CNBC's Rick Santelli on coronavirus: “Maybe we’d be just better off if we gave it to everybody, and then in a month it would be over”

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Citation From the March 5, 2020, edition of CNBC's The Exchange

KELLY EVANS (CNBC ANCHOR): The yield on the 10 year, the benchmark, it sets rates across the country, and it went to a fresh record low of 0.899% today. Rick Santelli joining me now with more. Rick, do we know what the catalyst was? I don't know if it's even -- if I should even bother asking.

RICK SANTELLI (CNBC ON-AIR EDITOR): The catalyst? Just watch your local news. There’s your catalyst.

EVANS: True.

SANTELLI: Of course, people are getting nervous. And listen, I’m not a doctor. I’m not a doctor. All I know is, think about how the world would be if you tried to quarantine everybody because of the generic-type flu. Now I’m not saying this is the generic-type flu. But maybe we’d be just better off if we gave it to everybody, and then in a month it would be over because the mortality rate of this probably isn't going to be any different if we did it that way than the long-term picture, but the difference is we’re wreaking havoc on global and domestic economies.