>> when somebody is the president the authority is total. >> he's not do cg everything do.bidding against one another... >> ...can't tell you how frustrating it is. >> narrator: amid the ting crisis between the president and the states over the coronavirus pandemic >> it has nothing to do with the president or federal policy or anything. >> narrator: the inside story of how the outbreak began in the united states. >> the reason washington state found that first case cause we were ready for it. >> narrator: correspondent miles o'brien on the ground with those who detected it first. >> within the first five days we had 32 positives.t we then knew tis was a much bigger outbreak than you

could have imagined. >> narrator: and, the tale of' two washing's. >> that governor is a snake. okay. inslee. >> we are not going to be distracted by any rhoric that the president or anyone else uses. that's the only thing that's going to get us through this. >> narrator: now on frontline, "coronavirus pandemic". >> frontline is made possible by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. and by the corporation for public broadcasting. major support is provided by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundati, committed to building more jt, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org. the ford foundation: working with visionaries on the frontlines osocial change worldwide. at fordfoundation.org. additional support is provided by the abrams foundation, committed to eellence in journalism. the park foundation, dedicated to heightening publicr ess of critical issues.

the john and helen glessner family tst. supporting trustworthy journalism that informs and inspires. and by the frontline journalism fund, with major support from jon and jo ann hagler. (seagulls squawkinen blaring) >> it was one of the most vibrant cities in america. our economy was strong, a port that was one of the leading ports in the country. we had one of the most vibrantra rest scenes, small businesses flourishing. and we went from that to almost zero overnight. (ship horn blares) >> miles o'brien: ved in seattle in mid march, a city and state in the process of shutting

down before that was the norm in the rest of the country. s i've coverence stories for nearly 30 years, but this felt more like science fiction. the deadly disease covid-19 was about to bring the countryth anworld to its knees. >> it's like watchina slow-moving landslide move towards you. >> o'brien: how did it eva our warning systems, our best science? >> a lot of people died because we weren't ready. >> o'brien: why was our government so slow to act, so unprepared? >> i haven't cried ever as much i have in the last week. >> o'brien: and what lies ea ♪

i came to seattle g for answers. my first stop... how e you? ...providence regional medical center in nearby everett.>> nd have you traveled outside the u.s. in the last0 days? >> i have. >> okay, so we're gonna ask you to put on a mask. >> o'brien: okay. this is the hospital that treated the first known case of covid-19 in the country. >> there we go, 97.6. >> o'brien: i met dr. george diaz, an expert in infectious diseases who treated patiente- a 35-year-old local man who'd flown into seattle on january 15. >> he was having a cough, he had been having feen having fevers e hadn't been eating well, he generally felt poorly and he had been complaining of diarrhea at

home. >> o'brien: he is 35 years old and otherwise healthy. >> totally healthy pson. he began developing symptoms the day after he arrived. >> o'brien: he went to this walk-in inic and described his symptoms and told them where he had been for about six weeks: wuhan, china. >> a preliminary investigationou into a mystepneumonia outbreak in wuhan, china, has identified... >> o'brien: that was a cruci detail. >> the mysterious new pneumos a viruckened dozens of people... >> o'brien: for weeks, wuhan had been the center of a grong storm. >> scientists in china trying. >> o'brien: ...as news trickled out about cases of a strange new pneumonia. >> still a lot that is unknown, the w.h.o. has said... >> o'brien: in seattle, a city known for cutting-ge medicine and technology as well as ties to asia, officials told me they had been on alert. >> it clearly had the ion of our public health folks, and they in turn were starting to line up the other departments,

starting with human se, about how we're going to respond when and if it arrived on our shores. >> o'brien: at the cliere the man returning from wuhan was chances.treatment, they took no >> at that point the clinic appropriately isolated him. de health district contac the cdc, who advised testing. and fortunately that clinic had the appropriate gear to be abl to safely test the patient.se he was then adto go home and quarantine. >> o'brien: the clinic sent a nasal swabhey'd taken from the man to the centers for disease control and prevention in atlanta. >> and then, witn 24 hours, we had a call from the cdc saying that the test was positive and at they wanted us to admit him for observation. >> o'brien: e first covid-19 patient had been confirmed in the united states. around 10:00 p.m. on januaryon 20, patienwas brought to the providence regional medical center. this is a photograph of his arrival, encased in what's called an isopod, designed to

keep a patient quarantined. >> patient number one arrived here in this? >> he did. when we were going through the transportation plan with the ambulance company, they wanted to keep their staff safe. completely contained, doesn't allow any possibility of infection. so our patient was pd in this by ems and brought to our hospital and unloaded in his room. so, it took us about two hours from the time the cdc called for us to get all our staff personnel, supplies, and the facilities all in place to beve able to he ems folks the greenlight to come in. >> o'brien: you did at in two hours? r in two hours. we were ready fo. >> o'brien: one of the reasons they were so ready: less than three weeks earlier, diaz and his lleagues had conducted elaborate simulation-- pandemic training. w were aware of what was going on in wuhan at that point, but it was part of our routine structure already to prepare. >> o'brien: you really had a go-to plan. >> we had a game plan in place alady. we had everyone involved,

