Actor lost his leg to the disease. His wife tells us why she believes he will pull through. Saluting captain tom. The skyhigh tribute to a hero of this pandemic as the world war ii veteran celebrates his 100th birthday. Thats a lot of candles. First, heres todays eye opener, your world in 90 seconds. This is going away. Were going to come up with vaccines but this is going away. And when its gone, were going to be doing a lot of things. A new drug is showing positive results for fighting covid19. The data shows that remdesivir has a clearcut significant, positive effect. Diminishing the time to recover. An additional 3. 8 million americans filed for unemployment claims. That brings our sixweek total to over 30 million. Just days after beaches reopened in california, the governor is set to close them. Hospitalizations went up again. Number of deaths, again, went up. Harrison ford now under investigation by the faa. Ford crossed a runway while another plane was about to land. Ncaa board of governors supports a rule change that would allow athletes to be paid for their name, image and likeness. All that nfl commissioner Roger Goodell is voluntarily going without his salary. Due to the covid19 pandemic. And all that matters. A milewide asteroid passed within 4 million miles of the earth. And Scientists Say it could have even come closer, but luckily, it respects social distancing. On cbs this morning. Todays covid briefing, cuomo stressed its ordinary americans like you who are leading the way on the coronavirus response. Thats a selfportrait of america. We received thousands of masks from all across america. Homemade with beautiful notes. God bless everyone who did this. Were going through a pandemic. Im not sure the best use of medical equipment is making a collage. Its like a food bank saying, thanks for your donation. This can of beans will be a great addition to our bean can wall. Welcome to cbs this morning from our home to yours. As you wake up in the west. Anthony, i saw things a little differently than stephen colbert. I was watching that governors news conference. And i actually found it very touching that so many people had sent in the mask and the notes to sort of, you know, cheer everybody on. I really liked it. I didnt see it that way. I agree with you, gayle. I thought it was just lovely. And so many people have helped out this city get through all of this. And that just showed you what people have done. I know. Im going to focus it on that way. Stephen colbert always has a joke and hes always very good. Lets start with a little optimism. We begin with a potential breakthrough in the race for treatments for the coronavirus. Dr. Anthony fauci is expressing hope about a drug called remdesivir which could be used on patients hospitalized with the virus, anthony. Its being tested at the National Institutes of health, although were still early in that process. Dr. Fauci made his announcement in the oval office. Ben tracy is at the white house. Ben, what exactly do we know about this drug . Well, good morning. First off, we should say this is not a cure. This is not a vaccine. But in this Clinical Trial, this drug does show that it shortens the Recovery Period for coronavirus patients in the hospital. Dr. Fauci says this is quite good news. He says when he was looking over the data the other night, it reminded himim of what it was le in the 1980s when Doctors First started to find treatments for hiv. The data shows that remdesivir has a clearcut significant, positive effect in diminishing the time to recover. Reporter dr. Anthony fauci calls remdesivir the new standard of care after a Clinical Trial showed it can block coronavirus and speed Recovery Time. Hospitalized patients who took the drug recovered in 11 days compared to 15 for those given a placebo. A 31 improvement. Although 31 improvement doesnt seem like a knockout 100 , it is a very important proof of concept. Reporter but the drug made by californiabased gilead sciences, the data still needs to be reviewed. As more companies, more investigators get involved, its going to get better and better. Reporter President Trump who has been criticized for promoting unproven coronavirus treatments had a surprisingly measured response. Its a beginning. It means you build on it. I love it as a building block. Reporter the drug is not yet approved but the president wants the fda to do so as soon as possible. Wed like to see quick approvals, especially with things that work. Reporter President Trump is now replacing his daily briefings on the virus with events that focus on the economy. Meeting with ceos of hotel chains and restaurants wednesday. The president says he wants the country back open even without a vaccine because hes convinced the virus will disappear. Without a vaccine, sir, why do you think the virus will just be gone . Its going to leave. Its going to be eradicated. Reporter medical experts have warned it will take a year to 18 months to develop a vaccine, but cbs news has learned the Trump Administration is trying to do something calls operation warp speed to fast track the development of a vaccine. Tony . All right, ben tracy for us. Thank you very mumuch. Lets get to dr. David agus who joins us from los angeles. Good morning. We have not one, but two bits of hopeful news out of the world of medicine. Lets start with remdesivir. Dr. Anthony fauci cautiously optimistic about it. Its an antiviral drug which means it blocks the virus from replicating. What more can you tell us about it . You know, midjanuary was my first meeting on covid19 and literally every day since then weve dreamt of the moment we could say we have a drug that we know works. 