03/25/20 03/25/20 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, the epicenter ofof the pandemic in e united date, this is democracy now! >> one of the forecasters said to me we were looking at a freight train coming across the country and we are now looking at a bullet train because the numbers are going up that quickly. amy: new york city has 60% of all of the new coronavirus cases in the united states and is responsible for half the cases all over the country.

the peak is weeks away, but hospitals are already encountering shortages of equipment needed to protect medical workers and to keep the patients alive. we will get an update from emergency room nurses on the front line. then to spain, fast becoming the epicenter of europe as italy cases go down. then to puerto rico. we wl speak th s sanuan yor cacaen yulin cruz. the restrictions p puert ri'politicastatus prohibit us at this moment from using tests that are available and reliable around the world. amy: all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. u.s. senate leaders have reached a deal with the white house on an unprecedented $2 trillion

stimulus package to battle the economic free-fafall caused bybe coronavirus pandemic. the senate deal would send $1200 checks to most american adults, with another $500 per child. it would create a half-trillion dollar program to loan money to u.s. corporations and municipal governments, overseen by an inspector general and an oversight board. another $367 billion would go toward a small business loan program, hospitals would receive $130 billion, and state and local governments would receive $150 billion in assistance. progressive critics called for grants, not loans, to small businesses and warned that the bailout's centerpiece, the $500 billion loan program, could become a slush fund for corporate america. this is new york congressmember alexandria ocasio-cortez speaking on msnbc. >> if we do not get this right, we risk small businesses across

the country shutting down and big businesses experiencing a total payday with lack of acaccountability, further consolidating our economy. and that creates -- that will create a generational issue. if we think income inequality is bad now, we really need to make sure we get this right to prevent worst possible outcome. amy: an unemployment provision added to the senate bill by vermont senator bernie sanders would see laid-off workers receive 100% of their salary up to $75,000 a a year, with h tipd and gig economy workers covered. economists at morgan stanley and goldman sachs estimate the u.s. gross domestic product c could plummet by 30% next quarter, driving unemployment to nearly 13%. here in new york, the epicenter of covid-19, pandemic in the united states, at governor andrew cuomo lasted the trump administration tuesday for failing to respond to the

magnitude of the crisis. governor cuomo says hospitals are already encountering shortages of equipment including to leaders crucial to keeping patients alive when covid-19 cases peak, officials now predict could comeme in as litte as two or three weeks. is sending us 400 ventilators. 400 ventilators? i need 30,000 ventilatorors. you wantnt a pat on the e back r sending 400 ventilators? what a am i goioing to do with 0 ventntilators when i need 30,00? you pick the 26,00000 people who are going to die because you only sent 400 ventilators. amy: after his criticism, vice president mike pence said the federal government was sending 2000 ventilators to new york. speaking on fox news, president trump hinted -- more federal aid might be contingent on cuomo and otheher governors e ending their criticism of the white house." pres. trump: i think we're doing

very well. it is a two way street. they have to treat as well, also. amy: new york has more than half the total cororonavirus cases in the united states, though that is partly due to a massive increase in the number of tests carried out in recent days. almost half of the cases in new york are among people less than 45 years in age from 18 to 45. across the united states, doctors and nurses report a critical lack of personal protective equipment or ppe, endangering their health and sasafety. the hash tag #getusppe trended on social media, with medical workers reporting they've been forced to reuse a single n95 protective mask throughout the day or even for days at a time, against standard protocol of changing masks for each patient. in georgia, state officials say two health care workers who died late last week have tested positive for covid-19. in california, governor gavin newsom said his ststate is 50,00

hospital beds short of what t wl be needed when covid-19 cases reach their peak. newsom says california is looking to procure more thanan 0 million masks and one billion gloves. in los angeles, where confirmed coronavirus cases reached 660 tuesday, a 17-year-old has died from coronavirus infection, becoming the first known minor to die in the united states. in wasashington, officials a are inspecting infection controls at nursing homes across the state after finding the life care center of kirkland failed to identify and protect sick residents, failed to alert health officials about an outbreak of respiratory ilillne, and had no backup plan after the center's primary doctor fell ill from covid-19. the outbreak at the lolong-term care center killed at least 37 people. new jersey, which is second to new yoyork among known coronavis cases ininhe united states,eap or didid its biggestst single-dy

