“I just don’t want to panic,” White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said on CNBC on Friday. “Let’s try to be calm and not overreact."

Kudlow said the administration “would prefer a targeted approach,” noting that White House officials met with airline executives a couple of days ago in the Oval Office. “Let’s think about individuals who might lose paychecks because they had to stay home if they get the virus. Let’s think about small businesses that might get hurt by this.”

“We really have to wait for more information almost on a day-by-day basis before we can take action,” he said. “Frankly, so far [it] looks relatively contained, and … the vast majority of Americans are not at risk for this virus."

The rapid spread of the coronavirus at home and abroad has roiled financial markets, with stocks seeing steep drops and then surges for weeks, the interest rate on 10-year U.S. government bonds dropping below 1 percent for the first time in history, and oil prices sinking to their lowest levels in the Trump presidency. The drop in 10-year Treasury rates reflects an extraordinarily high level of demand for safe longer-term assets as fears grow about how the economy will fare in the short term.

All this market turmoil is taking place against the backdrop of a strong underlying economy, with the Labor Department reporting on Friday a hefty gain of 273,000 jobs in February. Still, a key global manufacturing index this week showed that both factory output and service sector activity slowed in February by the largest amount in more than a decade.

Still, Kudlow's comments mirrored those of Brent McIntosh, the Treasury Department’s point person on the outbreak, who said Thursday that “targeted action may be better than something more sweeping.” He added, “We don’t have anything on the table yet.”

President Donald Trump, who has previously floated the idea of a temporary payroll tax cut, is still focusing his attention mostly on the Federal Reserve, which earlier this week slashed interest rates by a half a percentage point in an emergency response to the economic risks posed by the virus.

Asked whether policymakers should take action to stimulate the economy, Trump responded that the central bank should further cut its target rate, which now sits between only 1 percent and 1.25 percent.

“The Fed should cut, and the Fed should stimulate,” he told reporters at the White House on Friday. “Because other countries are doing it and it puts us at a competitive disadvantage.”

In a press conference Tuesday after the rate move, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said the central bank hoped the rate reduction would provide a “meaningful boost to the economy” but emphasized the limits of the Fed’s ability to deal with the outbreak.