i'm brianna keilar. i want to welcome viewers in the u.s. and around the world. you're watching cnn's special live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. we have several fast-moving developments this wednesday, including the head of the centers for disease control, now in hot water as the battle between his agency and the white house intensifies. a top administration official telling cnn informal conversations about, quote, what to do about dr. robert redfield have taken place as several complain publicly and privately about the cdc's response to the outbreak. another source says redfield may have a target on his back. johnson & johnson announced positive results in monkeys from a study with six experimental covid-19 vaccines but the doctor in charge of the study cautions, it is still too early to celebrate. >> the protection was very good. it was near complete.

it wasn't absolute. there was a very low amount of virus detected but nevertheless, the protection is very good. so this demonstrates that there is natural protective immunity to this virus. however, i'll emphasize again, these studies are in primates and we have to be careful how we interpret these data for humans. >> all of that as the u.s. hits a milestone for the first time since lockdowns began nationwide, all 50 states are now partially reopened. connecticut becoming the last state to lift those restrictions effective today. cnn's nick watt following the reopening efforts across the country and joins me live from los angeles. nick? >> reporter: brianna, yeah, it has been more than nine weeks since the first counties up in northern california told people to stay at home and now today in every single state, we are trying, starting to get back to normal. in los angeles, car washes are now allowed as of today. this one, every worker gets a

health check first thing in the morning and now, they're not just washing the cars, they're also disinfecting them. retail reopens in miami beach today but not the beaches or the hundreds of bars and restaurants, not yet. >> this is to see how we do. we're a crowd-based city, so we want to make sure we don't draw too large a crowd. >> reporter: mike schultz think he caught the virus in miami-beach prelockdown at a festival, posting these pictures before and after six weeks in the icu. controlling crowds was, is, and will be key, maybe for many. months and rules will vary because the big apple, on long island, not on new york city. where they're now offering free testing to anyone who works at or lives in the city's 169 nursing homes. >> we have to redouble our

efforts to help those most vulnerable. >> reporter: boston now targeting june 1 to start, but taking more time than the rest of massachusetts before opening up, say, office space. >> for example, making sure that when people go into buildings, they get temperature checks, they get asked some basic questions, making sure there's proper protocol and tracing. i think we have to get this right the first time. >> reporter: july 4th, six plus weeks away the the goal to have most businesses back open for the 10 million who live here. in los angeles county, maybe even movie production. >> as long as production remains shut down, the more full-time are in jeopardy are being cut. >> as of this morning, when connecticut got rolling, all 50 states have now started reopening. yet, in at least 18 including kentucky, new case counts are going up. >> but the way we're reopening gives us the type of gradual and safe reopening where we can do

it while watching the data at the same time. >> reporter: the cdc did finally publish its nationwide reopening guidelines. among them, sneeze guards in bars, every other row empty. but by the white house to restrict any and all guidance for faith communities. >> i see some key elements that should be in there that aren't, and i'd like to understand that based on science or not there for other reasons? >> reporter: multiple cdc staffers tell cnn that politics, more than science, is driving white house policy. we've been muzzled, said one. of course, it doesn't just matter what we do inside this country, it matters who and what we let in. and this morning, the vice president saying that the administration is looking into, perhaps, more travel restrictions on south america, a big spike early this week in brazil in both new case numbers

and deaths. and brazil, by the way, also has a populous president who is also very eager to get the economy back up and running. brianna? >> indeed, nick watt in los angeles. thank you. i want to talk more now about these reported tensions between the centers for disease control and the white house. and the long awaited guidelines to reopen the country. dr. carlos del rio the executive associate dean of emory university school of medicine at grady health system, and sir, i mean, you may have heard some of nick watt's report there. cdc officials have told our drew griffin, quote, we are working under a black cloud of an administration that doesn't have our backs. we've been muzzled is what one said. what's your reaction to hearing that? >> well, it's very concerning because cdc is one of our national treasures, and having cdc in the past lead the

