves delay could mean more
home working or as a last resort closing
schools and cancelling large public
events indeed in Dublin where they've
had 21 cases they have already taken the
decision to cancel the st. Patrick's Day
parade but in England for horse racing
fans the bets are still on for the
Cheltenham Festival speculation about
canceling or postponing sporting events
is very premature we're nowhere near
that sort of stage and if we were to do
so I just add the caveat there is a
possibility it could happen but we're
very clear at the moment that that is
not the case
they have been confined to their cabins
since Thursday and at least 21 cases of
covered 19 have been confirmed life on
board the Grand Princess has undoubtedly
pulled tonight though the Foreign Office
announced that the British nationals
will be flown from the United States
landing in the UK on Wednesday afternoon
Victoria MacDonald reporting now a huge
their fourth challenge for the
government balancing the need for action
with the right timing our political
editor Gary Gibbon is in Downing Street
Gary well as you heard from Victoria
there the advice is going to change
pretty soon to suggesting that you stay
at home even if your symptoms don't look
like full-blown coronavirus and that's
because we're going to move to a
situation soon the medical experts are
absolutely clear about that where there
will be a higher possibility percentage
chance that you've got it because it's
going to be around that much more in
that press conference we also learned
that there's been a mini sort of u-turn
from the Prime Minister on the whole
issue of should you shake hands he
sounded almost blase about that at the
last press conference today he's saying
that actually the behavioral evidence is
that if you avoid shaking hands it makes
you more mindful about the other things
you should be doing in this health
crisis the scientists are still saying
that there's a minimal risk attached to
shaking hands but it did sound like a
bit of movement there but at the
underpinning everything in that press
conference I think was a sense of in the
government that they had to explain to
people out there that even though we're
at the same stage as some countries were
with this virus now these other
countries have been out earlier we're
not doing the same things that they did
and they want you to reassure people
that that is not because we're slack or
behind the curve it is because of
conscious decisions being made in here
and quietly when you talk to officials
away from the press conference cameras
they say they think some of these other
countries have got it a bit wrong that
some of the behaviors they're trying to
get in place now will actually slackened
because people will lose
concentration stop making the effort and
starts or if you tell them to stay at
home and stop going to meetings or
whatever it is too early
they'll go to sleep back into their
their bad old ways other stuffs we've
learned today conversations going on
with the supermarkets to try and see if
they can do more deliveries they're
stopped from doing it at the moment by
lots of bylaws at antisocial hours that
might wake up people who live near
supermarkets that the supermarket's say
they need to do to make sure there's
stuff on the shelves there could also be
some developments to try and make sure
that old people who aren't comfortable
doing internet shopping but are trying
to stay at home maybe they can phone in
their orders to supermarkets the doctor
didn't bark in that press conference
today really was the financial figures
that Siobhan was talking about shocking
figures you'd normally expect them to
dominate an appearance for the prime
minister they will have an impact on the
months ahead they are not built into the
assumptions on which Wednesday's budget
is based but boy will they impact the
world it rolls out into in the months
ahead
Gary Gibbon in Downing Street well there
are now more than 110,000 cases of kovat
19 around the world according to Johns
Hopkins University they've been more
than 3,800 deaths globally more than
62,000 people have reportedly recovered
from the virus in China and South Korea
the outbreak is slowing showing signs of
slowing down Qatar has temporarily
barred travelers from 14 countries in an
attempt to stop the spread in the United
States the Grand Princess cruise ship is
expected to dock in Oakland California
in a matter of minutes 21 people on
board have tested positive for the virus
France has banned gatherings of more
than 1,000 while prison riots have
broken out all over Italy after visitor
access was restricted Italy has almost
10,000 cases making it the second worst
affected after China with a 463 deaths
Prime Minister Conti channeled Churchill
today when he said that his country was
facing its darkest hour the glimpse of
the medical front line of Europe's worst
affected nation an intensive care unit
in a Cremona hospital inside the
exclusions
zone of Lombardy some of the patients
are older but not all there simply
aren't enough respirators for all those
who need them and doctors are choosing
to give them to the patients most likely
to survive the situation in certain city
a certain region in that region we have
to to heaven a difficult choice because
the the one who most likely to survive
go sirs panic has spread to one kind of
place where people are already isolated
by law prisoners on the roof at the San
Vittore jail in Milan here and in 26
other prisons around the country the
inmates have been protesting everything
from inadequate care to limited visits
from relatives
in Milan there ended up burning down the
prison you can hear the mayhem inside
[Applause]
in modern ER prisoners have raided the
infirmary looking for methadone six have
died it was announced today by the
police from an overdose in Rome family
members of the inmates took on the
police and demanded better care for
those inside in some places social order
is breaking down in others it has been
turned upside down you can still get
your nails done in this Rome salon but
not before you've had your temperature
taken you can still attend the Prime
Minister's press conference but the
chairs have been placed a metre apart
what's the point of that precaution
after the information of the lockdown
leaked allowing thousands of people to
escape the quarantine zone in a matter
