>> tonight, on kqed newsroom, bay area counties extend the de stay at home for another month. to slow a possible surge in covid-19 cases. are the extreme measures making a difference? also, the largest relief package in u.s. history is leaving some works behind. we will hear what is being done to help the most vulnerable survive. ca plus, a artist shares her crafty solution, to help first responders fighting the pandemic. while keeping her business afloat. good omevening and weto kqed newsroom. we continue our coverage of the haronavirus pandemic, whic now infected more than 1 million people, and claimed more than 50,000 lives, around the world. tonight we begin with local efforts to slow the transmission of the

coronavirus, and covid-19, the a diseasuses. this week all nine bay area counties extended a stay at home directive until the beginning of may, ctnew restns are now in place. they include banning most new construction, closing dog parks, playgrouand public picnic areas. also, california students will likely continue distance learning, for the rest of the academic year. so far california hospitals have not seen the rapid surge in covid-19 cases, which have overwhelmed new york and other hotspot region also this week, top white house scientists revealed data showing that actions dilike socialancing and shutting nonessential businesses work. they can slow a surge in new cases if done early and aggressively. joining us now is doctfo george ruth and an infectious disease epidemic knowledge is -- epidemiologist, thank you for joining us. >> thank you for having me.

>> we know this is a busy time for you, you have been an epidemiologist for 4 de you worked on the hiv crisis, ebola, and you have used that city and county of san e francisco. helped advise them on their early shelter in place orders. uscan you tell what we are seeing as a result of that early decision? >> first of all, the decision was i mean really courageous, the boards of supervisors, and the surrounding counties. mayor berkley, and all of the health officer's. it is really an unprecedented thing for the last in100 years the united states. the shelter in place order, is a huge intervention for public health. n' we really haused it since 1918 to this extent. what it does, is stop transmission, yes there continues to be small amounts of transmission in households, where people are sheltered together or going back toand fortwork especially and two hospitals, and for the . inevitable leaka

of people who might get infected on their way to the store, or whatever. but it is a huge inteention. we moved very quickly, to put shelter in place, in place. we were sheltered in place for a full week, before the first person died, looking at other places, and we look a lot southern california. which went to such shelter in place 4 days later. we can see some differences, now a lot of that could be random variation. >> but, it could also potentially be because of these shelter in pl e orders, correc coronavirus cases certainly seem like they are on the rise. they are not as quick as they are in other places, such new york. >> absolutely. positively. area bending or flattening the curve? >> it is certainly one way d it co taken. i think we need to see another week's worth of data or so,

before we are able to say that with any great degree of certainty. what i can say is it is certainly what we want to see and i encourage everybody to keep doing what they are doing. >>esne of the isthat we have is the number of tests, the production of tests is ramping up but is nowhere near where publicnthealth officials the volume to be, what is have, what is the number of tests that we need for people to feel like we are in a good place? and can we get there? >> we can get there. right no the swabs are in short supply, the swabs you get the specimens kinds of swabs, we are looking towards manufacturers to give us more and more and more. we would like tobe running te

about 3000 s a day in san francisco, just san francisco. we would like to you know, have that kind of volume, run for the entire month of april, we are probably going to be there about this time next week. >> how many ruare we ing right now? about 1700 per day this week. >> about half of what we need? >> a little more than half, you are right. >> it is on the steep part of a curve. >> we are going to catch up. >> okay, therhave been increased recommendations for everyone to wear some sort of face covering when they go out from the earlier guidance, that said you should only wear a mask if you are sick or if you e treating a sick patient. tell us about how that change occurred and what it means for >> sure, as move away eventually from shelter in place we have to have other interventions in place. this is one ofe them. absolute priority for masks, has to go first and foremost, to people working in hospitals, frontline first responders,d the prehospital

system. those are the people whom we n look for to get sick and stop working. that is the first priority. there are otr priorities, rsing homes, long-term care facilities and so on. so, now as we really still don't have that solid a supply of those, so what we are asking people to do as an intermediate inrvention, as we start to move eventually away from shelter in place, is to get used to wearing masks id ou's of people have masks that they had from construction work or gotten at hardware stores or gotten off the shelves at supermarkets, those are great. that is fine. if you don't have those, you f, can wear a scyou can wear a bandanna, a handkerchief, over your nose and face. the point here is that it is not meant to protect you, it is meant to protect others from you. >> how effective is that?

