so, the remdesivir has clearly been the medication i think the world health organization has been most optimistic about. we've been talking to a lot of researchers, elizabeth and i, around the world. there's a big trial that's part of this 152-center trial that's happening right here at emory university as well. so i'm sure we're going to get more data, maybe from some of these specific sites as well. but this is obviously the news, and it's the best news i think we've heard in terms of a therapeutic in some time. >> best news in terms of a therapeutic in some time. dr. brilliant said optimistic. we've heard these announcements. is there a dose of skepticism there or do you have confidence that they would not have announced if i thi unless they were certain that it at least helps? >> are you asking me, john? >> i was asking sanjay. i was noting your optimism, but you're more than welcome to jump in. >> oh, sorry. go ahead, sanjay. >> okay. i saw you on the screen, and i always love to hear from the brilliant larry brilliant.

but yeah, i think -- larry said he's by nature an optimist, and i think i would probably say that as well, but you know, we've been following the story along for some time. and i think there is a real desire for good news, understandably. and i think this is some good news. i mean, under other circumstances, john, we wouldn't be talking about this on your program. it's early study. it wasn't a huge difference between the placebo group and the other group, but it was significant enough in a time when we don't have something else to obviously talk about it. but i don't want to be throwing cold water on this by any means. i just, we like to proceed cautiously. and we've also got to make sure in larger and larger groups of people this doesn't cause some sort of problem. i don't anticipate that it should, but that's why you do studies. >> and so, dr. brilliant, what happens now? american people are watching this. they saw dr. fauci in the oval office. they saw the president say this is hopeful, a building block. what happens to people like

yourself right now when the phone starts ringing and patients, either somebody who maybe has covid, who's saying, should i take this now, or somebody else might be saying, well, will it help me prevent getting covid? what happens in the real-life experience now that the american people hear there might be something that helps? >> as the months go on and we learn more about covid, we realize it is really truly an awful disease. it is respiratory and spread, but by no means is this a respiratory disease, if we compare it to influenza or anything like that. it is so bad that we're going to be in a -- and we are, for people who have this disease -- in an area of desperation. and the old saw is weak tea is better than no tea at all. >> interesting way to put it, dr. brilliant. dr. gupta, elizabeth cohen as well. thanks for helping us analyze that breaking news. dr. fauci saying the drug remdesivir shows some progress in battling covid-19 in patients.

our coverage continues with brooke baldwin right now. have a good day. john king, we'll take it from here. i'm brooke baldwin. thank you so much for being with me. i want to continue the conversation on this massive development in the fight against coronavirus. this is a big deal. moments ago, the nation's top infectious disease expert expressed not just optimism, but enthusiasm about a medication to treat covid. it is called remdesivir, and dr. anthony fauci is calling the result of this randomly controlled study -- more than 1,000 people -- quote, quite good news. in fact, he's speaking about it early so that other patients can get it right away. he says that these early trials show the drug can actually block the virus. so, let's stay on this, because we all could use some good news when it comes to making sick people better. with me now, i have sanjay is back, elizabeth cohen.

sanjay gupta's back, elizabeth cohen and dr. kathleen nuzle is with us, with the center for vaccine development and global health at the university of maryland school of medicine, currently working on two coronavirus therapies, one of which could become a potential vaccine. vaccine separate from remdesi r remdesivir. sanay, listen, i've been out the last couple weeks, so i'm not entirely hip on remdesivir and i'm getting caught up just like so many other people. so, this is a drug, and you're the boss, so you explain. but this is a drug that, let's say someone has coronavirus. and for me, it lasted two weeks. this is something that one could take and then it sounds like, according to dr. fauci, you just get better sooner, if you take this drug, according to this trial. is that right? >> yeah. that's right, brooke. and you know, typically, when we do think of antivirals like tamiflu, for example, it's not the same really as an antibiotic, but it can lessen the duration and lessen the severity of the disease, which

