04[captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, the epicenteter of the pandemic, ths is democracy now! with t the largegest one-dayay h 2400 0 inthe u.s. yetet, jujust 24 hoururs, an average 10 deaths an n hour, thee higighest onone-day totalal for anyny natn since ththe start ofof the pand, presesident t trump wageses a wn public h health expeperts andd

scscience, thrhreatening t to ct world healalth organizization funding anand fueling g a theory that thehe coronavirirus emanatd a who hung lab. china is pushing back. novelna's position on the coronavirus, we will always believe this is a scientific issue which should be studied by scientists and medical experts. amy: we will speak to a zoologist who has been sounding the alarm about a coming pandemic for years. then to india, where officials say six major cities are coronavirus infection hot spots including the capital delhi. we will go there to speak with writer and activist arundhati roy, who says "the pandemic is a portal." havestorically, pandemics -- imagine the world anew. this one is no different. it is a portal. a gateway between oneworld and the next. we can choose to walk through

it, dragging the carcasses of , arerejudice and hatred ideals,s and dead [indiscernible] or we can walk through life with little luggage ready to imagine another world and ready to fight for it. amy: all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now, democracynow.org, the quarantine report. i'm amy goodman. the white house is unveiling new guidelines today aimed at rolling back states' stay-at-home orders prprotecting against the spread of coronavirus. president trump's call to wind down social distancing came as the united states recorded more thanan 2400 dedeaths in just 24 hours, the highest one-day total for any nation since the start ofof the pandemic. pres. trump: the battle

continues but the data suggest that nationwide we h have passed the peak on new caseses. amy: across the united statess there are ovever 644,000 confird cases of covid-19, though the true number is likely far higher due to a critical shortage of tests. more than 28,500 people have died of the disease nationwide in just a matter of weeks. despite that, president trump said some states could begin relaxing social distancing restrictions before the end of april. the plan has drawn fire from medical professionals and even corporate executives tapped by trump to advise on reopening the economy. they said wednesday far more testing needs to be in place before workers can return to factories, schools, stores and office s spaces. they spopoke with prpresident tp inin a confererence call.. this w week, reseaearchers at te harvrvard school of publicic heh warned that ununless a v vaccine becomes widelyly availablele, sl distanancing may h have to extxd

ununtil 2022 t to prevent t a sf covivid-19 caseses that coululdk ththe u.s. heaealthcare sysyste. the labor department is set to anannounce weekly ununemployment figures, with economists estimating at least five million u.s. workers filed jobless claims in justst seven days. that could bring the number of unemployment claims over the past month to well over 22 million. on wednesday, millions of u.s. taxpayers began receiving payments of $1200, plus $500 per dependent child. treasury secretary steven mnuchin said in late march the one-time payments would be enough to tide over americans for momonths. >> i think the entire package overall economic relief for about 10 weeks. amy: some democratic lawmakers are pushing for far more direct assistance to u.s. households during the crisis. the emergency money for the people act would provide all but

the highest-earning u.s. citizens age 16 and over $2000 a month until unemployment falls to pre-coronavirus levels. in california, governor gavin newsom on wednesday announced a $125 million relief fund for undocumented immigrants left jobless by the pandemic. meanwhile, a congressional committee reports tax provisions in the coronavirus stimulus passed by congress last month will overwhelmingly benefit the wealthiest americans. four out of five tax filers benefiting from the $70 billion temporary tax loophole are millionaires or billionaires. they'll receive an average windfall of $1.6 million, dwarfing the $1200 payments for working americans. here in new york, the epicenter of the p pandemic, n nearly 11,0 -- over r 11,500 people haveve d of covid-19.

governor andrew cuomo said that beginning friday, all new yorkers will be required to wear face coverings in public whehen sosocial distancing is not possible. mayor bill de blasio introduced a $170 million dollar plan to provide food aid to new yoyorkes increasingly at risk of going hungry. de blasio said over 200 new york city residents are dying in their homes each day, with the vast majority of those deaths due to covid-19. in the small town of andover, new jersey, police discovered the bodies of 17 people e stuffd in a small morgue at one of the state's largest nursing homes after receiving an anonymous tip. at least 68 recent deaths have been linked to that center.. medical l workers at hospitals aroundnd the uniteted states hea nationonal day of f action wedey demamanding an end to prevevente healththcare workeker deaths f m cocovid-19. at the k kingsbrook k jewish mel center i in brooklynyn, where fe medical woworkers haveve died ad

severaral othersrs remain hospitalalized, prprotesters std atat least sixix feet aparart ay demandnded more pepersonal protectiveve equipmentnt. ththis is ararlene meertens, a patient cacare technicician at kingsbrook.. > thahat is all we are e ask. give us s what we need so w we n survivive to contitinually havae thosose -- help t those that t d usus. amamy: workersrs are also o demg better safafety training, better staffing levelels, temporarary housing for workers who risk spreading disease to their family members. in lansing, michigan, ththousans of protesters flooded the streets around the state capitol building in their cars wednesday and defied a state ban on public gatherings to demand an end to michigan's quarantine measures. the protest was organized by the michigan conservative coalition under the hashtag #operation gridlock. one large group of men armed with assault rifles posed for a picture on the steps of the capitol, holding signs reading

