>>tonight, on kqed newsroom, bay area counties extend the stay at home order for another month. to slow possible surgin covid-19 cases. are the extreme measures making a difference? also, the largest r package in u.s. history is leaving some workers behind. we will hear what is being done to hthe most vulnerable survive. plus, a local artist shares her crafty solution, to helponfirst rers 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 million people, and claimed more than 50,000 lives, around the world. tonight we begin with local

efforts to slow the transmission of the coronaviru and covid-19, the disease it causes. this week all ne bay areand counties exteed a stay at home directive until the beginninof may, new restrictions are now in place. they include banning most new construction, closing dog parks, playgrounds, and public picnic areas. also, californialystudents will licontinue distance learning, for the rest of the academic year. so far california hospitals have not seen the rapid rge in c covid-es, which have overwhelmed new york and other hotspot regions. also this week, top white house scientists revealed data showing that actions like social distancing and shutting noneential businesses do work. they can slow a surge new cases if done early and aggressively. orge rutherford and an tor infectious disease epidemic knowledge is -- epidemiologist,

thank you for joining us. >> thank you for having me w know this is a busy time for you, you have been an epidemiologist for 4 decades. you worked on , e hiv cris ebola, and you have used that knowledge to help advise the city and county of san francisco. helped adse them on thei early shelter in place orders. can you tell us what we are seeing as a result of th early decision? >> first of all, the decision was ani really courageous, and it was taken by the mayor, 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 100 years in the united states. the shelter in ace order, is a huge intervention for public health. we really haven't used it since 1918 to this extent. what it does, is stop transmission, yes there continues be small amounts of transmission in households, where people are sheltered together or going back and forth to work especially and two hospals, and for the

inevitable leakage. of people who might get infected on their way to the store, or whatever. but it is a huge intervention. we moved very quickly, to put shelter in place, in place. we were sheltered in place r a full week, before the first person died, looking at other places, and we look a lot at southern california. which went to such shelter place 4 days later. we can see some differences, now a lot of that could be random variation >> but, it uld also potentially be because of these shelter in place orders, correct? coronavirus cases certainly seem like they are on the rise. they are not as quick as they are in other places, such as new york. >> absolutely. . positive >> do you see this as the bay area bending or flattening the curve? >> it is certainly one way it could be taken.

i think we need to e another week's worth of data or so, before we are able to say that with any great degree of cacertainty. what isay is it is certainly what we want to see and i encouragerybody to keep doing what they are doing. >> one of the issues that we have is the number of tests, st the production of is ramping up but is nowhere near where public health officials want the volume to be, what the numbof tests that we have, what is the number of test that we nefor people to feel like we are in a good place? and can we get there? we can get there. right now, the swabs are in short supplye swabs you get the specimens with. so, we are repurposing other kinds of swabs, we are looking towa s manufacturers to gi us more and more and more. we would like to be running

about 3000 tests a day in san francisco, just safrancisco. would like to you know, have that kind of volume, run for the entire month of april, we are probly going to be there about this time next week. >> homany are we running right now? >> i think this week, it is about 1700 per day this week. >> about half of at we need? >> a little more than half, yes. you are right. >> is on the steep part of a curve. >> we are going to catch up. >> okay, there have en increased recommendations for everyone to wear some sort of face covering when they go out in public and th is a change from the earlier guidance, that said you should only wear a mask if you are sick or if tiyo are tr a sick patient. tell us about how that change occurred and what it means for e us. >> as we move away eventually from shelter in place we have to have other interventions in place. thth is one of . the absolute priority 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 can look for to get sick and stop working. that is the first priority. thioe are other ties, nursing homes, long-term care facilities and so on. so, now as we really still don't havethat d 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 aring masks outside.'s of people have masks that they had from construction work or gotten at hardware stores or gotten off the shelves at supermarkets, thos are great.that is fine. if you don't have those, you can wear a scarf, you can wear a bandanna, a handkenohief, over your and face. the point here is that it is not meant to protect you, it is meant to protothers from

you. >> how effective is that? >> well, rsto protect otfrom you, it is really ... ng it will keep everyt inside. >> that is the original 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 artodesigned do. that is the idea, we are trying to keep the germs, keep your germs to yoursel >> so, you're connected to research that is not only being done at ucsf but also at cations throughout the bay area, n you tell us about the web of work inthat is done, to slow the transmission of covid-19, here in the bay area? >> it is remkable. i sat through medical grand rounds at ucsf yesterday and the number of clinical trials going on, it is simply remarkable. we are seeing lots ofthings being tried, and these are medications thatare meant to treat people who are all the

way from mildly ill, toan extremist, we are seeing incredible amounts of basic science. drug discovery, kni at stanford they are doing a lot of molecular work as well. the pace of research is enormous. but ucsf, we have really stopped all of our research sf is a massive research engine and 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 arstarting to e all sorts of new things come out, everything from ap, for trying to understand where people have en, inorder to do better contact tracing, to better diagnostics, to ruugs, todiscovery, to drug development, and to understand the basic biology of the organism. >> from all of this research, whin do you we will see a