1,000 patients decreasing hospitalization by four days. The death rate is down about 30 , although its not statistically significant. So very powerful. These are treating people who are what we call moderately to severely ill. They are short of breath and very symptomatic. Classically with antivirals the earlier you treat the more outcome clinical outcome you get and the better it is. Seeing this at this stage is very encouraging. We have something in our arsenal to treat the disease. That is exciting. Very, very encouraging indeed. Any caveats in your mind . Anything we should be looking out for . This is, you know, the study has not been Peer Reviewed. Thats important. This is the nih study which the initial data were released yesterday. Now its going to be reviewed and the fda will assign it, hopefully, approval so it can be used en masse across the country. The company is giving away the first 1. 5 million doses of this for free to the country for treatment of patients with covid19. Yeah, nih double blind known as a Gold Standard study in the way it was organized. Lets go to Oxford University and talk about a vaccine. Scientists there think they may have a vaccine ready by september. Way earlier than otherwise scheduled. How promising is that . Its pretty wild. This is the university that survived the plague in the 1300s. But they had developed a vaccine for mers, a former virus that was tried on patients. Did not spread the virus. So the vaccine was shelved. And they just switched out the portion for mers to covid19, and put it into monkeys and challenged monkeys with the virus. After 28 days, no signs or symptoms from the virus at all. Because it had already been in patients, a similar virus, they are starting out with 6,000 patients over the next six weeks. So dramatically scaled. And then if thats positive, theyll go forward with literally millions of doses to try to get this very soon into people across the globe. So big, big step. Vaccine equals, we will be on top of this disease. New drug, vaccine, certainly an amazing day in the fight against covid19. First positive one in a while. Yeah, thats right. Dr. Agus, you have also had conversations with the white house yourself personally about fasttracking a vaccine. What can you tell us about that . Its called operation warp speed. The key thing is there are up to 70 companies with vaccine candidates. What the government and others are trying to do is say, i think these four or five are probably the best. Let me start making them and manufacturing in case the trials work. So take the risk now. Dont wait to see which works or which twhiwins the bakeoff. When the data are there, the next day we can trl out across the country. Its key to think forward. Dr. David agus with that insight into two bits of hopeful news this morning. Thank you. Anthony, over to you. Thank you both. The Unemployment Crisis from the coronavirus pandemic is getting even worse unfortunately. More than 3. 8 million americans files for jobless benefits last week. According to the labor department, that means more than 30 Million People have filed unemployment claims since the middle of march when business across the country started laying off workers. Some economists now project the april Unemployment Rate which comes out next week could be as high as 20 . The white house says federal social distancing guidelines will not be extended past may 1st. Thats tomorrow, by the way. While states make their own decisions about reopening. Today california is expected to announce that beaches and state parks will close tomorrow after dangerously large crowds gathered last weekend ignoring the orders from the governor there. Thats according to a memo to Police Chiefs obtained by our l. A. Station kcbs. In the meantime, florida on the other side of the country, is moving in the opposite direction. The governor there says restaurants and retailers will be allowed to reopen at 25 indoor Capacity Starting on monday. Many beaches there are open, and more may reopen soon on a county by county basis. The governors plan excludes miamidade, broward and palm beach counties. A recent study shows most states fall far short of widespread diagnostic testing needed to reopen safely. That includes the state of pennsylvania which has the sixth highest number of reported cases and the fifth highest number of deaths in the country tied to covid19. As we look at the state of coronavirus testing, our National CorrespondentJericka Duncan went to philadelphia where she discovered testing there can be hard to find. Reporter fed up over a lack of coronavirus tests in her community, pediatric surgeon, dr. Ala stanford took matters into her own hands. Every time someone got turned away, i would get a call. Reporter on a rainy day last friday, stanford and her team of volunteers gave over 200 people diagnostic tests in a Philadelphia Church parking lot. Who is paying for this right now . I am paying for it. I am paying you are paying for all of these tests . I am. Reporter shes been able to test over 1600 people. Wendell stewart showed up early. Theyre giving numbers out. How do they know if theyre not testing people. Reporter right now in philadelphia, theyre testing around 1500 people per day. But Health Officials say they need to test at least 5 to 10 times that amount before they can even consider safely reopening. Like communities around the country, demand outweighs supply. While we were there, the tests started to run out with nearly 100 people still waiting. Were going to be out of testing kits. Reporter persistence paid off and a local hospital came through. Donating more tests. So far, less than 2 of pennsylvanias population of 12. 