"trump/pence" and "remove the whitmer regime." inside the capitol, governor gretchen whitmer said the protesters risked spreading disease and blasted them for blocking access to a hospital, where an ambulance was unable to discharge a patitient. >> i support your right to free speech and i respect your opinions, i just urge you, don't put yourself at risk and don'tt puput others at risk, either. amy: in frankfort, kentucky, dozens of protesters shouted through a window of the state capitol building wednesday, interrupting governor andy beshear as he held a coronavirus press briefing. in mexico, a massive campaign to recruit momore medical stataff s been launcnched as the country faces an alarming shortage of health care workers. however, reports emerged of hundreds of applicants being rejected after standing in line for hours to apply for jobs.

elsewhere in mexico, dozens of workers from an assembly factory in ciudad juarez owned by the u.s.-based company regal held a protest wednesday demanding the factory's shutdown over safety concerns. the protest follolowed the death of an employee after presenting covid 19 symptoms. we are e scared for ourur healh and the health of our children becaususe we all have families, all of us here, and they just look a at us a as a business. they don't t care if we die. amy: t the french nanavy has evacuateted its flagshship nuclear-r-powered aircrcraft carrier,r, the charleses de gau, where nearly 700 sailors have tested positive for coronavirus. on wednesday france sharply revised its covid-19 death toll upwards to more than 17,000, as nursing homes reported hundreds of additional deaths over the easter weekend. but for the first time since the start of the pandemic, french hospitals saw the total number

of patients decrease. sweden saw a sharp rise in covid-19 cases wednesday. swedish authorities have refused calls to close restaurants, retail stores, and classes for primary and junior high school students, even as coronavirus deaths far outpace those in other scandinavian countries with strict lockdowns. in germany, chancellor angela merkel has extended a nationwide lockdown until may 3, but will ease some restrictions, citing a fragile, partial success in fighting the coronavirus. unlike the united states, germany began testing early and often for the disease and has a much lower deaeath rate. back in the united states, there -- the privately owned detention center near san diego has become the immigration jails the largest coronavirus outbreak as at least 17 immigrant prisoners have tested positive for covid 19. in tacoma, washington,

immigrants imprisoned at the northwest detention center have launched another hunger strike, the third in just three weeks. images surfaced of people standing in the facility's yard wednesday forming the letters sos with their bodies as they continue to demand their release. meanwhile, a federal magistrate judge in miami has ordered immigration and customs enforcement, or ice, to disclose how many of its third-party contractors have tested positive for covid-19. ice reportedly hid this information as the agency claimed third-party contractors were not considered staff. in related news, covid-19 casess continue to multiply at the cook county jaiail in chicagogo with individuduals held in ththe ja's medical unit especially vulnerable to contagion. in newly published phone interviews recorded by the south side weekly newspaper, six prisoners s described woworsenig health and sanitary condnditions and a loss of access to their routine medical care. >> it is hard to stay away from

each other because we are in a dorm and there are 39 people. there are a lot of guys coughing and got a fever. it's like, you got to be nearly dying for them to give medical attention. amy: in pennsylvania, 67-year-old prisoner rudolph sutton died of covid-19 on saturday, just three days before philadelphia prosecutors were set to review his claims he was wrongfully imprisoned for a 1988 murder. sutton's case was backed by the innocence project which concluded after a five-year investigation that sutton was likely innocent. sutton had been serving a life sentence at the sci phoenix jail. meanwhile, rumors circulated online that internationally renowned political prisoner mumia abu-jamal, who held at the sci mahanoy prison in pennsylvania, was hospitalized with a headache and trouble breathing. but supporters of the campaign to bring mumia home reached him

wednesday and he said the rumors are not true. >> you heard that i was hospitalized, it is not true. in fact, i have not been in medical for about a month. i usually go up three times a week. as i said in a recent commentary, everybody is lockdown. you get 23 hours in the cell and then that last 24th hour, 45 minutes out of the cell. you could take a shower, you can get a bucket and swab your decks and mop your cell, you can call people on the phone or plug up your tablet to the kiosk, but you are not leaving the block. they only started yard about a week ago. and that is one 45 minute period every three days. so everybody in the state is lockdown just like everyone in the united states is lockdown. amy: that was many abu-jamal, well-known journalist speaking

