Speaker 1: Welcome to Coronavirus Explain. Here's your host, Ryan Gorman. Right now,
Speaker 1: the entire world is dealing with the same issue, the
Speaker 1: spread of a new coronavirus. Here in the US, life
Speaker 1: is rapidly changing as communities across the country work towards
Speaker 1: mitigating the spread of this infectious disease. Over the next
Speaker 1: half hour, we'll talk to a medical expert, a government
Speaker 1: response expert, and a financial expert to get you the
Speaker 1: right information that you need to keep yourself and your
Speaker 1: family safe. Our first guest is gonna help us better
Speaker 1: understand the virus itself. I'm joined now by the Chairman
Speaker 1: of Medicine at St. Joseph University Hospital, Dr Bob Leahda
Speaker 1: Dr Lohida, thank you so much for helping us better
Speaker 1: understand COVID nineteen. The first item I want to touch
Speaker 1: on is what a coronavirus is and what makes this
Speaker 1: particular one unique. Okay, a coronavirus, This is a fairly
Speaker 1: easy question. Coronaviruses are RNA viruses. They're very infectious. The
Speaker 1: cousins are measles and viruses that cause the common cold,
Speaker 1: which are also coronaviruses, but they're not novel coronavirus is
Speaker 1: the ones that caused the common cold. We've had around
Speaker 1: for years and years, and when your listeners get sniffles
Speaker 1: and you know, start to cough, etcetera, and and it's
Speaker 1: usually early winter or early spring. Um, this is coronavirus
Speaker 1: as a rule. But the novel coronavirus, the coronavirus of
Speaker 1: is a specific mutant to which we have no immunity.
Speaker 1: We've had heard immunity from the old coronaviruses that infect
Speaker 1: us and cause the common cold, but we don't have
Speaker 1: any specific community to the new coronavirus. Now, these viruses
Speaker 1: are very infectious, so you breathe on somebody and you
Speaker 1: can transmit the disease. The reason you do that is
Speaker 1: because you have receptors for these viruses in your tongue,
Speaker 1: the cheeks, your nose, your lungs, and even in your heart.
Speaker 1: And so when you get loaded with virus, your immune
Speaker 1: system has got to fight this virus that it has
Speaker 1: never seen before. So there's all kinds of new immune
Speaker 1: processes that go in which are very complicated. They go
Speaker 1: into effect to try to overcome this new infection. And
Speaker 1: that is primarily a coronavirus. Now there the reason it's
Speaker 1: called coronavirus is a covering of the virus, and this
Speaker 1: is extremely small um virus which can only see under
Speaker 1: the electron microscope, so it's invisible to the naked eye.
Speaker 1: These viruses have projections that stick out that make them
Speaker 1: look like they have a crown, and that's why it's
Speaker 1: called the corona or crown virus. So how does it
Speaker 1: spread and what's the life cycle like from the time
Speaker 1: of infection to when symptoms may begin to present themselves
Speaker 1: to when someone's all better. Yeah, so that's that's a
Speaker 1: good question. Now, the problem with this virus is that
Speaker 1: you can have it and not know it. Um when
Speaker 1: someone is exposed to somebody who's definitely infected proven infected,
Speaker 1: it takes about five days at the least to show symptoms,
Speaker 1: and the median time is eleven point five days. So
Speaker 1: we like to quarantine people for two weeks because we
Speaker 1: know that within two weeks you're gonna show signs of
Speaker 1: the infection. So that's the rule of thumb. Now, the
Speaker 1: problem with this virus, as I just said, is that
Speaker 1: you can have it and not know it. And about
Speaker 1: of people that are infected with this will have something
Speaker 1: that you would consider a head cold or a mildly
Speaker 1: scratchy throat and that's it. Nothing else. And then there's
Speaker 1: twenty of people who may have what we in medicine
Speaker 1: call coal morbidityes. That is, you either have diabetes, you're
Speaker 1: on chemotherapy, you're an alcoholic, you smoke too much, you
Speaker 1: have bad asthma, you have cop D. If you're older,
Speaker 1: you have emphysema. People like that that get this virus
Speaker 1: from somebody else wind up with bay had kinds of
Speaker 1: respiratory problems, lung problems, and most of the deaths that
