all students in the los angeles unified school district. the district says for the first two weeks of online learning, 15,000 high schooldents tat by about 2/3. many districts scrambled to get students devices like laptops and wi-fi after schools closed. but there's a lot of catching up to do. nearly 12 million children do not live in homes with an internet broad band connection. dallas teacher, andrea bazemore works with students from low income households. >> i had a student who was doing her reading lesson, and we were on such a great moment, but we had to stop a ten, 20 minun bec her data had run out, and her mom said, hey, i got to stop. i need to go somewhere with wi-fi because they didn't have wi-fi in the house.

>> reporter: bazemore is communicating with parents any way she can like over textings. she started hosting virtual pizza parties with a different student each friday as encouragement. >> i solicited donations from friends and family, and through those donations, i'm able to provide a pizza at their doorstep, forget all of the things that are happening in our world today and just have a relaxing moment. >> reporter: are you concerned that they're going to be left behind? >> oh, i'm absolutely concerned. we talk about summer slide, how students decline over their reading and math skills over the summer, we're going to have a corona slide and it's going to be very very significant. >> reporter: education expert dr. karen aronian agrees, saying data points to a steep decline. >> this is a crisis right now. we know we're looking at with reading, a 30% dropoff, and in that, 50% for this time frame. >> reporter: aronian thinks

district should begin utilizing retired and substitute teachers to help reach students who don't have internet or devices. >> those potential families would be linked to a teacher that lives nearby them who could drop off a packet of academic work once per week, and check in with them daily. >> reporter: despite her own challenges, asia bryant is hopeful. she plans to attend community college in the fall where she will play softball. >> i hope some how, some way, i can continue to do what i love. i think hopefully playing there as well. it gives me a fresh start. >> reporter: a round of applause for asia because she keeps logging on despite the challenges. the los angeles school district said they will nottude during thisd. now back here in new jersey, some school districts have suspended spring break requiring students to continue online learning, thankfully that didn't happen in our district. we needed a break. this is our attempt to build a

tree house. >> that's meg oliver reporting from her backyard. researchers fear the next wave of contagion will hit latin america. some leaders there, including brazil's president have been dismissing the threat and that's forcing residents to fight the virus themselves. manuel bojorquez has the story. >> reporter: protecting brazil's poorest neighborhoods is too often a do it yourself project. locals fumigate on their own. makers of carnival costumes sew medical scrubs. iconic beaches sit empty as christ the redeemer pays homage to medics. the country's autocratic president continues to mock the virus's threat, posting on you tube cheery appearances at doughnut shops and glad handing with supporters. ecuador's largest city is facing a brutal reality. nearly 2,000 bodies have

reportedly been collected for burial, some in card board caskets. many were left in the streets for days. this is a generational event dr. luis told me from the largest hospital. we have never lived through an emergency like this. i think the biggest problem is that when social distancing was requested, people didn't take it as seriously as they should have, he said. many found it impossible says alexandra muncata director of the organization care in ecuador. >> people cannot afford to stay in their houses, if they have no income. >> reporter: she says latin america's severe inequalities, poor social safety net andere a laid bare. a warning for the region as the virus spreads. >> if our governors don't provide example and have clear messages and that the population should stick to its more dfficult to ensure a rapid

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it was 50 years ago this past weekend that nasa launched the apollo 13 mission. it was supposed to be the third mission to land humans on the moon but two days after the launch, explosion in the spacecraft's oxygen system put the three-man crew in mortal danger, thanks to their quick thinking and the ingenuity of nasa scientist, the astronauts made it safely back to earth. an investigation was launched and one member of the panel looking into what went wrong was neil armstrong, the first man to set foot on the moon. armstrong spent most of his life after the moon walk out of the spotlight, but he did take time of thousands ofters he rece over thesome of those are new book, "dear neil armstrong," jeff glor took a look inside. >> one thing that's really great about these letters is that you never really know what you're going to find. >> reporter: jim hanson is neil arm strong's official

biographer. he wrote the book "first man." >> we need to fail down here so we don't fail up there. >> reporter: and consulted on the movie that followed. >> if he stayed a test pilot, he would have continued to contribute and achieve. >> reporter: hanson's latest project, going through a vast treasure-trove of new letters, the new book he put together "dear neil armstrong" was released this past fall. it's kept at perdue, alma mater of more astronauts than any university, including armstrong, this storage room is not open to the public. tracy grimm is the curator. >> how many correspondents are we talking about here? >> there's at least 70,000 pieces of paper in just the fan mail section alone. the rest of this, 450 some boxes are the rest of neil's life, really. he's in these boxes. he really is. >> reporter: working with grimm,

hanson separated the letters into categories, but there is one prevailing theme. >> yeahor these letters arele m everything. i mean, autographs, pictures, you know, one woman in italy asks for one of his socks. really, it's kind of like holding up a mirror to ourselves, to our culture, here he had become this global icon, stepping on to another world, first person to do that. some people thought he was a demagogue, he had insights into the universe that nobody else had and they wanted him to share those secrets, you know. >> reporter: never one to overstate his accomplishments or claim more knowledge than he had, armstrong didn't always respond but sometimes he did when an environmentalist in philadelphia accused him of polluting the solar system. >> this is someone writing saying they're upset they left things behind on the moon. >> mr. nickerson is concerned about environmental did he g tr.

