he >>somebody is the president the authority is total. >> he's not doing everything he can do.bidding against one another... >> ...can't teat you how frusg it is. >> narrator: amid the escalating 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 w ha positives. we theknew that this was a

much bigger outbreak than you could have imagined. >> narrator: and, the tale of two shington's. >> that governor is a snake. okay. inslee. >> we are not going to be distracted by any rhetoric that the president or anyone else uses. facts and science. that's the only thing that's going to get us through this. >> narrator: now on frontline, "coronavirus pandemic". >> frontline is made posble by contributions to your pbs thank you.om viewers like you. and by the corporation for public broadcasting. injor support is provided by the john d. and catht. macarthur foundation, committed to building more jt, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org. the ford foundation: working with visionaries on the frontlines of social change worldwide. at fordfoundation.org.ad tional support is provided by the abrams foundation, committed to excellence in journalism. the park foundation, dedicated to heightening public

awareness of critical issues.e hn and helen glessner family trust. supporting trustworthy jourlism that informs and inspires. and by the frontline jonalism fund, with major support from jon and jo ann hagler. (seagulls squawking, siren 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 vibrant restaurant scenes, sma businesses flourishing. and we went from that to almost zero overnight. (ship horn blare >> miles o'brien: i arrived 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. i've covered science stories for nearly 30 years, but this felt more like science fiction. the deadly diseaseovid-19 was about to bring the country and the world to its. >> it's like watching a slow-moving landslide move towards you. >> o'brien: how did it evade oun g systems, our best science?f >> a lotople 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 as i have in the last week.: >> o'brid what lies ahea ♪

♪ i came to seattle looking for answers. my first stop... how are you? ...providence regional medical center in nearby everett. >> and have you traveled outside the u.s. in the last 30 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 infs one-- a 35-year-olld patient 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, hey generalt poorly and he had

been complaining of diarrhea at home. >> o'brien: he is 35 years old and otherwise healthy. >> totally healthy person. he began developing symptoms the day after he aived. >> o'brien: he went to this walk-in clinic and described his symptoms and told them where he eehad been for about six w: wuhan, china. >> a preliminary investigation into a mysterious pneumonia identified...uhan, china, has >> o'brien: that was a crucial detail. >> the mysterious new pneumonia virus has sickened doz people... >> o'brien: for weeks, wuhan had been the center of a growing storm. >> scientists in china trying... >> o'brien: ...as news tricklede out about of a strange new pneumonia. >> still a lot that is unkno, the w.h.o. has said... >> o'brien: in seattle, a city known for cutting-edge medicine and technology as well as ties to asia, officials told me they had been on alert. >> it clearly d the attentio of our public health folks, and they in turn were starting to line up the other departments,

starting with human services, about how we're going to responn nd if it arrived on our shores. >> o'brien: athe clinic where the man returning from wuhan was seeking treatment, they took no chances. >> at that point the clinic appropriately isolated him. the health districcontacted the cdc, who advised testing. and fortunately that clinic had the appropriate gear to be able to safely test the pat he was then advised to go home and quarantine. >> o'brien: the clinic sent a nasal swab they'd taken from the control and prevention insease atlanta. >> and then, within 24 hours, we had a call from the cdc saying that the test was positive and u that they wantto admit him for observation. >> o'brien: the first covid-19 patient had been confirmed in the united states. around 100 p.m. on january 20, patient one was brought to the providen 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 onehe arrived in this? >> he did. when we were going through the transportation plan with tho f bulancany, they wanted to keep their stfe. completely contained, doesn't allow any possibility of infection. so our patient was placed 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 be hele to give the ems folks greenlight to come in. >> o'brien: you did that in two hours? >> in two hours. weere ready for it. >> o'brien: one of the reasons they werso ready: less dian three weeks earlier, az and his colleagues had conducted an elaborate simation-- pandemic traing. >> we were aware of what was going on in wuhan at that point, but it was part of our routine structure already to prepare.en >> o'byou really had a go-to plan. >> we had a game plan in place

