Glenn gives the latest coronavirus numbers, updating YOU on everything needed to know as Americans and officials monitor China's new COVID-19 virus:

Daily Stats as of 5:30 AM CT (from John's Hopkins)

• Total Confirmed Cases Worldwide: 252,014 (up from 225,237 yesterday)
  
• Total Confirmed Deaths Worldwide: 10,405 (up from 9,276 yesterday)
• Total Confirmed Recovered Worldwide: 89,044 (up from 85,823 yesterday)
• 182 Countries have confirmed cases (up from 176 yesterday), 4 more have suspected cases. Officially, only 13 countries on earth do not have at least 1 case of COVID-19.
• 5% of Active Cases are considered serious (requiring hospitalization) steady from 5% yesterday but down from 19% just 3 weeks ago
• US has 14,366 Confirmed Cases and 217 Deaths, up from 9,464 cases and 155 deaths yesterday

• Residents told to stay at home unless they need to leave to acquire food, medicine, medical care or for other emergencies.
• Speaking at a late evening news conference in Sacramento, Newsom said his directive "goes into force and effect this evening and we are confident that the people of the state of California will abide by it, will do the right thing."
• He said compliance would rely heavily on "social pressure," and not law enforcement.
• No time-frame was given for how long the order would remain in place.
• "We're going to keep the grocery stores open," he said. "We're going to make sure that you're getting critical medical supplies. You can still take your kids outside, practicing common sense and social distancing. You can still walk your dog."
• Essential travel included trips to the grocery store, gas stations, farmers' markets, food banks, convenience stores, take-out and delivery restaurants, banks and ATMs.
• The directive also exempts critical infrastructure such as food and agriculture, healthcare, transportation, energy and financial services.

• California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in an official letter to the Trump administration that 56 percent of the state's population — 25.5 million people — is projected to be infected with the coronavirus over an eight-week period, according to the Los Angeles Times who received a copy of the letter: https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/3.18.20-Letter-USNS-Mercy-Hospital-Ship.pdf
• In the letter, Newsom asked President Trump to deploy the USNS Mercy hospital ship to the port of Los Angeles until September of this year "to help decompress our current healthcare delivery system in the Los Angeles region in response to the COVID-19 outbreak."
• A spokesperson for the governor's office stated: "Governor Newsom has been honest about the threat of the virus and its impact on the health and welfare of Californians. This projection shows why it's so critical that Californians take action to slow the spread of the disease – and those mitigation efforts aren't taken into account in those numbers. The state is deploying every resource at its disposal to meet this challenge, and we continue to ask for the federal government's assistance in this fight."
• California has approximately 8,500 Intensive Care beds, and over 80% are already occupied, according to the LA Times.
• COVID-19 Has a Serious Complication rate such that about 5-6% of patients require hospitalization, including about 4% who require Intensive care.
• The average stay in Intensive Care due to COVID-19 is 20 days, according to the WHO.
• If 25.5 Million people get COVID-19 over 8 weeks, and 4% require Intensive care, that is 1,147,500 people who require Intensive Care, lasting an average of 20 days each.
• Yes: 8,500 beds exist, but over 1 Million beds may be needed over the next two months....Just in California.

• The "safer at home" emergency order just announced by California requires all indoor malls, shopping centers, playgrounds and nonessential retail businesses to close effective midnight tonight.
• LA County specifically set a date of April 19th, 2020, for all non-essential businesses to be closed.
• However, allowed to operate — as long as they observe proper social-distancing guidelines and do not include more than 10 people in one place — are a list of essential services including city and county government services, grocery stores, hardware stores and, Marijuana Dispensaries.
• Such stores are considered exempt due to being "medically necessary".
• Also remaining open will be Liquor stores, officially deamed to be 'food or convenience store" businesses.
• State Liquor stores in several other states, including Utah, New Hampshire and Deleware have already been closed.

• Staring in January 2020, the Governor's office designated 286 state properties as official "Homeless Shelters" by way of Executive Order on January 15th.
• Sites included vacant lots and fields that quickly became filled with FEMA provided RVs, Mobile Homes, many of which have sat empty since. https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article240600841.html, https://www.npr.org/2020/02/21/808016586/calif-gov-newsom-lays-out-framework-to-address-homelessness
• Since January, FEMA had provided over 500 RVs, Trailer Homes and Mobile Homes to the Golden State. https://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/10759345-181/trailers-intended-for-homeless-housing
• As early as January 16th, 2020, the USA Today reported Newsom had designated 100 FEMA mobile homes in the state as Homeless Shelters, with plans to introduce hundreds more. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/01/16/calif-gov-newsom-concludes-statewide-homelessness-tour-oakland/4494633002/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=amp&utm_campaign=speakable
• Several News services had stories in January & February asking why so many of California's new homeless shelters sat empty. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-03-02/editorial-housing-units-are-sitting-empty-while-l-a-s-homeless-languish-on-the-streets, https://komonews.com/news/project-seattle/why-are-these-homeless-shelters-sitting-vacant-after-king-county-spent-millions, https://www.city-journal.org/newsom-empty-words-on-homelessness

