for more uplifting stories like this. visit foxnews.com/america together. so many heart-warming stories coming in right now. it's hard to pick a favorite. rob: born in 1915. unreal. carley: "fox & friends" starts right now. [winds] >> there it is right april 13th. we start this week with a fox news alert. an easter sunday tornado outbreak ripping across four states america's south dead. 6 in mississippi. atlanta reporting five people died in georgia. the damage described as catastrophic. >> lord, jesus. my house gone.

brian: all right. more than a half million are without power this hour. we will continue to move everything forward. in alabama, louisiana, and mississippi, they all have declared states of emergency. we just need the prompter to go forward. i can't anticipate what actually is going to be there we continue to go, a deputy and his wife are moving six people killed in mississippi. deputy robert ainsworth a he died a hero shielding his wife. ainsley: woman rescued after getting trapped in that car right there, and unfortunately it's not over yet. that storm system is on the move and janice dean is tracking all of this. janice in the wake of the coronavirus, easter weekend thi. janice: yeah. unfortunately, ainsley, we still have several hours to go with

severe storms. we have had over 50 reports of tornadoes over parts of the south and the gulf coast. if there is any good news, we had a lot of warning on these storms. the storm prediction center said this is the area that's going to potentially see the damage including long lasting catastrophic tornadoes and now getting reports of many deaths. as we move forward. this storm system moves across the southeast, parts of florida and georgia, we had reports around clemson university this morning of south carolina of a tornado-warn storm there and debris signature. unfortunately we will continue to see the damage across portions of the carolinas up towards the mid-atlantic and the northeast. so the next several hours are going to be crucial. these storms are going to weaken, thankfully, but we still have many hours to go. and power outages are going to be iminequity across portions of the mid-atlantic and the northeast later today with wind gusts in excess of 50 to

70 miles per hour. that's almost hurricane-force winds for some of these heavily populated areas stretching from d.c. down towards philadelphia and up into new york city. so, this is going to be the leg gales of this storm. behind it we also had many inches of snow. so, a multifaceted storm system as we go through the next several hours. the cold front will sweep across the eastern u.s. and things will start typically prove but for the next several hours we still have watches and warnings for parts of georgia, florida, up toward the carolinas into virginia. so know what to do if there is a watch or warning in your area. have a way to get those watches and warnings. it's going to be a few -- the next few hours are going to be very trying. we will certainly bring you the very latest as we can throughout the day today. back to you. steve: all right. janice, thank you very much. and as the sun comes up, a true look at the devastation will be

absolutely possible. thank you very much. all right. 6:03 here in the east coast. now let's turn to the coronavirus pandemic. cases have now topped 557,000 in the united states. more than 22,000 people in this country have died and nearly 42,000 have finally recovered. nearly 3 million americans have been tested for covid-19 and researchers in los angeles have started a new antibody testing study. this could not only help find a treatment. it might actually help shape a plan to reopen the economy, brian. brian: and there is a lot of people that want to do that by may 1st. maybe in certain rolling areas of the country that are deemed okay. now the pressure is on congress with the rescue package not only to maybe put together a fourth but to finish off the third where all weekend, griff, we kept hearing about how these small businesses are trying to get to these loans. trying to find out their status and coming up empty. there is no doubt about the system is overwhelmed.

even wells fargo came out and said sorry, i'm only allowed to hand out $10 billion so i'm done. griff, what's coming up? >> what's coming up brian, ainsley and steve. good morning. there is a lot of pressure on congress. look, the relates is, they have got likely just days, not weeks before the money runs out on phase 3 allocation of 350 billion. the administration says they have already sent upwards of 170 billion out the door. and of course as you mentioned they're having kinks getting it out as fast as they can. they are warning if more money isn't added ied ad it could crul business. congress sought of session. pelosi and schumer are push for a larger phase 4 bill that would favor. mcconnell and mccarthy are trying to add a fast nearly 250 billion for that small business program. democrats blocked that at the end of last week as we saw. and it caused mcconnell and mccarthy to issue this statement on saturday.

saying republicans reject democrat's reckless threat to blocking job-saving funding unless we renegotiate unrelated programs which are not imin similar payroll. this will not be congress' last word on covid-19 but this crucial program needs funding now. america wecious cannot be used as politicals who hajj. hogan the head of the national governor's association issuing a joint statement with new york's cuomo over the weekend pleading for congress to provide states with more money. they wrote this: in the absence of restricted fiscal support of at least 500 billion from the federal government. states will have to confront the process of significant reductions to critically important services all across this country. hampering public health, the nic recovery and i in turn our collective effort to get people back to work. it is unclear, brian, ainsley and steve where negotiations stand right now we have heard schumer saying he wants to strike a deal with mnuchin. we will see if that happens.

the debate is raging on when to reopen the government -- the country. and so really all the timing between those tests, of the reopening, and this small business loan program all go together and it's going to be a very critical time there are good news. irs saying over the weekend the first batch of direct deposits have already hit bank accounts. more is coming this week in coming days. guys? brian: all right. griff, thanks so much. when it comes 2024 actual small business owner they need to know if they're coming off 75 has to go to salaries and 5 to anything else. they don't want to take a loan that's going to bury them in debt if they can in fact reopen. most of the banks have no answers for them. if congress just make that little judgment. wadjustment. no one is judging. they have to make this adjustment. men and women who have small businesses from the waffle house to the dry cleaner are going to sit on the sidelines and just go out of business which works for absolutely no one and we will

talk about that throughout the show. meanwhile, senator chris coons is going to be on. to give the democratic perspective on this. which is very bipartisan and senator tom cotton not only to talk about the rescue package but talk about what's going on with china. they are now skewing these reports that talked about what went wrong and how this whole thing started inside china. senator tom cotton all over it, steve. steve: all right. brian, thank you very much. now let's bring in dr. janette nesheiwat fox news contributor and emergency medicine expert. dr., good morning to you. we heard. >> good morning. steve: fda commissioner he said we could be really close to a peak. we are going to get this soundbite in and then hear from you. listen. >> the models do show that we are very close to the peak. and so i think that information is accurate. this has been a very fast-moving outbreak. and so we really have to take this day by day.

steve: we do have to take it day by day. there is some suggestion that the modeling shows that the peak could actually be tomorrow. i know they had said it could be easter. it could be tomorrow. mayor de blasio said yesterday last week at this time he said it was going to be a really bad week. it was a bad week, doctor, not as bad as they thought. it looks as if they have enough ventilators here in the new york city area. >> yes. yes. he is absolutely right. day by day. week by week. we can't predict one month or two months out. we have to see what the number is what the data is to determine what's our next step. where are we going to focus our resources. the concern that i have is that premature reopening back into the community. i'm fearful of seeing spikes again. so i think, you know, we have to make sure that we have a very well-organized structured public health plan before we let everyone back into the community, meaning do we have the diagnostics available? do the hospitals have all the equipment they need?

the ppes the gowns, the masks, the gloves, the ventilators. once we have all of that on line and in order then we are on the success to reopening. ainsley: there is a large study antibody launche launched in ca. 900 people tested for the antibody. there are just these six drive-thru locations the tests were conducted on friday and saturday and continue every two weeks for the foreseeable future. i know you had this antibody test done. turns out you don't have the antibody. you are on the front lines working with so much patients every day. do you think this test holds the key on the health front and economic front and when will reall start to get tested for these antibody tests. >> yes, ainsley. i think it's a very critical tool to have. i know here in new york we will be having it rolled out in the next couple of weeks or. so when i think it's important. what it tells us if you have had it in the past. do you have it now.

are you asymptomatic carrier? i think it's great they are conducting this study in california because we need to know what is the prevalence of this disease? meaning how common is it? where is it? where do we focus our tools and resources? do we see an early outbreak that's brewing in a population that maybe there is a lot of asymptomatic patients. those asymptomatic patients could pass it on to someone who is more vulnerable and that's how we see outbreaks develop. that's how we see these peaks going up. that's why these tests are very important. i think these antibody test also help complement the swabs we already have. not that we are replacing the navanavalnasalswabs and oral sw. keep this flat lined so we can open the economy sooner than later. brian: dr. nesheiwat, what about the abbott test. we were so hopeful spread

started in behrman county. 15 minute test. key to getting back into your buildings and restaurants again. do that, get a quick answer. go inside or not go inside. what's the hold-up? i hear it's the centralization and not giving it directly to the states. what do you hear? >> well, the issue is, brian, abbott only created about 18,000, 20,000 of these units. so it's a greatest a great tool to be able to determine who has it, who doesn't, very fast. 15 minutes. my antibody test was fast as well 15 minutes. having enough of them to disseminate to the states and communities. the priority should be give them to the states, to the communities that have the outbreaks. and then once those areas have -- have come down from their peak and on the decline then let's move those areas to the areas that need them. for example, florida, texas, they are expected to have their peak at the end of the month. here in new york, we are still, you know, in the midst of it.

we see a bit of a plateau. we still had about over 700 deaths over the weekend. so, let's use this equipment wisely. we just don't have enough to give to everyone. but hopefully what i would love to see is enough swabs, enough nasal tests, oral tests, antibody tests so we can really get grasp on where this disease is, where it's going. focus our resource and get fund control. i'm ready to open up. i know everybody is. brian: absolutely. thanks so much. steve: absolutely. regardless of what happens, we are one step to closer to reopening. the big question is when. >> that's right. steve: thank you, doctor. >> thank you. steve: 6:13 on the east coast. carley shimkus joining us from our world headquarters. carley, good morning to you. carley: good morning to you and everyone at home. we will start with a fox news alert. brian mentioned a moment ago the chinese government accused of suppressing potentially vital coronavirus research. at least two chinese universities reportedly made posts on their own sites. now they claim new studies must

be approved by the government before getting published. the post have since been deleted. it comes as president trump pushes for more accountability on china. alabama cannot ban abortions as part of the state's response to the coronavirus. a federal judge ruling the effort, quote: do not outweigh the lasting harm imposed by the denial of an individual's right to terminate her pregnancy. pro-life advocates argue that hospital medicines and medical equipment are needed to fight the pandemic it. is now up to the abortion providers to decide whether a procedure can wait. michael avenatti is a free man for now because of the virus. avenatti argued he should not be held in this manhattan jail where an inmate tested positive because he had pneumonia last year. he will be confined to a friend's home in los angeles for 90 days before returning to jail. avenatti was convicted of extortion in february. he is scheduled for sentencing

in june. cardinal timothy dolan using his easter message to encourage social distancing. >> at least until we are sure this virus is behind us we can protect one another. that will be the time to go. time is telling us use your brain, use your prudence, use your common sense, don't tempt the lord. carley: cardinal dolan livestreaming mass inside an empty cathedral: joel osteen was joined by singer mariah carey and tv producer tyler perry. and kanye west canceled. bocelli delivering a riveting performance ♪ amazing grace ♪ how sweet the sound

