at higher risk. infectious disease expert michael osterholm while students can contribute to spread, the risk at schools depends in part on students' ages. >> we look at kids under age 10. we've seen limited transmission. i think when we can continue to move forward with the younger children feeling some relative sense of safety about that. >> reporter: and then there are stories like 49-year-old julie davis, a third grade teacher in north carolina. she died on october 4th, just ten days after developing her first symptoms. her daughter, leanna richardson. do you have any sense of where she may have gotten this? i know she is a teacher. are you concerned that maybe she got it at school? >> due to the uncertainty surrounding covid-19, it is nearly impossible to navigate specifics. i just want my mom to forever be remembered as the hero she was. and if anything else, let her

death be a reminder that covid-19 doesn't care. covid-19 is serious. this is a pandemic. this is not a joke. >> reporter: officials at the district where davis taught say they do not believe she got the virus at school. they say those in close contact with her staff and students have not tested positive, but they are moving classes online in recent weeks because of spread in the community. >> that was adriana diaz reporting from chicago. overseas china is testing 9 million people over the next five days after finding a dozen cases of coronavirus in one port city. such aggressive measures are a hallmark of the chinese response to the pandemic. ramie inocencio reports from shanghai. ♪ ♪ >> reporter: something nearly unthinkable has happened in china, a return to normal. from morning tai chi at

beijing's temple of the sun, to the lunch crush in the central business district. and the rush home at sunset across the avenue of eternal peace. chairman mao tse-tung keeps watch over tiananmen square and a country post new normal. it's hard to believe cities across china with millions of people looked like ghost towns earlier this year. in january, cbs news was the first u.s. network in wuhan where the pandemic started. the government struck back hard and fast, forcing up to 50 million people into lock down for two months. building new hospitals in less than two weeks. welding some families inside their homes. testing and contact tracing descending on new outbreaks with speed. adopting a qr health code system on smartphones. banning nearly all foreigners from entering the country, and

putting everyone who was allowed to return, including yours truly, into a 14-day quarantine at a government designated hotel. all thanks to a mix of authoritarian rule and the memory of sars in 2003. as covid peaked in february, shanghai and the city's historic bund stood eerily quiet. but not any more. this is shanghai now, the masses have returned and most of the masks have not. the sheer normalcy of all this really is very strange, almost as if covid never happened at all. in a country of 1.4 billion people, fewer than 5,000 were officially reported to have died compared to more than 210,000 and counting in the united states. critics of china say its death toll is too low to be true. a fair claim for a country where bad news is often covered up. last week president trump eagerly reminded americans where

covid began. >> it was china's fault, and china is going to pay a big price what they've done to this country. >> reporter: jones from georgia is a sophomore at new york university's campus in shanghai. with a mandatory mask, flash of a health code and temperature check, he attends his classes while most international students fled, jones decided to stay. >> in february i was basically in my dorm the entire time. and then by april things were pretty open. now people sometimes don't even wear masks outside. pandemic is basically nonexistent here. >> reporter: now mixed mode classes from statistics to modern dance are another new normal. some students physically in the room, some virtually. no one raises a fuss. >> everyone in china is very willing to abide by any policy set forth for containment of the disease. one thing that was kind of inspiring to me is everyone did the quarantine. >> reporter: and the result, business is back and bustling

like at china's first shake shack. joyce du is a proud general manager. when did this shake shack close for coronavirus? >> close? >> reporter: yes. >> we're not close. >> reporter: you never close? >> we work an hour a day at all times. >> reporter: what do you think is the most important prevention measure that you want to share with american restaurants? >> wear the mask. >> reporter: as life goes on, the show does, too. in hanjo, 100 miles west, this is cirque du soleil's only show in operation. out of 44 in the world. half of the artists are chinese, the other half international. from the u.s., canada, russia, australia, and france. acrobats have been dancing, spinning and flying to masked audiences since june. >> we all live a normal life. >> reporter: the show's technical director. has there ever been a coronavirus incident? >> not with audience, not with our staff.

so we have been very fortunate. i would say china really is one of the safest places right now in terms of the covid situation. >> reporter: nyu's rourke jones might a degree. >> if i went back to the u.s. i would be a little nervous. >> reporter: he would have a tough time coming back. china is keeping its borders shut to most foreigners to keep the virus out, too. in a country steeped in 3,000 years of history, china's leaders intend norrfor it to be around 3,000 more. >> ramy inocencio in shanghai. thank if stress worsens your digestive issues, try new align digestive de-stress. it combines align's probiotic with ashwagandha to help soothe occasional digestive upsets, plus stress that can make them worse. align digestive de-stress. from the pros in digestive health.

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for you, for the whole family. trusted soothing vapors, from vicks one key to a coronavirus treatment or vaccine may lie in the blue blood of the horse shoe crab. the trouble is it takes a lot of crabs to do the research. and that could point this ancient species. hanson has the story. >> reporter: each year from maine to mexico, guided by the moon, countless horse shoe crabs create an annual journey older than the dinosaurs. one that is crucial in developing a covid-19 vaccine. >> these animals have been on the planet for over 445 million years, give or take a week or two. >> reporter: this is a living fossil. >> yes, it is. that's the male.