including the local ems, those people that bring the patients from point a to point b, public health officials, and other partners we have in the community to drill. so we had a variety of scenarios we went through. >> o'brien: by the time patient one was hospitalized, local public health officials wereto going inigh gear. >> the reason washington state found that first casause we were ready for it. the ambulance service was ready, they knew the right personal protective equipment to wear, it was one of those absolute coordination between the health care, local health, state health, and the cdc. it went perfectlow that'se were able to find the first case in the country. >> o'brien: it was a critical early warning sign that the highly contagious coronavirus could be spreading in the u.s. but in his first public comments, president trump dismissed any threat trest

of the country. >> have you been briefed by the cdc? >> i have. a there worries about a pandemic at this point? >> no, not at all. and we're... we have it totally unntrol. it's one person coming in from china, and we have it under control. it's going to be just fine. >> all right.sa travels... >> thank you. >> o'brien: in seattle, doctors and scientists weren't so sure-- they didn't have a way to test for coronavirus on their own. and while the cdc had been able to test the sample from patient one, it didn't yet have a test it could deploy on a massive scale around the country. >> the way to really know the burden of disease in your community is to beble to test. so the testing piece was a huge pie of the puzzle that we didn't really fully... we weren't fully able to address. >> o'brien: by early february, with the virus spreading around the globe, the world health organization was recommending

test kits that had been developed in germany. but u.s. officials made a own way.decision to go their >> if you look at a moment when the united states may have lost its ability to control what's happing, it begins with the decision early on in 2020 by the cdc not to utilize the test kits and the capabilities that were being shared by the world health organation and other nations.: >> o'brie cdc wouldn't talk to me on camera, but told me they took the swiftest path and using another nation'st ould have caused worse delays. former cdc dector tom frieden said the decision made sense. >> there's never been a time previously when there was a neet to uset from outside because the cdc system has not failed in the past. >> o'brien: the cdc began shipping its own test kits tobl health labs around the country.

but in seattle and elsewhere, it was quickly obvious that something was wrong. t one of tee chemical probes was faulty, generating inconclusive results. >> there were checks and balances within the test. and when we vadated can it t te the virus and can it not overdetect it, tlance was not correct. >> research and implementation laboratories said, you know, "this doesn't work. you've given us a bogus kit, and we're not going to use it. fix it, fast. you know, or give us t right to use our ownits." >> o'brien: at the university of shington i met virologist alex greninger, who'd been trying to do just that. >> you got to have the supply of testing, absolutely do. we need to be able tct where the virus is and then try and snuff it out, i mean, right? prevent its transmission, that's the name of the game in the coming months.

>> o'brien: but he ran into a bureaucratic brick wall: the food and drug administration hae institutrgency procedures accurate.ure any new tests were but you have to seto the tests, fda and get it reviewed and then authorized. and i'll admit, i'm in my first couple of years here in th particular job, i had not been through this process before. >> o'brien: the fda application was 28 pages long, andequiredun him to r tests that would takeee at least two. and that wasn't all. one of the things is th needed a document fedex-ed across the country before they coullook at the document. >> o'brien: you couldn't electronically transmit it? >> i could electronically transmit it, but they 't look at it until it was fedex-ed. and then they changed that regulation.m and so fcouple days after february 4 all the way to february 26, they didn't have a test, they were completely blind, too. >> o'brien: this had to be incredibly frustrating. >> it was frustrating, it was. so we try to prioritize things in the top tier. >> orien: the fda told me it did review greninger's application but it was

incomplete. theylso said they were balancing the need for tests with concerns about accuracy. >> major developments, a global health emergency as the corovirus reaches its 20th country. >> o'brien: in seattle a and around the world, the clock g. >> the coronavirus is now coidered a global health emergency and the us is warning people not to travel to china. >> o'brien: the w.h.o. had declared a global emergency, and the cdc was beginning to screen passengers at u.s. airports, including seattle. >> we are coordinating with the chinese vernment and working closely together on the coronavirus oureak in china. >> o'brien: president trump was still not raising alarms, though he banned foreign travelers from china. >> my administration will take all necessary steps eguard our citizens from this threat. b >> o'brien: buthat time, flights from the outbreak zone .ad been landing at u.s. airports for wee

