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Mike Wirth was upbeat when he told a roomful of investors in New York’s St. Regis
Hotel on March 3 he would bump elbows instead of shake hands at Chevron Corp.’s
annual analyst meeting. It was two days after New York reported its first confirmed
case of Covid-19.
Chevron handed out hand sanitizer as swag instead of the travel power adapters and
souvenir pieces of shale rock it had in the past. The chief executive assured the room
his company had enough cash to ride out any serious downturn.
Eight days later, on March 11, David MacLennan was at home when a text from his
sister flashed the name “Rudy Gobert.” It took the Cargill Inc. CEO a moment to
place him as a basketball player who had just tested positive for coronavirus. The
National Basketball Association was suspending its season.
Mr. MacLennan briefly wondered what ESPN would talk about without sports. Then
his mind turned to the empty stadiums that serve burgers made from the agriculture
giant’s beef, on buns baked with the wheat that Cargill trades. “What’s next?” he
asked his senior executives in a private group chat.
Crews remove a basketball hoop from the court after a Dallas Mavericks game March 11, when the NBA suspended its season. ASHLEY LANDIS /THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS/AP
By March 27, a new reality was gripping the nation. Macy’s Inc. boss Jeff Gennette
had kept all 125,000 employees on the payroll since the company had closed its
stores but couldn’t do it any longer.
Nobody was shopping, and it was unclear if they would come back when stores
reopened. Mr. Gennette had already suspended Macy’s dividend and borrowed $1.5
billion from its banks. Now he decided to furlough most of his workers. “What if
every store is closed through May?” Mr. Gennette worried.
It was a month unlike anything American business has experienced. The U.S. entered
March still riding an 11-year economic expansion. Unemployment was at 3.5%, a 50-
year low. The Dow Jones Industrial Average had recently been flirting with 30000.
The biggest worry for many companies was finding workers to fill open positions.
By the end of the month, 10 million had lost their jobs. The Dow was at 21917.
Airlines were on the verge of bankruptcy. Other icons of American commerce were
shutting down, seeking government aid, shedding staff and wondering whether their
businesses even made sense anymore. Countless small enterprises failed.
A patient in the Netherlands on March 2. UTRECHT ROBIN/ABACA VIA ZUMA PRESS
As of Friday, about 7,000 Americans were dead of Covid-19, the respiratory disease
caused by the virus, with the toll expected to increase exponentially in coming weeks.
The speed of the spread and the depth of the impact caught corporate leaders off
guard. Macy’s stores and McDonald’s dining rooms were locked. Malls and movie
theaters went dark. Disney World closed, as did Detroit’s auto factories. Professional
sports were suspended. The Olympics were postponed.
30,000
Confirmed Covid-19 cases in the U.S.
As of March 31
As of March 15
10,000
500
New York has
615 confirmed cases
as of March 15 Alaska
Maine
Vt.
N.H.
Mass.
Wash.
Idaho
N.Y.
Mont.
N.D.
Minn.
Wis.
Mich.
Conn.
R.I.
S.D.
Ore.
Utah
Wyo.
Iowa
Ill.
Ind.
Ohio
Pa.
N.J.
New York’s cases
increase to 75,833
by March 31 Calif.
Neb.
Ky.
W.Va.
Va.
Nev.
Colo.
Mo.
Md.
Del.
Ariz.
N.M.
Kan.
Ark.
Tenn.
N.C.
S.C.
D.C.
Okla.
La.
Miss.
Ala.
Ga.
Texas
Fla.
Hawaii
Note: U.S. territories and some other locations not shown
Source: Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering
Before the month was out, Marriott International Inc. stopped paying tens of
thousands of people. General Electric Co. cut staff. Ford Motor Co. suspended its
dividend. Amazon.com Inc. and Walmart Inc. struggled to keep stocked and staffed.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. borrowed from the Federal Reserve’s rainy day fund.
“Just never seen anything, remotely, like how fast it turned,” said Scott Kirby, the
president and soon-to-be CEO of United Airlines.
Some routines may not return, which means some giants won’t survive. People
stopped dining out or going to the movies. Will they return? Corporate workers left
their headquarters, and families abandoned cities. When will people feel it’s safe
again to fly or go out for a beer?
America’s 500 biggest public companies were worth $3 trillion less at the end of the
month than they were at the beginning.
S&P 500 market capitalization, change from February
March 4
+$1.459 trillion
+6.0% trillion
$1
0
March 2 –1
–2
–3
–4
March 31
-$3.059 trillion
-12.5% –5
March 23
-$5.934 trillion
-24.2% Source: FactSet
During the month the heads of America’s biggest companies felt constantly in the
dark. Many sought out hospital CEOs, government officials or health experts to find
out what they knew.
Pfizer Inc.’s CEO Albert Bourla choked up when he pushed his scientists to have a
vaccine by the fall. Hedge-fund billionaire Bill Ackman raced to get cash from the
bank. Michael Corbat bought extra routers to run his global bank, Citigroup Inc., from
home.
The first U.S. death came on the last day of February. A man in his 50s died in
Washington state, where a nursing home had become the virus’s first U.S. hot zone. A
few days earlier, officials had warned of a wider outbreak and limited flights to and
from China and Italy.
Healthcare workers transport a patient in Kirkland, Wash., on Feb. 29. DAVID RYDER/GETTY IMAGES
The White House projected confidence in the U.S. response. “The risk is low,” said
Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “We
need to get on with our normal lives.”
MARCH 1 Starbucks Corp. told its U.S. baristas to start regularly sanitizing door
handles, chairs, tables and coffee bars.
The coffee giant had seen the effects of the virus first hand in China, where the
outbreak had forced it to close about half of its 4,300 cafes in mid-January.
Rough numbers drawn up by CEO Kevin Johnson and his finance chief were grim.