with professor fernandez, denying claims that he was in aa hospspital with covid 19. in south dakota, a smithfield foods meatpacker has died of covid-19 amid the largest single coronavirus hot spot in the u.s. 64-year-old agustin rodriguez passed away tuesday morning after spending two weeks on a ventilator. he was one of 640 workers at the sioux falls smithfield pork factory who've tested positive for covid-19. most of them are refugees and immigrants from around the world. smithfield said this week it in will also close plants in wisconsin and missouri after workers there tested positive. other major slaughterhouses have closed due to the virus, including a tyson pork plant in iowa and a jbs beef plant in cocolorado. in florida, all residents and emplployees of the exclusive fisher island private luxury community are receiving serological tests for coronavirus antibodies, even though such tests are not yet available for the general public.

fisher island consistently ranks as one of the wealthiest zip codes in the united states. on wednesdsday, 10 african-american p pastors frorm across the uniteted states heldn onliline news conference to demd equity in testing, warning communities of color are suffering the most from the virus while receiving the lowest per capita rate of covid-19 tests. in new jersey, rutgers university researchers on wednesday began administering the first saliva-based test for the novel coronavirus. for patients, taking the test is as simple as spitting into a test tube. for health care workers, it is far safer to administer since it no longer requires close contact with patients during nose-and-mouth swabs. massachuhusetts senator and fofr presidentialal candidate elilizh warrenen has endorsed joe biden for president. senator warren made the announcement in a video posted onliline wednesdsday morning. in t the evening, she e spoke wh msnbc's rachel maddow. >> if he asks yoyou t to be his

running mate, would you say yes? >> yes. amy: in south korea, president moon jae-in's s left-leaning governing party won n over halff seats in south korea's parliamentary elections wednesday which saw the highest voter turnout in a parliamentary election in nearly 30 years. south korea is the first country to hold nationwide elections since the coronavirus pandemic began. in climate news, a new study confirms a record amount of greenland's ice sheet meltlted n the summer of 2019. the study says the dramatic loss of icece was due to atmospheric circulation patterns that hadn't been taken into account by previous climate models and that may be significantly underestimating future melting. a u.s. judge has revoked a crucial permit needed to complete the disputed keystone xl oil pipeline, citing the u.s. army corps of engineers failed to adequately consider the effects on endangered species inhabiting rivers inin the

pipelines path and i ignoring guidelines of f the endangered spececies act.t. the ruling, however, does not shut down the pipeline's construction cururrently underwy atat the u.s.s.-canadada bordern montana.a. and in baltimore, a a transgener woman has been violently killed in what is believed to be the sixth transgender or gender non-confororming persoson murded this year in the u.s. johanna metzger was reportedly stabbed while visiting baltimore from pennsylvania this weekend. a virtual memorial was held in her honor monday. in related news, the american civil liberties union and legal voice filed a federal lawsuit wednesday challenging a new anti-trans law in idaho that bans transgender women from competing in women's sports. the groups say the law violates title ix, the historic statute that bans sex discrimination in education. and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now, democracynow.org, the quarantine report. when we come back, what are

zozoonotic diseases? we will look at the possible ororigins of the coronavirus wih a zoologist who studies diseases ththat cross thehe animal-humamn dividede.. stay with us. ♪ [ [music break]k]

amy:y: the musicicians of thee nationonal orchestra of the t togetherr in their homes, playing "bolero" by raravel. this is democracacy now, democracynow.org, the quarantine repoport. i'm amy goodman. i am in new york, the epicenter cohostpandemic, with my nermeen shaikh joining us from andhome to keep us all safee stop community spread. nermeen: welcome to o all of our listeneners and viewers frfrom arouound the country and around the world. amy: we're going to begin right away without first segmement, te white e house unveiling new guidelines today aimed at

rolling back states' stay-at-home orders protecting against the spread of coronavirus. president trump's call to wind down social distancing came as the united states recorded more than 2400 deaths in just 24 hours, the highest one-day total for any nation since the start of the pandemic. across the united states, there are nearly 640,000 cononfirmed cases of covid-19, though the true number is likely far higher due to the critical shortage of tests. at least 31,000 people have died of the disease in just a matter of weeks. despite this, president trump has spent the last few days waging a war on journalists, public health experts, and science. on wednesday, trump suggested without evidence that world health organization officials conspired to hide the truth about the coronavirus. his comments came one day after he announced the u.s. would begin withholding hundreds of millions of dollars of funding