• Diarrhea and other digestive symptoms presenting in nearly half of coronavirus patients, Chinese researchers said in a new study.
• Most patients with COVID-19 do have respiratory symptoms, but these findings from the early stages of the outbreak show that digestive problems are also prevalent in nearly half of patients with COVID-19.
• "Clinicians must bear in mind that digestive symptoms, such as diarrhea, may be a presenting feature of COVID-19, and that the index of suspicion may need to be raised earlier in these cases rather than waiting for respiratory symptoms to emerge," wrote the investigators from the Wuhan Medical Treatment Expert Group for COVID-19 in early March.
• The researchers analyzed data from 204 COVID-19 patients, average age of 55, who were admitted to three hospitals in the Hubei province between Jan. 18 and Feb. 28, 2020. The average time from symptom onset to hospital admission was 8.1 days.
• However, the finding showed that patients with digestive symptoms had a longer time from symptom onset to hospital admission than patients without digestive symptoms, 9 days versus 7.3 days.
• This suggests that patients with digestive symptoms sought care later because they didn't yet suspect they had COVID-19 due to a lack of respiratory symptoms, such as cough or shortness of breath, the researchers explained.
• Patients with digestive symptoms had a variety of problems, including loss of appetite (nearly 84%), diarrhea (29%), vomiting (0.8%) and abdominal pain (0.4%).
• As the severity of the disease increased, digestive symptoms became more serious, the researchers found.
• Patients without digestive symptoms were more likely to be cured and discharged than those with digestive symptoms (60% versus 34%), according to the study published March 18 in the American Journal of Gastroenterology.
• "In this study, COVID-19 patients with digestive symptoms have a worse clinical outcome and higher risk of [death] compared to those without digestive symptoms, emphasizing the importance of including symptoms like diarrhea to suspect COVID-19 early in the disease course before respiratory symptoms develop," Dr. Brennan Spiegel, journal co-editor-in-chief, said in a journal news release.

• President Trump announced Thursday that the Food and Drug Administration is making experimental drugs available as part of the ongoing effort to tackle the spread of COVID-19.
• Trump announced at a White House press briefing that chloroquine, a drug designed for use in malaria, will be made available to administer to patients.
• He said it was one of a number of antiviral therapies to limit the symptoms of the virus that the administration is trying to get to Americans as quickly as possible.
• "I have directed the FDA to eliminate rules and bureaucracy so work can proceed rapidly, quickly and fast," Trump said. "We have to remove every barrier."
• FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn explained during the press conference it would be allowed under what's known "compassionate use" -- where doctors can request to use the experimental drug and get permission from the FDA to give to patients.
• Hahn also said he didn't want to give "false hope" but said he was hopeful about the treatments.
• "Chloroquine is not a cure for Coronavirus, but may be effective at treating respiratory symptoms and helping more patients recover," he said in a statement.

• The virus causing COVID-19 infects faster and lasts longer than SARS, raising new containment challenges, Chinese studies suggest.
• Researchers found that on average, infected people expel virus particles from their bodies for a relatively long period of 20 days, even before symptoms appear.
• Such a long asymptomatic spread period may explain why the virus has spread so quickly in Italy, Spain and other areas.
• Findings indicate longer quarantine periods may be needed for patients, according to researchers from the China-Japan Friendship Hospital, who published in the medical journal Lancet.
• The virus also remains persistent in the feces of children, suggesting it can be transmitted through a fecal-oral transmission route – meaning that contaminated feces from the infected child is somehow ingested by another person.
• The study was issued by a team of Doctors which included China National Health Commission expert Dr. Cao Bin.

• In total Walmart is paying over $500 Million in early cash bonuses to employees this week.
• Walmart announced it would be giving out nearly $550 million in early bonuses to its hourly employees amid the coronavirus outbreak.
• "Walmart associates have gone above and beyond the call of duty in serving our customers during these unprecedented times," Walmart's CEO Doug McMillon told the Hill on Thursday. "We want to reward our associates for their hard work and recognize them for the work that is in front of us."
• The company is giving full-time hourly employees a bonus of $300, while part-time workers will get $150. The store is also planning on moving up its quarterly bonuses to April for its associates.
• The company also said it would be hiring another 150,000 people through May.
• "Millions of Americans who are usually employed at this time are temporarily out of work, and at the same time we're currently seeing strong demand in our stores," McMillon said. "We're looking for people who see Walmart as a chance to earn some extra money and perform a vital service to their community."

• First, Don't "Wipe" with Disinfecting Wipes. Clorox and Lysol type disinfectant wipes are meant for surfaces, not human bodies. Several children have been brought in with 'burns' from parents who are using Clorox wipes during diaper changes.
• Second, cities are begging residents to NOT flush disinfectant wipes down toilets, they are NOT intended for sewers and do not break down in sewage systems.
• A message on the City of San Francisco's public utility website read, "Please read the instructions on the package before flushing anything down the toilet. Use common sense. Don't be stupid."