>> the travel ban may have t bought us someime, but in all actuality, you know, people were leang wuhan, going to beijing, traveling to western europe and ultimely to the united states in late 2019 and early 2020 anyway. >> chinese health ofs said today another 46 people have died from the coronavirus. >> o'brien: in tse critical first weeks after the arrival of the virus in the u.s., administration officials-- and the president himself- continued to insist that the risk was small. >> i want to emphasize that this is a serious health situation in china, but i want to emphasize that the risk to the americanre public cly is low. >> how concerned are you? >> well, we pretty much shut it down coming in from china. we've offered china help, but we can't have thousands opeople coming in who may have thisor problem, theavirus. but we did shut it yes. happens,

>> o'brien: that attitude didn't sit well with washington's senior democratic senator patty murray. she spoke to me from her home.li >> i fel at the time i lived in two different worlds. i lived here in washington stat where people were going "oh, my gosh, we have a problem," and in washington d.c., where they'day, "oh, you guys worry too much out in the west coast." >> o'brien: a tale of two of washingtons. >> yeah. we should have pulled out all the stops and checked everything, but it was more like, "oh, you guys quit worrying out there." >> o'brien: there was a lot to worry about. in isolation at provence hospital, patient one was deteriorating. >> he began developing more shortness of breath. and because of that we got an x-ray which looked like he had a developing pneumonia. his oxygen levels in his blood re also decreasing. >> o'brien: that worried dr. dire medical reports out ofthe wuhan. ir it appeared, based t data, that once patients begin

developing pneumonia that many of them end up in thon a ventilator and die. >> o'brien: patient one was slipping fast, and there was no known treatment. dr. diaz told me he'd heard about an antiviral drug called remdesivir that some experts erought could potentiallhelp. it would be an eent, he said, but the patient was willing. >> at that point, i contacted the fdand gilead, the manufacturer, to see if they would approve it. so the fda gave us an approvalt to try a compassionate use basis, knowing that it had not been approved yet and that there were no trials available to base thatecision on. we infused it the next day. he was still having very high fevers and still was requiring oxygen the day that we gave itto im. by the next day, his fevers resolved and they stayed gone. he felt much better. he felt like he had startedru beating the >> o'brien: no one knew if the drug had an pact, or ithe

virus was taking its natural course. here's the thing, you have one data point here. >> one person in the world. >> o'brien: yeah, in the world. it was an anecdote, and so we were hpy that the patient got better and was ultimately continuing to get better, able to go home. so that part was fantastic for the patient. we knew then that we needed to caudy this in a formal cli trial. >> o'brien: although patient one was well enough to be sent home, for public health officials in washington state, ere were many more questions to answer. they needed to find out who patient one might have come in contt with after returning from china and send samples from them to the cdas well. >> so, we find contacts, seone that you spend at least ten minutes of time talking face to face with.ie we ident60-plus contacts. we swab them multiple times toe see was thtransmission of

this virus. and we found absolut ansfer amongst those contacts that this first case had.in >> o'brien: waon's governor, jay inslee, remembers this as a brief, optimistic moment. i interviewed him remotely from his office at the state capitol. >> what we were thinking is we were very much on top of it because we did very extensiveg contact tracth all of the contacts that the person had who was the first patient and did lyeverything epidemiologic that you could ask a public health system to do. >> o'brien: but soon more signs of trouble began to appear across lake washington in the cityf kirkland at the life care skilled nursing and rehab center. scott sedlacek had brought h 86-year-old father there to recover from a bad fall. >> so, he hit his head hard enough that he had some brain trauma and bleeding on the brain and he broke his right ankle.

and the bed that opened up was at life care. and so, on februy 20, we moved my dad to life care.e and thenarted seeing some of the staff wearing respiratory gear, wearing face masks, wearing gloves. it's kind of like, "what's going on?" >> o'brien: inside life care, residents had been getting sick with an unknown respiratory infectn. the sickest were brought to e nearby evergreenhealth medical center. dr. francis riedo is the medical director of infection control here. >> remember, this was flu season. and we'd already had a peak of influenza b in december, and now we were going through the peak of influenza a. and so the unit was full of respiratory infections. in the meantime, in the background, we're wahing these events unfold with increasing alarm, not only in wuhan, and

now spreading across the globe and wondering when o turn was coming. >> o'brien: until that point, federal guidelines for testingl potentiases were very narrow-- patients had to have be in a hotspot li china or in contact with someone infected. then, the rules changed. dr. riedo wasted no time. >> we settled on two individuals and we tested them the following morning. i had a regular day, saw patients in clinic, saw patients in the hospital, was sitting there as i usually do trying to complete my notes and ceived a call at 7:40 p.m. and both othe tests were positive. >> o'brien: what goes through your mind? >> my initial honest response was skepticism. i thought the odds of both individuals being positive with no history of travelno history of exposure to anybody was

fairly astronomical. th was a huge shift. incident command was activated and we made a quk decision to thtest nine additional peoat nit. eight of those nine were positive. >> o'brien: wow. >> right. >> o'brien: kind of stunning actually, isn't it? >> it was, and within the firstd fis, we had 32 positives. >> o'brien: many were from life care, but crucially, some had connection to the nursing home. >> we then knew that this was a much bigger outbreak than you could have imagined. >> o'brien: at least 41 life care residents and two visitors would eventually die with more linked to the home testing positive, including scott sedlacek's father, chu >> he has never shown symptoms. >> o'brien: so, how worried are you that symptoms might appear?

