welcome to our viewers in the united states and around thurld. i'm john king in washington. this is cnn's continuing coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. the global case count now topping 2 million. there's also global outrage over president trump's decision to withhold any u.s. funding for the world health organization. in japan, new projections that hundreds of thousands may die. this as workers in the country's -- in the country with the world's oldest population are still going to the office. in singapore, deaths up sharply again. masks are now mandatory in public. in africa, coronavirus precaution is disrupting the food supply. now putting millions at possible risk of starvation. here in the united states, another sobering record. 2400 people died here in the united states on tuesday. that is a single day high for coronavirus deaths. the upticks snaps a streak. the death number had beencoming down. still, the belief is the underlying numbers show promise.

>> still a couple of cities right now, savannah, that we're worried about that haven't yet peaked and turned around. there's no doubt what we have seen over the last several days is a flattening out, and even when you get to new york, it's actually starting to come down regarding admissions, hospitalizations, need for intensive care and intubation. >> now, the more incurve flattens, the more the president will use that as ammunition to reopen the country. dr. anthony fauci says, quote, we're not there yet. new alarms today for what and when how to reopen debate. six states including california will run out of money to pay the unemployed in ten weeks. u.s. retail shelves shrinking nearly 9% last month, and the small business administration telling congress its emergency loan money will run out today. that's why the president says the sooner the better. on getting americans back to work. but his scientists have a long list of questions, testing is

still a massive problem. the number of tests analyzed over the past week declined sharply. and there's still a debate over if or how quickly someone infected can get infected again. that a key piece of the back to work puzzle. absent more testing and more data, the scientists are left to hope. >> i hope we don't get a second wave. is it possible that we do? yes, it is possible. what i hope we'll be able to do and i believe we'll be able to do is respond to that in a very, very vigorous way, because we will have had several months to get all of these cards in order. >> here to share his expertise and insights, dr. sanjay gupta. you look at the death toll yesterday, 2405 americans dying. that's a sad record, as we go day to day after a few drops, it's gone up. how has this virus changed? what do we know about how to

handle it? >> i think that the virus itself has been pretty constant. you know, john, it's not mutated a lot. it's still very contagious virus. we're still getting a better idea of the death rate, you know, just how lethal this virus is. but it's significant. you know, i think what has changed is what we're learning about it. we're learning that it doesn't always necessarily affect the lungs as much as we thought it did. it may affect other organ systems first. people may have these neurological sort of manifestations, john. loss of smell, we heard that one. but also dizziness, headache, confusion, things like that that you don't typically associate with a respiratory infection. those seem to happen about a third of the time and often can be the first symptoms someone experiences. this is just a note to people out there, huh, i don't feel like i have a respiratory infection, but i have one of these. could this be the covid? that's not to alarm people. just to make them more aware. so we're continuing to learn a

lot. we're seeing also, you know, i think to your conversation just now, john, the fact that when you start to let up these stay-at-home orders, without a question, there will be people who will get infected, who otherwise wouldn't have. because the virus is still out there. it's just going to be question of what's the balance. how much are you willing to accept in order to start opening things up. >> and to that point, sanjay, you're a doctor. you rely on evidence, data, practice, what happened the last time you went down this road with a certain illness. the president want to reopen the country, and listen to dr. redfield here, one of the things we're still not sure of, there has been some data otof south korea, but we don't have enough data yet. if you had coronavirus and go back in, how long are you immune? does that give you immunity for a year, for two years, immunity forever, for only a couple months? dr. redfield says we don't know. listen. >> does having covid-19 give you immunity? do we know the answer to that? >> we can't ascertain that for

certain. >> when you develop an antibody after infection, it almost invariably means you're protected. we don't absolutely know that for sure yet. i think it is going to be the case. >> what is the risk of opening the door to people leaving their homes and going back to work if we don't know whether even those who have been infected, let alone those who haven't been and the risk of exposure, but even if those who have been infected, whether or not they can get it again? >> that's a significant risk. i would answer, say that presumably it should have some impact. if you have been infected and develop the antibodies, presumably, based on infections with other coronaviruses, with other viruses in general, you should have some immunity. we don't know how strong or how long. that's the big question. so the risk is still going to be there. and you know, obviously, there's a lot of people who won't have the antibodies regardless until they get a vaccine. so it's a significant risk. i have to say as well, john, just following along for three

