captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evooing, i'm judydruff. on the newshour tonight, seeking signs of hope. as the death toll climbs and president trump removes a key watchdog, we talk with bill gates about how he sees a way out of this pandemic. >> the vaccine is critical because until you have that things aren't really going to be normal. they can open up to some degree, but the risk of a rebound will be there until we have very broad vaccination. >> woodruff: then, a call to action. from struggles for supplies to a higher death rate among people of color, the vernor of maryland and mayor of chicago on leading at a local level. plus, we hear from emergency medical technicians. what they've seen from the ambulances as they race to save

lives. and, politics in the pandemic to wisconsin, where voters areto headinhe ballot box today, despite warnings that polling places are a hotspot waiting to happen. all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs ney:hour has been provided b >> consumer cellular offers no-contract wireless plans that e designed to help you do more of the things you enjoy. whether you're a towker, texter, r, photographer, or a bit of everything, our u.s.-sed customer service team is here to find a plan that fits you. to learn more, go to consumercellular.tv

>> the jn s. and james l. knight foundation. fostering informed and engaged communities. more at kf.org. >> and with e ongoing support of these institutions: >> this program was made g.ssible by the corporation for public broadcast and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: hundreds more names have joined the list of the pandemic has now claimed more than 80,000 lives, including more than 12,000 in the uned states. and, new york city has surpassed its own record, set by the worst terror attack on american soil. adill, there are new suggestions that hope lies a stephanie sy begins ourco rage. >> reporter: another grim milestone reached...ot

>> af pain again today, for many new yorkers. >> reporter: ...deaths in new - more than died in theeded 9/11 attack on the world trade0- 3,20 center. but, the number of new patients being ferried to hospitals is dropping -- and governor andrew cuomo says that is a sign of progress. >> right n we're projecting we are reaching a plateau in total number of hospitalizations, you can see the growth and you can .e it's starting to flatt >> reporter: other states are also seeg early signs of containment. new jersey governor phil murphy urges staying the course.: >> but we cannot be happy with only reaching a plateau. we need to keep strong, and keep determined, to see that curve begin to fall and ultimately get to zero. that going to require many more weeks at the least of our being smart and staying at least, at all times, six feet

apart. >> reporter: but in wisconsin today, staying six feet apart presented a new challenge for voters. the state supreme court orderedo the primarake place as scheduled, after an 11th hour legal battle to delay in-person voting. lines outside polling stations stretched for blocks. national guard troops stepped in to r sites where poll worker failed to show in fear of catching the virus. meanwhile, t pandemic's effect on migrants detained at the southern border came into sharper focus.io amnesty ternl reported that detention facilities have failed to adopt adequate measures to prevent outbreaks. they're not suring basic hygiene and sanitation, or enforcing social distancing practices and quarantining people with symptoms. amnesty says the u.s. immigration detention system is the largest in the world, with

advocates have asked ic provide alternatives for detention. they may start doing so for certain detainees, including those er 60 and pregnant women. but the trump administration's efforts to control the virus have ben called into question, even outside closed quas.r" the new york times" reported today that warnings about the scale of the crisis circulated wes tidou ht hitrheumpte iousec pu downplayed the threat. mes from trade adviser pet navarro warned the virus could" take millions of lives" and cost the economy "trillions." rg who had been chosen by peers to thersee the rollout of mor $2 trillion in coronavirus relief funds. and, in britain today, londoners woke up to newprime minister boris johnson had been moved to intensive care overnight, battling worsening coronavirus

symptoms. >> it is quite worrying for the country, for people inal, because what's going to happen. he is the leader, rif the cotry, so i think it is quite worrying >> reporter: officials said johnson relied on oxygen support but without the need of a siventilator, and with no gns of pneumonia. british foreign minister dominic raab, now at the helm, sai johnson's diagnosis came as a shock. >> he's not just a prime minister, for all of us in the cabinet, he's not just our boss, he's also our colleague and our friend. i'm confident he will pull through because if there's one thing i know about this prime minister is he's a fighter. >> reporter: and, in wuhan, china, the original epicenter this crisis, upbeat residents flocked the streets, ready for an 11-week lockdown coming to an end. china reported its first day since january with no new deaths. for the pbs newshour, i'm

stephanie sy. >> woodruff: wall street oallied for muthe day, on hopes that the pandemic is easing. but, oil prices fell sharply, d the rally died. the dow jones industrial average lost 26 points to close at 22,653.na thaq fell 26 points, and,0 the s&p ipped four points. at a time when everyone is looking to understanhethe scope ofandemic, and how to minimize the threat, one of d e best inforices is that of businessman and philanthropist mill gates. the co-founder oosoft has spent the last few decades focuse through the bill and melinda gates foundation, on improving global health, includinreducing the spread of infectious diseases. we spoke earlier this evening. bill gates, thank you very much for joining us. you were one of th prescient few years ago who sad that an infectious disease outbre was coming that could kill millions