already. 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, localpu blic health officials were going into high gear. >> the reason washington state found thatirst case 'cause we were ready for it. the ambulance service was readyh they kneright personal protective equipment to wear, it was one of tse absolute coordination between the health care, local heal, state health, and the cdc. it went perfectl fthat's howe were able d the first case in the country. >> o'brien: it was a critical earlwarning sign that the highly contagious coronavirus could be spreading in the u.s. f but in hisst public comments, president trump dismissed any threat to the rest

of the country. >> have you been briefed by the cdc? >> are there worriut a pandemic at this point? >> no, not at all. and we're... we have it totally under control. it's one person coming in from china, and we have it undernt l. it's going to be just fine. >> all right. safe travels... >> thank you. >> ...on your waback. >> 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 be able to test. so the testing piece was a huge piece of the puzzle that we didn't really fully... we weren't fully able to address. >> o'brien: by early february, with the viruspreading around the globe, the world health

organization was recommending test kits that had been developed in germany. but u.s. officials made afa ful decision to go their own way. >> 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 oin 2020 by the cdc not to utilize the test kits and the capabilities that were being shared by the world health organization and othe nations. >> o'brien: the cdc wouldn't talk to me on camera, but told me they took the swiftest test would have caorse nation's delays. former cdc director tom friede said the decision made sense. >> there's never been a time previously when there was a need to use a test from outside because the cdc system has not iled in the past. >> o'brien: the cdc ben shipping its own test kits to public health labs around the

country. but in seattle and elsewhere, ii was quickly s that something was wrong. one of the three chemical probes was faulty, generating inconclusive results. t re were checks and balances within the test. and when we validated can it detect the virus and can it no overdete it, that balance was not correct. >> research and implementation laboratories said, you kw, "this doesn't work. you've given us a bogus kit, and 're not going to use it. fix it, fast. you know, or give us the right to use our ownits." >> o'brien: at the university of washington 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 bable to detect 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 hean into a bureaucratic brick wall: the food and drug administration had instituted emergency procedures to make sure any new tests were accurate. >> you can make your own tests, but you have to send it to the fda and get it reviewed and then authorized. and i'll admit, i'm in my first couple of years here in this particular job, i had not beenth rough this process before. >> o'brien: e fda application was 28 pages long, and required ulhim to run tests that wotake at least two weeks. and that wasn't all. >> one of the thin is they needed a document fedex-ed across the country before they could look at the docunt. >> o'brien: you couldn't electronically transmit it? >> i could electronically transmit it, but they couldn't look at it until it was fedex-ed. and then they changed that regulation. ted so from a couple days 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. >> o'brien: the fda told me it

did review greninger's application but was incomplete. theylso said they were balancing the need for tests with concerns about accuracy. health emergency as thea global coronavirus reaches its 20th country. >> o'brien: in seattle and and around the world, the clock g. >> the coronavirus is now considered 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 passengers at u.s. airports,een including seattle. or >> we are nating with the chinese government and working closely together on the enronavirus outbreak in china. >> o'brien: prestrump was still not raising alarms, though he banned foreign travelers from china. >> my administration will take all necessarsteps to safeguard our citizens from this threat. >> o'ben: but, by that time, flights from the outbreak zone had been landing at u.s. airports for weeks.

>> the travel ban may have bought us some time, but in all actuality,ou know, people were leaving wuhan, going to beijg, traveling to western europe and ultimately to the united states in late 2019 and early 2020 anyway. >> chinese hlth officials said today another 46 people have died from the coronavirus. >> o'brien: in those critical urst weeks after the arrival of the virus in the.s., administration officials-- and the president mself-- 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 american public currently 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 of people coming in who may have this probm, the coronavirus. so we're gonna see what happens,

but we didhut it down, yes. >> o'brien: that attitude didn't sit well with washington's senior democratic senator patty murray. she spoke to me from her home. i felt like at the time lived in two different worlds. i lived here in washington state, where people were going, "oh, my gosh, we have a prlem," and in washington d.c., where they'd say, "oh, you guys worry too much out in thewe coast." >> o'brien: a tale of two of washingtons. >> yeah. the stops and checled out all everythingbut it was more like, "oh, you guys quit worrying out there." >> o'brien: there was a lot to worry about. in isolation at providence hospital, patient one was deteriorating.e >>gan 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 were also decreasi. >> o'brien: that worried dr. diaz, who'd been following theic dire m reports out of wuhan. >> it appeared, bad on their

