This Boris Johnson would do quotes, whatever it takes.

Warning of even more extreme measures to come are the chancellory See Soon Act promised to £330 billion package of government backed loans and guarantees, along with cash grants for smaller firms, promising that if demand was greater, it would be met, the prime minister insisted the government and society was there to quote, look after people thick and thin.

Our political editor, Gary Gibbons, has this report.

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This morning, a commuter ghost train the train from Gatwick empty London's Covent Garden, a ghost town.

One day after the government clampdown on socializing and work travel, the prime minister in the chancellor tried to address the howl of pain from employees and businesses who fear their staring into an abyss.

We must act like any wartime government and do whatever it takes to support our economy.

That's the main purposes of this press conference this afternoon.

We must support millions of businesses on dhe tens of millions of families and individuals through the coming months, and to do that the government machine must earn will respond with a profound sense of urgency.

This national effort will be underpinned by government interventions in the economy on a scale unimaginable only a few weeks ago.

This is not a time for ideology on Orthodoxy.

This is a time to be bold.

A time for courage.

I want to reassure every British citizen.

This government will give you a ll The tours you need to get through this.

The pace and virulent CE of the virus change the government's health advice.

Yesterday, Today it rewrote a budget at least six days old and challenged decades of Tory economic thinking.

In the coming days, I will go much further to support people's financial security.

In particular, I will work with trade unions and business groups toe urgently develop new forms of employment support to help protect people's jobs on their incomes.

Through this period, that was a hint of the government paying employers to keep workers in their jobs.

It came on top of cash grants to smaller businesses, billions of pounds worth of government loans.

We have never faced an economic fight like this one, but we are well prepared.

We will get through this and we will do whatever it takes.

Thank you.

As you'll have gathered this afternoon, we are going to do whatever it takes.

Thank you very much.

That phrase, echoing the language leaders used after the 2008 crash on the Euro crisis on open ended promise meant to reassure N hs boss is giving evidence to MPs were asked if the government called for people to stay apart from each other, might avoid the N.

H s being overwhelmed by more patients than it could treat.

Do you think the new guidelines issued yesterday to the public about social distancing would be more effective if they were mandatory rather than advisory?

Well, I think we will know the answer to that question within a matter of days on.

Does I think we heard the prime minister say yesterday first approaches to appeal to the good judgment on altruistic instincts off British people?

But if it turns out that further measures are required that I'm sure the scientific advisors will put those for the government to consider, I can't be playing to say the importance off adhering to these measures as much as you possibly can he's going to make a difference to whether the antique chest copes or not.

It's a plane Is that some n HS leaders sound like they want a full legal crackdown on movement, including the shutdown of schools and universities.

They may not have long to wait.

Nonessential operations will be postponed.

The N H s said over the coming weeks to free up beds for covert 19 victims.

Bleak ambition.

It'll these measures paid off was spelled out.

The total number of deaths, rather than being in the hundreds of thousands, could potentially get below 20,000.

That is the Hope waken Get it down.

To that end, put that into perspective.

Every year in seasonal flu, the number of deaths is thought to be about 8000 excess deaths.

So weaken get this down to numbers 20,000 below.

That's a a good outcome in terms of where we would hope to get to with this outbreak.

But, I mean, it's still horrible.

I mean, that's still an enormous number of deaths, and it's an enormous pressure on the health service.

The government is tonight published an emergency powers bill, which it hopes will ease the pressure on the N HS, allowing the government to shut down ports and airports, temporarily lower care standards, speed up funerals and allow the police to detain those with the virus.

The clampdown only announced yesterday, already being superseded in the race to stop covert 19 engulfing the National Health Service.