Never give up. Woodruff welcome to our pbss ur special, confronting coronavirus. Im judy woodruff. A rus none of us can see with the naked eye has turned our lives upside down in ways we couldnt imagiek just a few ago. Most of us are anxious because so much has changed so fast; frightened because so much is unknown. Knowing that, we decided to try to addressome of your concerns. Over the past week, weve collected your questions, and, tonight, weve invit a team of experts to answer many of them. They cover your own personal health, the economy, and how prepared we are as a coury for this threat. Later, well also hear from dr. Anthony fauci of the National Institute of allergy and Infectious Diseases, probably the most respecte voice in the nation right now. But to begin, a look at how we got here. Its alover the world. Its incredible whats happened a such a short period of time. Woodruff onlw months ago, the disease now known as covid19 is believed to have originated at one seafood and poultry market in the city of wuhan, china. In late december, Health Officials in that city began reporting dozens of cases of pneumonia with no known cause. The Chinese Government was slow to disclose the extent of the outbreak, but officials soon identified a new flulike respiratory virus belonging to the family of coronaviruses, named for the crownlike spikes on their surface. Weve been expecting a Novel Coronavirus to emerge for the woodruff peterk is a zoologist who has spent years studying how diseases spread ndfrom wildlife to humans, looking specifically at coronaviruses. The closest relative to the virus that causes covid19 is one that we found in bats in 2013. D ere are hundreds of other coronaviruses that are very closely related to this one. Woodruff there are seve known types of coronavirus that can affect humans. Four cause mild sympms each year, like the common co another is severe acute respiratory syndrome, or sars, whh also originated in chi d 2002 and has since infected 8,000 people aroe world, killing about 10 of them. Id yet another isdle east respiratory syndrome, or mers, which broke out in 2012 and 2013 in saudi arabia, infected nearly 2,500 and killed more than 850, thats about 35 death rate. This one, covid19, has a m much lowtality rate, but still at least ten times higher than the season flu. So, its lethal, and it also spreads very easily. Woodruff the virus appears to pass through droplets in the air and on surfaces. Children seem less susceptible to covid19, and the majority of people recover without hospitalization. But its espially dangerous for older adults and those with Underlying Health problems. There is currently no ble vaccine for covid19. The answer to containing is Public Health measures. We cant rely on a vaccine in the next several months to a year. Uf i woodrf after covid19 sprewuhan in january, chinese officials began drasticr me to contain it building temporary hospitals to isolate cases, forcing people into quarantine, and even separating family members. But by midjanuary, the World Health Organization reported that cid19 had escaped china, first to thailand, japan and south korea, and then beyond. The United States confirmed its first case in washington state, th cases growing around the globe, by the end of the month, the w. H. O. Declared a Global Health emergency. The main reon for this declaration is not because of what is happening in china, but because of what is happening in other countries. Woodruff yet, early on, President Trump consistently downplayed the threat from the virus. We have it totally under control. Looks like by april. , you kn theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away. Erpe thats true. The risk to the an people remains very low. Woodruff but it soon became clear the u. S. Wasnt doing enough testing to unde how quickly it was spreading here. Nn we stop this pandemic infected. t know who is woodruff as more cases were confirmed, schools and businesses closed, markets plunged, and, late last week,um president announced a National Emergency and changed his tone. Its not a good situation. And im not even talking about the economy. Im talking out the lives of a lot of people. Woodruff but as testing ramps up and huge parts of the country are shutting down, theres concern about whether itsoo late to prevent a cru at the nations hospitals, something already seen in italy and iran. Meanwhile, in china, it appears that the drastic measures taken by the government are working; officials there say new infections have slowed dramatically. And two months after they took action, restrictions are being as the full scope of this pandemic remains unclear. Im joined tonight by my newshour colleague, amna nawaz. She is going to walk us through weve received from viewers across the country. Amna, youve been hearing a lot of stories about howcans are coping. Nawaz thats right, judy. Before we turn to those questions, we want to share some personal stories from some of our viewers, telling us how covid19 is impacting their lives and their heal first, a california man who was under quarantine after testing potive for the virus. Then, a new york woman who is sick butant get tested. My name is carl goldman. Iquarantined in omaha. Im Theresa Macphail fromw brooklyn, rk. Not allowed to go outside my door. Im only allowed to aner my door with a mask on. I started feeling unwell on february 29. My fever spiked to 102. 