for the u.n. body. at the same news briefing wednesday, president trump fueled the fringe theory promoted by fox news that the virus came from a lab in wuhan, china. this is fox news reporter john roberts questionining trump at wednesday's press briefing. >> mr. president, multiple sources are telling fox news today that the united states government now has high confnfidence that whwhile the coronavirus is a naturally occurring virus, it emanated from eva rolla g lab in wuhan. that because of lacks safety prototocols, in tuturn was infnd who lalater infected h her boyfd and then went to the market in wuhan where it began n to sprea. does that correspond with what you have heard? pres. trump: i don't want to say that but i will say more and more we are hearing the story. when you say multiple sources, there is a case where you can use the word "sources," but we are doing a very thorough examination of this horrible

situation that happened. amy: this came just one day after the pentagon's top general mark milley said the coronavirus likely came from natural sources, not a chinese lab. on thursrsday, china's s foreign ministry spokesperson responded. >> china's position on the origin and means of transmission of the novel coronavirus, we will always believe this is scientific which should be studied by scientists and medical l experts. i would like to remind you, the head of the who has repeatedly said there is no evidence of the coronavirus was made in a lab. when he well-known experts also believe claims of the so-called laboratory have no scientific basis. amy: scientific journal the lancet has said that the virus seems to have come from wildlife. well, for more on the origins of the coronavirus, trump's response, and where we go from here, we are joined now by a zoologist who has long studied diseases that cross the animal-human divide and who for years has been sounding the

alarm about a coming pandemic. dr. peter daszak is a disease ecologist and the president of ecohealth alliance, a nonprofit that works globally to identify and study our vulnerabilities to emerging infectious disease. ecohealth alliance has been studying coronaviruses in china since the end of the sars outbreak in 2004. this coronavirus, really called sars 2. he is joining us from the hudson river valley in new york. welcome to democracy now! it is great to have you with us. if you can unpack what we just heard. it goes to the issue of the origins of the coronavirus, especially interesting that president trump is raising this now as he is being seriously attacked for the united states lack of action and delay, so he is striking out at as many sectors as he can. but talk about the origins of

the e coronavivirus, dr. peterer daszak. >> first, , the idea thahat this virus escaped from a labab is pe baloney. it is simply not true. i've been working with that lab for 15 years. the samples collected were collecected by means -- by me ad otothers. some of the bestst scientist inn ththe world. -- there wasviral no cultured virus, , anything related t to source corona two. it is just not possible. it is a polititicization of thee origins of the pandemic. it is s reallyly unfortunate.. the stories president trump has said he is been hehearing have out since day one of the outbreak. there in every outbreak. 70 somewhere says, well, this is been manufactured in a lab. a few weeks ago when this started circrculating,g, i googd

"hiv is man-m-made." there are still people w who believe e this. it is just really unfortunate. i i don't know whyhy thesese conspipiracy t theories get such tractition. i thinink the people just have trouble understanding what is going on in the planet. we have and studying the origin of emerging diseaeases abouout % of every new ememerging disease- think about ebola, h h1n1, h5n1 flu. they originate in wildlife. every species of wildlife carrrries viruses thatat are a natural part of its biology, a bit like we e have the comommond and herpes, cold sores. theyey don't dodo much to thehe species in the w wild, but sometimes when we make contact with them, we pick up the viruses and they can be lethal stop most of the time they are not but sometimes we get a legal virus. we estimate there are 1.7 million unknown viruses in

wildlife i'm a so there's a lot of diversity out there. it could emerge in the future. we need to be looking at that instead of pointing fingers for political gain at scientists who are working to benefit public health. the scientist i know those labs right now -- in those labs right now are working to see iff vaccines w will guililty coronos to s save our lives. this sort of battle does not help in a pandemic. , cocouldaszak you say y more abobout the origs of this s specific pandemic? may believe, as you have said, it originated i in bats. it explained how it moved from bats to humans. was it at the wuhan market? and what did that involve? >> we don't really know for sure, but we can trace back the origins by looking at the

genetic signal within the virus ititself. fromquencnce out the gene the virus and compared to others. when we do that, the virus is in people the clolosest r relativef those are frorom bats. thisis is not unusual. that'ss happepening cararry a lf different viral species. there are many different bats around the worldld that carry their own viruses. we make cocontact with them, ofn we don't sesee them, they fly at night, for instance, , and we pk up theheir virususes. sasars, coronanavirus, the orirl emerge from bats. the bowl i is from bats. rabies. many otherers. how did a virus like this get permit back to human? it is very strange thing will we try to think aboutut it. asia,t of all, in soututheast and d there's a huge diveversitf babats, people live out inin rul areaeas close to bat casase ande exexposed every night when batss

