captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening, i'm judy woodruff. on the nshour tonight, what could have been-- a new study suggests the u.s. might have avoided tens of thousands of deaths if social distancing policies happened a few weeks earlier. then, fallout-- the trump administration plans to withdraw from another arms control treaty with russia. plus, retail in crisis-- with the economy in freefall and nearly 40 million americans filing for unemployment, the already struggling retail sector faces a grim future. >> confidence takes a moment to destroy. it can take many, many months to come back. even among those who may want to

go out and shop and miss that activity, a lot of them don't have the means to do so. >> woodruff: all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> life isn't a straight line, and sometimes you can find yourself heading in a new direction. fideli is here to help you work through the unexpected, with financial planning and advice for today, and tomorrow.

>> carnegie corporation of new york. supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, and the advancement of international peace and security. at carnegiorg. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: and individuals. >> this program was made possible by the corporatn for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: the covid-19 pandemic has reached yet another grim milestone, as the number of confirmed cases worldwide surpassed the five million mark.

that comes as the u.s. labor department announced its own staggering statistic: 38.6 million americans have filed for unemployment benefits in the last nine weeks. yamiche alcindor begins our coverage. >> alcindor: as businesses across the country prepare for gradual reopenings, the number of americans filing for unemployment appears to be leveling off. the labor department said 2.4 million americans filed claims this past week. that is a drastic drop from the surge seen late in march. but those numbers are still sky high. and the toll covid-19 is having on the economy overall remains vast: more than 38 million rkers sought jobless benefits in the past nine weeks. today before he left for a trip to michigan, president trump said the country would soon be on the path to recovery. >> the numbers are going to be very good into the future. we're going to be very good starting with our transition period, which will be probably june, june or july.

he was on the defensive after the release of a colbia university model that estimated nearly 36,000 deaths could have been preventedad social distancing policies been enforced one week early. >> i was way early. columbia's an institutio that's very liberal. i think it's just a political hit job, you want to know the truth. researchers at columbia university said if lockdowns had been imposed just two weeks earlier, 83% othe nation's deaths could have been avoided. but at that time, a number of leaders, including those at the country's epicenter of the crisis, stooback... >> relax. we're doing great. it all will pass. >> we want people still to go on about their lives. >> alcindor: ...as the virus quietly subsumed their cities. today, new york city mayor bill de blasio said he regrets not having more information on the virus. >> i wish we had known so much

more in january, february, beginning of march. i wish we had the testing that would have told us what's going on. i mean, right now we're not sure when this disease started to be present in the city. we thought it was march and now more and more it looks like it was february or even late january. and we just didn't have testing to be able to give us the full picture. >> alcindor: dr. ashish jha is the director at the harvard global health institute. he said no model will be completely right, but there is no doubt delays and inaction had a significant impact. >> this is the entire point of exponential growth in outbreaks like this. if you think of a doubling time of five days, it means that by delaying by 10 days you have four times the number of cases, four times the number of deaths. or if you had closed 10 days earlier we would have a quarter of the deaths we ended up having.

>> alcindor: he travelled to the city of ypsilanti, some 40 miles outside detroit. there he met with african american leaders from the area. black people and people of color remain disproportionately impacted by the coronavirus. >> african-american communities have been hit very hard, including in detroit. >> reporter: he also toured a he also toured a ford motor plant where workers are now producing ventilators in responseo the virus. >> those containment efforts have been across the country. new procedures for airport screenings were released. the agency is urging travelers to wear face masks and to scan their own boarding passes. people are also urged to keep carry-on food items in clear plastic bags to prevent agents from handling their belongings. control measures like these are playing out across the globe as the tally of infections surpass five million. and countries with fragile health systems are bearing the brunt: by the weekend, cases across the continent of africa could top 100,000.

the africa centers for disease control and prevention warned the continent needs to be testing about 10 times the number of people already tested. for the pbs newshour, i'm yamiche alcindor. >> woodruff: it's a question that provided a haunting backdrop to this day's news: how many fewer deaths might there have been if social distancing had started more widely earlier in march? as we heard in yamiche's report, a group of statisticians estimate there might have been 36,000 fewer deaths. had amatic steps been taken sooner. but this estimate is based on a computer model. and the models have their limitations. miles o'brien has be covering the work that goes into all this, as he did last night, and joins me now. so, miles, you have been looking at this new estimate. what did you find about how they came to this conclusion? >> reporter: well, judy, it's

