Consider This from NPR - CA, NY On Lockdown; Mortgage Relief For Some Homeowners

Episode Date: March 20, 2020

Two of the hardest-hit states order residents to stay home in an effort to fight the pandemic. Plus what the World Health Organization has learned about the coronavirus in the months since it began to spread. And how homeowners could have their mortgage payments reduced or suspended for up to 12 months. More links: Life Kit's episode on how to spot fake news. Find and support your local public radio station. Follow host Kelly McEvers on Twitter. Email the show at [e-mail] episode was recorded and published as part of this podcast's former 'Coronavirus Daily' format.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

At the White House today, the nation's top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said he agrees with decisions by leaders in California and New York State, ordering nearly all people to stay home. There are places, regions, states, cities in this country that are being stressed much, much more than the country as a whole. Governor Newsom made some very important, difficult decisions. Today, Governor Cuomo did the same thing. And I want to say I strongly support what he's doing. Also, the federal government just gave you a three-month extension to file your taxes

with no penalty. Tax day is now July 15th. Coming up, details on a plan to give homeowners breaks on their mortgages with caveats, and what the World Health Organization has learned about the virus this week that they didn't know before. This is Coronavirus Daily from NPR. I'm Kelly McEvers. It is Friday, March 20th. Chloroquine is being searched on the internet a lot right now. It is a malaria drug that President Trump has repeatedly said he hopes might be effective against COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. At the White House today, reporter John Roberts of Fox News asked about it. There has been some promise with hydroxychloroquine

as potential therapy for people who are infected with coronavirus. Is there any evidence to suggest But he wasn't asking the president. He was asking Dr. Anthony Fauci, who is a scientist. The answer is no. He's the nation's top expert on infectious diseases. The information that you're referring to specifically is anecdotal. It was not done in a controlled clinical trial, so you really can't make any definitive statement about it. And then something kind of remarkable happened. President Trump returned to the lectern and said,

actually, he thinks the drug could work against COVID-19. I think without seeing too much, I'm probably more of a fan of that than, maybe than anybody. But I'm a big fan fan we'll see what happens and we all understand what the doctor said is 100% correct it's early so John Roberts the reporter asked again this drug was fairly effective against SARS wasn't it it was as I understand that I was at a correct statement it was fairly effective on SARS.

John, you've got to be careful when you say fairly effective. It was never done in a clinical trial. They compared it to anything. This public distance between Trump and his top expert on infectious disease comes as the White House is trying really hard to have frequent and clear communication with the American people about this pandemic. I am a man that comes from a very positive school when it comes to, in particular, one of these drugs. And we'll see how it works out, Peter. I'm not saying it will, but I think that...

Around the world, COVID-19 numbers are rising fast. It took three months for the first 100,000 people to be diagnosed. But then it took just 12 days to get to the next 100,000. And we could hit the next 100,000 really soon, which would mean only two or three days to get there. So you can see how fast this is moving. The World Health Organization, or WHO, has been tracking the coronavirus and leading the global response to the pandemic from the beginning. So what has the WHO learned since the outbreak began? Morning Edition host Rachel Martin put that question to Dr. Maria von Kirchhoff. She's the WHO's COVID-19 technical lead and also heads up its Emerging Disease and Zoonosis

Unit. Is there something you didn't know last week that you know now? Yes, the answer to that is yes. It is happening so quickly. For example, some of the things that we're learning are about disease progression. You know, what do people start with? So what are the differences between COVID-19 and flu, so that we could better inform people around that? We are constantly learning about what are the interventions that countries are doing to bring this outbreak under control, to slow this outbreak. So what does that mean in terms of testing? I mean, should countries be testing only people who are symptomatic? Or should there be an aggressive effort to test every single citizen? So we certainly do not have enough tests globally to test every single citizen. And we don't need to be doing that. What WHO recommends is testing all suspect cases.

