this is "nightline." >> tonight, state of testing. across america a game of catch-up on covid-19. to quarantining the sick, spotting those with immunity, and jumpstarting the economy. with some taking matters into their own hands. >> i think now it's got to be all hands on deck. plus, testing unknowns. dr. jen ashton and tom bossert on what we do and don't know about antibodies and the government's plan to reopen the country. >> announcer: "nightline" starts right now. with juju chang. good evening. thanks for joining us. tonight the covid-19 death toll in the u.s. surpassing 23,000. with every state reporting at least one fatality. despite the grim numbers the curve in many of the nation's

hot spots like new york seems to be flattening. positive news that's fueling calls to reopen the country sooner rather than later. but many experts say we can't do that safely without fixing a testing system that is falling short. here's abc's matt gutman. >> hi. how are you? i'm dr. fox. nice to meet you. >> nice to meet you too. >> what's your name? >> suselle smith. >> we're going to do a covid test on you. it's a nasal swab. okay? >> reporter: it's just before daybreak in california and dr. katz isn't letting the rain slow him down. donned head to toe in ppe he and his team are conducting test after test for residents here who fear they may have covid-19. >> i'm done? >> that's it. we'll call you with the result. take care. >> reporter: and you're going to

do 150 of these today? >> 150 today, 150 tomorrow and 150 on wednesday. >> they have the tests and the tests are beautiful. anybody that needs a test gets a test. >> reporter: more than five weeks since this promise widespread rapid testing for the coronavirus still remains patchwork at best. in a country of over 328 million people only around 3 million have been tested. and as the country continues to struggle with the outbreak it's becoming increasingly evident that testing for both the virus and its antibodies may be a key component to fully reopening the yet mh about the long-term effects of testing is still to be known. and for some americans it's too little too late. samantha northhart of new york began feeling sick on march 22nd. >> it's a pain throughout my body that i've never had with any other type of flu. >> reporter: samantha knew she'd been in contact with someone who had tested positive.

after five days of symptoms and registering with the health department she reached out to her doctor's office to find out about getting tested there. >> talked to them, explained my timeline, explained my symptoms. the nurse spoke with the doctor and came back and said, so we're calling you a presumptive positive. sorry, there's no access to testing right now. please don't go to the hospital unless you're having trouble breathing. [ coughing ] >> reporter: by day nine samantha's symptoms worsened. she called the health department a second time to try to get a test. >> april 1st was the day that i legitimately almost went to the hospital. the gentleman i spoke to said you have all these trigger things that should have escalated you to the front with a positive case, having all the symptoms, timeline of isolation. you probably should have heard from somebody by now. >> reporter: but her efforts futile. she was never able to obtain a test. >> it's really scary to know that you are the person who has something that could potentially kill somebody else.

>> reporter: even frontline workers are having trouble getting reliable rapid tests. >> as far as testing's concerned i don't think we're catching up. >> reporter: in new york city, the epicenter of the country's outbreak, testing for the city's fire department is woefully inadequate according to gerard fitzgerald, president of the uniformed firefighters association. >> still to this day we're over a month into this now and we still have no ability to get rapid testing with rapid results. >> reporter: the urgency to fix our testing system coming against the background of more and more calls to reopen the country. today president trump said that his administration will put forth a plan to do just that in the coming days. >> that's what we want. we want to have our country open. we want to return to normal life. our country's going to be open. and it's going to be successfully opened. >> reporter: but experts warn that rushing things without mass testing could undo the recent gains that are successfully flattening the curve. dr. patrice harris is the

president of the american medical association. >> the foundation of any informed choices or policy decisions going forward is science and evidence. and one critical piece of this is testing capacity. >> reporter: she says since the beginning of the crisis the united states has been playing catch-up in terms of testing. >> we certainly have been behind regarding testing capacity. so we really need an all hands on deck effort to get the testing supplies that we need to build up the testing capacity that we require. >> reporter: in contrast, south korea is starting to return to normal, thanks in part to mass testing and intensive contact tracing, which helped contain the virus. only 217 people have died of covid-19 there out of over 10,500 confirmed cases. the government program has become the gold standard worldwide. korea is now sending 600,000 of their state-of-the-art rapid

tests to the united states at the request of president trump, expected here tomorrow. the lack of national testing has forced states and private companies to fill the gap. >> i'm getting ready to see the patients. so i have to wear my equipment. everything is in the car. >> reporter: dr. iman barr is a concierge doctor in southern california who says her schedule is now jammed with covid-19 house calls. >> if you can keep that on your mouth but not -- >> reporter: over the weekend dr. barr and teams from local labs were busy administering tests to theseanhaan bch first responders.ti bh the nasa to detect those currently infected and the antibody test to see who has immunity. what role do you think you're playing right now in getting people like these guys back to work? >> so i see myself as a provider that serves in the community to be able to make sure that