jump in coconfirmed caseses, wih as new jery's ath toll 3700 rched 44. in minnesota, lieutenant governor peggy flanagan reported her brother, ron golden, died in a tennessee hospital over the weekend after contracting covid-19. minnesota democratic senator amy klobuchar says her husband, john bessler, remains hospitalized with s serious covid-19 symptom. senatorr klobucharar spoke to "d morning amererica" tuesday. >> today he is still on oxygen. the ason he wawas hospitalizized is he had pneumonia. he was coughing up blood and his oxygen levels were dangerously low. so he has been there for a few days now. " klobuchar is a minnesota and her husband is on the east coast hospitalized. amy: as u.s. coronavirus cases continue to grow on it exponential curve tuesday with the number of known cases

topping 54,000, president trump said he hoped to reopen the u.s. economy and end restrictions aimed at slowing the spread by easter sunday, less than three weeks from now. pres. trump: i i think easter sunday and you will have packed churchches all over our country. i think it would be a beautiful time. amy: his deadline of eastern sunday defies all scientific advisors. in virginia, christian evangelical leader jerry falwell, jr. defied calls for the closure of liberty university, where he serves as president,t, welcoming thousands of students back from spriring break and orordering faculty members to reporort to camampus. falwell is one o of president trump's most prominent supporters. in florida, republican governor ron desantis asked people over 65 and anyone who has traveled from new york state over the last three weeks to seself-isole for 14 dayays. governrnor desantis s has not ordered a statewide e ckdown, and some florida beaches remain open.

in immigration news, documents obtained by the nation magazine show immigration and customs enforcement has quarantined nine prisoners and is monitoring at least 24 others across 10 immigration jails for symptoms of covid-19. the documents also show customs and border protection is working to convert several of its major border facilities into quarantine facities. this comes as bubuzzfeed reports an immigrant being held at an immigration jail in new jersey has become the first person under ice custody to test positive for covid-19 in the u.s. at the u.s.-mexico border, the trump administration says it will delay all hearings scheduled for the next month for asylum seekers who have been forced to remain in mexico. meanwhile, all immigration three courts in new york are now temporarily closed after a court employee tested positive for covid-19. in more news from new york, mayor bill de blasio says at least 300 nonviolent prisoners will be released form rikers island. this comes as at least 38 rikers

prisoners and staff have tested positive for covid-19. at rikers island, more than 60 people have tested positive for coronavirus. in alden, new york, dozens of corrections officers working at the wende correctional facility are now in quarantine fearing exposure to the coronavirus after transferring two prisoners , including convicted rapist harvey weinstein who tested positive for covid-19 this week. in geneva, switzerland, the world health organization warned tuesday the united states is becoming the next epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, with over 12% o of the world'd's 4250 documented cases -- though the true n number of iections bo in the u.s. and worldwe isis rtain toe far hier. acro africa,inance misters are demanding the international monetary fund and world bank suspend debt payments to free up $44 billion in funds to fight the pandemic.

in indiaia, prime ministerer narendra modi has ordered the entire nation of 1.3 billion people to remain at home for the next three weeks. italy recorded another 743 deaths over a 24-hour period, reversing a trend that saw daily deaths decline slightly. over 6800 people have died from covid-1919 in ititaly. frfrance reported its nationwide death toll has topped 1000 as sa top medical official warned thee true toll is probably higher, with those dying at home or in retirement homes left uncounted. spain has recorded nearly 3,000 -- over 3400 deaths among some covid-19 infections. 47,000 among those battling the disease is baltasar garzon, the 64-year-old jurist who's defended wikileaks' julian assange and ordered the arrest of chilean ex-dictator augusto pinochet in 1998 on torture and genocide charges.

he was hospitalized with respiratory failure due to the virus. the doctors believe. the british government is calling for 250,00000 volunteers to help battle the pandemic,c, s auauthorities in l london began convtiting the excxcelxhibibitin center intnto a field hospital where as many as 4000 people will be treated. among the infected is prince charles, the 71-1-year-old heiro the british throne, who is reportedly self-isololating aftr repoporting mild s symptoms. in brazil, the govovernor of sao paulo state ordered 46 million residents to shelter-in-place tuesday with all nonessential servrvices closed. far-right president jajair bolsononaro blasted d the order, urging brazilians toto get backo work. >> the likelihoods of families must be safeguarded.d. we must return to normality. there are few state andd municipal authorities that t mut abandon scorched eararth polici,

susuch a ban on tranansportatio, clososing businesses, and mass confinement. close ally of president trump, b bolsonaro has dismissed covid-19 a "little flu" that he could easily survive becauause f his athleticisism. in mexico, president andres manuel lopez obrador has defied calls to lock down the nation to slow the spread of coronavirus, declaring, "we're going to keep living life as usual." and in south, massive swarms of locusts arere storming the populatition, further endangerig the nation that already faces the highest level of food securityty in the world. they have swarmed the cost east africa in numbers not seen since the early to thousands with was some climate scientists warning that worsening heat waves in

tropical cyclones are making this swarms worse. this is a farmeme >e are worrrried a lot becaue the government or the ngo's help to feel less destroy this thing, it will really be a big problem. amy: aidid groups say increaeasd hunger will only worsen problems for more than 200,000 people living in crampeped united natas camps s who are now at risk ofof covid-19 infection. and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i am amy goodman. we are broadcasting from the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in the united states, new york city, with my cohost juan gonzalez in new jersey, with the second most coronavirus cases in the country.