months now, it's interesting to hear how dr. fauci sort of in a way sort of slow rolls the country into this. if you look at the data right now, looking at the data obviously, yesterday was a terrible day in terms of deaths, but overall, if you look at the data right now, there's no way you can possibly open the country by the beginning of next month. for so many reasons based on the number alone and also the lack of widely available testing, which is, was, and will continue to be a real significant issue. >> and i was watching a conversation you were having with anderson last night, and one of the lead nih vaccine researchers and it left me cautiously optimistic. she seems to think there was a timetable that perhaps by this fall, at least they would have an experimental vaccine to test with people on the front lines. is that optimism, is that the right takeaway? >> it was one of the best pieces of news i have heard in a while, john, as well. so what she said, and she is spearheading the vaccine program at nih. she said two things that really

caught my eye. we're asking about how quickly could this happen, the question everybody in the world wants to know. she said for the general public, she thinks by next spring, if everything goes okay, obviously, a lot of big ifs in there, but if it's shown to be safe and effective, by next spring, a vaccine could be available for the general public. i know that's a long ways away. vaccines can take a decade to make, john, just to give a little context. the bigger piece of news, to your question, i thought, was really quite -- it was good, potentially good news. that is under emergency authorization, the vaccine could be made available even sooner. this fall, for health care workers. so you know, again, there's a lot of caveats in there. so i always want to be cautious, but that would be amazing news. obviously, for health care workers first, and then for everybody else by spring of next year. >> it would be on a day when we're processing a record number of deaths of americans yesterday. we're watching the global case count go past 2 million, having something to grasp onto that is perhaps hopeful, i'll take it. >> outside of new york and new

jersey, no state has more cases of coronavirus than massachusetts. the virus has infected more than 28,000 people in the commonwealth. nearly 1,000 people have died. it's the fifth highest death toll of any state. joining me, the chief of the division of infectious diseases at massachusetts general hospital. good to see you. help us put massachusetts in context when we look at new york and think, okay, more -- it's getting more encouraging. not getting great by any means but more encouraging. a flattened curve. massachusetts, not there yet? >> good morning, john. no. well, you know, i would like to say everybody projected that april 14th to 16th would be our peak. so perhaps we're in it. we are certainly unfortunate to be in third place here, for sure, but we're hoping that maybe in the days and weeks ahead that we'll start to see a plateauing of the numbers.antic tough spot and we're finding

ourselves in that tough spot. >> if you look at the graph on the screen, the five-day rolling average of cases does seem to show if that holds up, that maybe you're at the peak. the question is what next. and i want you to listen here to the mayor of boston, marty walsh, who is trying to tell people we're at a key point. do not mess this up. >> i just want to continue to re-enforce, as we get through the surge, as we have seen our numbers in the city of boston double in the last seven days, we have seen the number of people that have lost their live increase in the last seven days. we're asking everyone to continue to do your part and to make sure you practice everything that we're asking you to do. >> i know you're on the medical side of this, but what is your sense of whether it's from a patient count or just anecdotal observation, as this goes on for weeks and weeks and weeks, as people start to hear conversations about potentially reopening. people get antsy. people left down their guard. is that the case?

