captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening, i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight, deaths in the u.s. top 23,000, as the country wrestles with when to reopen and the white house faces then, poverty and the pandemic. as coronavirus shatters lives and livelihoods, families living off a small single income fear for their next meal. >> it's pretty terrifying for just about every family that we're working with. and they're trying so hard to keep their kids in a good place and stable and not worry their kids while their entire life is falling apart. >> woodruff: plus, how we got here the missed opportunities and mistakes that the trump

administration made as covid-19 gan its spread through the u.s. all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding f the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> the william and flora hewlett foundation.

for more than 50 years, advancing ideas and supporting institutions to promote a better world. at www.hewlett.org. >> and with the ongoing suort of these institutions: and individuals. >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: the coronavirus pandemic is showing more signs of leveling off in parts of the world, and there is more talk tonight about easing restrictions. that comes as the global death toll nears 120,000, including

some 23,000 in the united states. in new york state alone, deaths topped 10,000 today, but officials pointed to other, more positive trend lines. we begin with this report from amna nawaz. >> nawaz: as the national death toll ticks higher, at the epicenter in new york, a slowdown in the number of hospitalizations. governor andrew cuomo said today he's hopes to re-open the state as soon as possible, and is now developing a strategy to do so carefully, in coordination with neighboring states. >> if we do something stupid you will see those numbers go right back up tomorrow. period. the worst can be over and it is over unless we do something reckless. >> nawaz: in new york city, the health department warned of a looming shortage of test swabs, and recommended, to conserve supply that only hospitalized patients be tested. in massachusetts, a similar

testing shortage. governor charlie baker: >> if you said to any of us up here, are we doing enough teing? we would say no. and if you talk to most other states, they would say the same thing. >> nawaz: experts say wider testing is a key factor in determining when and how states can begin lifting social- distancing directives. governors and local leaders are charged with public health and safety. but today, the president tweeted that he will decide when to re- open the u.s. economy, and he expects to make that decision" shortly." dr. anthony fauci, of the white house coronavirus task force, raised yesterday a possible" rolling re-entry" for the u.s. economy, meaning some regions could re-open as early as may. but it was this response that caught president trump's attention. >> i mean, obviously, you could logically say that if you had a process that was ongoing and you started mitigation earlier, you could have saved lives. obviously, no one is going to deny that. >> nawaz: the president retweeted a reference to those remarks with the hashtag, "#firefauci."

the white house today denied the president is doing so, saying in a statement, "dr. fauci has been and remains a trusted advisor to president trump." but the virus continues to spread across the u.s., leaving a devastating wake in nursing homes and long-term care facilities. according to an associated press analysis, deaths in these centers rose sharply, from 450, to more than 3,300, in just the last 10 days. meanwhile, the number of covid cases in the u.s. military has exceeded 4500, a 50% increase in just five days. at least 15 of those patients have died. one was a sailor with the u.s.s. "theodore roosevelt"-- the first death among some 600 crew members infected aboard the aircraft carrier. the ship's commander, captain brett crozier, was removed after sounding the alarm about the outbreak. he later tested positive as well. and the pandemic has forced the supreme court to go remote, announcing today it will hold

may arguments via teleconference. around the world, countries weigh the risk of getting back to business, with the threat of fueling a second-wave of infections. the head of the world health organization urged countries to proceed with caution. >> while covid-19 accelerates very fast, it decelerates much more slowly. in other words, the way down is much slower than the way up. that means control measures must be lifted slowly and with control. >> nawaz: spain began easing restrictions today. and workers in some non- essential industries like construction and manufacturing were back on the job. and in italy, once the european epicenter, new covid-19 cases have fallen to a three-week low. but infections continue to surge in japan, even as a month-long lockdown in tokyo and six other prefectures unfolds. japanese president shinzo abe

has been criticized for doing too little too late. south korean officials, citing the decline in covid cases since march, are in talks to re-open parts of the country. but that effort is tempered by growing fears of a new wavof infections, one that could push the possibility of our "new normal" even further away. for the pbs newshour, i'm amna nawaz. >> woodruff: wall street's hopes that the pandemic is turning a corner, gave way to new anxiety today, over the damage done to corporate earnings. the dow jones industrial average lost 328 points to close at 23,390. the nasdaq rose nearly 39 points, but, the s&p 500 gave up 28. we turn now to the low-income americans who are bearing the brunt of the coronavirus fallout. john yang explains how the pandemic is hitting hard families already struggling. this reporting is part of chasing the dream, our ongoing verage of poverty and