of people. how is what is happening now different from what you expected? the economic damage is much that gr tter. i put illion for a respiratory virus spreadingo around the gbe and, you know, clearly we're going to go well beyond that. thu know, e whole goal of speaking out then wasn't to be able to say, "id tolu so" when it hammond. rather, it was to make sure we did the right thingo diagnostics would come out right away, the timeline for a vaccine would be very short. and, sadly, not many of those ings were doe. so now we're scrambling to come up with thrapeutics, scrambling to try to figure out how to get de.s vaccine but people are arising to the occasion, but it's a very bad situation. >> woodruff: well, speaking of things that weren't done, testing. this has become one of the united states right now.

president trump said, i thinkwe thres ago, that there would be some sort of rapid testing. he mentioned google. he said that wast. immin it hasn't happened. why is this so hard? and what do you think its going to take to get a rapid turnaround test in place? >> yeah, we need a variety of ngsts. the teshat's currently being done, which is a p.c.r.-based test, there was a advance that our fouovndation that now you can do a self-swab, so you could veryqu kly do the test without having the health care worker have to wear protective equipment and having to change that. soaventually, we'll hav home test that you can just swab and >> woodruff: so what is the most immediate thing that needs to be done with regard to teing? >> w you can imagine having a website where you enter in the criteria o your symptoms, are

you an essential worker, where you are, and it gives you back priority levd so all the testing operations make sure that they're only taking in enough high-priority stuff that they can mainlt a very quick s turnarouyou don't have stale results. tthat should be reasonab put together. o go rallel, we've got fast as we can on thesrapeut and go as fast as we can on a vaccine. lot of lives and avoid theave a overload. and with luck, some of those will be proming in the next three to six months. the vaccine is critical because until youave that, things aren't really going to be normal. they can open up to somereeg but the risk of a rebound will be there until we have very broad vaccination. >> woodruff: and you've saidit ay take, according to the scientists you work with and you

talk to all the time, it take up to a year and a half to get that vaccine. what--re you saying, literally, that it could be the fall of 2021 before americans can be safe from this cov bid-1? fore you can be completely safe eye mean, byng doihe strong social distancing that most of the countrys engaged with right now, that allows you to level off the cases and bring it dann. you want to bring it down to a level that your capacity to test, to concitact tra, to make sure the quarantine is maintained, so you don't see a big rebound, even though you've allowed most work to continue u know, school, you know, certainly in the fall you'd thriek see thago in. so we want to have that period have the economy not as damaged as necessary this extreme period where the numbers are so bi and

they've been growing ve got toally, that w get that down so that it's much lower. >> woodruff: but when yo talk about returning to some semblance of normal what, are we saying tht looks like? i men, you mentioned keeping up social distancing. what cod life look like, say, six months, a year from now? there's still some of these--me f these steps we're taking now, they would remain in effect? >> yeah. i'm working to write about that. e closest model today is you look at china.di they are se people ck to work, but they're wearing masks. they're checking temperatures, they're not doing large sporting events. and so, they've been able to avoid a large rebound. there areu contries like sweden that aren't locking down quite as much and seeing, oay, do their numbers go up? if so, you can trace back theac vities that are causing that. we need to learn from all the

untries. our partner, international health metrics and evaluation, is looking atforecasts where they compatriot different countries. that's helping us to understand, okay, which policies in which countries seem to be working? anso we'll b far closer to normal once we ge those case numbers down. but there will be some things where the benefit to the risk, like large puc btherings, may not resume until broad vaccination has taen place. >> woodruff: meaning conventions-- when you say "large public gathering," over 10 people.ea >> well, we'll have to figure out how to draw that and we may even understand age-specific risk at that point. so having a classroom with 30 young people in it may be just fine because their re in transmitting the disease we'll

understand in the next month or so. it may be so limited, that u're far more liberal with young people getting together than you would be with a >> woodruff: a couple of questions about the economy. the wall street firm evercore, is projecting 50%-that is 5-0-- percent drop in g.d.p. this quarter, an unemployment rate of 20%, twice as high du ng the financial crisis. they're projecting ano%ther 5 drop in the third quarter. and that's fore we begin t come back. r assessment? >> well, again, i'm not as deep an expert on that as i am on vaccines.s if you have t a three-month period of extreme shutdown, and then you were able to d a large the end is the best thing from a medical point of view, and an