5. I went to the e. R. Here in a brookl was tested for flu and strep but was not tested for covid. En i was simplyhome for quarantine. Theyre only testing people who are very, very severe or extremely at risk, neither of which i am. The mtal side of this definitely has added to the stress. M whwife returned two weeks ago to santa clarita, she never had the virus, returned to santa clarita, and people still were shunning her. Its really incredible that habeen able to be tested. If i had known if there had been a way to get early, an easy testing and i do have covid. And, aga have it. Nclear if i do but having that knowledge would have saved me from maybe five on six days ocessarily exposing people around me. I think the hardest part for me is being able to get back to nature. Or just even stepping outside for a minute to breathe fresh air or no longer looking at the four wal n in my room. Az since sending us that video, we should mention carl has been freed from quarantine. Home and doing well but both stories raise concerns we heard from a vimber of our ers, so we have two experts here to address them now. Dr. Leana wen is an emergency physician and Public Health professor at george waon university. She previously served as baltimores health commissner. And dr. William schaffner is a professor of Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt Universitys school of medicine. B thank you to yh for being here. I want to jump right in to some of these questions because weve sure got a lot. Heres one now from rachael stillwell, 52 yores old from h woodlalls, california. Takelaseen to her questions. What advice can you give me about how to politely convince my 76yearold mom who lives in oregon and has a very active social life that she should curtail some of her socihe activities witr friends that shes used to seeing alst every day . Reporter weve heard is from the federal government, social distancing especially foh members ofe vol memorable population, what do you sato rachael . I would say this is for your health and others around you. For your health because older peop and those are chronic medil illnesses are in th category of the medically most t vulnerabcovid 19, and also this is for other people, too, thcause we knobest way, the only way at this point to reduce the spread of covid 19 is to socially d that doesnt mean you have to be emotionally distant, but to be ysically distant from oher people. This is for everyone in our society to improve their health during this critical time. Snoo dr. Schaffner, whats your advice for her . Very similar, and its time for facetime rather than facetoface. We dont want to spread the virus and we dont want to acquire the virus, and the way to do that is not to be in groups, not to b in facetoface communication with our friends. And all we can do is hopen. They lis i want to go to another question now. You to respond to this first. From bill christianson, who isbo asking a different segment of the population and what we know about coronavirus and covid 19. This is bill christianson from williamsberg, virginia. I understand children who are uposed to covid 19 areh less likely to have a serious illness. Id like the know if lar populations of children perhaps in italy or china have been tested to determine iftheyave been exposed and, if they have, in fact, become carriers of the disease. Dr. Schaffner, what do we know when it comes to children and cov wid 19 . L, were learning much more about children. Children cabecome infected, they dont get the serious disease they may get a milder illness or have no illness at all but its begom apparent they are good transmitters of the virus as with influenza, so they can distribute it amongst themselves and then give it to Older Persons who may, indeed, have these chronic underlying conditions or,ecause of age, be more vulnerable. Doctor, does that mean children will not geteverely ill from the virus . Actually, we are learning new information about this every day bause this is a new illness, and new research is coming out. It appears, based on the studies tat, in china, children don get seriously mill as dr. Schaffner mention, however, there are nestudies that show Young Children under one year of age could get and do gecritically ill. So it is important for us to keep on monitoring and to remember that all of us are sus susctible to covid 19. No one is immune. This is a new diase and theres no vaccine, so thats why prevention is what we h ae to take incount and into our own hands. Dr. Schaffner, wetting new information about the fact that, here in the u. S. , there have been increased number of hospitalizations for younger members of the population, not this vnerable, older population we keep talking about. What should we take away from that information now . I think its very impta information for young people, so this is a virus that can take an young person put them in the hospital within 48 hours. Its a serious infection and, beyond that, you know,can be transmitters to older people. So this is a message for e young people in our communities to get with the program and, also, paicipate in scial distancing. Reporter dr. Wen, whats your takeawafrom that information today . I completely agree withne dr. Schathat this is none of us are immune from we should take this extremely seriously. Young people are gcetting k, just as older people are, and this is a situation that we can all prevent Going Forward by reducing the rate of transmission and, ideali, keeping uph social distancing, so as to stop the spad here in our communities. And because there is so much we dont know, we fielded aot questions about transmission, about how people can get it. One, from a wo san ineattle, washington, stay stacy, says hog does the virus remain trance missable on vrious surfaces . Does temperature or humidity affect its viability . Dr. Wen, what do we knoow we hat the virus lives potentially for a long time, surface. G on the type of so hard, nonporous surfaces like a doonob, an elevator button or a table, a countertop, theiv virus could between hours to days, depending on the other conditions, like humidity and temperature. Porous surfaces, soft surfaces like hair and clothes, e virus lives for a shorter period of time. This is why, though, we need to practice really good hand hygiene because we know that were go mg to be touchingany surfaces. Its not practical to stophi touchings, but we can wash our hands frequently with soap and water, duceuching of our face and also disinfecting surfaces around our house a well. Reporter i want to play a question from deborah, 66 years old, inn mineapolis, minnesota, and she wants