data, that once patients begin developing pneumonia that many of them end up in the icu on a ventilator andie. >> o'brien: patient one was slipping fast, and the was no known treatment. dr. diaz told me he'd heard about an antiviral drug called remdesivir that some experts thought could potentially help. it woulde an experiment, he said, but the patient was willing. >> at that point, i contacted the fda and gilead, the manufacturer, to see if they would approve it. so the fda gave us an approval to try it on a compassionatese basis, knowing that it had n been approved yet and that there were no trials available to base that decision on. we infused it the next day. he was still having very high fevers and still was requiring oxygen the day that we gave it to him. by the next day, his fevers resolved and they stayed gone. he felt much better. he felt like he had started beating the virus.ri >> o: no one knew if the

drug had an impact, or if the virus was taking its natural course. here's the thing, you have one data poi here. >> one person in the world. >> o'brien: yeah, in the world.d >> it was an ae, and so we were happy that the patient got tter 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 study this in a formal clinical trial. >> o'brien: although patient one was well enougto be sent home, for public health officials in washington state, there were many more questions to answer. they needed to find out who patient one might have come in contact with after retning from china and send samples from them to the cdc as well. >> so, we find contacts, someone that you spend at least ten minutes of time talking face to face with. ts identified 60-plus cont we swab them multiple times to

sefwas there a transmission this virus. and we foundbsolutely no ansfer amongst those contacts that this first case had. >> o'brien: washington's governor, jay inslee, remembers this aief, optimistic mont. i interviewed him remotely from his office at the state capitol. >> what we were thinking is we were very much on top of it becae we did very extensive contt tracing with all of th contacts that the person had wh e first patient and did everything epideologically that you could ask a public health system to do. >> o'brien: but soon more signs of trouble began to appear across lake shington in the city of kirkland at the life care skilled nursing and rehab center. scott sedlacek had brought his86 -year-old father there to recover from a bad fall. >> so, he hit his head hard 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 february 20, we moved my dad to life care. and then we started seeing some of the staff wearingespiratory gear, wearing face masks, wearing glov. it's kind of like, "what's going on?" >> o'brien: inside life care,si nts had been getting sick with an unknown respiratory infection. the sickest were brought to e arby evergreenhealth medical center.dr francis riedo is the medical director of infection control here >> remember, this was flu season.dy and we'd alrad 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 individuals with severe respiratory infections. in the meantime, in th background, we're watching these events unfold with increasing alarm, not only in wuhan, and

now spreading across the globe and wondering when our turn was coming. >>'brien: until that point,fe deral guidelines for testing potential cases were very narrow-- patients had to hav be in a hotspot like china or in contact with someone then, the rules chged. dr. riedo wasted no time. >> we settled on two individuals and we tested them the following morning. i had a regular day, sawti ents in clinic, saw patientsl, in the hospita was sitting there as i usually do trying to complete my notes and received a call at 7:40 p.m. and both of the sts were positive. >> o'brien: what goes through your mind? >> my initial honest response was skepticism. i thought the odds of both tests in two randomly selectedal indivibeing positive with no history of travel, no history

of exposure to anybody wasmi fairly astrol. this was a huge shift. incident command was activated and we made a quk decision to test nine addition people that night. eight of those nine were positive. >> o'brien: wow. >> right. >> o'brien: kind of stunning actually, isn't it? >> it was, and within the first five days, we had 32 positives. >> o'brien: many were ife care, but crucially, some had no connection to e 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 than a hundred others linked to the home testing positive, includg scott sedlacek's father, chuck.ne >> he har shown symptoms. >> o'brien: so, how worried are

you th symptoms might appear? >> extraordinarily because we don't know, this is new, it's uncharted waters. >> o'brien: the sedlaceks' story hit home for me: my 84-year-old faner is in assisd living florida. hello there. can you tilt down a little bit? >> i'm sorry what? >> o'brien: tilt down, tilt down, a little more down. ere you go, that's good. how you feeling? >> well, i'm fine, how are you?> 'brien: no coronavirus so far, but he's pretty much in isolation, no visitors allowed. it's the same at life carebut the sedlaceks have found a way around that. >> my sister is here and we'llwi go up an say hi through the window. we brought a big white board today soe can actually write notes use they're double pane windows to seal the noise out. (laughs) can you hear us? (laughs)