nobody's spreading the infection as well. >> reporter: if you learn you that do have the antibodies, will that give you a sense of confidence? >> i think it will just at least make me more reassured -- you know, i have young kids at home and both my wife and i work, so we rely on them and also a daycare to watch our kids. so it gives me some sense with that. because they are, you know, in the at-risk population. >> everybody's at home. >> pretty much quiet shift. >> reporter: there's a concern that because you are on the frontlines you are responsible and some of these guys might be spreading it. >> we know the risk that we take when we come to work. it's a new experience for us to take that risk home to our families. >> reporter: getting people tested on a large scale has not been easy here or pretty much anywhere. >> you know, here in los angeles like so many places we are just left on our own. there are no test that's were being delivered from the federal government. so we had to step up and figure this out ourselves. >> reporter: l.a.'s mayor eric garcetti is calling on the

public to do more than just adhere to social distancing. you already have delegated testing in the city. >> yeah, it's been remarkable to see citizens step up. >> reporter: citizens like sean penn. >> it is a new kind of wake-up call. it's got to be all hands on deck. >> i just want to thank you -- >> reporter: the actor turned activist's non-profit, named core, focuses on communities in crisis. founded back in 2010, the group supports disaster relief around the world. but now the focus is penn's home state of california. operating covid-19 test sites, working with the l.a. mayor's office and fire department, penn and his team are training volunteers to run those drive-thru facilities, a responsibility that often has fallen on first responders. >> we thought we can help here. >> reporter: when i first spoke to penn and core's ceo ann lee about two weeks ago, they had just opened their first testing site. >> safety is our number one

concern. we have so much training right now. it is our biggest area of focus. >> we have about a six-foot hot zone limit for our volunteers. they're in full ppe. they are describing through the window of the car what to do. the closest that they ever get is on the hand-off through the window of the kit. then they observe the kit being used, making sure that the people understand how to use it. >> all these are the core volunteers. >> reporter: this weekend when we visited them in west los angeles, they were up to six locations and say they have tested more than 42,000 people. >> we should be on pace to have done 100,000 tests by first week may. >> reporter: wow. >> and hopefully hoping to expand far beyond that as we go along. as long as it has to be done. >> reporter: it's a concept that penn believes is scalable. >> you stay home and stay healthy. okay? >> reporter: and is the idea to have an army of volunteers like this administering tests across the country? maybe not by core but by

replicating this with other ngos. >> yeah, that is -- that's the dream goal. >> reporter: at this rate the good work of volunteers may be our best shot for one of the most important pieces of this puzzle. >> next! >> our thanks to matt. up next, how can widespread testing help restart the american economy? our dr. jen ashton and former homeland security adviser tom bossert weigh in. i have moderate to severe pnow, there's skyrizi. ♪ things are getting clearer, yeah i feel free ♪ ♪ to bare my skin ♪ yeah that's all me. ♪ nothing and me go hand in hand ♪ ♪ nothing on my skin ♪ that's my new plan. ♪ nothing is everything. keep your skin clearer with skyrizi. 3 out of 4 people achieved 90% clearer skin at 4 months. of those, nearly 9 out of 10 sustained it through 1 year. and skyrizi is 4 doses a year, after 2 starter doses. ♪ i see nothing in a different way ♪

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nationwide consistent testing to be quick? >> so many reasons, juju. first, we need to get rapid results, meaning within five or 15 minutes so, we can go through the basic first steps with an infectious disease outbreak. we need to be able to detect, diagnose, isolate, and treat people who test positive. we also know based on new data that's just come out of iceland where because they have such a small country they're testing basically anyone who wants to get tested. that now as high as 50%, half of people who test positive, may show no symptoms at all. so we also need to be able to test a lot of people in order to track silent transmission and know where this virus is. >> that has a lot of implications. tom, the u.s. lost weeks of precious time getting testing up and running compared to other countries like germany and south korea, which allowed them to contact trace. what lessons can we learn from those other countries and how do we make up for that lost time? >> i think the biggest lesson

there is we don't want to repeat the same mistake twice. we have to come up with a plan that allows us to use those tests on people that may be symptomatic but don't feel really that bad. so the idea of changing the standard, to dr. jen's point of who gets the test, will help us improvise to make unfor the scarcity of tests we're seeing and this competing need to get back to work. >> and jen week, seeing a number of major studies being launched on antibody testing in the u.s. does the presence of antibodies mean you're definitely immune, and how long might that immunity last? because there are now some reports that people are test positive twice. >> exactly. and we have to remember, this virus is barely four months old, so we're still learning a lot about it in real time. and we're extrapolating a lot based on what we know from other coronaviruses. so in general, those antibodies when we're exposed to an infection tell us kind of three -- a few more categories of people. it tells us who's susceptible, who may be actively infected.