While driving over one of Seattle’s skybridges to work on Jan. 21, Mr. Johnson heard
the morning news report of the first confirmed case of the novel coronavirus in the
U.S.—in Starbucks’ home state of Washington. “Here we go,” he said to himself.
MARCH 2 Like Starbucks, IMAX Corp. has significant operations in China and
had spent the past month watching the virus escalate to the point of closing theaters,
including 702 of its signature big screens.
With the virus spreading in the U.S., CEO Richard Gelfond tapped acquaintances to
connect with experts, including a former CDC official. He called Samuel Stanley, the
president of Michigan State University and a biomedical researcher whom Mr.
Gelfond knew from his work with Stony Brook University, his alma mater.
The conversations left him convinced that the number of cases in the U.S. was likely
to skyrocket, especially as he learned how little testing had been done. The pressure
on theaters to close would rise and IMAX would have a sequel to China on its hands,
this time in the world’s No. 1 box-office market.
His company had $100 million in cash, but that wouldn’t last long if the lights went
out in its theaters. He borrowed the company’s entire $300 million credit line and
started scrimping where he could. “Cancel anything you can get your money back
on,” Mr. Gelfond told his team.
Chevron’s jet ferried Mr. Wirth to New York, where he and his wife took their
daughter’s college roommate to dinner at Gramercy Tavern. It was still full.
Citigroup opened a backup office in Rutherford, N.J., across a swamp from the New
York Giants’ football stadium. The goal was to spread out staff and have a backup in
case of an outbreak on the main trading floor in Manhattan. It started moving traders
slowly, in case it overloaded the system.
How many are sick? How many dead? An operations technocrat, Citigroup boss Mr.
Corbat focused on the stats. He ran a global bank with operations in 160 countries,
including places where the virus had already been spreading fast.
MICHAEL CORBAT REUTERS
“You can’t go where it is. You’ll already be two weeks behind,” Mr. Corbat told his
lieutenants in a meeting. “Project where it’s going.”
David Calhoun and his peers at Boeing Co. held the first of what became routine
internal calls about preparing for the coronavirus crisis. The CEO said the company
should expect a sharp decline in air-travel demand. Boeing’s medical staff had flagged
reports about the new virus in China in early January.
Discussions touched on potential layoffs. Mr. Calhoun said Boeing needed to be
careful, telling colleagues, “We cannot recover from this if we don’t have the people
we need to build these airplanes.”
MARCH 3 FedEx Corp. executives gathered to review the fiscal quarter that had
ended over the weekend. They had 14 days to decide what to tell Wall Street.
The Federal Reserve had surprised markets that day with an emergency half-point rate
cut—the central bank’s first rate change in between scheduled policy meetings since
the 2008 financial crisis.
FedEx had already seen the virus tear across China, where it had 900 employees on
lockdown in the city of Wuhan, and seen the early signs of the carnage in Italy. The
company was disinfecting cockpits and providing protective equipment to mechanics.
Data coming into the company’s computer systems from around the globe were
confounding. “The lights are flashing red,” said CEO Fred Smith, “We can’t forecast
this.”
Mindy Grossman flew to Denver to attend the final leg of Oprah Winfrey’s sold-out
“2020 Vision” tour, a concert-like pep rally hosted by her company, WW
International Inc., better known as Weight Watchers.
At a board meeting in Denver a few days before the event, concerns about the
coronavirus were growing. Ms. Grossman, Ms. Winfrey and the rest of the WW board
discussed having more hand sanitizer at the venue and steps they could take to protect
the roughly 12,000 people who would attend.
MARCH 4 United Airlines said it would cut flying by 20% internationally and
10% in the U.S. Over the next few days the airline lined up $2 billion in new debt and
slashed spending by $2.5 billion.
Mr. Kirby had been in China in January, and had shaken hands and taken selfies with
employees at another event. He had gotten sick, a rarity, and wondered at one point if
he had contracted Covid-19.
In February, a surge of infections in northern Italy had left Milan under quarantine and
convinced Mr. Kirby that the virus would tear through the rest of the world.
“It’s too late to put the genie in the bottle and stop it,” he told his team in late
February. “We’re going to have dramatically fewer people flying if that’s true.” He
realized United needed to cut costs and raise capital, and that the industry couldn’t
avoid mass furloughs without government aid.
Dara Khosrowshahi took the stage at a Morgan Stanley conference in San Francisco
and struck a different tone. The Uber Technologies Inc. chief had made a tall promise
in February, vowing that the money-losing company would turn a profit by the end of
2020.
Coronavirus won’t change that, he told the crowd. After all, the hardest hit countries
at the time—China, South Korea and Iran—made for less than 1% of Uber’s rides
bookings.
MARCH 7 Chevron’s Mr. Wirth watched with worry one of the first shots fired in
an oil price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia. The monthly crude oil prices being
offered by Saudi Arabia were $6 to $8 per barrel below U.S. prices.
The message was clear: Saudi Arabia was opening a spigot of cheap oil in a bid for
market share. Mr. Wirth’s industry faced a dual disaster of falling demand and
increasing supply.
Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman Al-Saud, Minister of Energy of Saudi Arabia, and Alexander Novak, Russia's Minister of Energy, arrive for an OPEC meeting in Vienna on March 6. ALEX HALADA/AFP/GETTY IMAGE; RONALD ZAK/AP
“We’re in an entirely different world,” he thought as he boarded Chevron’s jet the
next day for a flight back to his San Ramon, Calif., headquarters.
MARCH 8
‘WHAT ARE WE
FACING?’ CONFIRMED CASES IN THE U.S. {0,5,10,18,34,45,73,100}450 S&P 500 MARKET CAPITALIZATION, CHANGE FROM FEBRUARY {0,77,28,100,40,10,10,10}$0.15T STATES WITH NONESSENTIAL SERVICES CLOSED {0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0}0
Randall Stephenson, the chief of AT&T Inc., was talking with a half-dozen fellow
CEOs at a conference hotel in Georgia. What are we dealing with right now? What are
we facing? Robert Bradway, the CEO of drugmaker Amgen Inc., told them about a
phone call he’d gotten from a contact in China. He walked the group through the
numbers.