♪ that saved. carley: bocelli performing at empty cathedral in millan as part of his music for hope event a lot of people worshiping in their own special ways yesterday. ainsley: it was incredible. if you just watched fox news we had service after service. franklin graham was here with mike michael w. smith with samaritan's purse behind it. we were doing it aas long as with our pajamas at home. time to be thankful. special day. thanks so much, carley. carley: thanks, guys. ainsley: congress stalemate. where do we go from here. we will ask democratic senator chris coons coming up next:

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♪ ♪ >> political stunt. it will not address the immediate need of small businesses. >> we're asking small business owners across america to place their faith in us, to keep workers on payroll because congress, the treasury and the sba will have their back. we must not fail them. steve: well, a contentious stalemate on capitol hill in the senate over increased relief funding for small businesses. republican lawmakers pushing for a clean funding bill while democrats are interested in billions of add-ons for healthcare providers and local governments. so, where will this go from here and how long is this going to take? joining us right now is delaware senator chris coons who is a member of the senate small business and entrepreneurship

committee. senator, good morning to you. nice to have you joining us from your house this morning. >> good morning, steve. great to be on with you. i hope you had a wonderful easter. steve: it was okay considering the circumstances we're all going through right now. >> it was different. steve: what is going on with the senate -- it was different. with the republicans they are just looking for another quarter of a trillion dollars for the paycheck protection program. a clean bill. just give us the money and we will continue it. however, the democrats are asking for some add-ons like 100 billion for healthcare providers, 150 billion for state and local governments and a 15% increase in food stamps. at touch a perilous time why ask for the add-on as now. >> steve, since we are not going to return to congress this week or next week or any time soon, this bill has to pass both the

senate and the house by unanimous consent. i support and democrats support increased funding for small business. but it's got to also go to the emergency disaster loans, the idle loans that do not have enough resources to get out the door, and we also have to make sure that these loans are going to lots of small businesses and small nonprofits. even those that don't have an existing depository relationship with one of the major banks. but, frankly, steve, we're in both a public health disaster, this pandemic and an economic disaster. and we need to address both. most states, most hospitals, are seeing record short falls. we should be doing both. providing support for our health systems and our states and providing support for small business. i'm very hopeful we are going to work this out within the next few days. steve: well, that would be great if they could work it out. and people love to see things happen on a bipartisan basis. but, you know, if there is ever

a time where suddenly it looks like one party is trying to push their agenda, the person people, at a time of crisis like this are going that's why we hate washington. >> steve, i will remind you that the cares act, the last very last large stimulus bill that we passed ultimately passed unanimously. that means literally every single senator who was present to vote did vote for it, but that was after several days of disagreement about exactly what should be in that package. ultimately, it included resources for large businesses, small businesses, the health system, hospitals, and for our state and local governments. i think we ought to follow that same pattern here. and you will see it enjoy unanimous support again. steve: well it, sounds, senator, then you're confident that it will pass on a bipartisan basis, which is exactly what the american people need and want to see. >> that's right, as long as we are taking care of our first

responders, our healthcare professionals. steve: absolutely. >> i have been listening to the leaders of hospitals up and down my state my governor john carney and his emergency management director and we still have serious short falls across the country and certainly in delaware in terms of real sources and preparedness on the health side. i have also heard from lots of friends who run small businesses or small nonprofits who are struggling to connect with banks and to get loans. we need more resources on both sides. that's the process for us to move forward, steve. steve: no doubt about it, there is a lot of problems. some hot spots businesswise that have to be addressed and let's hope that the senate is able to do that. chris coons joining us from wilmington, delaware. senator, thank you very much. >> thank you, steve. steve: all right. well, meanwhile straight ahead on this monday, a former student athlete using her skills to help fight the coronavirus. the recent grad turned medical professional explains how her

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awww. that's what friends are for. ask your veterinarian for apoquel. next to you, apoquel is a dog's best friend. brian: we are back with a fox news alert. overnight powerful storms ripping across southern states. 12 dead. a million people in the dark. alityly from our fox affiliate in atlanta joins us live on this tragic scene. hey, natalie. >> good morning to you guys. these storms have hit us hard. we are here in cartersville where we are have confirmed a 34-year-old man was killed when a tree came crashing down on his home this morning. just a heart-breaking story here. the officials tell us the storm was bad after 1:00 here in this area. so we off the fifth street in

cartersville. the 34-year-old man was in his bedroom in the back of the home. that's where the tree came crashing down. officials tell us there were other people inside that home. loved ones, friends, they're still working to connect those dots here, but they are all able to get out to safety unharmed. and as you can see here live, we have got crews out here. they have been out here for several hours now just trying to break down this tree again we have confirmed a 34-year-old man was killed this morning as a result of these storms. we are live in cartersville i'm natalie fulks back to you. ainsley: that's so sad. former athletes are using their skills to fight the coronavirus. one recent graduate is former villanova will he lacross player and she works at urgent care facility in new york city that is acting as a testing senator and says working in the

healthcare industry is similar to being a student athlete and she joins us now to explain. good morning, samantha. >> good morning, how are. ainsley: i'm great. i'm healthy. thank you for everything you are doing. a lot of families aren't so great right now. what's it like being on the front lines. >> i have really been throne intthrowninto the medical field. being on the front lines similar to everything i have done my whole life. ainsley: pretty i didn't know credible career you have had to play lacrosse at the college level is amazing especially at villanova. how did that prepare you for the medical industry? >> growing up on my team my whole life is pretty seamless stream into the medical feed. a lot of medication, everyone in the facility urgent care setting when there are not that many of us we have to work as a team and making sure we are getting patients in and out to limit the

exposure especially in times like this. ainsley: are you going to stay in the profession? has this deterred you or moving forward. >> definitely planning to stay in the profession. this summer i'm going to pa school i'm going to be a physician assistant, hopefully help people even more in the future. how has that changed? are you still going to be able to go to school or is that delayed? do you know yet? >> as of now the plan is to start in july hopefully it stays that way but we will see. ainsley: are you scared working in this profession? you are so young. i'm sure your patients patients are concerned. front lines you are in a testing fittings. >> to be honest initially it was a little scary, a lot of uncertainty around the virus in general but, again, like anything else it's what i chose to do and it's my job to go out there and luckily i'm healthy and have the ability t to help others in a timeline. this what's your message to the teammates still at villanova that their season is cut short, their graduations aren't going

to happen? >> it's really unfortunate for them that they're not able to finish out their careers a lot of them i played with and i know they are still leave their mark on villanova. for those going into the medical field that are able to get a jump start on their careers hopefully it will just be a bigger learning experience and they will get to learn a lot earlier than they would have. ainsley: you are a great presentation of your age group. thank you for what you are doing. you are a hero. >> thank you. ainsley: you are welcome. be safe. still ahead, an easter unlike any other in vatican city. pope francis holding mass in a near empty st. peters basilica delivering historic easter address. newt gingrich is there in italy. he reacted to the pope's message amid the pandemic coming up next.

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>> today my thoughts turn in the first place to many directly affected by the coronavirus. the sick, those who are died and family members who mourn the loss of their loved ones. to whom in some cases they were unable even to bid a final farewell. the lord of life welcome the departed into his kingdom to provide comfort and hope to those still suffering, especially the elderly and those who are beloved. steve: speaking of alone, the pope was practically alone in st. peters basilica one of the most joyous, everyone gets dressed up and go to church that day but not yesterday we all

self-isolated let's bring in fox news contributor former speaker of the house and author of "shakedown." he is not too far from the vatican his wife is the ambassador to the holy sea. a lot of us were hunkered down listening to the holy father. we listened to the cardinal dolan in the new york city area. what did you do there in rome? >> well, calista and i have participated all week with the vatican. it's been remarkable, first of all, to see at one points the pope was walking up saint peter's square with nobody else around by himself. and you know, the great church itself, which holds probably 12 or 15,000 people had, i think about 15 or 16 at the various masses. it's been very sobering.

fits what has happened in italy beginning to get the first bits of good news. for nine days in a row the number of people being hospitalized has gone down a little bit every day. that's encouraging. not out of the woods yet. frankly very severely locked down. in fact, they increased the police presence in the streets on saturday and sunday to make sure people would stay home. they are really trying to starve out the virus by eliminating its chance to leap from host to host. ainsley: if you look at the numbers there in italy. you mentioned the hospitalizations. the deaths. italy is seeing the lowest death in three weeks. yesterday there were a total of 431 deaths over the past 24 hours. that's the lowest number, newt, since march 19th. in america, we are looking to italy to seat trends there because we are hoping it follows suit here. what's it like there? >> yeah. let me say, first of all, probably it will be faster in the u.s. we have a much more robust health system.

we have been very aggressively. more aggressive than the italians were initially. but, the italians -- once they understood how bad it was. and, remember, this started in part in italy because there are about 100,000 chinese who work in northern italy and they kept open the flights to wuhan, three flights a week for several weeks after it was clear that there was an epidemic. the opposite of what president trump did in closing off the flights to china. they were literally allowing the disease to continue to come in the country it. got out of control in the northern italy area which is very important. it's the biggest industrial center in italy. and as a result they had to go to very tough draconian measures. basically locking the whole country down. you have gas stations, pharmacies, grocery stores and nothing else. for the last five weeks. and they have strongly urged people to stay home. you can get a 3,000 euro fine if you are in the street without a

legitimate reason and they have been enforcing it. fined 8 or thousand people in rome. they are taking it very seriously. and i think gradually starting to win. we have played some role in that. i'm very proud of calista who worked hard to make sure that it will franklin graham's samaritan's purse. flown in a hospital 60 doctors and nurses in a 60 bed hospital and working for weeks now. and saved a lot of lives as a result. the united states has announced significant aid package really and i think that's the right thing to do. this is a relatively weak economy which has now been shattered and going to take a good while for them to recover. brian: no doubt about it. you write an editorial for foxnews.com. you say let's channel teddy roosevelt in what respect?