as you can see from the paragraph, nasa has taken precautions to avoid disrupting the moon. >> reporter: this is a guy living in turkey who sold neil armstrong something when he was there visiting, didn't want to cash the check because it was from neil armstrong, and wrote neil armstrong to say can you send me another check. >> what he did is send a duplicate check, keep either one for yourself, and cash the other, and enclosed is a photograph which you may find preferable to the check, which you may feel free to destroy the second check. >> reporter: the volume of letters ically tomimen letters from cold war nemesis. >> one of the first chapters you deal with is letters from sovie soviets from russians who were congratulationing h

congratulating him. >> that's right. one of the reasons is there was this idea the soviets didn't pay attention to apollo eleven or didn't believe it, or there was no news for soviet citizens to know about but in the armstrong correspondence you, see a lot of letters from not just soviet citizens but the eastern block countries and they were all, none of them were nasty. >> reporter: there are also many letters from kids, some sweet, like this dinner invitation from a young girl, some heartbreaking, including a 14-year-old looking for an autograph. his mother attached a separate letter telling armstrong, the boy didn't know it but was terminally ill. armstrong whose daughter died of cancer at just 2 wrote back immediately. douglas wrote you that hearing from you would be the happiest moment of his life, perhaps it was, just two hours after your letter arrived, he fell sweetly and peacefully asleep with the sweetest little smile on his face, not to awaken again on this earth. >> somewhere you have a new

little guardian angel who joins me in these ♪ this virus is testing all of us. and it's testing the people on the front lines

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the coronavirus pandemic is bringing out the best in a lot of americans. steve hartman has the story of one good samaritan that he found on the road. >> long before social distancing, greg daley was already keeping his customers at arm's length. in fact, to those on his paper route in central new jersey, greg has never been anything more than a blur past their driveway but all that changed when one elderly couple asked him a simple favor, could he please pull in and throw the paper closer to the garage. >> it hit me if she can't get the paper at the sidewalk which is 20 feet from the house in this pandemic, how is she going to get the things she needs, so a couple of days later, i just decided you know what, i'm going to put this note out. >> the note, stuck in the next day's edition said my name is greg daley, and i deliver your

newspaper every morning, which was news to most people. i would like to offer my services free of charge to anyone who needs groceries. from that moment to this, the phone has been ringing off the hook. he takes the orders, does the shopping, and delivers the groceries. not by whipping them out the window but by carefully placing them on the porch. so far, he's delivered to nearly a hundred senior citizens on his route. >> and the word's gotten out. >> and some not on his route. if greg hears about a person who is older or compromised, he will be there, and boy are people grateful. ilene stein is 85 and recently widowed. >> i don't have enough adjectives, he is one of the finest people in the world. >> the lady at this house goes even further, calls him the

closest thing to god. >> there's a level of appreciation here, steve, that goes above and beyond anything i have seen. >> i'm not going to stop. >> you'll stop when this is done. >> greg says, not necessarily. >> there's something about being able to do something really nice for people. >> when you hear folks say america will emerge from this stronger, this is exactly what they mean. greg didn't do volunteer work before. heck, he didn't even do his own grocery shopping before, he's just a guy called to duty by circumstance. who will now stay in service by choice. steve hartman, cbs news, on the road. road. >> steve is also offering his own online class for kids, kindness 101 with new lessons every monday. you might want to check it out. and that is the overnight news for this thursday, for some of you, the news continues. for others, check back later for "cbs this morning" and follow us online anytime at cbsnews.com.

reporting from our nation's capitol, i'm chip ♪ ♪ captio captioning sponsored by cbs >> o'donnell: million cases worldwide. u.s. deaths near 28,000. and tonight, an update on the growing threat in america's nursing homes. why the national guard is moving in to help. plus, governor cuomo today orders all new yorkers to wear masks in public or face a fine, and he warns "we're all in this for the long haul." >> it's over when we have a vaccine. >> o'donnell: tonight, our interview with dr. anthony fauci, who says a vaccine might be ready in less than a year. >> it's possible to shave a couple of months off that. >> o'donnell: reopening america: protesters in michigan demand an end to stay-at-home orders. will the president endorse the plan from the c.d.c. and fema, and governors warn of a second iove of infections if restrictions are lifted too soon.