you, it is really ... >> it will keep everything inside. >> that is the original purpose of surgical masks, when you rga doing y you do not want to be sneezing and coughing into an open wound. that is what they are designed to do. that is the idea, we are trying to keep epthe germs, your germs to yourself. >> so, you're connected to research that is not only being done at ucsf but also at berkeley, stanford, and otugr locations thut the bay area, can you tell us about the web of work that is being done, to slow the transmission of covid-19, here in the bay area? >> it is remarkable. i sat through medical grand rounds at ucsf yesterday and the number of clinical trials going on, it issimply remarkable. we are seeing lots of things intried, and these are medications that are meant to treat people who are all the way from mildly il to an

extremist, we are seeing incredible amounts of basic science. ry drug disco know at stanford they are doing a lot of molecular work as well. the pace of research is ormous. but ucsf, we have really stopped all of our research except for research. ucsf is a massive research engine and we have really repurposed our search, to deal exclusively with this problem, as most pressing public health problems, as long as we ed to. as we are starting to see all sorts of new things come out, everything frapps, for trying to understand where people have been, in order to do better contact tracing, to better diagnostics, to drugs, to drug discover drug development, and to understand the basic biology of the organism. >> from all of this research, re? do yothink we will see a

something that could be effective for that, or a vaccine? >> the vaccine is a ways away. that is , the end garight? what we are trying to do is to arise until we can have a vaccine, and provide 100% population immunity. or enoughclose enough to 100% that we truly achieve herd immunity. until that time we have to go through a lot in between. we have h go throa lot of as i said, tenderizing steps of which shelter in the place is the most ciccone and. it is almost like a treating cancer, you try to get rid of the bulk of the cancer, to start with. then you sort ofmop up wn the line. that is a kind of similar strategy to that. s or forest fi you will, you want to put off the main fire and then deal with the >> one of the issues is that we are not completely weolated. re sheltering in place, but in other states across the nation, particularly in the south, thhave been much slower to make those decisions, some still have not done that.

what will the impact be of those decisions in othestates, on residence here in california? >> that is absolutely an issue e that is abso positively the issue. we are going to do all of this work, we will make the sacrifices, we are gog to you know, hauled our economy, to try to save 10, 20,000 lives, meanwhile, others are just not making those kinds of sacrifices. and they are going to continue i to have transm. they will have their own forest fires burning. they will be able to ignite you know, new outbreaks here. at the end of thday if we are successful, we will have certainly less than 5% and maybe even less than 1% of the powelation of immune. are still vulnerable, the way for us not to be vulnerable is for other states to what we are doing, so we have leveled the playing field, pushed transmission down, doway deal we are able to

d go through and pick up individual cases and small new outbreaks. >> doctor rutherford, these feel like dark days. what gives you ho? >> what gives me hope, is that we are seeing low levels of cases here, if you're a patient you don't feel like a low-level case. but we arseeing relatively handfuls of cases per day, our hospitals have the cacity, they are exceptionally well prepared, for this, we have heth departments who will act o aggressively and will act decisively, to protect the public's health and reduce both morbidity and mortality, across the region. that is what the best, that is the real take-home from this story. >> doctoru rutherford, thank for your time. >> my pleasure, thank you. >> this week, the san francisco board of supervisors announced financial ntlp for city resiwho don't qualify for many, from the $2

trillion federal relief package. emergency fund, would pride $500 a nth to qualifying undocumented immigrant workers, as restaurants another jobsites have closed. nprofits are also stepping up with financial assistance, and san francisco, mission asset fund is raising money for low income workers, it is, immigrant families who don't qualify forrelief this week they started giving $500 cash grants to bay area families and other vulnerable resides. with me now by skype is the ceo and founder of mission asset josc how has the response to this cashgrants, been going? it has only been a few days that you have had this online. thank you for having me. . we started the fund several weeks ago, trying to fund raise to provide health and assistance to individuals, hofamilies we knew would be left out fr any federal package. you know, we have been wirking immigrant communities, and low income folks undocumented

fos, who we feelthat are just as worthy of assistance now, more than ever. they are the ones that are still working, they are still in the front lines of this pandemic. they are the on that are keeping our supply food chain intact. they are the ones that e stocking the shelves at grocery stores. they are the ones that are not getting any assistance from the federal governmentstso we ted our fund several weeks ago and started fundraising around that, and in a span of a couple of weeks we raised over $4 million, so that way we stuld help families, ents, other lower wage workers making a small effort, our nding is not enough, thfinancial pain that people are feeling is great, it is real, the anxiety is high, because people just don't know, we n't know wher we sit in the work right now, and so they need help, we need to te more, defi. >> i want to come back to the response to this grant.