the new york metro area has 60% of all the new coronavirus cases in the united states and is responsible for half the cases all over the country. the death toll in new york is 271 with more than 26,000 confirmedd cases. almost half the cases in new york a are among people e betwen the e ages of 1 18 and 45 yearsn age.e. fedederal officials say anyone o travels from new york city should self-quarantine for 14 days. new york governor andrew cuomo said tuesday the number of hospitalizations is expected to peak in the next 40 days.s. four temporary hospital sites will be built to address the shortfall of hospital beds, including one at the jacob javits convention center in midtown manhnhattan. cuomo blasted the trtrump admininistration for failing to respond to the magnitude of the crisis. he said hospitals are already encountering shortages o of equipment needed to protect memedical workers and toto keep patients alive. >> fema is sending us 400

ventilators. 400 ventilators? i need 30,000 ventilators. yoyou want to o have a pat on te back for sending 400 ventilators? whatat am i going to do with 400 ventilators when i need 30,000? you pick the 26,000 people who are going to die because you only sit 400 ventilators. amy: many hospitals in new york say they are already down to their last weeks of personal protective equipment to keep frontline medical workers from contracting covid-19. some are being forced to reuse single-use masks. if they get sick, hospitals will face even greater staff shortages amid the outbreak. for more, we're joined by two people who are working on the front lines of this pandemic. sean petty is a registered nurse in the pediatric emergency room of jacoby hospital in the bronx. he is a member of board of directors of the new york state nurses association.

next to him is kelley cabrera, emergency room nurse as well. and co-hosting from his home in new brunswick, new jersey, is juan gonzalez. sean, can yoyou describe the conditions at your hospital? what do you need? what do you have? >> absolutely. well, the first thing we need first and foremost is we need n95 masks. they are the only proven prevention in terms of masks for health care workers for covid-19. they -- oncena, they realized that health-care workers were becoming infected and the imported 42,000 h health care workers to helplp with the crcrisis, they outputted them wh n95 masks in n full protectivive

equiuipment, personalal protecte equipment, or ppe as we call it. of 42,000 zero out infection -- none infection rate. so zero health care workers out of 42,000 with full ppe were infected after they were imported into wuhan, china. so we know that 95's are the only significant protection that we have e against this virus. anand they are the item ththat e most severee shortage in this cocountry. just this morning as i wawas walkg ininto the h hospital ande started d hearing about reports just lasast night, our command center has been telling nurses that the one in 95 mask their disturbing is the only n95 mask they will be getting for an entire week. this is -- amy: i want to be clear on how unusual this is.

the head of the american medical association said, if you did something like that, reuse, reuse, reuse a mask, it would have been grounds for dismissal in the past. talk about the significance of what it means to reuse your mask ,sean, seeing patient after patient who are suffering frfrom this highly contagious diseaeas. >> 100%, amy. we would have absolutely b been brought up on charges and possibly termiminated for reasoning a mask. the e cdc guidelines frorom the beginning of this outbreak -- at the beginning g of this outbreak were t that cocovid-19 patientse to be e treated withh airborne d contact precauautions, which necessititates t the n95 mask i federal guidelines. they rolled those back. caving i into presessure from te hospital associations that were talking about their shortage. so they rolled their guidelines back not by science, but because

of the shortage.e. that allowed the hospipitals to ration t these masks in that wa. what it t means is that we use a mask, we touch the mask, we take care patients -- ourur hands cod potentially become contaminatet, they then contaminatete our mas, and whehen we reason, wee potentially contaminate ourselves anand then we are putting other patients at risk. now,w, we take care ofof patiens who have -- are suspected of covid-19, wewe take care of patients whoho have covid-d-19,d we take care patients who don't have any symptoms of covid-19. ares health care wororkers not only infececting ourselves,, not onlyly infecting each others health care workers because it is very difficult to practicice social distancing and healthth care sending when you are like me and kelly and traumas and take quarters takiking care of patients. wewe are infecting each other ad