incredibly complicated stuff to try to model a pandemic that's moving exponentially and judging that against the human response to it. the basic form lay is they look at who's susceptible, who's exposed, who's infected and who's recovering, and then they measure that against mobility data, cell phone mobility data, to get a sense of how well social distancing and sheltering in place is taking hold. with those numbers and correlations based on what's actually happened here in the united states, they rolled back the clock and assume that those mobile patterns that were in place when the social restrictions were being adhered to more in this country were instituted earlier, and that's where you get those numbers. if they had started two weeks prior, there would have been 54,000 fewer deaths,4,000. now, that's not too surprising when you talk about the exponential spread of a virus that is novel, but it does give some specific numbers to the

particular problem. >> woodruff: so these are eye-popping numbers, miles. but, as you were telling us, there are caveats here. >> reporter: well, what's really important to remember is, if you to back two weeks prior to that date, first part of march, trooper only eight deaths in the entire united states associated with covid 19. so getting people to abide by strict social distancing, sheltering in place rules when there are only eight deaths total would probably not work very well. after all, people have to feel compelled to to things. so the models don't capture that particular aspect of it, the human nature component. >> woodruff: yeah, it's so much of it, of course, is about the timing. and is it possible to know that these deaths were really preventable? >> reporter: yeah, that's an interesting point because we talk about social distancing, and we talk about sheltering in place as a way to keep the

healthcare system from overflowing, which would, of course, create more deaths, because people can't get care. but this particular paper, looking at these numbers, doesn't account for that, it doesn't sort out between those deaths and deaths that, frankly, might be inevitable because it is, after all, novel coronavirus, and we don't have a vaccine. but an important point, if you take, using as a template, south korea, where they instituted early action, widespread testing, contact tracing, and the numbers have diminished dray mattedcally. as a matter of fact, they're getting back to work. professor jeffrey shaman is the lead author from columbia university and elaborated further. >> i don't think it's inevitable everyone will get infected. if we were to hold this virus in check and reduce it analogously in the united states so instead of 20,000 new cases each day we

only hd 200 each day, we would be in a similar position where we probably could hold this thing in check a considerable amount of time while giving ourselves an opportunity to develop therapeutics and an effective vaccine. >> woodruff: so, miles, how useful is the information the doctor is saying? >> i think there's plenty of blame to go around, i think the important point is we settle into the idea it's a binary, either we're shut down, at home, not going out or we'ret at work. there's a lot of in between we can think about, including more usage of masks, much more testing and contact tracing. if you get to a point where there is a small outbreak, you can identify it much more quickly and kind of put a ring around it and stop it from becoming that wildfire type growth that we see with an exponential pandemic. so there is some -- there are

lessons here, if we are willing to list up. i'm afraid if we don't listen, we're in for another surge pretty soon. >> woodruff: still some ambiguity, but you are right, something we have to pay attention to. miles o'brien, we thank you as always. >> you're welcome, judy. >> woodruff: in the day's other news, more than 80 people have died after a powerful cyclone swept through coastal india and bangladesh. the storm cked winds of up to 118-miles-per-hour when it roared ashore wednesday.

bangladesh remain without power. china is considering a new security bill that could restrict opposition activity in hong kong. that comes after months of pro- eaty so until they adhere weey-

esident trump's longtimetor aer- personal lawyer michael cohen was released from a federal prison in new york today due to the coronavirus. he arrived at his manhattan apartment wearing a face mask, to serve the rest of his sentence at home. cohen had been behind bars since last may for tax charges, fraud, and lying to congress. he was scheduled to remain there until november 2021. his release was part of a widespread effort to slow the virus' spread in prisons. in the presidential campaign,

georgia's bureau of investigation arrested a man who video recorded the fatal shooting of ahmaud arbery in february. he was taken into custody on a felony murder charge. the two main suspects, gregory and travis mcmichael, were arrested earlier this month. in the presidential campaign, there's word the presumptive democratic nominee joe biden invited both of new hampshire's democratic senators for initial interviews to be considered for his vice presidential running mate. maggie hassan agreed to take part, but jeanne shaheen reportedly declined the invitation. former vice president biden has pledged to pick a woman as his running mate. actress lori loughlin and her husband have agreed to plead guilty in a college admissions bribery scandal. loughlin will serve two months behind bars for conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud.

her husband will serve five months. prosecutors will in turn dismiss money laundering and federal programs bribery charges. the couple is accused of paying $500,000 in bribes to get their daughters into the university of southern california. and, today's unemployment report pushed stocks lower on wall street. the dow jones industrial average lost more than 101 points to close at 24,474. the nasdaq fell 91 points, and the s&p 500 slipped 23. still to come on the newshour: virginia governor ralph northam discusses efforts to reopen his state. the trump administration plans to withdraw from a critical arms control treaty. with the economy in freefall, the struggling retail sector faces a grim future. plus much more.

