on the balance sheet, waiting for great opportunities. i think those will be some of the -- [bell ringing] liz: larry, i hope you will be watching me live tweet on twitter @ liz claman. folks, we do close very close to or at session lows on this 1st day of may. that will do it for "the claman countdown". i will see you monday. president trump takes aim at china over the coronavirus, plus disapointing results from tech titans apple and amazon and at the white house the president just wrapped up a meeting with the ceo of gilead. the fda has authorized the company for emergency use of its possible coronavirus treatment drug, remdesivir. we will bring you the remarks from the meeting, just as soon as we get them. i'm melissa francis. this is after the bell. connell? connell: i'm connell mcshane. reporting today from the villagers perk which is a coffee

shop in new york as we continue our focus here on the show on small business. in fact, this hour we will look at how the owners of this business have survived the six-week lockdown and also look at the questions about how long they can hold out. also it's may 1st. while we're still waiting for the green light here in new york to open up our economy, there are more states that are wraf wrafrp -- that are ramping things up here. we will take you to tennessee and texas later in the hour, where restaurant, stores, even theaters are starting to open. coverage of our top stories with fox business team coverage, blake burman monitoring the latest coming out of the white house especially on the remdesivir news and lauren simonetti watching the markets for us. that's where we start. lauren? >> not a good day to watch the markets, connell. sharp losses on wall street on this first trading day of may. there are two issues for investors today, two big ones, trade and technology.

president trump threatening new tariffs on china for its handling of coronavirus and some of the companies that have outperformed during the pandemic showing that even they are not immune to it. but let's take a look at numbers for the week. it looks a lot better than it did today. relatively modest losses across the board this week. now, take a look at amazon shares. record close yesterday. today down sharply. the company reported earnings, said they are going to spend 4 billion dollars on testing and delivery, but over a dozen analysts raised their price targets on the stock today, and that suggests that today's levels could be a buying opportunity, for many, because this is a company that has done well, especially during coronavirus and well this year. let's take a look at apple, rare move, it pulled its june quarter guidance. it also warned about iphone revenue in this current quarter will be impacted. so apple shares are down today as well. no one is placing a bet on the casino stocks. macau gaming revenue plummeting

almost 97% in april. and these stocks got hammered as a result. next week, disney and peloton, two of the big stocks reporting, they have been beneficiaries of these stay at home orders that are slowly lifting across the nation. we will see what they have to say about the virus's impact and how they will move the markets quite honestly, also help to determine if sell in may and go away rings true this year. on this 1st day of may, not a good one. back to you connell and melissa. connell: no, not at all. thank you, lauren. we have a fox business alert now to the white house we go where president trump has been meeting with the ceo of gilead sciences and we are going to listen in on what the president has to say. check that. we don't have the president ready yet. it is one of those playback situations. we're awaiting for that news to come. blake burman is joining us, monitoring things out of the white house as always.

as we wait for that, that is fairly significant news, blake, and now indeed ahead of myself, it is happening at the white house. let's go back there. here's the president. >> -- company's been in the news, and it is a great american company that's done incredible work on hiv and hepatitis-c. i hear that that's what's happening with hepatitis is a great medical story, a great medical story. i have been hearing about that. that's fantastic. i'm pleased to announce that gilead now has an eua from the fda for remdesivir. you know what that is because that's been the hot thing also in the papers and in the media for the last little while. an important treatment for hospitalized coronavirus patients. and it's something i spoke with dr. khan and dr. fauci. i spoke with deborah about it, and it's really a very promising situation. we've been doing work with the teams at the fda, nih, and

gilead for spearheading this public private partnership to make this happen very quickly. so today we're going to be -- i'm going to let dan do it, but we're going to let dan make a statement as to what the company is doing, making a contribution to really people that are not doing well, people that are sick, people who have this horrible plague that's set into our country, and we're getting rid of, and we're going to be having some really incredible results. we have very promising studies coming out on the vaccines. we have promising studies coming out on therapeutics, and the first one is from dan and gilead. i would like to maybe have you say a few words, if you would, dan, as to number one, about remdesivir to start off with and also the contribution being made by your company, and we very much appreciate it.

