captioning sponsored by wshour productions, llc >> woodruff:ood evening. i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight: another dark milestone. the u.s. death toll rises pa 4,500, as top health officials warn that the best case scenario will mean hundreds of thousands die. then, the question of sks. as medical experts send mixed whgnals on whether wearing a mask is needed, at we know so far about facial protection and the pandemic. plus, the pandemic abroad. how taiwan got it right, preparing early and urgently to meet the threat of covid-19. >> when i first arrived home, there were like three or four text messages. "welcome back to taiwan, this is the c.d.c., we're just checking to see if you're okay." a >> woodruff:ll that and more,

on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding forwshe pbs neur has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our ecoarmy for 160 ye bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> fidelity investments. >> consumer cellular. >> financial servis firm raymond james.

>> supporting social entrepreneurs and their solutions to the world's most pressing problems-- skollfoundation.org. >> the lemelson foundation. committed to improving lives through invention, in the u.s. and developing countries. on the web at lemelson.org. >> supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation.mm ted to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. re information at macfound.org >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: >> this program was made possible bthe corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: the united states

has more than 200,000 ofcoronavirus infections a tonight, with some 4,500 deaths. that comes as the world health organization is warning that the global count will shortly top one million cases within days, with 50,000 deaths. new york remains one of the hotspots, hn yang begins our coverage tonight. >> yang: as the coronavirus death toll in new york city nears 2,000 people, officials warned today that falities in the pandemic's ecenter will continue to rise. new york governor andrew cuomo said that should be a warning to all of america. >> i say to my fellow governorsn elected officials all across this country, look at us today, see yourself tomorrow. >> yang: in new york harbor, the u.s. navy hospital ship, the "comfort," prepared to care for non-covid-19 patients in hes of easing the strain on

overwhelmed hospitals. and in florida, governor ronsa is today issued stay-at- home order, a step he had resisted for several days, even as cases in his state had risen. meanwhile, the navy responded to the request from the commander of.s.s. "theodore roosevelt," docked in guam, ir evacuate theaft carrier's 5,000-person crew to stem an onbod outbreak. >> we cannot and will not remove althe sailors from the ship, and that's not what the commanding officer asked for, nor the medical team. our plan has always been to remove as much of crew as we can while maintaining for the ships' safety. >> yang: in detroit, people lined up for a drive-through testing site. the city is facing an uptick in cases, and officials say it's shaping to be the country's next hotspot. mayor mike duggan: >> somebody brought the virus

into this community early on. it spread in this community before we knew what was happening, and the places in this country that are getting hit are the places that were infected first. >> yang: as that grim reality settles in, president trump has begun preparing americans for the worst. at the white house yesterday, he said he has been on top ofhe the issue fromtart. >> i knew everything. i knew it could be horrible, and i knew it could be maybe good. don't forget, at that time, people didn't know that much about it, even the experts.in we were taabout it. we didn't know where it was going. >> yang: but, in late january..o >> we have illy under control. control.nd we have it underrom it's going to be just fine. >> yang: the white house late yesterday published projections at suggest the virus will take ateast 100,000 americans' lives in the cominmonths. already inurope, there have been 300,000 deaths. in hard-hit ain, empri streets in m save for a few pigeons. a stoplight turned green, buto

there wecars on the road. the country has recorded more than 100,000 cases, includin fernando simon, who is leading the country's respse. today, he spoke from his home. >> ( translated ): right now, we are not in the battle to see if we are or are not in the maximum infection point, because its appeat we are there and we are descending. so now the battle is to make sure that our health system is ableo guarantee the adequate cover for all of our patients in treatment. >> yang: elsewhere in europe, police tape surrounded empty moscow playground. prague's river banks, london music arenas have turned into testing centers. also in london: this timelapse video of a 4,000-bed hospital being built in just two weeks. the nightingale hospital opened to the public today help care for an iof coronavirus patients. meanwhile, the wimbledon tennis tournament, four months away, joined the growing ranks of

events called off due to te pandemic, thfirst time it's been canceled since war ii. but in italy, a glimmer of hope: >> ( translated ): we must notth confusfirst positive signals that we are seeing in these hours with an "all clear" signal. data and the statistical projections made by experts show that we are on the rht path and that the drastic decisions we have adopted so far are starting to bear fruit. >> yang: officials there say they will staynder a national lockdown until at least april 13. for the pbs newsur, i'm john yang. >> woodruff: the rising tide of inctions drove financial markets sharply lower today. on wall street, the dow jones industrial average lost 973 points to close at 20,943. the nasdaq fell 339 points, and the s&p 500 slipped nearly 115 points. and now, to a public official who has personally battled the disease, and is now trying to lead his city during this crisis.