>> extraordinarily. because we don't kw, this is new, it's uncharted waters. >> o'brien: the sedlaceks' story hit home for me: my 84-year-olda father is isd living in florid hellthere. can you tilt down a little bit? >> i'm sorry what?: >> o'brilt down, til down, a little more down. there you go, that's good. how you feeling? >> well, i'm fine, how are you? >> o'brien: no coronavirus so far, but he's pretty much in isolation, no visitors allowed it's the same at life care, but the sedlacekhave found a way around that. >> my sister is here and we'll go up d will say hi through the wiow. we brought a big white board today so we can actually write notes use they're double pane windows seal the noise t. (laughs) can you hear us? (laughs) >> okay, we'll let you finish that-- love you.

listening to the n staff.eep they're looking out for you. he has tget the love from the family to get better. without it, he wilbecome not just physically but mentally ill. o rien: yeah. >> it's the worst thing you can do to an older person. >> o'brien: yeah, right.h, >> yhe worst thing you can do. >> o'brien: scott himself also got the virus. unlike his dad, he got sick. >> i was hospitalized rough the emergency room with the full-blown list of symptoms-- extraordinary difficulty breathing, lht-headed, dizziness-- you name the symptom, i had it. >> o'brien: what was it like being in isolation, sick with th disease? were you scared? >> hell yes, i was scared, it's an unknown. i was hooked up to an iv and they started an albuterol nebulizer, which they had to give two full rounds of it. but after those two full rounds,

i was breathing normally and after six hours, they had all ms sympnder control. within 12 hours, they moved me to a full isolion unit, and ten hours later, they released me with zero symptoms. >> the number of coronavirus ses at home and abroad continue to climb, the financial markets rocked, and more aggressive steps to fighthe spread... >> o'brien: by this time in ndrly march, covid-19 cases were multiplying hereround the country. >> breaking news-- washington in a state of emergency... >> o'brien: governor inslee had put washington under a state of emergency... >> washington state has declared a state of emergency... >> o'brien: ...the first governor to do so. >> the governor decl state of emergency... >> o'brien: but like many here, he was increasingly concerned that president trump w continuing to downplay the threat. >> it's going to all work out. b everybody has calm. it's all going to work out. >> o'brien: inslee, a democrat and former predential candidate, tweeted that the administration should stick to science d tell the truth.

it would ignite an escatin r of words. >> o'brien: during a visit to the cdc, trump fired back. >> that vernor is a snake. okay. inslee. let me just tell you, we have a lot of problems with the governor and... the governor of washington, that's where you have many of your problems. are, he's no good.how nice you that's the way i feel. >> orien: at that point, did governor and the state oou as washington was sort of on their own and the federal cavalry was not coming? n' >> yes, but we dever depend on that leadership coming out of the white house, so it's not something that we were surprised by we always knew that we would have to lead the charge, given e president's reluctance to really exercise leadership on. th and we sort of knew that he had an intent of downplaying what was an emerging problem. that, you know, could only be

explained by someone who had rather than an eyeew jones epidemiological curve. >> o'brien: seattle's yor, jenny durkan, shared those sentiments.t >> we are ing to be distracted by any rhetoric that the president or anyone else uses. we've got to act. we've got to act to protecthe people and i think those actions are what matters. facts and science. got to rely on them. that's the only thing that's going get us through this, and, fortunately, we've got a really vibrant health and science community here in the state of washington and seattle and we listen to them. >> o'brien: she and other political leaders here had someo hard dec to make after heing grim predictions. >> we had researchers hereg tell that within six weeks, we would have over 70,000 positive ces and hundreds of deaths if we didn't act. and so we had a choice to make. the choice was knothat you're going to have enormous pain in shutting down parts of yr

economy, or have those same impacts later and overrun your health system. as we moveorward, it will be increasingly necessary and important that we are d in e r efforts. >> o'brien: seats starting on a trajectory that the rest of the country would soon follow. >> there is no magic silver bullet at the moment medically, but there is a very successful effort that we can take to slow the spread of this d and that's to reduce the social interactions that are not necessary in our lives. >> o'brien: you, the countye, executnd the governor, were early out of the box on taking these actions, pretty proactive. did you feel at the time a n littvous about all that? >> i think it was... all of usl felt a great d... sense of obligation and concern because we were the first to go. >> o'brien: mayor durkan

