Now, at 92 Governor Charlie Baker is stepping up the state's response.

This afternoon, he joined roughly a dozen other governors in declaring a state of emergency and cold on business owners, schools and other organizations that take action.

Now, at this time, the number of people infected and requiring medical attention is very much within our health care system's capacity, the number of people in isolation and sick right now as minimal impact on commerce.

The purpose of moving forward with these measures now is to act before the numbers increase to a point where the virus spread is severely impacting the commonwealth.

The highly contagious nature of this disease means that if everyone plays their part and slowing the spread, the number of people who become, in fact that require medical attention doesn't spike all at once, which would overwhelm many of our systems.

Earlier today, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh pulled the plug on the annual ST Patrick's Day parade and Breakfast, and for their parts, Harvard University, Amherst College, Smith, Middlebury and M I T are all moving classes online in the coming days.

At this point, conversations about whether to stay open or shut down or happening it just bet every organization across the state and country.

And while thousands are being told to self quarantine around the nation, many fear of future, like Italy's were the entire country.

60 million people now lock down until a least April 3rd in an effort to slow the spread of Corona virus, which has killed more than 460 people and infected close to 10,000 There that we know up.

So our Massachusetts in the United States getting it right or should we be more like Italy?

I'm joined now by Sandra Golay's the dean of Boston University School of Public Health and the Coal through the forthcoming book Pained, Uncomfortable Conversations About the public's health.

Dean, it's good to see you.

Thanks so much for being here, Baker, as I said, roughly the 12th governor to clear a state of emergency.

Is that the right move?

And is it enough for our state probably is the right move at this point in time.

Is it enough?

It depends on what we do with it and It's also hard to say what the right movie is.

Frankly, tomorrow is, he said, cases have doubled between yesterday and today, already gonna double again tomorrow, and that remains to be seen.

One of the things that Governor also says the private sector should follow the government's lead where appropriate.

I'm not exactly sure what that means.

What is it?

What is appropriate and what is not.

Uh, on this particular day, I think is a good question.

But the science is not very clear on this.

We know that social distancing makes a difference.

The governor referred to the fact that we hope to implement measures to prolong the outbreak in what he was referring to is called epidemiologically flattening the curve, meaning you have an epidemic that spikes and trying to flatten it so that the case is spread out over time.

Now that matters, because if they do not, we're going to flood the health care system, not have enough.

I see you bads and things like that and this.

This technique has been around for thousands of years in the videocassettes, seventh century before the common era, this reference to social distancing and quarantine.

Remember So So So.

These are thes.

Are these air techniques?

There is old as human beings.

You know, My biggest problem with this is someone who has no skills in the public.

Albury is it seems like it's every man and woman and institution for themselves just to give you a couple of examples.

I mentioned Harvard University and four others saying, Go home.

We'll do online classes.

Boston University not taking that stand, not let's go out to Ohio for a second.

Sanders and Biden canceled their rallies in Cleveland tonight.

Governor DeWine, with governor of Ohio, has said he is urging sports teams not allowed to allow Spectators in well in Massachusetts Friday night.

The Celtics are playing at the Garden.

They're going to 20,000 screaming fans.

It seems like it's it's every.

As I say, everybody can make their own decision, which, it seems to me just creates confusion with the public.

Know ItT's frustrating.

It's confusing.

I think I have a little more sympathy for people who are responsible for making these decisions.

Frankly, because it's not so clear with the right decision is that what we're balancing is the impact that the decision will have on the epidemic first of the social economic costs and in some respects, the governor has a different set of data on in his hands as the people who are running organizations like universities or sporting events.

Now, should we consider economic cost?

By the way, when we're considering a public health crisis, we should.

I think we're always concerned gonna cost whether we're honest, the buttered or not.

So because ultimately, economic costs also have public health implications and you and I have discussed this in the past, so we cannot simply say, Well, let let whatever happened, because the economic costs are then going to affect us later on.

But again, I want to talk about the real person sitting at home confused again.

I don't mean to pick on you, but let me pick on you just sitting right here a second, If I may Okay, speaking to their spouse, Harvard closed.

Yeah, but you didn't wait a second.

Governor.

The wine says, Don't go to a basketball game.

Charlie Baker says, Well, if you're older, have a some condition.

Don't go.

What is the average person that conclude from all this would take a step step back and apply some common sense measures.

First of all, to think that we can all do as much as possible is pretty common sense.

Personal hygiene.

Wash our hands a lot.

Not be around people who are sneezing and coughing us if we are sneezing and coughing, not to do it on other people, not if we are vulnerable and my vulnerable.

I mean people who are older ages or who have some sort of immuno immuno suppression not to be around large crowds.

These air common sense measure that measures that we should be.