>> okay, we'll let youh that-- love you. >> keep getting better, keep listening the nursing staff. they're looking out for you. he has to get the love frothe family to get better. without it, he will become not just physically but mentally ill. >> o'brien: yeah. >> it's the worst thing you canp do to an oldson. >> o'brien: yeah, right. >> yeah, the worst thing you can do. >> o'brien: scott himself also got the virus. unlike his dad, he got sick. >> i was hospitalized through the emergency room with thet full-blown l symptoms-- extraordinary difficulty breathing, light-headed, dizziness-- you name t symptom, i had it. >> o'brien: what was it like itbeing in isolation, sick this disease? were you scared? >> hell yes, ias scared, it's an unknown. they started an albuteroland nebulizer, which they had to give two full rounds of it. but after those two full rounds

s breathing normally and after six hours, they had all my symptoms under control. within 12 hours, they moved me to a full isolation unit, and ten hours later, they released me with zero symptoms. >> the number of coronavirus ses at home and abroadue conto climb, the financial markets rocked, and more spread...e steps to fight the >> o'brien: by this time in early march, covid-19 cases were multiplyg here and around the country. >> breaking news-- washington is in a state of emergency...ve >> o'brien: or inslee had put washington under a state of emergency... >> washington state has declareg a state of ecy... >> o'brien: ...the first governor to do so. >> the governor declaring ame state ofency... >> o'brien: but like many here, he was increasingly concerned that presidentrump was continuing to downplay the threat. >> it's going to all work out. everyby has to be calm. it's all going to work out. >> o'brien: inslee, a democrat and former presidential candidate, tweeted that thera adminion should stick to science and tell the truth.

it would ignite an escalatin r of words. >> o'brien: during a visit to the cdc, trump fired back. >> that vernor is a snake. okay. inslee. t 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. i said, no matter how nice you are, he's no good. that's theay i feel. >> o'brien: at that point, did governor and the state ofu as washington was sort of on theirw and the federal cavalry was not coming? >> yes, t we didn't ever 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 the president's reluctance toe really exercadership on this. and we sort of knew that he had an intent of downplaying what was an emerging oblem. that, you know, could only be

explained by someone who had their eye on the dow jones rather thaan eye on the epidemiological curve. >> o'brien: seattle's mayor, jenny durkan, shared those. sentimen >> we are not going 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.sc facts annce. got to rely on them. that's the only thing that's going to get us through is, and, fortunately, we've got a really vibrant health andsc nce community here in the state of washington and seattle and we listen to them. political leaders here had some hard decisions to make after hearing grim prections. >> we had researchers here telling us that within six weeks, we would have over 70,0 positive cases and hundreds of deaths if we didn't act. and so we had a choice to make. the choice was know that you're going to have enormous pain in

shutting down parts of your economy, or have those same health system.and overrun your as we move forward, it will be increasingly necessary and important that we are unified in our efforts. >> o'brien: seattle was starting on a trajectory that the rest of the country would soon follow. >> there is no magic silver bullet at the moment medically, effort that we can take to slow the spread othis disease and that's to reduce the social interactions that are not necessary in our lives. >> o'brien: you, the county executive, and the governor, were early out of the box on taking these actions, pretty proactive. did you feel at the time a little nervous about at? >> i think it was... all of us felt a great deal of... sense of obligation and concern because we were the first to go.