>> woodrf: the washington d.c. metropolitan area, which includes parts of maryland and northern virginia, is still under lockdown. and it is one of three areas in the country where cases of the coronavirus are plateauing, instead of declining. virginia governor ralph northam ok'ed the phased reopening of most of the state last week. he's also the only sitting governor who is also a medical doctor. and he joins us now from richmond. governor northam, thank you very much for talking with us today. you have begun to open up the state of virginia, like so many other states, but we also learned today virginia had the highest number of new cases reported since the pandemic

began. how do you know that you're not moving too fast? >> well, judy, first of all, thank you so much for having me on today, and i hope that you and your viewers are healthy and safe. we have been fighting this pandemic for a little bit over two months now. our first case was on march 7th, and we have followed the c.d.c. guidelines that were outlined, and those were looking at the percent positivity, the hospital capacity that we have, the amount of p.p.e., the amount of testing, and most of virginia, judy, a week ago, was ready to move into phase one following those criteria. i have received northern virginia, which is neighboring with maryland and washington, d.c., still have high numbers. we had discussions with their leadership and decided that we would delay entering phase one for two weeks. to your point, we did have a high number of positive tests

today. the great majority of them are up in northern virginia. so we're monitoring that very closely, and, again, we're encouraging people in the northern virginia area to just stay home until these numbers go down a bit. >> reporter: >> woodruff: and in a separate question, governor, which has to do with what's happening in the d.c. area is that we see, as these areas open up in the less populated parts of the country, as in rural virginia, southern virginia, people from the urban areas are going out to these parts of the state and of the country. is virginia prepared for what could happen as people move around the state more? >> we're monitoring that very closely, and we have encouraged individuals that live in northern virginia to please stay home. we've had outbreaks in other parts of the state, as you know, judy, over on the eastern shore where i'm there, we've had outbreaks at our meat processing plants, nursing homes have been affected by this. so this virus doesn't know

boundaries of counties and states, and we all have to just really remain village atlanta and keep our -- remain vigilant and keep our hygiene, warrick hands, wearing face protection and keeping our social distancing. we know those things work and virginians overall have been very good about following those guidelines. >> woodruff: how prepared would you say virginia is, because you have to factor in a certain amount of unpredictability, don't you? >> absolutely. that's why they call this a novel virus. there are so many things we don't know. we don't know whether it's seasonal. we don't have a vaccination. there's no treatment for the virus. so we are monitoring our numbers very closely, and we have the ability, now, and it's getting better every day, judy, to do testing. we're hiring a number of individualto do tracing. we havethe p.p.e. that we have that's necessary in virginia. so each day is better. but, you know, one of the points i would make, judy, we have been

fighting this biological war for over two months now and we started with no supplies. being an army doctor, as i was, we've had our hands tied and, so, we've worked very hard to accumulate more p.p.e., that's going well, and our testing capabilities, yesterday, we tested over 10,000 individuals in virginia. so each day is better. obviously, we're working to make it better every day, and we want virginians to be safe and, as we move into these phases, we will do it responsibly. >> woodruff: a different subject, governor, and that has to do with mail-in voting. you reported yesterday that in local elections in virginia this week, there was a much higher number of people, i think you said you reported 55,000 virginians voted in these local elections with mail-in ballots, much more than in the last election four years ago. you're encouraging virginians to

mail in their votes for the june primary. but we know that president trump, in the last few days and again today, is saying that mail-in voting, in his words, leads to fraud. he said, in so many words, it's illegal. he said it's going to lead to total election fraud. what do you say to that? and do you see this as an effort to discourage voting in november on the part of democrats? >> well, judy, nobody should have to choose between their health and casting a ballot, and this is not the time to play politics. so much of what our president has done is aspirational. there have been so many mixed messages that have come out of washington, andeth really why we're in sewhat the predicament we're in now, but we need to make sure that we can allow individuals to cast their ballball lot and that they can do it safely. so, you know, we don't know what this virus is going to do over

the next weeks and months, but, certainly, if, in november, the virus is still out there and people are putting their lives at risk, poll workers are putting their lives at risk, and we need to find another means of voting to make sure everybody's voice is heard and that we can elect a president in november. >> woodruff: when the president claims that this leads to, in his words, total election fraud, how do you respond to that? >> well, it's baseless is what it is, and, again, we have showe of days ago that, you know, it's a way that people can vote and it's a way that they can protect their health. so, again, we need to be flexible as we move forward, and i hope that november 3, which we have made a holiday in virginia, we got rid of lee jackson holiday, as you know. we hope that people will go to be able to vote at the polls and do it safely, but if theyan't, we've got to find other means to

do that. >> woodruff: governor ralph northam of virginia, thank you so much, governor. >> thank you so much, judy. >> woodruff: the president signaled today that he would begin the process of withdrawing from a key, post-cold-war treaty with russia, and more than 30 other nations. nick schifrin has that. >> schifrin: judy, the 1992 open skies treaty was built amid the collapse of the soviet union and its warsaw pact allies. it was designed to allow regulated overflights of russia, the u.s., and europe, by russian and american planes to ensure that no military action was in the process of being launched. but the administration says the russians have routinely violated the pact, and started the clock today on a six-month process to withdraw. at the same time, the u.s. is trying to include china in the renewal of "new start," an arms between the u.s. and russia.