And we have definitions for what that means. And it's a combination of some kind of disease as well as an exposure to the virus itself. We know that if there is a very strong approach to finding all the cases, isolating them and caring for them, finding all the contacts, quarantining the contacts and testing the contacts who develop symptoms, those are the fundamentals to drive transmission down. Based on the modeling that you no doubt do and all the information that you have gleaned about this disease over the past 12 weeks, what is your estimate for how long the pandemic lasts? What we know from multiple countries across Asia is that the interventions can slow this down, can essentially stop transmission. In China, there are zero cases over the last two days

that have been locally acquired. The cases that we're now seeing in China are actually importations from other countries. This is unique. This is the first pandemic in history that we have the power to slow down and to stop. I have to ask, though, Italy has passed widespread restrictive social distancing measures. And in the north, those hospitals are completely, completely overwhelmed. It doesn't seem to be abating the crisis. Yes. So unfortunately, in several countries, we saw this in Korea as well, the situation will get worse before it gets better. Certainly in Italy, they are seeing things in terms of their capacities in hospitals. They have a large number of people in ICU. They also have an older population demographic. And we do know that older people can have severe disease. It comes down to, you know, how much they can do in terms of reducing that transmission. These interventions, these social measures that they've put in place will help. It will take some time. There is hope,

and I want the listeners to know that there is hope that we can turn this around. Dr. Maria Van Kerkirkov with the World Health Organization talking to Morning Edition host Rachel Martin. So, here's one of the many things the federal government says it is doing to try to ease some of the economic pain

caused by this pandemic. The government is telling lenders to give people big breaks on their mortgages, up to a year long, if they've lost income due to the pandemic. NPR correspondent Chris Arnold has the details and the caveats. The way this should work is that if you've been hurt financially, you can make reduced mortgage payments or be granted a complete pause in payments for up to 12 months. Mark Calabria is the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency,

but he says, and this is really important, people cannot just stop making mortgage payments. There are steps that you need to take. They need to contact their servicer, that is the lender that they send the check to every month and deal with, and that lender will work with them to be able to work out a payment plan. Obviously, we hope to get them back on their feet as soon as possible. Since things are happening so quickly, Calabria says that to qualify, you can just call your lender and tell them I lost my job or half

my income or whatever's happened. And documenting the hardship can come later. You're not going to have to send 20 pieces of paper at the front of this. We want to do it quickly. Technically, this covers about half of all home loans in the country, those guaranteed by the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But regulators expect that the entire industry will quickly adopt a similar policy. Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase say they will work with borrowers who can't make payments. For all this to work right, lenders will have to follow through and do what the government is directing them to. Also, this is not free money. Homeowners will work out a repayment plan once they recover financially. That might just involve extending the term of the loan. I think this is a great first step. Chris Mayer is a real estate

economist at Columbia University's business school. He says this should be reassuring to a lot of people. That's critically important at this point. So we just don't have mass panic and we don't have people, you know, worried about the potential to lose their homes. Also, if you call and get into one of these plans, Fannie and Freddie are telling lenders not to report the missed payments to the credit bureaus. And Mayer says that's also a very big deal. He says it would be bad for the economy if millions of people get their credit scores wrecked because of a pandemic that they absolutely couldn't control. We don't want people to suddenly be declared delinquent and to lose their access to credit. And then suddenly we have a problem that's not a three or six month problem.

Then suddenly we have a problem that's much deeper and bigger. But again, if homeowners don't contact their lender and get approved for this, missing payments will badly damage their credit. You need to contact your lender and say, I need help. Lenders are also halting foreclosures. Okay, so all this is good news for homeowners, but for renters, so far, many cities are saying that they're halting evictions if renters can't pay. But that's about it, says Lori Goodman at the Urban Institute.

There have been very, very little actions taken for renters. And in fact, the renter population is far more vulnerable than the homeowner population because on average, they're just much, much less affluent, have much less in savings. Goodman would like to see some sort of renter assistance program from the federal government. That was NPR correspondent Chris Arnold. You might have heard that you should not take ibuprofen if you have symptoms of COVID-19, but just hang on for a second. That story grew out of a brief letter that was published in a medical journal where the authors speculated the drug could affect an enzyme that would make it easier for the coronavirus to infect your cells. But Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease specialist,

had this to say about that. You know, sometimes discussions off the cuff turn into letters, turn into social media, turn into a lot of discussion. Bottom line is, I have not seen any firm data to indicate there's a problem or to prove that there's not a problem. The World Health Organization backs up that call. If you want to learn more about how to evaluate the stories you read and how to spot fake news, Life Kit has a podcast for you. There's a link on our episode page. I'm Kelly McEvers. We will be back on Monday. In the meantime, find more of NPR's coverage at npr.org or on your local public radio station. To find that station and to support the coverage it is bringing you during this crisis, follow the link in our episode notes. Thanks a lot for listening.