you put it online earlieanthis weekyou had $4 million, that you are able to give out, in these $500 cash grant increments, tell me what the >> it has been immense. like. we started an application just yesterday, trying to reach out to our college students, saying that we are here to help, apply, let us know where you are at. tell us about yo story. we expected some response, but response that we got. th you know, to the point that we had like over ,000 people sign up, to get some help and again, these are the students all over the state. peoplethat are failing -- feeling the pinch. people who left their campuses, their housing, they probably went back to thlive with r parents if they are in that situation, and there really is

a danger, it is not like they can go back to the labor maet to start working, because they were students. they weren't working. now there is really nothing for them. the pain is real, tharconcerns real, and i think we have a sense of that through this process. >> tell me about the funding itself. yo where were able to raise this money, especially during a very difficult time? who are your donors? >> fortunately, we have been working with partners in the philanthropy world, who started this work with college teachers foundation, we started engaging them, thinking about what is it thate can do together to provide some relief for students, and soon enough, other foundations joined our effort, we had a new foundation just joi to pinpoint, and others who have contributed to the fund. al because they care. they all want to do something and we provided sort of like a means to make that happ. again, we ow that the formula, even if we get the funding, we know that is not

enough. what is important to note, wis thneed to step in, we need to stand in solidarity with those who are left behind and those who are undocumented immigrants, the federal ulgovernment is really not providing them any assistance whatsoever, just because they hav a number for example, even though they contribute to the taxpayers, they spend billions of dollars and in the moment of need, you know, we sort of step away from them. their other nonprofits and local governments that need to step in and really try to rectify that problem. ll>> could you me a little bit about the scope of the need particularly here in our region? who qualifies for this weaid? >> definitely are trying to target our assistance to people that are undocumented in the bay area for example, we know that about 580,000 individuals live in the bay area who are undocumented. about 2 million people across the state, and so they are

among us. they are our friends families, our neighbors, peoplet that are of our society, so we definitely want to step in and send either at least some relief, but at the most, also send them a message of hope and saying that we are here and we are with them in this horrific crisis. >> what do you expect this money to do for your clients? >> we $5are contributing as a one-time grant, and we expect for them to use that money to buy grocerie to pay for the bills, to feed them, and give them some ease even though it might be temporary. wetry to elevate that so that leadership l,with the lo state, in particular federal level, to say that we can't allow this to happen. we have to step in and provide assistance to every >> you have been working with vulnerable populations for many

years, newhat learnings have been revealed, through this pandemic? >> i think what this pandemic has taught us, is that you our situation, it can change from one moment to the next, and so we have to you know, be h there for other, take care of each other, be with our families, love the people around us. i think that is poreally ant. one of the things i am thinking about is that society has always blamed poor people, we blame them for not having, earning enough or not having a job or we blame them for just their situation, and but in this ndemic it has taught us that you know, we are in this together. peoples poverty now is not their fault, and so this is a moment for us to sort of see ar how weall equal, and how we need to bind together and come together in solidarity, so crisis together. t of >> josc, thank you so much for

being with us. >> think you. >> to see if you're eligible and to apply for a cash grant frthis fund, visit mission asset .ofund. for weeks now, healthcare workers and first responders have been pleading for more facemasks and other personal protective equipment, as they úit isa problem in need of an urgent solution even a diy one. st week, san francisco-based artist, and shop owner, jenny, held an online workshop on how to sew facemasks which are in short supplyon the commercial market. úfrom the clothes she used to make before e pandemic. eated and then donated ople who homemade masks, to help workers around the nation. joining me now, is jenny, the owner of jenny lemosa and a francisco-based artist. ng jenny, increa there are recommendations to where some sort of face covering when out in public. is this increasing tiyour moti to have more of these online workshops? >> yes, absolutely.