response to many, many problems that i can remember from hiv to legionnaire's disease. zika in the forefront. h1n1. dr. rich bessert literally on the news on a daily basis during the outbreaks. so i think the cdc has always shown leadership and has always done a remarkable job. they have great scientific expertise. they have the right people. the right tools, the right laboratories. so i have been really dismayed and quite frankly disappointed by not seeing cdc at all in part of this response and you almost wonder, as you play chess, somehow gave up your queen and think you'll be able to win. >> that's a great analogy. we have reporting and i'm sure this alarms you based on what you just said, the job of robert

redfield could be in jeopardy because of this tension. it certainly doesn't seem like a good time to change the guard at the cdc. what do you think? >> i would agree with that, and again, dr. redfield, he's a friend, a colleague. he has worked in hiv for many years. i've known him for a long time. i think he's a very capable individual, he's trying to do his best but simply, he's not being allowed to do his best. there's also incredible career people with the united states public health service and all the way from dr. ann shuka, many people in the cdc that are simply terrific and the best in their business. not only nationally but recognized internationally. and let them do what needs to be done to get out of the epidemic will be critical. if we don't respect the science or what comes out of cdc and don't implement it, we're not going to be in a good position

and i think we as citizens, need to be wondering because these are our best people. >> and one of the things, one of the hold-ups, actually, finally, i want to ask you about positive results we've seen for this vaccine. one of the vaccines having been tested on monkeys. johnson & johnson urging caution but i wonder, if you are optimistic or if you're sort of reserving your chance to be optimistic. >> it's important to be optimistic but i want to see data and outcomes. i don't want to see press releases which are geared primarily to the media and investors. i need to see science and data, what needs to go on. my experience with the hiv vaccines is that we, as you know, don't have a vaccine for hiv and plenty of vaccines that have shown efficacy in animals, in human primates and when they

were taken to clinical trials in humans, they failed. so i think maybe i'm scarred by that and tend to be skeptical. having said that, i think developing a vaccine for coronavirus may be a lot easier than hiv, but we have to see the clinical trial process occur and the data and go from there. now, it's important, the vaccine showed efficacy in primates, that's great. that's a clinical stage and time to think about moving it into humans to see if it's safe in humans and then you go on with the clinical trial process. >> you are the second expert in as many days who say, i don't want to see a press release, i want to see the data. i appreciate you bringing up that point. >> good talking to you today. as all states reopen in some capacity, see how far the virus travels during a restaurant experiment. you will not want to miss this. plus, a stunning before and after picture of a nurse who

survived weeks after coronavirus. you'll hear his story. some americans refuse to wear masks, including the president. a new study shows how effective they are. this is cnn's special live coverage. managing type 2 diabetes? audrey's on it. eating right... ... and staying active? on it! audrey thinks she's doing all she can to manage her type 2 diabetes and heart disease, but is her treatment doing enough to lower her heart risk? maybe not. jardiance can reduce the risk of cardiovascular death for adults who also have known heart disease. so it could help save your life from a heart attack or stroke. and it lowers a1c. jardiance can cause serious side effects including dehydration, genital yeast or urinary tract infections, and sudden kidney problems. ketoacidosis is a serious side effect that may be fatal. a rare, but life-threatening bacterial infection... ...in the skin of the perineum could occur. stop taking jardiance and call your doctor right away if you have symptoms of this bacterial infection,...

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the last state, connecticut, ruling out phase one reopening plan today meaning restaurants can now serve customers outdoors only, coming as each state essentially charting its own path toward a return to traditional restaurant dining. how safe are restaurants during this pandemic? cnn's randi kaye found out with

the help of a scientific experiment. >> listen in, and should i rub it all together as well? >> reporter: this yellow tinted goo a mixture. from you to other things you touched and maybe touched by someone else. designating me the so-called spreader. we can see how germs on my hand which could be coronavirus droplets could spread in a restaurant setting. at our table, we keep our masks on to protect ourselves and each other. i pour water for everyone at the table. >> thanks for having us for