>> yeah, one of the things i want to emphasize is in my mind, in order to reopen, we really need to have capacity in our hospital system and our medical system. right now, we are working to maintain some capacity to keep up with the people who are coming in the door, but they are still coming in the door at a pretty rapid clip. the other thing i think is really important to emphasize is over time, the number of people requiring our intensive care unit and ventilation has increased. so a week ago, it was 30%, 35% of our inpatients needed ventilatory support. today, we're up to about 45% of our inpatients needing ventilatory support. we have at least ten floors that are now omerating like intensive care units. that's more than double what we normally have. so our capacity right now to take care of other standard medical conditions is really quite limited. and i think that that needs to be a key component of how we decide when and how to open up. >> do you know why? do you know why all of a sudden

you have the increased need for ventilators? patients waiting longer to get care and are in worse shape? is that the problem? >> no, i think we know from the natural history of the disease that people sort of come in and have four or five days where they may have symptoms but not sort of turn for the worst until four or five days later. so we expected this. this is not surprising. what we can say is if we're now at the peak number of cases we're probably going to be at the peak number of need for ventilators in about five to seven days, and likely the peak number of deaths five to seven days after that. so i'm heart wrenched to see the death toll numbers but i'm anticipating they're still going to rise, at least in massachusetts. >> doctor, very much appreciate your insoilsights. let's keep in touch. a tough week ahead for you in massachusetts. >> public health, not politics. that's the message from the california governor, gavin newsom. he says public health will guide his decision on reopening the economy of the most populous

state. the timing is still tbd, but he says californians need to reimagine life, restaurants with fewer tables and disposal menus and social distancing here to stay as far as the eye can see. >> if we're moving into a next phase of our businesses so that we can practice safe physical distancing within the premise of a business, within and around a school site and facilities large and small, public and private, all throughout the state of california. >> dan simon in san francisco for us today. dan, pretty clear the governor sees any reopening as gradual and very carefully managed. >> 100%, john. what he's trying to to is manage expectations and let people know who may not be thinking too deeply about things as they're trying to manage through this crisis day by day, of what things are going to look like once society and the economy

open up once again. and he's saying mass gatherings, don't count on them happening anytime soon, whether it's a concert or sporting event. schools could be reimagined with staggered start times so you don't have everybody going into the schools at once and lunch rooms that look different, and face coverings are here to stay for quite a while, and you heard what he had to say about restaurants. he did not put a timeframe on this in terms of when he's going to put pen to paper and lift this order. what he did say is there a couple important benchmarks that need to be met. he says you need to have expanding testing and tracking. you have to protect vulnerable communities. we're talking about homeless folks and the elderly. you have to meet all the hospital needs. you have to collaborate on therapies and treatments. redraw regulations on physical distancing. new enforcement mechanisms for stay-at-home orders. that's quite a laundry list of things, john. and when all of that is going to be in place, we just don't know.

he said check with him in about two or three weeks. john. >> check with him in two or three weeks. important, the governor trying to at least start laying it out so people understand it won't be normal. it will be a very different new normal. dan simon, appreciate the live report from san francisco. >> president trump says it's time to cut off funding to the world health organization. eve one of the president's top scientists says that may not be such a good idea in the middle of a pandemic. matoes right here. and when it snows, the kids go sledding right there. the frels family runs with us on a john deere 1 series tractor. because this is more than just land, it's home. search "john deere 1 series" for more.

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more public tension today between president trump and his top coronavirus scientists. the head of the centers for disease control says he would not cut off funding to the world health organization in the middle of a pandemic, even if the agency has made some mistakes.

>> i think it's important at this point that we leave the analysis of what could have been done better and what maybe we did well to once we get through this. >> i would like to do the postmortem on this outbreak once we get through it together. >> but the president is cutting off that funding. and it's important to listen closely to why. the world health organization, the president says, not only opposed his decision to block travel from china, but the president says it also failed to hold beijing to account. >> had the w.h.o. done its job to get medical experts into china to objectively assess the situation on the ground and to call out china's lack of transparency, the outbreak could have been contained at its source with very little death. very little death, and certainly very little death by comparison. this would have saved thousands of lives and avoided worldwide

