this is "nightline." tonight, small businesses, struggling to survive the pandemic. >> how are they going to feed their families? >> seeking help from the government, at times falling flat on promises of financial relief. now we follow the money, why some businesses walked away loans they didn't need, while many of the most vulnerable got nothing. plus, cases of covid-19 surging to their highest level in the u.s. in months. nearly 35,000 cases in one day. now the otherwise healthy patients stuck with long-term symptoms, leaving doctors stumped. >> you think you've beat it. and then you have these kindf episodes that come in and scare

you all over again. >> "nightline" starts right now with juju chang. >> good evening. thanks for joining us. the government spent $2 trillion to shore up our economy by helping struggling businesses hit by covid. tonight, where did the money go? critics say millions were squandered on companies who didn't need it or wasted on lavish spending. why many small businesses say the promised government relief is nowhere to be found. here's abc's rebecca jarvis. >> reporter: 14 years ago, rosie flores opened her shop in fresno. an american dream rooted in a mother's dying wish. >> i promised her that i would do it on my own, since i worked for so many people for so many years. so i decided to open it. and my mom passed a couple of weeks after we opened the shop. >> reporter: but now her flower shop is on the brink of permanent closure.

the pandemic cutting sales by 80%, and the federal aid that was promised to small businesses like hers doesn't seem to be coming. >> there's billions of dollars that are there. i'm hoping and praying that with our determination each one of us, that we will be able to receive something. some type of funding to help us. >> reporter: she's just one of many small businesses who desperately need the money and are running into one roadblock after another as they try to navigate the government program meant to be their lifeline. with some so frustrated that they're taking their grievances to court. >> it was just a brick wall. every time you went in, it was a brick wall. >> reporter: now signs of incompetence and big business influence are starting to surface. critics decrying the millions handed to well-established corporations. one man accused of spending his

loans on luxury items like jewelry and cars, like people like torres are running out of time. >> when everything falls, like it's a domino effect. >> reporter: it's all tied to the cares act, an all-encompassing $2 trillion aid package meant to help the millions of americans impacted by covid-19. a portion has gone into the paycheck protection program meant to provide relief for small businesses and their employees. about 100,000 small businesses have permanently closed since the pandemic hilt in march. and 45.7 million americans have filed new claims for unemployment benefits in just the last 13 weeks. >> in this small community here that i'm aware of, only one has received the grants. all the others that i know of have not received anything yet.

>> reporter: rosie torres is one of those minority female business owners the president said would benefit from the program. but with no federal aid and business declining, she's had to lay off three employees. when did it start to really hit you how concerning this would be financially for your business? >> maybe the first month that we were closed, having to, you know, pull from our savings to make sure even for the people that work here was a big concern. how are they going to feed their families? >> reporter: torres says she spent months caught in a ppp run around, trying to get responses from banks who were put in charge of processing the loans. >> first, i used our bank that we use for our business, and they referred me to a different source, never got a reply. so i decided to go through a different bank, and they

referred me, i'd have to have a business loan through their bank, which we didn't. so i called the sba here, but i got a returned e-mail saying that they weren't accepting them anymore. >> reporter: you basically tried to apply for these loans through it sounds like four different banks. >> yes. >> reporter: meantime, large corporations like shake shack, ruth's chris steakhouse and the l.a. lakers initially received $35 million in loans, due to loose guidelines that qualified them as small businesses. and after facing public backlash and outrage, all three returned the money. but even the businesses who managed to receive the money are realizing that ppp may not be a failsafe solution. >> for most of our employees, this was their first job ever. >> reporter: a coffee franchise that employs people with intellectual and physical disabilities has been amy wright's pride and joy. after a covid shutdown, their

reopening day was one full of hope. >> can you tell i'm smiling at you? >> yes. >> i'm happy to see you. >> reporter: after receiving ppp funding in early april, they were singled out as a prime example for the program's success, earning a trip to the white house. >> we will continue to take up the charge and help everyone, especially with people disabilities pursue the american dream. >> reporter: but the loan money which was intended to carry her business during the shutdown has been spent, and now sales are down 90%. wright says she used the loans to keep her 120 employees on payroll and pay off rent and utilities for eight weeks of the national shutdown. she's now had to lay off half of her employees. >> there's a sliver of me that was hoping we would prove everybody wrong, and this would be the one place that people would just pour back into, but the reality is, it's still a scary time. >> reporter: while people like wright use the money to keep her business afloat, there are fears that others may have been using