we are infececting -- potentialy infecting other papatients. soso to contaminate ouour own ms and to compromise the inintegriy ofof those masks repeatedly maks those masks absolutely useless at a certain point. you're a absolutely right. this is s somethining that is something thee hospitals -- something the hospitals would have discipline nurses prior to this and something they arere mandating us to dodo in his current sesetting. juan: kelley c cabrera i i would ask about ananother criritical componentt a about the besest possibible care. the e issue o of venentilators. we arere governonor cuouomo lase federaral government for not providing sufficient numbers of ventilators. what is the situation in your hospital with ventilators? work at the same hospital as sean in the adult emergegency room so i'm m taking care of the older population before,p as you stated

the numbers between 18 and 45, those numbers are a lot higher. we know we don't have enough. it is a discussion that doctors are having, that nurses are having come a conversation that is wayay out in the open. , if thereoronavirus was a patient coming in who we knew needed a ventilator, it was no questions asked. you win it and provided that care. we are starting to see t the situations unfortunately -- we have to debate, is it worth -- it is horrible to say it this way, but we really have to debate is it worth exposing all of our workers when we know that we don''t have t the right equipment and we know the machines aren't going to b be enough? so those conversations are starting to happen. i have heard another facilities and the bronx that ventilators have run out. for us, that has not happened yet but it is defininitely not looking good. it is going to happen. it is a a conversation that,

unfortunatelely, we are forced o hahave now. juan: i also want t to ask about govevernor cuomo h has as all te hospitals s to increase capacity by 50% in terms of beds. have you seen ththat process ben in your hospit?? of course, increasing the number of beds alsoso requires havingng more stataff as well to deal wih those e beds. how has that been playing out in your hospital? >> yeah, that is startining to happen now. i think a really big message herere is thatat we have to remr a lot of the issues that we are seeing, now,w, they are not new issues. prior to coronavirus, we were already holding patientnts in or emergency room f for days at a time. not just our emergencyy room.m. i i know this happens s across e country in several hospipitals because hospitals s have always bebeen stretch to their limit. so now we're just adadding the stress of ththe pandemic to itid it is pusushing us to places we

have never seen before. we have opened up new spaces in thee hospital. prior to this, we had advocated for that space before for the previous patients we were holding inin the emergency r ro. and now that race is been used by shuffling other patatients in the hospital to o that empty spe in order to mamake more room on the floooors were more icu patitients. i know there has s been converersions of differentnt uns thatat are specifically going to be for icu's. yesterday ouour waitining room - they started construruction in r waiting roroom to expand an area fofor where these patitients wie taking care of. theyey are building a wall withn ouwaiting room. because e we have to do it o ony or anotherer. to increase 5050% capacity, it s making us do the craziest thinings. we are putting patients togogetr that perhahaps we would not have put t together before. we are trying to p put people -- the biggest issue right now is space, lac of equipment, like a

ventilators, but we knknow thehe surge is going to happen and all we're trying to do is best preparare for it. unfortunately, it is making us make some really hard decisions. amy: kelley cabrera, can you talk more about testing? elf care workers, like you, what kind of access do you have two health care tests? i believe something like four in five cases, people are infected by people who are asymptomatic. certainly, you're on the front line. you are using and reusing your protective equipment. if you are feeling sick, what kind of access do you get to tests and how long do you have to wait and work k while you mit not be feelingng well bebefore u get resultlts? >> we have b bn told iff we do't feel well, we're supposed to -- we s should be going home. it is what is being said. however, we know w from spepeakg have e gonekers that

ththrough this, it is bically you have to have a fever, body aches, andnd they y ask y you basically the same symptoms as we would ask any other patient that comes intnto the emergegeny room. however, foror us, it is not guaranteed we will get a test just because we workrk on the front linenes. initially, we were advocating for that, being we e do a lot of us w were getting exposed and obviouslsly, we may not displply symptomsms and could be passing along to other p people. i thinknk from what the mayor hs set as w well, we haveve to basicalllly assume we haveve it. from otherer workers i have head that have been tested, and have been told they are positive, they a are to stay a at work - - sorry, they are to stay at home for seven days and with the least three days wiwithout a fever before the return to work. it is not guaranteed we will get tested at all. we have to go to the same prococess.

