Coronavirus: White House, major banking heads to discuss an economic response

Chief executive officers from Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo & Co, Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Truist Financial Corp; all confirmed they will attend the meeting with Trump held in the White House cabinet room.

Reuters

March 11, 2020 / 11:31 IST

President Donald Trump will meet with the heads of some of the largest U.S. banks on March 11 to discuss the financial industry's response to the coronavirus epidemic and the economic toll it is taking on small businesses, the markets and the economy, according to the White House press office.

The meeting comes as the government stepped up its response to escalating fears that the coronavirus strain could push the U.S. economy into a recession.

The stock markets began the week by plunging more than 7%, triggering a 15-minute trading halt on March 9, before closing up nearly 5% on March 10 after a day of wild swings.

Chief executive officers from Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo & Co, Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Truist Financial Corp all confirmed they will attend the meeting with Trump, which will be held at 3 p.m. in the White House cabinet room.

Gordon Smith, co-president and chief executive of JP Morgan Chase & Co's consumer and community banking division, will also attend the meeting in place of Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon, who is recovering from emergency heart surgery. Smith and co-president Daniel Pinto are serving as interim leaders of the largest U.S. bank by assets while Dimon recovers.

COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.

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