is, you're absolutely right, in some ways how dr. fauci was presenting his thoughts on remdesivir. i haven't seen the data yet on this. and i think we're all going to need to want to really dig into the data, although dr. fauci, obviously, talking about it in the way that he did, saying it was quite good news, saying it should become standard of care based on what he's seeing. i think it still seems like a small study. and elizabeth, i know, and i have both been following this very closely. i mean, there was a report just last week that was not as optimistic about remdesivir. it was a report that was put on the world health organization website for a little bit and then taken down, and it was subsequently thought to be an underpowered study. this is a larger study than the ones we've seen, although still small. it wasn't a knockout punch, i don't feel, in terms of what it can do. and i'm not trying to sound pessimistic, brooke. >> no, you're being realistic and that's why we care. >> yeah. and i think we also have to make sure as we, potentially -- and now it's going to start getting used by a lot of people, especially after what dr. fauci

said today -- we need to make sure in these larger groups of people that it doesn't cause any kind of problem as well. >> right. >> you know, that's one of the reasons why you go through various phases of trials. >> i know, we all want to have this hope and this fix, and this may or may not be it. i want to get to elizabeth, to you and dr. nuzle in just a second, but let me play this so in case you're just tuning in, you missed what dr. fauci just said at the white house. let's roll it. >> remdesivir has a clear-cut, significant, positive effect in diminishing the time to recovery. this is really quite important. it is a very important proof of concept. because what it has proven is that a drug can block this virus. >> so, again, you hear that, elizabeth. and listen, i'm very careful because i also have sanjay in one ear being the realist here. how promising do you think this is? what do you make of dr. fauci's

words? >> so, i'm going to join dr. fauci in his optimistic and also join sanjay in his caution. i think it's possible to do both at the same time. and let's look specifically at what these numbers are, what this study of more than 1,000 patients in the u.s. and other countries showed is that when you look at mortality rate, the mortality rate on people on a placebo, a pill that does nothing, it was 11%. when you look at the mortality rate on remdesivir it was 8%. dr. fauci noted that that did not turn out to be statistically significant. but when you look at the duration of illness, which is how long it took for people to get discharged, he said that was statistically significant. and on placebo, it was 11 days. i'm sorry, on remdesivir, it was 11 days, and on placebo, it was 15. so it cut the duration of that illness by four days. so, here's where the optimism comes in. it's a proof of principle. it did something. this drug did something. and so, we should put everyone on it because it did something. here's where the caution comes in. this is not a cure.

terribly sick people did not jump out of their hospital beds and start walking around. >> sure. >> that didn't happen. this is not a cure. but it does appear to help. it does appear to have a proof of a concept, and we can go from here to expand on that. >> and again, just for people who are wrapping their heads around this, dr. nuzle, i know your work is in vaccines. this is about this drug remdesivir, this is about making sick people better faster, so says the top doc in the country. and so, this has nothing to do with getting people a vaccine. that said, this is your realm of expertise. how do you see this? >> well, here at the university of maryland, we did participate in this trial. and this medicine was given to sick people who were in the hospital, who had lung abnormalities, and that's a really tough test. and so, for an antiviral to work in a positive way in these very

sick patients to me is indeed very good news. >> wow. i mean, so you're talking about those who were sitting in the hospital, this took a suffocating hold on their lungs, and the fact that they got better. how will we know? i get that this is just a trial, but for everyone sitting there at home thinking, all right, this sounds great, you know, how much more needs to be done, testingwise, dr. neuzil? and to sanjay's point, you know, it's so, it's still so soon to know if there's anything negative, any sort of negative reaction to this drug as well. when will we have those answers? >> well, i understand that they'll be releasing more data later. you know, we physicians and scientists like to see the peer-reviewed literature and really scour over the data. i think as dr. fauci suggested, though, we don't really have that luxury to always wait for that in this current environment. but some of what i would like to know is what subsets of people