i am joined by miami mayor francis suarez, recently out of a 19-day quarantine. mayor suarez, thank you very much for joining us. we are very glad to see d u recovered ome through this, but i want to start by asking you about governor desantis' decision or announcement today that he is finally joining, what, 30 other governors around the country in ordering a stat statewide stay-at-home in florida. was this the right te, or did he wait too long? >>ell, it definitely was time. we had ordered a stay-at-home order in the city of miami days ago, if not wks ago, and we're the first city in dade adopt order a stay-at-home, the first city to order a curfew. so it was important and imperative that the governor do likewise. i think, when it's all said and done, we're going to look back d we're going to ask

ourselves, did we do everything we could do to prevent thi virus from spreading in our communities, and i think that now.st rightr gui the other concern i have is our airport, which brings in 20 million people and where 50 million people come through oor city. >>uff: did you urge the governor during this time since your city issued stay-at-home h from todae you been urging the governor to do this?n >> i have beennstant communication with e governor, and i let him know when we issued our stay-at-home ord that we would welcome a well.we stay-at-ho order as i think, at the time, you knw, there were 20 counties that dids not have any , and five counties that ha five cases or less, but i think the issue is that we, again, have to do everything we can do, which is why we are the first city to cancel large events, to issue a stay-at-home order, to issue a dcurfew, because we have everything we can to prevent the spread of this virus, incmyludig

lf, who wa the second person in dade county that tested positivor >> woodruff:ure. well, tell us about the situation in miami city, what is it looking like there with regard to the number of cases and how people are being handled, their medical situation? >> we are sort of the ter of florida, we have the most cases in the entire state. we are ramping up our ability to test. we just opened a testing site yesterday, we're zesting several hundred people a day which means most likely that our cases areti going to ce to go up, and we don't believe we are anywhere i find it hard to believe i was only the second person positive in the ente county, so there's probably hundreds if not thousands of people that arein undiagnosed or that we don't know are positive. so we need toet control of exactly how many people are positive. we have to do contact tracing to make sure that we cankeo, l we said, everything that we can

to get -- tolatt this curve. >> woodruff: do you have th people, the personnel, te supplies, the equipment that you need to de with what's gong on in your city? >> we are very important, our fire chief identified this threat very early on during the time it was in wuhan right around the time of the super bowl. we hosted the super bowl this year in erly february, and he started purchasing personal tprotective equipment bacn, spent millions of dollars, even without getting authorization, and, so, we are well stocked. i have been in constant communication with thes hopital system. our public hospital system, which is the fourth largest in the country. i have been toldr am being told, so far, has sufficient beds, but as we've seen withs italy, as we'vn with spain, as we've seen with new york, this r on hospital services can happen very, very quickly, and, so, we are trying to ad capacity to our hospital system by having, as owyou re sing in some of the opening clips, by

having portable beds available off-site in some of our parks. >> woodruff: and at this point, tell us what effect it's having on the broader community. clearly, people staying at home, people in every occupation, job you can imane, there's no income. how are you dealing with that? >> that's an enornrmous con especially since it's april 1, the beginning to have the month. so i'm of the opinion, i've written the governor, and i will ask the president here in this n show, d to have mortgage and rent relief middle east. there needs to be a suspension, whether it's 60 days, 90 days, of mortgage and rent payments, t people ne be able to have enough money to eat, and that's got to be the st important and essential thing that people use their money for. wen the city allocated $2 million to feed our elderly and 1 million to feed those below the poverty level. if we don't take dramatic steps

to make sure that we alleviate o sothe more significant financial burdens in people's lives, my feais it could get apocalyptic. >> wdruff: apocalyptic? you really mean that? >> yeah, i mean, you have to understand that, in a city like miami, after nine days, you know, without power, when there's a hurricane, it gets -- it can get pretty apocalyptic. people can get pretty desperate when they don't have some of the basic, to me what's imperative is residents get mortgage and rent relief middle east so they can use the money they have in conjunction with the get from the state and federal government to pay for the most basic neces ities. thwhat people will be focusing on. i hope we don't ever get to anyp apocktc-type scenario, of obviously, and we are doing everything in the city to prevent that from happening, and we have to prepare ourselves re the economic impact this is

having on people's lives. suarez of miami city, we wish you e best with all of that and we're glad to see you better coronavirus.through the thank you very much. >> thank you so much. woodruff: as you've been hearing, this is a tough time for many hospitals, in largein cities, anmaller os, and there are growing concerns for rural areas as well. the next few weeks are expected to be especially difficult, as workers are pressed, and thereio is s concern over protective equipment. william brangham has the latest in our series of conversations with healthcare workers and officials on the front lines. >> brangham: we get two perspectives on this now, from s at medical centers