economic point of view. one thing that will be very trky, though, is when wepen up, you know, people's psyche in terms of their wealth and their willingness to go out o things has been deeply affected. so even once you fix these supply side by allowing people to go back too wrk, factories to t n, then you'll still have this huge question abe demand side, you know, taking trips, buyng new houses, even g a car-- this is very unprecedented. and although that model you one of theooks li more negatives, the uncertainty is such that it's not out of the realm of psibility. >> woodruff: the continent of africa is a pace that you and your wife, melinda, know very well through your foundation. you've done so much work there. hohmuch do you worry aboute effect of this pandemic in a place like thawhen it hits there? >> yeah, sadly, it seems likely at this point that even thugh

the deaths in the developing world have baen very smll as yet because not that many people with the disease wenthere as moved around in between rich countries, that because their health systems are so limited, because the social distancing it much harder to do where you live in a slum right next to each other. you have to go out to get your food. there isn't the capacity to run the food distribution sys jm wist a small percentage of the workforce, like the u.s. has. and so trying help those countries get their testing capaty up, figure what tactics work for them, that maye ifferent. the kind of social distancing rich countries do may not work. and so how do you tune that? sadly, you know, i do think tht most of the deaths will be in those countries and the most extreme economic pain. un, they're not able tor borow

of the rich countries are ma engaged if that exercise. they just don have the creditworthiness, the sense that will drive hyperinflation would so even though it's super important that we deal with the domestic numbers and get those down, as we think about innovation, as we think about the rest of thi year, the suffering in those countes, we also need to be thinking about that and help as much as we can. >> woodruff: dihear you say you think most the deaths will come-- >> in developing countries, yes. >> woodruff: and finally, a personal question. u certainly know this issue better than most anybody else, and, yet, has shaken a lot of people. has caused people whore normally, you know, together in their lives to be quite rattled. how do you think-- do you think you've been affected by this?

>> well, i'm deeply shaken. i-- you know, every day i'm like, rwe really in this situation? wow. you know, there are things like polo eradication tha you know, was-- we felt like we're making able setback for that. you know, people are tking the resources that are fundedinar and shiftinthem o this priority. so, you know, who knows where we'll be on those other effort fort. we have some great h.i.v. breakthrough drugs that we want to get out into trials. those trials aren't happening.t, in fhe top people who were going to work on that have been reassigned to work on the coronavirus vaccine. so the foundation is scrambling because as a lot of the key understandings a relationships to accelerate some of these solution, but our normal work, you know, is-- is suffering.

and, you know, you just look at people whoatre isolate home or, you know, overcrowded inei home or kids who are going to lose three months of ouarning. the of pain involved in this thing is gintic. k and, yw, so it's deeply troubling. but we need toc stillt to minimize all of that. >> woodruff: well, bill gaerkts we thank you very much for spending the time talking with us today. thank you, and we wish and you what you're doi at the foundation the very best. >> thank you. he woodruff: in the day's news, acting secretary of the navy homas modly resigned after a tirade against the captain of a warship that's been hit by the coronavirus. modly had fired captain brettir crozier of theaft carrier

"theodore roosevelt," for sending out an e-mail plea to evacuate the crew. then, on sunday, the secretary lambasted crozier.in guam, and >> it was my opinion that if he didn't thinkhat information was gonna get out into the public in this information age that we live in, then he was, a, the commanding officer of a ship like this. >> woodruff: modly apologized last night for his comments about crozier, but the calls for his ouster mounted. president trump designated james mcpherson to succeed modly. he was confirmed as undersecretary of the army just last month. white house press secretary stephanie grisham is leaving, after nine months. at president trump's direction, she never held a formal press briefing, and she will now becomehe first lads chief of staff.

her successor as press secretary will be kayleigh mcenany, who's now spokeswoman for e trump re-election campaign.fg innistan, the taliban says it has broken off talks with thn afovernment over a prisoner exchange. thlmilitant group said it w not take part in what it called "fruitless meetings." the u.s. reached a troop withdrawal agreement with the litants in february. the deal also called for a prisoner exchange, as a step toward a broader settlement. australia's top court today threw out the criminal convictions against roman caolic cardinal george pel for sexually abusing children. the judges found there was reasonable doubt about his guilt. pell was released af months behind bars, and driven to a monastery in melbourne, as abuse survivor groups condemned the decision.>> ou feel angry and then you just feel really sad. because, the emotions are just so vast. there's so much to think about