>> sure. thank you very much, mr. president. thank you for having us here. thank you, mr. vice president for the collaboration that we've had. let me start by saying on behalf of i know all the colleagues at gilead, we want to thank all the collaborators that brought remdesivir to this point. that includes nih and dr. fauci and certainly commissioner and many many more people that have been a part of this to bring this to where we are today. and in fact, really the thanks go to the patients and the care givers that participated in these clinical trials. i also want to say i'm privileged to work with a group of amazing scientists at gilead that for decades have been working on anti-virals and we're poised to put remdesivir immediately into clinical trials when we saw the covid-19 circulating. so i'm really proud of the colleagues back at gilead. what i'd like to say is that on behalf of gilead, to the president's point, we feel a tremendous responsibility. we're humbled by this being an

important first step for patients, for hospitalized patients. we want to make sure nothing gets in the way of these patients getting the medicine, so we made a decision to donate about 1.5 million vials of remdesivir. we will be working with the government to determine how best to distribute that, within the united states. we will be working very closely to get that to patients, working with fema, working with other parts of the government to make sure that we get that to the patients in need as quickly as possible, because there are patients out there that can benefit from this medicine today that are hospitalized, and we don't want any time to waste for that. we're also fully committed to continuing to expand the supply of this medicine. we started investing in this back in january, as soon as we became aware of the coronavirus. this is a long time to manufacture. it used to be 12 months. it is now six months. our scientists have brought that down. as we get into the second half of this year, we're able to have many more supplies available to patients, and we're fully committed to working, mr. president, with you, your

administration, to make sure that patients that need it can get this important new medicine. >> i really appreciate it, but i also noticed the incredible job you've done with hiv, which, you know, i remember so well, 15 years ago, 16 years ago, it was a horrible thing. i lived in new york. i lost a lot of friends through hiv. it was terrible. and also hepatitis-c. could you give us just a quick moment on how successful that's been because i've seen things that are pretty incredible that a lot of people don't know. >> absolutely. i'm reminded with ambassador birx and all her work on this as well. the colleagues at gilead have collaborated for years on the developing world on hiv. it is astonishing. this is one of the reasons why i joined gilead a while ago. the reason i joined is because of this progress. you remember of course back when hiv was a death sentence and now thanks to the sciences of gilead

and elsewhere we've turned this into a really chronic disease and also a prevent -- preventable disease. i want to give the administration thanks on the hiv prevention and prep program that we're working now and many particularly disadvantaged parts of our country to get more patients on prevention because the best way of course to stop and to end this epidemic is a combination of treatment and prevention. hepatitis-c, i'm happy to say that the scientists have come up with a cure some years ago, and we've made tremendous progress and including some really creative new arrangements in the united states like with the state of louisiana where we've looked at ways to look at programs to make sure that every patient in a state is able to get the opportunity to be cured. i'm very proud that we have this kind of science but also that we put this science in a way that gets access to patients. >> with hepatitis-c, it is an

actual cure. it is an actual cure. >> yes, 12 week oral therapy cure. i mean we're still working on the hiv cure. we haven't given up. it is a much more difficult problem. we'll probably get some long acting medicines first. >> more complex problem. >> much more complex. i'm embarrassed to talk about this in front of ambassador birx. she should talk about this. it's complex to get the virus completely suppressed >> where would you put coronavirus in that level of complexity? >> it is earl lil' days on coronavirus -- it is early days on coronavirus. this is the first step today. i think what we will see -- it may be like with other viruses that we have seen, with this, with an anti-viral like remdesivir, that the way to actually even get better results is to add medicines on top of an anti-viral. that's really how we were able to get hiv to a chronic illness by combination therapy. this is the beginning. there's a lot of great companies out there that are working on

that we're collaborating with, my colleagues in the industry, and we're all working together to do everything we can. >> it's very exciting. a very major contribution towards helping people. we very much appreciate that. i'm talking about a monetary contribution as well as more importantly what you're doing scientifically. so we appreciate it very much. doctor, would you say a few words? the fda has been move things along at a level that they have never done before. and i appreciate it, doctor. >> thank you, mr. president. really appreciate it. so as the president just announced, we authorized gilead's application for emergency use authorization for the use of remdesivir in hospitalized patients. and that was issued today. thank you very much and congratulations for the great work from the company and the collaboration we have had. i also want to thank the more than 18,000 employees at fda who have heeded the president's call to reduce regulatory burden and

red tape and moved things forward. i think i said the other day this is lightning speed in terms of getting something approved, and from clinical trial to getting it authorized from the fda, it's been quite the speedy but also effective process. this is an important clinical advance that showed a statistically significant reduction in time to recovery for patients with covid-19. and it is the first authorized therapy for covid-19. so we're really proud to be a part of it. mr. president, thank you for your leadership. >> thank you. dr. hahn left one of the most important jobs in medicine, as you know, to take the fda, and we're glad he did. >> we're grateful. >> very important job and a tremendous reputation, but to take this job and you're doing great. we're really proud of you >> thank you, sir. >> deborah, please? >> i will be very brief. i think this really illustrates what can happen in such a short time. i mean, from the first case that was diagnosed in the united states to now, our first step forward with a therapeutic in