>> i have been watching president trump with his briefings and bringing in ceos of companies and bringing in experts he reminds me a lot of theodore roosevelt. very aggressive personality. rough riders to go fight in the spanish american war. great nationalist, wrote significant books in his 20's he wrote what became the classic study of the naval war of 1812. he won the nobel peace prize trying to get peace between russia and japan in 1907. this is a guy who created the panama canal. he did all sorts of things. there is a lot of parallel between the entrepreneurial style and trump which is part of what drives the news media and. so academics crazy. entrepreneurial personalities don't fit the political science model of the presidency. and theodore roosevelt was probably the other great example of that. and teddy's case he became so popular that the teddy bear was

named for theodore roosevelt small baby bear he refused to shoot. brooklyn toy manufacturer created a mayor modeled on that baby bear and became teddy's bear and that has been popular for over 100 years now. there is a lot we can learn. part of it is do what works. don't assume automatically that the so-called experts are right. keep -- saw the president doing this is the antimalaria drugs and saw him do this refurbishing masks zero being refurbished to 120,000 a week by battle. companies sign up contracts for production. so essentially surging aggressive personality, the downside is sometimes he can make a mistake. that's the nature of whether it was theodore roosevelt or donald trump that's the nature of entrepreneurial personalities. is he going to get up off the floor and go back and try the next thing.

steve: it is a terrific op-ed, read it. brian: stay safe. steve: read it at foxnews.com. thank you, newt. >> thank you. steve: it's about a quarter before the top of the hour. janice dean joins us now of a a rough 24 hours in america's south land. janice: yes, we have had tornadoes reports stretching from texas through mississippi to alabama. one of those tornadoes touched down in mississippi and traveled for over 100 miles. we have had several deaths reported and unfortunately we are still watching the threat for strong to severe storms with tornadoes tornado watches in effect that stretch from florida up towards georgia, the carolinas and into virginia. some of these watches go until the noon hour and we have several toornsaround tostorm wa. heavy rainfall. some of these downpours 1 to 2 inches a very short period of time. the other part of this storm is

going to effect parts of the mid-atlantic and the northeast with wind gusts in excess of 50 to 70 miles per hour. that's going to cause some, you know, some destruction certainly across some of the big cities a possibility and structural damage as well as the potential for power outages in some of these big cities. we will continue to track it and bring you the very latest. steve steve, ainsley and brian back to you. ainsley: thank you, janice. hand it over to carley shimkus who has more headlines. >> six people are shot at a party with hundreds of people in california. despite a stay at home order in place. the victims include a juvenile are not cooperating, at the their injuries are non life-threatening. 400 attended the party at the bakersfield apartment complex over the weekend. no arrests have been made. the justice department is expected to soon make take legal action against certain restrictions on religious gatherings. the doj is looking at multiple

instances where people attending services may have received harsher punishments compared to others who violated social distancing rules. action is expected this week. dallas mavericks owner mark cuban believes despite the negative impact the coronavirus has had on the u.s. economy. had it will result in world changing innovation and possibly his own run at the presidency. take a listen to what he told chris wallace on "fox news sunday." >> i never would have considered it prior to a month ago. but now things are changing rapidly and dramatically. i'm not saying no. but it's not something that i'm actively pursuing. i'm just keeping the door open. ainsley: cuban went on to say you never know what can happen between now and november. take a look at this. a 93-year-old woman is going viral for this photo holding up a can of coors light and a sign reading i need more beer. the pennsylvania woman says she is doing her part to help flatten the curve by staying at home.

but she is running out of supplies. people have been sending her beer after a relative snapped the photo and posted it online. look at her. she looks like he is having a grea -- she ishaving a great ti. brian: i thank you very much, carley, appreciate it. will a report shows 1200 hospital staffers on rhode island have been infected with the coronavirus. so what's being done to protect healthcare workers as it emerges as a hot spot within new york of the pandemic. we're going to ask their county executive next. that's why lincoln offers you the ability to purchase a new vehicle remotely with participating dealers. an effortless transaction- all without leaving the comfort- and safety of your home. that's the power of sanctuary.

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brian: long island, new york, surging as the coronavirus hot spotty hour. new report shows 1200 hospital staffers there have been infected with the covid-19. 7 of them have passed away. and nearly 45,000 cases between suffolk and nassau counties. being done to stop that spread to protect healthcare workers there here to answer is suffolk county. people get caught up in new york city. what's the sense of suffolk county which there is nassau and then there is suffolk. what's going on there? >> good morning.

suffolk county remains a central battle ground in our nation in the fight against the covid-19 virus. we have had -- we just passed yesterday more than 500 deaths in our county, more than 1200 in long island. and those numbers are staggering and yesterday i visited the army corps of engineers hospital that's being built in suffolk county and i spoke to hundreds of workers out there who could have been home on easter sunday with their families. instead, part of this fight to save people's lives. i will tell you i left there inspired because to a person, the message that i heard from them was this is where we need to be right now and a reminder to me about how we do come together as a community in times of crisis like this. brian: right. steve, last time you were on you talked about the need for supplies. i wonder what that need is right after you left it, seems as though the federal government,

the white house responded and you got, what? >> yeah, the supplies are absolutely critical. and president trump made a commitment to suffolk county that he was going to help deliver the supplies we need to get through this fight. and he delivered on that commitment 200,000 n-95 masks came into suffolk county. and those have have been critical in helping us supply hospital workers and first responders. but even beyond that some of those essential employees like grocery workers who need to protect themselves and their customers. the biggest need right now is gowns. gowns are like the body armor that healthcare workers and first responders wear. and the burn rate on them is incredible. i had to dispatch a crew from our department of public works to inne intercept 25,000 gowns e ordered out of texas. we brought those back here. those will last probably no more than a few days at this point. brian: right. so you need more and i think the key is fema goes right past the

state and right to the area of need even to the hospital itself. have you found that bypassing state so you miss that channel? >> well, i will tell you, the governor has been terrific in distributing supplies out. but, that funnel of supplies from the federal government to the state but also distributing those directly tout county where that need exists has been tremendous. and i think that remains important. that cooperation. brian: got charges and seeing that supply chain remain open is something that we need. as you mentioned, healthcare workers our healthcare heros have died. brian: all right. steve. i will check again with you. mike huckabee and cdc director next hour. motor? nope. not motor? it's pronounced "motaur."

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stop dancing around the pain that keeps you up again, and again. advil pm silences pain, and you sleep the whole night. advil pm ♪ [high winds] >> there it is, right there. ainsley: right to this fox news alert. an easter sunday tornado outbreak ripping across four southern states. at least 12 people are dead. 6 in mississippi. our fox affiliate in atlanta reporting six people have died in georgia. the damage described as catastrophic. >> man, lord, jesus, my poor house gone, man. it's gone. brian: wow, more than half a million are without power. i'm talking alabama, louisiana, and mississippi. all declaring states of emergency. that happened overnight. the deputy and his wife are

among the six people killed in mississippi. deputy robert ainsworth a marine corps veteran he died a hero shielding his wife. steve: take a look the state of alabama, so powerful it moved this tower crane with no trouble. not over yet. storm system on the move. janice dean is tracking it all. i have been texting one of my friends who lives in chattanooga, tennessee area. is he chatting us on his iphone because there is no power. local affiliates there talking about a number of storms in that area, tornadoes as well. we won't know until later today how many tornadoes, right? >> right. and maybe in the next couple of days. going to take the national weather service quite a bit of time for them to go out and assess the damage. i can tell you we have had reports of tornadoes and damage that stretch from austin, texas all the way up to augusta, south carolina. and we had reports earlier today

of tornado warn storms across clemson university. heavily populated areas have been affected. it will take us several days to assess the damage and give ratings ef-4 to ef-5 possible. we were an tig waiting the yacht break. we knew the worst of it was going to come on easter sunday. we are not out of the woods just yet even though the line is weakening. we could get the potential for strong storms including tornadoes areas mid-atlantic. even the northeast, look at all these kind advisories we have posted for at least a dozen states. millions of people affected. especially across the mid-atlantic and the northeast corridor where wind gusts could go of 50 to 70 miles per hour. that's going to cause damage and absolutely we will see power outages starting this morning throughout the afternoon. so, just be aware of that we are going to have next few hours

going through morning hours afternoon hours. especially populated areas very strong winds. possibility of hail as well as isolated tornadoes. the good news is as we go through the next 12 to 24 hours. things will start to clear up. but i mean, the damage is done and unfortunately we have had over a dozen reports of fatalities with these storms. so know what to do if you know there is a watch or warning and know where you will get those watches and warnings as well. steve, ainsley and brian to you. ainsley: thanks so much, janice. turning now to the pandemic. 557,000. more than 22,000 people have died. nearly 42,000 have recovered. brian: fda says nearing the peak of the coronavirus. virus will stop the human race for a long time closed quotes.

steve: in beijing, china reportedly tightening grip on coronavirus research. the country has been slammed for allegedly not giving world community accurate numbers about what was going on there. gillian turner house the white house as the administration ramps up the pressure. she joins us from d.c. where it is raining. gillian? >> gillian: it is, indeed, raining, brian, ainsley, steve. we will try to get through this hit for you to bring you the latest on the w.h.o. the white house is planning, they say, to continue ratcheting up the pressure on the group. this week president trump says is he still considering slashing funding to the w.h.o. by about 50% in response to what they are calling mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic. over the weekend the w.h.o. says they are staying focused on combating on the virus. they don't want to weighed i wee political virus. >> >> we think it's going to be a

virus that stalks the human race for quite a long time to come and there will be small outbreaks that will emerge sporadically and they will break through our defenses. >> gillian: the president's coronavirus tank force has been saying for weeks that the chinese government under reported the real case numbers since the earliest days of the outbreak in wuhan. the guardian the british outlook saying the british have been clamping down on dreak research on covid-19. a report from the weekend claims two web sites for from leading chinese universities appear to have recently published and removed pages that reference a new policy requiring academic papers dealing with covid-19 to undergo extra vetting before they are submitted for publication. coming up soon he is going to have to make a decision about how and when to reopen the u.s. economy. he also says that's the biggest

decision he is ever going to have to make in his lifetime so he wants the most and best possible guidance from his top advisors. brian, ainsley, steve? ainsley: thank you so much, gillian. let's bring governor huckabee. >> good morning. ainsley: gait to have you on. i'm sure you heard gillian's report about the w.h.o. how do you think they should be held accountable? >> if adam schiff wants to investigate something. here is his target. this is legitimately something that needs to be looked into. instead of wasting his time going after the president who has enough on his plate, let congress take a look what w.h.o. did. what they did to conspire with china to cover up the virus. this thing has shut the whole world economy down. somebody needs to be held account being. china first. the w.h.o. second. but i think the president was right. let's see about slashing their