economic damage. >> now, there is no doubt the w.h.o. was late to recognize the deep threat of this pandemic. but the president on several occasions early on praised the w.h.o. and specifically praised its work in china. and look at this. he repeatedly on more than two dozen occasions, more than two dozen occasions in january and february, president trump praised china's handling of the coronavirus crisis. including its transparency. joining me now, cnn's dana bash and nia-malika henderson. dana, i'll start with you. the president did exactly what he is damning the world health organization for doing. >> right. well, if you're looking for consistency, this is definitely not the place to look for it. and we have shown that, unfortunately, in so many areas of this crisis, on so many occasions. look, what's going on here is that the president has -- there

are two big reasons why the president has done this. number one, he needs a place to blame. and the w.h.o. is as good a place as any. it fits with where he is with his gut and has been since he ran for president, even before that, which is international organizations are not things that the u.s. should support. and you know, he criticizes them over and over again. that's just a fact. couple that with the idea that he is getting a lot of criticism, he's hearing a lot of criticism of the w.h.o. from the people he loves to listen to. the base, both the conservative media and elected officials who are really blasting not just the organization but the head of the w.h.o., as somebody who is ineffective, and too aligned with the chinese. >> part of the stunning part for me, though, is for a man who comes out of a television background, who understands very well that these things are

recorded, that twitter is recorded that we keep these things, that he walks into these briefings every day and says things that directly contradict things he's said over and over and over again. again, more than two dozen times in january and february, he defended china's handling. here's just a little sample. >> right now, our relationship with china is the best it's ever been. >> do you trust we're going to know everything we need to know from china? >> i do. i do. i have a great relationship with president xi. >> china, i can tell you, is working really hard. we're working with them. we just sent some of our best people over there, world health organization, and a lot of them are composed of our people. they're fantastic. >> we're in very constant communication, president xi and myself. very, very constant. >> how can the person who said all those nice things about china including about its transparency say that the world het health organization is complussant in deaths around the world because it's not pushed china for transparency and it's

nice to china? >> a great question. it is unanswerable in the world of logic. and that is just a fact, john. and it's important to point that out, as you have done and as we will continue to do. what we are seeing from this president is, as he has done so many times, pretend like things that he has said don't exist. i mean, just look at this week. just look at what he said on monday that got everybody upset, especially and even conservatives who say are you kidding me? it is impossible to say that the president has full authority when that is not what the constitution says. he came out yesterday and pretended like he never said that. and so that is a hallmark of the trump presidency. a hallmark of the trump personality. and what we just have to do is what you just did, continue to point it out, but also note that it is his own top scientists who are worried about cutting off

funding for the w.h.o. in the middle of a global pandemic. >> in the middle of it. i want to turn now to an issue, some people watching say, why don't we wait until after this to hold the president accountable? we can't, not in the middle of the pandemic when he's saying things that are simply not true or trying to rewrite history. we have to call it out, but this is critical to everybody watching, whether you support president trump, whether you support democrats, whether you're not sure. if you want to get back to work, testing is critical. listen here. the president's answers on testing, like many other things, continue to evolve as a kind word. >> we're testing everybody that we need to test. and we're finding very little problem. >> anybody that wants a test can get a test. >> we took over an obsolete, broken testing system that wouldn't have worked for even a small problem. >> we worked with the states and the testing has been pretty amazing. >> there's not a lot of issues with testing. you don't have to test every single person to say let's open up. >> the governors, the governors are supposed to do testing.

it's up to the governors. >> that was interesting. yesterday, suddenly, it's up to the governors. >> exactly. >> every time -- every time you talk to a governor, a public health professional, a mayor, somebody on the front lines, somebody who like the president wants to open the economy as soon as possible, the first thing they say is we need more testing. he said he was going to ramp it up. he said everybody can get one. he was very proud of how the federal government was sending the fire department in to fix this. and now all of a sudden it's up to the governors again. >> yes, and it will probably be something different today. but the way that this is working is that the federal government is and will continue to encourage the labs like abbott and others to make the tests. and it is going to be up to the governors and mayors to distribute them. and the confusion in between is