less than 90 days, for those of us who have worked in viral diseases and pandemics for a long time, this is our first really positive step forward. it's our first step forward. obviously groups are still working on vaccines. i just want to also thank the company for not only making sure this got into clinical trial, but for individuals who didn't qualify for the clinical trial, they made compassionate use drugs available from the very beginning at our request and around the world, and i think that combination of really strong scientific rigor as clinical trials but also when you don't really have something to make compassionate use available was also really quite extraordinary, so again, also thank you for the patients because obviously this was a randomized trial. there was a group that did not get the drug. it is why the monitoring board stopped the trial because of this statistical difference because you can't keep placebos

on a trial when you've already shown significance in the treatment arm, and so to the patients who were willing to be randomized and to the doctors who did the trials and the nurses who took care of them, we're really very grateful because this clinical research is critical for these breakthroughs, but obviously there's someone getting the agent and there's others that aren't, and so that's really been extraordinary. >> thank you very much. while we're here, i would like to have alex discuss for a second. we will be aids free as a country and i used to say two years ago ten years and now we're down to eight years, and maybe even sooner than that working with gilead and other companies and working with the great people that we're dealing with medically in our country. and maybe you could say something about that, alex, because nobody knows you could even do that, but we're looking to be aids free within the united states within eight years. we started at -- frankly it could have been started in the previous administration and they decided not to, and i decided to

do it. please, alex. >> again, it is a bit embarrassing to be talking about hiv aids standing next to dr. birx. she can correct me as i go. but really thanks to president trump's leadership, the tools were there. the tools were there to end the hiv epidemic in the united states, but it was the president's call and the state of the union address that brought everyone together including this great company gilead and the united states government, all of our partners actually end the hiv epidemic. the tools are that you need to diagnose individuals. part of that is getting people that are in underserved areas. we particularly have african-american males in southern rural communities. we have native americans. we have many underserved who are not getting diagnosed. if we can get you diagnosed, we can get you on therapy if you are positive for the disease. and if you're on therapy, and your viral load is undetectable,

you are untransmissible. you can't give that virus to somebody else if you stay on therapy, and our amazing program has an incredible over 80 percent success rate at getting people who are positive to be undetectable by being compliant with their drug. and then if you are negative, but you have behaviors that put you at risk for getting hiv, you can take prep. you can take the product with compliance keeps you 97% chance that you won't get the hiv disease also. and so the tools are there. it is about execution and blocking and tackling and that's what the president's leading. we have gotten the funding from congress for this. we really have this on our grasp, but the tools were there, but it took president trump's call to action to make this a reality. >> my first year in office, i was being briefed and they told me this is a possibility if we wanted to do it, i said who won't want to do this? -- i said who wouldn't want to do this. ? everything is a lot of money.

but this is small money compared what we're talking about. i lost a tremendous number of friends to aids, some of the most talented people i knew i lost to aids. it is incredible. do you have anything to add to it? i mean you are the real expert on aids and the eradication. anything to add about eradication in our country? >> we just appreciate the government's support on doing both domestic and global work on hiv aids because obviously you are also investing in the program to bring the same level of compassion and treatment to people around the globe to really control the epidemic around the globe. this is a big step forward for all of us to really -- >> what do you think of the timing? am i right when i say about eight years? >> well, we're always -- to actually control the pandemic to make it controllable and smaller, that's absolutely possible. to eradicate it, obviously we need a vaccine or a cure. there are groups working on that under your direction to really ensure -- >> how is that coming?

>> we've made forward progress on vaccines and then a little step back wards and then forward progress. it's tough work. the cure is tough work. your scientists are working on it around the clock and around the world. >> good. that would be terrific. mike, please. >> thank you, mr. president. i just appreciate the opportunity to express the gratitude that we all feel, dan to you and the incredible team at gilead. to think of the progress that you've made in such an extraordinary period of time, when the president brought the pharmaceutical companies here to the white house, you were among them. we said you wanted to move out quickly on developing a vaccine, but he said develop the therapeutics as quickly as you can. we were told that it was possible that by the spring we would have therapeutics and standing here on may the 1st, the very first therapeutic with the emergency use authorization, the good work of fda is now available. but donating 1.5 million doses,