did better? were there age groups that did better? was there timing? you know, if you started it earlier in the course of disease, did people do better? and i think that subset analysis will really help to guide not only who we treat now, but what kind of testing we might do next. >> sure. and sanjay, just to you. you know, doctor to doctor, do you have any questions for dr. neuzil? >> yeah. you know, i think one of the questions that i guess i know that there's different sites where this medication was trialed, in maryland and more severe patients and other places, perhaps patients who weren't as sick, you know, earlier in the course of the disease or just milder disease overall. how do you look at that sort of literature? because you know, i think part of the issue is that people who have milder disease, the majority of them do recover, right, even though some can progress to more serious disease. the majority do get better, ultimately, on their own. brooke is an example of that.

is this something that you would start to think of for people earlier in the disease, based on what we know now, doctor? >> yeah. so, for full disclosure here, i've heard what everybody else has heard from dr. fauci. so, i have not seen the full results. generally, with viral diseases and antivirals, we do best when we start early. and that's why to me this is remarkable that there is any effect at all. and you know, there was this positive effect that dr. fauci talks about. so, i think exactly what you're saying, i think we have to see, can we start earlier with this? you know, where do we go from here with the data that we have that will guide us? remember, this is an intravenous medication. we would still love to have an effective oral medicine where we can treat people in the out-patient setting. and the other important aspect

is do any of these medications decrease virus shedding or virus transmission? because then they're not only helping that patient, which is fantastic, but they also may be decreasing the spread of this virus. so, we still have a lot to learn with this and other antivirals. >> okay. cautious optimism. i want to thank all of you. and forgive me, my audio, my ear was going in and out on some of that conversation, but i appreciate all of your smarts and expertise. remdesivir is the drug, and it sounds like dr. fauci is saying, perhaps, perhaps, this could be something that can make sick people better much sooner. a quick break. we're going to continue our coverage here, continuing coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. i'm brooke baldwin. we'll be right back. it's a grea. so many great stories from amazing people... it makes me want to be better. it changes your perspective. it makes you a different person. see what listening to audible can do for you.

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we are back. you're watching cnn. i'm brooke baldwin. men and women seem to contract coronavirus at the same rate, but men are more than twice as likely to die. this is all coming out, part of the small study out of china that was just published overnight. a team studied 43 patients, and the records just over 1,000 others who had tested positive, and it's, of course, only representative of the virus spread in china, but it supports early observations about the virus from when it first began to spread that men were more likely to die than women. infectious disease epidemiologist ann remoyne is with me now. thank you so much for being with me. gosh, when you read that, twice as likely to die if you're a man, what do you make of this, and why would that be the case? >> well, this is really interesting epidemiologic data that needs to be studied in greater detail. and i think that there are going to be many more studies coming

out looking at this. this is one of the cornerstones of epidemiology, understanding age differences, sex differences, distributions in populations. and so, i think that, in fact, there is data that suggests in sars and mers we saw more cases in males than females and more severe cases. i think that we're going to be understanding a lot more about this in the coming weeks and months as we have data here in the united states as well, where we're able to look at it, have common protocols where we're collecting similar data across states, across populations, and really understand, is this something that is behavioral? is this something biological? does it have to do with access to care? we see in many studies that men tend to access care much later than women do in certain situations. so, i think that there's still a lot more to know, but it is a very interesting finding. >> what about this soccer

player, paolo did i balanballa for juventus. he's tested positive for coronavirus four times in six weeks, four times. and so, the club says he has been asymptomatic, he's been in self-isolation since march 11th. but typically, listen, there is actually no typical of this virus. people can get it for various lengths of time. but what does it say to you about how long this virus can last, especially considering the fact that he hasn't even been showing symptoms? >> there's so many questions about this virus that we're still trying to understand, and we're seeing many cases emerge where you see these anecdotal stories of people who have had positive tests and negative tests, then positive tests again, persistent positive tests over time, and there are many questions about what this actually means. and the big questions are, is this a symptom of an active infection? can he still spread the virus?