actually had a pandemic response plan on the shelf, which she and her cabinet had updated in early february. >> we pulled out the pandemic planning and knew that one of the first things we had to do to separate people from another was have them telecommute, those that could. so our lgest employers acted immediately. >> o'brien: that included seattle iconicrosoft, with a workforce of more than 50,000 one of the largest private sector employers in the region. afternoon, march 1.l on sunday we had the business leaders... >> o'brien: crosoft president brad smith spoke to me from his home. >> we went from monday telling people they should work om home if they were more comfortable, tuesday telling, people, you knel free to work from home, it might beer beto wednesday work from home unless it's essential you come to work. >> o'brien: the decision you made was a big one. >> no, it was interesting. once we decided at microsoft that we would be decisive and

base our decisions on public health advice, then we knew what to d >> it's the hardest decision i've ever had to make because all of our instincts are to grow the whole economy for your city, to make a stronger community for everyone. d at we're saying is we've got to stop that kind of community and we have to stop doing work. >> o'brien: almost overnight, the vibrant city shut down-- businesses closed, storefrontsbo arded up, empty restaurants, e famous pike place market nearly deserted. ♪ ll a local soccer field us filled with kids and families, preparatio for a surge of covid patients. >> we knew already te of the biggest challenges would be having the hospital system overwhelmed by a wave of cases.

we were trying to figure out hog we cou testing, we were trying to figure out whether we would receive materialin the form of field hospitals orfa people who were unhoused.r and there wasn't a lot of concrete offers of help coming from the federal government. w sowere left with the reality that we're going to have to take on a lot of this ourselves. or >>than 140 people lost the death toll to over 590 inng this country. >> he's not doing everything he can do. >> o'brien: as coronavirus was ghsweeping the country thrt march... >> and i can't tell you how frustrating it is... >> o'brien: ...so was frustration among governors scrambling for resources they needed to respond. >> we're bidding against one another, it's really not a great system. >> all of the states are taking action to try to find these things on our own. >> o'brien: the president was now feuding with multiple governors...

>> 400 ventilators? i need 30,000 ventilators. >> o'brien: and like he'd done with the virus in the beginning... i on't believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators. >> o'brien: ...he disputed there was scarcity of crucial medical equient, like masks and ventilators. >> many of the states are stocked up. some of them don't ait it, but they have, we have sent so many things to them, including ventilators. >> o'brien: amid the feuding, doctors and nurses have struggled to get the personal protective equipment, they need. >> good morning, and welco everyone. >> o'brien: in seattle, that's been the top issue for dr. amy compton-phillips, the chief clinical officer of the providence hostal network. >> last year, across all of providence, we used 0,000 masks. in the first three months of this at everett, they've used 25000 masks. we cannot have our own caregivers going down from covid while they're trying to take care of the community, because, you know, the supply chain is

st not keeping up with o needs. >> amy, i have to say if i can't assure them that they are safe then i don't think t rest of this is worth anything. >> o'brien: inside providence's around ppe have beigh.tensions dr. ryan keay is the department's medical director. think about the sequence thatt you puings on and take things off and where you're sanitizing during that sequence. every nurse, every tech, every physician i've talked to has said, "i've been working f years and i've never been so exhausted." and it leaves people just on edge all the time. >> we have enough n-95 masks that people should not have to be able... should not have to bring in their own masks at this >> is the recommens still one n-95 per five patients? or a we using it the whole shift now? shield for as long as you needm.

to use t you just store them in a paper bag until they become moist or soiled. >> okay, so forever? >> well, not forever. (chuckles) >> orien: reusing masks and storing them in paper bags wasn't the only diy workaround i saw. i caught up with dr. compton-phillips at the otherwise vacant proe headquarters. inside a large meeting room, she weand a handful of her tea e read out a safe distance, cranking o facshields. >> our caregivers would normally have protective goggles on and a surgical mask underneath this and then this goes in front and basically protects against droplets. >> o'brien: they had raided a half dozen craft stores to scrounge up supplies. >> we'ret 288 now, we're goingto et to 1,000 by tomorrow. >> we're retooling our resources going into war againovid. >> i feel like rosie the riveter. >> 499, 500! (cheering) o