cure? something that could be effectivfor that, or a vaccine? >> the vaccine is a ways away. that is the end game, right? what we are trying to is to arise until we can have a vaccine, and provide 100% population immunity. or eugh, close enough to 100% that we truly achieve herd immunity. until that time we have to go through a lot in between. we have to go through a lot of as i said, tendizing steps of which shelter in the place is the most ciccone and. it is almost like treating a cancer, you try to get rid of the bulk of the cancer, to start with. then you rt of moup down the line. that is a kind of similar forest fires if you 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 sheltering in place, but in other stat across the nation, particularly in the south, they have been much

slower to make thsoe decisions, still have not done that. what will the impact be of those decisions in other states, on residence here in california? at is absolutely positively ue. 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, othe are just not making those kinds of saifices. and they are going to cotoinue ave transmission. they will have their own forest fires burning. they will be able to ignite you ow, new outbreaks here. at the end of the day if we are successful, we will have 5%certainly less than and maybe even less than 1% of the population of immune. we are still vulnerable, the way for us not to be vulnerable is foother statesto do what we are doing, so we have leveled the playing field, pushed transmiion downway down, and we are able to deal

and go through and pick up individual cases and small new outbreaks. do >> or rutherford, these feel like dark days. what gives you hope? >> what gives me hope, is that lo are seeing levels of cases here, if you're a patient you don't feel like a low-level case. t we are seeing relatively handfuls of cases per day, our hospitals have e capacity, they are exceptionally well prepared, for this, we have en health depar who will act aggressively and who will act decisively, to protect the reblic's health and ce both the region. d mortality, across that is what the best, that is the real take-home from this >> doctor rutherfothank you for your time. >> 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 on$2 trilfederal relief package. emergency fund, would provide $500 a month to qualifying undocumented immigrant workers, as restaurants and other jobsites have closed. other bay ar localities and nonprofits are also stepping up with financial assistance, and san francisco, mission asset fund is ising money for low income workers, it is, and immigrant families who don't qualify for relief. th week they started giving $500 cash y grants to area families and other vulnerable residents. with me now by skype is the ceo and founder of mission asse fund, josc josc this cash grants, been going? it has only beena few ys that you have had this online. tell me about the response. >> thank you for having me. we started the fund several weeks agtrying to fund raise to provide health anassistance 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 inco folks undocumented folks, who we feel that are just as worthy of assistance now, more than ever. th are the ones that are the front lines of this till pandemic. they are the ones that are keeping our supply food chain intact. they are the ones that are stocking theshelves at grocery stores. they are ththe ones are not getting any assistance from the federal government, so we started our fund several weeks ago and startefundraising around that, and in a span of a couple of weekwe raised over $4 million, so that way we could help families, students, other lower wage rkers king a small effort, our funding is not enough, the financial pain that people are feeling is grtht, it is real, anxiety is high, because people just don't know, we don't know where we sit in the work right now, th and so 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 you had $4 llion, that yoare able to give out, in these $500 cash grant increments, tell me what the response level has been like. >> it has been immense. 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 abt your story. we expected some response, but we were erwhelmed with the response that we got. you know, to the point that we had like over 67,000 people sign up, to get some help and again, theseare the students all over the state. people that are failing -- feeling the pinch. people who left their campuses, their housing, they probably went ck to live with their parents if they are in that situation, and there really is

a danger, it not like they can go back to the labor market to start working, because they were students. they werenot working. there is really nothing for them. the pain isreal, the concerns are real, and i think we have a sense ofat through this process. >> tell me about the funding itself.wh e were you 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, started engaging 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 d something provided sort of like a means to make that happen. again, we know that the formula, even if we get the

funding, we know that is not enough. what is important tonote, is that we need to step in, we need to stand in solidarity with those who are left behind and the who are undocumented immigrants, the fentral governs really truly not providing them any assistance whatsoever, just because they hav a number enfor example, 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 the their other nonprofits and local governments that need to step in and really try to rectify that oblem. >> couyou tell me a little bit about the scope of the need particularly here in our region? who qualifies for this aid? >> we definitely are trying to target our assistance to people that are undocumented in bay area for exple, we know that about 580,000 individuals live in the bay area who are undocumented. about 2 million people across

the state, and theyonare us. they are our friends and our families, our neighbors, people that are part of our society, so we definitely want to st 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 are ntributing $500 as a one-time grant, and we expect for them to use that money to lls, to feed them, ay for the and give them some ease even th might be temporary. wetry to elevate that so that we can actually get the leadership with e local, state, in particular federal level, to say that we can't allow this to happen. we have to stepin and ovide assistance to everybody.