opportunity in america. >> yang: detroit, already facing steep economic and racial inequalities, has emerged as a coronavirus hotspot. janine cain is a mother of five on the city's east side. >> my husband actually was laid off immediately as soon as the pandemic started because he works in a restaurant. and i was working two jobs and i was laid off from my second job. >> yang: cain's worried whether she'll be able to keep her job, the family's only remaining source of income, as a home health care worker. >> we still have to operate as if we have the bare minimum. >> yang: she is concerned about her family's safety as tensions run high their neighborhood. >> the neighbors have been fighting each other, so it has not been easy to, you know, just explain to the children that a lot of pple are coping with this pandemic in different ways. >> yang: the downtown boxing gym, a local after school program, delivs food and supplies twice a week.

it's become a full-time crisis relief program for the community. >> if it weren't for the boxing gym, i'd probably be in tears every day trying to figure out how i was going to eat or get supplies. >> yang: both emotional and economic support are needed says jessica hauser, head of the gym. >> it's pretty terrifying for just about every family that we're working with. and they're trying so hard to keep their kids in a good place and stable and not worry their kids while their entire life is falling apart. >> yang: the cain children still gather for the gym's nightly workout sessions, now held over zoom. >> it gives them a moment to connect with all their, you know, their friends and peers and see that everybody's okay and healthy. >> yang: but missing from the nightly check-ins-- some of their peers without internet or computers at home. in los angeles, families pick up meals outside their shuttered public school in downtown los angeles. lisette bonilla says every day

is a struggle. >> this happened from one day to the other. i'm not prepared and it's scary because we don't know how long it's going to last. >> yang: meanwhile, bills are piling up. maria jorge is the mother of three. >> ( translated ): i'm cutting my spending as much as possible because have to pay rent, bills and with everything that's going on. >> yang: not knowing how long the crisis could last adds stress for families and for the schools they attend. austin beutner is the superintendent of the l.a. unified school district. >> when we started, said it was two weeks and that we'll share more when we know what the path forward is. >> yang: in detroit, janine cain is struggling to provide a sense of normalcy for her family as the effects of the virus get closer and closer. >> people in the neighborhood are coming up saying i just lost a cousin. and i got a few coworkers that actually lost some of their relatives to it. >> yang: she's not sure how long will her family be able to endure their new reality.

>> i'm also hoping that this won't last long so that we don't have to lose our job now. because i don't know what the backup plan is. >> yang: even before the pandemic, it is estimated 44% of households in southeastern michigan could not meet their most basic needs. in the city of detroit, that figure is 74%. darienne hudson is c.e.o. of united way of southeastern michigan, and she joins usy sykpe. darienne, thank you so much for being with us. we heard on the tape sort of a snapshot of one famy in detroit, what's going on in their household. give us the bigger picture. what is it like for people on the ground in southeastern michigan right now. >> thank you for having me here. this is a time of great uncertainty, frustration. i would say that there is an overload of information and, yet, you still have thousands of people who don't know how to access it.

the numbers that you were sharing are from call center 211, and we have received over 20,000 calls just this last month, based on the pandemic. but the main call that we are still getting is for food. so, in spite of all the things we're hearing about the public health crisis, it is still the most basic needs that people are trying to attain. >> reporter: so it's still the basic problems they were having before this pandemic? >> absolutely. this pandemic has magnified the problems that people were already having, whether you tillty assistance, rental assistance, trying to obtain and sustain gainful employment. now many people are outo of work and it's just exacerbating the problems we've had >> reporter: you say it's exacerbating the problem. is it sort of building on them? is it exposing problems that already were there? how did this compounding putting this health crisis on top of

this ongoing economic problems in these communities, how is that affecting it? >> sure. in a few ways. one, i'll give you the example of the digital divide we're seeing in our schools, now that our schools are closed through the end ofhe year, it's revealing just how many families are without internet access. detroit is one of the least connected places in the country about disparities. we are 41% of the deaths that have happened from covid 19. whenio compound poverty, systemic racism and you're looking at what's happening with the perching, it's not a surpri, unfortunately, that these things are happening for us. >> reporter: and this pandemic, how is it affecting the unit way groups you work with, the organizations you work with, how is it affecting their ability to deliver services? >> nonprofit organizations, governmental entities have been