is it just an artifact of having been infected, and it's just some sort of a colonization? there's so many questions here, and we don't really have answers. but i think what this is showing is that we're looking at these things right now, we're collecting data, and that so much research has to be done to be able to understand what the biological mechanisms are and what it means in terms of can people shed for a long time? we don't know. what does asymptomatic infection actually mean? >> sure. it just sounds like we need so much more information. this is all just so new to all of us. there was a story that -- >> exactly. >> -- also piqued my interest, because i have a pug, and i had coronavirus, and i was actually really worried the first couple of days that, somehow, you know, if the pug was hanging out with me, then my husband could get sick, but now we have the news, this pug in north carolina is believed to be the first dog in the u.s. to test positive. and the owners, they don't know

whether they got the dog sick, the dog got them sick. it was my understanding pets can't give it to humans. help me understand this. >> so, brooke, these are all of the questions we're all looking into right now. there hasn't been widespread testing in animals, and so, it's very hard to know what these one-off positives mean. and we've seen a couple of positives in cats. we've now had this report in a dog. we did see some earlier reports in europe about dogs. we've seen the reports in the bronx zoo. so, where we are right now in terms of science is we're at the very beginning, and we're trying to understand what this means. i think that what, you know, in my opinion, i think that we need to be doing large-scale studies swabbing animals and trying to understand what it means, because right now we don't have any data, so we're just at the very early stages. i think it's an important data point that we have right now that suggests because we don't

know what it means, we should follow the cdc guidelines. we should always follow the cdc guidelines on these issues, but because they are really drilling down and trying understand it, but what we really need to do and what cdc recommends right now is that if you are sick, that you should social distance from your pets just as you would have other people because we know that they can have it. but we do not know what it means in terms of can a dog transmit it once they've been infected. and we think that the common wisdom right now is that it doesn't seem that that is a likely mode of transmission. but again, there's so many unknowns, and that's why research is so critical right now. anecdotal reports just are not enough to make decisions on policy. so, research is key right now. >> i know. i hear you. i hear you on all of this. it's just frustrationing, and i'm thinking of just single people who can't social distance from their dogs, right? and what are they supposed to do? it's overwhelming. it can be frustrating. i speak from experience, but i appreciate your candor and that

we just need more information. anne rimoin, thank you very much. >> my pleasure. and we are ready to answer more of your questions. bill gates joins anderson cooper and dr. sanjay gupta live for a new global cnn town hall tomorrow night, "coronavirus facts and fears." tune in at 8:00 eastern. how about this story out of new york? thousands of people show up to this rabbi's funeral in new york, and the mayor is really being criticized for how he reacted to this community, to these crowds. plus, as we learn that the economy shrank for the first time in six years, disturbing, new numbers show how many americans and their families are losing work in this unprecedented shutdown. we'll be right back. grilled flas of an outdoor grill indoors, and because it's a ninja foodi, it can do even more, like transform into an air fryer. the ninja foodi grill, the grill that sears, sizzles, and air fry crisps.

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the cars started lining up in little rock, arkansas, before the sun even came up. and when the arkansas food bank finally opened yesterday, it only took them an hour and a half to run out of food. look at this line. 840 families received food at this one particular event. workers estimate there were 2,000 people who did not. same story, different zip code.

these are pictures from newark, new jersey. layoffs and furloughs push unemployment rates to stunning, new levels. half of the people who show up at food banks nowadays are newcomers. >> i've never done this before. it's a shame that i have to do this. we're alone, you know. even my neighbor, she's alone, too. so that's why we appreciate it. >> these are experiences, you know. >> experience? >> first time. because it's hard for them. >> well, here's a whole other issue as people are lining up for food. a lot of farmers are seeing their crops go to waste. there's no one to pick their vegetables or process their milk. >> i mean, the food's here. the farmers have it, and the consumers need it. somehow, we've got to get the system in between to work for that. >> meat producers are also finding themselves at the mercy of a stalled food pipeline. the president of the united states has now ordered meat

