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remotely, the spokesman said.

“We recognize how stress-

ful this is for those employees

on the front lines who are sup-

porting global markets,” a

spokesman said.

JPMorgan’s coronavirus

outbreak is concentrated on

the fifth floor of the bank’s

Madison Avenue headquarters,

a tight web of desks for those

who buy and sell stocks and

pitch clients on trades.

It started with a managing

director who came into the of-

fice on March 9. He began to

feel ill as the day progressed,

and was coughing at his fifth-

floor desk. He stayed home

the next day and was tested

for coronavirus.

JPMorgan brass kept the

news tight for a few days.

That Friday, the test came

fice themselves, have re-

minded staff that their com-

pensation may be tied to their

performance in recent weeks.

On Thursday, head of global

equities Jason Sippel told sub-

ordinates they had a responsi-

bility to come into the office,

according to a person on the

call. “There are risks to per-

sonal health, there are risks to

public health,” Mr. Sippel said.

“We are called upon to bal-

ance.”

A JPMorgan spokesman

said that more than 80% of

the firm’s traders are working

remotely and those in the of-

fice have been spaced more

than 6 feet apart. Employees

deemed at risk of infection

have been sent home. Manag-

ers were instructed to tell em-

ployees they are free to work

structure of the trading floor.

Even slight delays in speed

could cost money.

Wall Street trading has

been deemed an “essential

service” by New York authori-

ties, and though the New York

Stock Exchange has shut its

floor, the major banks con-

tinue to have some employees

report to work.

For JPMorgan, the conse-

quences of keeping employees

in the office have been swift

and painful. The outbreak has

rattled rank-and-file employ-

ees, who said they feel the

bank took a gamble with their

health to protect a prized

business.

Traders and salespeople

said they feel pressure to

come in. Managers, many of

whom have stayed in the of-

Coronavirus Daily Update

As of 10:23 p.m. EDT

April 3

1,099,

World-wide cases

277,

U.S. cases

58,

World-wide deaths

7,

U.S. deaths

226,

World-wide recoveries

noted how New York has done

the same when other states

have been affected by disasters.

“When Florida has a hurri-

cane, what do we do? We get in

the trucks,” Mr. Cuomo said.

In New York City, some op-

erators of crematories said

they are already working 16-

hour days, processing double,

sometimes triple, the number

of bodies they would on a typi-

cal day.

“It would be good if every-

one, for the public good, would

explain to families not to go for

a wooden casket,” said Richard

Moylan, president of Green-

Wood Cemetery, one of four

operators of crematories in the

city. Cloth-covered caskets,

made of fiberboard or light

wood, burn faster than wooden

caskets, crematory operators

say, making it easier for them

to process more bodies each

day.

”It would be better if every-

body just used a simple card-

board box,” Mr. Moylan said.

—Jimmy Vielkind, Katie

Honan and Paul Berger

contributed to this article.

Deaths

Jump in

New York

asked to work from home said

they were told that not

enough remote computer

equipment had arrived yet.

Some broke into tears when

told they were expected to re-

port in-person, employees

said.

The bank’s human-re-

sources department put to-

gether a document outlining

when employees could return

to work. Those who tested

positive were told they could

return to the office one week

afterward, so long as symp-

toms had subsided, according

to a copy of the document re-

viewed by The Wall Street

Journal. The policy matched

the recommendations of the

Centers for Disease Control

and Prevention.

“A persistent cough alone

does not mean you must con-

tinue to self-isolate,” the docu-

ment said.

On March 20, Gov. Andrew

Cuomo ordered all nonessen-

tial businesses to close. That

weekend, JPMorgan threw out

its original plans to separate

people and said most would

work from home.

But the trading floor has

remained open, and some

managers continued to press

staff to come in, according to

employees.

On Thursday, Mr. Sippel,

the bank’s global head of equi-

ties, said JPMorgan’s business

wouldsufferiftoomanyem-

ployees called out. JPMorgan’s

rivals were lagging, he said,

presenting an opportunity for

the bank to win business.

back positive. Longtime execu-

tive Marc Badrichani broke the

news to a group of fifth floor

traders over the bank’s “hoot

and holler,” an intercom sys-

tem connected to individual

desks. Employees crowded

around to hear the announce-

ment on a handful of speakers,

people present said. Mr. Bad-

richani described the situation

as under control.