deeply impacted based on this pandemic. we've actually galvanized with our corporate and philanthropic community to raise over $8 million to help provide operational grants for many of our nonprots. now we've funded oer 220 in our community, but there are many people who are still on the front lines providing food, providing shelter, providing resources for the community in spite of this setback, but the world as we know it in terms of nonprofits is going toe forever changed as a result of this pandemic for the main atlanta many of their fundraisers have been canceled now, much of their work is service based, it's fee for service, face to face. now they're having to change to virtual means to be able to deliver the services. so the landscape has changed drastically. we're galvanizing and working in ways that we never have before, but the needs are just continuing to grow, they are not going away. >> reporter: as you think about the people who rely on the

services provided by organizations under the united way umbrella, what is your greatest concern? what keeps you up at night? >> my greatest concern really is access. there are still too many people who don't have some of the most basic of internet services, they don't have telephones, they don't have transportation. so even with, you know, hundreds of food distribution sites set up around the city with all of our testing sites that we have around the city of detroit now, access to those resources is still a challenge. many of our nonprofits deliver face-to-face services. we are all having to adapt to the way we provide those services. so knowing there are still just thousands of people who can't access any of the resources that we're pulling together on their behalf at this time is very unsettling. i will say it's why w fight, it is why we get up in the morning to continue to do the good work. so as long as united way is

standing, we will continue to fight for those who do not have at this time. >> reporter: deer yen hassen, c.e.o. of the united way of southeastern michigan, thank you very much. >> thank you, john. it's nice to meet you. >> woodruff: michigan governor gretchen whitmer had some encouraging news to share today. she said the rate of new cas in the state may be starting to flatten. but already there have been more than 1600 deaths and 25,000-plus confirmed cases. the greater detroit area has been hit especially hard. william brangham has our latest dispatch from the frontlines of healthcare there. >> brangham: and for a look at how one major health system within detroit is dealing with this, i'm joined now by dr. steven kalkanis. he's the c.e.o. of the henry ford medical group. dr. kalkanis, thank you very

much for being here. >> great to be with you. >> brangham: can you just give us a sense now of how things are? we understand you have something of over 4,000 positive cases that you're dealing with. how are things at the hospital group now? >> well, you know, as of today, this is actually the sixth consecutive day where i can say that we have more positive news than negative. we've discharged more patients than those who are being admitted. we've taken more patients off of ventilators than those who require going on ventilators to be intubated. so we believe that we are through the peak of this surge, but we're not ready to declare victory yet because we are being vigilant. we want to make sure that we have appropriate resources. but i will say as of today, that our capacity for i.c.u.s and ventilators are at about 55%, which means that, you know, we have plenty of capacity left should the need arise. >> brangham: i know broadly in

michigan, african-americans, i think, are about 14% of the state's population but my understandg is that they're something like 40% of the positive cases. what is your sense of why that might be? many people have pointed to things like structural inequality, high rates of chroc diseases. what is your sense as to why that disparity exists? >> you know, we celebrate our diversity in the detroit area. certainly at henry ford health system, and we care very deeply about any concerns related to the perception of unequal numbers or understanding what might be driving some of that. i will tell you that our internal numbers are much less than 40% in terms of the african-american population. but i can tell you that based on our early analytics right now, these patients, these african- american patients are not faring any rse than the average patient that we've admitted with covid. so we're very pleased at least about that. >> brangham: that obviously is some very good news to report, which we have unfortunately far

too little of these days. i understand also you had a large mber of your own staff who themselves were infected with the virus. and i'm curious as to why you think that happened. >> that's a greaquestion. i think we have to put it in context. so henry ford health system has about 34,000 employees and about 800 of them tested positive. and we did this because, again, we were very, very proactive at the beginning of this challenge to say if you are part of, you know, dealing with patients in any way, if you are coming into our centers, we want to know. and so thankfully, we developed an in-house test early on that gave same day results and this allowed, i think, for a very robust testing effort. and i think that we're thrilled that we did, because that allowed us to identify health care workers and employees who were positive so that we could immediately remove them from the workforce, thereby preventing the infections of thousands and thousands of other patients. we feel had we not done that early on, it would have been a

lot worse. >> brangham: and lastly, you mentioned the good news that you're starting to see that you're able to discharge more people than you're having to bring in. is it your sense, or is this too optimistic, that-- do you feel like you have hit that plateau? have you peaked, or are you on the downward slope of the number of new cases, do you think? >> we're not ready yet to declare victory. but i will tell you that day, i am the most optimistic than i have been in about four weeks. for us, this represents the start of the fifth week of this challenge. and to be able to say that we've had five or six consecutive days where the numbers are trending in a good direction instead of a worrisome one. it appears that we have at least plateaued or hit that peak and are now on the downslope. but we need to guard against a resurgence. we can't relax our precautions yet until we understand how this works and how we can develop broader immunities, because we