I don't mean to be the dead horse, a horrible choice of imagery.

But in Ohio, where, by the way, they're only four cases, is opposed.

The 92 year It's infirm, the governor saying.

Healthy, unhealthy.

I don't care what you are.

You shouldn't go to a basketball game.

You shouldn't go to a football game.

So again, Well, the phrase that that you've heard a lot these days is out of an abundance of caution.

You know, it's a useful phrase, but there's no clear bright line as to where the abundance of caution comes in.

Let's move to the National level, if we can hear is Donald Trump on the Corona virus today.

Here's the president, Democrat governors air saying We've done a fantastic job, we're prepared and we're doing a great job with it and it will go away to stay calm.

Everybody has to be vigilant and has to be careful but become Is he doing a fantastic job?

Is the federal government doing a fantastic job?

Well, I think they're many things the president said, that actually are correct.

This will hopefully all go away eventually.

He's correct.

He's also said we have the best minds in the world working on this.

He's also correct on that.

He's also said that doesn't help us to panic.

He's writing all of these things.

The question is, what role does the president play in actually helping set hell, helping get us to a place where we understand was going on and in many respects the president has at his disposal leading experts from all over the world and I think we would all be well served if he took a back seat and let the experts leaders off CDC and I 80 to actually guide us on this one thing they seem to agree upon is that we have millions of tests have been sent out.

But I read as recently as an hour ago we've only done 7000 tests in the United States.

Were like, Well, if I made the disconnect is that we have disinvested in public health infrastructure for decades.

And and this is some respects, you know, coming home to roost.

We have not put in place systems that allow rapid dissemination of this like this.

Now, you would expect him to say that I'm a dean of the scope of the killed, but I actually think public health is what we do all the time in public health.

By the way, as you and I discussed his political I mean, this is political When the president minimizes the potential impact of that, now I'm getting back to people like me sitting at home.

Does he not basically say to people you don't need to be nearly as prepared as the experts tell you.

You have to be.

That's a reasonable conclusion to make from leader of this country.

Yes, I would encourage people to listen to the experts, okay.

And I I often send people to the CDC website, which is excellent information on this.

Well, you're an expert.

Let me quote you to you.

Reasonable epidemiology gig is that it's a epidemiologic.

Thank you very much, uh, doubt as to whether covert nine is is dangerous, as some are suggesting.

So what do you say?

Well, what I was referring to is, is a fair bit of controversy, but with the case fatality rate, which means out of people who get it, how many people will die?

We've heard numbers a size 3.7%.

I think most reasonable estimates are it's probably 0.5 point 6% now.

We should be clear that that still means if you have hundreds of thousands of people affected, that percent is still a little bit.

But that's much closer to the traditional flew 87 days.

To these prediction, that's cool.

So if that's the case, why are we not worried about what Trump says?

We should we be worried about the 22 60,000 deaths from the traditional flew rather than Khurana?

Well, there's a very good question, I think should be worried both about the fluid corner bars we've had About 50,000 people die from the flu this year, and that's something we did not talk about enough.

I go back to my point.

We should be talking about these points all the time.

But if the fatality rate is so close, it's close.

It's close.

It's higher.

There's a really interesting story here, Jim, which I think in a year's time, when all this is the story, is why we have come to see this the way we have.

Why have you come to see this as, uh, and I think in large part is because it's novel and it's scary.

I think it's reasonable for anybody sitting at home to be afraid off a novel virus, something we didn't know before.

And the science is catching up to it.

You know, in a year's time we'll know a lot more about the size, but we're living in this today.

President Xi and China did essentially a victory lap by going to Wuhan today.

Is that deserved?

Because it seems to be if it is deserved.

That's one glimmer of good news in the sea of bad news.

It's a tricky question.

The question is that essentially China did with social distance and right isolating room in some respects, said, Don't worry about the social economic consequences.

We're going to do this.

It'll be saying that several of Italy saying something similar, although slightly more complicated because it's Italy.

Should we be doing more of that?

Well, I'm not sure today, probably not tomorrow.

It's another conversation.

What's the trajectory trajectory of this thing?

As far as you can go, I know it's uncertain, but realistically speaking, what's the expectation have seen in other places is that it's there's an epidemic curve, which means that we're going to see some doubling over appeared a few days.

The question is when the curve will flatten out and going back to Governor Baker declaring a state of emergency.

What he's trying to do is to strike two stretch out that period so that we can make sure that the health system is ready to catch up with the virus.

If you were the governor of Massachusetts right now, would you direct that there be no Spectators at athletic events?

Would you direct that the Boston Marathon be cancelled?

I think the governor of Massachusetts has data at his fingertips that I don't have.

It would be presumptuous for me to say anything else.

Fair enough.

It's good to see you.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.