around the country. dr. phillip coule is the chief medical officer for augusta university health system in augusta, georgia. and michael dowling is the president and c.e.o. of northwell health in new york. gentlemen, thank you both very much for being here. i know you're busy trying toor carell the people coming through your doors and we appreciate you being here. michaedowling, to you frst, all of us who are not in new york are following what has been going on there, e see how difficult it seems to be. you run the biggs healthcare system in that state. could you just give us a sense, how are things there, what ar your i.c.u.s like, are they full now? >> yes. obviously, we're in the epicenter right now in new york. it is he can tick, tremely busy. the numbers are pretty extraordinary. in our health syem alone right now, we've got about 2500 sitive patients,

covid-positive patients in our hospitals. at grows every day by about 300. i mean, everything about a hospital, everything about the way you work a month and a half ago is all different. the hospitals are king togetherwe're collaborating, but we're managing and trying, obviously, to stay ahead of it because t're in midst of a major, major battle here with a very resilient competitor, the virus. but my view is we will per zit here and, at the end of the day, we will make sure that we winn this battle against this virus, and that the the optimism you've got to have in a situation like this. understand, bein georgia,e, i you might be a little bit behind where new york is rig now. i understand that u have been doing an enormous amount of testing of patientsnd of people in the general

population. due give us a sense of what the testg allows you to do? >> sure. we he advantage of being later inhis wave of patient that we expect from covid 19. we have a distinct advantage, being an academic medical center at augusta university where we were able to get ahead of the curve o on testing, and we have been testing quite some time a very efficient telemedicine screening program as well as a driveup testing program that has allowed us to identify those at risk and identify positive cases to help us stay ahead ofh tis. other areas within georgia, as you know, even rural areas have been hit hard, particularlya, albany, georome of those patients are being transferred to us and then oter rural areas where this appearso be hitting harder, those patientare coming the our facility. but as of right now, we have a team that has helped us keep ahd of this thing. >> reporter: i'm curious,

dr. coule, staying with you for ha moment, we know lots of hospitals facing very, very sick patients have had to wrestle with these very wrenchi decisions thin an era of limited capacity, limited supply of things like ventilators, that people have to wrestle with how do we decide who gets a sca ae ventilatd who doesn't. how do you think about those things? w do you as a system debate those things? >> sure. so one of the principles of a disaster itriage, and you have to triage and make very difficult decisions abou who is the greatest benefit for a exntilator. fople, if you can project that a very elderly patient is not going tvisur, then perhaps, if you do have scarce resources, then you need to reallocate that resource. no we're not to thantt poi and we have the advantage of being able to have those

discussions in the setting of tee calm before the storm. others, unfortu, have been thrown into making those very difficult decisions very early. as it stands now, our medical center, we are counting the surplus of ventilators. we are worried about it, but, right now, we're in good shape. >> reporter: michael dowling, obviously as the head of a much bigger system, i'm curious, you have an enormous number plof ees who are working with people on the front lines. how is your staff- howe those frontline workers holding up? i understand some of your staff havelready themselves become infected. >> yes, we've had quite a number of stafft infected boon the buont lines as well in as in the management staffi have been out on the floors, and i have been out in the i.c.s and out meeting with staff, and i can tell you that, when you're out there and you watch the dedication and the commitment of aese stff, it is pretty

extraordinary. a key part of it, of course, is making sure that you have the supplies. all of theebate in the national media about masks and gowns and gloves and ventilators gets people concerned, not only public.viders but also the but when you're able to assure your employees that you have the p.p.e.s, personal protective equipment, that they don't have of worry about that, that one your mainly foresight is to make sure the staff is safe and secure, that helps enormously. >> reporter: deed. dr. coule, we have been seeinggo rnors, mayors, public health officials all across the country saying we need everyone stay inside. if you're not app essentialse worker, pltay home and keep your distance from others. i understanthat has been a particularly challenge in rural areas around you where people are simply not listening to those warnings. >> it has, in fact. we were particularly concerned worship and actually actively of

our pastoral staf acively reached out to them to encourage them to not hold in-person services. unfortunately, we do have some churches to the south of usthat we either didot reach or they m didn't get tssage, but they held in-person services despite that, and we're now seeing the impact of that with outbreaks that are tied to those churches. reporter: all right, yo both are obviously doing incredibly important work, and we thank you both very much for ding here. -- being here. dr. finish finish and michael dowling. >> thank you very much. for having me. >> woodruff: in the day's other news, there is word from u.s. intelligence that china vastly under-stated its own death toll in the pandemic. two senior u.s. officials tell the newshour that the true number of dead in wuhan

