>> tonight, on kqed newsroom, bay area counties extend the stayt home order foanother month. to slow a possible surge in are the extreme measures making a difference? al, the largest relief package in u.s. history is leaving some workers behind. we will hear what is being done to help the mo vulnerable plus, a local artistshares her crafty solutn, to help first responders fighting the pandemic. while keeping her business afloat. good evening and welcome to kqed newsroom. we continue our coverage of the coronavirus pandemic, which has now infected more than 1 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 disease it causes. this wee counties extended a stay at home directive until the beginning of may, new w restrictions are in place. they include banning most new construction, closing dog parks, puplaygrounds, and ic picnic areas. also, california students will likely ntinue distance learning, for t academic year. so far california hospitals have not seen the rapid surge in covid-19 cases, which have overwhelmed new york and other hosopot regions. this week, top white house scientists revealed data showing that actions like social distancing and shutting nonessential businesses do work. they can slow a surge in new rl cases if done and aggressively. joining us now is doctor anorge rutherford and infectious disease epidemic knowledge is -- epidemiologist,

thank u for joining us. >> thank you for having me. >> we know this is a busy time for you, you have been gi epidemio for 4 decades. you worked on the hiv crisis, ebola, and you have used that knowledge to help advise the city aunty of san francisco. helped advise them on their early shelter in place orders. can you attell us we are seeing as a result of that early decision? >> first of all, the decision was i meus really courag and it was taken by the mayor, the boards of supervisors, and the surrounding counties. mayor berkley, and l of the health officer's. it is really an unprecedented e united states. t 100 years in the shelter in place order, is a huge intervention for public health. 1918 to this extent. d it since what it do, is stop transmission, yes there continues to be small amounts of transmission in households, where people are sheltered together or going back and forth to woespecially and

two hospitals, and for the inevable leakage. of people who might get infected on their way to the ev store, or wh. but it is a huge intervention. we moved very quickly, to put shelter in place, in ple. we were sheltered in place for a full week, before the first pers died, looking at other uthern california. a lot at 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 place orders, vi correct? coros cases certainly seem like they are on the rise. ey are not as quick as they w york. ther places, ch as >> absolutely. positively. >> do you see this as the bay di area b or flattening the curve? >> it is certainly one way it

could be taken. i think we need to see another week's worth of data or so, before we are able tosay 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. >> one of e issues thatwe have isthe number of tests, the production of tests is ramping up but is nowhere near where public health officials want the volume to be, what is the numberof tests that we have, what is the number of tests that we needfor people to feel like we are in a goodan place? can we get there? right now, the swabs are in short supply, the swabs you get the specimens with. so, we are repurposing other kinds of swabs, we are looking towards manufacturers to giveor usand more and more. about 3000 tests a day in san

francisco, just san francisco. we would like to you know, have that kind of volume, run fo the entimonth of april, we out this time next week. there >> how many are we running right now? >> i think this week, it is17 abou per day this week. >> about half of what we need? >> a little more than half, yes. you e right. >> it is on the steep part of a curve. >> we are going to catch up. >> okay, there have been increased recommendations for everyone to wear some sort of face covering when they go out in public and this is a thchang fromearlier guidance, that said you should only wear a mask if you are sick or if you are treati a sick patient. tell us about how that change occurred and what it means for us. >> sureas we ve away eventually from shelter in place we have to have other interventions in place. this is one of thte. the absopriority for masks, has to go first and foremost, to people working in

hospitals, frontline rst responders, and the prehospital system. those are the people whom we can lo for to get sick and stop working. that is the first priority. there are other priometies, nursing long-term care facilities and so on. so, now as we really still don't have that sod a supply of those, so what we are asking people to do as an intermediate intervention, as we start to move eventually away from shelter in place, is to get used to wearing masks op outside.'s of have masks t thy had from construction work or gotten at hardware stores or gotten off the shelves at supermarkets, those that is fine. if you don't have those, you can wear a scarf, you can wear a bandanna, a handkerchief, over your nose and face. e point here is that it is not meant to protect you, it is