Later, the bank told the rest

of the trading staff on other

floors. The bank followed up

with another memo that week-

end to the whole building,

confirming two cases. People

who worked on the same floor

as a sick colleague would be

informed, the memo said, but

should continue to report to

work.

By then, companies that

had been merely advising em-

ployees to stay home were

now making it mandatory.

All the while, global mar-

kets were haywire. That

Thursday, March 12, the S&P

500 posted one of its biggest

one-day drops in history. Fri-

day brought one of its largest-

ever gains. JPMorgan’s trading

volume was hitting records. A

group focused on volatility

trading made about $1.5 bil-

lion in revenue as of late

March, employees said.

Throughout the week, the

bank sent some traders to

work in other offices in Brook-

lyn and New Jersey, staggering

them to keep from overloading

its systems. Some were sent to

work from home.

Several employees who

Source: Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering

New York City Mayor Bill de
Blasio said that Sunday would
be a crucial day in terms of the
shortages. The city needed 3.
million N95 respirator masks
and 2.1 million surgical masks
by that day, he said.
On Friday, the mayor said
that an additional 15,000 venti-
lators were needed to get
through the crisis in April and
May, with at least 2,500 needed
in the coming week.
“It’s going to be an extraor-

ContinuedfromPageOne

dinary race against time,” Mr.

de Blasio said.

Just as critical are shortages

of hospital beds, with patients

already being placed in make-

shift intensive-care units.

New York will now use the

Jacob K. Javits Convention

Center in Manhattan as a hos-

pital with 2,500 beds for

Covid-19 patients, given the

rapidly escalating numbers. Ini-

tial plans had called for the

makeshift hospital to serve

non-coronavirus patients, but

President Trump agreed to

change plans after Mr. Cuomo

reached out Thursday, Mr.

Cuomo said.

“It is a big deal for us,” Mr.

Cuomo said Friday.

The governor also said the

state would now require hospi-

tals in areas less affected by

the pandemic to make ventila-

tors available. Mr. Cuomo said

the state wasn’t attempting to

“seize” the machines but sim-

ply redistribute them to ad-

dress a critical situation.

“I’m not going to be in a po-

sition where people are dying

and we have several hundred

[available] ventilators in our

own state somewhere else,” Mr.

Cuomo said.

In addition to the city’s need

for beds and equipment, Mr. de

Blasio stressed that more medi-

cal personnel would be re-

quired to deal with the pan-

demic. He said Friday that an

additional 45,000 were needed,

and he called for the federal

enlistment of private health-

care workers.

Mr. Cuomo called upon the

country to come to New York’s

assistance in any way possible

as the situation worsens. He

March 9 was supposed to
be the start of a new routine
forJPMorgan Chase &Co.
employees. With coronavirus
spreading, the bank had told
the staff in its stock-trading
operation to head to three
separate sites around New
York City.
Hours before the workday
began, with global markets
plunging, technology at the
sites wasn’t ready. JPMorgan
top brass reversed the order
and told many traders to re-
port for duty, as usual, to the
firm’s Manhattan headquar-
ters, employees said.
An employee who wasn’t
feeling well came to the office.
JPMorgan traded more shares
that Monday than any day in
the bank’s history. The sick
employee turned out to have
Covid-19, and over the past
three weeks, about 20 employ-
ees on a single floor at the
bank’s headquarters have
tested positive for the virus,
with another 65 quarantined
as a result.
Wall Street is used to mak-
ing tough choices in seconds,
but the coronavirus pandemic
has added a dimension of life
or death. Amid the wildest
trading conditions in more
than a decade, banks are loath
to fully allow the thousands of
traders and salespeople who
keep the markets humming to
work from home. Setups in
home offices lack the multibil-
lion-dollar technology infra-

BYROBCOPELAND
ANDDAVIDBENOIT

Covid-19 Swept Through JPMorgan’s Trading Floor

JPMorgan’s coronavirus outbreak has rattled rank-and-file employees. A Chase branch in New York.