province, where the outbreak began, could exceed 25,000. that is roughly ten times what wuhan reported. beijing says about 3,300 people died from across all of china. president trump said this evening, those numbers seem to be "a little bit on the light side." in iran, president hassa rouhani accused the united states today of missing atu historic oppty to ease tensions during the pandemic. he said washington could haveea d sanctions on iran, where covid-19 has infected some 48,000 people and killed 3,000. >> ( translated ): this was a good time-- this was anr opportunity ericans to apologize for their wrong actions. this was a human issue, and no one would have reproached themor backing off. this was the best historic opportunity for the americans to comeack from the wrong path they have chosen and to tell tha irnation, for just once, that "we are not against the iranian people."

>> woodruff: u.ssecretary of state mike pompeo denied on tuesday that sanctionsffect humanitarian aid to iran. but, he did not rule out easin the financial penalties. back in this country, west virginia became the latest state to delay its presidentia primary because of the coronavirus pandemic. the may 12 vote was pushed back today to june 9. meanwhile, democratic presidential candidate bernie sanders urged wisconsin to postpone its primary, which is t set for nesday. back in this country, a new report finds widespread sexual harassment in the federal the u.s. commission on civil rights estimates that nearly one in seven federal employees experienced sexual harassment the rate of women filing claims shot up over those years, with ack women particularly a risk. today told drugmak stopistration

selling zantac andimilar heart-burn medicatio. they are all versions of a drug known as ranitidine, and the inf.d.a. says they may bd with a cancer-causing chemical. many companies have already removed the products from u.s. stor. and, this is officially the date that determines a person's residence for e once-in-a- decade u.s. census. so far, the covid-19 pandemic has forced the csus bureau to suspend door-to-door cnting. officials say they still expec to finish by year's end. still to come on the newshour: the shifting messages on masks from top health officials in the u.s. an ugly symptom-- racism against asian americans in theof the pandemic. to taiwan, where health officials moved quickly and may have prevented disaster. plus, how americans are adapting to a new and uncertain way of life. >> woodruff: a majority of the oo

>>uff: a majority of the country is being told to stay at omme and to keep their distance thers to try and stop the spread of the coronavirus. now, some in the public health community are wondering if the general public should also bece wearing asks. william brangham is back with a maport on the growing debate. >> brangham: facs are a critical protective shield for arthe medical workers who caring for the sickest covid-19 paents. this virus enters the body via nose, and mouth, sing ahe eyes, barrier over the face can help stop infection. in these wards, masks are meant to be worn every moment workers are exposed to the virus. but, what about the rest of us

outside hospitals? what about those of us who still have to work around other people ar masks? what about when people need to leave home to get food or go to the doctor-- should they be wearing masks as well? and if eveyone did, would it change the course of this pandemic? the government's advice on this may be changing. until just recently, the centers for disease control and prevention said only health rsonnel and people confirmed to be sick with covid-19 should wear masks. and similarly, that's what dr. anthony fauci argued just a few weeks ago, on "60 minutes:" >> right now, people should not be walk-- there's no reason to be walki >> brangham: even earlier this roek, the u.s. surgeon general adams said masks on the general populaon not only wouldn't help, but might hurt: >> wearing a mask imaloperly can ac increase your risk of ytting disease. it could also gi a false sense of security. >> brangham: dr. leana wen, an emergency physician at george

washington university, and baltimore's former public health director, agrees. there just isn't eviden that everyone wearing masks will preventhe transmission of coronavirus in our communities. the recommention is that people who are ill should be wearing masks, and certainly health ce workershould be wearing masks. but everyday people-- the recommendation is not th everyone should be going around wearing masks. >> brangham: but that recommendation may be changing. the head of the c.d.c. said new evidence indicates tt a significant percentage of peopleithout symptoms may be un-knowingly spreading the virus. if they wore masks, perhaps even homemade, fabric ones, it's believed that transmission could be reduced.ru dr. harlanolz is a cardiologist and health care researcher at yale university. >> there are plenty of people in soety who are going to work every day, placing themselves at risk, in order to keep society going. in order to deliver packages, to provide groceries, to enable

those vital services, policemen and firemen and fire-women and policewomen, all going out andei doing jobs by placing themselves in positions where it's incumbent upon us to protect them! wearing masks and protective gear. but we also need to be wearing masks to protect the >> brangham: n95 masks are considered the best.as then, surgical like these. rigorous studies cng themany effectiveness of surgical masks to handmade, cloth ones. but one thing we do know: right w, medical grade masks are in shortupply nationwide. here's just one example: jennifer radovich is a registered nurse at west virginia university medicine's ruby memorial hospital, a al with a growing number of coronavirus cases. because her wing has no n95 masks left, radovich turned to facebook, appealing for help. >> i figured that would be the best way to reach the public,