urinate, defecate e maybe under the food or drdrink. people go i into back case. people go in f for various reasons. and useo to get the feces it as a fertilizer, just like we useded to do many yeaears ago wh bernardd feces. they go into caves for shehelter from the rain. they arere farmers. their r hunting and eatining wildlife, so they can n exposedd that wayay. peopople do eat bats. itit is true. the them all around the world. it is a a free sourcrce of prot. ththey are p pretty easy to c c. these are the w ways thatat peoe get expososed. how does it geget into the mark? we know for sure the wuhan market was part of the outbreak, but we think the first few cases were not in the market. this is not uncommon. we have seen this with manany other diseasase outbreaks. new viruses that emerge. they trickle out from rural areas from a person getting infected maybe in one province and then moving into wuhan,

maybe part of the wildlife trade. maybe a farmer got infected or a farmrmer's animals and d they we shipped into the markets. these markets are not just plplaces to sell wildlifife, thr placeses wherere people congrer. they come in in drovoves and circulate around -- they're really good places for a virus to spread. if a person brings it in or in animal, that virus will spread and that looks like that is what hahas happened here. nenermeen: could youou also o e, you have talked abobout the environmentatal causes of what s ,alllled a virus spillovover infectious diseaeases like covid-d-19, causes such as defoforestation, the lack of biododiversity, anand wildlife poaching. you've also said t that peopople developing a l lot of n new town ththis region of southwewest cha with a l lot of higigh-speed trn

lines. and you warned we are going to sesee more panandemics l like ts lolong as such r rampant develot continue. betweenu explain the linknk development and the spread of these infectious diseases? >> we have done the science on this. we have been working on this for 20 years. we trackcked every k known ememg disease to its origin from the scientific literature, andnd thn we tested d with mac medical models -- mathematical models what is drivingg it, the causes that couould underlie thee emergencnce of the e new diseas. what we found is the emerging laces or human populations are very dense and growiwing and thy emerge in n the tropopics mainly becacause thahat is where thehe wildlilife diversity is in the viruses that become pandemic come from wildlife. is the other key factor land-use changes. people moving into new areas. encroachment into wildlife

habitat t and building r roads o foreststs. there are many examples of diseases like ebola, sars, hiv ititself from this. that is a global trend thahat wl drive the rise of fututure papandemics. now, we'e're not saying wewe hao stop every modern aspect of development. we can do these things but we need to do them in a smamarter way, a a more sustainable wayay. anand we need to start treating pandemics as a risk of doing these things around the planet. we have to reassess our relationship with ththe environment t and reducuce our ecologicalal footprint. it is to the benefit of conservation. it w will reduce c climate chan. he will also stop us getting sisick. that is an i important point. for those on the right were not interested in coconservation or climate change, what about your own health? we are making ourselves sick by making t the planet sick.k. that is really the message that needs to come through from this.

because if we just treat this as another disease, wait for a vaccine,e, then think, great, it is all over. well, i have news, there are 1.7 million more viruses out there that will be emerging in the future. we can either wait for them to emerge and get sick and have another global recession or we can gett out thehere and reaeads our relationship witith wildlife and make the planet a little bit healthier. amy: let me ask ababout a recent twtweet, dr. daszakk. you refute the widespread disease -- belief that covid-1-9 is a black swan event pointing to a 2013 wired article that said -- knowing "there are bats caring of ours i can people and cause another sars pandemic." if you could comment on that and also the idea that if this came from a virology lab -- there are labs, of course, in china and the u.s. -- it does not h have o be a conspiracy theory that

released on the e world, for the idea of perhaps there weren't the proper safety precautions or someone inside the lab somehow got infected that can happen in anany virology lab in the world. >> yeah,h, we been raising the flag on thesese v viruses ever e sars, for 15 years. chinat out to work in with our colleagues there with a specific goal of sasaying, where did sars come from? sars,as an alararm call, because with 8000 p peoplee infefected, to presentnt died. -- to present died. he did not go to a true global pandemic like covid-1-19. we started lookingng into wildle origins of this virus. what we found was really surprising. a huge diversity, dozens, hundreds of f that o origin coronaviruses, and we found evidence they werere continually spspilling o over into peoeople. populatationsural in souththwest chinana and foun%

had d antibodies t to these vir. we estimate the exposure across soututheastt asia is abobout 1.7 million people y year just by livingng in ruraral areas wheres live.. it is not just an e expectatitin that we wiwill have more events, it is a certainty. and we h have started d saying . alreadyd bats can infect human cells in the lab, ande disease like sars, ththey evade t the vaccines s tt were beingng developeded at the titime. and this is not unusual. there are many o of the viruses- there are viruses related to ebola that we donon't know much about. we don''t know if they infect people.. there are viruses relateded to influenza. we d don't t know what they do n pepeople. the way y to do this is not to wait for them to emerge and make as sick of the ways toto get out ahead of the curveve, find o out risk, worko i is at