>> reporter: scientist john has dedicated his life to studying these so-called living fossils. >> pretty active, very healthy, that's good. >> reporter: he runs the center for environmental research and coastal oceans monitoring program at laloy college, the largest horse shoe crab breeding lab in the western hemisphere. his team tracks 115 beaches around long island. they say the horse shoe crab population is in dire straits. how much time are we looking at before we lose horse shoe crabs? >> i'd say the neck ten years, the next decade is of critical concern. >> reporter: critical concern, not just for the eco system, but also for modern medicine. pharmaceutical companies have relied on these prehistoric creatures for decades, to the dismay of conservationists. it's all because of how their blue blood keeps them safe. a unique feature that helps scientists quickly detect deadly bacterial toxins. >> we recognize and most people recognize that this is a

valuable resource. > reporter: john is an executive director at charles river laboratories. >> it's really -- represents, you know, lots of evolution, and the horse shoe crab blood is exquisitely sensitive to these endough toxins. >> reporter: you've likely never heard of these toxins, but it all started with the professor at johns hopkins university named dr. frederick bang. in 1956 he observed a horse shoe crab become naturally infected with bacteria and witnessed the crab's blood clotting around that bacteria. >> when they're in the shallow water, they're awash with the bacteria. the amoeba recognize it and they clot. >> reporter: that base the basis for this test which checks for bacterial contamination with any product that goes into the body before the manufacturer ships them out including iv drugs, heartland valves, and, yes,

vaccines. >> we have a 150 million-year-old creature that for the last 45 years has improved the safety of medicines for humans and animals. >> reporter: in the u.s., limits have been put on how many horse shoe crabs can be harvested each year. and while the humble horse shoe crab cells can be removed with no apparent harm to the creatures, studies show biomedical harvesting, over fishing for bait collection and coastal development is causing a drop in the population raising major questions about their survival. >> there is a public concern, a real concern about these animals that we lose their habitat, or we lose them coming to shore. once you lose them, they're gone. extinction is forever. >> reporter: but with a global push for a covid-19 vaccine underway, horse shoe crabs are once again in the spotlight, which he hopes will help conservation efforts. >> if enough of people can hear about it and talk to it, that helps in getting the attention. this has been going on long

before a pandemic, as issues for these concerns and animals and our health. so i'm optimistic. i have to be.

this is a crazy story. a man from utah lived to tell the tale after he came across an angry mountain lion and her cubs while hike being outside salt lake city. he didn't have a weapon, but he did have his cell phone and he recorded the whole encounter. carter evans has the story. >> no! get the [ bleep ] away. >> reporter: this is the moment kyle burgess comes across a mountain lion and its cubs on his trail in utah saturday. >> please go away. holy [ bleep ]. >> reporter: the roughly 6 minute encounter occurred when he was two miles from the trail head. >> it was when i got down,

coming down slate canyon is where i ran into the kitty cat. >> reporter: that kitty cat was accompanied by an adult mountain lion seen running toward burgess. that's when he said he knew he was in trouble. >> get the [ bleep ] away. >> you see the two cubs and one runs off. but, yeah, i didn't notice mama was right there. that's when i knew it was not a good situation to be in. >> reporter: the mountain lion follows burgess who slowly backs away while attempting to intimidate the animal with loud noises. >> go away. >> reporter: it hisses and flashes its cheeks several times. >> no! >> reporter: burgess said he had no idea what to do. >> it was all improv. i'm no outdoor expert at all. >> reporter: while encounters like this are unbelievably

rare -- >> you want to make yourself look big. you want to be as loud as possible and then like he did, slowly begin to back away. >> reporter: the mountain lion trying to push him away fromerr cubs. >> these mountain lions are not going to actively attack a human being unless they need to defend themselves, or they're scared. >> reporter: the encounter ends after burgess throws a rock who startles the animal and runs away. after he was safe he could barely hold back his relief. >> it's over. like those six minutes were so long for me. >> reporter: i'm carter evans. >> not sure my first thought would be to grab the phone and hit record, but glad he's safe. that is the overnight news for this wednesday. for some of you, the news continues. for others, check back later this morning for "cbs this morning" and follow us online an time at cbsnews.com. reporting from the nation's

capital, i'm kris van cleave. it's wednesday, october 14th, 2020. this is the "cbs morning news." in the hot seat, supreme court nominee amy coney barrett endures nearly 12 hours of questioning. the key issues she avoided and her take on a possible election dispute. breaking overnight, stopping the count. the supreme court says the u.s. census can end early, why it's considered a victory for the trump administration. and 38 million cases, another sobering milestone in the fight against the coronavirus as two popular athletes test positive for the illness.