of days much of Italy has become wuhan
but without the discipline and the
collective control Venice which invented
the word quarantine is now a ghost town
ski resorts are empty and silent
economic activity everywhere in the
north has virtually ground to a halt the
measures imposed by the government are
draconian but will they work and are
they coming here well we're joined our
via the Internet by Pasquale Ferrante
who is a professor of microbiology and
virology at the University of Milan's
Medical School is advising on treatments
for those who've been hospitalized with
the disease throughout the Lombardy
region thanks for coming on the program
professor thank you oh good good to have
you let me ask you first of all about
this information that we've received
from a number of sources that in Italian
hospitals in Lombardy you are basically
choosing to give respirators only to
patients who have a chance of survival
and that means a lot of the older
patients are being left to die
effectively no this is not at moment any
official position or decision any
Hospital at moment is trying to treat
all the people we are in the middle of
this year
and really probably in these days we are
facing the huge increase of cases you
can believe just the number of just
telling us that the problem is growing a
lot in three days the week we pass from
3,000 chains to 9,000 adjusting the last
three days the terrible numbers
professor but I just wonder even though
it's not official policy to turn some of
the older people away is that what is
actually happening in the hospitals I
don't know the situation in the house
you know the hospital but I know that
many of the hospital that we are I am a
personal in contact they don't use this
kind of attitude which we should for
sure
we are a very big challenge for the
health system Milano is a town with the
very big hospitals and is one of the
better organized the health system of
Italy but nevertheless we are facing the
problems because many of these patients
that are affected from coronavirus they
needed to go in an intensive care unit
or in a good care traditional hospital
right do you interact carries ask you
quickly do you actually have the
facilities the capabilities of dealing
with this enormous increase in the
number of patients at the moment in
these days we still have in the region
of Lombardi did organize yesterday just
deliberate a new organization of the
hospital in practically any kind of
classical disease that's a usual disease
that are still important of course will
be cured will be treated in the few
hospitals and the rest of the hospitals
will be devoted to treat the coronavirus
up agents so the the number of beds the
number of facilities in this way should
be in
in the probably capable of treat
everybody okay yeah all right I'm gonna
leave it there professor Ferrante good
luck and thank you very much for joining
us John Iran's Health Ministry has
updated the number of people who've died
there to 237 but there are fears that
the total may be much higher doctors
have told this program the hospitals are
struggling and prisoners say they are in
grave danger from Tehran Zevon prison
the British Iranian man Anushka Sheree
has asked Boris Johnson help he did so
in a call to his wife in London this
morning is our international editor
Nielson they may be disinfecting the
airports but that's little comfort to
most Iranians as their government
struggles and fails to contain the virus
some prisoners have been temporarily
released to avoid infection but not dual
nationals the most well known but there
are others mr. Sheree who's been in
prison for two and a half years was
talking to his wife and pleading for
help from the British prime minister he
says vagrants and drug addicts some of
whom are suspected to have the virus
have recently arrived
mr. assuras wife believes that the
British government can use this
desperate moment to press around harder
they haven't even tested them I mean few
nights ago a guard came to their door
but his head in and said does anybody
have Corona in here and they you know
everybody said no and the guy left so
this is the extent of of the measures
provided by the Iranian authorities so I
think if the British government
absolutely demands from the Iranians you
know what guarantees can you give us
that our nationals will be safe in view
of this spread which they obviously
can't you know up until now it's been a
matter of just incarceration but now
it's you know it's gone beyond that it's
gone it's transcended that is now life
and death prisoners are in danger so to
medical staff this ambulance isn't going
to rescue a patient it's carrying the
body of a doctor health workers don't
have enough protective gear and dozens
are reported to have contracted the
virus the staff are in mourning and
shock but don't speak publicly so we're
hiding this doctors identity he's now
out of the country
the doctors in rural areas one of them
told me that in one night 10 people that
passed away in the hospital just due to
coronavirus and now there is a there's a
punishment for doctors relieving their
shifts and doctors some of them actually
didn't leave this shift because well
some of them are afraid they're gonna
get the corner writers there's a
sentence to jail and that's I think is
two years for leaving your shift
in some parts of Iran they're conducting
temperature checks but Iranian czar
skeptical if you believe government
statistics and many fear that the
outbreak is out of control Lindsey
Hilsum reporting well now with me is
Gayle Smith she's a former head of the
American government development agency
USAID where she coordinated the response
to global health threats during
President Obama's term in office she now
leads the one campaign against
preventable disease also joined from
South London by dr. Nathalie McDermott
especially seeing infectious diseases
from King's College London and Natalie
McDermott why do you imagine that the
government hasn't stepped up to the next
level on this because perhaps they're
simply not ready for it or because it's
not necessary watch them because at the
moment it isn't necessary and in part
it's about making sensible decisions at
the right time and bringing them in at
the right stage at the moment isn't felt
necessary for us to start cancelling
public gatherings and so on and that's a
key feature of the delay phase so I