>> o'brien: on hand, this is really... it's kind of heartwarming. but it's also really sad. >> desperation. >> o'brien: yeah, i can't decid which go in this. what are your thoughts? >> i would rather offer our caregivers something than nothing and at the moment, you know, if the choice is not having ppe or having homemade ppe, were ing to offer them homemade ppe. >> o'brien: right, right. >> so... >> o'brien: that's what motivated jeff kaas-- his small family biness builds and sews furnure for aviation and tail customers. he decided to pitch in and sta making masks. there's not a shortage of the raw materials at least, that would be... or not yet?. >> there will there will be, yeah. so, i think we've engh to make two million masks. w>> o'brien: but how longl that take you to do? >> well, it depends onow fast we want to go. >> o'brien: how fast do you want to go? >> we want to solve the problem. my assumption is that we will ba ing up for several wks and then drop off a cliff. body will need me in the healthcare business anymore and

then survival becomes a question for my company. that's probably the next scary thing, which is less scary than what our healthcare friends are going through right now. that's the bigger issue for me. >> we knew in january what we would need-- we knew. we would need glov and masksre anirors, and ventilators. two-and-a-half months later, we're dependent on sewingup circles to sply our frontline heroes with what they need. it may be a nice american story; i find it pathetic. >> o'brien: washington state officials, like others in the country, say thiwas an avoidable crisis. w >> becauve lacked the federal leadership we needed, it's been mayor versus mayor, city versus city, state versus state, trying to get accessit to the l resources to protect our communities, whether it's ventilators or maskfor our health care workers, all of that has become this hunger games process where everyone's tryg

to figure out a way to outbid each other. s washingtte had a line on masks that were coming to the country and at the port in california. suddenly, multiple states were bidding on them. it happens.ay that >> we're searching the world for every potential warehouse thatth have any o personal protective equipment. that has been a constant , ruggle and we are bidding against each othd i'm sure that the suppliers are having a field day bidding the price up while states are bidding against one another. e it woumuch more efficient economical and otherwise if the rnment was that regard. vigorous role in >> o'brien: the tensions between states and the federal government have been escalating. >> another five million ericans file for unemployment benefits last week.no >> o'brienjust over the response to the outbreak... >> the market down ten percent in relatively short order. there's a lot of bad news stillm to >> o'brien: but now over what it will ke to get the country up and running again. m >> this isassive meltdown on

a national scale. >> more jobs lost in a matter of two weeks than in the entire 18 months of e great recession. >> our team of experts now agrees that we can begin the next front in our war, which we are calling "opening up america again." >> o'brien: the president has been pushing governors to re-open, even as soon as may 1. >> or country has to get open. and it will get open. and it'll get open safel and hopefully quickly. >> o'brien: but some of them ha been pushing back. >> we cannot be guided by emotion. we need to be guided by where the facts on the ground, science and public health take us. >> what's best for the people of illinois, their safety and health, and listening to the scientists and the doctors.se >> becf you do it wrong, it can backfire. >> o'brien: and many like slee say it will come down to one thing: mass testing. >> this is the number one challenge for the united states right now, is we need a huge

ramp up of our testing capacity, even greater than was needed rly in the outbreak. >> o'brien: to increase testing, inslee says trump needs to order u.s. industry to helpin usthe defense production act which the president has only just begun to do. >> we need the president to help ignite a national mobilization of the manufacturing base of the united states, that is absolutely imperative so that we can restart our economy.en >> o'bbut president trump has also thrown this back on the states. >> theovernors are responsible, they have to take charge. they have to do a great job. >> o'brien: there are limits to what a state can do though, as i saw at washington'd healartment laboratory. they can only complete about 300 tests day, and thatir es a mad scramble. the raw materials for test kits e hard to come by. >> we have a lot of testing lab capability but we don't have the equipment to swab everybody's

nose. i think the current status in washington state is limited by the supplies to actually run the test. >> o'brien: they also don't have enough ppe for the health care workers administering the tests. >> if we don have enough gowns, gloves, masks, to treat patients, how are we going to prioritize a gown, a glo, and a mask to swab somebody? because that is the requirement. department i't alone in struggling to meet the demand.>> e can't have that level of cross-contamination... >> o'brien: after getting approval for his test from the fda, alex greninger has dramatically ramped testing at the university of washington school of medicine virology lab. >> for inpatients, health care workers, institutionalized populations, but mos inpatients, people who need supportive care, we've got to get that fast turnaround time that reduces the use of protective...>> 'brien: because they're in the hospital. >> yes. >> o'brien: on this day, they completed abou3,000 tests. >> to get 3,000, 4,000, 5,000

specimens a day, you know, it takes a lot of focus. >> o'brien: just like in the state lab, grenger says it is difficult to get the raw materials he needs. t one ofhe hardest things to find: the single use plastic tips that contain the chemicals and the specimens. an some automated pipettors use four tips a testothers use three and, so, just getting the tips into your facility so we can run that many tests... this is what we' looking for, basically. se tweeted at roche and the world to get the things in, like you would tweet like delta lost your bags or something like that, right?e i mean, we havtwo people whose entire job rig now is to manage our fedex shipments. basically, we blow up our hallway and it goes down to a single file. and then it takes over the next six to eight hours, we're able to actually ve those boxes into our local warehouses we bought other space here in the building. it's the supply chain has been really the number one thing we