we have to call 311. i belieieve our hospital also hs a different hotline for us as well but basically, we are following ththe same guideliness the general public. arguablbly thehave mostst exposure. juan: i want too ask sean, going backck to this issue of f hospil capapacity, over t the lastt few decades and certainly during the period that gogovernor cuomo h h been in offffice, the numberr of beds available p per patientnt n the e united states and many states has declined dramatically, mostly because hospital managers see empty beds as not moneymaking so they want to reduce the number of empty beds as much as possible so they staff fewer and fewer beds. could you talk about these pasat policies and now with this sudden crisis, how the chickens have come home to roost in terms of this maximimum autumn line fr hospitals? >> absolutely. i would just add it is just not

hospital managers, it is actually all of the people e who are m making political andd econonomic decisions around pubc health in n the city and the ststate. fofor instance, i would call governor cuomo probably the single most t important person n terms of the drive to close down hospital beds in this state e or the last 20 yeaears. in new york state, we have gone from 73,0000 beds to 53,000 beds from the year 2000 to the present time. so specifically bebecause of policies that governor cuomo has pupursued, we are now 20,000 0 s behind w where we need to be in terms of trying to scale u up or capapacity to these unprecedentd levevels. governor cuomo estimates this week i think we need 140,0,000 hospital beds devon of capacity to treat patients that need

oxygen a and hospitalization during this crisis. so we are starting at 53,000 instead of 73,002 scale up to thisis need that is being estimated. the way governor cuomo did that with a hospital bed closure commission. he also has two rounds of medicaid cuts. they're called the medicaid redesign teams. the second medicaid redesign team just made a rececommendatin fofor massive medicaid c cuts, including specific cuts to the city hospital system where we work, just in the last two weeks. so governor cucuomo is currently trying t to reduce medicacaid spending in the state e by almot $2.5 billion. during this pandemic. this will absolutely result in a

decrease in health care capacity and keepp the state from getting matching fedederal dollars or medicaid spending. it is unfathomamae to someoeone lilike myself, someone who has worked in a public hospital for 12 years and h has seen these cuts, se t the resulting decrease in ststaffing, , seen e resulting decrease in services -- w we had to fight a a couplef years a ago just to keep our pediatric trauma center open in the bronx, t the only pediatric trauma center that serves the entire borough of the bronx in southern westchester county. we had to fight to keep it open because of these medicaid cuts. that fight,t,y won but t we have been at a sevevere --te of purity when it comes servicesy having the over the last decade going into this pandemic. these are because of the

spececific policies ofof medicad cuts and hospital closures t tht has been explicitly pursued and it is s very easy y to find d af the quotes from governor cuomo from the medicaid redesign teams about these hospital closures new york state over the last two decades. amy: we don't want to keep you, sean, we know right now you're scheduled to go on dututy. what gives you the courage to be there day after day with the massive e exposure that you hav? well,l, i think a senense of dy to my patients. if we don't show w up, if w we e not there, , nobody else is goig to be. i would also just add thatt nunurses are getting a lot of attentntion riright now, but its also our houousekeepers a are or heroes, our nurses aides a are r heroes, dococtors. we all are coming to work. we all are d doing herculean -- making herculean efforts t to me thisis thing w work.

we a are all exposing ourselvevo these risks. we know we are at the very tipip of the icebeberg. but if not us,w, who else is going to do o it? - --ly asask -- and we do this you know, i have e done this for 12 years,, k kelleyas done ititr sisix years. we dthis evevery day. we face adverse conditions every day. we face e short ststaffing, s ss not -- it is sometething we are prepared for. thati think undermimines courage and undermines the morale for us s in our coworkers is that ourr government doesn't have our back. that t the trump adminisistratin and thee federal authohorities v donene virtually nothing to gets the armor and the supplies we need in this war against coronavirus. amy: sean petty, thank you for

being with us, joining us from jacoby hospital in the bronx, pediatric emergency room nurse. and thank you so much to kelley cabrera, urgency room nurse as well. when we come back, we go to spain, which now has more than 47,000 confirmed cases, nearly 3500 deaths. the second highest number in the world after italy. among the hardest hit in spain are the health care workers as well. stayay with us. ♪ [music c break]

amy: but the great african from go who hast manu diban died at the age of 86 from covid-19. this is democracy now!,

democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. the music we were just playingg for those watching g online or television a around th world, we werere showingngancing doctors d memedical w workers fromm chinao iran who were gegetting up their energy to deal with this massive pandemic. we turn now to spain, one of the epicenters of the pandemic in europe, with over confirmed 47,000 cases and 3500 deaths -- the second highest number in the world after italy. the number of new infections has multiplied at a rate of 20% in ththe last 24 hours. health workers account for nearly 14% of spain's infections. many face limited availabilityty ofof protective equipment so many people have died that madrid's municipal funeral hohoe has stopped collecting bodies. a large ice rink is now being used as a makeshift morgue. not far from the rink, the v vee for last year's s u.n. climate

summit, has been converted to a hospital ward with thousands of beds. spain's government has opened an investigation after soldiers found unattended bodies in some of the nursing homes the military has been disinfecting. as spain faces its second week of lockdown, the government plans to extend the state e of emergency by another 15 days in order to stop the spread of the coronavirus. for more, we go to madrid for an update from maria carrion, former democracy now! producer who is a journalist in spain. head of a film festival in the refugee camps of algeria. it is great to have you back, maria. you have been on lockdown for two weeks with your family in the hard of madrid, w which is e epicenter of the epicenter, spain, as it is surpassing italy in its rate of infection. talk about what is happening now and what ththe presidt t is abot