our task force will be working very closely with gilead to make sure that those medicines starting on monday are distributed to hospitals where patients are struggling in serious conditions, with the coronavirus today. and so i hope you will carry back our gratitude, but i know the gratitude of the american people when they see the incredible ingenuity and generosity of the team at gilead. god bless you. >> thank you very much, mr. vice president. appreciate that. >> and adam, maybe you could say a few words. you were very instrumental in getting this done and also on ventilators, getting us to be the kings and queens of ventilators. we have a lot of ventilators. we're helping countries all over the world now with ventilators from starting with almost none in the past. what do you have to say? >> i think it shows the strength of the public private partnerships that you've led, that you, the vice president and all of us have been working on. you talked about ventilators.

i know mr. vice president you just visited the gm plant. you saw ge making ventilators, how quickly we moved there. this is another example, where you have a company, one of our best that came one the first therapeutic that shows the strength of our private business. the other thing i know that you guys did, dan, that i really appreciate is you didn't wait to start production. and that means we're going to get doses next week because they ramped up production and didn't wait because they wanted to help americans, so i think it shows the strength of our private business, and i'm very proud to be an american. >> that would mean that you were so confident in what you were doing early on that you were able to -- >> i would love to say we were that confident. we really weren't, but we saw the incredible human need, and we said in the event that this is successful, we have to plan for success. >> that's great. >> that's just the way that we operate. i'm proud to work for a company that takes those type of decisions. >> how many doses are we getting from the standpoint of the country and the contribution? >> i mean, we're -- particularly

with the news around the fact that some patients as dr. hahn mentioned can benefit from only five days of treatment, which i think is a real benefit for patients to get five days of iv and if they are improving to get out of the hospital, great for them to get back to their loved ones, great for reducing the burden on the healthcare system and then that 1.5 million doses goes longer; right? we're talking about hundreds -- more than 100,000 treatment courses, which again, we need more. we're still ramping up, and we're going to have more in the second half of the year. but at least it's a start, and the most severe, the most serious patients i think were the ones that we'll work with with the vice president and his team on to make sure that we get it to the most serious patients first. >> that's a great start. thank you very much, dan. >> thank you very much. >> thank you, gilead, very much. [applause] >> thank you. that's fantastic. we'll be seeing you all in a

little while. thank you very much. thank you. connell: that meeting in the oval office taking place moments ago. president trump, the coronavirus task force meeting with the gilead science ceo and blake burman has been monitoring it for us in washington. it is a pretty big deal, right, to get the emergency use authorization from the fda for this drug we have heard so much about, remdesivir, in the fight against covid-19. >> yeah. yeah, very important step, connell. this is something we had a sense of on wednesday, when there was a separate oval office meeting in which it was revealed that remdesivir, the drug from gilead was very successful in the words then of dr. anthony fauci, quote highly significant in the tests that it ran in specifically treating patients who have covid-19 in hospitals. so the patients have covid-19. they were in a hospital. this was being administered by a doctor, and the success rate, i believe it was 31% more successful, essentially it

proved that the patients that were getting this were getting healthier quicker than those who were receiving the placebo, so the federal government has essentially here green lit the emergency use for patients in hospitals who are being treated by doctors. you heard them all go around the room there and express how hopeful that they are for this initial subset of people who will be getting the treatment, the ceo of gilead saying about 100,000 courses of treatment that gilead will be donating to the united states government, to hospitals all across the country for this treatment, some 1.5 million vials as dr. birx said. she called it a quote really positive step forward. she noted it was a randomized trial. it was something that is statistically significant, so that's why the fda, you saw the head of the fda, dr. hahn in there, sort of fast tracked this, give this the green light because in essence here, the doctors saw what they needed to see with remdesivir, something that had been used a handful of

years ago in the fight against ebola, now working in hospitals on patients for covid-19, and the hope is that if you're one of those patients that has to go in to the hospital, unfortunately, once you get there, this drug from gilead now will not only help but help you get out of the hospital quicker than you might otherwise would have stayed in there. connell? connell: yeah, positive developments indeed. all right. blake, thank you. blake burman in washington. melissa has more now. melissa: all right. here now to react is steve forbes, forbes media chairman. steve, what do you think about this? this is the ingenuity of a private company. they donated the drug as you heard there. what are your thoughts? >> well, i think this underscores the importance of the private sector, and i'm delighted that president trump repeatedly has executives like from gilead and other companies showing what they are doing, abbott and other companies, and they are showing what can be done when you have a huge sense of emergency. i think you will see more of in