and to take on in all this. >> woodruff: pell had been the most senior catholic church official to be jailed in the long-running abuse scandal. the university of michigan is sending letters to nearly 6,800 formertudent-athletes in a sexual abuse investigation. the school wants them to speak to a law firm investigating allegations that go back to the 1960's. a former campus doctor, robert anderson, is accused of molesting students for decades. he died in 2008.al a federal apcourt allowed texas today to limit most abortions during the coronavirus pandemic. state officials have classifiedr ons as non-urgent procedures during the crisis.ur a lower blocked the policy last week, but the appeals panel ruled the state is protecting a black pioneer inine publishi has passed away. earl graves senior died monday after a long struggle with

alzheimer's disease. 1970, he launched "black enterprise." it was the first magazine about black entrepreneurs to be owned byn african-american, and he used it to champn black business. earl graves was 85 years old. and, a so-called "super-moon" will light up the y tonight over much of the country. the moon will be full moon, and closer than usual, less than 220,000 miles from earth. that should make it the brightest and largest lunashow of the year. still to come on the newshour: speaking with the governor of maryland on how his state ise coping with isis. front lines-- what emergency medical technicians have seen in the fight against coronavirus. the mayor of chicago on why black americans are being hit what can be done to address it. plus, covid-19 and the campaign. wisconsin voters head to the polls.

>> woodruff: as hospitals in coronavirus hot spots brace for difficult weeks ahead, governors kiacross the country are w together to ensure front-linel medirkers receive critical protective gear. maryland governor larry hogan is the chairman of the national governors association and he joins us now from napolis. governor hogan, lcome. the newshour. your state of maryland, we believe, has now passed 4300 cases, surpassed 100 deaths. in yany wa, do you fel you're getting your arms around this? >> well, it's very hard to ever feel like you're getting yor arms around it. i mean, i feel like we're as prepared as we possibly could

be. i was on ne of the firste country to declare a state of ioergency, and we've taken unprecedented ac every single day for the past 33 days. but like everyone, we're tryingc to pltch-up and trying to stay one step ahead of it, but anybody to say, you know, we've got our arms wrapped around it. >> woodruff: whatdo you mos need right now? as you know, so much conversation about governors having hard time getting th equipment, getting the supplies they need. what is the most critical to you now? >> wal, it's the sme for every governor, i think, judy. it's the same thi that you keep hearing about. and it's-- the most difficul s thing i wouay right now is ventilators. and we were suessful in getting a couple of hundred veilators from the administration, a commitment of 200 more ventilators. that's what new york is being faced with right now. it's just-- but it's p.p.e. it's all the protective equipment thawe need for our hospitals and our health care workers. it's testing angd tesits. and that's just something that

we're seahing for these things all over the domestic market, all over the world, and we're our federal partners for help as well. no governor isitting by waiting for these things to arrive. >> woodruff: as you know, governors are speak out and saying they're not only having to compete against each other. they were competing with the federal government, fema. they're mpeting with other countries. is that just the way it's going to be for the duration of thisem pa, or is there a fix in sight? >> i think it's improving, judy, to tell you the truth. i mean-- look, it's not a perfect situation. but it's getting better, rather than worse, i would say. we're having ongoing discussions, all the governors, with thadministration. there are new laboratories that are ramping up with new tes and more availability of tests. we're certainly playing catch-up. it's not where we ne be. but i think we're better off today than we were last week. and we catching up, but it's

certainly not where anyone needs to be today. but it's a lot better than it and we have more testing going on in our state, and i think in most states than we did last week. >> woodruff: just moments ago at the briefing at the white house, president trump told reporters, he said, among other things, he said, "if your governor is failinto get you what you need," he said, "i'llec pryou." i mean, is that the way it now works? >> well, look, i think what we really need right now it's real enemy here is the virus. that's the common enemy we're all fight gg. and itng to take the federal, state, and local governments all working together to try toight thcommon enemy. we don't need finger ponting from anywhere. i don't think there are any governors failing anywhere in america. i can tell you as somebody who has been leading discussions with governors on an ongoing basis and many of them with the president and vice president, and many with just the governors, i'm really proud of the job ey're doing. d i don't think we need finge

pointing about any governor's failing. every governor is doing the best job they can, and i think the federal government is doing the best job to help us.to we neeo a lot more about how to fix these problems rather than finger pointing, from any direction. ufoo>>ovif: bdrr ler gyonouieved strike teams, to go into nursing homes in maryland. tell us wow tharks. >> so, this is a problem across the country. remember the first crise happened in the stat washington with this nursing home that we all were shocked tb heart. and now we've got 90 nursing homes here in our state where we have at least one case, but severaof thlly dramatic outbreaks. a number of other states do. we are sending in strike teams with members of the nationa guard, with doctors and nurses from our local health departments and from loc and regional hospitals to go in on on emergency basis to try to wrap our arms ad this and to identify the situation, to triage the situation, andd people when they need to, to