very real. but if the president is as goal oriented as he says he is and as sources we talk to who are speaking to him privately say he is, very much may 1st, may 1st, may 1st, it has to be focused on testing. we're told maybe there will be some symbolic announcement of so-called cold spot around the country that can resume some normalcy. but if he wants to do, like for example, one idea i was told today is manufacturers. big manufacturers, try to get those started again, the thing that has to happen is that they have to have tests that they can give to their workers at the door that can happen very rapidly, where they can get results. and they don't have them yet. and so the inconsistency of the president and much more importantly the lack of evidence to back up what he has said is the single biggest thing that is stopping the president from reaching his goal and america from reaching the goal, which is

reopening society, reopening the economy. >> it is striking, the story is changing by the minute, often in sad ways when you see the numbers on the right side of the screen. the one groundhog element we have had for months is testing, testing, testing. dana bash, we appreciate it. we are sorry we lost nia-malika henderson. >> senator elizabeth warren now officially endorsing joe biden for president. releasing this video this morning. >> in this moment of crisis, it is more important than ever that the next president restores americans' faith in good, effective government. and that's why i'm proud to endorse joe biden as president of the united states. >> that part of a big unity week for democrats following biden endorsements from bernie sanders and former president barack obama. up next for us, arrests for breaking a stay-at-home order. these days, it's anything but business as usual.

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law. new york city empowers its police to hand out fines up to $500 for those who fail to follow directions. in florida, a pastor was arrested for continuing to hold large services. in kentucky, multiple people have been placed under house arrest after they refused to stay home despite coming in contact with coronavirus patients. and in new jersey alone, the state says there have been more than 1500 incidents including arrests and fines since the governor implemented the state of emergency. with us is the new jersey state attorney general. sir, thanks so much for joining us. i get, i want to put the numbers up on the screen. new jersey, new york's neighbor, more than 68,000 confirmed cases. more than 2,800 confirmed deaths. there's a lot of pain in your state. so we certainly get the reason for trying to enforce this emergency order. one would hope and one would think just looking at the numbers would convince residents of your state we need to listen to the governor. we need to listen to our local authorities, but you're seeing some are not.

>> that's exactly right, john. thanks for having me. unfortunately, we have what the governor calls knuckleheads. some residents who don't think they have an obligation to their neighbors to stay at home, to be responsible in this moment. and there are folks who are doing things from loitering in public places to stupid things like holding front lawn pink floyd cover band concerts to extremely dangerous things by engaging in violent crime and then coughing on our law enforcement officers when they're arrested. we take all these allegations seriously because we want compliance with the governor's order, because compliance will save lives here. >> so you just listed a number of things that made my head snap back a little bit. lawn concerts, it's beyond a knucklehead to spit on a law enforcement officer. there's a knucklehead and then there's an idiot and then there's more. you don't have to jump in there. you can leave my words on the tlabl. are you seeing one particular thing more common? is there a certain thing that's

happening most often that you think, okay, we need to stop this? >> you know, it runs the gamut. i think early on, john, it started with gatherings where people were still getting comfortable with what the orders required and what they precluded and didn't preclude. and so early on, we were in the posture of warning folks. then we started enforcing these orders more strictly and using the criminal levers we have. so they truly do run the gamut. what's encouraging is that there is more compliance now than at the beginning of the emergency. and that is, i think, helping flatten the curve here in our state. and saving lives. >> i assume you don't want to do this. a lot of these people are out of work. a lot of these people may be short money and you're reporting the risk of a big fine and a stain on their record in front of them. you just mentioned you think it's getting a little better. do you thing that threat is actually working? >> the deterrence effect is working. what we're doing every day is naming and shaming folks. so at the end of every day, we have a press release listing

every one of these violations. sometimes we can't list all of them because some are disorderly persons offenses, so we're listing the more serious ones. the indictable offenses, what are felonies in my state, so we hope through that deterrence we'll get more compliance, and we're seeing that we are getting that additional compliance. again, that deterrence, that compliance, at the end of the day, is going to save lives. >> another dynamic in this bizarre new normal we live in. attorney general of the state of new jersey, good luck in the days ahead. >> thank you for having me. >> thank you, sir. >> up next, march retail numbers are out, and they paint a very grim picture of the economy. introducing t-mobile connect. a prepaid plan to help keep america connected. starting at just $15 a month, it gives flexibility for uncertain times. visit t-mobile.com/connect to learn more. you can also manage your account,