with the people on the front line and reduce that r risk. messasage, itealth is alslso important message for international development. these viruses tend to mergege in poor countries in the tropics just by the nature of where wildlife lives. and countries that are lesess ae to deal with outbreaks. so sending out text her r moneyo those countries is very of poplar i in the currentt administration, bubut it not ony protects them, and protects us. it is our right wing agenda and a left-wing agenda. this could whether be a lab release. well, this is the problem with conspiracy theories. it is impossible to say it did not happen. and it never will be possible. even if you showed video evidence of every hour of everybody working in that labab- and there are video cameras. thesese are bow secure labs with high tech h security systems. even if yoyou showed all of thee notebooks come the conspiracy

folks we continue to s say, wel, it is a covover-up clearly something happened and these are doctored videotapes. the point is, let's look at a a balance e of probability. that is what youou have toto do. wewe h have a few hundred technicians and s scientists workrking g in these labs.s. theyey do not have e a problem h staff or securitity or with lose control. these are well-l-run labs. they had been inspecteded by the u.s. cdc, by people working in high-security labs in ththe u.s, in france, and internationally. they are accredited by the u.s. it i is ironic now w we are sayg they are not very well organized. we inspected them propoperly and allow them too open. , we onlydr. daszak haveve a minute and ththis is a quesestion that we have e to geo before w we movove to our next segmenent, which is on india. there was widesprpread belief tt

covid-19 was caused d hundreds f thouousands of deaths inin t the developing worldld from indiaiao brazil and thatt millions would be infecteted, but that has s nt yet happeneded. your response to why that might be thehe case and whwhether we should expect t something differerent in the f future? test more.ntries we can a afford it. poor countries don't. what i expect is there are huge numbmber of hihidden community transmisission in poorer countrs around the world that is going to create a new credible problem in the f future. who is going to do with that problem? countries that can't afford to are going to seek support from their colleagues and allies around the world. it will go to the who, the very organization n we heard yestetey we're goioing to pull fundingg from. it i is a travesesty. if we lelet that happen, w we wl see this opepera continunuing to

caususe problems in the developg world and it won't go away. it will l affect u us. wewe're never goioing to o be fe from a pandemic if we allow a virus to rage uncontrollably in cocountrieies that are o out the with travelers coming back into the u.s. it is misguided and shortsighted . i really hope we address this quickly and a aggressivelyy because, you know, i really fefl it is going t to be imposossiblo do social distancing and the favelas of rio and the slumsms n some of the places where people are already disenfrananchised because they're consideredd illegal squatters. there really are going to be issues around the world with his coronavirus in poorer countries. dr. peter daszak disease , ecologist and the presidenentf ecohealth alliance, , a nonproft that works globally to identify

and study our vulnerabilities to emererging infnfectious s disea. when we e come b back, we speakh the acclaimed author arundhati roy about the corononavirus in india and thehe political implicationsns of the e crisis. she says the pandemic is a portrtal. stay with h us. ♪ [music break]

amy: medical workers in india

dancing for their patienents. this is where next guestt arunundhati roy was raised. this is demomocracy now!, democracynow.org, the quarantine report. i'm amy goodman. i am with nermeen shaikh. we turn now to india, where officials say six major cities are coronavirus infection hot spots, calling them red zones, including the capital new delhi and the financiaial center mumb. the country has more than 420 deaths and 12,000 infections, though the number is likely far higher due to the lack of testing. this comes as press freedom and civil liberties groups are sounding the alarm that the government of narendra modi is using the coronavirus outbreak to crack down on opponents and dissidents. this month, police arrested journalist, siddharth varadarajan, accusing journalist,ding discord and

siddharth varadarajan, accusing him of spreading discord and rumors after he reportedly criticicized a hindu natioionalt politicianan for participating n a religious ceremony with dozens of people during the national lockdown. elsewhere, activist anand teltumbde, who is 69 years-old, and journalist gautam navlakha, who is 67, were arrested tuesday over charges that both say were fabricated. teltumbde wrote an open letter to the people of india on the eve of his arrest, saying -- "i do not know when i shall be able to talk to you again. however, i earnestly hope that you will speak out before your turn comes." prime minister modi has announced india's nationwide coronavirus lockdown, affecting 1.3 billion people, will be extended until may. in mumbai, hundreds of migrant workers leftft homeless and unemployed by the lockdown held a protest demanding the tuesday government deliver food and assistance. not getting anything

here. the government promised to provide money and amenities and nothing has been delivered yet. do now.ve nothing to we havave small kids and they're not getting anything to eat. what should we do? amy: for more, we go to new delhlhi, where we are jojoined e award-winning writer and activist arundhati roy. she has a new essay in the financial times headlined "the pandemic is a portal." it is drawn from her forthcoming book "azadi: freedom. fascism. fiction." her most recent book is " my seditious heart: collected nonfiction." she won the booker prize in 1997 for her first novel "the god of small things." arundhati, welcome back to democracy now! as you speak to us from new delhi, if you can talk about whwhat is hahappening there andt you see, the papandemic as aa portalal. have a covid, we crisis.