funding. he is also right to say let's don't eliminate it because then you don't have the right to demand the investigation i think the president would be able to get a lot of other countries to join with him in asking for a full accountability. brian: fda commissioner gottlieb said they need to recognize taiwan. they have played a big role in this. they are not recognized on behest of china. china did not share the information without making it handy. made it hard to sthar and they couldn't even develop a diagnostic test, obviously. meanwhile as we look ahead with the mess that china has given the world. we talk about our economy that shut down and how we plan on opening it up. dr. fauci was asked about that. and he says it's not going to be an immediate open up the key and just open up the door and we start it up. listen. we are hoping at the end of the month we can look around and say

is there any element that we can safely and cautiously start pulling back? if so, do it. if not continue to hunker down. that's at least from the standpoint of the public health aspect that we look at. other decisions are going to have to be made at the level of the president and the governors about what they are going to do with all of the information they get. brian: so, governor, do you want to comment on that? i got a quick follow-up on what else fauci said. >> look. i think on one hand we listen to the experts. these are the people we try to ask what are the worst case scenarios, best case scenarios. none of those people have been elected. i want to remind all of us something, we live in a democracy. we live in a country where we elect leaders to make decision. we do not relegate those decisions to other people no matter how smart they are we don't give them to people who

haven't been elected by we the people. ultimately while i respect what they're telling us and we need to listen carefully. these are decisions that are going to be made by the president and the 50 governors of the states and they make them based on what's best for their population and balancing the health concerns with the fact that right now we have got millions of people out of work. our economy has tanked and it is really threatening the civil liberties of a lot of people and that is a concern to me that i don't hear enough about how we are shredding the constitution by telling people such things as you can't sit in a car by yourself. you are going to get arrested. you can't drive up to a church in your own vehicle and the closest contact you have is with the police officer who comes and tells you can't do it. there is some stuff that ought to scare the daylights out of us for the long-term future, brian. brian: dr. fauci went on with a series of questions with jake tapper. no doubt about it if the president listened to us and shut down the government

earlier, more people -- this wouldn't have been as bad or more people would have been alive. and then somebody one of the women -- a woman that ran against nancy pelosi tweeted out anthony fauci in january and february never said that we should shut down the government. in fact, publicly he said it's not going to hit us as bad here as it is in china. and the president retweeted it. it ended with #fire fauci. do you believe that there is friction building between the two? >> i'm sure there is. look, this is wearing on everybody's nerves. is the president going to fire fauci? probably not. he has been basically loyal to the president. he has his own mind. and that's one of the reasons the president has him around to give him advise. ultimately it's the president who is the decider as george w. bush famously once said. and i think that's what we recognize. the president was elected to lead the country. he will make the decisions. but fauci did down play the

significance of this in late january, early february. let's remind ourselves it was the president who shut down travel from china based on concerns that folks from china, particularly wuhan were going to bring that to the u.s. and the rest of the world. what would have happened had he not is the down hundreds of thousands of people coming from china when he did? could have been worse much sooner. steve: of course today is easter monday. when they have the easter egg roll, canceled out of abundance of caution. not the first time they canceled it. 17 times before for world wars, bad weather, things like that. yesterday, on easter sunday, you know, it was so different. you know, what's the day when it seems like half the country gets all dressed up in sunday best, go to church. don't go all the time we do go on easter.

we were all hunkered down alone and a lot of people were watching the tv, the laptop, to get the good word. how did you celebrate easter and what does it say about where we are at this point in time? >> well, we celebrated easter at my home watching our church online that has online services every week. that's a good thing. but it wasn't a good thing to miss the fellowship of other believers. you know, we sometimes call some christians the c and e crowd. christmas and easter, only time they show up for church. this is one the two of big moments of the year. here is what i think we were reminded of yesterday. no plague, no police can ultimately keep the gospel of christ in a tomb. it finds a way to get to the light because it is the light. and we saw that yesterday by people worshiping in some very creative ways all over the world and being able to recognize the resurrection of christ. despite the darkness there,

still was light. ainsley: you know, yesterday, i was watching bocelli, oh, my word, he lost his eyesight at 12 years old and god gave him a gift to sing. i mean, remarkable. what a voice. here is a little bit of it if you missed it. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ainsley: concert called music for hope live in the cathedral in milan. what is your message to the folks watching. i know you were a devout minister before you became

governor. >> the message as i said you cannot contain a gospel. it wasn't contained in a tomb in 2,000 years ago the romans thought they had ended this insurrection. they didn't. they just spread it. and that's what's going to happen. you can't keep hope intombed and put in a grave. you just can't. it's the human spirit. but more than that, it's god's word in us, bursting forth. even if the voices stop, the rocks will cry out. that's what the bible tells us. we see some of that going on all over the world today. brian: governor, thanks so much. always great to talk to you. ainsley: yes, thank you. >> thank you, brian. god bless you all. ainsley: god bless you. steve: happy easter. brian: ogo over to carley shimkus to deliver the news. carley: tough news to start off here. the nypd mourning the loss of its 20th member to the coronavirus. traffic enforcement agent william hayes was an army

veteran. he had been with the department for nearly 31 years. the department along with the entire city has been hit hard by covid-19. on saturday, more than 6700 uniformed members were out sick. that's 18% of the workforce. the fbi is investigating an international scam involving a fake stockpile of 39 million face masks. a california labor union thought they had a deal to buy the masks but never got them. now, the feds found out about it when they considered taking them under the defense production act. the fbi traced the scam back to two people in australia and kuwait. luckily no money was ever exchanged. social distancing is coming to the nfl draft. commissioner roger goodell will be announcing this year's pick from, get, this his new york basement. april 23rd's draft will be held remote whether i teams meeting in hotel rooms to make their

picks and players, of course, staying at home. those are your headlines, guys. steve: where there is a will, there is a way. they will figure out how to do pretty much everything. carley, thank you very much. 7:15 in the east coast. congress has stalled on how to get more money to small businesses with just days until the fund runs dry as we look at a rainy d.c. so when will we see a deal? brian is going to talk to senator tom cotton coming up next. hey, can i... hold on one second... sure. okay... okay! safe drivers save 40%!!! guys! guys! check it out. safe drivers save 40%!!! safe drivers save 40%! safe drivers save 40%!!! that's safe drivers save 40%. it is, that's safe drivers save 40%. - he's right there. - it's him! he's here. he's right here. - hi! - hi. hey! - that's totally him. - it's him! that's totally the guy. safe drivers do save 40%. click or call for a quote today.

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small bigs. >> we are asking small business owners across america to place their faith news. my colleagues must not treat working americans as political hostages. brian: congress had a stand still. republicans pushing for clean funding, put 600 billion there. instead of 350 billion there the democrats say no it's an opportunity to get more money for states and hospitals. joining us now is a member of the senate economic committee. senator tom cotton. senator, first off it doesn't look like you are going to get that clean upgrade to 600 billion. now what? >> well, brian, i hope that the democrats will come to their senses this week. we put funding in to hospitals and the state and city governments for their responses to this virus just in the same legislation a few weeks ago. unfortunately, the only program at risk of running out of money are the small business loans.

that's why you heard senator mcconnell say we want to pass a simple bill that simply increases the total limit for the small business loans from 350 to 600 billion. there is no doubt that our hospitals, our doctors, our nurses may need more money in the future. senate is back in session on monday and those programs are not at risk of running out of money in the meantime the way the small business loans are at risk. brian: senator chris coons, democrat, sees your point but also sees it as an opportunity to get more for -- more. listen. >> we're both in public health disaster, this pandemic,. anna: economic disaster. and we need to address both. most states, most hospitals are seeing record short falls. we should be doing both. providing support for our health systems in our states and providing support for small business. brian: let's see what he wants to do senator.

see if they are going to cut a deal. i know you guys aren't going to come back and vote any time soon. meanwhile, you wrote an op-ed on fox news about how china has to pay for giving 180 countries this poison pandemic. how? >> brian, let's remember, that the china virus could have been a local health problem in wuhan if the chinese communist party had been transparent and honest and not been so corrupt from the very beginning. instead, they unleashed a global pandemic. many ways in which china is going to pay for this pandemic. one will be the basic removal of fundamental manufacturing capacity from china. what they have used to get rich in recent decades like bringing pharmaceutical and medical device and medical supply manufacturing back to the united states. china should also face economic consequences beyond the loss of their manufacturing capacity. such as opening the court system up for victims of the virus.

much like we did for the victims of the 9/11 attacks. and then there is further action that we should consider taking as well like reviewing all of china's participation in international agencies, some of which seem to answer to the beckon call of beijing like the world health organization. the consequences of this virus are going to be far-reaching and long lasting for the chinese communist party. brian: you were the first one to say it along with liz cheney what's going on over there this is going to be much worse than letting on and i know you are not giving up. senator tom cotton, thanks so much. >> thanks, brian. brian: all right. still ahead, tornadoes and i can't believe, this tearing across the south last night killing at least 17 people. including six from georgia. a live report from atlanta next. texas governor greg abbott could ease his state's lockdown to restore people's livelihoods. is that a good idea? lara logan joins us on the ground in texas next.