for more, i'm joined from the state department by the newly- appointed presidential special envoy for arms control, marshall billingslea. ambassador billingslea, welcome to the "newshour". thank you very much. let's start with a straightforward question, why is the trump administration withdrawing from the open skies treaty? >> thanks for that question, nick. four specific reasons we're exercising our right under the treaty to withdraw. the first is that russia, regrettably, has engaged in a systemic pattern of arms control. they've destroyed the arms control framework in ukraine not just with the open skies treaty but the conventional armed forces treaty and many other destabilizing eorts. russia was misusing the treaty. counterimpledges said russia was abusing the treaty to target our critical infrastructure. three, russiaous using the treaty to advanced maligned

propaganda activities over the world, trying to get their occupation of georgia and illegal occasion of crimea accepted. the months answer is technologies passed by the world of wet film and antiquated aircraft. you can download commercial imagery today in a matter of seconds that really meets the original intent of confidence building measures in europe. we'll work with our allies on this but russia's behavior has been really regrettable. >> reporter: the main argument is russia's not been compliant with this treaty. yes, russia has constraints according to the experts that i'm speaking to and really blocked some of the conversation about some of those constraints as the u.s. has seen it but the trump administration made progress. russia allowed an overflight in kaliningrad.

why withdraw the treater than honor the progress the trump administration has been making? >> we and the president expects that other countries and partners in the treaty arrangements abide by the contractual obligations. when you sign a treaty, you deliver. when you break the rules, when you cheat -- by the way, this is not just open skies, like i said, this is a pattern of russian violation of arms control agreements across the board. we can't forget that just a few months ago, maybe a year ago, russia blew up the i.n.f. treaty by secretly developing a ground launch cruise missile nlear tip specifically prohibited by the treaty and deploying thousands of these things to target n.a.t.o. forces. so we're dealing with an unreliable partner here and there have to be consequences starting two the fact that if they're going to cheat, we have the right to go ahead and withdraw from the treaty and that's what the president cided to do. >> reporter: of course, russia uses everything they can to justify some of the propaganda dand bad behavior but open skies

had a couple of venues to block that. georgia used open skies to complain ability what russia was doing on its borders and when russia rammed yiewcialian ships and kidnapped ukrainian sailors, back into russia, n.a.t.o. used russian skies to fly over russian territory to make a point. why give up that tool? >> the tool hasn't been abandoned. the treaty in operate and our n.a.t.o. allies will continue to exercise their treaty rights as they see fit. it's going to be important that, going forward, the other countries who remain inside the open skies treaty continue to hold the russians to account. we're going to work with our n.a.t.o. allies because we have plenty of forces based in europe. >> reporter: we need to move on to talk about new start which expires early next year. you announced the russian colleague will sit down and talk ability new start. you said you expect china to be

there. it took 24 years for the soviet union to agree to on-site inspections. why do you think you can get that done, something similar, with the chinese in the next seven months? >> it is true that we have built up a systematic way of engaging between the united states and soviet union, now the united states and russia that has provided some real advantages. we have a risk reduction center and a hotline, ways to really reduce the risk of inadd vertenned nuclear exchange and we need to get that dynamic going with the chinese as well. if they reay do wanted to be treated as a great power, which i think they do, then they're going to need to be prepared to show up, behave like a great power, negotiate with the united states and rust and agree to the verification and transparency measures that we need, given w know that china is engaged in a secretive and unconstrained nuclear weapons buildup. >> reporter: how can you get that done in the next six to seven months before new start

expires? at what point is some bert than non-none arms control. >> we want to restore it with the russians and extend it to include the chinese. this is something that the russians themselves have recognized in the past. my counterpart, the deputy foreign minister himself, right after new start was adopted, made clear the next arms control agreement needed to be multi-lateral. i agree with him and we're going to work together. i made clear to him i expect russia to help bring china to the negotiating table. i assure you the president is committed to the future of the nuclear arms control but wants a good deal for the american people. >> reporter: we'll leave i there. marshall billingslea, thank you very much. >> good to see you. >> woodruff: for more than two months, the toll of unemployment in the u.s. has grown each week. many economists and experts believe some of these lost jobs