lunch. >> sure. >> reporter: pass around the food, wondering if i'm passing around the virus too. >> awesome, thank you. take the bowl. >> we also share the salt and pepper. then it's time to turn on the ultraviolet lights to see what i may have spread. remember, i was the only one with what could have been the virus on my hand. >> you didn't have any germs on you. i was the spreader. so when you look at my hands and look at how it transferred some of you by sharing items at the table or a knife in this case or water glass, it only takes a little bit to make somebody else sick. >> how about the bowl of chips? >> you can see the edge of the bowl to pass it around, the simulated germs stuck right to the surface. >> and then everybody else touches the bowl. >> same with the salt and pepper shakers and the pitcher of water. there was contact spread on the

cups and menus too. even my lunch. >> this is the spot where randy came in to have lunch with her friends, she touched right on the shoulder just to greet everybody and you can see the outline of her palm print, her hand print right on the shirt. it's quite scary the amount one person can have in a room like that. >> we also wanted to see what would happen if you're at a restaurant and somebody coughs. so let's turn out the lights and let's see the cough. there were now more droplets on the bowl of chips, the menus and the water pitcher too. >> look at what happened to the fork after that simulated cough. those would be real germs if that was a real cough. on my fork, i would have picked up the fork, not being able see germs with the naked eye. >> even the woman sitting to my right, several feet away from the mannequin that coughed had droplets on her face. >> you can see it's on her face,

mask. >> if she wasn't wearing a mask, she would have breathed it? >> correct. >> thank you so much to randy for that report. joining me now, dr. rob davidson, emergency room physician and executive director of the committee to protect medicare. doctor, we saw in this report how masks can help in an enclosed setting. researchers in hong kong found wearing a mask lowered the transmission of the airborne particles of respiratory droplets by 75%. is that what you would expect and what does that tell us about how people should be wearing them? >> absolutely.

i wear a mask when i go to any public space. i bring a mask with me in a rural area when i go on a walk, just in case i can't avoid comi coming, that's a challenge for those who are trying to help states open up safely, sending a mixed message. >> how much would it help, do you think, if he did wear it? he has not been wearing one. even with the visit to auto plant, not wearing one even though the united auto workers they wish he would. he's not wearing it. and support president trump and who tend to believe what we says and what he does. i think that leaders should model good behavior.

i think that is just common sense, good leadership and it's troubling. is he a high risk individual, he gets tested very frequently. we are told, and so probably he's lower risk than others but again, not zero risk and just because millions of people are watching his every move, this would go such a long way for the rest of us trying to open up safely, and trying to keep the numbers down. >> it's like it's why you get celebrities to take flu shots and be public about it, when you want people to take flu shots, the state of testing in the country. >> we have a lot of cases, i don't look at that as a bad thing but in a certain respect, as being a good thing because it means our testing is much bet r

better. it's a badge of honor, really, a badge of honor. >> just from your medical perspective, give us your reaction to hearing that. responding to it on twitter and many people did. having more cases. we've been relieving our health systems of any major influx but really, buying time to do testing, to be able to test, trace and isolate. our only logical way to opening safely, and you know, we failed. this government has failed. we're doing around the maximum, i've seen, is 400,000 tests in one day, and experts suggest a

minimum number of tests we'd need would be 900,000 per day. so we're not even halfway there, and yet, you know, the virus just keeps going and going. the cases will mount, whether we test or not, and so i think his assertion that it's a badge of honor, it really is just a marker of failure. >> all right, dr. davidson, thank you for joining us from michigan. we appreciate it. a young and fit nurse showing his before and after picture of what weeks in the hospital did to his body in a very long battle with coronavirus. plus, the president, again, going off on china, accusing it of, quote, mass worldwide killing apparently forgetting how he praised china for weeks at the start of all this. to everyone navigating these uncertain times...