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♪ ainsley: we are back with a fox news alert. overnight powerful storms ripping across four southern states, at least 17 people are dead, including six in georgia. the catastrophic damage leaving more than a million people in the dark. emily acada from our fox affiliate in atlanta joins us live. emily? >> good morning, ainsley. well, daylight is starting to reveal the extent of the damage we are seeing in this east point neighborhood. this tree is one of dozens we have seen covering the town home community. you will seasiding and gutters mixed in with that debris. but we have been looking at this tree -- dozens of trees into homes blocking roadways into cars.

we have talked to dozen of residents throughout the morning and they point to a particular period between 2:30 and 3:00 a.m. when they heard this roaring noise that impaired it to a freight train. that is when fulton county was under a tornado warning. we will learn more about whether there is an official confirmation there in the coming days. east point is a few minutes from atlanta's airport. a pretty condensed busy area. when powerful storms roll through here they impact a lot of people now from what we can tell no one has been injured in this east point community. as we have been reporting throughout the day, the other parts of the state have not been so lucky. ainsley? ainsley: thank you so much, emilie. steve? steve: all right, ainsley, thank you. texas governor last week said is he looking to ease the coronavirus lockdown as places like california and new york continue to ramp up restrictions. >> next week i will be pro-an executive order talking about

what will be done in texas about reopening texas businesses also in a way that will be safe for that economic revitalization. we will focus on protecting lives while restoring livelihoods. steve: so when is the right rhyme to do it. here to discuss lara logan the host of "laura logan has no agenda." a lot of people are sitting at home wondering when am i going back to, woman of achievement the president has said aspiration nally he would like to see businesses being restored irestoredrestoredin stages star. tell us what is going on in texas. >> well, i live outside in the country, you know, in a small town of 10,000, 11,000 people. and so for a long time now we have been restricted on what can you buy at the grocery store. not everything. but you walk into walmart. we only have one grocery store

and one walmart. and there are just rows and rows and rows of shelves that are completely and utterly empty for two hours every morning from 6:00 in the morning people are lining unjust to get into the grocery store when it opens at 8:00. they are on restricted hours as well. and what people are talking about here a lot is getting back to work. there is great concern amongst the business community and in fact a lot of people that you are looking at a worldwide depression. the longer that this goes on and that there are just tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people will die from poverty as a result of that and their deaths will never be counted in the death tolls because those who die from poverty their bodies don't pile up in the hospitals the same they do during an e.p.a. people are very concerned about the shutdown of the economy and still, of course, very concerned about the risk and taking this whole thing very seriously.

steve: right. the key is just to try to figure out how to do it effects tialy so that when people go back to work those who have not been inflicted with it are not -- don't wind up getting sick and end up having another spike which nobody wants. you do a great show no agenda. you spoke with covington high school student nick sandman who has become, in many ways the face of media bias here is the soundbite and then we will discuss what this particular program is about. >> everywhere i go there is someone who will point me out. >> what's the first thing that goes through your mind? >> is this going to be a good confrontation or bad confrontation. >> do i need to worry about getting hurt? >> exactly. >> it's going to be that way for how long? >> probably forever. steve: there you are with nick

sandmann. you say he has become essentially the face of media bias. explain what you mean. >> well for nick sandman, he is going to be tarnished with this stigma forever that he is some arrogant racist kid the kid with the face that americans -- people want to punch. that's how he was depicted when he was at the lincoln memorial with the now infamous day where he was -- where his image was captured and put everyone knows him as the covington kid. he was accused of blocking the pat of an elderly native american and all the history of every injustice that the native american suffered was put at nick sandman's door. he was just a 16-year-old kid. it was first reported that nathan phillips was trying to get passed him. one lie after another. the media's role in it has never been fully addressed.

minnesota outlets didn't retract their stories. cnn settled in a massive lawsuit. the sum is undisclosed. that was evidence and it is just the beginning in a series of lawsuits that are to come. that was evidence of their physician iposition inthis theyg their coverage. it's still out there. it hasn't been retracted. nick sand amanda has to live with that the rest of his life. steve: folks can send lara questions about her series to ask her send them to ask lara logan @foxnews.com. easy for me to say. she will answer them during your agenda questions with lara. thank you for joining us down there in texas. >> thank you. steve: all right. meanwhile, the head of the fda says the u.s. is nearing its peak for coronavirus cases. so what is the significance of that? and what does the cdc think on

this monday morning? we're going to talk to the director of the agency, dr. robert redfield. he is next. anged in the last few weeks. but one thing hasn't: breakfast. and, if that feels like a little bit of comfort, it's thanks to... the farmers, the line workers and truckers, the grocery stockers and cashiers, and the food bank workers, because right now breakfast as usual is more essential than ever. to everyone around the world working so hard to bring breakfast to the table, thank you.

>> the models do show we are very close to the peak. i think that information is accurate. this has been a very fast-moving outbreak. we really do have to take this day by day. ainsley: let's bring in dr. robert redfield the cdc director. good morning to you, mr. redfield. >> good morning. ainsley: good morning. what do you make of that? because we were told last week they thought the peak was going to be on sunday, on easter, but have we still not reached the peak? >> we are still not reached the peak, but we are close. i mean, you are going to know ainsley that we have reached the peak when we start going down. but we are very close. the outbreak has stabilized

across our country. brian: but when you talk about not reaching the peak, i saw that washington state model on friday said the worst is over and hard not to see the hospitalizations going down dramatically in places like new york. are you saying that the worse is not over and the decreases aren't steep enough? >> no. i think we have really stabilized across the country. we are still seeing a small rate of increase, you know, in the range of 5 to 6% as opposed to where we were before when it was 20%, 30% per day? we are close. we are stabilized. and i anticipate that we will begin to see a decline in the days ahead. but we have got to just continue to take it day by day and look at the data. steve: sure. doctor, you know, when we are over the hump, and we are on the way down, you know how people's brains work. it's like oh, the worst is over and then that risky behavior

where you are within 6 feet of somebody or you do things that you probably are not doing right now, how big a worry is that we can be on the downside but then suddenly it turns into a double hump because people spike the number of infections? >> yeah. it's going to be really important, steve, that we stay committed to the mitigation steps that we have in the 30 days to slow the spread of this coronavirus. we're going to need to reopen gradually in a thoughtful, prudent way. jurisdiction by jurisdiction. based on the data about what's the state of transmission of this virus in those areas. i do want to thank the american people for embracing the sacrifice of the social distancing guidelines that we have put out. we really have seen the consequence of that as you all know. the original models had us a quarter million, a half a million, 2 million people would

have lost their lives. it's much, much, much less than that really a direct consequence of the american public all come in. it's going to be critical over the next 4 to 8 to 12 weeks that we continue thoughtful mitigation steps as we begin to bring our country back to work. brian: you know the president wants to begin -- i'm sorry, ainsley go ahead. ainsley: that's okay. you go ahead. brian: i just saw that the president wants to open up may 1st. you know that and some of the criteria for opening up may 1st is 750,000 tests per week, according to steve gottlieb and 150,000 per day. where are we at with this testing and it's got to be those 15-minute rapid test but i hear they are having trouble mass producing them. >> well, there is no question, brian, that critical to opening up is going to be the continued increase in the availability of testing. the fundamental to that is that the fundamentals of public health are in place so that we

can have early case recognition, isolation, contact tracing, early case recognition, recognition, contact tracing. we are obviously gearing up to reinforce the public health capacity across this nation to do it. but increasing in testing is continuing on a daily basis. and it is going to need to be in place in order for us to effectively reopen and keep this nation reopened. the idea is once we reopen we want to stay reopened. the tools to make that happen are the fundamentals of public health, which i mentioned, early and aggressive case recognition, isolation and contact tracing so we can get back in a containment mode with gradually releasing step-by-step mitigation steps that we have taken over the last several months. ainsley: i know the cdc is revealing now that the virus can spread up to 13 feet. so will you revise the social distancing guidelines? >> i think the bulk of evidence that we have right now, ainsley,

is still consistent with our guidance. that 6 feet distancing, obviously. there are circumstances somebody does a great sneeze across the room, but i think we are comfortable with the bulk of the scientific evidence right now. maintaining that 6 feet guidance that we have put out. steve: absolutely. part of the other guidance was it can travel on your shoes. so don't wear your shoes in the house. take them off and remember they could be contaminated. doctor, thank you very much for joining us on this very busy monday morning. >> thanks a lot, steve, glad to be here. steve: you bet. a quarter before the top of the hour. janice dean joins us. it is raining throughout the northeast right down through the eastern third of the united states. right now, this is just rain. but this was a big storm across portions of the country that left a lot of damage in its wake. >> yeah. steve. unfortunately, over 50 reports of tornadoes and that number is

ramping unjust because we have seen more tornado reports this morning stretching from florida through georgia. the carolinas now into virginia. where we still have tornado watches in effect stretching from florida up towards the mid-atlantic, some of those watches will be in place until at least 11:00 a.m. you can see that line though. it is moving quickly and it's quickly moving offshore. so the storm is still going to be with us throughout the morning hours into the afternoon. and stretching up into the northeast, we are going to have incredible wind gust gusts in es of 50, 60 miles per hour. as you can see, we still have those watches. we still have warnings in place in parts of georgia up towards the carolinas and the virginia area. and as this system moves northward and eastward, those wind gusts could reach us in excess of 70 miles per hour. really stretching from d.c. and philadelphia up to new york. that's going to cause structural damage and extensive power outages this afternoon. steve, ainsley, brian, back to

you. brian: all right. thanks, janice. we will follow that meanwhile we will follow carley shimkus who wants to update us on what else is going on because jillian worked this weekended and need a day off. carley: that's right. a well-deserved day off. a man under arrest for threatening to kill his mother begins purposefully coughing on officers telling them he hopes they get coronavirus. all caught on camera. watch. >> i literally dare you. [coughing] carley: that suspect had reportedly threatened his mom with a butter knife. he is charged with aggravated assault. a pastor is vowing to defy a quarantine order after holding easter service at his church. kentucky state police recording license plate numbers at the marysville baptist church in louisville. police ordering the owners of those vehicles to self-quarantine for two weeks.

some even put nails in the parking lot before people arrived. the reverend says send him the bill. >> i will tell you something, if you get a ticket, if you get a ticket for being in church this morning, bring it to me. my lawyer sai said he will takee of it. [applause] this garbage is just garbage. >> governor andy beshear says no one will face criminal charges. it's not clear how police will enforce the quarantine order. now to the top three stories trending on foxnews.com right now president trump raising speculation about relationship -- the relationship he has with a key task force doctor after retweeting a post that included the #fire fauci. next as grocery stores remain essential pandemic fox news has tips to stay safe while shopping. and finally china appears to be sensors research on covid-19

origins according to analysts two web sites for leading universities in china deleted online information in their possible bid to control the narrative shush rounding the outbreak. to say read these stories and so much more download the foxnews.com app. i think i'm going to do that right now. ainsley: thank you, carley. brian: should have done that earlier. ainsley: hospitals across the country are taking extra steps to protect their workers. dr. nicole saphier is going to take us inside her hospital to see what's being done there. that's next. the ones we love, no matter what. at lincoln financial, we share that responsibility. standing by your side, as we have for over 115 years.