anatjust said, "this is e need." so, i just kept sending messages out, saying, like, " help, we need these." and i have had a great response. >> brangham: donated masks, from individuals, local construction crews, even auto body shops, started coming in. i've got to say, it just seems a little bit crazy that you, as a nurse, have to be calling construction crews and auto mechanics, trying to get masksn to protect youhospital! >> right. amazon has been sold out of them for weeks. and they've-- i've even seen them on ebay-- i've seen a box of 24 as high as $699, with 24 bids on it. >> brangham: wow.>> eah. it's a real problem.ha >> bra dr. leana wen argues, if public healthre officials starmmending that the general population shortages will getworse.ese >> the last thing that we would bwant is for individuals masks, horde masks, and really mag it even more challengin

for our healthcare workers who are going to be infected themselves a then infect other people as a result. there may come a time when widespread mask use in the u.s. makes sense, but that time is not now, because thatime also requires for our country to be at the point where we c begin to loosen restrictions on social distancing, and when we have plenty of supply of masks and other equipment for health care workers. we are not there for either of these two mistones. >> so now i'm asking also for your help. if you can sew, we need your time and talent to produce fabric facemasks to protect iowa's frontline workers. >> brangham: but in the metime, public officials andat prcitizens alike, from fashion designers to boat sailmakers, have been producing masks of all kds to try and address the national shortage. of their effectiveness, manyence argue a pandemic requires as many protections as possible.

>> so there are a lot of questions about what masks you i newhat situation and how much protection do they coer. the idea is that some barrier is better than nothing. d do you need evidence bey shadow of a doubt that it's effective before people start wearing them?t or do we say t this moment of time, it's prudent to do so. and i favor the ideawe should. >> brangham: and jwot in the lastays, the c.d.c. director, robert redfield, the s. surgeon general, jero adams, and anthony fauci, all signaled a possible change in federal guidance about masks. where we have enough masks, i believe there will be some very serious consideration abt more broadening this recommendati. >> we're making millions and millions of masks, but we want them to go to the hospitals. >> brangham: president trump has said mask manufacturers are working overtimebut so far, he has not invoked his authority to order other companies to start making masks.

for the pbs newshour, i'm william brangham. coronavirus have sacrossof the u.s., so have incidents of anti-asian violence. amna nawaz has more on that. >> nawaz: the coronavirus's igin in china has caused a backlash against asian americans in the first two months since the first positive diagnosis here. from school yards gr trips to thery store, some asian americans have reported verbal and physical attacks and the h f.b. warned of a potential surge in hate crimes still to come. beverly liang told the newshr r about ip on the new york city subway. >> he yelled at me on the train and said"you people brought this virus here," before going to another part of the train car, and i found that really unsettling. my parentsme, my friends, are

all really on edge right now and kind of seeing how people react tos in public. >> nawaz: stories like that led to the creation of "stop aapi hate," an online hate crimein repotool that has registered more than one thousand incidents in less than two weeks. cynthia choi is the co-executive director of chinese for affirmative action, and she helped launch the reporting website, and she joins me now. cynthia, welcome to the "newsh being here.nks for what specifically are people telling you that are included in always like to mention when we talk about race iriame, we have to remember asian-american are the most diverse raal group. you're talking about dozens and dozens of different kinds of identities and ethnicities under this umbrella group. e of the most fascinating things about your report is 69% of a reports were from

non-chinese people. udid that surprise yo? >> yes and no. obviously, the target has been chinese, and the assumption that those who are being victimized are of chineseissent, but our report shows that it's affecting andmpacting all asian-americans and for the simple facthat there might not be a recognition of, you know, the distctions, but the fact that it's the asian face, it's the perception that we're foreigners and that, again, we're all hosts of ths infectious disease, and that'sat so troubling about it. >> reporter: cynthia, i talked to leaders earlier in the monthe inhinese-american community in san francisco, and i remember them telling me that they didn't want to reort any of these kinds of discriminatory or racist attacks because they didn't want to rock the boat. i wonder if you'r worried these lower than what's happening onre the ground?