Speaker 1: occur from pneumonia and overwhelming lung infection. And that's why
Speaker 1: everybody has to be checked out and everybody has to
Speaker 1: be careful because we don't know who those people are
Speaker 1: that have these these glitches in their immune systems. We're
Speaker 1: talking to the Chairman of Medicine at St. Joseph University Hospital,
Speaker 1: Dr Bob Lajita here on My Heart Radio. There's two
Speaker 1: other types of illnesses that a lot of people are
Speaker 1: dealing with at the moment, the flu and allergies. How
Speaker 1: can people tell them Apart from COVID nineteen well, COVID nineteen,
Speaker 1: as as Tony Fauci, the head of the NIH state,
Speaker 1: is about ten times worse than the flu. That's when
Speaker 1: you get the bad infection. You'll run a high fever,
Speaker 1: but you do that with the flu. If you haven't
Speaker 1: been immunized. You'll get muscle aches and pains, You'll have
Speaker 1: nausea and perhaps vomiting, maybe some diarrhea. All of these
Speaker 1: things are similar to that which you would get when
Speaker 1: you get the flu, and it's ex extremely difficult to
Speaker 1: tell the difference. But the difference is we have a
Speaker 1: vaccine for the flu, and we also have a rapid
Speaker 1: test we do in the emergency room to determine whether
Speaker 1: you have the flu. We can do it on site.
Speaker 1: Most hospitals have flu swabs and flu tests that they
Speaker 1: can do and you can get a result within an hour.
Speaker 1: Um The allergies are very easy. You don't run a
Speaker 1: high fever. With allergies. You you have sniffles, you your
Speaker 1: you know, your nose turns red, you cough up a
Speaker 1: lot of gunk. But that's not the same thing as
Speaker 1: the flu, and it certainly is not the same thing
Speaker 1: as COVID nineteen. You just brought up testing. Can you
Speaker 1: explain for a moment what we should know about tests
Speaker 1: for this coronavirus and why they seem to be a
Speaker 1: bit more complicated than say a test for the flu. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the reason they are difficult is that the testing,
Speaker 1: because coronas are very common, the regular garden variety coronas,
Speaker 1: we have to be able to discern which one is
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen. There's a very complicated pro sets which revolves
Speaker 1: around the fact that this is a DNA virus, and
Speaker 1: we do something called polymerase chain reaction on the sample.
Speaker 1: That's why regular hospitals don't have at this point the
Speaker 1: capability of testing for this virus. It has to go
Speaker 1: to the state Health Department, and before that, it had
Speaker 1: to go to the Communical Disease Center better known as
Speaker 1: a c DC. You know the PCR, which we routinely
Speaker 1: do for things like diarrheal infections. We do the PCR
Speaker 1: for tuberculosis. Now this has this is a test that
Speaker 1: has streamalized streamlined diagnosis of infections. Thirty years ago, we
Speaker 1: didn't have anything like this. We would have to culture
Speaker 1: you for TV. We would have to find out, you know,
Speaker 1: in your stool if you had organisms that cause diarrhea.
Speaker 1: Now we can do the same thing for coronavirus, but
Speaker 1: we have to be able to produce the markers, namely
Speaker 1: the r N a ribonucleic acid from the virus, which
Speaker 1: we can get. We have to multiply that and then
Speaker 1: we have to create these little tests that will define
Speaker 1: and show us that you the patient has an antibody
Speaker 1: or something that really reacts with this and what's called
Speaker 1: the polymeray chain reaction. The polymeray chain reaction is a
Speaker 1: little complicated to describe for your listeners, but suffice it
Speaker 1: to say that that's the reason we haven't had tests upfront.
Speaker 1: Really quickly, we're talking to the Chairman of Medicine at
Speaker 1: San Choseph University Hospital, Dr Bob Lajida. A lot of
Speaker 1: information is floating online suggestions for how people can keep
Speaker 1: themselves in their families better protected. What are some practices
Speaker 1: or products that we know actually work. Handwashing with soap works,
Speaker 1: purel or hand sanitizers work. If you can get ahold
Speaker 1: of some. We have them on the walls here. I
Speaker 1: have a bottle right on my desk in front of me. Here.