do. problems, they are still managing to return results the same day in many cases. this is ucial to keep up with a fast-moving virus and help w healthcakers on the frontlines reduce their need for personal protective equipment. >> when you send a test for covid-19, you have to treat the person as if theare infected until we give you a result that says they aren't. and during that time, you have to use all the personal protective equipment. so, the speed at which we t those test results back allows us to conserve our personal protective eipment. it really touches so many things. >> o'brien: so what do you envion the coming months? >> i think personally right now, this will be with us for some time, a long time. there's no magic bullet just yet. >> o'brien: thisesting marathon could go on for at least a year-- that's how long experts say it could take to develop vaccines. racing to finish clinical trials

of several therapeutic drugs including that promising vi anl remdesivir the one that seemed to workl so w patient one. >> on trial? >> yes, he's on trial. he started on the 15th. >> o'brien: dr. diaz is no leading e of the trials with patients at providence hospital. >> these are still anecdotes because we haven't seen e full studbeing completed, but we're certainly very optimistic. we want to get these questions answed as fast as possible. >> o'brien: and there may be another way to help people fight f the coronavirus-- using the blood of covid survivors themselves. hey elizabeth, looks like you're on the mend. >> yeah, i've been recovered now for... >> o'brien: people like elizabeth schneider. she was getting ready to become the firsperson in seattle to donate her plasma to rearchers trying to see what natural sistance she might have developed and whether she can share it. >> scientists don't know howha

long we haveimmunity for this particular virus. it signs so far look like, you know, we will haunity. >> o'brien: survivors' blood as tha.apy-- it's not a new ide doctors used it in 1918 in the midst of thepanish flu pandemic. >> i do feel a little more sense of security going out and doing t day-to-day task because i have already hads. >> o'brien: she was amonthe first documented covid-19 cases in the u.s. a microbiologist who worksor a s biotech compan came down with flu symptoms on februaryda 25, thre after attending a party. on facebook she learned many of her friends who were there were also sick, 15 in all. she told me she and seven others ultimatsted positive for covid-19, which brought her to this moment on this morning to the blood bank in downtown seattle. >> hi, i am here for psma donation.

>> o'brien: the coronavirus antibodies in her plasma may be a way for others to fend off the virus. it's called convalescent plasma therapy. >> our goal is to get to 840 ml today.>> 'm hoping that some of my plasma ends up in another patient who is suffering from a covid- this could potentially save their life. ♪ >> o'brien: there are now signs that covid cases may be plateauing in some places, like here. >> we have had some success attening the curve, that has taken place... >> o'brien: ...but also spreadg to new areas of the country. washington state recently returned more than 400 ventilators it received from the national stockpile so they could be used where they're needed more.in >> governoee today announced that 400 ventilators would be leaving the state of

washingt. >> o'brienbut in recent days... >> trump's back and forth...pr >> o'brienesident trump's feud with governors has become an all-out war. h>> in a series of tweets exclaimed "liberate minnesota, michigan, and virginia." >> o'brien: encouraging protests against social distancing restrictioth... >> seeine protests at state capitols... >> o'brien: ...even in washington state. >> ...protesters gather today in olympia demanding that the governor act now. >> sunday's otests in olympia ations.latest in a wave of >> these are people expressing their views, i see where they are, and i see the way they'rerk g, they seem to be very responsible people to me. >> the govnor of washington state says the president may be inciting violce. >> o'brien: in his own tweets, governor inslee said trump was "unhinged," "off the rails," ang "fomenti domestic rebelln." when i talked to governor to be rushing to r.

>> all leaders have the biggest challenge to make sure people understand that as the sun comes up and the daffodils come out, we've got to double our efforts. because if you relax too soon the curve just can rebound and start right back up again. the most dangerous element in my state today is the virus of complacency because we have to be just as diligent for the next several weeks as we were theal last seveeks. >> orien: i wanted to know what pandemic modeler chris murray thought of all of this. he runs the institute for health metrics and evaluation at the university of washington. ..>> if you ask chris murr >> o'brien: its models are often cited by president trump's coronavirus ta force. so, really, when you think about it, chris, there's no scenario going forward that you c envision that doesn't demand mass testing, if not tting for everyone? >> the issue will , you know, the capacity to test. right,ow many tests areas

practically le come june,by stattate? and it may not be anywhere near enough to be able to do full-scale mass testing. so then if you take measures off may 1, and there's a pretty quick rebound, so by mid-jy, we'd be right backe we are now.re >> o'brienly? actly the rate odeath and hospitalization that we're dealing with? >> pretty much, yeah. so, we're not going to want to take off measures may 1, let's put it that wa >> and the second wave won't be like the first wave. >> o'brien: that t president isn'eding scientific warnings, once again, is causing alarm ong those who've been dealing with the outbreak since the beginning. >> i am pessimistic about the next few months. i think it's goingo be really hard and we need to ramp up. ramp up, hurry, we need a to go well beyond where he isng right now in saying, "here's what we need to do in tes of testing" and giving people the