“Holy cow,” Mr. Stephenson said. That night he told his finance chief to activate the
“black swan” plan that AT&T breaks out when wildfires or earthquakes disrupt its
business. It hadn’t modeled for a pandemic.
MARCH 9 Oil prices fell 24%, their worst day since the Gulf War in 1991. Mr.
Wirth convened his closest advisers with a message: “We’re going to have to make
some fundamental changes.”
The Chevron team analyzed how bad things could get. What if oil storage fills up?
What if the market is oversupplied by 20 million barrels a day? How would Chevron
move equipment and personnel if travel restrictions tightened? How could the
company protect workers on weekslong shifts in remote locations?
MARCH 10 Mark Zuckerberg called the director general of the World Health
Organization about building a bot to push reliable information about the new illness
and help curb rumors.
The Facebook Inc. founder had spent the weekend in Palo Alto, Calif., working with
about 20 managers to design a coronavirus hub for his social network. It would pull
information from respected news outlets and authorities like the WHO and CDC and
appear at the top of users’ news feeds.
Starting in January, Mr. Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, a pediatrician,
started fielding increasingly alarming emails from scientists involved in their family
foundation. In late February, former CDC chief Tom Frieden sent a note to the couple
saying the new virus could no longer be contained.
Empty shelves at a Target store in Bloomington, Ind., on March 10 JEREMY HOGAN/ZUMA PRESS
Bill Hornbuckle was in MGM Resorts International’s corporate offices in the Bellagio
resort on the Las Vegas Strip, when the interim CEO got an unscheduled visit. A
staffer who handles crisis management told him a New York woman who had stayed
the previous weekend at the company’s Mirage casino tested positive for coronavirus.
The guest had been a speaker at a “Women of Power Summit.” Among the people
she’d been in contact with were MGM employees who attended the conference.
Las Vegas was still in business. The prior Saturday night, 5,000 people went to a
Bruno Mars concert at an MGM venue and 15,000 watched an Ultimate Fighting
Championship event at the company’s T-Mobile Arena. “I was somewhat shocked by
the level of activity,” Mr. Hornbuckle said. “You wouldn’t have known anything was
going on at that end of the Strip.”
Later that day, more bad news arrived. A man who worked at a horse track in
Yonkers, N.Y., where MGM operates the Empire City Casino, had died after being
diagnosed with Covid-19.
Unused slot machines at the New York-New York Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas on March 16. DAVID BECKER/ZUMA PRESS
“We’re going to have to close,” Mr. Hornbuckle went home thinking. If that
happened, 60,000 people would be out of work.
Shoppers in a Tacoma, Wash., mall heard an announcement at 6 p.m. over the public
address system. The Macy’s store was closing early. Managers and store associates
escorted unwitting customers out of the building.
A Macy’s employee had tested positive for coronavirus. The employee had not been
at work for seven days. The store was deep cleaned and disinfected overnight.
It reopened at 11 a.m. the next day, an hour later than normal.
JEFF GENNETTE BLOOMBERG NEWS
Macy’s repeated this process at roughly a dozen of its more than 800 stores around the
country over the next week. The retailer fielded calls from state and local officials
either suggesting or mandating its stores close.
Macy’s principal concern at a board meeting in late February had been the disruption
to its supply chain in China. “The impact of the virus on our business could be 10
times what we had initially expected,” thought Mr. Gennette, the CEO.
MARCH 11 The CEOs of seven banks gathered at the White House guard station
a little after 2 p.m. Mr. Trump wanted to discuss their ability to keep lending. Charlie
Scharf had been in charge at Wells Fargo & Co. just six months and had spent most of
it trying to clean up a fake-accounts scandal that had dogged the bank for three years.
Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan and President Trump at a meeting with banking industry executives at the White House on March 11. EVAN VUCCI/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Mr. Scharf is a trustee at Johns Hopkins University, his alma mater, and the week
before had spoken with the head of its medical school, Dr. Paul Rothman. Even as
U.S. government officials were playing down the risk of a pandemic, Johns Hopkins’s
models were bleak.
“This is going to be serious,” Mr. Scharf told top lieutenants the week before, ordering
them to start preparing Wells Fargo, with its 260,000 employees and $2 trillion of
assets.
At the White House, the door to the Roosevelt Room swung open and CEOs of the
country’s biggest hospital systems filed out. Dr. Rothman and Mr. Scharf exchanged
nods.
Hospital executives had urged the administration to prioritize their patients for
coronavirus testing. Doctors and nurses were burning through dwindling stock of
protective masks and gowns, the executives said. Faster test results would rule out
some patients and preserve critical gear.
Sam Hazen, the CEO of HCA Healthcare Inc., warned hospitals would be hard-hit
financially, too. Revenue from elective patients would fall at hospitals just as they
increased spending to prepare for critically ill coronavirus patients.
In Chicago, executives of CME Group Inc. met in a conference room overlooking the
city’s river. The agenda: What should they do about the futures exchange’s trading
floor? Even though markets were now mostly digital, hundreds of traders were still
gathering a few blocks away in CME’s pits, haggling over commodities like wheat
and cattle.
The symbol of a bygone age of American capitalism was also a potential cesspool.
The World Health Organization had earlier that day declared the spread of the virus a
pandemic.
Close it down, CEO Terrence Duffy said. Mr. Duffy, a former hog-futures trader, had
been following news of the virus closely, and not just because of his job: In 2017, he
had suffered a collapsed lung, and he was at high risk from Covid-19.
CME said the floor would shut down after two more days of trading, becoming the
first major U.S. exchange to take such a step. Mr. Duffy told floor traders complaining
about lost profits, “We can do all the deep-cleaning we want, but if someone brings
the virus in five minutes later, it’s irrelevant.”