to know what we know aout potential longterm effects of covid 19. Take a listen. If soeone recovers from covid 19, will they have longterm lung damage . Reporter know many people m get sick, we know the vast majority will rover. Dr. Wen, do we know what the longterm effects are . If you become very sick from covid 19 and end up with pneumoa and on ventilator, you do have lung damage and that could be permanent, but do know that the vast majority of people will have mild symptoms, mild illness, will recover and likely develop immunity to it in the future. Reporter dr. Schaffner, i ask you to give adplvice, peo want to know, with regards to their own personal health and the health of everybody around them, in the few seconwh we have left can they be doing now to help other people . Well, the most ting the most important things u can do is reach out to people who are sequestered at home, help them get their grories, the medication, actually communicate with them through facetime, keep up their spirits, and oemind tm that what theyre doing is goodr themselves and for everyone else around them. Were all in this together. Reporter incredibly helpful information. Thank you to both of you fors being with today, dr. William schaffner and dr. Leana wen. Thank you to your questions as vewell. Well ore later in the show. For tips on what you can be doing now to proftect yours from covid 19, heres some tips from the centers for Disease Control. Centers for Disease Control and prevention. Ed. Nawaz the pandemic is not just a healtcrisis; its also triggered an economic crisis, impact on our jobs, our a major finances, and our futures. As the fears and uncertainty around covid19 spread, Financial Markets have been left reeling. Wall street crashed again, with the dow jones illustries g. Freefalling nearly 3,000 points, or 13 points the most in 30 years. Nawaz just one mgo, wall street was trading at record highs. Neday . Volatility is thnormal. Trillions of dollars of market value have been wiped out, and fears of an approaching recession are growing. Nawaz u. Stocks are now down nearly 30 from their recent pk in february. Some of the hardest industries . Airlines and touri. Major carriers like american airlines, delta and united have been dealt a staggering blownd are asking for an immediate 50 billion injection of Financial Aid to avoid bankruptcy in the coming months. Tein the u. S. , several stahave ordered bars and restaurants to close, leaving millions of workers uncertain about the future im really concerned about how im going to pay my bills. Nawaz that conce is spreading as layoffs and furloughs begin across a number of sectors. Ford, g. M. And fiatchrysler have all temporarily closed u. S. Plants. And as governments ask america to avoid any gathering of ten people or more, life in america as we know it is changinlike never before. All that means amusement parks like disney world shut down. Major Music Festivals and tours cancelled. Professional and College Sports on hold. We have not ever seen a shock like this since 9 11. E nawaz s. Government is working to pass billions in aid, assistance and loans. E federal reserve, in coordination with Central Banks around the world, slashed Interest Rates to zero in a desperate effort to shore up the financial system. But the deep and structural shocks to the Global Economy are just begning to be felt from what experts call the worstis Public Health in a century. Lets talk now about tndse shockshat they mean today and down the line. Joining us from chicago, Austan Goolsbe he was the chair of president obamas council of economic advisers and is now nomics professor at the university of chicago. Singletary, a personal finance columnist for the washington post. Beanks to both of you for ghere. I want to jump into the questions becae people are wrried. Austan, i want you to meet lind elkin, a 70yearold retiree from st. Is lmissouri. Heres her first question. Sinking like the titanic right now. Ishere anything the government can do to help retirees . Reporter austin, what t . Out tha help coming for people like linda . Well, yes and no. Look, as we go through a period like this and the stock market is down and then up a little and down some more, the government is now talking about shortrun relief that theyre going to send checks out to potentially every american or a lot of amereans or all americansow a certain income levilel, it help a retiree like her more than a payroll tax cut would have, obviously, because shesa not payingyroll tax, but i think, in a moment like thise whe virus has taken over and the economys in lockdown, virus economics arent the same as regar economics, as i say. So i think the most importantre thingsrying to protect your health, the gvernments got to try to slow the spread of this virus, and weve got to just make sure we dont mor what is a shortterm intense pain hit on the economy, that wi dont morpt into some longrunnt depressionlikey. Reporter michelle to that point, a distferent quen from ppoi differently. A fey rachael kabagabu, 26 years old and lives in texas. She wants to know about r future. Is it wise to change my cevesting . Should i be coed about whether i am putting my money in . Should by taking money out to have the stock market . Personal finance concerning my reporter in all this volatility, how does someone likeachael process that . The good thing is shes got youth on her time got decad before retirement, so i would encourage her to continue to invest her retirementecause, right now, unfortunately for those of us so are closest to retirement, stocks are le, equities are on sale and shell get more for her money. Make sure that as shes investing shes diversified but i could say continue to go ahead. Right now at this moment, it seems like it will never end, but it will td. Even iftakes them a year, were going to find a vaccine hopefully, and things will start toslowly recover anll that money, een though its scary now, will start tonc irease, because thats how markets have done historically. En the