will not come back any time soon. that's true in the retail sector, which was already struggling before the pandemic. just today, macy's said sales were down 45% and expected a one economics paul solman reports on retail's plunge for our series, "making sense." >> they shut everything down and we were all furloughed. >> reporter: over two million americans have now lost their jobs in retail. like janet dee, 43 years with macy's in new york. >> this is going to be devastating to so many people. >> reporter: violet moya lost her job at a houston sephora six weeks ago. and still hasn't received unemployment benefits. >> idid apply for food stamps. and it did thankfully went through, thankfully, because i didn't know how was i was gonna buy food. >> reporter: stores shed jobs, of course, as sales plunged a record 16.4% down from march to april, a bloodbath for the economy, since retail accounts for about half of all consumer

spending, which in turn drives some 70% economic activity. >> when we first entered lock down, there was a hope that this would be very quick, it would be a kind of v-shaped recovery. i think most retailers now no longer hold on to that hope. >> reporter: neil saunders monitors the sector for global data retail. >> you've still got a lot of economic distress, massive unemployment, a lot of people very uncertain about the future. it probably won't be 2021 before we get back to any semblance of normality in retail. >> reporter: in acute pain: clothing stores, where sales have tumbled nearly 80%. already struggling: department stores are down about 30%. >> it's just a scary situation. >> reporter: sales associate pmacy's on long island after it closed in march. >> are the cutbacks like this going to be for one year, two years, three years. you don't know. so it's unnerving. >> reporter: especially for dee as a union rep. >> our contract is up this

month, may. so we have tried to get the company to agree to a one year extension onto the current contract, but they did not want to go for that. so then we asked for a six month extension, but they didn't want to go for that either. >> reporter: workers like dee have far less bargaining power than they did just months ago, says saunders. >> before this crisis, we had very full employment. you had to pay attractive salaries, good bonuses to get those people to work for you. the problem now is that that situation is reversed. >> reporter: violet moya has been living off her stimulus check, still waiting for those unemployment benefits, looking unsuccessfully for work. >> i applied at target. i applied at h.e.b. and aldi's. i applied at what i knew would be open. i even tried to door dash, but i only have one vehicle and my brother already does door dash. the other day was so bad that he made like $3 i a day and he was like, oh my goodness. >> reporter: he only made three dollars. you mean three dollars an hour? >> no, a day.

because there's thousands of other people on the app that joined because of what happened, because of the pandemic. there's no jobs. so a lot of people are doing those jobs now. >> reporter: the pandemic has speeded the shift to online, predicted to jump from 15% of all retail to fully a quarter. good for virtual stores, disastrous for ones you can walk into. many of which have now gone under. but in the case of two of the biggest names, j crew and neiman marcus, an added problem was the way they'd been financed by something called private equity. >> ten out of the 14 bankruptcies in our retail in recent years havbeen private equity owned companies. so we expected them to be the first to go down when the covid 19 crisis hit. >> reporter: cornell professor rosemary bat studies the private equity industry. >> their financial model makes it such that if there's any disturbance at all, they're likely to go under. >> reporter: now private equity firms are investment partnerships that buy companies, including retailers with supposedly steady cash flows.

>> they buy them with debt and that debt gets put onto the balance sheet to the retailer they're buying. so this leaves the retailer with an enormous debt pilthat they then have to service. >> reporter: so it's harder for retailers to both pay their debts and stay current to compe with behemoths like amazon and walmart. >> they don't have the funds to invest iupgrading their stores and their merchandise and developing their online capacities in the ways that others have. >> i watched all those changes happen when they had the leveraged buyout. >> reporter: after almost three decades at toys r us, ann marie reinhart was laid off two years ago when the company went bankrupt, after a private equity takeover. >> at first i did not understand the process about how you could buy a company for six billion dollars, put one billion down, and then finance the other five and then make that company pay back that loan.

all large private equity firms extract all the profits, so therefore the company can never really get out from under that debt. >> reporter: in march reinhart was furloughed from belk, the north carolina-based retail chain where she'd next taken a job. >> i was under the impression that they were family owned. and then someone said, yeah, well, ever since they were bought out and i was like, what? and they said, yeah. that we were sold to a private equity firm. to me it was deja vu working at toys r us is, you know, they started, you know, cutting supplies and eliminating positions and cutting payroll, etcetera, and now here i am living the same thing all over again. >> reporter: private equity's response? the industry's lobbying group sent us this: "the private equity industry is working around the clock to save retailers and support their emoyees. we are all in this crisis together." now, across the country some stores are opening up. but, say would-be consumers leslie and john dorman on beverly hills' fabled rodeo drive... >> even if retailers open, are people ready to go shopping?

