A lot of Children are receiving breakfast and lunch at school.

Then if the kids are home, what did the parents do?

The parents are home.

Who's going to be working in my hospitals?

Which is the critical system in all of this?

Governor Andrew Cuomo?

They're making the case against mass school closures in New York as more cities and states protectively cancel classes to prevent the spread of Corona virus.

Joining me Now to try to make sense of it all.

Former homeland Security adviser and ABC News contributor Tom Bossert, ABC News chief medical correspondent Dr Jennifer Ashton and ABC News chief business correspondent Rebecca Jarvis.

Dr.

Jenkins, just pick up would write what we heard from Governor Cuomo.

They're making making a case, and he went on even more than what you were there about the downside of closing schools.

And yet we see so many other school district's closing down.

What is the right approach here?

You know, that is a complex question, John Ah, he's right to consider all those other factors when you hear things like school closures or people ask toe work from home.

Not everyone has the capacity to do that.

There's a domino effect with the operationalization of that kind of response that that is complicated and intricate.

What we do know is that it's not just about protecting schoolchildren in the good news in this outbreak so far is that Children tend to be relatively spared in terms of symptoms of Corona virus.

But that doesn't mean that they can't go on and act as vectors of spread and spread to other people.

So this is part of aggression, aggressive social distancing.

It's hard to shut down communities and regions without closing schools, though, and that's really the problem here.

So I think the other thing we have seen just today as we've seen these images at airports, Chicago hair and other airports off long lines, people packed together because they're doing some screening now, uh, for for for symptoms of Corona virus.

But, I mean, don't those lines create other problems?

Absolutely.

So let me address that school point really quickly.

Yeah, there has been a lot of study and research going into this.

So while I understand the mayor's point, let me be very clear.

It's not about every city in this country.

It's about cities that have enough cases to merit this decision.

Like New York, New York City merits that decision.

He must get past that.

He has no data.

This thing drives me crazy.

There's data to suggest this recommendation.

He has no data to support all of his anecdotal concerns about what could happen, What couldn't have it.

We know how many kids get school lunches.

We know how many parents have kids in the health care system, and we can regulate that data.

We can answer his questions.

But he, in the meantime, while he makes these assumptions, is wasting time.

I think he's been doing a very nice job leading New York through this process.

I don't think it's too late.

I think that Mary deserves a lot of credit.

But I would urge him and not to get caught into this eight week delay discussion with the CDC to take steps to notice people to get them planning so that he can close that school system down if in two weeks, the largest Roman country if in two weeks he was wrong, he can reassess by yourself more options if you wait two weeks and regret it.

You don't have any options.

So little interest in airports, lines at the airports.

You know, I was If I were recommending these actions to the president, I would have said you're going to get a limited health value out of these closures to Europe, and you're gonna have a massive economic consequence.

The whole trick to what we're trying to pull off here is to increase the safety to people's lives and the decrease the pressure in our hospitals without wrecking our economy.

And at this stage, given all the exceptions to those travel restrictions, I think that we've probably blocking Maur people from those countries than we are virus.

So, Rebecca, I want to get to the markets with you, whether or not we're in a recession.

We're the Treasury secretary.

Say that he does not believe we're in recession and we're going to recover soon.

But But first, the practical question the supermarkets, these empty grocery shelves there challenges to the supply chain.

When when did those How long does that last?

Well, frankly, it lasts as long as the grocers stay open and also as long as the length of this crisis, the actual health impact of this crisis last.

But I want to be clear.

I've spoken to a number of vendors and grocers, and the supplies exist.

It's just getting the supplies into the grocers into the retailers at this point in time.

And they're having to completely change the way that they do business.

Rather than going from factories to distribution centers.

Then two stores stores air now saying Bring it directly from the factory to us.

Rather than getting two shipments a week, they're saying, We need trucks on the road every single day bringing us updated supplies.

They're also limiting the amount of supplies that people can purchase at this time.

And I have to say there were a lot of retailers that have online presence.

If you can purchase it online and pick it up in store, they're recommending doing that.

That will allow for greater social distancing.

So you're not part of that rush in the grocery store itself, John.

And do you?

What was your take on Mnuchin?

Saying that he does not think we're in a recession?

Well, there's no doubt that there is a giant gaping hole in the economy Right now, you can't cancel Disneyland and the N B A and March Madness and every other business shutting down, at least for the time being without a substantial economic blow.

And Mark Zandi at Moody's Analytics, the chief economist, their estimates that this will eat into, at a minimum, GDP $120 billion.

There's also the ripple effect in the effects that we still don't know.

We don't know how long the disease will be here.

We don't know how the consumer will respond, and frankly, we don't really know what the long term government response to this is and what kind of full, stateless package might be put together.

Those of all unknowns that will lead to a greater or a lesser economic challenge for the country.

And one other additional aspect I would add to this.

I covered the great recession.

I was here throughout the economy.

We didn't know that we were in a recession until a year after.

It wasn't official that we were in that recession until a year after it had started.

So Dr Ashton, the other question is whether or not the medical system is prepared for all this What?

What is your sense?

I mean, did you really prepared for the onslaught that appears to be coming?

We don't know what the U.

S.

Crisis surge capacity is in this country, John.

It has never been tested to the magnitude of the range of worst case scenarios that you discuss with with Dr Anthony Fauci s.

So I can tell you that as of Friday with the author is station that the president gave for hospitals to enact their emergency preparedness plan.

Right now, every hospital, particularly in those cities that are experiencing high numbers of Corona virus cases, they are activating their disaster plans, which, to be clear, has to do with supplies, space systems and staff.

And when you talk about staff, just one part of that you're talking about looking at things like bringing in retired nurses, respiratory therapist physicians, actually recruiting some volunteers from the community.

When you talk about space, you're going to see looking at hotels or schools that are closed or convention centers, community centers, in case they need to house large numbers of patients.

We have never implemented a response along that level.

And so right now that is the concern.

And that is precisely why, when you hear aggressive social distancing measures and steps like Tom was referring to, that is so critical.

If our hospitals get tested to that extent, we have to remember people are still having heart attacks.

People are still having strokes.

People are still having accidents.

Those people still need care.

And when you start to see an implementation of what we call a reverse triage where stable patients or discharge removed other facilities, that's a serious situation that we have no idea how it's going to unfold.

All right, Dr Ashton.

Rebecca Jarvis Tombaugh sir.

Thank you all very much.

We'll be talking more in the days ahead.

Hi, everyone.

George Stephanopoulos here.

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