Great Depression ended. Reporter on that point, diana in north carolina,n from sthoapts know she wants to know how long it will go. Are you as optimistic asle michs . I would say yes, overall. What i would say to dnaas, whenoure in an environment we, society, the nation, can do things to prevt this thing from turning into a longrun Great Depressionlike catastrophe, and this starts t wi health aspect. Weve got to invest in slowing down the spread of the virus. The thing thats killing the economy athis moment at were in lockdown. It doesnt mean we should t declare that its not a lockupdown. Itloes mean that if you flow the lesson, say, of south korea where theyre doing extensive testing so if you leave your house theres a low chance youre just going to bump into many people who dont have thes vid dont know it yet, the only people going into lockdown are people who have tested positive. Weve got to move to that, otherwise, i dont think the pure relief where we hand you money to cover your bills isy vitamportant, but thats not a solution, its just burning your money to kep yourse warm. So weve got to get on a path get out of lockdown. Otherwise, this thing could last a lot longer. But imopretty timistic that, if we start doing the right approach, that we could gtut lockdown the way some other countries have been able to. Reporter in this moment, were hearing fromo many people who live paycheck to paycheck who are already losing their job ill play something for you from alexa coupens, lives in denver, colorado, works as a concert bartender and expresses this anxiety and worry we heard from a lot of people. Take a listen to her now. I cant sleep. M theres h anxiety, i cant sleep. Ihaving nightmares. I dont know if im going to have a roof over my head next month. T anim no scared of getting sick. Im scared of losing my apartment. Were drowning. We need a lifeboat. We want to work. Reporter michelle, there are a lot of peple like alexa out there. What can you tell her right now . Well, i wish i could tell her more. But heres what i would say, all of us are going through it at the same time, so be in Constant Contact with your landlord. Everybody is going through this. So its unlikely theyre going to evict her. So shes got several months before thats going to be ane. Is so i would say that shes still going to have a roof over her head. A im pretty suout that. Cut wherer she can nonessential expenses, and then just hunker down and just know that this, too, shall pass. E should file for unemployment right away so that theres some, and then that money will help her pay for the essential things. Right now, focus on the essentials food, utilities and again, talk to yu landlord. Utility companies probably wont turn off your power, sohose things will help them now. Reporter austan, another question from a lot of pople, very briefly, if you can, they want to know, when the federal government acts we hear about the bailout money thacould be coming how can we be sure its ing into the right hands, hands, i. E. , the pockets to have the American People . Thats the important part. O keep callingr congress people, the president , the white house. Eu saw the last caller, t anxiety and not being able to sleep, its very common, and people like that need to be rescued before were going tove rescue wha casinos and airlines and businesses. It is, if we do ot learn the lesson of the financial bailout of 2008, whi is, if youre going to save companies, put in some requirements and make sure that they are looking out for their cudomers an for their workers. Theres going to be a backlash very similar to the one that we fore, but its going to be bigger and worse because people are really afraid for thir positions right now. A lot of worry and uncertainty there. Austan goolsbee and michelle singletary. D thank you. Anks to all of you for your questions. Confronting coronavirus means not just examining where america is now but how countries around the world are facing this glal pandemic. And that is where jpicks up things next. Judy . Woodruff what began in china has now spread around the globe. Now infects more than 170countrh more confirmed cases and deaths every day. Outside of china, among the firsthit was south korea, which has managed to slow the virus spread through national effort. The same cannot be said forch italy, wow has the most cases outside of china. For a look at how each of these countries is responding to this crisis, we turn to special correspondents in those countries patrick fok in beijing; Bruce Harrison innd seoul;ermione kitson in italy. We welcome all of you t our special. Let me start with you, patrick fok. Tell me how china has dealt with this from the begndinnings there a sense theyre beginning to get it under control . Well i think, judy, the best way of describing the situation right now is its incredibly uncertain. The headline piece of news today, of course, is there were no new domestic cases of infection. Thats a massive step for china to take. But, on thflip side, there were 34 imported cases of the aydisease. Thatot sound like an awful lot in the granscheme of things, when you think of te tens of thousands of people across china that have been infected over the past several months, but, remember, just a day before, there were only 12 new cases of infection, so imrted cases really is the situation that authorities are grappling with a lot right now, and the focus is shifting away from wuhan, the epicenter to have the virus, to major cities like in beijing and shanghai, these are the ports of entry where mofst o those imported and president xi jinpingrrivin chairing a special covid 19me ing on wednesday and said there was a real risk of the outbak rebounding at this point. Woodruff patrick, is the government acknowledging what was done rig and what w done wrong, and do you believe them when they say this is tapering off . Well, the Central Government really hasnt accepted an awful lot of blame for thihs. Frome begning, it blamed this as being the fault ofal provineaders, provincial