>> absolutely. ethis is just the tip of iceberg in terms of what's actually happening on a daily basis, and that we need to do wetter, i think, to threache impacted populations, especiall those that are less likely to report incidents to various agencies and are hesitant to report to law enforcement cause of negative experiences or the feeling that nothing can be done about these incidents of hate. >> reporter: cynthia i'v to ask you about some of the rhetoric coming from the highest president trump hi has publicly referred to the virus, linking it to china, despite the health experts here and across the world said that nd of rhetoric is dangerous. i want to play his remarks from a recent breeching on march 26. >> i talk about the chinese virus and-- and, i mean it. that's where it came from. you know, if you look at ebola, if you look at all-- lyme. right? lyme, connecticut.

enu look at all these diff horrible diseases, they seem to come with a name with the location. and this was a chinese virus. but i don't have to say it, if they feel so strongly about it. we'll see. >> reporter: cynthia, when you see the reports people are submitting to your onlineto reportin, is there a way to link that kind of rhetoric to what people are experiencing? >> well, we think that his insistence in the pt in using or referencing the chinese vius or othis admation officials referring to it as the wuhan virus certaiynl exacerbates the situation, and we know from our firsthandun ac on this tracker that we have individual who areth mimickin president's words, parroting them, i should say, and that they're also individuals who've recorded their interactions of defending

the president's words. >> reporter: cynthia, i should mention just this afternoon former presidential candidate taking about despite the factd 70% of america's doc tors areof aches defense and fighting this on the front lines, people are scared and need someone to blame. that fear is not going away soon. we know 'll deal twodemic for a while. oi'm wondering if you'rerried about the long-term effect of this, how do you think this kin of fear and the the blame people feel they need to say sn will play out in the months and years ahead. >> that's a really great question. one thing i do want to point out is that, throughout u.s history, whenever there is a public health crisis or, in wartime, different groups can be scapegoated and blamed and, certainly, that's been the experice ofsian-americans, muslims, african-american

americans, the latin x community have been subjected, and we believe long after we can resume normalcy and we beat the vir, we are vry concerned in the asian-american community that this will have a lasti h impact. ve yet to understand the full extent of what it will mean to come ouon the other side. we don't thinkhat the anti-asian sentiment that we're seeing now is going to go away, and we're going to need to address that as a society. >> cynthia choi, executive director of the chinese for affirmative action. thank. >> woodruff: we look now at a covid-19 success story.ta an is just off the coast of mainland china. millions travel between iwan

and the chinese mainland, johns hopkins predicted taiwan would have the second most covid-19 cases in the world. but today, there are 80 countries and territories before taiwan's 329 cases. nick schifrin follows a taiwanese woman going home, to figure out how they did it. >> i am currently at the gatwick airport in london. anna lee left her boyfriend to ny home to taiwan last week, she tochances. >> why are you wring the mask and gloves and goggles? t >> iing to avoid any contact to air. >> schifrin: lee didn't feel safe in itain, where the orai atsrprety end amp the for a slow initial response. >> if he is not even helping his own citizens, why would ne help a forelike me? i thought, all right, i would go back to taiwan for now.

everyone is very careful. >> schifrin: so careful, lee found fellow taiwanese jason yang waiting f his flight to taipei in a body suit bought off ebay. >> ( translated ): i believe that in england, it's already lost control. and if i go back to taiwan, i will be taken care of. >> schifrin: taiwan is onl 80 miles off the coast of mainland china. taiwan has succeeded at containing covid-19, starting at arrival. >> ( translated ): we are gett during her hour-long journey throh the taipei airport. the first step taiwan took was identifying possible cases. fill out my temperin them to next 14 days. >> schifrin: lee told authorities she'd had a cough in the last two weeks, so security escorted hercondary screening.er she had her teure taken, like this woman, and she filled out forms consenting to new regulations and providing recent medical history.

>> my temperature that they just took, anit was asking what symptoms i had, and if i went to doctor.nd >> schifrin: a she got a covid-19 test at the airport. taiwan uploads these results into its national health care database, to create nd of coronavirus database that everyone has to enroll in. >> ( translated ): we have to register first online, and then will send me a text message, i have tshow them the text message before we can pass here. >> schifrin: that's where government tracking gins. after her bags are disinfeomed, her ridee is in a government-provided xi, by herself. bucks.ree-hour drive costs 80 >> now i cannot take any public transportation, so i had to use this contract taxi. >> schifrin: lee headed home, knowing the government would stay in touch during mandatory two-week quarantine. >> welcome to my humble house. >> schifrin: the government has also stayed in touch with micky du, who arrived from australia on march 22. >> well, the first day they immediately phoned me, almost within the hour that i go home,