to announce.e. >> as you mentioned,d, this is ground zero in spain for a numbmber of deaths anand infect. we have overer 1500 deataths in madrid. so it madririd was s a country,t would be fifth in terms of death ratete in the entitire world ben iran a and francnce. so this d day 12 of the lockdown. everybody seemems to be folollog itit with very few exceptions. hospitals s are beginning to b e overerrun with cases off coronavivirus. icu units are at capacity. we have a scararcity of evereryd of m material yoyou could ssssiy imagine. so this s is a repeat of f at happenened both inin china and n italy.. catatalonia, the region of cataloniisis a also hard-hit. it is now witith thee highest nw infectioion rate in the country.

workers, atlth-care least, have been infected, which has taken out over 5000 people from giving care. they do not have the protective gear as i was hearing sean and kelley speak, the e same thing s happening here. they are having to either gear or simply make their own with whatever is lying arou a at home. is anan honestiament ininto parliliament that will be be onlineg, soo i it will vote. they will be debating the extension ofof the d date of exceion.n. spain will beof speaking and explaining why y ts needs to be extended and we are expecting for everybodydy to voe for this meaeasure and keep

everyone at home, e except for certain workers. amy: and both he and the vice president, boboth of their partnersrs are covid-19 pososit? covid-19r partners are positive and they have broken their quarantine a few timeses o attetend meetings, but n now meetinings are all at a diststa. there are a lot of politicians infected. we talked about this a few days ago. the listst is i increasing aa politicians in spain who are either in quarantinene becauause ththey have beenen very closeseo virus infections or actually have tested positive and are either at home or in hospital. course stone, we still don't know about our son, the very renowned judge. we don't know if he is posisitie but it is a suspected case because he has all thehe symptos and was hospitalized for respiratory distress.

the most vulnerable people here, amy, are the ones that really are ofof concern mentitioned, te nursining homes where these bods were found. in the news yesterday, they wee interviewing workers -- caregivers in these and other nursing homes. the director o of one of these was running a fever, sick, but still at work and crying because she said she did not have backups. she suspected all of her staff was infected, but they could not stop working and cararing for te elderly patients, momost of whih they feared were also infected and some of w which had already died. and kekelley talking about these are pre-exexisting problems, here, too, it is been a problem for a long timime,

publicly financed by privately run facilities were oversight is not very good come how elders arare dying. juan: i would ask about other vulnerable populations. those in the p prisons of aiains well as the migrants.s. there's a gege margaret populatition, especially -- migrant p population, especially from norththern afafrica, in sp. whwhat is the situation with migranants who are perhapsps in detention n or in precarious lingng situationons? >> some centers are letting some people go b but it is still pendining issueue. there is not e enough bebeing de boboth in these migrantnt centes where people are being held d ad ino in jails and prisons spain. this is something that has not yet beenen dealt with. juan: i wanted to ask you, "the new york times" had an amazing

article today talking about medical doctorors in t the unitd ststates apparently hoarding potential treatment, especiallyy these drugs work when and hydrochloric when that president trump has been touting, that ththese doctors have been prescribing them all around the country for themselves and their family members and in essence, hoarding them and now pharmacists are complaining that actually doctors are involved in this. if you have any examples of health professionals they're sort of lookoking out for themselves rather than theirir patients? >> very few actually. i don't ththink opople are payig much attention to trump from here so those drugs have not been h hoarded that i knowow of. at thehe very beginning of ththe crcrisis, didid hear r about certain doctors hoardingg facemasks and taking them outut- theree wasasne doctor who took all of t the facemasks in the hohospital to his village and ge them to his laborers. but that is not generally the

case, or at least it is not being reported on. amy: maria, if you could talk about -- we were just with you working at the convention center, which has now been turned into a massive hospital. ironicallyly, the place where te u.n. climate summit was and we have been dealing with this issue of the connection of the climimate crisisis to these v vs that we are e seeing increasing. and also come the skating rink, whwhich is very persononal from, beining used as a morgueue. >> i indeed.d. iswas converted i into what now spain's s largest hospital. itit has over 101000 bededs, ing alsoso intensive c care u units. it doesnsn't just brbring in coronavivirus patienents who f e most part -- ththe most seriousf cases,t also has opened d a section for r the unhnhoused. there is about 150 beds for people who do not hahave shelter