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♪ ainsley: american hospital centers taking extra precautions to stop the spread as more than 557,000 cases of covid-19 are confirmed in the u.s. here with an inside look at those extra steps inside her own hospital is fox news medical contributor dr. nicole saphier and author of the book "make america healthy again" good morning, dr. saphier. >> good morning, ainsley. ainsley: looks like you are at work. you are not at home this morning? >> i'm beneficial in my specialty i'm able to do a lot of it from home. but when do i have to come in, i do biopsies, i do localizations

for cancer surgeries so i do have to come in. ainsley: tell us what your hospital is doing to take those extra precautions? >> so i work in one of the largest cancer centers across the globe. our patient population is very different than a lot of other hospitals. a lot of our patients are undergoing cancer treatment immunocompromised particularly vulnerable to covid-19. so they are very protective of our patients. also our healthcare workers. they are doing everything they can to make sure that our healthcare workers stay healthy as well as our patients stay healthy. for us, we have to fill out online survey every morning before we come in. and it's asking for symptoms, essentially have we had anything that could indicate we may be coming down with covid-19 in the last 24 hours? then we have to get an approval email saying we can actually show up to the hospital. when we come into work, there is hand sanitizer, of course, everywhere. just like every hospital. now we have actually have security guards at every entrance who are there to hand us our mask for the day and put it on we are not allowed to

enter the building without wearing a mangeght i alternate between my n-95 mask and surgical mask as i go through the department and interact with patients. ainsley: what about the patients? i have seen some stories. some heart wrenching stories of people not being able to go see their loved ones right before they die and they have to give a message to a nurse. what are the policies there at your hospital? are they allowed to have a loved one in the room with them. >> i will tell you we have had to restrict visitors quite a bit. when people are undergoing a lot of cancer care there is a lot of anxiety with it. we are encouraging people to have visitors with them. we have therapy dogs walking around freely all the time. right now we are limiting visitors to still allowing one visitor per person. but, you know, the whole family can't be there unfortunately. we have set up a lot of telehealth and teleconferencing and then in the digital era making sure people are retaining connectivity but also trying to keep people safe. ainsley: yeah. your hospital has saved the life of one of my good friends and i know several of that you are

physicians there you are all doing a very, very job. do you feel safe? >> of course i do. everyone feels a little nervous. i'm beneficial. i'm fortunate enough that i have enough education that i am able to quell some of my anxiety and my fear with knowledge. and so that is -- has been my goal for the last several months to try and inform everybody else anything that i find out. because this is a very serious time. one that we're gonna get through. we are gonna get passed. the more knowledge you have, the more power you have and perhaps less anxiety you are going to have because we are going to get through. this i promise. ainsley: dr. saphier, thank you. god bless you. >> thanks. ainsley: mike rowe and senator rand paul in his first interview since recovering from covid-19.

... ♪

♪ and they're actually pulling out the minerals from the enamel.

i like to recommend pronamel to my patients. pronamel will help push the minerals back into the enamel, to keep the enamel strong. i know it works. and i hear nothing but great things from my patients that have switched to it. >> there it is, right there. steve: right to a fox news alert , on this monday, april 13. an easter sunday tornado outbreak ripping across four southern states at least 17 people are dead as of this hour. 11 in mississippi and our fox news affiliate in atlanta reporting six people have died in georgia. the damage described as catastrophic. >> lord jesus, my house is gone , man. it's gone. ainsley: homes left in complete

ruin across the southern united states, 1 million people are now without power, alabama, louisiana, and mississippi all declaring states of emergency overnight. a deputy and his wife are among the six people killed in mississippi here, are their picture, deputy robert ainsworth , was a marine corps veteran and he died a hero shielding his wife. brian: wow those powerful storm s moving now across south carolina, delivering torrential downpours and heavy winds and it's not over yet, janice dean tracking it all. >> janice: hi, brian yes, here across the north east we're going to feel this storm as well with wind gusts in excess of 50 or 70 miles per hour so we're not done yet. we still have to go through next several hours and we've had reports of tornadoes for parts of georgia into south carolina, off towards north carolina, and watches still in effect from florida up toward the carolinas and virginia, some of these watches going until the noon hour so as the storm system

moves through not only the threat for strong winds, we could see large hail, heavy downpours and tornadoes even though the storm is weakening and as i mentioned we're going to see the potential for wind gusts close to 70 miles per hour along the coast for some of the big cities like new york city, philadelphia, d.c., so there are your wind warnings stretching for tens of millions of folks from the southeast up towards the tennessee, the ohio river valley and in towards the north east so we're not done yet. we'll start to feel the peak wind gusts as we get into the afternoon hours and into the 5:00, 6:00 hour, so just be prepared. we're going to see a lot of folks without power, and the potential for structural damage as well, all right seeing wind gusts in excess of 30, 40 miles per hour but this is going to ramp up its actually going to strengthen as the low moves into the northeast and the great lakes, so still watching this system over the next couple of hours, the tornado reports are incredible across portions of the south.

one tornado report in mississippi, that tracked over 100 miles so the national weather service has their work cut out for them and it'll take several days to determine whether or not a tornado moved through the area and i'm pretty sure we're going to see ratings of ef-3 and ef-4 throughout portions of the south, so an unfolding situation we'll certainly keep you up-to-date but we're not done yet, especially for areas across the mid atlantic and north east as we go through the next several hours, steve, ainsley, brian, back to you. ainsley: scary times, thank you, janice. turning now to the coronavirus pandemic. u.s. cases now topping 557,000, more than 22000 people have died and nearly 42000 others have recovered. brian: nearly 3 million americans have been tested for covid-19, 150,000 per day and in los angeles researchers launched a new antibody testing

study of 900 people that could help find a treatment and shape a plan to reopen the economy finally. steve: meanwhile in washington, congress is now feeling the pressure to pass the next wave of relief for americans. griff jenkins is live in washington where negotiations stand at kind of a stand still right now because one side wants something, griff and the other wants something else. griff: that's right, steve, ainsley and brian. good morning i'm afraid the weather mirrors the mood on capitol hill. here is where things stand. not a lot of optimism we're going to get a deal this week, right? you have this small business loan program which is essentially the ppp as everyone calls it that runs out of money in days if not weeks and now senate republicans tried to do a narrow bill that would target 250 billion just to add to that, 350 billion that's going to run out but democrats block it, and democrats in turn prefer to have a larger face forward bill encompassing healthcare worker, hospitals, along with

regular workers, and additional resources for states and local government, but over the weekend we had majority leader mcconnell and minority leader mccarthy issuing this statement lasting the democrats saying reporters reject the wreckless threat to continue blocking job saving funding unless we renegotiate unrelated programs, this will not be congress' last word on covid-19 but this crucial program needs funding now, american workers cannot be used as political hostages but just in the last hour, speaker pelosi and minority leader schumer are putting this response out. they say this. while the trump adminitration struggle struggles to figure out to you to distribute the funds it is clear those appropriated amounts will not be enough to cover the tremendous need and to continue, we have real problems facing this country and it's time for the republicans to quit the political posturing, by proposing bills they know will not pass their chamber and get serious and work with us

toward a solution. congress is out this week, they're not in session. we hope that of course you'll get all four of the leaders along with secretary mnuchin talking but meanwhile, governors sounding off as well, marilyn's governor, larry hogan partnering with andrew cuomo, in new york saying they need an additional 500 billion because they are one of the hotspots, brian, ainsley, steve? brian: griff, thanks and i think in the big picture, with mitch mcconnell hope to do with all his years of experience is just take out the 350 billion, put it here, and put in 600 billion because he knows he can't get everyone back together to vote on this , and it shouldn't require a vote, because it's just upping money, at an area which everybody agreed with but as senator coons joined us this morning and senator cotton followed after, republican and democrat they disagree. they say hey, republicans you want to help small business? we want to help other people. listen to both. >> most state, most hospitals

are seeing record shortfalls. we should be doing both, providing support for our health systems and our states and providing support for small business. >> unfortunately the only program that's at risk of running out of money are the small business loans. there's no doubt that our hospitals, our doctors, our nurses may need more money in the future, but senate is back in session on monday and those programs are not at risk of running out of money in the meantime the way the small business loans are at risk. brian: right and that's key. not only are they running out of money because they've pledged 100 plus billion already but the problem is for the people that have got the 100 billion they don't even know it. the money hasn't even been given to them yet. they don't know if they qualify, and the restrictions on it, by well-meaning people like steven mnuchin are making it possible for the small business owner to actually stay in business, and pay their employees, so they just have to have somebody go in there, chris christie, a czar, small business czar go in there and make some adjustments and

allow these small businesses to have a future. they got the hard part, they got the money. now they got to do the other part, drill down and make it work. so we'll see where that goes but now, back to the medical side, steve. steve: well, i tell you what regarding what you were just saying though brian in the last 20 minutes nancy pelosi and chuck schumer put out a statement and it sounds like they are interested in what they are interested in so it doesn't sound like they are about to budge in mitch's direction. meanwhile, let's talk a little bit about the coronavirus which everybody is talking about dr. mehmet oz has been with us every day during the pandemic. dr. oz good morning to you. ainsley: good morning. >> good morning. steve: all right so we heard yesterday that apparently it sounds like we could hit the peak maybe tomorrow, and you know during this time for the last week or so you've been talking about how some people have been using hydroxychloroquine to treat various patients, when used in concert with things like z-

pack and stuff like that. you've been talking about it a doctor in france who i know you've spoken to again over the weekend. he's had 1,000 patients he's worked on in this limited study and what has he found so far? >> well, this man actually met with the french president macron on thursday and for three and a half hours, so i spoke to him about an hour ago. he reviewed his data. again this is pre-printed it's not published but its been submitted so people can review it and he said macron's interest was actually to talk to the person whose doing the research rather than having it interpreted by many different folks, and that's actually not a bad idea. to actually hear from the people doing the work so here is what he's saying. i've treated 1,061 patients i'm reporting on, he's treated more than twice that many so far and i won't get into the overall comparison is it better or worse than anybody else's but i'll highlight a few things he employees emphasized are critical. at ten days of treatment none of the patients were able to grow

culture of the virus. there were a few, 4%, that still had culture in their nose, when you do the pcr measure. but actually when you try to grow the virus none were alive. that's a good bit of information because if we can reduce the amount of time people are infected then it predisposes them to be spreading it less often and that's also an implication in people right now struggling in the icu because he argues many people clear the virus especially if they are trying the regimen he and many others are advocating for. again there's no randomized control studies but this is a nice long case study that was important enough the president of france was paying attention to it. he said the president didn't make any promises or commitments about what he was going to do with the information but this kind of data not just from him is useful for us because the cdc revealed data over the weekend that the infection quotient for this is 5.7. we thought it was more like 2.2. just to put numbers on that. the flu which is 1.3 means if i'm sick, i'll spread it over