don't want to go through this all over again. >> brangham: that's all positive news, we hope that trend continues. dr. steven calacanis, the c.e.o. of t henry ford medical group. thank you very much for your time and good luck. thank you. >> thank you. >> woodruff: in the day's other news, the death toll reached at least 30 people after severe storms swept across the deep south on easter sunday and overnight. tornadoes and thunderstorms blasted a path from texas to the carolinas and moved up the atlantic coast today. one storm hit monroe, louisiana, damaging up to 300 homes. the weather front also killed at least 11 people across mississippi, and six more in northwest georgia. in the presidential campaign, vermont senator bernie sanders has endorsed former vice president joe biden for the

democratic nomination. sanders dropped out of the race last week, and appeared with his former rival today, via livestream. >> today i am asking all americans, i'm asking every democrat, i'm asking every independent, i'm asking a lot of republicans to come together in this campaign to support your candidacy. >> your endorsement means a great deal, it means a great deal to me. i think people are gonna be surprised that we are apart on some issues but are awfully close on a whole bunch of others. >> woodruff: sanders urged supporters to back biden, in a >> woodruff: in wisconsin, 14 ters filed a federal lawsuit to force a partial revote. they sawed thousands were disenfranchised by holding the primary in the midst of the coronavirus. the trump administration is asking to delay deadlines for the 2020 census, citing the

covid-19 pandemic. the census bureau confirms it wants congress to let it wait until june first to resume field perations. the deadline for finishing would be pushed to october 31st. in pakistan, officials lodged a formal protest with india, after heavy artillery and mortar duels in kashmir over the weekend. the two countries accused each other of violating a 2003 cease- fire agreement in the disputed region. india and pakistan have fought three wars over kashmir, since 1947. on this date in 1970, an explosion in space crippled apollo 13. the ensuing drama transfixed the world, as nasa engineers labored frantically to get the crew home safely. four days later, the crippled spaceship made it home, and the three astronauts splashed down in the south pacific, emerging safely, as a global audience looked on.

and, the white house south lawn was deserted today after the annual easter egg roll was canceled due to the covid-19 pandemic. the tradition dates back to 1878, with the president and first lady welcoming children 13 and younger. the event has been called off before, for world wars and white house construction. still to come on the newshour: spain begins to loosen its lockdown-- what are the risks of reopening too early? the path to the pandemic-- the mistakes the trump administration made while the threat was in its infancy. amy walter and tamara keith analyze the latest political headlines. plus, a single grocery store feeds a new orleans neighborhood stricken by covid-19.

>> woodruff: spain is one of the countries hardest hit by covid- 19. but after thousands of dead, and weeks of an intense lock down, workers in some nonessential industries began to return to their jobs today. special correspondent max duncan reports from madrid on how spain has been coping. >> reporter: at spain's biggest field hospital, there is an unfamili sense of order. this makeshift facility opened just over three weeks ago to support the city's hospitals overwhelmed by the rapid spread of covid-19. now, the 1300 beds at madrid's main convention center are close to full, and 16 intensive care units are fully operating. what now seems ordered, launched in chaos. this transformation reflects the

pressure easing on the health system a month after spa launched one of europe's toughest lockdowns. >> ( translated ): the situation at the start was much more complicated, disorganized. i want to congratulate all my colleagues for how well we have organized ourselves and how we have pushed forward, with the lack of means that we have at the beginning. >> reporter: but the field hospitals' director antonio zapatero warned that it is far too early to celebrate: >> ( translated ): there are still a lot of patients. we are still very busy, in a very difficult phase. yes, we see that the pressure it easing, but we are a long way from saying it is controlled." >> reporter: the virus has brought weeks of horror across spain, but nowhere was worse hit than the capital, which has seen over a third of almost 17,500 deaths countrywide. the city's intensive care units were overwhelmed. these scenes captured inside one of madrid's main hospitals even showed patients lying on the

floor. sinca strict lockdown was ordered in mid march, spain has hibernated. residents have only been allowed out to shop for food and medicine, to visit hospitals or do essential work. those who break the mandatory confinement face heavy fines and it has worked, if at a terrible cost. after peaking ten days ago at almost 1,000 deaths in one day, the curve has flattened and recorded new daily deaths have been below 700 for the past five days. in a controversial loosening of restrictions, some industries such as construction and manufacturing restarted today. this allows an estimated four million to return to work, despite the country still recording over 500 new deaths in the past 24 hours. with four weeks of tough quarantine measures finally taking effect, spain's overwhelmed health system is grasping back control but with personal protective equipment an test kits still in short supply,

health workers are still at serious risk of infection. in no other country have doctors and nurses been hit so hard. they make up around 14% all spain's infections, and are sent home to self-isolate precisely when they are needed most. shortages led to a dire creativity: medical workers using plastic bags for protection. while supplies have improved significantly in the last two weeks, the damage has already been done in madrid's ill- prepared nursing homes. nearly 800 residents who tested positive have died. but regional officialsave said that almost 3,500 dead with similar symptoms are not counted in official statistics. beatricano says more than 30 residents have died at her retirement home, including in recent days, some bodies left for hours before being collected.