>> o'brien: mayodurkan actually had a pandemic response plan on the shelf, which she and her cabinet had updated in early february. planning and knew that one of the first things we had to do to separate people from anotherwa have them telecommute, those that could. so our largest 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. >> so, we had a call on sunday afternoon, march 1. we had the business s... >> o'brien: microsoft president his home.h spoke to me from >> we went from monday telling people they should work from home if they were more comfortable, tuesday telling peopleyou know, feel free to work from home, it might be better, to wednesday from home unless it's essential you come to work. >> o'brien: the decision you one.was a b did you hesitate? >> 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 do. >> it's the hardest decision all of our instincts are to grow the whole economy for your city, to make a stronger community for everyone. and what we're saying is we've got to stop that kind of community and we have to stop doing work. >> o'brien: almost overnight, e vibrant city shut down-- y sinesses closed, storefronts boarded up, emptstaurants,e the famous pikace market nearly deserted. ♪ at a local soccer eld usually filled with kids and families, preparations for a surge of covid patients. >> we knew already that one of ldthe biggest challenges we having the hospital system

overwhelmed by a wave of cases. we were trying to figure out how erwe could get testing, we trying to figure out whether we would receive terial help in the form of field hospitals or large facilities encampments for people who were unhoused. d there wasn't a lot of concrete offers of help coming so we were left wi realityt. that we're going to have to take on a l of this ourselves. >> more 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 ry throughoutcou march... >> and i can't tell you how frustrating it is... >> o'brien: ..o was the frustration among governors scrambling for resources they needed to respond. >> we're bidding against one another, it'really not a great system. in all of the states are taking action to try tothese things on our own. >> o'brien: the president was

now feuding with multipleor gove.. >> 400 ventilators? i need 30,000 ventilators. >> o'brien: and like he'd done with the virus in the >> i don't believeeed 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 admit it, but they have, we have sent so many things to them, including ventilators.id >> o'brien: he feuding, doctors and nurses have struggled to get the personal protective equipment, ppe, they need. >> good morning, and welcome, everyone >> o'brien: in seattle, that's been the top issue for dr. amy compton-phillips, the chiefer clinical offf the providence hospital network. >> last year, ross all of providence, we used 250,000 masks. in theirst three months of this at everett, they've used 250,000 masks. we cannot have our own caregivers going down from covi whey're trying to take

care of the community, because, you know, the supply chain is just not keeping uwith our needs. >> amy, i have to say if i can't assure them that they are safe then i don't think the rest of this is worth anything. >> o'brien: inside providence'se emncy department, tensions around p have been high. dr. ryan keay is the department's medical director. >> it's exhausting to constantly think about the sequence that you put things on and take things off and where you'reni zing during that sequence. every nurse, every tech, every t physician i'ked to has said, "i've been working for years and i've never been so exhausted." and it leaves pele just on edge all the time. >> we have enough n-95 masks that people should not have to be able... shod not have to ing in their own masks at this point in time. >> is the commendations still one n-95 per five patients? or are we using it thehole shift now? >> we're using them with a face

shield for as long as you need use them. you just store them in a paper bag until they become moist or soiled. >> okay, so forever? >> well, not forever. (chuckles) >> o'brien: reusing masks and storing them in paper bags wasn't the only diy workaround i saw. i caughtp with dr. compton-phillips at the otherwise vant providence headquarters. inside a large meeting room, she and a handful ofer team were spread out a safe distance, cranking out face shields. >> our caregivers would normally have protective goggler on and acal mask underneath this and then this goes in front and basically protects again droplets. >> o'brien: they had raided a half dozen craft stores to scrounge up supplies. we'ret 288 now, we're going to get to 1,000 by tomorrow. r >> we'ooling our resources going into war against covid. >> i feel ke rosie the riveter. >> 499, 500! (cheering)

>> o'bri: on the one hand, this is really... it's kind of heartwarming. but it's also really sad. >> desperation. >> o'brien: yeah, i can't decide which way to go in this. what are your thoughts? r>> i would rather offer caregivers something than nothing and at the moment, youho know, if thee is not having ppe or having homemade ppe, were going to offer the homemade ppe. >> o'brienright, right. >> so... >> o'brien: that's what motivated jeff kaas-- s small family business builds a sews furniture for aviati and tail customers. he decided to pitch in and start making masks. there's not a shortage of the raw materials at least, that would be... or not yet? >> there will be. there will be, yeah. so, i ink we've enough to make two million masks. >> o'brien: buhow long will that take you to do? >> well, it depends on how fant we wto go. >> o'brien: how fast do you want to g >> we want to solve the problem. er assumption is that we will be ramping up for s weeks and then drop off a cliff.