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as president trump faces increasing criticism, botched response to the coronavirus, he is ratcheting up his attacks on china and blaming them for the band-ai pandemic. president trump claiming it was the incompetence and nothing else that did this mass worldwide killing. it wasn't so long ago he had a different tune with the chinese handling of the coronavirus. let's listen? >> i spoke to president xi last night. very tough situation, but i think he's going to handle it. i think he's handling it really

well. i think china is professionally run in the sense they have everything under control. i think they're going to have it under control fairly soon. they're working hard. looks like by april, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, miraculously goes away. i spoke with president xi, it will work out fine. i think they handled it professionally and i think they're extremely capable and i think president xi is extremely capable and i hope it's going to be resolved. i think president xi is working very hard. i really believe he wants to get that done and wants to get it done fast. i think he's doing it very professionally. i think president xi is working very, very hard. i spoke to him. he's working very hard. i think he's doing a very good job. >> back in january, the president also praised china's response on twitter saying, quote, the u.s. greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. it will all work out well. in particular, on behalf of the american people, i want to thank

president xi. joining me now to discuss cnn political analyst, josh rogan. what does this change of tune tell you about, really, what's happening with the president and what's happening behind the scenes at the white house in the middle of this pandemic? >> right, well, i think there's two things going on. first of all, i think president trump is genuinely upset with his good friend president xi who he spent just three years getting to know. remember they sign add traed a deal in january and finds out the government has been lying about the coronavirus the whole time. first thing. second thing, he's also abusing the china issue to distract from his own domestic failures relating to the coronavirus pandemic. and, you know, that's really unfortunate because for people who really want to hold the chinese government accountable, politicize the issue only makes it more difficult. we should be able to blame trump and china at the same time, but right now, it's just getting all

politicized out of control. >> i also want to get your reaction to this. the president suggesting today he's considering having the g-7 summit in person but doing it at camp david in june. he tweeted that it would be a great sign to all normalization. the summit had to be rescheduled for march when the pandemic was at its peak and coming as many allies see the u.s. as abandoning its leadership. do you think the other leaders will agree and come? >> no. i don't think that's going to happen at all. remember, this is all president trump trying to portray an image of america leading internationally on this crisis when all the evidence points in the opposite direction and this includes the president's attack on the w.h.o. which is what set off this latest spat in the u.s./china relations in the first place and remember, the last time he scheduled g-7 statement, they couldn't even agree to the statement because the u.s. insisted calling it on

the wuhan virus. it's like a kabuki diplomacy. by having them reject him, that's a talking point but that's not the same thing as trying to coalesce around the shared common interest of fighting this pandemic. >> josh rogan, as always, great to see you. >> likewise. cnn investigating the origins of the coronavirus pandemic. do not miss fareed zakaria's special report, china's deadly secret this sunday night at 9:00 eastern and pacific. as the world rushes to find a vaccine for coronavirus, new york is reporting an alarming decline in routine vaccinations for children. i'll ask a doctor what the long-term impact would be here. south korea the latest country forced to shut down some schools again after clusters reemerged.

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sharing what it did to his body after being hospitalized for six weeks. this is mike schultz about a month before he got sick. on the left of course, right in the recovery ward, several weeks later. he used to work out and healthy 190 pounds and now 140 pounds and his lung capacity slowly coming back but took a hit through this. schultz said he felt so weak he could barely hold the phone to take that picture on the right. and when he woke up, he thought he'd only been in the hospital for one week, when he had been in the hospital for six. a cnn medical analyst, chief clinical officer of providence health system and she's joining us now to talk about this. doctor, that change, this is getting so much attention because it's just undeniable. he looks like a different person, right? he was intubated for 4.5 weeks.