you know, i want them to reopen things safely, i'm not in a rush to get things back to where they were before this hit. >> reporter: and neither are retail workers like macy's' janet dee. >>t's not like where you can just stand behind a counter and just ring the customer up and then just push the package up. there's a lot of service areas, cosmetics, fragrances, okay? the mattress department. people come in, they want to lay on a mattress. they want to see what they're buying. but how do you keep it safe? >> reporter: so workers and shoppers remain wary, says analyst neil saunders. >> confidence takes a moment to destroy. it can take many, many months to come back. even among those who may want to go out and shop and miss that activity, a lot of them don't have the means to do so or they're reluctant to spend because they're nervous about the economy. >> reporter: no arguing with that. for the pbs newshour, paul solman.

>> woodruff: now, a group of essential workers putting themselves on the front lines day after day. transit workers in this country have been hit particularly hard. drivers and transport workers represent the second highest percentage of work-related cases of covid-19 william brangham will talk about those risks and the problemfor major transit systems. >> my name is wendy loccisano, and i am a station agent with the new york city transit authority. >> my name is william mora and i'm a subway conductor. >> my name is latasha giardina and i'm a bus operator. >> my name is chris moralez and i am also a bus driver >> i have days where i'm just crying on the bus. i'm afraid to bring it home. i have children. i have a husband who's older. >> you don't know if you're getting into a contaminated bus or contaminated area. you just have to treat everything like it is contaminated. so it makes it very stressful.

it makes this stressful because we don't have the correct p.p.e. >> i'm an ex-marine. so, i mean, stress. i've dealt with stress. this feels different because the enemy is invisible. we don't know who the enemy is. we can't see it. >> i had covid. you try to say, you know what? whatever is meant to be will be. i got through it the first time. i still have a job to do. i have to get paid. i have kids to feed. i just can't say, hey, you know, you can't you can't live life every day being scared. when i hear somebody get sick or when i hear somebody that i know died. >> there is no funeral. we can't attend any funerals. so i think that's the hard part. yeah, we know he passed away. there's no real closure like. there's no way for us to pay proper respect.

>> it hasn't numbed me at all. it just... it gets me sad. but then the anger hits and it's like you start questioning everything that was done that... could it have been done differently? could the governor? could the mayor? could m.t.a. management? could anybody maybe stop some of the deaths that did happen? if they would have prepared and maybe outfitted us sooner instead of... i mean, they just, they just, they weren't, they weren't ready. they weren't ready. >> some of us are in our buses from eight to nine hours a day. they give us one set of gloves. i don't bring lunch anymore for eight and a half hours. i do not eat lunch because i don't know if i'm contaminating myself by eating my lunch. pyou know, anybody that writest, transit has to wear a mask. again, we're in a position that we cannot enforce that all we

can do is educate and accommodate. they're never good at putting policies in place that will. that will be functional for you as an operator out in the street. >> they actually, just reopened like the parks. they just reopened like the beaches. anyway, it's gotten out of control. like the people come out. like it never happened. i think reopening was the worst thing they could have made. it's not the right time for it. it's really not the right time for it. so it's putting a strain on us. >> transit is the lifeline of new york city. without us nothing moves. we don't get... we often... we don't get appreciated as much. >> we give these people to the doctors, to the hospital, to their jobs, to the grocery store. if they didn't have us, they would not be able to get these places that are so important. >> think about what you say and how you say it. because people were out there, we're trying and we're trying really hard. and just smile even just a simple smile.

little wave goes just a long way down there. i think people now maybe after all this will appreciate each other just a little more. i think you'll give that extra smile that extra, "hey, nice to see you again." just because you are really happy to see them. >> brangham: for more on the central role that public transportation plays in society and some of the concerns about safeguarding workers and passengers, i'm joined now by sarah feinberg. she's the interim president of new york city transit, which oversees all the subways and buses in that big city. sarah feinberg, thank you very much for beingere. you just heard some of those voices of transit workers all over the country and the concerns they have about going back to work in this pandemic. can you help us-- how do you guarantee that those workers will be safe so that we n reopen? >> yeah, thank you for having me. so, look, it is this has been unprecedented for the city of new york, for the state of new york.