the weeks and months ahead. we have johnson & johnson and some other possible vaccines in the work and the encouragement of the government, the adversarial stance we have in the past with some administrations this one of cooperation i think is showing the fruits of having a strong vibrant private sector with the direction of government with a healthcare crisis. melissa: yeah. no, that's a great point. along those lines, of a vibrant private sector, you and some of your colleagues got together and you put together a plan or at least some suggestions saying that key indicators suggest the country's recession could end by late summer, if the states pursue an aggressive reopening plan. what is an aggressive reopening plan? >> really common sense one. parts of the state where you don't have high incident, where people continue to practice what they call social distancing, i like the word physical distancing, we want to be together socially, but the common sense stuff. obviously in our part of the

world, new jersey, most densely populated state, new york, is going to be lagging there because of the intensity of the disease, but in other parts of the country, i think you can take a very vigorous approach. a number of states are starting to do this, and i think that will encourage other states to get their economies going because the great danger is of all the hundreds of billions of dollars that are being poured out now, a lot of companies will face a day of reckoning come september when a lot of this assistance runs out. do they have the prospect of being able to survive? are the revenue prospects good enough to be able to survive? you can see a wave of bankruptcies, not only amongst small businesses, but mid sized businesses, which makes very disappointing what the federal reserve did yesterday when they announced terms for the main street lending program, they were as the "wall street journal" reported today, very restrictive. they got to back off of that or we could have an unwanted wave of insolvencies this september. the more we get the economy open the better, the more chance these small and mid sized

businesses have a chance to survive. melissa: opponents to what you are saying is this kind of attitude and pressing for it to go along faster risks just a big rebound of the disease in the fall and will make things even worse and we have to be extra careful and cautious really for economic reasons if we don't want the thing to come back and have to shut down the economy again in the fall. how do you respond? >> i think what we're going to see ahead is more nuanced approach instead of a statewide approach, people like me, i know i look like i'm 20, but i'm in the age group that is sus sent to believe this disease, more than any other age group, so some of us are going to have to continue to wear masks, practice distancing and things like that, so you are going to see i think parts of the population, those people who have pre-conditions are going to have to take extra cautions. so i think you are going to get an approach that's not one size fits all but fits the particular needs of this disease. so yes, some people will be more free than others but that's why

i think the knowledge we're getting no u -- getting now is so important and the ramped up testing and the breakthroughs like we saw with gilead so if you do get this disease, you know in a short period of time, you can get an effective treatment. all of that combines to make sure we don't have a repeat of what we had this march. it won't happen in september. melissa: steve forbes, always brilliant, thank you very much for your time. we appreciate it. >> thank you. thank you, melissa. melissa: nearly 3.3 million cases worldwide and more than 1 million right here in the u.s. at least 21 states are loosening at least some restrictions today, as local leaders grapple with how to safely reopen their economies. we're on the ground in one of those states. and the businesses that are fighting back. plus connell, what do you have? connell: we will have more on a path forward from here on long island. we will take you inside this coffee shop where we're broadcasting from today. looking at a new normal for small businesses like this one

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connell: back here on long island where we have a real focus on the show on small business today, coming to you today from the villagers perk which is a coffee shop. i want to take a second to tell you a little bit about it. almost two years ago danny and his wife margie took a shot on what was kind of lifelong dream for them.

open up their own business. and they started this coffee shop. they also serve small meals. i can tell you from personal experience, i live pretty close to here that the coffee is terrific. i know some members of my family will tell you that they have these great acai bowls they serve. it is a great place. it is always challenging when you start your own business, no matter what the environment is; right? we're told things were really starting to pick up at this shop early this year. then came the shutdown, like so many companies you have the problems kicking in. regular customers are suddenly sheltered in place. danny and margie, though, kept the shop open, serving up as many to go orders as they possibly could. and danny is joining us now with more on his story. first of all, thank you, danny for having us in to the shop. >> thanks for having us. connell: you are staying at a safe distance, you are behind the counter. how have things been going for you the last six weeks? >> it's definitely been rough to say the least. we have had to make some

concessions as far as business hours are concerned and operation. we've had to dial back purchasing on from vendors to stay alive and really just to also continue to serve the public. connell: right, which you did. did you ever think about -- there's a restaurant right next door to here that's closed. some others like you are to go. did you think about closing down? >> we did think about closing down, and both my wife and i came to the conclusion that that may be one of the worst things that we could do, as far as r serving the public. you know, it is good to try to keep some semblance of normalcy. this is what we've tried to do for the community. connell: a cup of coffee; right? >> i need my cup in the morning and i know there's a lot of other people who need it as well. we needed to maintain that as best as we could. connell: you did it yourself -- you have a second job; right? >> yes. i'm a proud union member, local one, thanks to them k all of