>> you have been working with vulnerable populations for many years, what new learnings have been revealed, through this pandemic? >> i think what this pandemic has taught us, is that you know, life is very pre in our situation, it can change from one moment to the next, and so we have to you kner, be for each other, take care of each other, be with our families, love the people around us. i think at is real important. one of the things i am thinking about is that society has always blamed poor people, we blamthem for not having, earning enough or not having a joe or we blthem for just their situation, and but in this pandemic it has taught us that you know, we are 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 me together in solidarity, 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 sh grant from this fund, visit mission ast fund.org. for weeks now, healthcare workers and first responders have been pleadi for more facemasks aland other pers protective equipment, as they úit is a problem in need of an urgent solution even diy one. last week, san francisco-based artist, and shop owner, jenny, held an online workshop on how to sew facemasks which are in short supply on the commercial market. m the clothes she used to bric make before the pandemic. she taught dozens of people who created and then donated homemade masks, to help workers around the nation. joining me now, is jenny, the owner of jenny lemons and a san francisco-based artist. jenny, increasingly there are recommendations to where some sori of face co when out in public. is this increasing your motivation to have more of these online workshops?

we just in fact added another workshop next week, on april 14. we just had such an outcry of support, of different people that wanted to help, and ma masks so we wanted to offer them something else. >> how did th idea to offer a about for you? op come >> my friend rachel from the ruby, which is a gathering space for creative women, reached out d to me, asked if i wanted to help her facilitate a workshop. e d all of the organizing, and i was the creative fruit behind it. >> st tell me abthe 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. en the pandemic struck and we

had to shelter in place i actual had to cancel every workshop we had, through april and may, so i wanted my offer customers something, the transition to moving online seems to very natural s and been a lot of fun. >> [ laughter ] >> how much technical skill does a person need to make a mask? or i don't know what the tress equivalent of that is for a man? someone who can so? >> i like to call them so us. >> you would need to be able to usina sewing ma a lot of people have asked me if i would recomming it by hand and yes you could, if you're doing one for yourself. so it by hand and it would r.ta fore but, yeah. basic knowledge of sewing on a sewinglymachine is defini preferred. úparticipated so far and how many masks have been made?

>> so, opr online workhad 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 defitely had that many ordered one singlemask pack, and to teach them how to make the masks. and i think the people sent out many more than i at. heard from one person individually, she made 85 masks. >> they are often being donated to healthcare workers, and people are also making masks i for themselvesunderstand that you have got some family involvement as well, your grandmother? she is in minnesota, she has been helping out? >> yep! she waed to help, and a group of cardiologists here in san francisco requested a dozen masks, and so i ached out to

my grandma and id can you make these for me? and she did! >> [ laughter ] >> it is great that you have that help and people across the nation can get involved with this, it is something you can definitely do while yoare still at home and sheltering in place. jenny, can you describe what happened during the virtual workshop and if there rps anything sing that emerged? >> one thing that was great, was how interactive it was. pe le were able to ask questions, i was able to see them on video, and we even spent a oflittle bit time talking about other stuff in the workshop, like sewing projects people were working on at home, and one of the surprising things was how people loved to share their project online, that was really doesn't seem like a 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 day, and

people joined from new orleans, to michigan, to spain, and that was just such an awesome opportunity to share and be creative with people all over the world. >> that is really interesting, an opportunitto bring inthis global community that you can't in a storefront. >> totally! >> i mean in my shop, the people who come take the classes are, we are 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, with online. >> let's rn now, tothe business side of things, because you are a small business owner in san francisco and this is a difficult time to be a small business owner. first, tell me about jenny, when did you start it and what >> jenny lemons, i started it in 2015 and it begaas a clothing line. in 2017, i got mytail space on 24th street, and changed th

space into a workshop space, a place to make and sell my own handmade clothing and then also carry goods other local and independent artists from across the country. >> you soperform craft sessions, thr some of businesses in the area, yes? >> yes! we do teambuilding workshops, for all different startups, and tech companies across the area. >> what sort paof an has the coronavirus had on your business? you have had to shut your doors obviously. >> yes. furlough myretail staff which has been a real tragedy, you know. time being. of work at the but, we have moved r business online as much as possible, and having our online workshops has nothing compared towhat we w,

used to have. i mean we were teaching 4 workshops in person a week,on top of all of the teambuilding we did and we can't do any of that anymore. how are you widoing 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? am sleeping at night pretty well. my h band, he calls mea cockroach, meaning that it is like a huge tragedy happens and everyone else is paranoid, but opportunity to pivot. so, movingl of our products 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 am using this 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 more art supplies and kids. -- kits. >> jenny,ank you for being with us! best of luck to you. >> thank you. as always you can find more of our coverage at kqed.org/ kqed newsroom. you careach me through my social media handle, thank you for joining us! stay safe.

captioning sponsored by wnet >> sreenivasan: on this edition for sunday, april 5: warnings of a tough week ahead as the number of covid-19 cases continues to climb. in our signature segment: how telehealth is sing the burden r doctors and patients. and keeping spirits up in the wake of uncertainty. next on "pbs newshour weekend." >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: bernard and irene schwartz. sue and edgar wachenheim iii. the cheryl and philip milstein family. rosalind. walter. barbara hope zuckerberg. charles rosenblum.