leaders of hubei province, and its really portrayed the Central Government as having come in d cleaned up the mess, essentially, and in recent days itsortrayed this as beinga victory of sorts saying they have essentially reversed their spread of the and almost won the battle against the disease. But that is why this is such a critical time for bijing because, if there is a second wave of this outbreak, there will be nobody to blame, at this point, and there is a lot of frustration among the people of china. They are fed up with the situation, they are fed up with lockdowns. They want this situation to be over. Woodruff patrick fok in beijing. Thank you so much. Now to south korea, to seoul, and to Bruce Harrison. So, bruce, south korea seems to ccesse of the rare su stories in all of this. Tell us how theyve done it,he w havemanaged to bend the curve and is it actually working . Judy, a stron sign the public believes the govinernmens wois evident ton streets tonight in this neighborhood. You can see a lot of people outr having dinnd drinks, and that wasnt the case here just a few weeks ago when the situation seemed far from control. Nm but the govts done a good job building the publics confidence, and one of the main ways ine that is through facing, tracking and isolating. So itnding people it believes may have the coronavirus, testing them and quickly getting them into isolation, whether a home quarantine or at a hospital, to make sure they dont get more sick and spread the virus further. An important part of that aspece is that thinterview these people, they find out where they have been and who they have been in contact with, so it leads to more testing down the road. Another key part of the effort here has been communication. I get several Text Messages a teday from the governmenling me where new cases have been confirmed in seoul. That allows me to know where not to go, or if im going somewhere to be a bit more cautious, and all these effre Building Trust in the government. The public here has been quite good at the gliis the government has laid out, whether social distancing or folloes guideln washing hands, learing masks on public transportation, hese things seem to be working to further prevent the spread of covid 19. Woodruff and, bruce, how concerned are people, though, about whether theres going to be a second wave, whether this is going to linger and come judy, weve see small increase in cases, and this comes after several codansecutie with a total number of cases had falln beow 100, and that was significant because, at one point, cases were over 900 in a single day. So theres been some optimism that maybe the Virus Outbreak had peaked here and the numbers would only fall Going Forward. Its too soon to say that, but i think theres optimism the government will be able to bring ese under control as well. K weve seen souea has the robust capability to test up to 15,000 peop a day. There seems to be no shortage of tests now. Picompanies have been stong even before the first outbreak in this company, so i believe the public is hoping the government can target these new clusr infections and prevent large outbreaks like we saw inef februarye things getut of hand again. Woodruff bruce harison reporting for us from seoul. Thank you so much. Now to italy trmione kitson. Hermione, italy has turned out points of all of this. Ster focus is it government saying is there an understanding now of what went wrong there . Health authorities believe circulation for quite some time before actually detected. Spread very, very quickly in the densely population ofhe north and while one region was declared a red zone and quickly locked down, the rest of the country wasnt, so people starred to travel from the north to the center and down into the south of the country potentially spreading the virus. Is peraps the ntional lockdown could have come into effect sooner. Anther element that comes io play when talking aout italys high mortaty rate is its aging population. We have here theldest population and the average age of coronavirus victim here is 80 years old, so a lot of people in that very high risk caegory. Woodruff so, hermione, now that the lockdown has taken effect, how have the healthcare servicesnd the rest of the country are doing . Do they feel the situation has the Healthcare System here really is struggling. Breakingpoint. Ed to the there are makeshift hospital parks, warehouses. Into car the medical staff on the front line say they really have never seen anything like it before. They describe a situation like a sar zone and they theyre struggling to keep up with demand h the governme to put into nt doctors,000 stu nine months before theyre due to graduate to boost capacity. So this is the second week of lockdown. Wee hoping we will see th effects in the terms of the number of cases in the next few days. Its hoped the spike weve seen in the last 24 hoursould be the peak were waiting for and will see the slowdown in the rate of infections in the next few days, but if we dont see the slowdown, the lockdown will have to continue. Woodruff were all watching and hoyng for the ver best in each one of these countries. Hermione, thank you. Thank you again to patrick fok, to Bruce Harrison ad to hermione kitson. Their experience is what many people are looking to, to figure out which direction e United States is headed. Will we end up like italy or more like south korea . Lets go back to amna. Nawaz from coast to coast, scenes of a u. S. Healthcare system bracing for the worst. Temporary tents standing sentry outside some hospitals, winding lines of cars r a limited supply of tests. As frustration builds, amerises medical pronals are sounding the alarm about a looming crisis likelyhortages of everything from beds and ventilators, to face masks and gloves. If this burns through very, very quickly, we could be in trouble. Theres just no two ways about it. Woodruff the white house pall for social distancing is a crucial of the national response. Stay. Joy your home. I would