okay? and there was actually several text messages, when i first arrived home, there ike three or four text messages. "welcome back to taiwan. this is the c.d.c. we're just checking to see if kyu're okay." >> schifrin: mic girlfriend recorded him in his apartment. everyone who arrives in taiwanda tois tracked by cell phone to make sure they stay at home. taiwan's center for disease control tries to make 14-day quarantines easy. a >> sed me whether or not i lived at this address. i said, sure, that is my address. and i said, when are you going to be here she said, i'm going to be there in five minutes. m like, oh, okay. and no ( bleep ), they showed up in four minutes. ( laughs ) they were like, outside. so sheust gave me a packet of masks, and there were 14 masks in the packet exactly. >> schifrin: taiwan was able to take all of these steps, because it learned lessons the hard way. outbreak is a wakell forars

taiwan. and we learn a lot from the sars outbreak. >> schifrin: dr. steve kuo i the former head of taiwan's c.d.c., and led thsars task force in 2003, when the sars epidemic made hundreds of taiwanese sick and killed more than 70, the third-highest tally in the world. the very next year, authorities prepared for the next crisis. that preparation allowed taiwan's c.d.c. to detect the covid-19 threat before the chinese government announced it. >> we pick up the signal that there is some strange outbreak in the wuhan areas, at the end of the last year, from social media networks. we decided, and we did send two medical doctors to wuhan from taiwan c.d.c. to get a better understanding of what happened there, okay, and then five days later, on january 20, the d governmeided immediately

to set up and activate thece central commaners. >> schifrin: that centralized command center launcrder restrictions before almost anyone else, set local quarantine rules, and turned to technology. one phone app allont taiwan resito find stores with masks in stock. another app provides information on all of those covid-19th positive, wher've been, and their case history. and, the government made sure it had enough medical equipment. >> ( translated ): after the sars outbreak, we have the l to require hospitals to have a stockpile for all medical supplies for 30 days for the hospitals.>> chifrin: another reason taiwan acted so early: t either the thinese government, or the heads eyof tt he woridld hean'lth organization, who in january praised china's response, says bill stanton, the former top u.s. diplomat in taipei. >> he was just defending the chinese position and echoing what they had to say.

and it made the taiwanese more suspicious to what the chinese were doing. china doesn't allow taiwan into the w.h.o., and that's really stupid, because taiwan is one of the main countries in the world that has expertise on international health issues.ch >> srin: for anna lee, that expertise translates into trust in her government. >> i feel like, even if there is so, thing wrong with my bodyi will be taken care of, which is quite promising, and i'm quite happy with how the government is taking this very seriously. that's why we keep the casesve low. >> schifrin: which means, for anna l and many taiwanese quarantined today, there's no place like home. for the pbs newshour, i'm nick schifrin. >> woodruff: today, taiwan announced that it wod donate ten million masks to medical workers around the world-- two million to the u.s.

>> woodruff: president trump has been in the white house briefing room again this evening, along with other administration officials, for what habecome a regular discussion of his administration's covid-19 response.al our own yamichndor has been following the white house side of this story, as always, and she joins me now. h yamichlo. we know so much of the focus today has been on those grim projections from the president, from the white house yesterday about the number of deaths,cathe number oes, what are you learning about how that is affecting the white house' thinking overall? >> reporter: -- white house continues to be the fact that more tha100,000 americans could die from the coronavirus even in the best casnae sceo, so president trump today was talking about those numbers, ane vicedent pence made it very clear the white house was studying models and on last

friday, they decided to finalizu thosbers, present them to the president. on saturday, when the presidento actually learnthese numbers, that's what the white house is saying, he was moved by this, and that's why he wen from saying that the country could be possibly easing up guidelines by easter sunday to saying, no, we'll have to keep the guidelines in place till april 30th. this is a graph that the white house was using yesterday that theycontinue tgo back to today. if you look at the dark blue hill, what you see is 1.5 to 2.2 million americans could die if there wa no intervention, if there was no social distancing, that's the orst case scenario. the smaller bump says 100,000 to 240,000 americans could die. oose are the numbers that we should be focus today. that's the graph at the heart of the white house's numbers. the president also made it clear that a lot of these deaths are going to be hhiappening wit the next month, and the important

thing to note here is that the governor of new york, who is, ai this, the hardest hit state, he says that, in his models, about 16,000 people will die in new york, thameans 93,000 other people, he said, could be dying in other states. but we see this is obviously a saying the deaths might bet nationwide, so we should really be looking at this as wo forward. >> woodruff: so grim, still so hard to comprehend those numbers. so, yamiche, you have been in the briefing. what more c you tell us about what the us who is saying today? >> well, judy, it was a relly different white house briefing than you've seen in the past. today the president beg with talking about national security, and he said specifically that he wanted to talk about anti-drug operations, and he said that the navy is going to be beefing up operations in the pacific sea as well as oe pacifs, i should say, rather, than the caribbean sea, and they will be focusing on cartels, they say.yi