That evening, he flipped on the television to watch Mr. Trump’s televised address
from the Oval Office. The president said he was banning travel from most of Europe.
“This is not a financial crisis,” Mr. Trump said. “This is just a temporary moment in
time that we will overcome as a nation, and as a world.”
The president finished speaking at 9:12 p.m. ET. Twenty five minutes later, the NBA
announced its plans to suspend play.
Just before the game between the Utah Jazz and Oklahoma City Thunder was set to tip
off, Thunder executive Donnie Strack dashed onto the court toward the officials and
shared disturbing news: Mr. Gobert, the Jazz center who was out with an illness, had
tested positive for Covid-19.
American professional sports had a patient zero. The players were yanked off the
court and would not return. “Take your time in leaving the arena tonight, and do so in
an orderly fashion,” a voice boomed on the arena’s public-address system. “Thank
you for coming out tonight. We are all safe.”
The shutdown of the NBA season—and an Instagram post hours later from actor Tom
Hanks broadcasting that he and his wife, Rita Wilson, were sick—shocked many
Americans who had viewed the virus as a distant threat.
TV network executives began working to assess the giant financial impact of losing
the NBA—and how to fill their airwaves with other programming.
ESPN would consider: Could they get the rights to air WrestleMania from World
Wrestling Entertainment Inc.? What about a seven-hour marathon of NFL game
footage featuring Tom Brady?
MARCH 12 Sean Connolly, the CEO of food maker Conagra Brands Inc., saw
panic buying take off.
The hoarding started with dry goods like Chef Boyardee pastas and Hunt’s canned
tomatoes, but quickly extended to his company’s Healthy Choice frozen entrees and
Birds Eye frozen vegetables.
“It just skyrocketed,” Mr. Connolly said. “You name it, it’s moving.”
The rest of the professional leagues followed the NBA. Soon the NCAA basketball
tournament was canceled. Disney said it would close all its theme parks.
Closed gates at Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif., on March 14. DAVID MCNEW/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Mr. Ackman, the hedge-fund manager, was in the middle of the biggest trade of his
life. That morning he told his traders to unwind a bet he had made against the market.
The bearish trade, made near the peak of the market in February, was worth more than
$2 billion as stocks collapsed. He wanted it sold.
The billionaire investor, who runs Pershing Square Capital Management, had been
nervous since early January. He had been scouring reports out of China and became
alarmed when it was confirmed the then-unnamed virus could pass between people
and live for days on surfaces.
He told employees to roll down the window when they took cabs. He worried about
his mother and father, a lung cancer survivor, who moved into his penthouse off
Central Park.
He urged companies in his investment portfolio, which include Hilton Worldwide
Holdings Inc. and real-estate developer Howard Hughes Corp., to tap bank loans and
build cash piles. Mr. Ackman did the same himself, calling a JPMorgan branch in
New York City to withdraw cash.
Kraft Heinz Co. told retailers it was limiting orders to full pallets on certain products.
Grocery chains couldn’t order 1.5 pallets of macaroni-and-cheese boxes anymore.
They would need to order two. That helped the plants and warehouses pack and send
off pallets faster.
Kraft Heinz added third shifts at many factories and limited the variety of Oscar
Mayer lunch meats and other foods to maximize its production. “We are changing the
rules by the minute,” thought Miguel Patricio, the CEO of Kraft Heinz.
Authorities recommended limiting groups to fewer than 250 people. Adam Aron,
chief executive of AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc., decided his auditoriums would
cap capacity at 50% even if they sat fewer than 500 people. AMC rewrote its ticketing
software so moviegoers received a “Sold Out” message when that threshold was hit.
Doug McMillon was in a meeting in Walmart’s Bentonville, Ark., headquarters when
he got a call from the White House. The Walmart CEO stepped out of the room to
return the call.
Jared Kushner said the White House wanted Walmart to marshal its resources, along
with other retailers, to help build a broader Covid-19 testing network. The spread of
the virus was stretching the government’s ability to test patients. Retailers like
Walmart had thousands of pharmacists who might be able to administer tests in their
parking lots.
The next day, Mr. McMillon flew to Washington for a televised press briefing in the
Rose Garden, along with other retail CEOs and members of the president’s
coronavirus task force.
Mr. Trump declared a national emergency, opening access to as much as $50 billion
in financial assistance for states, localities and territories. “No resource will be
spared,” the president said.
The president called the Walmart CEO to the lectern.
It was “an out-of-body experience,” Mr. McMillon told colleagues afterward of
speaking to the nation. At the end of brief remarks, the CEO turned to walk away but
Mr. Trump reached out for a handshake.
President Trump shakes hands with Doug McMillon, CEO of Walmart, during a news conference on March 13. ALEX BRANDON/ASSOCIATED PRESS
The CDC had urged people for days to avoiding touching, at the risk of spreading
germs. If the president wants to shake hands, you shake hands, Mr. McMillon thought.
Chiding messages streamed into the CEO’s phone. In the pocket of his suit jacket was
a miniature bottle of Purell.
MARCH 13 In New York, Wall Street veteran Joe Amato woke up at 3 a.m. to
check on Asian markets and never made it back to bed.
The president of Neuberger Berman Group LLC, a money manager with $350 billion
in assets, had gone to sleep unsure where Wall Street was headed. The day before not
only had he seen stock indexes close 10% lower but also Treasury yields rise—two
contradictory moves that spooked him.
Futures were down early Friday morning but not by as much as feared. He thought the
market might be snapping back. Traffic was light heading in to the firm’s Midtown
office before sunrise. One of his senior managers noted his cab driver told him he’d
been his first fare in three hours.
The virus had begun to disrupt daily life far from Sixth Avenue, where Neuberger
employees typically elbow through crowds of Broadway-goers.