Speaker 1: I have several bottles at home and I wipe my
Speaker 1: hands down. And I also get those you know, those
Speaker 1: wipes we use in the gym wipe things down like
Speaker 1: jim stuff. If you're going to a gym and you're
Speaker 1: working out with a lot of other people, you want
Speaker 1: to really wipe the machines down. You should be doing
Speaker 1: that anyhow, but now you really should do that. If
Speaker 1: you go to the theater, you should wipe the chair
Speaker 1: down before you sit down and watch a movie. And
Speaker 1: most people are going to go to theaters and movie
Speaker 1: theaters and sit with two people today, Nor are they
Speaker 1: going to go to Broadway shows and do the same thing.
Speaker 1: Or flying an airplane, you gotta wipe You should have
Speaker 1: done this before Corona. You gotta wipe the seat down,
Speaker 1: You gotta wipe the tray table down and make sure
Speaker 1: that things are pretty clean because these viruses can stay
Speaker 1: on surfaces for upwards of two days, and some people
Speaker 1: are saying even longer. What about face masks. Well, with
Speaker 1: my patients that have certain illnesses, I make them wear
Speaker 1: face masks. Now, the face mask they wear is the
Speaker 1: cloth face mask. The N ninety five face masks is
Speaker 1: the face mask that grips around your nose and is
Speaker 1: and is seamless. You you you breathe through that mask,
Speaker 1: but there's no leakage of air around it. The regular
Speaker 1: cloth face mask does one thing. It protects you from
Speaker 1: touching your face. Because if you handle uh, some object
Speaker 1: that's been contaminated with the virus and you touch your face,
Speaker 1: that's a problem. You'll get the infection. It'll go right
Speaker 1: up into your narries of your nose or into your mouth.
Speaker 1: And everybody touches their face. So we're saying wear a
Speaker 1: mask of regular cloth mask and will prevent you from
Speaker 1: touching your face. Also, wash your hands as much as
Speaker 1: you can and keep the hands as sterile as possible. Now,
Speaker 1: if you are infected and you're coughing up phlegm and
Speaker 1: you're copping up what you think maybe virus, you should
Speaker 1: wear a nice and mask or at the least a
Speaker 1: surgical mask wherever you go. And frankly, you shouldn't go anywhere.
Speaker 1: You should stay in your house. Uh, don't go to
Speaker 1: the emergency room, don't go to your doctor's office because
Speaker 1: you're gonna contaminate everybody else that's there. If you have
Speaker 1: trouble breathing or you're running a super high fever, then
Speaker 1: you go to the emergency rumor then you go to
Speaker 1: your doctor's office, dial get an ambulance and get over
Speaker 1: there or have somebody drive you. That's my advice. Is
Speaker 1: there anything else about this disease or outbreak that you
Speaker 1: think it's important we know? I think I think there's
Speaker 1: not much we need to know right now. There's very
Speaker 1: little known about the course it's going to take, whether
Speaker 1: it's going to fade away in the summer or whether
Speaker 1: it's going to continue into the fall. I do hope
Speaker 1: that we have a vaccine in the early fall, September
Speaker 1: October time, so that we can all get immunized with
Speaker 1: the flu. At the same time we can get vaccinated
Speaker 1: against Corona UH nineteen COVID nineteen, because that was that's
Speaker 1: the only sure fire way that we're gonna be able
Speaker 1: to control this infection. As you know, it's it's devastating
Speaker 1: certain countries in Europe, like Italy and UH, countries like China,
Speaker 1: and and it's just been devastating to all sorts of populations,
Speaker 1: especially the elderly, those elderly people who are quite ill
Speaker 1: with lung disease or people who chain smoke, UH probably
Speaker 1: even people who smoke pot You've got to be understanding
Speaker 1: that your lungs are irritated. And when you have an
Speaker 1: irritated lung, it sets you up for roaring infection with
Speaker 1: this virus because there are receptors in the lung for
Speaker 1: the virus. Chairman of Medicine at St. Joseph University Hospital,
Speaker 1: Dr Bob Lahda. Dr Lahda, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: your time and thank you for helping us better understand