hospitals or take care of the testing to find out, you know,h exactly where that facility is and what help they need. because, you know, this is our most-vulnerable population. we're having these outbreaks weoon utoth sitrys an.d tt viou o stop-- to make sure we're checkin staff members. but still, we've got these outbreaks, and we've got to make sure we stop m before they become widespread. and the strike teams are just one new tool that we're unleashing today. >> woodruff: and just quickly, announced that thte isou also going to start reporting-- or launching what they call a "coronavirus rumor control" page on your wsite. is that because of so much bad information being out there? >> i think there's just a lot of people that are just relying on a lot of random rumors that they pick up on social media, and it just runs rampant.o so we're justng to try to-- you ow, i think facts are

really important, and that's whe e tried to be as transparent as possible, have the doctors and so we want to separate fact from fiction. i think at a time like, thiscu it's parrly important that people are hering from the scientists and doctors, and notm running nt with things that just aren't true. >> woodruff: governor larry hon of maryland. thank you very much. and, again, we wish you the very best in dealing with all this. >> thank you, judy. >> woodruff: new york remains the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in the u.s. doctors, nurses, a medical teams there are bearing the brunt of a surge of seriously ill patients. william brangham recently spoke with two frontline members about their work. >> brangham: adam bliden is an e.m.t., an emergency medical technician, in rockland county,

about 25 miles outside new york. same with pearse matthews. they both drive ambulances, responding to 911 callss the county.li so many places in new york right now, coronavirus has become all consuming. i spoke to the two of them the other day. as a percentage of the cngls you're getow, how many would you assume are coronavirus cases?>> 00%. >> brangham: 100%? >> 100%. >> yes. hie rarity of getting a "regular emergency," sounds crazy, a regular emergency where someone eds our help right away and we can do something? in 10 calls, you may have one almost, yeah. so it's almost 100% are either confirmed cases or suspecteds. ca >> brangham: i mean, that has got to be, i don't want to put words in your mouth, but nerve

wracking-- like if every person -u possibly interact with sometimes very, very close -- if you're worried that personro has virus, that's got to be, i mean, mentally exhausting. >> it is. it is that, coupled with the call volume going up drastically and in most cases more than doubling your call volume every day. so a shift that you might see, you know, eight patients on, you're getting called to 16 to 20 different houses. we're going from 100 calls a week to 200 and 250. it's... it's intense.ea it'sy intense.al espe when you don't believe you have the correct p.p.e. it's scary. we're scared just as much ashe regular person. again, we have to do this job. you know, we signed up for this.

this is what we do for a living. and e.mpersonnel and hospital personnel re proud to do it. but it's very scary. it'sot that they're ver infectious. that is, obviously, the case that covid is an infectious but it's also that the people that we're seeing may not live. and as e.m.s and health healthcare workers, we're used to trying to do our best to save lives. i s emotionally taxing, i think, on the health care personnel. >> last week, me specifically, there were at least three patients i had seen earlier in the week w i came back to work a couple of days later and found out they had passed aw. i was just there? like, how quickly, you know, was that? that she went from being alive, to not alive anymore. he went alive, to not being alive. >> brangham: that's got to make the statistics that we see. these numbers of cases going up every day, we see them as ba charts. but for you guys, it seems

obviously a lot more visceral. >> yeah, it's it's not a chart. it's not a graph. it's a-- it's a person who you spoke to.you touched, who you and now they're not. now they're,ou know, sadly, ey've gone on to become a that's, that's onee harder parts of this, for sure. >> actually, i when i en i got off duty last night. i'm off today. i got off at 2:00 a.m.nd i went to a fr house to evaluate his father, who is bed- pneumonia.as diagnosed with i cried from the station to his house, and in fronof his house for probably about two e additional minutes, beca-- you know during shift, i work for 24 hours straight. i couldn't really you know, i couldn't really have emotions because i was working. you know, we have to do our job. we all have to do our job. we signed up for this. we have to, have to treat these patients and make sure everything's okay. and, you know, after the end of

my shift, i broke down, i cried. tu know, just thinking ab everything that i had seen, you know, the patients tt i knew probably would not make it.to >> oof that, we have the fear: have i been exposed? you know? am i going to give it to someone else? all of us. you ask anyone in emergency services, we're all immortal. you can't kill us. and now it's getting closer to home that we need to start considering our own health as well. i think yesterday we lost, they were retired guys, but there were two firefighters who passed away yesterday from this. those are guys who gave their whole life to their fire idepartments. s getting closer ando closerme for all of us it's no longer, you know, if we're gonna be exposed, that's gone. we're all gonna be exposed. we don't know when. >> brangham: on top of the stresses of the job, of worrying