Empty streets in midtown Manhattan on March 19. MICHAEL NAGLE/BLOOMBERG NEWS
Cities were closing schools. Across the nation, lines snaked out the door for stores that
sell groceries and other home supplies.
Schools closed statewide
As of March 15
As of March 20
Washington and New Mexicoare the first states to close schools on March 13 AK
ME
VT
NH
MA
WI
CT
RI
WA
ID
MT
ND
MN
MI
NY
OR
UT
WY
SD
IA
IN
OH
PA
NJ
IL
CA
NV
CO
NE
MO
KY
WV
VA
MD
DE
DC
AZ
NM
KS
AR
TN
NC
SC
OK
LA
MS
AL
GA
HI
TX
FL
As of March 25
As of March 31
By the end of March,
only Nebraska schools remain open Sources: University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation; news reports (Iowa)
Smart & Final Stores Inc.’s previous daily sales record was the day before
Thanksgiving 2018. That day, the food retailer doubled it. CEO Dave Hirz sent any
available employee from its Los Angeles headquarters—those not mired in supply-
chain hell—to restock shelves and help scrub down stores.
Mr. Hirz would soon put in orders for plexiglass screens to protect cashiers from
customers and vice versa.
In his office, Mr. Amato and his colleagues watched the stock market turn abruptly
during the Rose Garden briefing. The Dow gained 9.4% that day. Neuberger decided
it still needed to keep some staff in the office to monitor the swings.
The market gyrations of the week reminded Mr. Amato of the panic he felt in 2008,
when he was a senior executive at Lehman Brothers. There was one exception: People
weren’t worrying about dying in the 2008 crisis.
Traders at the New York Stock Exchange on March 13. LUCAS JACKSON/REUTERS
MARCH 14 The world’s biggest retailer, with more than two million workers and
$500 billion in global revenue, had dealt with hurricanes and floods. This was
different. It was the entire system under stress.
John Furner, CEO of Walmart U.S., reviewed the inventory coming in the door versus
sales going out. His team discussed closing down some stores to direct supplies to
bigger locations.
They decided to keep all stores open but close them at night—many are normally
open 24 hours—to disinfect and restock shelves. The next week, Walmart said it
needed to hire 150,000 temporary workers to keep up with the demand.
MINDY GROSSMAN ASSOCIATED PRESS
Ms. Grossman, the WW CEO, called her executives to discuss the changes they
needed to make. WW was closing all 3,000 studios, the storefronts where members
had gathered for decades to weigh in and share their weight-loss progress.
She spent five hours on a conference call working out how to create virtual studios
and train 12,000 coaches to use streaming technologies. “We were not going to leave
these people without support,” she said.
Ms. Grossman was in Florida for her granddaughter Hannah’s baby naming
ceremony. She missed much of the celebration, locked in the nursery on the phone.
MARCH 15
‘ONE DOMINO AFTER
ANOTHER FELL’ CONFIRMED CASES IN THE U.S. {0,1,1,3,5,6,11,15,17,23,37,53,73,98,100}2,918
S&P 500 MARKET CAPITALIZATION, CHANGE FROM FEBRUARY
{73,94,80,100,84,76,76,76,41,62,40,0,36,36,36}$- 2.01T
STATES WITH NONESSENTIAL SERVICES CLOSED {0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0}0
MGM’s board met via conference call. Officials in some states had begun ordering
casinos to close, but no such order had been handed down yet in Nevada. Crowds still
wandered the Strip that weekend.
Mr. Hornbuckle presented a plan to close down in 72 hours. The board pressed him to
move faster. They settled on closing casinos in 24 hours and the hotels in 48. They’d
been through this before—shutting Mandalay Bay after the Oct. 1, 2017, shooting and
closing Mississippi properties in Hurricane Katrina—but never at this scale.
On a conference call with Mr. Trump, White House officials and food industry
executives, Cargill’s Mr. MacLennan urged the USDA to ensure there would be
enough inspectors for meat plants to continue operating. Around that time, Cargill
recorded the first Covid-19 case among its employees.
March 1–28
10.45 million claims 7
million
6
5
4
Weekly new jobless claims in the U.S.,
seasonally adjusted 3
2
1
WEEK ENDING
0
Jan. 4
Feb. 1
March 7
Note: March 22-28 figure is preliminary
Source: Labor Department
Adrenaline kept Mr. MacLennan going. Hearing radio reports about orders to close
restaurants, he wondered whether people would ever pack them again. Scenes of
students partying on Florida beaches over spring break seemed weirdly out of place.
“It was like one domino after another fell,” he said.
To clear his head, Mr. MacLennan went running in his neighborhood and rode a
Peloton cycle. His family instituted a new dinnertime rule: No Covid-19 discussions.
“The boss can’t have a bad day,” he said.
MARCH 16 The online orders were pouring in, ballooning to 10-times peak
volumes at Rite Aid Corp.’s e-commerce warehouses.
“Tens of thousands of dollars in one order, buying up everything,” said Heyward
Donigan, the drugstore chain’s CEO. She had been on the job less than seven months.
Ramping up online sales was on her to-do list. But not like this.
HEYWARD DONIGAN
Rite Aid’s online team set quotas on high-demand items like toilet paper and hand
sanitizer. “We want everyone to have the opportunity to get at least something,” Ms.
Donigan thought.
At 7 a.m., AMC said it would cap attendance in its theaters at 50 people. Mr. Aron
had learned about the revised government guidelines, down from 250 people, the
night before. Within hours there was a new recommendation from health officials:
Limit gatherings to 10 people.
Mr. Aron saw little choice. AMC’s 635 U.S. locations wouldn’t open as of Tuesday.
More than 30,000 showtimes scheduled for that day were canceled.
“How can you be socially responsible and stay open?” Mr. Aron asked himself.
By the next day, the three largest theater chains—AMC, Regal Entertainment and
Cinemark—had closed operations.