nobody wilneed 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.> e knew in january what we would need-- we knew. we would need glov and masks and respirors, and ventilators. two-and-a-half months later,t we're dependen sewing circles to supply our frontline heroes with what they need.ce it may be a merican story; i find it pathetic. >> o'brien: washington state officials, like others in the country, say this was an avoidable crisis. >> because we've lacked the federal leadership we needed, it's been mayor versus mayor, city versus city, state versus state, ting to get access to the limited resources to protect our communities, whether it's ventilators or maskfor our health car workers, all of that has become this hunger games

process where everyone's trying to figure out a way to outbid each other. onshington state had a lin masks that were coming to the country and at the port in california. suddenly, multiple states were bidding on them. 't be the way that it happens. >> we're searching the world for every potential warehouse that have any of this personal protective equipment. that has been a constant struggle and we are bidding against ch other, and i'm sure that the suppliers are having a field day bidding the price up while states are bidding against one another. it would be much more efficient economically and otherwise i the rnment was playing more vigous role in that regar >> o'brien: the tensions between states and the federal government have been escalating >> another five million americans file for unemployment benefits last week. >> o'brien: not just over te response to the outbreak... >> the market do percent in relatively short order. there's a lot of bad news still to com >> o'brien: but now over what it will take to get the country

up and running again. n this is a massive meltdon a national scale. >> more jobs lost in a matter oh two week in the entire 18 months of the great recession. >> our team of expertsow 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 tope re even as soon as may 1. >> or country has to get open. and it will get open. and it'll get open safely. and hopefully quickly. >> o'brien: but some of them have been pushing back. >> we cannot be guided emotion. we need to be guided by where the facts on the ground, science d public health take us. >> what's best for the people ol nois, their safety and health, and listening to the scientists and the doctors. on>> because if you do it it can backfire. >> o'brien: and many like inslee say it will come down to ones thing: msting. challenge for the states

right now, is we need a huge ramp up of our testing capacy, even greater than was needed early in the outbrk. >> o'brien: to increase testing, inslee says trump needs to order u.s. industry to help using the defense production act which the esident 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 ecomy. >> o'brien: but president trump has also thrown this back on the states. >> the governors are responsible, they have to take charge. they have to do a great job.: >> o'briere are limits to what a state can do though, as i saw at washington's health department labo they can only complete about0 tests a day, and that requires a mad scrame.ma the raterials for test kits e hard to co by. >> we have a lot of testing labt capabilitye don't have the

equipment to swab everybody's nose. i think the current status inta washington ste is limited by the supplies to actually run the test. ls >> o'brien: theyo don'have enough ppe for the health care workers administering the tests. >> if we don't have enough gowns, gloves, mks, to treat patients, how are we going to prioritize a gown, a glove, and a mask to swab someby? because that is the requirement. >> o'brien: the state healthme depart isn't alone in truggling to meet the demand. >> we can't havet level of cross-contamination... >> o'brien: after getting approval for h test from the fda, alex greninger has dramatically ramped up testing at the university of washington school of medicine virology lab >> for inpatients, health care workers, institutionalized populations, but mostly inpatients, people who need c supportie, we've got to get that fast turnaround time that reduces the use of e otective... >> o'brien: becaey're in the hospital. >> yes. >> o'brien: on this day, they completed about 3,000 tests.