what does that tell you about the toll this virus takes on your body and i know you've seen some of this. >> thank you, brianna, for asking and it's not just the virus but staying in an icu is really hard on the body and we've known for a long time there is a condition called icu associated weakness people are prolonged on a ventilator and by the way, they're put into a medically induced coma because it's not a pleasant sensation to have to live through. two big things happen. one is that you get something called a catabolic state where you break down your own muscles and deconditioning. you are at complete rest. you're not moving around. so your muscles get super, super weak. and at the end of that, what happens is what my kentucky father-in-law would describe, weak as a kitten, and you really have no energy left to move because you have basically really removed most of your muscle strength during that time

while you're in bed. >> and can you speak to something we've heard more experts talk about, for people like this nurse, he wakes up, thinks he's on the vent for a week, he's been in the hospital for six weeks instead. the long-term mental health implications of going through something that is arguably for so many people, very traumatic? >> it is very traumatic. the other thing people in icus get besides incredibly weak is ptsd because they lose chunks of their life and the trauma on the body of being put on a ventilator and some people having to be put on blood pressure support medicines, that you can actually have lasting damage to both the brain as well as your ability to regain your strength long-term. and so it is a long road back. so not only the nurse that you have shown pictures of, but every single person in the icu,

getting out of the hospital is step one on the road to recovery. >> it's not just the end of it, right? it's the beginning of a new thing for them. the mayor in new york, bill de blasio reported childhood vaccination rates in new york city have been falling dramatically, down 63% overall, especially among younger children. i think we can understand that some parents have been hesitant to take their kids to the doctor's office for their normal well child visits, but what would your advice be to them and what are your concerns about this? >> my advice now is now that we're on the backside of wave one, now is the time to go catch up, catch up with all the care you need and it's not just childhood vaccines that we need parents to get their kids in and get them now, but it's people who need their blood pressure, saying come on back.

don't let a second wave of catastrophe from this virus be that all the other preventative conditions we know we can help get out of control because we've put off things that we know we should. so time to go in and get those shots. dr. ann compton phillips. >> thank you. a dire warning from the world bank that this crisis could push 60 million people into extreme poverty around the world. plus, russia set to receive a major shipment of ventilators from the united states. one of the world's most iconic theatres could be forced to shut down.

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breaking news. ford forced to halt production at its chicago plant after two employees test positive for coronavirus. this just one day after the automaker reopened its factory. ford began screening temperatures of their employees and requiring medical tests for workers who exhibit symptoms. keep in mind, tomorrow, the president visits a ford plant in michigan. and this comes as workplaces,

sports, schools are all grappling with how to reopen, especially when someone tests positive. in the meantime, starting tomorrow, spain will require masks for anyone using public spaces if they can't social distance by at least 6 feet. these rules come amid a slight uptick in new infections there. it applies to indoor and outdoor spaces for anyone over the age of six, and there will be exceptions for some medical conditions. and a bar in the spanish town of sieveya found a high-tech way to serve drinks safely, using a robot called a beer cart to bring drinks to customers. for other headlines around the world, let's check in with cnn's international correspondents. >> reporter: i'm paula hancocks in seoul. high school seniors are back at school here in south korea, and it really feels like a milestone in the country's fight against coronavirus. now, temperature checks, hand sanitizers, social distancing, both in the classroom and in the

canteen are becoming the new norm. officials are hoping to introduce lower grades in the schools over the next couple of weeks but there's already been hurdles. schools had to be closed after two students tested positive. >> reporter: i'm melissa bell in paris, france. schools open for less than a week, some covid-19 scares led to the closing of 70 schools across the country. it is relatively small number and the health ministry said these are not necessarily cases of covid-19 found inside the schools but enough of a scare locally to warrant their closure. these are the sort of incidents they're keeping an eye on. whether to continue down this road of easing restrictions as nationally, the figures continue to improve and specifically, numbers of people in an icu that continue to fall. >> reporter: i'm matthew chance and russian officials say a big shipment of u.s. medical aid is now heading to moscow to help

combat the coronavirus pandemic. the first shipment will include 50 american made ventilators with a further 150 ventilators that follow. russian officials say the ships financed by washington. follows a series of phone calls between donald trump and russian president vladimir putin and controversial shipment of russian aid to the u.s. last month. including a model of russian ventilator later found to have forced in st. petersburg. >> reporter: shakespeare lovers are growing anxious at the prospect that the globe theatre where some of the famous playwrights' most epic plays were originally performed may now be forced to close as a result of some of the lockdown measures taken due to the coronavirus. uk lawmakers have warned the government that the theatre now faces financial insolvency. the original theatre built in 1599. it was destroyed by a fire in