Speaker 1: everything we need to know about COVID nineteen. You're quite
Speaker 1: welcome and thanks for having me. Next, let's turn to
Speaker 1: someone who can shed some light on the local, state,
Speaker 1: and federal response to the coronavirus outbreak, joining me now
Speaker 1: as a former counter terrorism and community outreach official and
Speaker 1: former chief spokesman for the New York City Office of
Speaker 1: Emergency Management, Jared Bernstein. Jared, thank you for joining us
Speaker 1: here on iHeart Radio. Let's start with the organization's federal, state,
Speaker 1: and local that our front and center in the handling
Speaker 1: of this COVID nineteen response. What can you tell us
Speaker 1: about them? Sure, well, depending upon where you live, you
Speaker 1: will have a city or county or even cown office
Speaker 1: of Emergency Management and Public Health Authority, and they're really
Speaker 1: the front line of defense. They're going to be working
Speaker 1: with local physicians and other medical providers, hospitals, nursing homes,
Speaker 1: skilled nursing facilities to really understand what they're seeing in
Speaker 1: the field in terms of patients, uh, symptomatic, where people
Speaker 1: are coming from, and then they're going to report that
Speaker 1: information up to a state department of health, and then
Speaker 1: the state emergency management or territorial emergency management agency is
Speaker 1: going to be involved, and those all ladder up to
Speaker 1: the federal Emergency Management Agency, the Centers for Disease Control
Speaker 1: and the Department of Health and Human Services, and the
Speaker 1: National Institutes for Health. So really everybody is in this now.
Speaker 1: The entirety of the federal government is involved with fighting
Speaker 1: this outbreak, and everybody has their role to play here.
Speaker 1: So communication is clearly important. So the right information is
Speaker 1: going from local communities to the state level and then
Speaker 1: eventually to the federal level too. Yeah, that's correct, And
Speaker 1: and you know, communicating with the public in an an
Speaker 1: outbreak like this is probably as much as important or
Speaker 1: more important than the actual clinical care that you're giving,
Speaker 1: because this this outbreak is going to infect a certain
Speaker 1: number of people. But what we really need to do
Speaker 1: is make sure that we can focus medical resources on
Speaker 1: people who are most vulnerable, people who may have compromise
Speaker 1: immune systems, people who may be elderly, have other some
Speaker 1: some kind of medical condition going on. And the only
Speaker 1: way we can do that is if they're public at
Speaker 1: large cooperatives. And if you're sick and you think you
Speaker 1: might have COVID nineteen, you can contact your your healthcare provider,
Speaker 1: but chances are, unless you have one of those other conditions,
Speaker 1: they're gonna tell you to try and ride this out
Speaker 1: at home, obviously monitoring if your fever gets too high
Speaker 1: or if you have any other kind of secondary symptoms
Speaker 1: other than than what is you know, generally associated with
Speaker 1: with this virus. And so that's going to allow our
Speaker 1: public help, you know, resources to go to the people
Speaker 1: who needed the most. But the only way we can
Speaker 1: do that is if we are regularly as authorities briefing people,
Speaker 1: and people believe that what they're being told by government
Speaker 1: is accurate and that they're getting accurate and timely information. Um.
Speaker 1: We always used to say that you want to tell people,
Speaker 1: here's what we know, Here's what we don't know. Here's
Speaker 1: what we're trying to find out, and here's what we're
Speaker 1: doing about it, and here's when you will hear from
Speaker 1: us again, and kind of keep repeating that drum deal
Speaker 1: over and over and over again until people can come
Speaker 1: to depend on if you can do it every twelve
Speaker 1: hours or every six hours or every twenty four hours
Speaker 1: and make sure people have the latest and greatest information
Speaker 1: so they can make good decisions for their families. A
Speaker 1: lot of people are hearing about emergency declarations, which can
Speaker 1: sound a little frightening, but there's a purpose to them.