just say, right now, we have to get this problem fixed. Woodruff its an attempt t flatten the curve or slow thee spread of rus enough so that hospitals arent overwhelmed with a surge of patients all at uce. Still, t. Healthcare system is readying for an influi of caswill struggle to care for. Therare nearly 47,000 intensive care beds at Community Hospitals across the United States. But even a moderate outbreak, experts say, would require adruple that, some 200,0 i. C. U. Beds. So, for now, a scramble to expand medical capacity across the country. Le new york state, for exa the Health Department is even speeding up certifications of nursing students and calling on retired doctors and nurses t help. Health officials leading the u. S. Response are urging hospitals nationwide to postpone elective surgeries. Lets all be responsible and cancel things that we can cancel to really free up hospital beds and space. Nawaz in washington state, the countrys first virus hotspot, a clinical trl for a covid19 vaccine kicked off this week. Any vaccine rollout, however, wouldnt be ready for at least a year. Among the biggest concerns to date . A failure to test enough people quickly enough, and ensuring frontline healthcare workers have what they need to care for incoming patients and prottht selves. A possible covid19 patient. To i dont know if i need to be off until we get the patients test results back. Im left wondering what to do. Woodruff how wpel our system s americas doctors and nurses are hit by the very virur theyrng to fight . Those are the Big Questions what will happen in the u. S. Next, and how prepared is our Health System . Joining me here is Cheryl Peterson of the American Nurses associatn, representing the interests of around four million nurses nationwide; and dr. Ashish jha, who runs the harvard globalealth institute and joins us from boston. Welcome to you both, thank you for being here. I want to get right in to some of these questions because we re have a lot. Want to introduce you to laine abramson, 54 years old, underlying respiratory issues, copd and asthma. She has a very imptant estion for both of you. Take a listen. As someone whhasd to go to the emergency room because of the common cold, what is going to happen to m when the hospitals are overflowing and doctors have to decide who gets to live and who gets to die . D jha, why dont you tak this first . Whats your message to laine . First of all, we havto do everything absolutely possible to make sure we dont get to the point where doctors and nurses are having to decide who gets to live a die. I would sayake good cabe of yourself. Take your medicines. If you feel ill, dont go to the emergency department, bt reach out to your doctor, obvyusly try to sway from the hospital. Im hopeful that if you get sick and need care, we will be able to provide that for you hopefully anywhere in the country. Reporter cheryl, what would you say to her . I think were not at a place where we need to panic yesterday. Hower, we need to havour hospitals making plans now about how are they going to make these very difficult decisions that may be don the lie, and these are decisions that should not be madey front line Healthcare Providers and by doctors and nurses providing cbee, they must ade as a systems level and be grounded with our ethics. Are decisions equitable . Are they consistent . Are they transparenten and s the trig tore make those decisions . And whens the trigger to stop . Reporter are you confident t people like laine will e care they need even if theres a surge of covid 19 patients . Yes, i believe that we are going to do everything we can to care for absolutely everywh patienis in need of help. It may look a little differentit than wheould if we were in a parchdemic, but were here to care for people. Reporter let me ask you about very important work done by front line heahcare workers. I want to go to chevon jonesm. Among th in westchester county, they have one on the front lis of the covid 19 hot spots. Healthcare workers who arely reyou know, on the front lines, you know, are they going to become ill . You know, exhaustion, you know, things of th nature . So, yes, my biggest question is how long . I guess no one can really answer that question, how long is this going to really go on . Weve had a lot of questio from halthcare workers. Before i respond, i want to show you pictures weve got in from me of the front line healthcare workers in washington stat heres them cobbling together protective gear out of Office Supplies because of a shortage theyve already reache what do you say to them, chevon, to the americans who rely onm them frn the weeks to months ahead . Fa unfortunately, we haved in really doing the solid planning that would have prepared us to be able to respond in a panc. De now, what we see is ingenuity really happening with healthcare workers. Eing said, we need for our Health Systems and nurses and others to think abut how are we going to sustain ourselves . How are we going to look at staffing . Are we going to shorten shifts when we have to work . T beween and are we taking care of ourselves mentally and physically andctually to your first speaker, the Public Health nurse, we have also faed to maintain a Public Health infrastructure that is ablutely critical to responding to this kind of system. We can and should be better. We need to learn from this from what has happened with ths pandemic. Reporter dr. Jha, people will heafailure and failure and failure and wonder can webe ready . Can the hospitals gethe fae masks, the ventilato and the staffing . Will those needs be met by what ment andral gove others are doing now . Let me echo cheryls point. It has been aweailure. E had two months to prepare for this pandemic, weve known c this wming and have not responded adequately. So if the question is are we going to have enough personal protective equipment masks and gloves to keep nurses and doctors healt so they can take care of patients, the answer iss not uwe work real hard to do it. Weve got to