processing plants to stay open, despite serious outbreaks of coronavirus among workers who spend hours a day working in close contact. but will these workers show up to work without protection? the stalemate is putting beef, pork, and chicken farmers in quite the quandary. what do you do when you can't take your animals to market? according to one estimate from the national pork board, 1.5 million hogs will have to be euthanized in the coming weeks. and mike patterson is a pig farmer in minnesota. and mike, my heart goes out to you. you know, we need our farmers in this country. and to think what you all are going through, this must be excruciating. can you just tell me the situation at your farm with your hogs? and have you had to start euthanizing as well? >> yeah, thanks for having me on, talking about this issue. so, our farm, we have about 3,000 head of hogs on our farm, which you know, is kind of a

typical average-size finishing operation for the upper midwest. so, our hogs, we were supposed to start selling to smithfield in sioux falls on april 15th, and we haven't sold any hogs. so, they're still here. we're still feeding them. they're getting larger. i'm part of also a hog cooperative where we've get a dozen families that work together, and we had to make the difficult decision that starting this week, we will be euthanizing some hogs, depopulating some barns. our hogs here on our farm are close to that point but not yet. >> and explain to people why you have to do that, why you say this is an animal welfare issue. >> yeah, really, we really think it is an animal welfare issue. there's only so much room to house these animals. we've got our system down very efficient from getting those animals from the sow unit where

they're born to the nursery facility where they're raised to about 50 pounds, and then from our farm, from about 50 pounds to harvest weight. there's only so much space. we've got it all planned out exactly how much space we need. we know that the processor can take them in a typical situation. so, there's not a lot of excess space in the system. so, the hogs on my, in my barns, they're getting big answer. hogs can gain 30, 40 pounds in two weeks, you know, and just that much more mass, they're just more crowded together, and it does become an issue. and i've got hogs that are supposed to come to my farm in just a couple weeks, and i haven't sold any to our packer, and i don't have anywhere to go with those hogs. so at some point, there's just nowhere to go with them because the barns are full and the pigs coming up from the younger ages

are coming into these barns and there's just nowhere to go with them. >> so, you're forced to euthanize. and i know there are people watching and they're thinking, you know, how dare you do this to the animals and how dare you throw away food when so many people in this country are hungry. i was even reading about some farmers receiving anonymous death threats because of what's having to happen. but i imagine this -- does this make you sick to your stomach to have to do this? >> well, absolutely. i mean, we're farmers. you know, what we do every day is we're trying to care for that animal, their health and well-being is our top priority. we do, you know, everything we can to keep these animals. and they are meant for the food supply. and we pride ourselves in creating that delicious, nutritious pork for people's plates, you know, bacon, pork chops, all those things. that's what they're intended

for. to see them go to waste is absolutely totally opposite of everything that we do out here on the farm. if we had any other options, we absolutely would take it. we have been working within our system to find as much space as possible, but at some point, there's just, there's no way we're going to be able to handle the backlog because the plants won't even be at full capacity when they do get running. and there's just nowhere to go with them. >> yep, i hear you on lack of space. you've got more pigs headed your way, you know. i know you also have been trying to get creative in selling your pigs on facebook, you know, trying, doing what you can. at the end of the day, you are a dad. you have a family to provide for. i read about your four girls, you know, ages all the way from college to kindergarten. bless you. >> yep. >> you know, how -- we don't

know how long this is going to last, mike, so what are you going to do? >> well, really, you know, being the dad of girls, we've watched a few disney movies. and kind of like in the "frozen 2" theme, you do the next right thing. and that's really what we're trying to do. we're trying to do the next right thing for our animals. we're trying to do the next best thing for our family. so, it's, you know, to do that next right thing. so, i just don't, i don't know. we're kind of making decisions week by week. we're trying to get as many into the hands of our local -- into our local butcher shops to be harvested for consumers here locally. i am working with some people. hopefully, we'll be able to provide some pork to the food shelf here locally and in minnesota, so we're working on some things there. you know, we're doing everything