information they need to get the economy going. long term, i'm optimistic, but it's a long ways betwe here and there. ♪ >> o'brien: i went back one last time to where the outbreak took hold here, evergreen hospital, where those patients from the nursing ho were treated in february. it is an apt window into where seattle and the country are right now. i met a woman who was recovering from covid-19, rosanne eskenazi. >> i want to give you a kiss and stuff but i can't. >> nope. >> o'brien: at 63, with an immune system disease, hers chance living to see her husband maury again were not good. >> when they put her on the ventilator, i never thought i'd see her again. and i wasn't reading about people that were surviving this and coming out of this, so i was... you know, it was over.

>> i don't even know how many weeks it was, but i don't >> when we broughtwhen the day came that... she looked horrible. her temperature was hoible. >> it was like 105? >> o'brien: oh, my god, really? >> it was 105 d she was like coughing and we had the ambulance co. they sent two ambulances. this was the beginning of the covid, you know? >> o'brien: you didn't reallypr fully iate how bad it was, did you, because you were kind of out of it? >> yeah, i was out of it.ts i saw my parmy dead parents, when i was here. i don't know whether... i was saying i don't know whether it was a dream or a hallucination. my parents were here and they were sitting across from me and they all said, you know, "you're going to be okay. everything's gng to be okay. you're going to be okay and if something happens, your children will be fine. everything's going to be great. ndyou have all this family stuff, so don't worry." so... and it really helped me not worry. oh, there, it says that way.

>> yeah, sorry. >> o'brien: rosanne was on her way home... >> bye! >>'brien: but there were others still coming in, needingt urgent ation. (people chattering) i met crical care and pulmonary physician miael bundesmann, who was focused on one particular patient. >>his is a person who has multi-organ failure and ultimately required mechanical ventilation and now needs dialysis, kidney replacement therapy, they're in shock. >> o'brien: three days earlier, he'd been awake, alert, joking with his ctors. >> patients come in and they lo okay on one day, and so of them are kind of okay to be discharged from the emergency room, and me back a few days later much more sick. ttat degree of unpredictability i think is very ng for everybody. >> o'brien: dr. bundesmann sayss the pace haslackened some since the darkest days.

>> we could feel the curve flatten a few days ago, probably ev last week. it has allowed us to be able to see patients and to take care of them at a pace that's a little more used to what our icu can handle, volume-wise. and it's certainly made a big fference. >> we are now i think at a stage where i think we can keep thisav pace that we he going andoo that's ad thing because how ny people are still susceptible to this infection. it's going to be a long haul, i think. some of the things that worry uo are, youw, what happens when there's a next large outbreak in a skilled nursing facility, thet ime a susceptible population gets hit within a tight community. i don't know when that's going to happen, i think that until there is some degree of herd immunity, there are goin to bpeople out there who hav to be planning this out very carefully and cautiously, when people can start returning toca work, whstart returning to work, and what time frame.ha because ashappens,

the cases are going to start to pick up again, and we have to there and be ae to support them as best as possible without stretching the capacity of our health care system. tough decisions for those people who have to make them. >> o'brien: there have now been more than three quarters of a million confirmed covid cases in the u.s., more than 40,000 deaths. what began as public health crisis here with patient one has encome aational crisis over response, over s andpo tics and decisions with devastating consequences (siren wailing) it's still a tale of two washingtons, the storyhat i found when i arrived. but it's also a tale of washington and the states, and how the country will emerge from the crisis.

>> i've never actually made a story about my country. or i found the doas who took that photograph that went viral. ng >> (spea italian) >> s said, " we're seeing hallways with patients, and doctors that arerw completely olmed." >> italy has reported th highest one-day death toll from coronavirus... >> it's my story, it's your story.y, it feels reaeally close to home. >> go to pbs.org/frontline for our latest reporting on the pandemic includi our podcast, "the frontline dispatch".le >> so what does the governor think now? >> well he concerned. he says this is the most perilous moment because

people are inside and they want to get outside. >> and don't miss the coverage by our colleagues at the pbs news hour. connect to the frontline community on facebook and twitter, and watch any time on the pbs video app or pbs.org/frontline. >> frontline is made possible b contributi your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. and by the corporation for public broadcasting. major supporis provided by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation, committedn to buia more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information fo at md.org. the ford foundation: frontlines of social change the worldwide. at fordfoundation.org. additional support is provid by the abrams foundation, committed to excellence in journalism. the park foundation, dedicated to heightening public awareness of critical issues. the john and helen glessner family trust. supportingrustworthy journalism that informs and

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