ramp up productio this has to be a federal response. The federal government has to make this a top priority. We can have all the hospital beds and all the i. C. U. Beds, but if we dontave nurses and doctors ready to take care of people, those beds will be useless. I have tsay, i have not seen the urgency coming out to have the white house on making this as much of a priority as it needs to be. Reporter youve not seen that yet. Let me make sure people out there are getting some of th right information in terms of how they can be processing this. Dr. Purva grover who we will hear fronext, a medical director of Pediatric Emergency Department at e cleveland clinic, tells us how to message to our patients. I can tell you first hd, i was working a shift yesterday evening, there remns considerable confusion and chaos amongst our patient populati and, at this time, taking the time to sit down with them and explaining, because if theyre able to explain once to the family, the message goes throughout the community and thats extremely important. Reporter to address some of the confusion, who should be going to the hospitals . What are thes symptople are looking for . Right now, if youre having an emergency, a heart attack, a stroke, been in a r accident, people need to go to the hospital, that has to remain that way. If youre hvingymptoms, youre worried you may have covid 19, you have a fever, a cough, the sght thing to do to reach out to your doctor by one or b some other mechanism and talk through where you are, depending on your risk profile, depending on how serious your symptoms are. Ideally i would love to test everybody like that but we cant because were still ratinioning te but its working with your doctor find out what the right care is. Reporter cheryl, if you had to tell people here are tw things you can do now to feel . Epared, what should you selfisolate. Were doing it already. Dont go into crowds, take care of yourself, get plenty of rest. Maybe turn off some of the yocial media thats hypinr anxiety a little bit and keefe your hands clean. Thats real whats going to help us bend this cur. Cheryl peterson and dr. Ashish jha, thank you. Thank you. Reporter we hit a milestone this week in america with West Virginia confirming its first case. Novel conavirus is now in allte 50 sand u. S. Territories. Hotspots include washington state, california, and new york, but heres a look at the virus spread across the entire country. Woodruff now, lets talk to one of the top officials overseeing our national. Response thony fauci, director of the National Institute of allergy and Infectious Diseases. He joins me from the National Institutes of health. Fu drrey, thank you so much for joining us. Now that the United States has begun this massive mobilization, the countrys virtually shut down. Is it fair to say thaamericans are starting to get their arms yes, i think, a a whole, as a country, a couple of things, redy, thetarting to really see the seriousness of it, not only fromthin, when you see the new cases every single day, but lookg at whats happened at other countries in china, in south korea, in japan, to neme extent, and now in europe, where most of th cases arising globally are coming from that, together, with the very forceful approach thats been taking to coainment and the people of thed states,ink at least from what i can see, there are so exceptions, judy, me, i think, disturbing exceptions whereou see pictures which are not, you know, totally representative of the country, but people in bars and in dans and in parties. If you look at the gui put out just a couple of days ago, they were decided upon because of some serious reflection about what the best thg to do for the american public, and those guidelines should really be read caefully by everyone. You know, the idea about making sure people who are eldly and particularly those with underlying conditions should selfisolate, stay away from crowds and bars, all kinds of things. Theyre very well spelled out there. I think, for the most part, th country is seeing that. Inconvenient, but s a very unique opportunity that we havet to preomething th could get very bad, to blnt it that it is within reason so that we can contain. I think we can do it. Judy, i know we can do it, but we just need to implement the things that have been suggested. Woodruff so just quickly, you mentioned china, no new cases there. Today, they reported for a first time in a long time. Does that give you a sense and others a sense of how long the u. S. Is going to be dealing with this . Well, again, we get asked that all the time. Ot one caive a definitive date about an x in x number of weeks were going to be okay and we can go back to normal. Thats the reason, whine the guidelines came out, th out as a 15day interim guidelin to rdeevaluate att of that period to see where were going because, obviously, this is something thais formidable. When you look at the numbers that are going up, weve got to see ife can get aad of the curve. You know, i always say and i believe it true tt when you react to something and it has to do with an ifectious disease outbreak, when you think you are overreacting, you are probably reacting appropriately or maybe underreacting. So i know people are a little concerned about, well, how long is this going to last . How inconvenient is it going to be . Lest just hold tight and see how things will go over the next couple of weeks. Reporter first, what President Trump had tobout testing for new drugs, antimalaria drugs, how confident are scientists that theres a reapotential with some of these . Judy, thats a good question, and it really is a question of a balance. None of the drugs that are out there right now have been definitively proven to be safe and effective, but and its an important but there are some with some suggestions sometimes anecdotal, which are not great controls, some in anim models. When you have an outbreak where there are no specific therapie we were faced with this very clearly during the early years of