Speaker 1: What actions do these declarations typically lead to. Sure, they
Speaker 1: differ from state to state and from government to government,
Speaker 1: but in general, emergency declarations allow executives, either mayors or
Speaker 1: county executives or governors to circumvent state rules. Usually they're
Speaker 1: related to overtime, to collective bargaining, to procurement. Sometimes they
Speaker 1: involve quarantine, uh suspension of some kind of you know,
Speaker 1: normal civil liberties. But in general, what they're really we
Speaker 1: used for is to be able to buy things quickly
Speaker 1: that we need without maybe going out to a ninety
Speaker 1: day bid process or maybe lifting cap on caps on
Speaker 1: overtime For particular job titles of critical critical employees, or
Speaker 1: maybe ordering people into into work who we need to
Speaker 1: come in and maintain our vital infrastructure like water and
Speaker 1: sewer and electric and so emergency declarations are a means
Speaker 1: to do that. At the federal level, an emergency declaration
Speaker 1: typically means that FEMA is the President has declared a
Speaker 1: major federal disaster, and it frees up FEMA to start
Speaker 1: paying states and localities the cost of dealing with at
Speaker 1: whatever the disaster is. A lot of times you hear
Speaker 1: about it with a hurricane or a coastal storm or
Speaker 1: a tornado, or even a major snowfall. If you get
Speaker 1: a few feet of snow that overwhelms local or state resources, uh,
Speaker 1: you can get a limited federal disaster declaration to help
Speaker 1: reimburse on the back in for infrastructure and for uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the human capital costs of dealing with these things.
Speaker 1: We're talking to former counter terrorism and community outreach official
Speaker 1: and former chief spokesman for the New York City Office
Speaker 1: of Emergency Management, Jared Bernstein here on iHeart Radio. Lots
Speaker 1: of events are being canceled across the country. Large gatherings
Speaker 1: are being banned. What goes into those decisions, well, I mean,
Speaker 1: there's there's lots of consideration, um, but basically you need
Speaker 1: to figure out who's at risk, what the unintended first,
Speaker 1: second and third order consequences are of closing down any
Speaker 1: institution or series of institutions, whether it be public schools,
Speaker 1: private schools, Broadway theaters, large gatherings. Um. Sure, it's a
Speaker 1: very prudent decision to you know, close down large gathering areas,
Speaker 1: but what are you you know, who are going to
Speaker 1: pay the people who work at those places? And how
Speaker 1: are those people are going to afford to feed their
Speaker 1: families if they're not getting paid? So really, uh, you
Speaker 1: try to take as as much of a holistic view
Speaker 1: as you can to any kind of second and third
Speaker 1: order consequences of the decisions you make. But at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, elective leaders and they are appointed
Speaker 1: staffs and teams have to make the call. That's what
Speaker 1: that's that's what they get paid for. And you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes they're gonna be right and sometimes they're gonna be wrong,
Speaker 1: but they have to make decisions and and you know
Speaker 1: that's what they're there for. Uh, And you know that's
Speaker 1: what it is. And I'm assuming in most of these
Speaker 1: instances there's some kind of coordination between public officials and
Speaker 1: the private sector, especially when major sports leagues decided to
Speaker 1: suspend games, which has a huge impact on the community. Yes,
Speaker 1: I think, you know, normally it's made uh at a
Speaker 1: more local level. Um the for example, the head of
Speaker 1: the Madison Square Garden and the New York Knicks would
Speaker 1: be coordinating with City Hall and with the New York
Speaker 1: City Office of Emergency Management on a snowfall or a
Speaker 1: blackout or something like our coastal storm. I think what
Speaker 1: we're seeing here that's quite different is that whole leagues
Speaker 1: or just shut down. Uh. And that's not something that
Speaker 1: we've ever seen, at least in my lifetime, where it's
Speaker 1: being done wholesale. I can tell you that in the
Speaker 1: post nine eleven world, where there was a tremendous impact
Speaker 1: on the financial sector in downtown Manhattan, lots of cities
Speaker 1: and states have made a real effort to engage the
Speaker 1: private sector at every level of emergency planning. In New York,
Speaker 1: it is a very common occurrence to have a regular
Speaker 1: conference call an update for leadership in the private sector
Speaker 1: throughout the year, and especially in times of you know,
Speaker 1: an active incident. I think the only difference we're seeing
Speaker 1: here is just the scale of it because it is
Speaker 1: a nationwide issue at this point. Final question for you.