meant to protect others from you. >> how effective is that? >> well, to protect othersitfro you, is really ... >> it will keep everything >> that is the iginal purpose of surgical masks, when you are doing surgery you do not want to be sneezing and coughing into an open wound. that is what they are designed to do. that the idea, we are trying to keep the germs, keep your germs to yourself. yo >> so, re connected to research that is not only being done at ucsf but also at berkeley, stanford, and other bacations throughout the area, can you tell us about the web of work that is bein done, ow the transmission of covid-19, here in the bay area? >> it is remarkable. i sat through medical grand rounds at ucsfer yey and the number of clinical trials going on, it is simply remarkable. we are seeing lots of things being tried, and these are medications that are meant to treat people who are all the

way from mildly ill, to an extremist, we are seeing incredible amounts of basic science. drug discovery, i know at stanford they are doing a lot e pace of research is l. enormous. but ucsf, wehave really stopped all of our research except for research. sfis a massive research engineand we have really repurposed our research, to deal exclusively with this problem, as most pressing public health problems, as long as we need to. as we are starting to e all sorts of new things come out, everything from apps, for rs trying to unnd where people have been, in order to do better contact tracing, to better diagnostics, to drugs, to drudiscovery, to drug development, and to understand the basic biology of the organism. >> from all of this research, when do you thinwe will see a

cure? something that could be effective for that, or a the vaccine is a ways away. that is the end game, right? what we are trying to do is arise until we can have a vaccine, and provide 100% population immunity. or enoughos, enough to 100% that we truly achieve herd immunity. until that time we ha to go through a lot in between. we have to go through a lot of as i said, tenderizing steps of which shelter inthe place is the most ciccone and. it is almost like treating a cancer, you try to g the bulk of the ncer, to start with. then you sort of mop up down the line. that is a kind of similar strategy to that. yo forest fires if will, you want to put off the main fire and then deal with the hotspots after that. >> one of the issues is that we are not completely isolated. we are shelteng in place, but in other states across the ar nation, partic in the

south, they have been much slower to make those decisions, so still have nodone that. what will the impact be of those decisions in other states, on residence here in california? >> that is absolutely an issue. lyat is absolutely positi the issue. we are going to do all of this work, we will make the sacrifices, we are going 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 contin toeyave transmission. will have their own forest fires burning. they will be able to ignite you know, new outbreaks here. at the end of the day if we are successful, we will have certainly less than 5%ma and e even less than 1% of the population of immune. we are still vulnerable, the way for us not to be vulnerable is for other states to do wh we are doing, so we have leveled the playing field,

pushed transmission down, way down, and we are able to deal and go through and pick up individual cases and small new outbreaks. >> door rutherford, thes feel like dark days. what gives you hope? >> what gives me hope, is that we are seeing lolevels of cases here, if you're a patient you don't feel like a low-level case. but we are seeing relatively handfuls of cases per day, our they are exceptionally well prepared, for this, we have health departmen who will act aggressively and who will act decisively, to protect the public's health and rece both the region. d mortality, across that is what the best, that is the real take-home from this story. r your time. herfordthank you >> my pleasure, thank you. >> this week, the san

francisco board of supervisors announced financial help for city residents who don't qualify for many, from the $2 trillionfederal relief package. emergency fund, would provide $500 a month to qualifying undocumented immigrant workers, as restaurants and other jobsites have closed. other bay area localities anre nonprofitsalso stepping up with financial assistance, and san francisco, mission asset fund is raising money for wow income ers, it is, and immigrant famies who don't qualify for werelief. this they started giving $500 cash grants to bay area families and other vulnerable residents. with me now by skype is the ceo and founder of mission asset fund, josc josc this cash grants, been going? it has only been a few ydays th have had this online. tell me about the response. >> thank you for having me. we started the fund several weeks ago, trying to fund is toprovide health and assistance to individuals, families who we knew would be left out from any federal package.