A closed AMC theater in New York on March 17. VICTOR J. BLUE/GETTY IMAGES
The stock market was tanking, but John Schlifske, CEO of one of the largest
insurance companies in America, Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co., wasn’t
alarmed.
A 32-year veteran of the company, he had worked since January on a plan to stash
away cash in the insurer’s $250 billion investment portfolio— and scoop up bargains
in the downdraft he saw as inevitable.
Only a small fraction of Northwestern Mutual’s money is in the stock market in
normal times. Most is in ultrasafe bonds, whose interest goes to pay out insurance
claims. By the end of the week, the firm had added more than $1 billion worth of
stocks and high-yield bonds. The buying binge steered clear of hospitality companies
he figured would be hardest-hit by the virus.
Over the occasional bark from his German shepherd and interruption from one of his
four teenagers, Mr. Schlifske took calls from financial advisers looking for guidance
to reassure any panicky clients.
“We’re buying right now,” he told them. “Our company is 160 years old. We’ve seen
pandemics. We’ve seen depressions.”
MARCH 17 David Solomon, the chief of Goldman Sachs, had become his own
barista. He used to swing by the Starbucks near his bank’s downtown Manhattan
headquarters, but now he was making his preferred drink at his SoHo apartment.
The Wall Street veteran took four shots of decaf espresso and almond milk, over ice,
and poured it into a Yeti supercooling mug. He dialed his chief financial officer,
Stephen Scherr.
“Do it,” he said. Borrow $1 billion from the federal government.
Goldman and seven other big banks had decided to take the plunge together,
borrowing from the Fed’s “discount window”—an emergency fund that was last used
at size during the 2008 crisis. None needed the money, but they might before this was
over. By doing it now, they would rid the exercise of stigma.
The Federal Reserve building in Washington on March 17. ANDREW HARRER/BLOOMBERG NEWS
A few hours later, the money landed at Goldman’s account at the New York Fed.
FedEx executives gathered in a war room in a four-story Memphis office building,
each sitting 6 feet away from the next.
After markets closed, finance chief Alan Graf told investors FedEx was withdrawing
its financial forecasts, the first time in the company’s 50-year history. It was a move
that dozens of other major companies from Ford to Domino’s Pizza Inc. would soon
make.
The next evening, the head of human resources called Mr. Smith, the CEO, at his
home with the news he knew was coming: An employee in that building had tested
positive for Covid-19. Mr. Smith ordered all employees to work from home, and
commissioned a thorough cleaning. He was back in the office on Sunday for a TV
interview.
Running out of financing options, Boeing turned to the federal government to ask for
taxpayer help. The plane maker had already drawn down a $13.8 billion loan. It
wanted at least $60 billion for itself, its suppliers and the broader aerospace sector.
The request emerged from discussions top Boeing leaders had with Trump
administration officials as plans for a stimulus package took shape. It spurred the
resignation of director Nikki Haley, surprising senior company leaders.
The former United Nations ambassador wrote to the CEO: “I cannot support a move
to lean on the federal government for a stimulus or bailout that prioritizes our
company over others and relies on taxpayers.”
Nonessential services closed statewide
Minnesota is first state to close nonessential services on March 17
As of March 15
As of March 20
AK
ME
VT
NH
MA
WI
CT
RI
WA
ID
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ND
MN
MI
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IA
IN
OH
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CA
NV
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MO
KY
WV
VA
MD
DE
DC
AZ
NM
KS
AR
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NC
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OK
LA
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AL
GA
HI
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FL
As of March 25
As of March 31
By the end of March, 36 states and D.C. close nonessential services Note: Minnesota, Oregon and Wyoming orders didn't explicitly say ‘all nonessential services’ but listed
similar places other states mention in their nonessential lists
Sources: University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation; news reports; state
executive orders
MARCH 18 Mr. Stephenson was scanning a list of AT&T’s retail stores, trying to
figure out which to close. Some had to stay open; AT&T runs a network that gives
priority access to first responders—and they needed cellphones.
“Nobody should have to drive more than 30 minutes to get to us” he told his No. 2,
John Stankey. They cross-referenced locations and population data and figured they
could make do with about one-third of stores open. They closed the rest and ordered
more hand sanitizer for the ones still open.
That night Mr. Stephenson toggled between CNN, which he owns, and an episode of
“The West Wing,” which he’d been bingeing in his scarce downtime.
Mr. Amato, Neuberger’s president, was one of only a handful of employees in the
investment firm’s Manhattan headquarters. He spent it watching the market tumble
again.
Mr. Amato recorded a video for his own employees, sharing the firm’s money
managers’ views on the markets and the economy. He took a car back to his New
Jersey home for a quiet dinner with his family. It was his 58th birthday.
MARCH 19 Arne Sorenson was near tears as he shared the news with employees.
It was the first time many of them had seen their boss since he had started treatment
for pancreatic cancer in 2019. He was bald and gaunt. His shirt gaped at the collar.
ARNE SORENSON BLOOMBERG NEWS
“I have never had a more difficult moment than this one,” the CEO of Marriott, the
world’s biggest hotel operator, said in a video to his staff.
Marriott’s business had fallen 75%, a plunge steeper than the post-Sept. 11 period and
financial crisis combined. The company would be furloughing nearly all its workers.
The sudden evaporation of travel wiped out in a matter of weeks all the profits many
hotel companies piled up. On March 19, the U.S. warned Americans against all
international travel. Marriott executives were scrambling to close down hotels and cut
as many costs as possible.
Men played soccer in Los Angeles just before California issued a stay-at-home order on March 19. APU GOMES/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
“Covid-19 is like nothing we have ever seen before,” Mr. Sorenson told his staff. “For
a company that is 92 years old, that has borne witness to the Great Depression, World
War II and many other economic and global crises, that’s saying something.”