this is possible. connell: that's still going, some of the construction projects? >> right, i work for a great company. a lot of us are shut down. a lot of construction sites are shut down. a lot of union members are furloughed and not working, so it's really tough on us. connell: yeah, it is tough on everybody. >> absolutely. connell: you kept this open as you said. you have a couple workers, yourself, and your wife. did you get any help from the government or think about some of those loans the ppp or anything like that? >> we have considered it. we feel as though if we're able to maintain without taking the loan, that is in the best interest of the business as well as the country. connell: even though you could get some forgiven? >> it is not helping our current situation. we're over 23 trillion dollars in debt. and we just at the point don't believe that we should rely on the federal government for everything. connell: kind of like a personal belief with you. >> yes. connell: do you think you are going to make through this all right? how long can you maintain this type of a situation for? >> i think we can go another

month. after that we will have to go back to the drawing board. i think i can make a couple more cuts to extend that. connell: another month, so june 1st; right? >> yeah, a lot of this business has to do with whether -- i mean there's a 30% drop every time it rains out. it has had a 60 to 65 percent drop in business. connell: that's what your sales are down from right before the virus? >> yes. connell: tough? >> yes, it is. we are a small business, dedicated to the community, and as long as the governments and nassau county allows us to be open and allows us to serve the public and that's what we will do. connell: some other states are getting going, you know, this week, right, texas, tennessee and some of them. you say you could go about another month. so do you think -- i wonder if people will come right back and want to sit down at a place like this? you have the wifi. people do their work. do you think people will come right back once they are allowed to in >> i think majority of our regular customers who are here

every day. they see how we clean and hold our operations and how we do business. i think that will put a lot of them at ease. connell: yeah. >> maybe in the long run, new customers, attracting new customers may be hard because of the virus. there still is a lot of anxiety out there. connell: depends on the person. some people want to get right back. some others are a little bit -- you will still have my order ready. >> absolutely. 007, the smoothie 007. connell: thanks for having us in, danny. we wish you the best. a great small shop here. we really hope it does survive and thrives again as a matter of fact. >> thank you. connell: villagers perk, that's the name of it. anyway, a little bit more from here later on small business. back to you, melissa. melissa: get me a skinny latte. we will talk to one local barbershop owner desperate to reopen about how she plans to

shift operations. and ainsley challenged me to the hashtag combat covid-19 challenge. my family and i we were thrilled to bring wings and things from long island. it's fantastic, to the 19th precinct along with our producer right here after the bell jaime labella and now i pass that challenge on to fox business's kennedy and connell mcshane. so you better do it. we had a lot of fun. all right. our very own neil cavuto will be joined by ken langone and bernie marcus for an america works together virtual town hall, small business owners can send a video of themselves asking a question to fox business's facebook or instagram account or e-mail that video to us at invested in you @ foxbusiness.com for a chance to be featured. don't miss it, thursday, may 7th, at 1:00 p.m. eastern. we will be right back.

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connell: back here on long island at the villages perk coffee shop. i want to show you the rest of the neighborhood. i put a mask on. we're out in public wearing a mask. next door to the coffee shop, a martial arts place usually packed with kids, but for the last six weeks, it's been

completely shut down. no business at all. as we walk up, you know, here, you have a lot of different types of businesses doing different types of things. this nail place, nail and spa right here, manicures, pedicures and what have you. you look in the window. there's no sign that anyone has been here for weeks and there's no sign that anyone is coming back any time soon. that's all lost revenue; right? finally, there's a barbershop. you know, everybody we joke around could use a little hair cut these days. the owner was actually there. we stopped by and we saw her earlier today. she and her husband, they own the store together. it is some story. both of them had covid-19. she said they applied for unemployment. they've been unable to get it so far. they applied for ppp loan, they are still waiting. she said boy am i anxious to get back to work. >> i can't wait to get back to work. i'm hoping they give us the go ahead and maybe we can continue with some masks and sanitizer and maybe one person at a time. i don't know, we're going to