you know, we have been working with immigrant communities, and low income folks undocumented folks, who we feel that 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 ones that are keeping our supply food chain intact. they are the ones that are stocking the shelves at grocery stores. they are the ones at are not getting any assistance from the federal government, so we started our fund several weeks ound that, anin a span of a couple of weeks we raised over $4 million, so that way we could help families, students, other lower a small effort, our funding not enough, the financial pain that people are feeling is great, it is real, ise anxiety high, because people just don't know, we don't know where we sit in the work right now, and so ey need help, we need to do more, definitely. >> i want to come back to the

response to this grant. you put it online earlier this week, and yohad $4 million, that you are able to give out, in these $500 cash grant increments, tell me whsp the se level has been like. >> it has been immense. an we startedapplication just yesterday, tryito reach out to our college students, saying that we are here to help, apply, let us know where you are at. tell us about your story. we expected some response, but we were overwhelmed with the t respont we got. you know, to the point that we had like over 67,000 people sign up, to get some help and again, these are the students all over the state. people that are failing -- feeling the pinch. people who left their campuses, their housing, they probably went back to live with their parents if they are

situation, and there really is a danger, it isnot like ey can go back to the labor market to start working, because they were students. they weren't working. nothere is reallynothing for them. the pain is real, the concerns are real, and i think we have a sense of at through this process. >> tell me about the funding itself. wh e were you abto raise this money, especially during a very difficult time? who are your donors? >> founately, we have been working with partners in the philanthropy world, who started this work with college teachers foundation, we started engagi them, thinking about what is it that we can do together to students, and soon enough, other foundations joined our effort, we had a new foundation just join. to pinpoint, and others who have contributed to the fund. because they all care. they all want to do something and of provided sort like a means to make that happen. again, we know that the

nding, we know that is not enough. what is important to note, is that we needto step in, we need to stand in solidarity with those who are left behind and those who are undocumented immigrants, the federal governments really truly no providing them any assistance whatsoever, just because they hav a number for example, even though theyntribute to the taxpayers, they spend billions of dollars and in the moment ofd 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. >> could you tell mea little bit about the scope of the need particularly re in our region? who qualifies for this aid? >> we definitely are trying to target our assistance to people that are undocumented in th bay area r example, we know that about 580,000 individuals e n the bay area who are

undocumented. about 2 million people across the state, and so they are amonus. they arour friends and our families, our neighbors, people that are part of our society, so we definitely want to step se in and either at least some relief,bu at the most, also send them a message of hop ying 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 are ntributing $500 as a one-time grant, and we expect for them to use that money to buy grocies, to pay for the lls, to feed them, and give them some ease en though it might be temporary. wetry to elevate that so that we can actually get ipthe leader with e local, state, in particular federal level, to say that we can't allow this to happen. we have to step in and anovide

assi to everybody. >> you have been working with vulnerable populations for many years, what new learnings have been revealed, through this pandemic? >> i ththink what pandemic has taught us, is that you know, life is very precarious, in our situation, it can change from one moment to the next, and so we have to you know, be there for each other, take care of each other, be with our e families, love people around us. i think that is really important. one of the things i am thinking about is that society has always blamed poor people, we blame them for not inhaving, eaenough or not having a job or we blame them for just their situation, and but in this pandemic ithas taught 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 how we are all equal, and how we need to bind together and

some together in darity, so we can make it out of this crisis together. >> josc, thank you so much for being with us. >> think you. >> to see if you're eligible and to apply for a cash grant fu from this nd, visit mission asset fund.org. for wewos now, healthcare ers and first responders have been pleading for more facemasks and other personpm protective eqt, as they úit is a problem in need of an urgent solution even a diy one. last week,n francisco-based artist, and shop owner, jenny, held an online workshop how to sew facemasks which are in short supply on the commercial market. rom the clothes she used to ic make before the pandemic. she taught dozens of people who created and then donated homemade masks, to help workers arou the nation. joining me now, is jenny, the owner of jenny lemons and a san francisco-based artist. jee y, increasingly there recommendations to where some sort of face covering when out in public. is this increasing your motivation to have more of

these online opwork >> yes, absolutely. we just infact added another workshop next week, on april . wejust 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 about for you? rkshop come >> my friend rachel from the ruby, which is a gathering space for creative women, reached out to me, and asked if i wanted to help her facilitate a workshop. she d all of thorganizing, and i was the creative fruit behind it. process of going virtual, and teaching people to make these masks online. have you been doing virtual workshops before? what was that shift like? s e. i have been teaching workshops in person for many years. when the pandemic struck and we