Speaker 1: We live in an age of memes and viral social
Speaker 1: media posts. How important is it for everyone to get
Speaker 1: their information from the right sources and really be careful
Speaker 1: with what they share. I think that's a great that's
Speaker 1: a great point and a great question. I know that
Speaker 1: there is you know, a lot of suspicion of what
Speaker 1: people call fake news these those but it's really important
Speaker 1: in an emergency situation to get your information from the
Speaker 1: elected and appointed leadership of your city, of your state,
Speaker 1: of the country, and not be taking it from forward
Speaker 1: that somebody may have said, you know, all this is
Speaker 1: from a friend who works at the police department, this
Speaker 1: is from a friend who's a doctor. Well, until that
Speaker 1: person is in a position of authority where they're giving
Speaker 1: direction and they will be held to account if it's wrong,
Speaker 1: you should not be relying on the information. So I
Speaker 1: think we need to, you know, utilize that The Centers
Speaker 1: for Disease Control has an amazing amount of information on
Speaker 1: their website at TVC dot gov. Each state has a
Speaker 1: health department, and they are all using using their websites
Speaker 1: and having a tremendous amount of information up there for
Speaker 1: folks to folks to put on there. And individual employers,
Speaker 1: you know, large companies are all doing really uh good
Speaker 1: job at trying to inform their employees. And then you know,
Speaker 1: individual smaller businesses are going to have to work with
Speaker 1: their local Department of Small Business Services or local health
Speaker 1: department in order to make sure that they have the information.
Speaker 1: Former counter terrorism and Community Outreach official and former chief
Speaker 1: spokesman for the New York City Office of Emergency Management
Speaker 1: Jared Bernstein, Jared, thank you so much for your time
Speaker 1: and insight. Thank you finally to help us better understand
Speaker 1: what's happening with the markets and the US economy. We're
Speaker 1: joined by CNBC contributor Ron and Sanna. Thank you for
Speaker 1: taking the time to break this down for us. First off,
Speaker 1: what sectors of the economy are getting hit the hardest
Speaker 1: so far due to the coronavirus outbreak? Well, certainly travel
Speaker 1: and business, travel, leisure, travel, um, restaurants, retail, anything that
Speaker 1: is a really consumer oriented is getting hit quite hard.
Speaker 1: Amid expectations that as as various cities and states around
Speaker 1: the country declare states of emergency, or in the case
Speaker 1: of New York, shut down things like Broadway um where
Speaker 1: where the consumer directly has to go somewhere in order
Speaker 1: to have an experience or a meal. All of that
Speaker 1: is getting just absolutely crushed. And while we're not seeing
Speaker 1: it show up immediately in the economic data, it's going
Speaker 1: to And so it's that, and it's the fact that
Speaker 1: we're now starting to see schools closed across the country,
Speaker 1: not just universities, but elementary schools and high schools. We
Speaker 1: are seeing disruptions now in workplace habits, where we're seeing
Speaker 1: split teams, we're seeing people hopefully on in an hourly wage.
Speaker 1: We'll we'll get a backstop, but if if they have
Speaker 1: to stop going into work, you're going to have two
Speaker 1: different kinds of shocks. You're gonna have a supply shock
Speaker 1: because we have in some cases too many goods having
Speaker 1: been made, and then a drop in demand and the
Speaker 1: demand shock which could which could throw us pretty quickly
Speaker 1: into recession. There have been a lot of comparisons of
Speaker 1: what we're seeing right now to the financial crisis in
Speaker 1: two thousand seven and two thousand and eight and the
Speaker 1: period immediately after nine eleven? Is this similar or there's
Speaker 1: some significant differences that we need to understand. In many ways,
Speaker 1: what's transpired in the last three and a half weeks
Speaker 1: four weeks is really a combination of multiple different events.
Speaker 1: And in some ways this resembles the crash of seven
Speaker 1: and for its speed and ferocity. In some ways it
Speaker 1: resembles um what we saw at the end of two
Speaker 1: thousand and and and then subsequently nine eleven, and in
Speaker 1: some ways, and it's not quite there yet what happened
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight and and there are different
Speaker 1: types of events. But what we're seeing here is what
Speaker 1: we call an external shock uh that's affected the global economy,
Speaker 1: starting in China, working its way across the world and
Speaker 1: hitting US. And so we saw a drop in production
Speaker 1: of everything from auto parts to cell phones to even pharmaceuticals.