h. I. V. Before wee ehad no availffective and safe drugs what you do isce strike a baletween making something available to the public, at the same time you do it under the auspices of aoc pr, and it could be a relatively loose protocol, like an expanded acess protocol, and even do some compassionate usage where you have a balance between getting things to people who need it but, at the same tie, not just throwing drugs out there that you dont know anything about. U ally have to have some sort of a period of time soma protocol to look at safety and to get some efficacy signal. At what the president was talking about, thats what steve hahn, the commissioner of the f. D. A. Was talking about food. Woodruff vimie president tests are availab all 5019 states. We know that they are not availableve erywhere where they are needed. Dr. Fauci, how long before they ar there every place theyre needed . Judy, i cant give you a date when every place in eve state in every location is going to get it, but what i can tellou with some confidence that our new embracing and partnering with the private sector and getting e state and lcal individuals involved in implementing that, were going to see ay veramatic uptick in not only the number of cases that are tests that are available, but the number tests that are actually done, and thats the impta thing because, you remember back, tests were available but thebey wereng implemented. Im confident its going to go way up. I hesitate to say on this dateng every person who will need it will get it because you can never guaranteehat. Woodruff President Trump is regularly referring to this many people are denouncing his use of the term. What do you think about that and have yospoken with the president about it . You know, weve had conversations about that. I, obviously, cant control what the president sa , but thect is i dont do that and many other people dont, hopefully people will not be doing that. You know, it just gets tohehe point,ver you put a designation on it, there always is a bit of stigma with that. Woodruff the white house also said today masks and otpehr onal protective equipment healthcare provide need, they say its being made available quickly. But youre still hearing about doctors, i heard aphysician an hour ago in rhode island saying shes talking to colleagues allu over the cry who dont have enough masks or protective gearo hog, when is that going to be available . Judy, not to be ev can tell you very soon. But a couple of things have come out over the last couple of days. The president announced hes employed t department of defense to get from their stockpiles not only ventilators but also millions and millions of masks. Again, we dont have all the answer also right now today, bui everythi in motion to make a lot more of thesevailable woodruff and quickly, you mentioned earlier the elderly, those with uderlying health conditions, most vulnerable, but theres also new information that younger people may be more vulnerable than previously thought. New data coming in, not just this country but other countries. What should young people know . Well, first of all, there still is clearly much less of a sk of serious impact in a younger person, no doubt about that. E wever, were starting to see that there are sunger people, now that we know morean cases,have underlying conditions. We need to look at it more carefully to see how many of conditions. Ly have un and it isnt their youth thats at risk, its the undiolying cond we dont know that now, so no but it bris up a good point, judy. It means that young people should maksure that thy protect themselves from getting incted for two very Important Reasons one, their own health. This is not atrivial infection. But, number, two even if they get an infection thatsild and inconsequential for them, the fact th they are infected, they may inadvertently infecton solike a grandmother or grandfather whos eldly, like a relative, a friend, a loved one, or anyone in society who has n underlying condition that would make them more susceptible. So you have the responsibility for yoursel for your own health as a young person, but you also have aocietal and i think in some respects a moral responsibility to make sure that your infection, which may not bother you a lot, doesnt dramatically hurt someone else. So thats message to the young people. Woodruff fally, for amerans who are watching and listening tonight who are frightened and worried for theid themselves is thi ts. Message we have is, obviously, its understandable when youre tearing all the things going on that you be frightened. The message to the american publ is were doing everything we possibly can to put everything and anythinin place that would mitigate or dampen the effect of this. So, again, hang in there. This is something that will pass and, hopefully, will pass with a minimum of damage. But we are all i this to try and obviate it. Dr woof dr. Anthony fauci, thank you very much. Gd to be with you, judy. Nl woodruff e practically every other challenge we face as americans, as humans, no one is immune from this virus. It has the potential to harm us all, unless we take steps to ourselves, our loved ones, and people we dont know. We can aress its potential to do harm by, in turn, our own efforts to do good. Our humanity, the thing that makes us vulnerable to this virus, is also the thing that can keep it at bay. Which is why we choose to end on a hopeful note tonight, knowingm that americansg together have the capacity to prevail against this deadly enemy. And that concludes our special, confronting coronovirus. Be sure to join us tomorrow night on the pbs newshour. And you can always find more on our web site, www. Pbs. Org newshour, and on our social pages we wish you al good health and comfort. Go night. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewersike you. Ank you. Captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org youre watching pbs. [birds calling, sects chirping] [twig snaps] [dog whines] [doghines] [panting] [dogs barking]