but this has also been an unprecedented crisis for new york city transit. so new york city transit is made up of 53,000 men and women who show up every day to operate buses and to operate trains and to get people safely from one place to the other. i mean, look, the reassurances that i can give is that we are doing everything we can possibly do to keep people as safe and healthy as we as we can. so we are distributing massive amounts of personal protective equipment, gloves, masks, suits, face shields, hand sanitizer. we are cleaning and disinfecting our stations and our trains and our rail cars. you know, sometimes two, four, six, seven times a day. we are testing new cleaning solutions, new cleaning tools so that we make sure we're using the best products, the products so i can give people assurances on all those fronts. you know, i can't give them assurances and promise that their federal government will step up.

i can't promise them that the guidance that we'll get from the c.d.c. will be perfect. you know, at the beginning of this pandemic, for weeks, the c.d.c. told us not to distribute masks because, you know, they were only for sick people and that they wouldn't help the healthy. well, we eventually decided to go out on our own and distribute masks anyway. so i can reassure people that i will continue to do everything i can possibly do to keep them safe. and i can tell them that i hope that i'll have federal partners that will do the same. >> brangham: what about the issue of hazard pay? as you know, there's a lot of workers who feel that the work they are doing is demonstrably hazardous and they ought to be compensated for that. is that a possibility? >> absolutely. i think myself and the c.e.o. of m.t.a. were the first ones to call for hazard pay. amazingly, even before that, unions did. i absolutely believe that the folks who are operating the system and cleaning the system deserve hazard pay and the federal government should step up and should create a fund for it. the governor and others have called for a heroes compensation fund similar to after 9/11.

absolutely. the congress should act and they should act now and they should send hazard pay. >> brangham: if the city reopens in full and people start going back to being on buses and subways at the regularity that anyone who's been in new york city knows what those are like. how do you guarantee that people are not too crowded together on buses and subay trains so that they then are spreading the virus themselves? >> well, so, look, we're new york city. we're the largest train. we're a we're m.t.a. we're the largest transportation system in north america, not just on the east coast, not just in the country and all of north america. so it's not really a question for us on whether the ridership comes back. it's when and how quickly. and to what degree. people need the transit system in new york. a lot of people don't have cars. congestion is so bad in this city that it would you know, it wouldn't work if you had a car. and so the transit system is an absolute requirement that it function and function well in new york city. so riders will come back.

t to your point, it's important for folks to understand that an expectation of six feet is going to be a tough one to ever meet in new york city and in fact, to ever meet in most cities and ever to meet in most transit systems. we are talking a lot. we spend a lot of time talking about the social distance of six feet plus a mask. and that is great. that is absolutely ideal. as the city opens up, as the economy opens back up, six feet is not going to be an option really for anyone. and a lot of places in the city. and so our advice is going to be set expectations. be vigilant about your mask usage and put as much distance between yourself and the person next to you as you can and give yourself a break. look, it's important for people to realize. i know everyone wants to get where they're going. quickly, efficiently on time. it's really important for people to understand that the most important thing is to keep themselves healthy and safe. and so if you have to wait for

the next bus, if you have to wait for the next train, if the situation is crowded and you want to walk a little bit and then take the nextrain, that's going to be a better solution for everyone. >> brangham: all right, sarah fineberg of new york city transit. thank you very, very much. >> yeah, thank you. >> woodruff: now it's time for ask us. that's where we take your questions on the pandemic to experts who are helping us navigate these unprecedented times. we get your questions from our web site, twitter, instagram and facebook. for the record, facebook is a funder of the newshour. amna nawaz has more. >> nawaz: thanks, judy, and thanks to all of you for sending us your questions. now, with so many communities opening back up across the country, a lot of you wrote in with questions on how to avoid catching or transmitting the coronavirus. to answer those questions and those concerns, we're joined by angela rasmussen. she's a virologist at columbia

university and holds a phd in microbiology. angela, welcome to the news hour. thanks for being here. >> thanks for having me on. >> nawaz: let's jump right into these questions now, the first one comes from carol campbell. she's in lynn, massachusetts. she rehed out to us on facebook and she sent us this video. >> a runner has the virus an coughs out loud because there's no one around. does the virus linger in the air or on the ground? and if yes, how long is the virus still viable? >> nawaz: angela, it's an important question dealing with maybe asymptomatic carriers out in public wiout masks, what do you say to her? >> that's a really important question and a lot of people are wondering about that, we don't really know in every situation how long the virus will linger in the air. but in general, if you were just passing somebody on the street, walking by them, whether you're running or walking, the risk of transmission is probably fairly low. and the reason for that is that