>> to get 3,000, 4,000, 5,000 specimens a day, you know, ita taket of focus. >> o'brien: just like in the state lab, greninger says it is difficult to get the raw materials he needs. one of the hardest things to find: the single use plastic tips that contain the chemicals and the specimens. >> some automated pipettors use four tipa test, and others use three and, so, just getting the tips into your facility so we can run that many tests... w this is whe' looking for, basically. we tweeted at roche and the worlto get these things in, like you would twe like delta lost your bags or something like that, right? i mese, we have two people who entire job right now is to manage our fedex shipments. basically, we blow up our hallway and it goes down to ae. single fil and then it takes over the next six to eight hours, we're able to actually move those boxes into our local warehouses we bought other space here in the building.

it's the supply chain has been t real number one thing we do. >> o'brien: despite th, probleey are still managing to return results the same day in many cases. this is crucial to keep with a fast-moving virus and help althcare workers 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 they are infected until we give you a result that says they aren't. and during that time, you have to use all the personalip protective ent. so, the speed at which we get those test results back allows us to conserve our per protective equipment. it really touches so many things. >> o'brien: so what do you envision the coming months? >> i think personally right now, is will be with us for some time, a long time. there's no magic bullet just yet. >> o'brien: this testing marathon could go on for at least a year-- that's how long experts say it could takto develop vaccines.

in the meantime, researchers ar racingnish clinical trials of several therapeutic drugs including that promising antiviral remdesivir the onthat seemed to work so well on patient one. >> on trl? >> yes, he's on trial. he started on the 15th. o rien: dr. diaz is now leading one of the trials with patients at providence hospital. >> these are still anecdotes because we haven't seen the full studbeing completed, but we're certainly very optimistic. we want to get these questions answered as fast as poible. >> o'brien: and there may be another way to help people fight off 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 first person iseattlto donate her plasma to rearchers trying to see what natural resistance she might have developed and ether she can share it.

>> scientists don't know how long we have that immunity for this particular virus. but signs so far look like, you know, we will have immunity. o rien: survivors' blood as therapy-- it's not new idea. doctors used it in 1918 in the midst of the spanish flu pandemic. >> i do feel a little more sense of security going out and doing day-to-day task because i have alrdy had this. >> o'brien: she was among thefi rst documented covid-19 cases in the u.s.lo a micrgist who worksor a biotech company, she came down wi flu symptoms on februar ng, three days after atten party.k on facebe learned many of her friends who were there were also sick, 15 in all. she told me she and seven others ultimately tested 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 plasma

donation. >> o'brien: the coronaviru 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. >> i'm hoping that some of my plasma ends up in another patient who is suffering from covid-19 and this could potentially save thee. ♪ >> o'brien: there are now signs that covid cases may beso plateauing i places, like here. >> we have had some success flattening the curve, that has taken place... >> o'brien: ...but also spreading to new areas of the country. washington state recen rerned more than 400 sntilators it received from the national stockpithey could be used where they're needed more. announced that 400 ventilators

would be leaving the state of washington. >> o'brienbut in recent days... >> trump's back and forth... >> orien: president trump's feud with governors has become an all-out war. >> in a seriesf tweets he exclaimed "liberate minnesota, michigan, and virginia." >> o'brien: encouraging protests against social distancing restrictions... seeing these protests a state capitols... >> o'brien: ...even in washington state. >> ...protesters gather toy in olympia demanding that the governor act now. >> sunday's protests in olympia ationsheatest in a wave of >> are people expressing their views, i see where they working, they seem way they're very responsible people to me. >> the governor of washington state says the i president may iting violence. >> o'brien: in his governor inslee said trump was "unhinged," "off the rails," and "fomenting domestic rebellion." when i talked to governor inslee, ime

to be rushing to re-open. >> 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 reb and start right back up again. the most dangerous element in mo staty is the virus of complacency because we have to be just as diligent for the next several weeks as we were the st several weeks. >> o'brien: i wanted to know what pandemic modeler chris murray thought of all of this. he runs the institute for health metrics and evaluatithe university of washington. >> o'brien: its models are often cited by president trump's coronavirus task force. so, really, when you think about it, chris, there's no scenario going forward th you can envision that doesn't demand mass testing, if not testing for everyone >> the issue will be, you know, the capacity to test.