the money fraudulently. love and hip-hop reality star maurice fame, aka arkansas mo,m, received more than $2 million for his transportation company. federal authorities allege he spent most of those funds, more than $1.5 million worth on himself, buying fancy jewelry and leasing a 2019 rolls-royce. he was arrested on federal bank fraud charges in may, but his lawyer, tonya miller, says mo should be the least of everyone's concerns. is he prepared to give that money back? >> i certainly am not commenting on his defense, because that is the subject of a criminal investigation. we really need to be looking into why it was that some individuals in connection with larger corporations were able to pay back money and continue on with their life, and other individuals are on the opposite end of the federal indictment.

>> reporter: he denied using any of the ppp loan proceeds to pay his personal debts and expenses. critics say that's part of the problem, that we don't know how the money is being used and who received the funds [ we don. >> we don't have the data. >> reporter: katie porter helped sponsor the care act. do you think they passed it too quickly? >> we were having to face the reality that the coronavirus pandemic was unfolding quickly. cases were skyrocketing, and i think even at that time i don't think we fully understood. so we acted quickly to try to get those resources out there, because we were hearing from small businesses, we can't make end of the month payroll in march. >> reporter: porter thinks transparency is necessary. >> it's not enough to have a portion of the data, we need to have a look at the entirety of the program. >> reporter: rosie torres has yet to receive any ppp money. instead, last week she noticed a

random $3,000 deposit in her bank account, federal money from a separate disaster loan fund she had applied for earlier this year. at the time, she was told it couldn't be fulfilled, because funds had run out. >> there's a gap somewhere that it's not being filled in to be able to help people. >> reporter: while she's grateful for the money, she says it's only enough for one month and could disqualify her from receiving more money through ppp or other grants. >> we would be hoping for the best, to have something that would help us from the government to not be able to pay it back, but just say okay, you're going to work for this. it's a grant. we're going to ep hhelp you. we're going to pick you up. but, if not, we'll just start all over. and start from the beginning. which is notar just keep doing it. >> reporter: for now, all she can do is cling to hope. >> the american dream is to own

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tonight, the u.s. is seeing its highest number of covid-19 infections in months. surging to nearly 35,000 cases in just one day. and, if numbers continue to climb, the cdc forecasting the country could soon see 150,000 deaths by mid july. also concerning doctors, a growing mystery surrounding patients suffering from symptoms for months or weeks. so-called long haulers. i spoke with an actor who starred in "frozen" on broadway. healthy and active before his first diagnosis in march. this marks 100 days of symptoms on and off.

how are you feeling today? >> today's pretty good. it's a little bit of tightness in my chest, but it's a better day, i could say. >> but you say you've had these relapses that essentially have never stopped. tell me how it waxes and wanes. >> well, i would say that is the worst of it, honestly, what happens is you feel as if you're better, and you've shaken it, you've kicked the virus. but then what happens is it creeps in, and i start getting this tightness in my chest, and i start coughing, and i'm clearing my throat constantly. and then it gets to a point where i have to think to breathe, so it's extremely uncomfortable, and it's scary, and, you know, it's kind of a nightmare psychologically, because you think you've beat it, and then you have these kind of episodes that come in and scare you all over again. >> and while much of the country is getting back to business and reopening and, in some ways,

letting their guard down, you're feeling very passionate about this. this week you posted on facebook. can you read us that post? >> sure, yeah. i wrote, i cried watching the news tonight. cases are spiking. the president makes jokes about coronavirus. people shame others for wearing masks. the country is making it a partisan issue. i'm on a support group with literal thousands of people called covid long haulers who have an infinite list of health problems from having covid, sorry, not sorry, for scaring you, but i wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. ? what inspired you to publish that. do you think people aren't taking it seriously enough? >> that's exactly right. i watch the news, and i see people getting this virus, and what i went through was so s