Pfizer researchers dialed in from their workstations, demarcated by fresh circles of
yellow paint on the floor. “I want a vaccine in six months,” Mr. Bourla, the CEO, told
them. Even if the virus quieted over the summer, it would likely be back in the fall.
Oct. 1 was their deadline for a process that usually takes years.
The 58-year-old tried to deliver the same rallying cry in person at a Massachusetts
plant that churns out Pfizer’s blood-clotting drugs. The plant manager told him he was
nonessential and deactivated his pass.
ALBERT BOURLA GETTY IMAGES
Mr. Bourla sent a video message instead and gave them a week to come up with a
plan to manufacture hundreds of millions of doses. “If not us,” he said, “Who?”
Directors at tobacco giant Altria Group Inc. dialed in by phone in the afternoon to
learn the latest: Altria’s chairman and CEO, Howard Willard, had tested positive for
the coronavirus. The 56-year-old wasn’t well enough to be on the call.
Billy Gifford, Altria’s finance chief, would take the reins temporarily. As a 26-year
veteran of the company, he knew the business and had been part of the board’s
succession planning before the crisis.
He would be working from quarantine, because Mr. Gifford, like other members of
the leadership team, had come in contact with his boss before they had all begun to
work from home.
There was more: Mr. Gifford told the board that two employees from Altria’s
cigarette business had tested positive. The factory where Marlboros are made would
shut for two weeks. The company had a two-month inventory of cigarettes on hand.
Statewide stay-at-home order
As of March 15
As of March 20
California is first state to issue stay-at-home order on March 19
AK
ME
VT
NH
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CT
RI
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VA
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DC
AZ
NM
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NC
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OK
LA
MS
AL
GA
HI
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FL
As of March 25
As of March 31
By the end of March, 32 states and D.C. have stay-at-home orders Sources: University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation; news reports; state
executive orders
MARCH 20 Baristas at Starbucks flooded online chat forums, sharing concerns
about still having to serve the public as the virus spread. Thousands signed an online
petition for the company to close its stores, and threatened a walkout the following
Monday.
Around 4 p.m. in Seattle, the company said it would close nearly all of its company-
owned U.S. cafes, keeping its drive-thrus open and switching to delivery. It promised
to pay baristas for 30 days whether they showed up for work or not.
Mr. Johnson, the CEO, said the actions weren’t prompted by the boycott threats by
employees, nor was he aware of them at the time. “There was a realization that this
would come at a cost, but it was based on principle,” he said.
The next morning, he woke up at 5 a.m. to meditate, worried that employees wouldn’t
show up in sufficient numbers. A few hours later, one of his lieutenants texted: Of the
stores that the company determined could safely open, 95% did.
Lineage Logistics, America’s biggest cold storage company, moved its U.S.
warehouses from two breaks per shift to six to thin out break rooms.
Masking-tape X’s on the floor ensured social distancing. Any violation of the 6-feet
rule would be entered into Lineage’s safety log as a “near miss,” the same designation
required by federal workplace-safety regulations when a forklift barely avoids hitting
someone.
Greg Lehmkuhl, Lineage’s CEO, knew enough to take the virus seriously. He had
gotten sick 48 hours after returning from a trip to Amsterdam in February.
The 47-year-old sweated through towels at night and dialed into a Feb. 25 board
meeting shivering in front of the fireplace in his Detroit home.
His wife made him nachos, slathered with hot sauce that he couldn’t taste, a side
effect of Covid-19. There were no tests, but he assumed he was infected.
In California, Mr. Hirz, the Smart & Final grocery-chain CEO, replaced the copy in
the weekly flier. Instead of price specials, he placed help-wanted ads. He told his store
managers they could hire on the spot, skipping background and drug checks.
MARCH 22
‘DON’T BEAT AROUND
THE BUSH’ CONFIRMED CASES IN THE U.S. {0,0,0,0,0,1,1,1,1,2,3,5,6,8,9,13,18,26,42,57,76,100}33,621
S&P 500 MARKET CAPITALIZATION, CHANGE FROM FEBRUARY
{79,95,85,100,87,81,81,81,53,70,53,21,49,49,49,10,27,11,13,0,0,0}$- 5.38T
STATES WITH NONESSENTIAL SERVICES CLOSED {0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,14,14,29,57,86,100}7
DARA KHOSROWSHAHI GETTY IMAGES
Uber bookings plunged as the month progressed. The company’s thousands of gig
workers demanded broader employment protections. Uber had agreed on March 6 to
compensate drivers infected or quarantined with up to two weeks of missed pay. Rival
Lyft Inc. followed.
Mr. Khosrowshahi spent the weekend calling more than a dozen congressmen
appealing that his drivers be covered for assistance under the stimulus package. It
culminated in a letter to the president.
MARCH 23 Mr. Ackman, the hedge-fund manager, phoned into a board meeting
of Howard Hughes, the real-estate developer where he is chairman. A month earlier,
he had told the company’s management to model out what would happen if they had
to close their Houston hotels and the South Street Seaport restaurant and bar area in
New York City; both had now happened.
The models showed the company could run dangerously low on money by the end of
the year. Mr. Ackman agreed to invest $500 million. By week’s end, bankers
wrangled another $100 million from outside investors. Howard Hughes had more than
$1 billion of cash to see it through.
Boeing said it would suspend Seattle-area plane production for two weeks. As the
month dragged on, more and more Boeing employees tested positive for Covid-19,
many of them at its Everett, Wash., factory. Several hundred wound up in quarantine.
One factory worker died from suspected complications from the illness.
MARCH 24 Mr. Corbat, the Citigroup chief, decamped to his home. Until then,
he had stayed put in the company’s nearly deserted headquarters. He first had to get
his own technology in order: His son and daughter-in-law were staying at the home,
and bandwidth was running low. He ordered more routers and deputized his son,
Brian, as tech support.