we can to not have to waste this food that's perfectly great for consume consumers. but in the end, there's -- the system, our system, we're about harvesting about 125,000 pigs less per day in the united states. so in two weeks, that's 1.25 million animals that would have been harvested. right now they're taking up space in barns. there's just physically no place to house all those animals. >> i believe you when you say you are doing everything you can. good luck, mike, to you and all of your girls that you also have to take care of. mike patterson in minnesota. thank you very much. hundreds of people show up to this rabbi's funeral in new york, and the mayor is under fire for his reaction to the crowds. and new york's governor goes off on politics in america as thousands and thousands die.

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new york governor andrew

cuomo today weighed in on new york city mayor bill de blasio's remarks singling out the jewish community in connection with this crowded funeral. mayor de blasio's remarks last night focusing on a popular jewish rabbi's funeral drawing this massive crowd in williamsburg, brooklyn. the nypd estimating up to 2,500 people attended this rabbi's funeral, violating the statewide ban on public gatherings. and cnn's shimon prokupecz is live for us this afternoon in new york. and shimon, what more are you learning about this? >> reporter: yeah, so, you know, the mayor really stepped in it here. a lot of anger from the jewish community specifically over this tweet that he sent last night after he went to the funeral. he said he got word of this funeral taking place in williamsburg, brooklyn, and when he went there, he just couldn't believe what he saw, which then caused him to fire off this angry tweet that then set off the backlash that we're seeing from members of jewish community. he specifically singled them

out, saying that the jewish community, he did not approve of this gathering. he was upset by it. so, they responded. folks from the anti-defamation league responded. leaders of the jewish community, council members responded, saying that they did not appreciate how he was generalizing the jewish community, because this really pertained to one specific area of brooklyn, one specific community, and therefore, to just generalize it as the jewish community entirely was unfair. the mayor today forced to apologize, saying it was tough love, saying that he was angry, that he was frustrated by what he had seen. and just to give folks some context here, this has been an issue in this specific community in brooklyn, in other parts of new york state. but the mayor almost on a daily bas basis, his press briefings, is asked by reporters about gatherings, religious gatherings, specific in the h s

hasidic community and says every day he's been asking them not to gather like this. then what he saw last night, he got very angry, and therefore, he tweeted what he did, and then, of course, now the backlash. the nypd saying they're going to be a little more stricter now. they're going to be enforcing this, making sure folks don't gather as they did last night, brooke. >> yeah, shimon, thank you very much, in new york. it is a sign of normalcy for so many americans, but dr. anthony fauci says some sports may not return this year at all. plus, just hours before the president said the u.s. will get to 5 million tests a day, the man in charge of his administration's efforts on testing said that's impossible.

whether it is football, baseball, basketball, you name it, americans love their sports. and the absence of it is just a constant reminder that coronavirus has disrupted one huge part of our lives. but dr. anthony fauci, the leading u.s. infectious disease expert, has both good and bad news for the future. i'll give you the bad news first. some sports may have to skip the season entirely, but the good news? i'll let dr. fauci tell you. >> i hope that there's some form of baseball this summer, even if it's just tv. and i do that for -- i feel that strongly, one, because i'm an avid baseball fan, but also, i mean, it's for the country's mental health, to have, you know, the great american past time be seen. >> "detroit free press" columnist mitch albom is here,

the author of -- this is my word -- a bazillion best-selling books, including currently "human touch," a new serialized story of hope during this pandemic. mitch al thank you so much for spending some time with me. >> thanks, brooke, i'm glad to see you back and before we get started, i want to say how much i appreciate the essay you wrote about your experience with covid-19 and learning what it means to be connected. that was a powerful piece. >> oh my goodness, you read it. you made my day, mitch. day made. we'll come back to the power of connection, but first, just on sports. america's greatest past time and to think that we won't have that for some time more, what do you think that does to americans, to the soul of americans? >> well, i've been covering sports for most of my career and i know how important it is to people but i also know that in times of real importance, we put sports in its perspective. we can live without it if we have to.