whher they themselves migh get sick, many e.m.t.'s also have to work for low pay and few benefits. >> the average salary for an e.m.t. in new york state doing what we're doing through all of this is about $37,000 a year. >> wow. >> yeah. righnow, both pearse and i, everyone who's doing what we're doing, we're juggling, usually it's two or three jobs just to keep working so we can pay our bills. we do this because we love it. everyone knows there's no money in it. but right now, i'm doing all of this with no health insurance, no healtrainsurance. >>ham: no health insurance? how is that possible? it doesn't come with the job? >> offer it andsn't theoeob d the affordable marketplaces aren't very affordable if i get sick and okay, i go get tested positive. i can't go to the hospital.

literally, life or death is what's going to put me in the hospital. it's scary and you know. people come out and eyhow us their support and i love it. chlove, and i've eaten so pizza in the last two weeks! it's been great! i don't need pizzabl i need to beto pay my bills. i need to be able to work a 40 hour work weeknd live like a normal human being. >> brangham: i know you guys have probably seen all these videos of people clapping out when there's a hospital shift rotating out and i mean, i hope yodyknow that the is every out there does on some level appreciate how crucial you all are to keeping all of us safe. >> i appreciate you saying that. we're scared also of-- the general public is scared about this virus and we are, too.

but welso know that this is our job. and, you know, we love to do this. fixing people and making sure they're okay, it's something that we like to do. love to do it. so it makes us feel really good when we feel the support from the regular people and also frot r agencies like police and fire.t i appreciate tlot. >> woodruff: the pandemic hitting the u.s. is hitting people of color especially hard. arat least that's what the the c.d.c. has not pubshed breakdowns of deaths by race. but some places are discsing that and the numbers are alarming. in michigan, roughly 40% of deaths were among african-

americans last week. in louisiana, nearly 70% of deaths weramong black citizens. and that was true in chicago as we. as part of our race matters series, yamiche alcindor takes a closer look at what's happeningo >> alc the trends are particularly bad in chicago. chicago mayor lori lightfoot hae sounding the alarm about this and joins me now. will thank you so rech for being mayor lightfoot. in chicago, some 70% of the people who have died from the coronavirus are african american, and the city's population is only 29% african we're seeing other trends in michigan and louisiana that also show that african americans areo dispropotely part of the death rates in those states. what's behind these numbers? and what can be done to better protect the people mos rt atisk? >> well, look, these numbers are shock to be sure, but thet y're ntirely surprising, and the reason is we've been talking about the healt disparities ine our cityally for years. when you see that africa americans disproportionately

have high rates of diabetes, heart disease, and a range of respiratory problems, this disease attac those underlying medical conditions with a vengeance. so given that disparity in health conditions and life expectancy, we are doing everything that we can to do two things. number one, make sure that we have good data so we can really effectively measure the impact of this disease. we put these numbers outknwing that still 25% of the providers are not reporting demographic information. so we put in place an order yesterdathat requires that reporting. the other thing that we're doing is we'vmobilized what we're calling a "racial equity rapid" response tea we have a mod nel one area of our city that is really broken down a lot of barriers to getting african americans access to health care, demtifying the system, and really bringing them into preventive care.

we're going to take thaelt mod and then we're going to implement that in a hyp way, but all over the city. we're focuson the areas wherein we're s the highest percentage of death, but then out fom ere i ia l tol we'lpactio n.extnd when i first saw these numbers, i have to tell you, it took my breath away. but i resolved that we had to do something to make sure we weren't just giving people bad news. we were giving them tools to help themselves. >> social distancing for some is a privilege. african americans are more likely in your city and cities across the countritake public transportation. they're also more likely to hold jobs that you can'do from home. what should be done to make sure that people aren't putting their lives at risk because they have to go to work? >> well, a couple of things, and you're 100% right. in many of our african american households they don't have can separate themselves. they sohat we're saying is if you've got somebody in you house that's got an underlying

medical condition and/or is a senior, make st e thaey are segregated out from someone else, in a bedroom, or some place else, where they can, in effect, quarantine in place to, have a plan for who tis goi be going out, whether you have to work or if that same person shoulde the person whooes out to get groceries and other essential supplies. the other thing that we've done on the south side and the west side is making sure that we're tting more buses with double carriages, if you will, so that we can avoid the crowding on public transportation. nnd then again, it's all about education, and ccting people up to health care, emphasizie-- making shat you're washing your hands on a regular basis, and using othekinds of pduct to sanitize your hands and making sure that if you are you going to see a doctor. strategies that we're going to be employing and making sure that, for example, grory stores and liquor stores, where we tend to gongigate, that those