e scarey for me and anxiety ridden. and i don't want people to go through that. >> i want to take a minute and bring in dr. sutton, a contributor working on the front lines. dr. sutton, the world health organization says 80% of covid patients recover within two weeks. what is the medical community learning about these so-called long haulers like adam who are now weeks or months into symptoms? >> yeah, so i have to thank adam first off for telling his story, because i think it validates the story of many who don't see a physician. we simply don't know enough. this virus is only six months old, and speaking to that 80%, we have over 2 million cases in the united states, and that equates to 1.6 million people who probably have covid or don't need the immediate care of a medical provider. and those people suffer chronic fatigue, muscle pain, mental fog

and confusion. i've been seeing these more and more of patients coming in six, eight and nine weeks after their initial diagnosis. >> and you mention so much is unknown. what are some of the leading theories as to why this is happening, and are some of these patients retesting positive? >> some theories involve that it is persistent and the exist. another is that our own immune response is what is causing us to have these chronic symptoms. many people may not realize, during the height of the pandemic we had many people who had this viral pneumonia, and that viral pneumonia was attributable to a lot of cells battling the lungs and causing difficulty breathing. we're seeing that now with people coming in with confusion, body ache, continued shortness of break. and it could be assimilated to

this chronic response. >> the mental strain and anxiety is almost more challenging than the physical challenges. this is clearly not a straight-line recovery for everyone. >> i can understand how it might feel if you are a person walking around fit and able-bodied. and all of a sudden your faculties are gone and you don't have that ability. anytime that happens, whether over a short period or long period, the question everyone asks me and they ask themselves is, is this permanent. and i think that's very much associated with the ideation that it's very difficult to understand what will the knox d next day look like? how do i rearrange my life to accommodate it. >> adam, i saw you nodding your head. as a broadway actor and dancer, it requires stamina and lung capacity to do your job. are you worried about getting back into shape and being 100%? >> yeah, absolutely. everything the doctor said i've kind of experienced where i would wake up one day and think

i was completely back to normal and the next day i'm just, you know, three steps back again. in terms of my lung capacity. and i've been trying to build my endurance every day and work my lungs and get them going, but it's scary, i've been dancing and singing on broadway for the past 20 years, and all of a sudden i don't have the capacity that i had anymore. so i'm just trying to stay hopeful for the future that they will get back to normal. >> well, adam, dr. sutton, thank you both for sharing your wisdom and insights with us. be well. >> thank you so much, appreciate it, guys. up next, mary w. jackson, nasa's hidden figure hidden no more. rco...! polo! marco...! polo! marco...! polo! sì? marco...! polo! scusa? marco...! polo! ma io sono marco polo, ma playing "marco polo" with marco polo? surprising. ragazzini, io sono marco polo.

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and fly tonight, a hidden figure no longer. mary w. jackson, the pioneering first black female engineer at nasa, paving the way for women of color in math and science. now her legacy enshrined. the agency announcing its headquarters will be named in her honor. jackson part of a small but

overlooked group of black women hired by nasa to help america win the space race. her scientific contributions highlighted in the film "hidden figures." >> would you wish to be an engineer? >> i wouldn't have to, i'd already be one. >> recognition long overdue. we'll see you right back here tomorrow at the same time. thanks for staying up with us, good night, america. ♪ ba, da, ba, ba, da, ba, da, ba, da, ba, da, bra, da, bra, da, ♪ ♪ "jimmy kimmel live"! this is ridiculous! >> from his house! >> jimmy: hi there. i'm getting word that my name is jimmy kimmel and i'm the host of what they say is some kind of a

"talk" show, so that's exciting. thank you for joining me. today is -- actually, i have no idea what day today is. guillermo, what day is it? >> guillermo: oh, i don't know, i'm very drunk. >> jimmy: at least you have an excuse. hey tony, grammy, and emmy award-winner andre de shields, what day is today? ♪ it's thursday, thursday, thursday night ♪ >> yeah! >> jimmy: oh, okay. it's thursday. that's good. that means "the cosby show" was on, right? i don't even know what decade it is. county officials here in los angeles, just released guidelines for re- opening our schools. there are a lot of them, they're going to have students walk single file in the hallways. there will be strict seating on buses, staggered recreation time in the schoolyard. basically, it sounds like a prison where you have to learn geometry. classrooms will be limited to 16 seats, spaced 6 feet apart.