1613 but a replica yards away from the original was built . >> reporter: i'm david mckenzie in south africa. the head of the world bank has said up to 60 million people world wide to be pushed into extreme poverty because of covid-19 and the lockdown on economies. now the worst affected countries could be low and middle income countries and their citizens. group is providing financing and forgiving debt in the foreseeable future to try to help countries to weather the covid-19 storm. >> we're back now to breaking news. a top administration official telling cnn that informal conversations are taking place about potentially getting rid of the head of the cdc. plus i'm speak to the father of a college student is suing because virtual education isn't worth the same amount as in-person classes.

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colleges and universities across the globe are adapting to the new normal and one of the latest developments, the university of cambridge in the united kingdom announced it will hold all lectures online until the summer of 2021. in the u.s. as the number of universities plan for the fall, many parents and students want to back-up for a moment when the

pandemic hit most were sent home to finish the semester online and that is not what they paid more. mark shaffer's daughter attends george washington university and is suing the school and is joining us now. mark, thank you, for coming on. first explain why you're taking legal action against george washington university. >> sure, brianna. glad to be on. it started out with a petition of over 2,000 signatures to reduce the tuition fees for the second half of the spring semester because everything had gone online. the administration ignored that petition and other calls for some sort of refund so we felt the only way to get their attention was to file a class-action suit representing the students and parents to try to get refund of the tuition paid in the spring of 2020. >> your lawsuit said it cost about $30,000 per semester

tuition, how much money are you looking to get back? i'm curious to know, and look, i think there is a lot of parents all over the country wondering what you're wondering here, but how much is an online education worth versus that in-person? >> right. well in our opinion it is certainly worth less. i'm sure a number of experts could testify as to how much less. but what we're looking for and of course each student's tuition is different. at george washington they freeze your tuition when you enter school so students could pay from $25,000 to $30,000 a semester there. and we thought the first semester wasn't impacted, it hit mid semester. it could be $7,000 $8,000. >> do you think your daughter is learning less by the way classes

are being executed right now or do you think that there are just kind of some things that she's missing out on? what do you feel like she is missing that is not worth paying for. >> well you definitely miss out of your professor/student interactions. there could be some q&a but it is not the same. she's missing out on the peer to peer, student study groups or talking before and after classes and a bunch of facilities at george washington that the students use that have been closed. special software programs that are in the library that can't be accessed online. so she's lost a lot of content of the course work and that is reflected by the george washington decision to law students to take anything they want, pass, fail, after they see what kind of grade they got. so i think they recognize it is not the same. >> the university has said that

they're listening to public health experts by moving to online classes. they said, this, quote, our faculty have been worked hard to provide our students with a quality academic experience and our staff have worked hard to provide meaningful engagement with each other. what do you think about that response? >> well i don't doubt that they tried. and we certainly never questioned the decision-making process when they decided to go online because of all of the unknowns with the covid virus and all. our point is it is not the same. most universities that do strictly online credits, they cost far, far less than what we're paying at george washington university and we think the university should recognize it, they can't make it part of the experience and ought to refund part of the tuition. >> i have ten seconds. what does your daughter think about your lawsuit?

>> she -- she probably finding it more amusing than anything else but she understands what we're up against. some parents need the money, some parents might not. but it is the business principle, if you can't deliver what you promise, you should give people some of their money back. >> thank you for coming on and explaining this to us. we appreciate it. >> thank you. >> and our special coverage continues now with kate bolduan. >> hello, i'm kate bolduan and thank you for joining us this hour. muzzled. that is the exact word a current cdc official is using to describe to cnn what the trump white house has done to the public health agency in the midst of the coronavirus crisis. cdc officials describing how their work has been sidelined and how it appears there are things superseding science in the response, namely politics.