you u mentioned the figures and also the fact that we e don't kw if they are reliablble becausee there's not thatat much h testig hahappening. but on the o other hand, jusust lookoking a around, you know the isn't a run n on h hospitals lie ththere has s been in new york. haveisease doesn't seeeem to rereally got a as close into us. bubut we have the cocovid crisi. we hahave a hununger crisis. we h have a hatred crisis, and e have a health crisis apart from covid. as you said kaman the 24th of march, with four hours notice, which ran between 8:00 at night midnight, they lockdown the nation of 1.3 8 billion people without warning. in the crisis t that that has

created, the lack of planning, the length of thinking forward, although like some states that you talked about havave done wonderful work, but from the center, the crisis has been exacerbated into something that might really become even more serious than the epidemic that it is planning for. you have a situation where you have millions of workers and migrant workers under a lockdown which you're supposed to enforced social distancing but it only enforces physical compression as the people are crammed together. people are separated from their family. in many places, they have no food, no access to money even.

sitting one you're some type of explosive substance. yet at the same time, like you have been made, not just the people you mentioned -- ththe editor has nt bebeen arrested b but he e has e fifiled againsnst him. seninior lawyers w who speak out against modi had fir's filed against them. others have been arrrrested. young studentnts andnd a lot of are now being accused of being part of the massacre that took days against muslims inin northeast delhi are being arrested. the circles are closing in. the reason i said the pandemic is a portal is that all over the world, you have the situation now where on the one hand, the powers that be are going to try and increase surveillance,

increase inequality, increase privatization, increase control. on the other hand, you have populations of people we will want to increase solidarity and who want to see and understand the fact that what is happening in the u.s. as well as what is happening in india, there is a pandemic that has exposed structural problems of such egregious injustice and inequalility. shutdowncalling of the with four hours notice, it is a sign of panic from this prime minister because he knows the infrastructure of this country -- he can't even deall withh nonormality, f forget about a pandemic. nermeen: i want to ask y you moe ababout ththat, aboutut modi's declaration, of a lockdown wiwih justst four hours notice, he

declarared it at 8:00 p.m.m. ant went into e effect at midnight n march 2424. but t the firstst reported casef covid-19 was on january 30, so he had -- it i is unclear what e took seven weeks to shut down the country.. but y you wenent -- when the coy whwhen the couountry went t into lockckdown, you usesed a press s andd went and spoke to some of the migrants, ththe hundreds o f thousasands of people whwho were alled to flee delhihi once transpsportation had already ben shut down.n. you spspoke to somome of these migrgrants in delhihi. can you tellll us what they said about ththe situation?n? > well, as soon as the lockdn was announced, mass transport was stopped. week of march. people had not been paid their salaries. people who live virtually from day-to-day. the landlords inin these lititte

cramped d and people tenements into which five and two peoplple are squasheded into a roooom sad they wanted their rent on time. so people just had to leave. it was a fight. while there was no traffic on , thetreets, but suddenly structural inequality in the horror, the shame of how our societyy lives made itself manifest. i just realized that these people had started walking. walking for hundreds of kilometers to their villages. -- theout because tectonic plates were shifting. it was crazy. i went to the border between delhi and -- where i walked with many of them. i spoke to many of them, including muslims who had just

survived this horrific kind of one of the program against them which did not turn out that way because people were so prepared that they fight back. but having survived that, now they were walking these hundreds of miles home. carpenters, tailors, constrtruction workers. and all of thehem were aware off the -- allll of them w were weag masks.s. they were e doing their best to maintain sococial distanance. it was impossible. there was a rumor that buses not be organized and suddenly, like 100,000 people were there together, pressed together, wawaiting for buses. them, what dof you think of this virus? they said, whatever we think of the virusus, right t now we havo food or water or anywhere to sleep.p. we have to r reach home. that was so much more present for them. a lot t of them felt t this w wa rich peoplple'ss illneness broun

by planes. why didn't t they stop people of the airport instead of k kicking usus out o of our jobs and ouour homes, you knonow? one of t the people e who i wroe about in thehe financial times p "maybe he just sasaid to me, modi d doesn't knowow about u u" in a way.y.haps true the government and everybody else who controls anything in this society has more or less airbrushed the poor out of their imagination from out of films come out of literature, out of everything, you know? for thego brochures poor are featutured in order too raise e money. amy: i wanted to ask about presidentt trump's critical trip to india right at the time the pandemic was exploding, the famous pictures of him shaking hands, the stadium 100,000 people --