two care workers athe same home told us they also feared that their inadequate protective equipment was putting residents and themselves at risk. >> ( translated ): i'm terrified by the lack of hygiene, lack of materials, and a situation so aotic that we have one single nurse attending to people with the covid-19 virus and to us as well. i feel like i'm in a real-life horror film. >> reporter: but while supplies are scarce, some healthcare workers e back on the job. doctor alejandro quiros became ill while working in his e.r. he spent 17 days in home quartine after testing positive for the virus, while his few colleagues still standing have fought on. >> in our situation i think right now we have more than 60% of us with pitive tests for covid-19. ten days ago we had 450 patients in the e.r., so as you can suppose, 60% of us sick is very

difficult. >> reporter: his isolation now over, he is able to return to work, and believes he is now immune. >> this is my hospital. i'm happy to be able to be here and help. >> reporter: as new infections and deaths stabilize, but widespread testing still impossible, authorities are now launching an effort to map the virus with selective testing nationwide, in hopes of gradually lifting the lockdown. but despite these first tentative steps, nothing is normal in the time of covid-19. funerals at the almudena cemetery, madrid's largest, are now drive-thru services. they last no more than seven minutes. no more than three people can attend and there is no touching. the deacon sprinkles hy water and says a brief prayer.

he and his colleagues now do this almost 30 times a day. >> ( translated ): in the four years since i was ordained as a deacon, it's the first time i've seen anything like this. to have religious services every 10 to 20 minutes. it's constant. we feel that the families are grateful for the service. >> reporter: today, three cousins are saying goodbye to their aunt, manuela, who died in her eldercare home. >> ( translated ): aunt, rest in peace. we all love you so much. >>eporter: juan antonio films with his smartphone as they throw on the flowers, to share with all the relatives that would have come to the funeral. >> ( translated ): the hardest part of this situation is that thwhole family can't be together in this last goodbye to my aunt, and above all because she died in these circumstances, when she was alone. >> reporter: death is hard enough. dying alone is something else, visited upon untold thousands

here, amid a crisis that might have been avoided. for the pbs newshour, i'm max duncan in madrid. >> woodruff: new reporting from the "new york times" has revealed even more early warnings about the seriousness of the coronavirus pandemic. and raises questions about whether the president and his administration waited too long to take important steps. eric lipton is an investigative reporter at the times and joins us now. eric lipton, thank you so much for joining us. your reporting revealed the existence of these so-called red dawn e-mails between doctors, medical experts in the administration. they were obtained, in part, through the freedom of

information act request. in one email i wanted to ask you about, dr. james loller, an infectious disease expert, served in the george w. bush and obama administrations, wrote we have thrown 15 years of institutional learning out the window and are making decisions based on intuition. what were these e-mails, and what came out of your finding out about them? >> well, what was going on was there was a group of physicians and pandemic experts that, from the department of homeland security, health and human services, the c.d.c., the veterans administration that were consulting and comparing notes, and they were trying to make a really critical decision, which was, at what point do we go from saying we are going to attempt to contain the infection, to which we have community spread d we now need to move to mitigate its spread through actions like social distancing. so at first the goal was just to contain it, but at a certain

point, we need to flip the switch and say schools and businesses need to close, these guys were comparing notes to try to figure out when was the moment we needed to flip the switch. the fire alarm had gone off, now we needed to mitigate it. >> woodruff: from your reporting, what were some of the erliest warnings that the president got and how did he respond to those? >> i mean, the president's nationanational security councie were members to have the national security council that in january were concerned about what was going on in china and were worried it was just a matter of time before the pandemic would be in the united states. the health and human services secretary azar spoke in january as well to express his concern this was almost assuredly coming to the united states and would be a public health emergency here. the president told him to, you know, calm down, that he was too worried about it, and repeatedly, in that period, while it's true that the president did limited travel by chinese citizens to the united states in late january, there