we just in fact added another workshop xt week, on april 14. we just had such an outcry of support, of different people that wanted to help, and make masks so we wanted to offer them something else. >> how did this idea to offer a free virtual workop come about foyou? >> my friend rachel from the ruby, which is a gathering space for creative women, reached out to , and askeif i wanted to help her facilitate a workshop. she did all of the organizing, and i was uithe creative behind it. >> so, tell meabout the process of going virtual, and teaching people to make these masks online. have you been doing virtual workshops before? what was that shift like? >> sure. i have been teaching workshops in person for many years. when the pandemic struck and to hashelter in place i

actually had to cancel every workshop we had, through april and may, so i wanted to offer my customers something, the transition to moving online seems to ry natural bed has a lot of fun. >> [ laughter ] >> how much technical skill does a person need to make ma ? do you need to be a seamstress or i don't know what the equivalent of that is for a o man? someone n so? >> i like to's call them so us. >> you would need to be able to use a sewi machine, a t of recommend doing it bynd and uld yes you could, if you're doing one for yourself. so it by hand and it would take forever. but, yeah. basic knowledge of sewing on a sewing machine is definitely preferred. úparticipated so far and how many masks have been made? >> so, our online workshop had about 35 views, but i donated

fabric and elastic like sewing kits to our customers, d i ended up sending out about 400 masks. so we definiteny had that made, a lot of people just ordered one single mask pack, and to teach them how make the masks. and i think the people sent out many more th that. i heard from one person individually, she made 85 masks. >> they are ten being donated to healthcare workers, and people are also making masks for themselves, i understand that you have got some family involvement aswell, your grandmother? she is in s minnesota, she been helping out? >> yep! she wanted to help, and a group of cardiologists herein san francisco requested a dozen masks, and i reached out to

my grandma and said can you make these for me? and she did! ht >> [ la ] >> it is great that you have that help and people across the nation can get involved with this, it something you can definitely do while you are still at home and sheltering in place. jenny, can you describeedwhat happduring the virtual workshop and if there was anything surprising that emerged? >> one thing that was great, was how interactive it was. people were able to ask questions, i was able to see em on video, and we even spent a little bit of time talking about other stuff in the workshop, like pesewing projectsle were working on at home, and one of the surprising things was how people loved share their project online, that was really fun to see. >> doesn't seem like a new pathway for community and connectionhathat he didn't before? >> yes, absolutely. after doing the facemask workshop, i did an embroidery workshop the next day, and

people joined from new orleans, ton,michigan, to spand that was just such an awesome opportunity to share and be creative with people all over the world. >> that is really interesting, an opportunity to bring in this global community that you can't in a storefront. > totally! mean in my shop, the people who come take the classes are, we are on 24th street and is peopfrom fernald heights, and knowing valley, and the mission that are coming and it have such a big reach, with online. business side of things, because you are a small business owner in san francisco be a small business owner. e first, tell me about jenny, when did you start it and what was it all about? >> jenny lemons, i started it in 2015 and it began as a clothing line. in 2017, i got my retail space on 24th street, and changed the

space into a workshop space, a place to make seand my own handmade clothing and then also carry goods other local anin pendent artists from across the country. >> you also perform craft sessions, for some of the businesses in the area, yes? do teambuilding workshops, ch companies across the area. d >> what sort of an impact has the coronavirus had on your business? you have hato shutyour doors obviously. >> yes. unfortunately, i had to furlough my retail staff which has been a real tragedy, u ey are out of work at the time being. but, we have moved our business online as much as possible, and havis our online workshops helped a lot, it is you know, nothing compared to what we used to have. i mean we were teachiop 4

workin person a week, on top of all of the teambuilding we d and we can't do any of that anymore. >> how are you doing with all of this? i mean it must make you uneasy not onfor your employees, and r yourself, but foyour customers. are you sleeping at night? >> i am sleeping at night pretty well. my husband, he calls me a cockroach, meaning that it is like a hu tragedy happenand everyone else is paranoid, but i really use this as an opportunity to pivot. so, moving all of our products that were once on just avorlable in our , they are all available online now. we are trying to have as many online workshops as possible and really i am using this time to refocus the business in a lot of ys. people have really been buying

a lot of art supplies from us online, so likeif people want that, i want to provide that for them. i am trying to find more art suppes and kids. -- kits. >> jenny, thank you for being with us! best of luck to anyou. >> you. as always you can find more of our coverage at kqed.org/ kqed newsroom. you can reach me through my social media handle, thank you for joining us! stay safe.

robert: the pandemic tests t nation's resolve. president trump: it's not the flu. it's vicious. robert: the president confronts the gravity of the pandemic. esident trump: talki about deaths. even at the low end, 100,000, 200,000 people. robert: but as the death toll and unemployment clas rise, governors in both parties worry about supplies. >> i going to n believe we'll have those masks until i see them delivered off a truck. robert: and health systems on the brink of clams. >> we're preparing for the patient surge we knows coming. robert: in washington, talks and another round of stimulus are stalled as the speaker and majority leader clash. next.