or are being kicked out of sheltersrs in the mornrning anay needed a place to be.e. it has t transformed itself and has now full of beeds and hundreds of peopople sleep in oe same wing. that is one thing. the ice rink is actually a big mall. it is located close to the center, but also close to my daughter's school. it is a place where they have got ice skating, where they regularly meet with their friends and have lunch.. there are movie theheaters. they have e celebrated birthday. all of a sudden we saw all of s into this place. my daughter gabriella saiai i don't think cacan go t there aga with m my friends. amy: maria, we will be touching back with you. maria carrion, former democracy now! producer who now lives in madrid, spain, where she is a freelance journalist. she has been holed up with her two daughters and her partner

for the last two weeks. she runsns three kilometeters ay in her apartment, and it is not large. that doesn't even compare to that man in france who just ran a marathon on his balcony. when we come back, we go to puerto rico to speak with the c carmen yulinjn, ♪ [music break]

amy: mike longo, jazz pianist known for playing with dizzy gillespie, dies at 83. the cause? the coronavirus. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the wawar and peace report. i'm amy goodman. gonzalez. puerto rico announced a record $787 million financial package to fight the economic impact of the pandemic. it's a bigger package than any u.s. state so far, and comes as the island's death toll hits two with 51 cases reported. measures include a three-month moratorium on mortgage payments and other loans, bonuses for essential services providers such as medical staff and police, and new tablets and educational tools to improve remote education. governor wanda vazquez said puerto rico's public sector employees will keep getting paid and small businesses and self-employed workers will receive cash to cope with the crisis. she ordered the clososing of non-essentntial businesses and a curfrfew. ththe pandemic follows a seriesf devastating earthquakes in

puerto rico earlier this year and comes as the island continues to deal with fallout from hurricane maria, which devastated puerto rico's infrastructure and killed at least 3000 people. for more, wewe are joined on the phone by san juan mayor carmen yulin cruz. anand cohosting from his home in new jersey is juan gonzalez. can you talk about what is happening in puerto rico? i understand you just open a drive-by testing center. >> that is correct. [indiscernible] it is important to break the cycle down and introductions most vulnerable -- and ensure those most vulnerable and in the line of fire, so to speak. one of the things we have been doing at the misay polity, is keeping abreast of what was happening. maskse us way to purchase for our first responders and for

anyone that we knew, doctors and nurses, were going to be on the line of fire. it is very impmportant they have don'tuipment so they got get sick and reduce the amount of doctors with coronavirus. if you lose your doctors and your nurses and lab technicians, who is going to take care of everyone? we started working on that. we started a curfew in puerto rico. we startedf march, taking measures in san juan. on march 13, we signed a contract with quest laboratories that provided us with an amount thepcr, the swab that goes in your nostrils and it is a 95% effective ratio. we needed to have a way that

would be fast and quick for people that have symptoms. that is very important. people have to have symptoms. there are of course vulnerable populations like people on dialysis or cancer patients were hiv p patients, which we are monitoring on a daily basis from we call it our life clinic, where our hiv adult , wepediatrician patients call on them on a dadaily babaso see if they have any symptoms. , let's say,blished a priority. because we don't have as many testing kits as we would like to have. these e tests are sent to california. it takes about four days after they get there, and they get there in about one day, and we

arare already starting to receie results. only one person has been thetive from our testing at meanest of polity. of course, we are sending those numbers to the state and the cdc. it has been very effective. we thought we are going to have 25 patients a day monday tuesday and wednesday.y. monday of this week was our firsrst official d day. amy:y: we have a bad connection but i want to get juan question before we move on. ask: mayor, i wanted to about the e federal package that is beingng c crafted -- voted o, hopefully, today, in congress. often the c conessional bills eitherer exempt puerto rico or reduce payments toto puerto rico comparared to other states. do you have any sense yet t of whether the proposals in the sesenate and in ththis packagegl include, for instancnce, thehe 0 payments to every american, $500 for every dependent, and also

exextended unappointed benefits- whether those will apply to puerto rico as well? >> we have been told they would. we are currently checking on that. as you know, the bill was approved yesterday. but one of the things i think that is evident is with the trump administration and fema, we have to continue to remind them time and time again that we are people and that we deserve to be treated with the same sense of justice, urgency, and dignity as anybody else. fema exemptedend, everybody from the by america first and they did not exempt puerto rico or washington, d.c., and they did not exempt any of the other territories. frankly, we had to raise hell. i want to thank vazquez for being a large voice and that, for beinggantz,