MIKE WIRTH BLOOMBERG NEWS
After weeks of war gaming, Mr. Wirth had made his decision. Chevron would ax $4
billion from its budget, a 20% reduction, stop buying back its shares and reduce oil
production in its U.S. shale fields. Layoffs loomed.
He announced the decision in a video to his 45,000 employees that day, remembering
the advice of past Chevron leaders to constantly communicate. “If you have bad news,
don’t beat around the bush,” he thought.
MARCH 25 “There aren’t enough products to go around,” said Dan Florness,
chief executive of Fastenal Co., a distributor of industrial equipment including
mission-critical items such as safety goggles, respirators and gloves.
He decided to cut off some of the company’s longtime manufacturing and
construction customers on safety-related items to focus on supplying health-care
companies and first responders. Some customers complained.
“I’m worried about our economy, the safety of our society,” he said. “I’m worried
about my 90-year-old mom and my family.”
MARCH 27 Mr. Trump signed a $2 trillion rescue plan, the largest relief package
in U.S. history. It extended aid to millions of Americans through direct payments and
expanded unemployment benefits. It also provided loans and grants to small and big
businesses, including beleaguered hospitals and airlines.
The surging number of coronavirus infections left hospitals short on masks for health
care workers and ventilators for patients. Mr. Trump ordered General Motors Co. to
produce ventilators.
MARCH 30 Gap Inc. and Kohl’s Corp. followed Macy’s in saying they would
furlough the majority of their employees and extend store closures.
The Macy’s board had met by phone on Friday, March 27. Executives felt the
stimulus package’s aid to unemployed workers combined with Macy’s decision to
continue paying health benefits would provide a cushion for employees.
Mr. Gennette, the CEO, had originally hoped stores would reopen by April 1. As the
virus spread, it became clear that wasn’t going to happen.
They also looked at what happened in countries that had started to recover such as
China and South Korea. Rather than a burst of pent-up demand, shoppers were
coming back slowly. Mr. Gennette realized that when stores reopened, they might
come back with lower sales.
Macy’s moves helped the retailer cut its cash burn rate by half. Mr. Gennette and his
team turned to seeking rent relief from landlords and refinancing debt.
“What we are doing in a day are decisions that used to take us weeks,” the CEO said.
“It’s coming at us so fast.”
Goldman’s Mr. Solomon watched from the 41st floor as the U.S. Navy hospital ship
Comfort floated into New York harbor. “Here comes the cavalry,” he said to no one,
and snapped a photo.
MARCH 31
‘IT’S JUST NOT POSSIBLE
TO PREDICT’ CONFIRMED CASES IN THE U.S. {0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,1,1,2,2,2,3,5,7,10,14,18,23,29,35,45,54,65,75,86,100}188,172 S&P 500 MARKET CAPITALIZATION, CHANGE FROM FEBRUARY
{80,96,86,100,88,82,82,82,57,72,56,27,53,53,53,17,33,18,19,8,8,8,0,24,27,44,34,34,34,44,39}$- 3.06T
STATES WITH NONESSENTIAL SERVICES CLOSED {0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,3,3,5,11,16,19,32,49,68,78,84,89,89,97,100}37
United canceled more than 70% of its flights on the last day of the month, and those
that did take off were just 15% full on average. The airline carried 30,000 passengers
that day, compared with the roughly 600,000 it would typically fly at this time of year.
United Airlines planes at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston on March 25. DAVID J. PHILLIP/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Mr. Kirby was starting at around 4:30 a.m. and going for runs. With the airline’s
Chicago office closed, he was spending most of his day on the phone walking around
his Dallas neighborhood on call after call. He logged about 25,000 steps a day. “I
spend the whole time trying to figure out how to keep my phone charged,” he said.
Mr. Hirz, the grocery CEO, was relieved to see canned vegetables on the shelves.
Strolling around one of his stores in Montebello, Calif., it was the first time that aisle
was fully stocked in weeks. The only worry sign was a shortage of 10-pound bags of
potatoes.
At the other end of the food-supply chain, Conagra raised its revenue forecasts.
Initially, executives thought the spike in demand would last for a week or two, and
then shoppers would have hoarded enough to fill their pantries and freezers. That
didn’t happen.
Conagra’s factories were running seven days a week. Because people have been stuck
at home, they were going through the food they bought and going back to the store to
stock up on more. In the four weeks that ended March 22, Conagra’s retail sales and
shipments each rose about 50%.
How long will it last? “It’s just not possible to predict,” Mr. Connolly said.
Uber anticipates an 80% year-over-year decline in its rides business for as long as the
pandemic goes on. The company is encouraging its drivers to become food-delivery
carriers. Mr. Khosrowshahi is also calling other CEOs to ask if they can hire them.
“March has been a blur,” he said.
At Citigroup, Mr. Corbat’s dashboard, which spits out up-to-the-minute stats on the
bank’s global empire, showed a splintered organization.
The headquarters building, which typically hosts 12,800 people, had just 400 in it.
Half came from cleaning, security and operations. Instead, 120,000 people were
logged remotely into the system.
New York City was now the epicenter of the outbreak in the U.S. It ended the month
with more than 40,000 confirmed Covid-19 cases.
That evening, in the final hours of March, Mr. Trump held a press conference and
promised “we will prevail, we will win.”
He added: “This could be a hell of a bad two weeks. This is going to be a very bad
two, and maybe even three weeks. This is going to be three weeks like we haven’t
seen before.”
A field hospital in Central Park in New York on March 31. VANESSA CARVALHO/ZUMA PRESS
Corrections & Amplifications
Maps showing school closures in a previous version of this article mistakenly
showed that Iowa schools remained open. On March 15, the governor of Iowa
recommended that schools close, and schools statewide followed the
recommendation.
- S&P 500 market capitalization, change from February
- Schools closed statewide
- Nonessential services closed statewide
- Statewide stay-at-home order