right,ow many tests are praccally feasible come june state by state? and it may not be anywhere neare enough tble to do full-scale mass testing. so then if you take measures off ma1, and there's a pretty quick rebound, so by mid-july, we'd be right backe we are now. >> o'brien: really? actly the rate of death 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 ithat way. >> and the second wave won't be like the first wave. >> o'brien: that the president isn't heeding scientific warnings, once again, is causing alarm among those who've been dealing with the outbreak sie the beginning. >> i am pessimistic about the next few months. i think it's going to be really hard and we need to ramp up. ramp up, hurry, we need a leader at the top who's willingl to go eyond where he is right now in saying, "here's

testing" and giving people the information they need to get the economy going. long term, i'm optimistic, but it's a long ways between here and there. ♪ nt >> o'brien: i ack one last time to where the outbreak took hold here, evergreen hospital, where those patients from the nursing home 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, her erances of living to see h husband maury again were not good. >> when they put her on the ventilator, i never thought i'd and i wasn't reading about people that were surviving this and coming out of this, sowa

.. you know, it was over. >> i don't even know how many weeks it was, bui don't remember a lot. >> when we brought her, when the day came that. she looked horrible. her temperature was horrible. i >>was like 105? >> o'brien: oh, my god, really? >> it was 105 and she was like coughing and we had the ambulance come. they sent two ambulances. this was the begning of the covid, you know? >> o'brien: you didn't really fully appreciate how bad it was, did you, because you were kind of out of it? >> yeah, i was out of it. i saw my parents, my dead parents, when i was here. i don't know whether... i was saying i don't know whether it was a dream or auc haation. my parents were here and they they all said, you know, "you're going to be okay. everything's going to be okay. you're going to be okay and if something happens, your children will be fine.oi everything's to be great. you have all this family and stuff, so don't worry." so... and it really helped me noworry.

oh, there, it says that way. >> yeah, sorry.>> o'brien: rosanne was on her way home... >> bye! >> o'brien: but there were others still coming in, needing urgent attention. (people chattering) i met critical care and pulmonary physician michael bundesmann, who was focused on one particular patient.is >> this person who has multi-organ failure and ultimately required mechanicalno ventilation anw needs dialysis, kidney replacementap thery, they're in shock. >> o'brien: three days earlier, he'd been awake, alert, joking with his ctors. >> patients come in and they look okay on one day, and some of them are kind of okay to beha died from the emergency room, and come back a few days later much more sick. of that d unpredictability i think isery unsettling for everybody. >> orien: dr. bundesmann says thpace has slackened some

since the darkest days. >> we could feel the curve flatten a few days ago, probably even last week. it has allowed us to be able toa see tients 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 difference. >> we are now i think at a stage where i think we can keep this pacehat we have going and that's a good thing because how many people are still susceptible to this infection. it's going to be a long haul, i think. some of the things that worry us are, you know, what happens when there's a next large outbreak a skilled nursing facility, the next time a susceptible population gets hit within a tight community. nkdon't know when that's going to happen, i thihat until s there ise degree of herd immunity, there are goin to be people out thereho have to be planning this out very carefully and cautiously, when people can start returning to work, who can start returning to work, and what time frame.

because as that happens,in the cases are to start to pick up again, and we have to be there and be able to support apem as best as possible without stretching the city of our health care system. tough decisions for those people who ha 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 a public health crisis here with patient one has become a national crisisver respse, over science and politics and decisions with devastating consequences. (siren wailing) it's still a tale of two washingtons, the story that i 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. i founthe doctor was who took that photogph that went viral. >> (speaking italian) >> she said, " we're seeing hallways with patients, and doctors that are comptely overwhelmed." >> italy has reported the highest one-day death toll from. coronavi >> it's my story, it's your story. it feels really, really close to home. >> go to pbs.org/frontline for our latest reporting on thed ic includi our podcast, "the frontline dispatch". >> so miles, what does t governor think now? >> well he's concerned. he says this is the most

perilous momt because people are inside and they >> 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 te on the pbs video app or pbs.org/frontline. >> frontline is made possible by coributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. and by the corporation for public broadcasting. major support is provided by t john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful wor. more information at macfound.org.e rd foundation: working with visionaries on the frontlines of social change worldwide. at fordfoundation.org. additional support is provided 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.

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