vendors are exercising socialt distance in hoy're allowing customers to move in and out of their facilities. we're gointo be much more aggressively inspecting and citing, if necessary. >> african amerinseoca pndepl health care workers that are on the front lines of this battle against the coronavirus.at when you loohe lack of personal protective equipment and tsts, how is that impact the people that are doing those jobs, especially african americans and people of color? >> what i caner say is in chicago, one of or top priorities has been making sure that we keeour health care system strong and vibrant, to be able to meet the hrge and te challenge that we have. and that includes making sure that our health care workers are protected. so we've done a nusber of thi to help them, but we shipped out literally millions of pieces of perform p.e. equipment--sh lds, gowns, gloves-- its

works, to make sure that our health care workerseed the equipment, have the "that they need to keethemselve safe. in addition to, that we stood up two hotels just for health care workers to give them respite. we know that many of ourealth cre workers travel great distances to the hospitals and clinics in whh they work. we wted to give them an opportity to getspite without having to go all the way back home or worrying aboutr whet not they were taking the infection to their household spoaps that's another support that we've given our health ca works in chicago. >> the chair of theio congrel black caucus, she held a call today with reporters and she said, "this is an a ergency," and that dat agencies to start collecting and sharing data as it relates to racial breakdowns for the coronavirus. where do you stand on the lack of data and the need for data en it comes to the coronavirus? >> well, the data is absolutely essential. of the things we order yesterday was to make sure that

all providers that are doing testing and hat are treating patientes aren't skipping adding in thee dmographic information that's so critical for us to be race and ethnity basis across a our city. so we've got a lot of reporting that's happening, buwe need to make sure that we fill in that 25% that we've been missing i terms of demographic information. but i agree with you, the data is ctically important. it's up on our website, chicago.goslrks/coronavirus. has been on a daily basis, but we're going to be breaking out the demographic information, and we started that yesterday. >> well thank you so much for joining us, lori lightfoot, mayor of chicago. >> my pleasure, thankou. co>> woodruff: voters in win headed to the polls today, following days ochconfusion and

s. amna nawaz has more, on the first state to hold a major election with in-persong in the midst of a stay-at-home order. >> nawaz: multiple political and legal battles preceded today's contests. the wisconsin supreme court yesterday overturned an executive order by the state's democratic governor to put off in-person voting until june. and the u.s. supreme court ruled along partisan lines to cut off an extension for absentee voting. wisconsin stands in contrast to more than a dozen other states that have delayed their primariein the face of the coronavirus pandemic. we get two views now, first, from wisconsve lieutenant or mandela barnes. welcome to the newshour. and thanks for making the time. you made clear how you feel about this in a tweet this morning. yongsaid, good morand welcome to the "s" show-- that stands for a word i can.not say he what are you worried about the impact of today's election will be

>> i honestly feel i was sharing the frustration of so many people across our state, people who wand to eercise their right to vote, the people who requested an abst entee bald have not got one yet. the people standing in line for two hours tote. i believe i shared their frustration. this is a day that didn't have to happen. it definitely didn't have to happen in this fashion.e governor ers issued an order to try to delay the election, and the republicans in te legislature they decided to put people's health and safety at risk, in jeopardy. and in doing that, they've caused mass hysteria. they've caused chaos. we've seen it at the polling locations. you see people unaware of what to do because they have an absentee ballot that they may not hav have been able to return yet. they have been told if you t dn't return the absentee ballot or didturn one, even though you requested one, you are expected to show up in person. that comispr a person's health. here in the state, we have over 2,500 positive test results.

we're now up to 92 deaths in our state. ople don't want to take that risk and wht it does is it accident franchises voters. it makes people not want to get up out of the house and go risk it. >> let me ask you, lieutenant governor, about that confusion there has been critism of governor evers, too. you have had coronavirus cases in wisconsin for several weeks. he didn't movoe t change anything about the election until just a few days ago. if public alth it really the primary concern, why not change something r? why not act earlier? >> the governor even before yesterday called on thgi ature to act on the election. he also moved to make sure or to make it possible for people to return their absentee ballots to apria 13, almost ek after today. and many people operated under that assumption. and it's a shame and it's unfortunate that republicans in the legislature decided that they want to roll back those revisions to allow people to get a chance to exercise their right. e> i know there has been a