have to take it day by day and wait for the go ahead. melissa: can't keep connell inside. that's for sure. well, retail stores in texas reopening today operating at 25% capacity. casey stegall is in arlington with the story. casey? >> yeah, melissa, different rules for different businesses, that's how the governor sort of laid this out. for example, back here in this shopping complex, there's a mexican restaurant, it can open for the first time today at 25% capacity. right next door, though, is a gym, those are still closed. and as we pan all the way down through here, you have more retail and more restaurants back there that are, again, opening for the first time now in weeks. but if you take a look right here, this little part of the plaza, this is what we call intimate services, which is the salons, the spas, the barbershops, those are going to remain closed through at least mid may, says the governor. movie theaters, museums,

libraries, also among the group cleared to open, without limitations, but all of this does come on the heels of a spike in deaths and new positive cases across the state of texas. just in the last 48 hours, 84 people have died. that's the highest number since the outbreak began. it brings the total death count to 816. and texas now has more than 29,000 total cases. so the governor has stressed the importance of infection control protocols. listen. >> we will open in a way that use safe standards. safe standards for businesses, for their employees, as well as for their customers. standards based upon data and on doctors. >> many local communities are also implementing a lot of their own ordinances and measures, like some are requiring people to have face masks or coverings when they go in public.

melissa? melissa: casey, i mean, obviously as we look at you standing there, there's no one around you. what is the read that you're getting from local residents, if at all? i mean i don't know if you are seeing them. are they really eager to come back out? it just strikes me there's no one anywhere near where you are obviously. >> there really isn't. here's the thing, when i talk socially in circles, you know, obviously i live here in texas, i'm a member of the community, and when i talk to my neighbors and the like, they say they still don't think it is safe enough. even though things are opening, they are not taking advantage of that just yet. the people who are out here that we have actually talked to, they are out and about, so clearly they didn't have a problem with it. so you really have two sides of the fence here, but again, all of this health data is coming in, and it is being examined, and, you know, the president's own guidelines and the coronavirus task force guidelines were suggesting that states couldn't begin phase one of reopening until they saw a 14-day decline in the amount of

infections, and we have seen no declines really, in fact, more of an increase since this all began. melissa? melissa: yeah, well, i mean, and it's true, people have the freedom to stay inside if they don't feel safe and they absolutely should no matter what they are being told. stay home if you don't feel safe. casey, thank you very much. connell? connell: it's interesting to see what's happening in a state like texas. much different here in new york. i'm actually standing outside of an italian restaurant. i was just speaking to the owner earlier today, still open for takeout and delivery but tells me he's had to make a lot of adjustments in this environment. >> a lot more deliveries. delivery guys have gloves. the hours have changed because everything's dead by 7:00 now. it used to be people come off the train or come home from work at 6:00, 7:00, get dinner. that's over. everybody's home. so now they are ordering at 12:00, 1:00, for dinner at 5:00. connell: when we come back, we will shift from here in new york

to another state that is starting the reopening process this week. we take you to tennessee. check in on some barbecue. we will be right back. up and down. depression to exuberance. and you could name many, many cycles like that over the years. my generation, having come through so many wars and so many things... persistence. it's the heartbeat of this country. stick with it. ♪

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and helping hundreds of local organizations provide food and other critical needs... when you need us, wells fargo is here to help. connell: diners are taking their seats in the state of tennessee. the restaurants there once again open for business. that happened this week. a few changes though which we will talk about as we're joined from that state now by the owner of the smoky mountain barbecue and grill tony gore. before we talk about the changes, tony. i'm curious, we were talking about it in texas. we're looking forward to what will happen here in new york whenever things do reopen about customers, just because a restaurant or a business is open, you know, the customers, they don't have to come back. how has business been this week? >> we opened actually on monday. the governor gave us clearance to open on monday. of course with new rules and

mandates in place, and it was slow at first, but it's picking up now, and today being friday, going into the weekend, it's really getting busier. so i think a lot of people, you know, have been locked up and feel like they've been shut in for a while and they are ready to get out and come to the mountains. connell: i'm sure they are. that makes sense. we talked about protocols. people have to social distance, sit a certain amount of feet apart, i would suspect. are you taking people's temperatures too? how is that going? >> we are. we're doing something -- the governor actually asked all restaurants to do this in tennessee. and he didn't make it an absolute protocol, but he recommended that we do it, and we chose to do it, and we have signs made that says temperature check as people are coming in the door, and we've checked their temperature with an

infrared thermometer that doesn't touch their head. we just point it at them and get their temperature, and we ask them if they've had any respiratory -- the last 48 hours, and then we seat them. connell: okay. that's the protocol. you know, i'm here in new york, at a coffee shop locally and talking to the owner a few minutes ago. they can't do what you do. they can't have people sit in the restaurant. it has to be takeout. i said how long can you keep doing like this? he says maybe another month or so and then it will be really difficult. how are things going for you? how tough was it before monday? did you take out any government loans or help? how did you get through? >> well, we did submit for the ppp loan. but our loan actually was submitted from our bank the morning after the program ran out of money, the first time. so we've still been waiting on that to get clearance. of course they've dropped more funds now, so should be any day.