8 million have been tested since the beginning of march. I think its really important to have a steady supply chain that we can count on in terms of testing. And it seems like that is developing. Reporter pennsylvanias secretary of health dr. Rachel levine. We want to be able to test every symptomatic patient in pennsylvania and were working towards that. Reporter right now, is it easy to get a covid19 test . It is much easier. So some of it depends where you live. Reporter philadelphia and other southeast parts of the state will remain closed for now. But Northern Counties with lower cases per capita are among those that could be the first to reopen. And rural licoming county, they are preparing to open the bookstore. Until you can get tested, what makes you safe . Weve been very cautious in terms of any exposure. In terms of general safety, im not going to say that there isnt some certaioncern, especi having a young daughter. Reporter the state Health Department says its tested over 40,000 people within the last week. Now while some of these businesses will be reopening on may 8th in pennsylvania, its really a partial reopening. So restaurants will remain curbside only and places like the Movie Theater will remain closed. Jericka, thank you. More than 14,000 Health Care Professionals have contracted the coronavirus in the u. S. And at least 27 have lost their lives in the service of others. One of them, Pamela Orlando, documented her own fight with the virus on camera before she died. Lead National CorrespondentDavid Begnaud has her story. Reporter 56yearold Pamela Orlando was a frontline hero. This is a woman who had everything to lose, and she still went out there on the front line saving lives. Reporter the nurse from new jersey worked three jobs. She was a Breast Cancer survivor and a single mom to 16yearold ryan and 23yearold reid. I begged my mother to not go to work. I really did. I begged her. Reporter pamela worked at the Valley Hospital in ridgewood, new jersey. Do you believe your mother was infected at work . Absolutely. Reporter from home, she started to document what would be the end of her life. Today i have a fever that i cant get rid of. Day two. Boy, do i feel like crap. Back pain, fever that wont break. Reporter by day three, she was hospitalized where she works. Oh, my god, this is no joke. I am so uncomfortable. My fever just broke so im a little bit better. Fever of 104. 6. P reporter on the fifth day i feel horrible. Like so bad, almost like im not going to nak. Reporter later in the day, she was struggling just to talk. I cant even move without being short of breath. Just pray that im okay. Not sure what day it is. Im not Getting Better yet. Reporter pamela posted five more videos, but she didnt speak. She was trying to log every day of the sickness to show the masses or whoever would watch it how this deathly virus can progress. Reporter the day she died, april 16th, 24 days after she fell ill, reid and ryan visited her in the hospital wearing proper protective equipment along with their 80yearold grandmother ann who is pams mom. She told my mom that she was going to take care of us and really protect us from anything, and thats what my mother really needed. She needed to know that me and my brother were going to be okay. Reporter 56yearold Pamela Orlando died two hours after her boys went to see her. Gayle. David, that video is so tough to watch because you can actually see her slipping away. And whats painful to me, she probably knew she was slipping away but yet she wanted to document this story in hopes of maybe helping others to let people know as her son said how bad this is. Thats very tough to watch. I feel for her sons. Her sons who are watching this video and who she was. I spoke with a friend of hers who is a nurse at the hospital and she said every day shed bring a phone to pams ear and place it by the ear and pam was on a virt entilator so she was unconscious. But every time the boys would talk, it would drop considerably. That was a sign to the friend and boys that pamela could hear them loud and clear. Yeah, and i think about the medical professionals, too david, who are now treating their own. As a medical professional, you dont expect to end up a patient yourself in most cases and now many of them are in the hospitals as well. Thank you for sharing her story. Thank you for sharing her story. Very difficult. Into a smaller life . Are your asthma treatments just not enough . Then see what could open up for you with fasenra. It is not a steroid or inhaler. It is not a rescue medicine or for other eosinophilic conditions. Its an addon injection for people 12 and up with asthma driven by eosinophils. Nearly 7 out of 10 adults with asthma may have elevated eosinophils. Fasenra is designed to target and remove eosinophils, a key cause of asthma. It helps to prevent asthma attacks, improve breathing, and can reduce the need for oral steroids like prednisone. Fasenra may cause allergic reactions. Get help right away if you have swelling of your face, mouth, and tongue, or trouble breathing. Dont stop your asthma treatments unless your doctor tells you to. Tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection, or your asthma worsens. Headache and sore throat may occur. Could you be living a bigger life . Ask an asthma specialist about fasenra. Could you be living a bigger life . You can be feminine and fierce. No sweat. Introducing new secret with essential oils. Fourtyeight hour sweat protection. Now crafted with pure, essential oils. Secret all strength, no sweat. From anyone else. So why accept it from your allergy pills . Flonase relieves your worst symptoms which most pills dont. Get allinone allergy relief for 24 hours, with flonase. Much more news ahead including a setback for a broadway star. His wife amanda remains optimistic. One of nicks main doctors said to me from day one, and i love him for this, he said, amanda, were going to look at this in a positive light because the minute we look at it in any other light, theres no options. She talks with gayle about nicks condition and the incredible support their family has received. Youre watching cbs this morning. And suddenly stopped eating. Then we found freshpet. Now rudys 13, and going on 3. My children are really worried. My tip is, send your kids a text. It may be the last time that you do. [announcer] you can quit. For free help, call 1800quit now. Thats ensure max protein, with high protein and 1 gram s