were among many a belief that the united states needed to be preparing for the next stage of mitigation and took weeks too long to get to that point. >> woodruff: opened january 22 in an interview with cnbc, president trump was asked about a pandemic and whether there were worried about it. here's what he said. >> we have it totally under control. it was one person coming in from children, and we have it under control. >> woodruff: so what did we know about the coronavirus at that point in late january? what did people know in the ministration? >> they knew that it was already here in the united states, they knew that it was almost -- it was just a matter of time before it started to spread widely in the united states and that, while containment was still important to try to do contact tracing to limit the spread, that they needed to be preparing for widespread illnesses. that was evident to any public

health expert at that point. >> woodruff: there is an audio i wanted to play for the audience because on february 25, a doctor with the centers from disease control, director for the national center for immunization and respiratory diseases, she had a briefing call with news reporters in which she issued a warning. here's that. >> these measures might include missed work and loss of income. i understand this whole situation may seem overwhelming and that disruption to everyday life may be severe, but the are things that people need to start thinking about now. >> woodruff: just one day later, president trump said thi- >> and again, when you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that's a pretty good job we've done. >> woodruff: so, eric, why was that a key moment in the administration's response? >> arguably, that was one of the most essential moments in the

saga of the history of this. that was the moment when there had been a consensus among his medical advisors that the united states announced we needed to move to social distancing in hot spots, in particular, and the president was unprepared and unready to do that and, in fact, he lashed out at the henlt human services secretary azar after nancy made that satement when he was in ind and on his way home. so what president trump did instead was to wait three weeks before he embraced the need for social distancing, and the net result that there are many more illnesses and deaths in the united states. >> woodruff: so we are now in -- eric, in what is called mitigation, these widespread closures, all about enforcing social distancing. president trump announced the first social distancing initiative, 15 days to stop the spread, he called it, and that was on march 16th. but how early was this first proposedo the president as a

solution and what is known about why he waited todopt it? >> it was aonth prior to that that essentially a consensus was forming among medical experts in the united states government that we now needed to move to mitigation, and the thing is it's almost down to a science. once you have the first death from a contagious disease like this or you have a certain percentage of people who have the illness, you have a window of one to two weeks to take significant mitigation steps. if you don't do it, it's like waiting for a house fire to get from being, you know, on the stove in the kitchen to the roof is burning and the structural elements to have the house are on fire and then you call the fire department. we waited until the roof was burning and the structure was on fire in new york state and new york city before we called the fire department, and that was a decision the president made was to not move ahead with those announcements. again, it's the governors' choices as to when to do that, but it's the federal

government's role to play leadership and to help the governors make the choices by letting them know what the public health officials think is needed. >> woodruff: we know, eric, that the la of testing, the lack of personal protective equipment, all of that has also been significant and ongoing challenge. what did your reporting revea about the delays in dealing with all of that? >> again, there are two phases in this process, the containment and the mitigation phase, but, during containment, it was evident to any public health expert that this was going to spread in the united states. so as of january, they knew there was going to be illnesses in pockets across the united states. they didn't know how many, but they should have known in january now is the time to spend hundreds of my name is of dollars to buy face masks and other protective equipment for hospitals. they knew the material in their supplies was expired and there wasn't enough of it. they didn't order that stuff till march, but they could have started in january. they could have started the

process of getting ventilators built in january, knowing they likely would need them. that didn't happen till march, and that has severe consequences as well. >> woodruff: eric lipton with the "new york times," congratulations on some really extraordinary reporting. thank you. >> thank you. >> woodruff: and we turn now to our white house correspondent, yamiche alcindor for the latest. so, yamiche, what more do we know about the administration's response to all this in the early days and, separately, what are you hearing about the president's desire to get things opened up? >> well, it's clear that the president and health officials were at least delayed in easing and recommending mitigation and social distancing guidelines, and the president just now had a remarkable press briefing that's still going on where he is defending, point by point, his response to the coronavirus, and, in doing so, he shows this kind of campaign style video

we've never seen at a white house briefing before. he was asked about it, he sid white house staff put it together, but it's clear the president is feeling very defensive because to have the reporting eric talked to you about and the reporting we have been doing on the "newshour" that shows he was very eager to try to get through this without doing mitigation. >> woodruff: i want to ask you about something that came up earlier in the program and that was the president retweeting the statement that anthony fauci has been critical in the administration's response to the covid 19, that he should be fired. the administration today said that he's not going anywhere, but what's the latest ad that you have been able to learn? >> well, today dr. fauci and presidt trump spoke about this right at the beginning of the white house briefing, and the president said that he and anthony fauci's relationship is really great and people are making something out of nothing. he said he retweeted a tweet that said "fire fauci" without

