Assessing the U.S. Government’s response to the Coronavirus outbreak

Yahoo Finance's Rick Newman joins Myles Udland and Jen Rogers to give his thoughts on the Government's response to the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S.

Video Transcript

MYLES UDLAND: All right, welcome back to Yahoo Finance. I'm Myles Udland here in New York. If you're watching our show, you just heard our conversation with Dr. David Shulkin, former Secretary of Veterans Affairs. And Rick, you asked him a question about testing. And he said we're going to need many more tests.

And I think right now, as you're writing about, the government is still-- the federal government, that is, is still not seeming to grasp the magnitude of how far behind we are on testing with respect to getting anything like a handle on this outbreak.

RICK NEWMAN: This is crucial. The single most important stimulus measure you could put into the economy in this country right now is widespread testing in every hotspot and then arguably, perhaps, everywhere in the country so you can tell who has the virus on very short notice to who doesn't and then separate.

We're not going to have a-- we're not going to have a vaccine for at least a year. So how do you-- how do you know what you're supposed to do with people? This is why nobody is going back to work until we can tell, well, who should we send back to work? Just send everybody back and let them mingle? Or do you sort of figure out who's safe to send back and who's not safe?

So the White House said in the middle of the month that they would-- there would be 27 million coronavirus tests rolled out across the country by the end of March. That's today. And I have not gotten any answer from either Health and Human Services or the FDA when I've asked, have we actually sent out 27 million tests?

What we do know is only about 1 million tests have actually been performed. So this is a huge gap. I mean, 27 million tests are supposed to be out there but only 1 million tests actually performed. Now, some of those tests obviously could be in the pipeline and waiting to get where they need to be. There probably are some lab results that have not come back yet and things like that.

But you've got governors complaining they cannot get enough tests. And Trump President Trump actually told "The New York Times" he wasn't aware that testing is a problem. I mean, this, again, this is the most important way to contain the virus. And the guy in charge says he's not aware this is a problem.

JENNIFER ROGERS: So Rick, will we see companies and people take this into their own hands because they basically don't trust the federal government to get this right? We're seeing that are ready with the protective equipment how companies are trying to get their hand-- the hospitals are trying to fly in planes from China. Doctors are doing GoFundMe's.

Do you think we'll see it where companies are going to reach out and say, OK, we're going to test all our employees. And this is the schedule of what's the testing is going to be, because it's not just once. You're going to test them probably multiple times based on some of the stories that I've read or which test are having. Will private enterprise come in here?

RICK NEWMAN: It's a great question. I just don't-- I don't think we're at the point when private enterprise can do that, because with governors, like, you know, Andrew Cuomo in New York and the governor of Montana was saying he can't get enough tests. I mean, Montana doesn't even have hot spots yet. And they're clamoring for tests at Steve Bullock.

How can-- you can't imagine that companies are going to sort of compete with governors trying to do this for public health services and procure tests that are scarce on the market. So I don't think that's happening anytime soon. I think governors for sure are trying to do that. But one would hope that capitalism can help solve this problem.

So, I mean, I think at some point, we're clearly seeing a massive increase in production of tests. And at some point, they will be plentiful. But, I mean, there's a big difference between whether they're plentiful one month from now or three months from now or six months from now, because every month that we can't do widespread testing is another month when you have to keep businesses closed and the economy locked down.

And we're going to get a compounding effect here. It's not-- one additional month of lost economic output is going to have a compounding effect into all the other months and all the jobs that can no longer be sustained for that months and businesses will close. So this is a giant economic problem. And I'm just not hearing a sense of urgency out of the government at this point.

MYLES UDLAND: Yeah, and Rick, speaking of the exponential nature of it, what is it? Sunday night, Trump comes out, says he's looking at the end of April for the current guidelines to still be followed. I think it was yesterday morning, Bill de Blasio comes out, says he's looking at New York, likely, New York City, that is, likely shut down through the end of May.

So in two days, you take two more months-- full months of the economic calendar. And then yesterday, Virginia, Ralph Northam is talking about June 10. So we're already halfway through June basically. And that's just in the span of 72 hours. So certainly--

RICK NEWMAN: I think everybody needs to get used to these fading deadlines. I think President Trump's April 30 deadline-- that's completely unrealistic at this point, especially since there's going to be cascading throughout the country. I mean, they're going be other cities where New York City is but not for another month or two.

Again, it just gets back to how crucial it is to test. And for people who think this just a coastal problem, don't worry me about it. This is coming to your community. So everybody needs to care about this.

MYLES UDLAND: Yep. All right, Rick Newman with that bit of-- I don't know if that's hope or if that's--

RICK NEWMAN: It's fury.

MYLES UDLAND: Whatever that is. Yes, thank you, Rick.