don't think that they feel it's
necessary to do that yet because if we
start doing that now it could go on for
a prolonged period and we don't want
people to become exhausted by those
measures and to start to disobey what
the government's requesting it's much
better that we bring them in in a
strategic fashion at a time when it is
definitely required so that the public
aren't generally exhausted by the
measures putting in place on them
there's a degree of debate about testing
and whether you could test people
earlier is it a fact as I was actually
told myself when I came back to Iran
that you can't test somebody if they
don't have any symptoms or is it that
actually the we just don't have the
capacity to test people earlier well no
actually you can test people if they
don't have symptoms the problem is that
if that test is negative it's not a
reassuring result because the the test
looks for the presence of virus in the
back of the throat and if you don't have
symptoms that might be because you
aren't infected or it might be just that
the the presence of virus is at a very
low level that it is
yet detectable direct by the test so if
you tested someone and the result was
negative they would still need to self
isolate for 14 days to clear that period
and they would probably need further
tests during that time so it's not that
there isn't the capacity to do that the
capacity is there if required
but it's that we would still be
requiring people to self isolate for 14
days
so is testing really of benefit unless
someone has symptoms that is suggestive
that they may well have coronavirus
flights are still coming into British
airports from affected areas and people
are confused that there isn't more of an
effort to test everybody coming from
anywhere where there has been an
outbreak is it sensible simply to allow
people to drift through the airports
well it's not possible to test people as
they're transiting through an airport
whilst the sample could be sent it will
take several hours for that result to be
available so that wouldn't necessarily
help people who are just transiting
through an airport I think that the best
policy is what the government has
implemented so far which is to advise
people to self isolate at home and to
contact one one one if they've come from
a highly affected area and/or a
quarantined area and they don't even
have symptoms and at that point then one
one one can get in contact with them and
they can choose to test them or they can
choose to observe them for that 14-day
period and implement a test if they
develop symptoms this next stage that
the government's been talking about
which you've explained why there is a
bit of a delay because it's not actually
needed at the moment but what will it
look like well the the delay phase is
simply introducing additional measures
to try and prevent the spread of the
virus in the UK population so it doesn't
remove the implementation of measures
that we have put in place in containment
but it just adds to them by potentially
stopping certain events in certain
regions of the country that could
involve mass public gatherings so if an
area of the UK is particularly badly
affected and there looks like there's
high levels of spread of the virus then
the government will do a risk assessment
and they made
that certain sporting events or public
gatherings should be postponed for a
period of time they may also decide that
schools in that region should be closed
for a period of time just to try and
reduce the risk of the virus spreading
amongst the population dr. Nathalie
McDermott thank you very much indeed for
joining us at Gale Smith what's
interesting about you is that you had to
do this with Ebola you had to fight them
the very immediate early stages 2015
2014 only 14 2015 and I'm just wondering
given that experience looking across the
world where are we in comparison with
what was eventually a successful
containment in a burner
I think we are practicing some of the
lessons from that I mean I think our two
big takeaways from the Ebola epidemic is
the first and most important thing is
facts now this is happening in real time
so we don't know everything today we
will know more tomorrow but the more we
can rely on scientists to take the
knowledge and data we have model it and
give us guidance based on what they know
there's nothing more important than this
than facts and guidance for the public
the second is that viruses like these
are the great equalizers they don't pay
attention to borders they don't pay
attention to political parties
affiliation or anything else and so
there's got to be a degree of
collaboration across borders to share
information best practices and an effort
to wipe out the virus now of course you
were working for President Obama yes how
do you feel mr. Trump is dealing with
this
I think mr. Trump would be well advised
to focus on the facts and rely on some
extremely talented scientists and
medical experts in the US government who
again based on the facts can provide
public guidance and every day are taking
the new knowledge not just from the
United States from scientists across the
world what we need right now is factual
information for the public and when we
look at the United States you don't
really have what we understand as a
public health system ie free
consultation right across the system
because you're basically founded on
private health so is that a huge
disadvantage to fighting this judge I
think it may well prove to be a
challenge and as you may know our health
system has been the matter of
significant public debate for quite some
years and I expect will be into the
future we're clearly going to have to
take steps to ensure that testing
therapeutics as they become available a
vaccine when that is available which is
a ways down the road are made available
to people because again you can't pick
and choose whose tests that are treated
these viruses do not pay any attention
to who has insurance and who doesn't and
very briefly are you optimistic or
pessimistic about this this outbreak
I thought perhaps your carpet afford to
be either well I'm not sure that you can
afford to be either but I also know that
we have the information we need to know
how to address a threat like this and we
will see more in the future its
information its collaborations
transparency Gayle Smith I'm very
grateful to you for coming you thank you
so much