the course of five cycles to nine people. we thought this virus, the covid-19 virus would spread to 45 people over five cycles. with this new cdc data we predicted it would spread o stove 1,200 people in five cycles so it is indeed the most infectious virus that most people have seen, smallpox is one of the few that's more but nothing else is competing with it and you have to find strateg ies to reduce its infection, social distancing by the way reduces it much closer to the flu, but with a major penalty. ainsley: that's pretty scary when you think about going back to work and people being together again that's why this antibody test is so important. what's the latest on that? i have so many questions about that over the weekend when are we going to get this out to the american people. >> ainsley, we're told this week, there will be roll outs people can get. i'll just say next week because we've been off by a week in many of these predictions but already in california they are doing studies in other parts of the country are able to start as well to see how many people

got the infection. now ainsley, you say you're scared about that, but it might be good news, because imagine if it was spread everywhere and there's lots of people now believing that the virus was evident on the west coast in earlier february before many of us appreciated it, and perhaps a lot more people have been exposed to this virus than we thought just didn't have big problems with it. if that's the case, then it means that people can go back to work and begin to reengage the economy because they have been exposed they just didn't know it or their symptoms are so minor they are actually fine with it and they can therefore take the risk if they are young and healthy. the big question is what are you going to do with the people who have co morbidities, high blood pressure in particular but also diabetes and other conditions because 90% of the hospitalized patients have one of those co- morbidities. most people don't have those don't seem to have a serious hospitalization problem with the virus. brian: all right let's go to some questions from the people. scott rights this. if a pregnant woman has covid-19 , does the baby born

with antibodies or a sort of immunity already, what do you think? >> well there was a paper recently that showed you have antibodies in the infant, the child, the fetus so obviously somehow the baby is being protected by the mother or exposed a little bit but we know these children can also get infected but just because you have antibodies doesn't mean you can't get infected especially if they are very early in part by the mom. steve: all right dr. oz here is a common question. >> children have such a little problem with this that actually, there was a possibility raised that because they don't seem to get infected that often, schools may not be as big a risk as we initially feared. influenza is a big problem in schools because children get it so badly but we may be able to help kids go to school and not have them be as infectious as we initially feared. steve: that sounds promising. meanwhile, dr. oz, carol e-mailed us. i was a long time smoker, but quit three years ago. am i still high risk?

>> well, you're still official ly high risk, but and this is an important but, within weeks of stopping smoking, the cilia, the little hairs in your nose and hung tubes get better. that may have a benefit we don't know. we haven't been able to measure it. we know things like heart attack rates drop by half within a year of stopping smoking, so this is a really good time to stop smoking. if people are having procedures we tell them just give us two weeks without cigarette smoke destroying and poisoning your airways, that may be true for the virus as well. ainsley: this is an e-mail from ray. is it okay if i take my boat out on the lake to fish for the day by myself? >> well if you're truly by yourself, yes. you could do that but i got to say a lot of towns have shut down them because they are fearful people will get together when they are trying to get their boat off the dock but if you truly can do what you're saying go out and do it. it'll clear your mind. brian: right.

that'll be good but boating by yourself with be a great moment, meditation, so maybe people might want to choose to do that and blame the pandemic while you don't take somebody out. dr. oz thanks so much. we appreciate it. hopefully we'll be talking about may 1 back to, would in some way , shape or form, next. thanks. all right, coming up straight ahead the growing number of confirmed cases is scary for many americans. bill bennett joins us with some perspective and data that's getting overlooked, bill bennett , live. cancer won't wait for hospitals

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brian: when looking at the number of confirmed coronavirus cases the figures may seem scary but our next guest is putting the data into perspective so to speak, highlighting the promising numbers that are often overlooked and so in his new op-ed titled "an advantage disease indeed" let's bring in former education secretary fox news contributor best selling author, bill bennett. bill what are we missing about this virus? we see the numbers 22000 dead, how many cases, when you took a step back and what did you find? >> yeah, let's take a step back the estimates now from the university of washington which is the model everybody has been going on, even though its

been wrong most of the time, by a lot overstating it, is now they say 60,000 people will die. 61,000 is what we lost to the flu in 2017 and 2018. the flu. now, we all regret the loss of 61,000 people, if that's what it turns out to be. i'm going to tell you i think it's going to be less and salute all those working on the frontlines on this , the hospital workers, nurses, the doctors, et cetera and the generosity of the american people, but if you look at those numbers and see the comparable, we're going to have fewer fatalities from this than from the flu. for this , we scared the hell out of the american people. we lost 17 million jobs, we put a major dent in the economy, we closed down the schools, you heard dr. oz say we probably didn't have to do that, shut down the churches and so on this was not and is not a pandemic, but we do have panic as a result of the hype of this and it's really unfortunate

to look at the facts. brian: well it is labeled a pandemic, but you also point out that you leave from the number that you're able to see , if you get it you have a 98% chance of survival. correct, less than if you're an average american, two-tenths of 1% chance you'll get it, and if you get it you have a 98% chance of recovery. these things are very rarely heard out there. as dr. oz was just saying, people with the co-morbidities who have heart disease, very high blood pressure, who are 75 years old, i'm in my 70s, these are the reallies beings but we've scared the heck out of everybody and psychologically as a people, remember 9/11 we talked about let's roll and this one there's been too much let's roll up in a ball and hide under the bed this is not the way america works. let's get back to work and by the way on this back to work thing, there's this metaphor that seems to be governing the conversation, this flip on the light switch.

you don't flip on the light switch. get a three-way bulb. you don't have to go all the way to 100. 50, 70 and then 85, but the country has suffered enormously. to say nothing of what has occurred as a result of the shutdown in terms of fatalities, 300% increase in the suicide hot line, big increase in opioid epidemic, how much domestic violence? child protective services can't get to people's houses. there are real costs to panic. brian: right and bill, its been pointed out to me that even though you have military experts the president ultimately makes the decision to go to war, even if you have medical experts it doesn't mean the medical division decides when we open up or not or how we open up or not. the economists and the medical and scientists need a seat at the table, do you agree? >> yes, they have input that's what they have. new york times trying to blast the president for not acting in january, and putting everybody on notice. at the end of february, dr.

fauci who is the reigning king of scientists here, said there's no reason for anybody to change their normal way of doing business. at the end of february, so you know, he is the responsible party. his instincts by the way, the presidents, have been more correct than anybody else's. the models have been disastrous but they have frightened the children and chased the public under their beds so this is a shame. let's open up the country. let's do it smart. keep it home, people who have or are at risk, who are old with co-morbidities who have underlying conditions, people test positive keep it home, but let's get the country moving. there's been real damage caused by this that's far beyond, frankly, what people can imagine , because we haven't done the count, the full count of both sides of the long termer. brian: you're right, bill i don't know if we wait much longer what's left of our country. bill bennett thanks so much. i'll make sure to read it.

you got it, thank you, see you soon. meanwhile, powerful tornadoes tearing through the south, six from georgia, we're live on the ground plus the great mike rowe joins us next with a message for small business owner s during the pandemic. for nearly 100 years, we've worked to provide you with the financial strength, stability, and online tools you need. and now it's no different. because helping you through this crisis is what we're made for.

witpeople at higher riskng, must take extra precautions. you are at higher risk if you are over 65, or if you have an underlying medical condition. please visit coronavirus.gov for more information.

ainsley: we're back with a fox news alert overnight powerful storms ripping across the south, tornadoes touching down in more than four states. brian: at least 18 people have lost their lives including six happened in the state of georgia the catastrophic damage leaving more than 1 million people in the dark, while it struck at dark. steve: and now, the light is coming up and people are able to see the damage. mark tykner from our fox affiliate in atlanta joins us live in murray county where five people were killed overnight. mark? reporter: yeah, simply tragic situation here, in murray county we're about an hour and a half northwest of atlanta. that's where the suspected tornado came through during the overnight hours claiming the lives of five different people. the victims were all in a mobile home community two miles away from where we are we're at the staging area for law enforcement

this particular mobile home community was really hit hard in addition to those five people who died, there were five people at least that were rushed to the hospital and numerous other people who suffered minor injuries. the victims have all been described as adults they lived in three different homes and it appears according to the fire chief that this storm kind of skipped along the area. it left about a five mile path of destruction. it wasn't very wide but it was extremely dangerous and obviously deadly they were hoping to be able to go out this morning, do more assessments and they couldn't rule out the possibility there be more victims but obviously they were hoping there wouldn't bement reporting live from murray county, georgia, for fox news. ainsley: thank you, mark. well the coronavirus is taking a toll on our nations small businesses. brian: no question, 13% already closed, 56% reporting scaling down or adjusting operations and 72% say they are very

concerned. our next guest has a message for those small business owners, whose life seems out of their hands under of the new book "the way i heard it" and host of "returning the favor" mike rowe. mike you know these small business owners, they are extremely worriesed and they are not sure this stimulus program is their ticket to survival. can you blame them? >> no and good morning by the way. nice to see all of you again. steve: good morning. >> yeah, so brian, i heard in the break that i was going to be giving advice to small business owners, and i knew that was coming and i've been thinking about something smart to say and then i listened to bill bennett and just watched that tornado report and do you know what, man i don't have advice. i was so struck by what bill bennett said and i was also struck by the fact that he's going to get incredible blow back for saying it and i just want to say first of all

that i think this is part of the problem. we're trapped in this prison of two ideas where over here we have to all do the same thing and cooperate in an extraordinary fashion and if we do anything here to reasonably question any of the information, we are essentially shut down and that i think is where these small businesses are stuck. they've been listening to people like me, like you, experts and politicians and they pop up on tv and they say things that feel like platitudes. we're all trying to say something that applies to everyone and i think from what i've seen, it's just impossible to do that. maybe your small business is a salon or a mechanical heating contracting business. maybe it's like mine, i have eight employees. there are millions of small

business people all faced with a totally different set of challenges even though we're all basically in the same boat and i'm scared honestly to say something that might be relevant to one but completely irrelevant to somebody else. so i'm going to try and stay in my own lane here for once and talk about other stuff. steve: well you know, mike, you're not alone. nobody in our lifetime has been down this road before, where we know what the right answer is, so i get it. however with your show, returning the favor where you take a look at you take a look at the little guy and you salute the little guys across the country. you're looking at the essentially the first responders, the health care professionals, but then again the people who because of the way it's situated where certain businesses are open we wouldn't be able to get through this without the grocery store being open or the hardware store, and so you take a look at these heros who really for the

first time in their lives are kind of first responders. >> it's true. suddenly, people who never thought of themselves as essential are critical and look, i did that on dirty jobs for 15 years, that was my to the extent that i have a job, its attacked the country on the shoulder every so often and say what about him or her? i'm doing that now with returning the favor but it's in a completely different rubric. we're in a totally different world. i used to have to shake people by the lapel to get them to pay attention to the fact that somewhere, out of sight, out of mind, a guy whose name you don't know in a town you can't find on a map is doing something that makes your life better. it was a struggle to get those stories on the air and now, everybody gets it. the headlines have caught up to the themes of my little shows including the one you mentioned

returning the favor which is on facebook and honest to god steve i've never seen anything like it its been on for four years but i've sat right in this chair for the last four weeks, talking , as i'm talking right now, returning favors in the same format and we've had 15 million people watch this thing. we're absolutely overwhelmed with letters, enthusiasm, and questions about what can we do in our town? we just profiled a woman in san diego who started a food pantry. what she's doing has captured the imagination of her community and truly moved the needle in a way that would normally take a whole team of people a year to accomplish. she's done in weeks, so those stories are important for people to see , bringing it back to small businesses look we're all our own small business business and we all have to stay sane and one way to do that is to look at evidence that demands a verdict and find people who

are truly essential that are making our lives better, and hopefully feel a little bit better about the whole hot mess. ainsley: mike thank you so much and thanks for what you're doing telling these great stories. >> it's a privilege i appreciate it. ainsley: thank you have a good one. well its been about a week since senator rand paul recovered from the coronavirus. how is he feeling? the senator will join us for his first interview since his recovery that's still ahead. when you're confident