Speaker 1: In China, you saw most of Asia go through severe
Speaker 1: quarantines and production shutdowns. And now here at home, we're
Speaker 1: going to go through a similar series of events and
Speaker 1: the markets responding to what is likely to be a
Speaker 1: severe markdown in growth estimates and a very severe markdown
Speaker 1: in corporate profits. And it's had to immediately reprice as
Speaker 1: this coronavirus has inten sified. And part of the problem too,
Speaker 1: is that we have not yet had an adequate healthcare
Speaker 1: policy response in the United States. We haven't seen the
Speaker 1: government yet agree on a measurement set of measures that
Speaker 1: will support the economy. Now, the Fighter Reserve came in
Speaker 1: this week and added in excess of a trillion dollars
Speaker 1: of liquidity to the markets because we saw earlier in
Speaker 1: the week a wholesale selling of almost every asset that
Speaker 1: you could find. People were selling treasury bonds, they were
Speaker 1: selling muniscible bonds in addition to stocks, gold, and oil.
Speaker 1: And when that happens, when you get that kind of panic,
Speaker 1: and I would argue that Wednesday and Thursday probably constitute
Speaker 1: a crash in stock prices down about six in two days,
Speaker 1: that you need some sort of intervention to to save
Speaker 1: the system. And the system is not in jeopardy like
Speaker 1: it wasn't two thousand eight, but we're starting to see
Speaker 1: some strains, particularly in the credit markets, that that could
Speaker 1: cause further problems for the financial system itself down the road.
Speaker 1: We're talking to CNBC contributor Ron Insana here on I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Why are we seeing the market down quadruple
Speaker 1: digits one day, but then sometimes it finishes up quite
Speaker 1: a bit the next day. This yo yo effect we've seen, well,
Speaker 1: it's it's pretty obvious now that we're having fallen about
Speaker 1: from its most recent all time high, that the markets
Speaker 1: in what they call bear face. It is a bear market.
Speaker 1: And just like in a roaring bull market, you get
Speaker 1: corrections that are short, sharp and scary, in bear markets,
Speaker 1: you get rebounds that they like to call rather ghoulish term,
Speaker 1: but a rip your face off rally. It maybe one,
Speaker 1: you know, one piece of good news and suddenly everybody's
Speaker 1: been short the market they have to cover. Market snaps
Speaker 1: back right in your face, and and it takes everybody
Speaker 1: by surprise. And it's really more of a selling opportunity
Speaker 1: than it is anything else. Just as corrections in an
Speaker 1: ongoing bull market are buying opportunities, we're certainly not in
Speaker 1: that mode right now and and again, and unless, or
Speaker 1: until we see what what you want to call them,
Speaker 1: Manhattan Project, Martial plan, kitchen sink response to these sets
Speaker 1: of problems we're facing right now, it's unlikely that the
Speaker 1: market will fully stabilize. We've done financial crisis before. We
Speaker 1: know how to do that. What we don't know really
Speaker 1: is how to deal with an external shock like this.
Speaker 1: And and everyone's hoping that medical experts and scientists and
Speaker 1: others would would have their hands on the wheel and
Speaker 1: would be unimpeded by the administration in designing a set
Speaker 1: of protocols that would would deal with this problem adequately
Speaker 1: and quickly. So not only would have minimized the human toll,
Speaker 1: but it would also minimize the economic toll that it's
Speaker 1: likely to take over the next three to six months.
Speaker 1: For those who have investments in the market and are
Speaker 1: wondering what to do with all of this volatility, what
Speaker 1: would you tell them? Well, as as we and some
Speaker 1: of my colleagues at the NBC Offen say, panic is
Speaker 1: not a strategy. Um And And here's where it comes
Speaker 1: down to the length of time that you have to
Speaker 1: be invested. If you're ten or twenty years or fifteen ten, fifteen,
Speaker 1: twenty years or longer away from retirement, there is nothing
Speaker 1: to do. Um. You just kind of ride this out.
Speaker 1: You want to make sure that you own high quality companies,
Speaker 1: or that you own high quality bonds if those are
Speaker 1: in your portfolio. High quality assets of any kind um
Speaker 1: and and then you write out the storm. If you
Speaker 1: have anything that is questionable, it's probably a good time
Speaker 1: to just jettis in that stuff. Maybe a little late,
Speaker 1: but again this this could get worse before it gets better.