you sometimes can tell that with antibody tests. and who has recovered. but what we don't know with this particular virus is when those antibodies show up, how long they last, and how powerful they are or even if they convey any degree of immune protection against that virus down the road. >> tom, beyond testing for the virus the fda has approved a company to roll out antibody tests, and we know how crucial that is, to see if people have been exposed to covid. but how crucial is knowing antibody status as a road map for getting back to business? >> we won't have perfect knowledge, but we're going to have to make decisions. we can't wait for that perfect knowledge. that's kind of the mistake we made the first time. so to dr. jen's point, we're taking the lessons of history, we're assuming with a high degree of credibility and a lot of doctors that have studied this, that people that have been exposed and who have recovered are going to have some degree of immunity. >> tom, everyone is understandably wanting to get back to business. governors are saying they're forming regional alliances to discuss how and when to do that.

even dr. fauci has talked about a rolling re-entry, which could start as early as next month, saying these immunity cards, proving you've already had covid might have been able to get us up and running. how realistic is that, given how unreliable our testing has been? >> yeah, i think the first thing to focus on there, though, is that there's regional formations of groups and there's a rolling set of conditions. one of the things the president has said is he needs to change his messaging on is he's going to make some big decision as if it's a binary light switch that's either on or 'rng see peoplofe come back in different regions based on different conditions. so the answer to your question, then, chases based on where you are and what the test results are in your region and what those conditions of risk acceptability and risk -- willingness to take risk your leaders might have. and i think the medical science community right now and dr. jen and others are working on, this are trying to put out those conditions. that would be reasonable risks for us all to take. >> tom, you talk about regional

differences and dr. jen, i'd be curious for your thoughts. president trump suggested that widespread testing isn't necessary. if you go to iowa, quote, nebraska, there are big differences, lots of land, you don't need testing there. thoughts? >> well, we don't know. and we don't know until we start testing. and we have to be able to prioritize care and resources based on those testing results. and sometimes the more rural locations are actually those with the highest-risk medical population. they have less access to medical care. they live farther away from testing or treatment facilities. and so right now we're not at the point yet where we can just use the map of the united states to dictate who gets tested and when. >> dr. jen ashton, tom bossert, thank you both so much for your insights. >> thanks, juju. >> thank you. >> and up next, celebrating a life well lived and a friend gone too soon here at abc. or for hospitals to get back to normal again.

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♪ and finally tonight, paying tribute to one of our own. thea tractenberg was a producer's producer. 20 years at "gma."

an anchor whisperer who worked alongside the best. >> thea tracthenberg was a force on this show. >> reporter: but whose heart was also with rank-and-file producers. with her razor sharp wit she was disarmingly honest, no b.s., she was gentle but steely, self-deprecating yet confident. thea was a new yorker, an uptown girl who lived in the same upper eastside building her entire life. her obsessions ran from "star wars" to "buffy the vampire slayer" but also the theater. at her beloved wesleyan she studied drama and she saw so much of it throughout her career. a front row seat to history. as one senior producer rhymed, world leaders, celebrities, candidates, muppets, authors, trump kids, and sesame street puppets. from the oval office to the office, she's met quite the crew. luke skywalker, bono, ahmadinejad too. >> it was nice to see her with the president, but her fellow

colleagues, they really, really loved her. that's what we should remember. >> reporter: a two-time cancer survivor, thea's generous heart gave out after a prolonged illness. she was just 51. she would have been blown away that luke skywalker himself along with the entire abc news family is mourning her loss. >> your friends at "nightline" are grateful to you and we'll forever hold you in our hearts. thanks for staying up with us. we'll see you right back here tomorrow at the same time. good night, america. ♪ pa, da, pa, pa, da, pa, pa, da, pa ♪ ♪ jimmy kimmel live >> from his house! >> jimmy: greetings. it is i, the alone ranger.

we are back in our regular time slot with an abbreviated version of our show. we'll be on for half an hour, followed by "nightline" and this will be the plan until the shackles come off. i hope you had a happy easter. we had one of those family dinner video conference -- this is what our easter was like. "unmute yourself. grandma, you have to -- we can't hear -- hit unmute!" it was less like an easter dinner and more like i was hosting a non-celebrity reboot of "hollywood squares." but that's what you do. easter's a tough one during a pandemic. every two minutes we're telling our kids to wash their hands. then all of a sudden we're like yes, go ahead and eat those jellybeans you found under a bush. our 5-year-old, jane, told my wife for real, "i promise if i see the easter bunny i won't hug him." so some lifelong psychological traumas are definitely being formed here. i will say that as a parent easter makes you realize what a solid backstory santa claus has. santa lives at the north pole. he has elves who make toys.