they are to use the coronavirus outbreak to smuggle more drugs into america. here's what the president said about that. >> well, for a long time, we've had a lot of drugs coming into oucountry. it's not that it's increased, we've probably got it down a little bit. but it's still a tremendous number. families are being ruined, lives are being ruined. it's an incredible thing. especially, as you're at this position. you would never believe it. i see things that nobody would believe. i see reports that nobody would believe. so i met with the group behind me, all of them, a we said, what do you think we can do? and they think they can interdict. they thinkhat we can stop it before it gets to the shores. >> reporter: so, today, the president brought out national security officials. he brotught ou national security advisor, he brought out attorney general william barr, he brought t people like the joint chiefs of staff. these are people we usually do not see at the coronavirus task force briefing.

but he waited till the second half of the briefing to have the scientists speak and he wanted to underscore these neecrotic operations he's having, that they're the top priority, even though we're looking at grim numbers when it comes to the coronavirus outbreak. that was the important point president trump was trying to make. this comes with the context that there was a naval ship that commander was asking that sailors be evacuated from that ship. it was docked in gaum. john yang has it in the scriptab and was talkinut it a at the beginning of the sho the president is saying there needs to be anti-ug activity. adam schiff, prominent member of the house says that, after the coronavirus bell and more relief is given, he wants a commission to look at the whi house's handling of the coronavirustb ak. >> woodruff: yamiche alcindor, monitoring it all at the white house.

thank you, yamic. >> woodruff: and now, a look at how the coronavirus pa pemic has forcple to change how they interact with each other, and seek out new ways to connect and to celebrate. lisa desjardins has the story. >> desjardins: when berklee sousa turn 12 st month, a birthday party was out of the question. her state, californi w under a shelter-in-place order. >> she's a kid, she does not understand. there was a lot of, you know, "i hate everything, why dithis have to be in march," and crying. and she was just bummed. so we wanted to surprise herth omething. ( honking ) >> desjardins: so instead of a party, her mom holly oanized a birthday parade. >> happy birthday! ( honking ) >> desjardins: one car after another, filled with friends and

family, drove by her bakersfhold . one even had a special delivery for her: a cake. >> thanks, chelsea! >> just to wake up and then come out and see all the people come by, was really cool, like really cexperience. they made me feel a lot better about my birthday. >> desjardins: across the country, parades have also become tools for teachers trying to stay in touch with studentsho whol is closed. a they ride aravan and wave to families lining the streets. families are finding new ways to connect with each other as well. grandfather dave schnieders of indianapolis visited his one-year-olddrrandson, david , through a living room window. nursing homes are off-limits for mo outsiders, so in new middletown, ohio, charley adams used a bucket truck to visit his 80-year-old mother on the third floor. >> make sureou wash your hands. >> desjardins: people are reventing partying, too. d.j. d-nice has been spinning at home.live for people to dance

just him, great music and the occasional hat change. sometimes nine hours straight. one virtual party of his drew over 100,000 people, including celebrities. >> o.m.g., michelle obama is in here! let's go, we are partying right now! ( violin ) >> desjardins: on a smaller scale, people are taking their talents to their front porches. here, a recent classical violin performance for passers by in a washington neighborhood. in saratoga springs, utah, heather doney taught a zumba class for her neighbors from her backyard. here we go. there's something about that endorphin rush you get when you dance, and i think-- i think even if you feel like you can't dance, there's just something about moving that sends thosey hadorphins out. and so it's been such a blessing to be able to move again. >> desjardins: when we'll all be able to move around freely again

remains an open question, but for newly-turned 12-ar-old berklee sousa, she's ady learned a powerful lesson. >> even thou there's a lot of things going on right now in the world, you can still do something toake it better. not everything can be negative about everything that's going on, and to just stay positive through this time. >> desjardins: for the pbs newshour in washingtoni'm lisa desjardins. >> woodruff: and happy birthy to you, and great ideas. in our lead story,sstatedwe go. the number of deaths from covid-19 in europe. it is now more than 30,000 people killed. we regret the error. and that is the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. join us online, and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you, stay safe and see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

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>> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning snensored by hour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org ch >> you're watg pbs. hello, everyone.

and welcome to "amanpour&co." up.e's what's coming what in the world is going on behind the coronavirus curtain? ma leaders are using this crisis to grab special powers and violate civil rights. veteraniplomat william burns joins us. and relationships under lockdown. the good, the bad, and the ugly. gist therapist, and socio eric klinenburg. >> the party failed on this. >> a leading gop political consultant takes the blame for his party's rejection ofoocience and ggovernment.