greater push byocrats to move, especially during the pandemic, to greater mail-in voting means.i want to put to yt republicans say. they say overhauling the systems in 50 states is no easy task. opens up the process to a whole new world of fraud. and eylso accuse democrats of taking advantage of the pandemic to get around what they call "lection integrity sm. what do you say to that? >> , you know, te thing when they say, it's no easy task." aat aresy? we are dealing with a pandemic. nothing is going to be easy now. people are changing ir entire ways of life. it's not easy for farming communities. it's not easy for urban 'scommunities. ot easy for sick and elderly populations. it is not easy for a whole lot of pople. but it's up to us as the government to be able to respond appropriately. you shouldn't seek elective office if you aren't ready to take on the tough tsk, and creating a process, a system that would allow to more access r voting, more accuracy for voting you ably shouldn't be in office or a decision-making

capacity. >> the electionsn are ot just about the presidential primary. people say isn't it importanto get those roles filled because we're in a pandemic. you need officialsn those spots right now. >> in the event the election was dlairkeas it should have n, i don't think it's too much of an inconvenience to have those people in office foth ano month or two, given the circumstances, given the fact that we are dealing with a pandemic. like i said, this is not easy. for anybo we have to make certain adjustments. and i think that that is one that people would be able to agree upon. >> that's wis governor mandela barnes with us today. thank you for your time. >> thank >> nawaz: and for a different take, i'm joined by ronna mcdaniel, chair of the republican national committee. miss mcdanl welcome back to the newshour. i want to start by asking you to speak directly to folks in wisconsin. what do you say to the voters who feel like they have to makeo a e today between protecting their exphght >> well, the r.n.c. hasn'tvote?

egaged in states that a changing their elections. that's up to your governor and state legislature. whe we intervened in wisconsin specifically is when the d.n.c. came in ask tried to remove safeguards to the integrity of the election, like i.d. requirements, or extending the election an additional six days, and keeping it open for six days. we intervene but we haven't done that in any other state as they've moved their electioy . that's rea to the local state government. >> to be clear, it was republicans on the ground who were pushing back against the efforts to move the election, understandg that governor evers' efforts came late, just a few ys before the actual election. should they have allowed the election to go forward today? >> that's a state isse ue. .n.c. only got involved when the d.n.c. filed a lawsuit remove those safeguards and wisconsin. we've been engaged in the lawrt legislature and governor needed to come together and work on that and i think the governor as the ader of the state should have acted sooner and started doing all these 11th hour proposals to try

to change the election. and i think it's a failure of let ership on his part thhe didn't move sooner. >> let me ask you from the voters' perspective, ere's clearly an access issue. there are a number of polling places that had tbe closed because of coronavirus concerns. do you believe everyone in wisconsin wo is eligible to vote got their chance or will get their chanc sto do today? >> wisconsin still had early voting andhe opportunity to receive absentee ballots. none of that was prevented true through this process. when we felt uncomfortable with was an election being open for ditional days when you had an election day of april 7. p anyone whoost marks their vote by 7:00 p.m. today, eir vote will count. we want everybody to be able to vote. we want to make sure there are safeguards that people who aren't suosed to beoting don't vote. >> there are thousands of people who requested absentee ballots who ill hadn't received them until thisieve eve mryone

who has a chance to vote will be able to do so today?>> he governor and legislature was pushing for april 7, and if done, that's going to be up to the state to make sure they got those ballots out. of course we want everyone to be able to vote. what we did not want is toe safeguards taken way like i.d., making sure that the voter who is turning in the ballot is the ter whose name is the ballot. those types of things that safef ard the integritye election. with so much uncertainty right now in our country, we need people to have confidence in our election process. and that's why the r.n.cgot involved and pushed for these i.d. requirements, the witnesses for absentee ballots and also not keeping an election open sii onal days beyond the election date. >> while there is a global, pandemile cases are rising here in the united states, do you believe any state should be holding in-person voting? >> that's going to be up to the state governors decide. you havetit seen the naal

parties get involved in that. legislatures based on what is happening with their population. you have seen at the nationaat level demo try to push election agenda, like ballot harvesting, which cerinly isn't safe going door to door to collect ballots. or things like getting rid of absentee witness i.d. requirements. those are things we'ing to push back on. we do not want to dismantle th things that keep our election integrity in place. the states can de termien they hold those elections. that's yet states and the governors and the legislaturesve hat role. >> ronna mcdaniel, chair of the republican national committee joining us today. thanks for your time. >> tha you. >> woodruff: and a news update befo we go tonight: presiden trump said this evening that he is considering ending united stes funding to the world health organization. he blamed the international health group for the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. the u.s. contributes more money

to the w.h.o. than any other nation. and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. tomorrow evening.d again here for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you and see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> you find yourself heading in a new direction. fidelity is here to help you work through te unexpected, with financial planning and advice for today and tomorrow. >> carnegie corporation of new york. supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, and the advancement of international pea security. at carnegie.org. e

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