but we have actually -- connell: okay. >> it's been tough but we have survived without any assistance at all. i've just beat the bushes. you know, we're a tourist town, so when tourists stop coming to the area, it really affected our business drastically. and we relied totally on local people, which all of our local people survive off tourism as well, so it's really tough in a tourism town that's down. connell: good job, tony, hanging in there. like you say, things picking up the last few days. i hope thatn't cos. -- i hope that continues. we wish you nothing but the best. tony from tennessee serving barbecue. >> thank you. melissa: changing the standards public schools in new york city will implement a new grading policy in light of the coronavirus pandemic. here's the director and founder. basically they are doing away with grades. i mean, they are putting in

needs standards, doesn't needs standards, a couple different things depending on your age. and the argument is that not everybody has the same type of support at home. and that there may be, you know, somebody who has a parent there and has a lot of technology and has support, but there may be another child who even though the district was offering technology, wasn't able to get it till later or doesn't have a parent there to support them. so it's really not fair to keep the grades going. what do you think about that? >> right now there's a big issue going on where the grades from september of 2019 till march 2020 are just going to vanish. no one really views what's going on in terms of march, the end of march til june, but the question is is right now, melissa, a lot of students are getting a straight pass for the school year whether they're performing at any level. it's just extremely unfortunate. it's really going to hurt the way the high schools are screening kids in for next year

and the way middle schools are screening kids as well. the student achievement is just not going to be recognized, and a lot of kids who are living in cramped spaces doing homework now, today, they're not going to be recognized. it's unfortunate, but right now -- melissa: you know, there are some people, i've talked to parents and i've talked to even people who work within the district who think that there's actually a political mote ifoff be-- motive behind this, that by wounding out the grades, you know, the chancellor and the mayor here in new york has wanted to do away with using the grades and the screening process and the tests to help decide who gets to go to some of these specialized schools. so they think by blowing out the grades, it doesn't really have to do with what's going on right now, that it's really about undermining the screening process for schools going forward which the mayor and the school chancellor has been very much against. do you think there's any merit to that? >> there's complete merit to it.

it's no secret that the mayor's been trying to erase the screening, just the whole proposition of screening students for years. that's always been on his agenda. right now what we have with the pandemic is a golden opportunity that i guess the mayor has found to push this agenda where the students know high school-aged students are just, they're not going to have any screening system, no metric. there's just going to be a path into school year. and that applies very heavily and very unfortunately for fifth, sixth and seventh graders looking for middle and high school admission. melissa: you work with a lot of first generation kids who study very hard in order to take the test to get into these specialized schools and who work hard to get their grades up. you know, the kids you work with don't have a lot of money, and this is the way that they get into these schools that put them on the path to get to a better i life, to a better college. you know, is this hurting low

income immigrant children that the mayor and the school chancellor both say they want to help? >> there -- it's absolutely hurting this many. and right now what they're doing is making a unilateral decision without community input, without anyone's vote. it's justs a decision was made, a couple of slides were put up indicating that this is the new grading policy. they're going to pass whether they pass low, pass high. you know, we have over a thousand kids right now working from home just from the our prep school. we have kids who are studying, they're preparing. many students are preparing right now specifically middle and high school age, they're sacrificing the entire summer to get ready for the specialized high school exam. and the opportunity is being robbed from under them -- melissa: i know. >> they don't have this window now. it's just extremely unfortunate -- melissa: all right. francis, thank you so much. we are out of time. thank you for coming and bringing us that perspective.

and, connell, thank you for bringing it to us from out in the field. we appreciate it. that does it for us, "after the bell." thanks for watching. have a great weekend. "lou dobbs tonight" starts now. ♪ lou: good evening, everybody. we begin tonight with breaking news. first, an encouraging late-breaking development in the fight against the wuhan virus. the food and drug add administration has just authorized the emergency use of the experiment ifal antiviral drug remdesivir. the drug, produced by gilead, has proven to be a promising potential therapeutic treatment for the virus. gilead's ceo announcing the company will donate 1.5 million vial ares of the drug and help -- vials of the drug and help get to patients in create a call need. and explosive new developments in the case against the