strong voices for the people of puerto rico. i just don't know why one has to continue. here puerto rico and in the state to tell the trump administration that people go before money and that this is about saving lives. it is not about politics. amy: carmen yulin cruz, thank you for being with us, mayor of san juan, puerto rico. we hope to touch base with you soon with a clear phone line. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, nor peace report. calls are growing for richard burr to resign after he reportedly sold up to $1.7 million worth of dock after receiving privileged briefings about the coronavirus' threat to the global community months ago. propublica reports that burr, the chairman of the senate intelligence committee, unloaded his holdings on february 13 in 33 separate transactions. at the time, he had access to

classified information about the coronavirus and was receiving daily intelligence briefings. the stock market began plummeting a week later. the news came after npr published a secretly-recorded audiotape of senator burr addressing business leaders and members of the elite tar heel circle at a luncheon in the washington on february 27, when there were just 15 confirmed coronavirus cases. aggressivech more than anything we have seen in recent history. probably more akin to the 1999 pandemic. aggressivemuch more than anything we have seen in recent history. it is probably more akin to the 1918 pandemic. condemnationart across the political spectrum from democratic commerce member alexandria ocasio-cortez of new york to fox news host tucker carlsen. for more, we're joined by one of the reporters who broke this story, derek willis of

propublica. welcome to democracy now! again, joining us on democracy homevideo stream from his at seven in our guests are to protect themselves and the community from covid-19. juan with us from his home in new brunswick, new jersey. talk about what you found. it is not only senator burrr, bt talk about what he did. separater burr made 33 sales transacacons on february 13, stock holdings. becacause of the way that t thee stocock trades arare reportetede don't knowow the exact amounts. we have a range of amounts. so the amounts here, they r rge up toal betetween $628,8,000 $1.7 m million in value. think thing about this is senator burr is not the only senator or member of congress to trade in stocks. he is not the only person to sell stocks this year.

but the volume of his trades and to timing of it, in addition npr reported about his public and private comments, they really set him apart compared to a lot of his colleleagues in tes uniqueness of his situation. as the chair of the intelligence committee, senator burr wasas getting clasassified briefings aboutt threats to the nation, including from coronavirus, in the weeks before he made these trtres. want toto ask you specifically about thahat. were there particular hearings that he was privivy to just befe these trades occururred? >> we e don't know exactly whaht was said in thesese briefings. there was a senate white briefing late in january - -- sesenate-white briefing late in january that coronavirus and what it could mean that was available to all senators. senator burr didid attend thatat briefing. not every senator did.. but t that was not a classified

briefing the s same way intelligence committee briefings are. the part of this that we don't know is we don't know what hee learned in some of those classified b briefings. he hasas said is trades w were d on public information. what he simply saw on cnbc or other networks that t talked abt sort off the financial aspects - impacts of coronavirus. amy: can you talk about the other senators? you did say people do sell, whether or not they have privileged information, but republicans james inhofe of oklahoma, kelly leffler company senator from georgia, ron johnson of wisconsin, loeffler married to the ceo of the stock exchanange. clubs like i said, i want toto make clear thahat senator burr - sort of f in a class by themselves, but witith senator loeffler, one of the interesting aspects is her connection to the

new york stock exchange and through her hususband, her investments i think are different in some respepects in that they appear t to be at lea, fromom everything g we know andt she e has said, they are treated by someone e else and she is informed of the e trade after te fact.. fromis axaxley not uncommon -- that is actually not uncommon for memberers of congress, particularly t those with wealt, to have e a third paparty do trs for them. amy: burr has called for an ethics investigation to exonerate him. it also if you can say -- i mean, so he has this information. i guess the question is, what was he telling his constituents or the entire country at the time that president trump was hardly taking action at this point, certainly when it came to tetests and a availability of protectitive gear, etc.? >> the message he was putting out was essentially t that the

united states is i in a good against -- tot mitigate the effects of this virus, while at the same time he was s selling these stocks. amy: we want to thank you so -- derekia carrion, willis is a reporter at propublica. corporate executive sold over 9 million more stocks between february and the end of last week. jeff bezos sold the most of the executives, 3% of his amazon billion.rth $3.4 and that does it for our show. produced by anis amazing team, most of whom are working from home to protect themselves and the community. democracy now! has an amazing team of committed producers and staff. thank you so much. democracy now! is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. e-mail your comments to outreach@democracynow.org or

mail them to democracy now! p.o. box 693 new york, new york 10013. [captioning made possible by democracy now!]

hello and welcome to nhk "newsline." i'm ross mihara with the stories at this hour. we start here in tokyo where the city's governor is urging residents to stay home this weekend unless they absolutely must go out. the call comes after officials confirm more than 40 new cases on wednesday, the largest one-day spike the city has seen so far. >> traranslator: we are now at critical juncture. we want tokyo residents to realize this and do their work atat home as much as possible o