we have been. it would be lovely to see if we can get some of these sports but logistically, at least 100 people the football team travels with. coach, staff. baseball teams, 25, another 10 or 15. it's hard to imagine with social distancing being a priority how players who get really close and sweat on one another and sit in dugouts, even without fans, how that can really be safe. >> but you mentioned dugouts, like dr. fauci seems optimistic mlb looking at july 4th, america's birthday being opening day. what you know about baseball, do you think that's realistic? >> only if they sequester themselves in sort of like a campus. there has been talk about arizona or florida where all the teams would basically be living in a bubble. come to work, go back, wouldn't be interacting out in the rest of society, maybe their families would be with them. the umpires, the equipment people would all have to be locked in and playing in just a

limited amount of stadiums. wouldn't be taking planes back and forth, obviously and if you could hermetically seal a sport like that, maybe you could pull it off with no fans but i think it's still very difficult. >> hermetic seal required. we'll see, right, we'll see. in the meantime, let's talk about you, because when i was still sick with covid the last number of weeks, i heard from a number of people, you've got to follow mitch what he's doing with the new book "human touch" because we can read your chapters week to week. i've never heard of an author doing this. for people who don't know what you're doing, where, if people choose to be generous, which they have to you, where that money is going. >> well, most important thing is it's free. normally, i make my living obviously by writing books and selling them, but in unusual times, you have to do unusual things, so i'm writing this story every week, every friday.

humantouchstory.com. the book is on audible for free as well, and all i ask, if people are inclined, make a donation to detroit beats covid-19. in the last few weeks, raised $150,000 and took the money yesterday, opened the first mobile testing center in downtown detroit where not only people who have cars can be tested but for people who don't have cars can walk up and be tested which is a first and did over 100 tests yesterday, which is all part of this project about the fictional story, so it shows how people come together. >> and, that's wonderful, first of all, and the story itself is inspirational and we all need a little bit of that right now. can you just explain human touch, the plot and it centers around this 8-year-old boy and i want you to also tell me who this 8-year-old boy is roughly based on in your own real life?

>> so it's a story of one fictional street corner in a michigan town where there are four families living with four houses and how when this virus hits, they start to change the way they always related. some are closer, some become distrustful and the heart of it, this 8-year-old boy who seems immune to getting sick and in the community, he sneaks around and lets himself be hugged and held so people can have a connection to human touch as you wrote about in your piece and eventually, he becomes the key to solving the whole crisis and he is based on a real 8-year-old boy who i have an orphanage in haiti i operate every month. i bring him up for therapy and he got stuck here in the travel ban, so he's been here ever since and he is the absolute light of our lives. we provides joy and hope and without him, this would be a much tougher thing to get through and i thought, he can provide that kind of spark for us, maybe in a story, he can

provide a spark for other people as well. >> it's a beautiful story. again, we get to read chapter by chapte chapter, whenever else would this ever happen? >> just made an appearance. >> here he is. hi. he's the star. he's the star and a stud. >> so sweet. look at that smile. look at that smile. we all love the smiles, and inspiration and the human touch. the story, the book is human touch. mitch, thank you very much. >> thank you, brooke, nice to talk to you. >> thank you. just in, "tampa bay times" said they told stop reporting information on the number of deaths in the state, happening as florida gets ready to unveil the reopening plan. more breaking news, dr. fauci releasing positive news about this trial of a drug called remdezivir to treat

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you are watching cnn. i'm brooke baldwin. thank you for being with me. right now, i can bring you one of the best headlines since coronavirus took hold of the united states. here it is. the potential for a true treatment. now, there are no approved medications for coronavirus but just a short time ago, the nation's leading infectious disease expert said the result of the randomized control study of the drug called remdesivir is, according to dr. fauci, quite good news. why, you ask? because it showed remdesivir appeared to be effective to people recover more quickly once they were sick. here he was,