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for the same medications as the vet, but up to 30 percent less with fast free shipping. visit petmeds.com today. it is a historically bad month for the american economy. retail sales are down 8.7% for march. that's the worst drop since the government started keeping track of that statistic. let's bring in our julia chatterley. we talked about this before. america has a consumer-driven economy. those numbers tell you trouble. >> it's big trouble. what this basically says is when the u.s. economy goes into lockdown, so do consumers' wallets. it reflects our reality. many of us are sitting at home

waiting this virus out. but we're spending on different things, john. we bought more liquor. we hoarded groceries. we spent far more money online. we spent money on the essentials. what we weren't buying, clothes. we also weren't going to bars, of course, too, and we weren't buying new cars. these numbers show that. two key observations for me. one, it doesn't accurately reflect just how much money we're spending online because we ramped that up. but two, we only spent half of march under these stay-at-home orders. we have also seen millions of people asking for help, claiming benefits since then, too. so the fear is that as bad as this number is, the april number is going to be way worse. and it underscores the need to get cash to people as fast as possible. john. >> as you say, the numbers we're looking at, really bad numbers, which suggest to us we'll be looking at even worse numbers. julia chatterley, appreciate the important insights there.

>> the trump administration, to julia's point, a program to keep small businesses afloat during the coronavirus crisis, the administration says that program will run short of money as early as today. there is bipartisan agreement to pump more into the program. but there's a disagreement between republicans and democrats about whether to do that solo or to also address some other issues like the need to pour money into state budgets. cnn congressional correspondent phil mattingly is here. phil, warning from the administration. will that warning, the money runs dry, break the impasse? >> yeah, john, as you know as well as anybody, nothing actually forces congress to do something like an actual deadline or an actual urgent need. that's exactly what's going on. there's been a lot of fits and starts with this small business emergency lending program, but the fact of the matter, small businesses desperately need the money. now that the guidelines have become clear, that money has flown out the door. the big question now is how do you bridge where republicans are on capitol hill, which is clean funding increase only. nothing else added to it, and

democrats who have requested, almost demanded, extra money for hospitals, for states and localities and other issues as well. here's the state of play. chuck schumer has spoken with treasury secretary steven mnuchin this morning. the staff on the democratic side, both house and senate, is expected to meet with the treasury department by phone, i'm told, over the course of the day to try to figure out a path forward. the deadline is not just the money running out but the senate is in pro forma session. they'll meet tomorrow afternoon. that will be the last meeting this week. they need to have a deal before that meeting. the big question right now is can secretary mnuchin and the democratic leader and the speaker, nancy pelosi, reach a deal, one, and two, will that deal be acceptable to republican leaders who have taken a very hard line of not adding anything to that additional funding. that said, i think everybody understands this is an urgent need and it needs to be fixed. it needs to be addressed soon. what mnuchin and the democrats can figure out will likely win the day if they can reach an agreement, john. >> if. they have worked it out every other time in the last several

of these pandemic responses. nothing like a deadline, as you note. we shall see and i guess we shall talk tomorrow. thank you. >> let's take a quick look at the markets. you look at the board right there. the dow down 660 points at the moment. for the latest stock market news and strategy for your portfolio in these troubled times, check out markets now, streaming live at 12:45 p.m. eastern. that's only at cnn business. >> up next, germany says it will work on easing restrictions despite the country's highest single day death toll.