even thinking about it. he said he didn't know why he repeated it. he has 76 million twitter foul lore, so this is a big megaphone. he said i didn't mean i wold fire dr. fauci, i'm not firing dr. fauci. so they're both making it clear dr. fauci's job is secure, so for the critics of the president is will make them calm and comfortable that that's the way it's going forward as of now. >> woodruff: but yamiche, quickly, some fans to have the president have been critical of dr. futurey. >> that's right. there has been a move on the conservative right to talk about dr. anthony fauci in a very criticizing way, to talk about the fact that he might be part of the reason why the president won't get reelected, but the president is saying that he is not part of that and that he respects dr. fauci and that other people should, too. >> woodruff: yamiche alcindor, thank you very much.

>> woodruff: even with serious social distancing underway, we witnessed political unity today. here to analyze what sanders' endorsement means for biden's race against president trump is our regular politics monday team. that's amy walter of the cook political report and host of public radio's "politics with amy walter." and tamara keith of npr. she also co-hosts the "npr politics podcast." hello to both of you. let me just -- here we are, boom, amy, we see the two men together. they have been going at it tooth and nail. i think you could say that, for a while. but since this pandemic, we really haven't seen as much of the competition. yesterday or last week bernie sanders suspends the campaign, today he's right there next to joe biden. how much real unity is there? >> yeah. it's a really amazingrogress

that we've made, judy. if you think about it this way, just how dynamic this democratic primary has been. six weeks ago, we were all honestly that yo talking about t that we might be looking at contested convention, that no candidate was going to be able to put together a plurality of delegates, and now here we are early april with the race essentially over, well, it is over, and joe biden wrapping up the nomination. i think there's something really important that happened in this endorsement which, by the way, was virtual, like everything these days. this was done over video with the two of them interacting that way. joe biden was very diplomatic, he was very gracious, he was very deferential to bernie sanders, but there was also a marked change in tone and style and even focus that i thought was important.

if you remember, judy, when the race was really hot and heavy in late february, early march, joe biden saying we don't have a time for a revolution, we just need to figure out the here and now, there was really a sense joe biden was campaigning as a "let's return back to normal" versus the bernie sanders "let's have a revolution and make big structural change." we, toad, joe biden said, you know, we can't just go back to business as usual. basically acknledging not only that the world has changed a great deal since these two were in a very competitive race, with the coronavirus and the damage that it's done to the health and economy of this country, but also really giving a nod to bernie sanders and his message about big structural change. i mean, the interesting piece of all of this, judy, to me, is we had a campaign where there was debate about making big

structural change or kind of staying the course, staying in the status quo were the two polls, and now it's not the candidates that have really upended life as we know it or made big structural change. it's this coronavirus that's actually done it ad the idea that were going to go back to "normal" seems really unlikely. >> woodruff: and it also looks, tam, as if they are finding their way in this new world, new reality, new relationship. >> yeah, they are forming task forces to talk about policy and ways that maybe former vice president biden could move closer to where bernie sanders is on various policy issues. this is all about trying to figure out howoe biden can win over bernie sanders' support, which is going to be critically important. you know, one thing is they have more time this time around. you know, sanders didn't endorse hillary clinton until july, and

then almost middle east after that, the wikileaks, the first tranche of wikileaks came out and completely undermines the efforts to repair the relationship between sanders supporters and hillary clinton supporters. who knows what lays ahead but there's more time for them to come together and win over sanders' supporters. >> woodruff: amy, i want to ask you about that. does it look like sanders' supporters are going to go along with this? some are vocal saying that's not what we want. we don't know what percentage they make up of the whole bernie sanders crowd, but they're not being quiet. >> no, we're going to have to see as we move through this campaign just what kind of support joe biden is getting from younger voters, especially younger voters of color who have been strong sanders supporters and who joe biden had a difficult time winning over in

the primary, so that will be important to watch. i do think that 2016, though it wasn't that long ailing ago, it was an entirely different world we were looking at in 2016, not just because it was a pre-covid 19 world, but because donald trump was not the president. he is now the sitting president. a very different calculation for democratic voters or bernie sanders voters on who they're going to support today than in 2016 when the concept of donald trump being president was just that, a concept. >> woodruff: in the meantime, tam, there are as we have been hearing in the program crist criticisms of the trump administration not acting soon enough as they were urged to report on the coronavirus. how much -- is it too early to know how much of an fect that's going to have on this campaign? >> well, you can tell how much the president is worried about it by how much the president responded in that briefing today, as yamiche mentioned.