had to shelter in place i actually had to cancel every workshop we hathrough april and may, so i wanted to offer mycustomers something, the transition to moving online seems to very natur and has been a t of fun. >> [ laughter ] >> how much technical skill does a person need to make a mask? do you need to be a seamstress or i don't know what th equivalent of that is for a man? someone who can so? >> i like to's call them so us. >> you would need to be able to use a sewing machin a lot people have asked me if i would recommend aning it by hand 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 homa

ny masks have been made? >> so, our online workshop had about 35 views, but i donated fabric and elastic like sewing kits to our customers, and i ended up sending out about 400 masks. so we definitely had at many made, a lot of people just ordered one single mask pack, and to teach them how to ma the masks. and i think the people sent out many more than that. i heard from one person individually, she made 85 masks. >> they are often being donated to healthcare workers, and people a also making masks for themselves, i understand that you have got some family involvement as well, your grandmother? she is in minnesota, bee has helping out? >> yep! she wanted to help, and a group of cardiologists here in san francisco requested a dozen masks, and so i reached out to

my grandma and said can you make these for me? >> [ laughter ] >> it is great that you have that help and people across the nation can get involved with inis, it is someyou can definitely do while you are still at home and sheltering in place. jenny, can you describe what e happened during virtual workshop and if there was anything surprising that emerged? >> one thing that was great, was how interactive it was. asople were able to questions, i was able to see them on video, and we even spent a little bit of time talking about other stuff in projects people wereworking on at home, and one of the surprising things was how people loved to share eir project neon that was really fun to see. a >> doesn't seem like new pathway for community and connection that he didn't have before? >> yes, absolutely. after doing the facemask workshop, i did an embroidery

workshop the ,next d and people joined from new orleans, to michigan, spain, and that was just such an awesome e opportunity to shand be creative with people all over the world. >> that is really interesting, an opportunity to bring in this global communi that you ca in a storefront. >> totally! >> i mean in my shop, the people who come take the classes are, we e on 24th street and is people from fernald heights, and knowing valley, and the mission that are coming and it is great to have such a big reach, wi online. >> let's turn now, to the business side of things, because you are a small business owner in san francisco and this is a difficult time to besmall business owner. first, tell me about jenny, when did you start it and what >> jenny lemons, i started it in 2015 and it began as a ne clothing in 2017, i got my ontail space

24th street, and changed the space into a workshop space, a place to make and sell my own handmade clothing and then also carry goods other loca and independent artists from across the country. >> you alsoperform craft sessions, for some of thsi sses in the area, yes? >> yes! we do teambuilding workshops, for all different startups, and tech companies across the area. >> what sort of an impa has the coronavirus had on your business? you have had to shut your doors obviously. >> yes. furlough my retailaff which habeen a real tragedy, you know. time being. of work at the but, we have moved onr business ne as much as possible, and having our online workshops has helped a lot, it is you know,

nothing compared to what we used to have. i mean we were teaching 4 pe workshops in on a week,on top of all of the teambuilding we did and we can't do any of that anymore. >> how are you doing wi all of this? i mean it must make you uneasy, not only for your employees, and for yourself, but for your customers. are you sleeping at night? >> piam sl at night pretty well. my husband, he calls me a cockroach, meaning th it is like a huge tragedy haens and everyone else is idparabut opportunitto pivot. an so, moving l of ouproducts that were once on just available in our stores, they are all available online now. we are trying to have as many online workshops as possible and really i tham using time to refocus the business in a lot of ways.

people have really beenbuying a lot of art supplies from us online, so like if people want that, i want to provide that for them. i am trying to find m supplies and kids. -- kits. >> jenny, ank you fobeing with us! best of luck to you. >> thank you. as always you can find more of our coverage at kqed.org/ kqed newsroom. you can threach me ugh my social media handle, thank you for joining us! stay safe.

robert: the pandemic tests the nation's resolve. president trump: it's not the fl it's vicious. robert: the president confronts the avity of the pandemic. president trump: talking about deaths. ven athe low end, 100,000, 200,000 people. robert: but as the death toll and unemployment claims rise, governors in both parties worry about supplies. >> i'm going to not believe we'll have those masks until i see them delivered off a truck. bert: and health systems on the brink of clams. >> we're preparing for the is nt surge we know coming. robert: in washington, talks and another round of stimulus are stalled as the speaker and majority leader clash. next

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