Speaker 1: But typically financial advisors tell their clients is that if
Speaker 1: you have short term money in the market that's going
Speaker 1: towards a you know, down payment on a house or
Speaker 1: mediate turn needs for a child's education, it never should
Speaker 1: have been there in the first place, So that money
Speaker 1: just gets stripped out of the market and put aside,
Speaker 1: even if you have to take now loss. But again,
Speaker 1: and you know, there's no period in history in which
Speaker 1: the market hasn't been the higher ten years later than
Speaker 1: it is today. There's one actually from the crash of
Speaker 1: twenty nine. The now heaked in September of that year
Speaker 1: at three. It plunged in the July of ninety two,
Speaker 1: and it plunged a forty one, which is the price
Speaker 1: at which had opened in eighteen ninety six. We did
Speaker 1: not see three eight one again until nineteen fifty four.
Speaker 1: So there was one twenty five year period in American
Speaker 1: history where it took that long to go from the
Speaker 1: all time high and twenty nine to recapture that level
Speaker 1: uh in nineteen fifty four. That's the only time in
Speaker 1: history that's been true. Now, had you bought anywhere along
Speaker 1: the way throughout the decline, you would have done five
Speaker 1: if you had the money, and this was during the
Speaker 1: Great Depression. But but again, if you have a long
Speaker 1: term time horizon, particularly if you're young, you should probably
Speaker 1: be throwing a fair amount of your money at the market.
Speaker 1: Now it may go down further, but you'll be buying
Speaker 1: a discounted prices here. And as as as if you're
Speaker 1: in your thirties, this is kind of where you step
Speaker 1: up and buy with both hands. That actually leads me
Speaker 1: to my final question, and again we're talking to CNBC
Speaker 1: contributor Ron Insana right here on I Hear Radio. Are
Speaker 1: there fine ancial opportunities that people could take advantage of
Speaker 1: at the moment? There probably are, But this is one
Speaker 1: of those environments where there's no need to rush. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you're trying to catch the bottom tick in a
Speaker 1: falling market, professionals aren't even good enough to do that.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean, you may want to sharpen your pencils,
Speaker 1: you may want to take out a pad of paper
Speaker 1: and look at companies that you love, UM, that have
Speaker 1: long term prospects, very solid balance sheets, that are going
Speaker 1: to eventually recover from the sell off, and be prepared
Speaker 1: to buy. But if you don't catch the first five
Speaker 1: percent of the rebound or we have you know, kind
Speaker 1: of a double dip in the market, there is no rush.
Speaker 1: You can start adding little bits of money to those
Speaker 1: companies and average in. As we like to say, you
Speaker 1: don't take if you had a hundred thousand dollars, for instance,
Speaker 1: you don't put it all in tomorrow. You might put
Speaker 1: in eight thousand dollars a month over the course of
Speaker 1: a year in order to kind of smooth out the
Speaker 1: price at which you purchase the stocks you like or
Speaker 1: the indexes or et s that you like. So no rush,
Speaker 1: take your time. Quality is key. That's both in terms
Speaker 1: of the stock market and in terms of the bond market.
Speaker 1: You should know what you own at all times, and
Speaker 1: UM no reason to to to just go headlong into this.
Speaker 1: I suspect this volatility may go on for a time yet,
Speaker 1: until we know more about the spread of the coronavirus,
Speaker 1: until we know more about the human toll and the
Speaker 1: economic impact it seems unlikely that we're quite out of
Speaker 1: the woods yet, so no rush to buy, but you
Speaker 1: can nibble over time, which would probably be a strategy
Speaker 1: for those people who are trying to pick up some
Speaker 1: bargains in the wake of what has been a a
Speaker 1: pretty pronounced decline in stock this the decline on Thursday
Speaker 1: was the biggest single day percentage decline we've seen since
Speaker 1: the crash. CNBC contributor ron in Sona, Ron, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for your time and expertise. We appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me, a big thanks to all of
Speaker 1: our guests, and of course to all of you for
Speaker 1: listening to Coronavirus Explained. I'm Ryan Gorman on I Heart Radio.