>> one million people. in india, it was one million people. in the u.s., it was 50,000. amy: as president trump was flying back to the united states, it was then that he read the comments of a u.s. scientist talking about the effects of the pandemic and what will mean in the united states. he was so enraged by what she had to say that he canceled the meeting of scientists when he was returning in retaliation. then you had this whole relationship with h india around hydroxychloroquine, what dr. trump -- and i'm saying that very fishy sicily -- facetiously -- narendra modi said he was going to crack down on sales, exports of this drug until president trump pressured him and now one study after another

is coming out saying people are dying in the studies around hydroxychloroquine. just overall, talk about what trump has made for modi and what modi means for truck, ththis u.s.-india alliance and whwhat t is doioing in your c country. >> it is giving such a great amount off legitimacy to ththe situatation whichch i can hardly because i have been writing about this for so long. what i said earlier, the crisis of hunger in the crisis of hatred. so the time the modi came to the u.s. entity howdy modi show and then trump came hehere and it ws the namastee trump and s someone and the sortrt of bizarre dance between these twowo, i'm sorry o say, but not veryy intelligent human beinings but v very, verey powerful people, who are

legitimizingng the h horror of t is happeningng in thee u.s., wih immigrants, with racism,m, with undocumented workers and the hohorror of what the bjp regime, thee isfsf, which is the m mothp ofof the bjp cultural guild to which modi alumsms which believs indidia shouould be a hindu natn and that everyone else shshoulde second-class c citizens -- towas whichh that t may new citizenshp lalaws and a are building g detn centers. and all of this is being t thatized by this ididea the mostst powerfuful country ie worlrld and the most powerful mn in the world loves modi. -- i mean, it is a tragedy for the world that this particular pandemic has arrived at a time where countryy after r country is controlleledy people like this, whicich is why

-- are we going to sleepwalk into this fascist surveillance tape that everyone has in store for us? app which modi has asked people to download into became the fastest downloaded app i in the world. 50 million downloads now. every technical expert says it is just a surveillance app. to many democratic societies are moving toward this in this panic and fear that has been created. and there are so many things about the coronavirus, so many heartwarming things. i was reading "the n new york times s today" how solidarity betwtween the u.s. -- i i just a wondnderful video ofof people thanking a pakakistani dogog the

-- doctotor for having inventeda mechanism that allows a single ventitilator to be e shared by . but hehere you have muslims beig blamed foror corona. there's the whole concept of corona g hide. i have been reading of how in the 1930's, the nazi state for typos blamed jews and useded it as a a way of ststigmatizing jews.s. the s same thing isis happeninge with muslimsms. yet to hear the language the mainstream media uses. and people on thee s street. extremely dangerous situation, w which is beenen completely legitimized by trump and by all these powerful people who meet and shake hands and refuse to see how this viruss is going to move in and exacerbate

inequality, exacerbate injustice, and create a situation where they, too, are frightened because they know these millions of people, hungry, starving -- how are you going to deal with that anger? in india, they are going to try and divert it into an anti-muslim rage, which is the only thing they do always. but at some point, you are already seeing things exploding. people are burning shelters and so on. and the hunger is so urgent, that it has to be addressed now. the granaries are full of food, which is not being distributed. cash transfers, but they don't have bank accounts or they don't have access to their bank accounts. it is a crisis which you feel

you're sitting on some kind of explosive substance right now. once you distribute that grain, where will the next patch of food come from? right now it is the harvest seseason and even those who are being able t to harvest t are bg able to haharvest our not being able to sell.l. in the whole cropppping pattttef this country as changed. amy:y: we have 10 seconds. i want to thank you u very much for beingng with us as we run ot of time. we're going to link to your peace "the pandemic is a portal." next t thursday, april 23, will be joining an online teach-with princeton

pandemic is ahe portal. we will link to your essays as well at democracynow.org. democracy now! is working with as few people onsite as possible. the majority of our amazing team is working from home. democracy now! is

♪ hello and welcome to nhk "newsline." i'm yamamototo miki in tokyo. we begin in the united states where president donald trump has announced his plan for re-opening the country. the virus has now killed more than 31,000 americans while also ravaging the country's economy. >> a prolonged lockdown combined with a forced economic depression would inflict an immense and