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steve: kentucky senator rand paul who is also a doctor is back in action volunteering at his local hospital now that is has fully recovered from coronavirus. he joins us right now for his first interview since recovery. we're also joined by fox news medical contributor dr. mark siegel. good morning, to both of you. senator paul let's start with you. this is a new look for you i don't think i've seen you with a beard before. >> [laughter] well you know they banished me to the basement, they did agree to feed me but nobody would send a razor down, so i guess this is what i got from my quarantine, my quarantine beard. steve: yeah, dr. siegel is going to have a question for you in a minute but first let me ask you. how did it feel to have

coronavirus and what did it feel like to the point where you thought to yourself, do you know what, i think i'm over it? >> well in my case, i had an extraordinarily mild case. i had no symptoms, never had a head a headache, body ache, a fever, a cough, i didn't really have any symptoms in fact i would have never gone to the hospital, i would not have even gone to the doctor's office had i not known this was a bout and i had been traveling so much so it's a bizarre sort of situation that some people get very very sick, even die from this and some people get no symptoms. they've tested people in iceland where they tested a large body of the population of iceland and they found that about 50% of the people were positive have no symptoms, and so there's something about this illness that's not just the illness but your immune response to it and it may be some sort of genetic thing that people are gently predisposed to an overwhelming immune response that ends up making the patient very sick with their lungs filling up with

fluid and then other people like myself get virtually no symptoms steve: dr. siegel? >> senator paul, i want to ask you something a lot of our viewers don't know about you and i know you're too humble to say this yourself but you go around to underserved areas and perform eye surgery, you're an eye surgeon, and that saves vision for a lot of people, and it's something you do that you don't highlight enough. so how does it feel to now volunteer in a covid-19 war, taking care of patients with covid-19 after having had it yourself? does that put you in a better position to address it, to communicate it to know what they're feeling like? >> you know i spent about 20 years in medicine mostly doing eye surgery, but i was also an er physician as well, someone who spent a year doing general surgery, so i've been in-n-out of medicine my whole life. i miss it. it's great to be back working with local doctors some of whom i knew when i was in private practice here but some are new

and younger and i've gotten to know, when i was in practice there weren't many, these were doctors who practiced primarily in the hospital, and that's who i've been working within the hospital, and because i now have immunity, i can't catch it, presumably, i have the ability to go into rooms more often. i have the ability to talk to some of the patients and maybe spend a little more time that anything i can do to prevent a trip of a doctor or a nurse into the room is helpful to them it's also i try to be encouraging to the patient just from a moral standpoint. some of the patients i've been with the biggest thing that both ers them is they can't see family. their family isn't allowed to visit them in the hospital and that's hard on people, young or old. steve: sure, senator let me ask you this. let me ask him one quick question. after it was revealed that you were testing positively, some of your fellow senators said wait a minute, we just saw him at the gym. what's your message to the senators who thought you should not have been there?

>> i think the facts are important. i was told by the louisville health authorities that i didn't need to quarantine. i followed explicitly the doctor 's advice to a tee. i was asked not to quarantine or test. i didn't follow that, i went ahead and got tested but i was not asked to quarantine. in fact i went to a large charity event with 1,000 people there and they told everyone there, unless you had contact with the one who was positive you didn't need to be quarantin ed so i think some of these people overreacted and i think that's true of the country people are scared and frightened and when people are frightened they don't think about the facts they just get mad. steve: sure, all right, marc? >> quick question. senator, there's been a lot of government overreach in all of this i'm sure you agree. how about physicians taking a lead on what to prescribe like hydroxychloroquine and other treatments how about the issue of public gatherings where the governor is saying as you famously said, the governor is saying they are going to track

people who went to church yesterday. how do you feel about the government involvement versus the role of the physician in all of this? >> i think like the governor in michigan, it's her ignorance and hatred of donald trump that caused her to say really ridiculous things. doctors for really since the beginning of modern medicine prescribed drugs off label. it's very expensive to get a drug to be applied to a certain purpose so it's already approved for one purpose like the anti- malaria drug, hydroxychloroquine and it's also used for lupus and a variety of other things, probably half of these other diseases don't have a specific indication because it costs so much money and time to get the fda to do it, so it's not unusual to use something like an anti-malaria drug for rheumatoid arthritis, or lupus, but it's also not that unusual to find a new use for it like we found with the virus. i can tell you that locally, when we've had patients that are sick, they are getting the hydroxychloroquine and there's at least anecdotal evidence that seems to be

working and helping them. steve: and that is the conversation a lot of patients are having with their doctors. dr. siegel thank you very much for joining us live from your studio. >> thanks, steve. steve: and senator rand paul thank you very much for joining us from wherever you are, out there in kentucky. >> [laughter] thank you. steve: all right good luck to you. glad you're on the mend. meanwhile, dozen minutes before the top of the hour and janice dean is joining us right now. janice, it was a terrible day weather wise yesterday, and it looks like it could be another rough one today. >> janice: well the good news is the cold front that was responsible or partially responsible for all of those tornadoes at least 50 reports across the south is weakening and moving across the east coast. we still have watches in effect for the next several hours and several tornado storms for portions of coastal georgia, towards the carolinas. the big problem is the low from the storm system that's bringing

wind gusts in excess of 70 miles per hour over heavily plated areas from d.c., philadelphia, up towards new york city so that's going to be a problem throughout the next several hours, structural damage, and certainly power outages for millions of folks as we go through the next several hours, steve back to you. steve: all right, thanks for your updates throughout the morning, j. d., thank you. meanwhile a tribute from above the air force thunderbirds soaring over the vegas strip to thank healthcare workers. the commander of the thunderbird s is going to join us live next but in 12 minutes on the channel ed henry takes over and here is a preview ed: that was a great tribute looking forward to that steve, terrible tornadoes already killed at least a dozen people in the south devastating parts of louisiana and mississippi other states being affected, congressman ralph abraham gives us the latest from his district, also a medical doctor volunteering at a local clinic struggling with covid-19 we'll get the latest on what he's see ing on the coronavirus, plus there are now dozens of vaccine

trials underway, at least three of them very promising, dr. peter hotes gives us the latest, markets reacting big oil deal president struck with russia and the saudis and maria bartiromo joins us at the opening bell and mail-in voting and a whole lot more ahead of the 2020 election packed show join sandra and me, 9:00-12:00. ♪ limu emu & doug [ siren ] give me your hand! i can save you... lots of money with liberty mutual! we customize your car insurance so you only pay for what you need! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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ainsley: the u.s. air force thunderbirds showing their appreciation for our healthcare workers with this flyover the las vegas strip over the weekend. the thunderbirds put their skills to use, recognizing our doctors and our nurses after the first part of their season was canceled because of the virus. joining us now is one of those pilots, commander of the air force thunderbirds, lt. colonel john coldwell, good morning to you, colonel. >> good morning it's a pleasure to be here thanks for having me on this morning. ainsley: you're welcome, well what an honor that was beautiful. i'm sure the folks in las vegas really appreciated it. who came up with this idea and why did you do it? >> you know it's a good question. i think whenever our show team got canceled at least the first half of it we were really trying to think about how we can still remain relevant in executing our mission during this time with the new normal, so early on we thought of the idea of a flyover over cities we originally were planning on

doing airshows over and as this developed as the virus continued to rise and spread and more restrictions were put in place with what we can do with operations the idea came up we should maybe honor the healthcare workers because we saw what an incredible battle they had with this disease and what tremendous work they are doing to keep our community safe so it started at multiple levels in the military leadership, and then finally, we converged on that solution and when we started flying a couple weeks ago it was something we wanted to do and it's in close coordination with the city, and the faa, the state and local officials, the tower controls, air space controllers in order to make this happen and it came together perfectly this past weekend for us. ainsley: so beautiful. you flew over 18 hospitals and medical facilities along the strip, these are f-16s what a magestic scene that is awesome shows our strengths, so what was the reaction from the community? >> you know the reaction was it was pretty overwhelming. we were surprised at the

response, the magnitude of the response in the community. i think that everybody was looking for something positive we could all rally around and it really did bring people together that we didn't think it was possible so it's incredible see ing neighbors watching the flyover happen we heard stories people could hear folks in their neighborhoods clapping as we flew by, it was absolutely incredible to see the town rally around something positive and a moment where were all united together and the thunderbirds we view ourselves as part of the las vegas identity. we've been here since 1956 and we're here during the good times and during the bad times so i think it was just a real cry for the town, vegas strong, of all of us being together in this knowing we'll make it through. ainsley: yeah, we're all going to make it through because of heros like you and i'm sorry to hear your season was canceled i'm sure it felt good to get up there and fly again. thank you for what you're doing. >> absolutely, thank you it's a pleasure being here today. ainsley: thank you. well, we have information on how you can help your community plus more stories just like that that

are people that are going the extra lengths to help each other deal with this pandemic, so you can find all of that at foxnews.com/americatogether. we have more fox & friends, straightaway.

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>> sendra: the damage to the south is catastrophic and at least 18 people were killed. belton sits right across several states and leaving hundreds of thousands without power. louisiana congressman with no mike rolfe haberman who represents the district hardest hit by the storms will be joining us i had on how his community is doing this morning. but first and the coronavirus pandemic, all 50 states und