in many cases where we have seen transmission, they're usually happening in indoor environments, environments that have a lot of people or large crowds of people where you're talking to that person for a longer duration of time. so if you're just sort of incidently, passing somebody while you're out running or jogging, whether they cough or sneeze or anything else, the risk is not zero, but it's likely quite low. >> nawaz: it's very good to know we'll hopefully ease some concerns out there. let's move on to our next question. it comes from nancy pado. she's from mount prospect, illinois. and nancy sent us this video. >> why are other countries spraying disinfectant on the streets if it's safe to go outside? should the u.s. be doing the same in new york, for instance? >> nawaz: angela, we've seen some of these videos in other countries. those masses of gases as people are spraying down subways and streets. what do we know about that? should the u.s. be doing it? >> so i think that there is a difference between spraying down surfaces in a subway car versus spraying down the road. to my knowledge, there is a very low, if not completely

nonexistent risk from contracting coronavirus that might be on the ground. unless you're licking the ground or exposing your mouth or your nose to the bottom of your shoes. a subway car is a different story. in a subway car, you're going to have people breathing, producing respiratory droplets and potentially touching those surfaces. and you could potentially touch one of those surfaces. touch your hands, your mouth or nose and become infected that way. certainly there can be some value within an indoor environment where there has been cases of transmission to disinfect high touch surfaces like a subway car. but in general, i don't think that it's necessary to go out and start disinfecting the entire environment outdoors in the united states. >> nawaz: moving right along that to our next question, it comes to us from liberty, missouri. that's where we find linda armstrong. she reached out to us on facebook and she sent us this video. >> what is the risk of swimming in a shared swimming pool? >> nawaz: a very simple question, angela, what do you say to her?

>> so nobody has done any studies on sars coronavirus 2 and how long it can persist in bodies of water such as swimming pools, lakes, rivers or the ocean. however, a group recently did an analysis of other studies that had been published on other coronaviruses. and in general, corona viruses are fairly sensitive to chlorine and other oxidants that are put in swimming pools to disinfect them. so at a pool, you're probably very unlikely to become infected swimming in the actual pool. the biggest risk is going to be in crowds of people. so one thing people should keep in mind is that viruses nnot reproduce on their own. they require a host to infect. so you're always going to be at a higher risk of exposure to a virus when you're around other hosts. and for this virus, those other hosts are other people. so if you're going to the pool or the beach in the summer, just make sure that you are practicing good physical distancing and avoiding crowds.

>> nawaz: all very good, useful information in this summer. our last question comes to us from gabrielle atchison. she's from buffalo, new york she reached out to us on to on our web site and she sent us this video. >> i'm relying on deliveries of food and supplies and effort to stay home. how worried do we have to be about covid 19 on cardboard boxes and plastic bags? also in a disease pass through food. >> nawaz: angela, so many people relying on those deliveries. now, what do we know about transmission through the boxes and also through the food? >> that's an excellent question that i think everybody has been this hasn't actually been studied for sars coronavirus 2. and the virus can persist on cardboard for up to 24 hours. it can persist on plastic surfaces for up to three days, according to these experiments that were done under laboratory conditions. however, it's really important to note that in these studies, after that period of time, while there was still infectious virus detectable, it was at much lower

there were a thousand times less virus particles than there were at the beginning of the and the good news about groceries and packages in general is that if you wash your hands after you're handling these packages, the risk becomes even lower to the point where it's probably minimal. as far as eating the virus and becoming infected with it by consuming food. we don't really have any information about that. but when you are eating, you're generally swallowing things. and those things go into your stomach, which is a very high, highly acidic environment. most enveloped viruses, like coronaviruses, cannot survive and remain stable in that environme. personally, i don't worry about contracting the virus from the food that i eat and the groceries that i prepare for. four meals for my family. >> nawaz: always good to know what someone an expert in microbiology is doing herself. angela rassmussen, thank you so much for taking the time to be with us today and taking these questions. >> it's my pleasure. thank you for having me on.

>> nawaz: and thanks to all of you for your questions, you can send us more anytime via news hours, twitter, facebook and instagram accounts or on our website, that's pbs.org/newshour. >> woodruff: and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judyoodruff. join us online and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you, please stay safe and see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> the ford foundation. working with visionaries onhe frontlines of social change worldwide.

>> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and friends of the newshour. >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

>> i've never been one to pass up a good party, and bavaria does it up right with oktoberfest, and it's a delicious tradition to bring back to the states. today, we're going to visit a lively oktoberfest celebration on the danube river and sip some local beer. and then we'll head back to my kitchen and make beer-braised sausage with stone-ground honey mustard sauce and a crunchy red cabbage and brussels sprout slaw, and for dessert, a chocolate caramel affogato for our own inspired fall celebration. i love to travel the globe in search of new food and wine discoveries. for me, it's about more than returninhome with a handful of new recipes. it's about taking the spirit of austria, of italy, of greece, and of the danube river and injecting some of their