JEENAH MOON/BLOOMBERG NEWS

A refrigerator truck was used as a makeshift morgue outside

Brooklyn Hospital Center in New York, left, where a medical

worker carried a stack of white cloths on Friday.

THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC

costs for the growing number

of Americans who are losing

employer-provided health cov-

erage as job losses mount.

Hospitals treating the unin-

sured often bill patients. The

uninsured also may get bills

for care provided by doctors

who aren’t directly employed

by the hospital.

Both would be barred under

the plan, and hospitals would

be reimbursed at current

Medicare rates.

Health and Human Services

Secretary Alex Azar said Fri-

day that providers who get the

funding will be forbidden from

billing the uninsured for the

difference between the money

they get and the costs of

treatment, a practice known as

balance billing.

Hospitals are eager to get

funding and administration of-

ficials are working to deter-

mine how the money will be

divided, according to a person

familiar with the planning. It

will go toward revenue assis-

tance, covering the costs of

the uninsured, and the needs

of hospitals.

For example, needs may be

higher for hospitals in

hotspots hard-hit by the pan-

demic.

Hospitals, which typically

bear the brunt of costs for un-

compensated care, have been

bracing for an influx of pa-

tients.

Hospitals of all types pro-

vided more than $38 billion in

uncompensated care in 2017,

according to the American

Hospital Association.

A 1918-like pandemic would

cause U.S. hospitals to absorb

a net loss of $3.9 billion, or an

average $784,592 per hospital,

according to a 2007 report in

the Journal of Health Care Fi-

nance that called on policy

makers to consider contingen-

cies to ensure hospitals don’t

become insolvent as a result

of a severe pandemic.

Hospital officials have said

they are concerned about the

costs they could incur because

a soaring number of people

are losing jobs and employer-

provided health care.

About 6.6 million Ameri-

cans filed last week for unem-

ployment benefits, a record

for the second week in a row,

and the unemployment rate

for March rose to 4.4% from

3.5% in February, the largest

one-month increase in the rate

since January 1975.

Even though there won’t be

a special enrollment period

because of the virus for ACA

plans, people can still sign up

for the coverage if they have a

life-changing circumstance

such as the loss of job-based

health coverage.

Applicants need to furnish

documentation for the cover-

age and possible subsidies to

reduce premiums, however,

which may pose a barrier to

some.

People who lose jobs may

also be eligible for Medicaid, a

state-federal program for peo-

ple who are low income and

disabled.

It will play an especially vi-

tal role in Washington, D.C.,

and 37 states that expanded

coverage under the ACA,

which makes more people eli-

gible for the coverage.

The Trump administration

has also let states relax cer-

tain requirements, a change

that should make it easier and

faster for individuals to enroll

in Medicaid.

“We know that hospital re-

sources will be stretched be-

yond capacity as a result of

this epidemic,” Thomas Nick-

els, executive vice president of

the American Hospital Associ-

ation, said in a March 17 letter

to lawmakers.

Lawmakers last week

passed a $2 trillion stimulus

plan, called the Cares Act,

with more than $100 billion

earmarked for hospitals and

community health centers

grappling with Covid-19, the

disease caused by the virus.

Doctors, respiratory thera-

pists and others who may

work at hospitals but aren’t

technically employed by them

are concerned about their cost

of treating uninsured patients,

but they may not be covered

by the administration plan fo-

cused on hospitals.

The Trump administration
will use a federal stimulus
package to pay hospitals that
treat uninsured people with
the new coronavirus as long as
they agree not to bill the pa-
tients or issue unexpected
charges.
The plan, which President
Trump announced Friday,
comes as the White House
faces mounting criticism for
not launching a special enroll-
ment period for people seek-
ing coverage under the Afford-
able Care Act. Congressional
Democrats also were pressur-
ing the administration and in-
surers to waive treatment

BYSTEPHANIEARMOUR

U.S. to Pay Hospitals to Treat Uninsured

Institutions would be

barred from billing

patients or issuing

unexpected charges

Hospitals would be

reimbursed at the

current rates for

Medicare.

STEPHANIE KEITH/GETTY IMAGES (2)