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some mixed signals on the world stage today as the global coronavirus case count hits 2 million. the death toll -- you see the numbers on your screen -- more than 128,000. germany rolling out details on easing restrictions. spain, though, is reporting a new rise in infections. public health emergency orders being expanded for u.s. military forces in japan. south korea holds election in the middle of this pandemic. our international correspondents now give us a closer look. ♪ >> reporter: here in berlin, the german government is looking to ease some of the lockdown measures that were put in place to try and combat the spread of the coronavirus. now, german chancellor angela merkel has already said that any easing of these restrictions would only happen very gradually and would also be dependent on there not being another new

spike in coronavirus cases. meanwhile, the european union is saying that european countries should have a coordinated effort to get out of these lockdown measures. they say that the prerequisites for countries moving along and opening up their economies is an easing off of cases and also adequate hospital capacities and adequate testing to make sure that any new spike could be detected very quickly. meanwhile, here in germany, the country has seen an easing off of new coronavirus cases, but germany also saw its largest single-day death toll over the past 24 hours. fred pleitgen, cnn, berlin. ♪ >> reporter: here in spain, hundreds of thousands of nonessential workers are back on the job for a third straight day, though new eu guidelines suggest that spain is loosening restrictions too quickly. the president of the european commission says that before countries ease restrictions, there should be a sustained decrease in cases, sufficient health care capacity, and widespread testing.

we went through that checklist with public health expert peter drobac, who says that spain is still not doing enough testing. he says that the fact that spain is still using a convention center and hotels as hospital wards means that their health care system is far too fragile. and with just 20,000 coronavirus tests a day, testing is not widespread enough. the spanish government says that it's carefully considered the risk. it also says that it's increasing its testing, which is the reason why the number of new cases spiked today after a week of decline. scott mclean, cnn, madrid. >> reporter: here in tokyo, a panel of government experts is warning that 400,000 people could die of coronavirus in the coming months without social distancing measures, largely due to this country's lack of ventilators and icu beds. u.s. forces japan is now expanding its declaration of a public health emergency to all of japan.

this declaration gives commanders the authority to enforce social distancing, travel restrictions, and other measures, in effect, to protect the more than 50,000 u.s. military personnel and their families who are serving in japan, trying to keep them safe from infection even as many japanese citizens are still on public transportation, going to work, because most japanese companies are simply not equipped to allow people to work from home. will ripley, cnn, tokyo. >> reporter: this is what an election during a pandemic looks like. this is south korea, the parliamentary elections. and as you are coming into the polling station, you have your temperature taken. you are told that you cannot stand less than one meter apart to try and give some distance. as you come up here, you are given hand sanitizer. everybody has to sanitize their hands. then just before you enter into the polling station itself, you are given disposal gloves to put

on, and only then are allowed inside to vote. when it comes to masks, this is south korea. everybody has been automatically wearing a mask and has been for weeks. there was concern that turnout might be low, maybe people would be too worried about coming to a polling station where other people were. that is clearly not been the case. friday and saturday of last week was when early voting took place, and there was a record turnout, over 26% of the electorate voted early. and the final turnout vote we have seen is the highest in well over 20 years. paula hancocks, cnn, seoul. today marks one week since china lifted its complete lockdown of wuhan, the city where the coronavirus originated. one week now since 11 million people were free to leave their homes, that after 2 1/2 months under lockdown. airplanes, trains and buses have resumed travel in and out of the city. factories and other businesses have since reopened. even social life is returning. coming up, with millions of students out of school, dozens of universities are now dropping a key admission requirement. these days, it's anything but business as usual.

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the coronavirus pandemic is completely upending education here in the united states, and here's one more example. more universities now dropping the s.a.t. and the a.c.t. requirement for fall '20-'21 admission after the exams were

closed to june at the earliest. at least 50 universities and colleges have dropped their testing requirement in recent months. top of the hour now. i want to welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. i'm john king in washington and this is cnn's continuing coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. a wild and sad marker today. there are now 2 million confirmed cases of the coronavirus worldwide. we'll hear soon from new york's governor, andrew cuomo, his state, of course, hardest hit here in the united states. also this house the president of the united states holds a call with industries like health care, intel, and intelligence industries after a morning of horrible economic indicators in the united states, retail sales contracted and an emergency loan program about to run out of money as of today. the big warnings for americans now out of work -- this is going to kill smalltown america. the sputtering economy is why