he basically took that briefing and, for probably 30 minutes, did what amounted to an effort to do a point-pi-point rei refutation of the "new york times" article to boost his reputation and not allow that narrative to take hold because, if it can take hold, then he has a problem. you know, this coronavirus, how he handled it and how many deaths there are and what the economic damage is, that is going to determine how people perceive this success or filure of his presidency, and pretty much anything that happened before this year doesn't matter. >> woodruff: and, amy, already, the adinistration is trying to turn their criticism in the other direction, putting the blame on democrats for spending too much time on impeachment. is this going to be something that we watch the two slides slog their way through? >> yes, and i think tam's right,

this is a referendum on donald trump and how he reacted to this. look, governments rarely do a good job of being proactive, they're much better at being reactive. so the fight is over should the administration have done more before, like, last year or the year before. i don't know if those are as important as the reactive piece and how quickly and how efficiently and effectively they reacted and that's where the president was pushing back today saying i did it as quickly as possible, even as the "new york times" reports that the month of february was essentily wasted. but voters are going to have to make this choice, and we are going to know a whole lot more in november about the damage that this virus has done to the health of americans and to the economy and whether donald trump is seen as effective in moving us forward. but as we're seeing in the polls, judy, his approval rating is now basically back to where it's always been. voters remain as divided as ever about donald trump.

>> woodruff: well, all these questions being asked are ones that we need to keep pursuing, keep looking for answers, and we are so glad to talk to the two of you, amy walter, tamera keith, thank you. >> you're welcome. >> woodruff: as we close tonight, another perspective on the economic crisicreated by the coronavirus pandemic. we first met burnell colton in 2015, reporting on new orleans ten years after hurricane katrina. the storm destroyed much of the lower ninth ward, a mixed community working class and low-income families. and rebuilding there was long delayed, but burnell colton had a vision. >> the reason why this is such an important grocery store, i have to go back many, many years before hurricane katrina, we had over 15,000 people here in a

lower ninth ward. we had stores, we had houses, and hurricane katrina, unfortunately, wiped everything off. the customers that come through these doors are phenomenal. they are beautiful, beautiful people. they are single mothers, families, you know, kids. it's everybody. it's like a big family back here. it's a poor part of town. but i love all my customers. the closest grocery store that we have, it's wal-mart in the next cy. you actually have to catch three city buses. when i first realized that money was getting tight was when the coronavirus had got started and unfortunately they had to shut everything down. i do understand why for you know health reasons, and i agree with it because it's about saving lives. but that hurt everything.

because the people here in new orleans are a large percentage of it's in housekeeping or the seafood industry, hotel industry, that's where the bulk of my customers work. and when they shut everything down, there's no more money being circulated. i have one of my favorite customers. she's a grandmother. she has three grandkids. she came into my store. she had grandkids with her and she got. i'll never forget this: a gallon of milk, a loaf of bread, some baloney and a couple of candy bars. when she went to swipe her card, she didn't have enough and she broke into tears and cried. what i did, i know i shouldn't have. but i'm a go ahead and admit it. i came from behind my cash register and went around. i gave a hug. i know i reallgot a notepad and i started a journal and i wrote down her name and the amount of money that she was short.

so i started my ledger. and it hurts because it caused me to be a little bit hind on my own personal bills. no, but i fond my puose and my purpose is service. this is all out of my pocket. i live here. this is my community. and my community was hurting. so i just went out and did it. i can't turn them down because there's nowhere else for them to go. still, if i had to compare what new orleans as a whole went through as hurricane katrina and now today 2020 with the coronavirus, it's like it's like the invisible monster. the coronavirus is much, much worse, at least with a hurricane we would get notice. you have a chance to evacuate. and i try my best to tell them if we can get through katrina, we can get through anything. we're going to be okay. and i try to tell that to all my

customers that come in here. >> woodruff: we'll be launching and a correction. we referred to japan's prime minister abe as its and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. join us online and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you, stay safe, and see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

>> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. >> supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

hello, everyone. welcome to "amanpour & co." here's what's coming up. in this season of passover, easter and ramadan, reverend william barber urges us to unite to help the dispossessed even while social distancingl. >> will you commit to the cdc right now using that existing authority to pay for diagnostic testing free to every american regardle of his rank? >> i can say that we'll do everything to make sure -- >> no. not good enough. >> holding them to account amidst disaster. representative katie porter faces off with t head of the cdc. michelle martin talks to the california freshman who