05/19/20 05/19/20 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, the epicenter of t the pandemic, ths is democracy now! pres. trump: i'm taking the zinc anany hydroxy.y. all i can tl l you so o fa i seemo o be o amy: as the u.s. covid-1dedeath toll tops 90,000, president trump claims he's been self-medicating with the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine, even though

multiple studies show the drug is dangerous and is not an effective treatment for coronavirus. we'll speak with harvard university's dr. ashish jha about president trump and all 50 states partially reopening by memorial day. >> t testing is critical.. testing tells us who hasas the disease and who doesn'n't. anand testing is the cornerstone of contrololling e every disease outbtbreak. inadequate tesng precicipitated the nationonal shutdown. we must not make the mistakes again as we open our nation. amy: then, can local journalism survive the pandemic? tens of thousands of journalists have lost their jobs, been furloughed, or received pay cuts as newsrooms continue to shrink. or shutter. >> when it comes to local journalism and we're not just

talking about newspapers, we are talking about all forms of journalism. amy: all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the quarantine report. i'm amy goodman. as confirmed u.s. . deaths from covid-19 topped 90,000, with over 1.5 millilion reported cas, president trump shocked reporters and the medical community monday when he claimed he has beeeen taking hydroxychloroquine for at least we can have, despite warnings from the food and drug administration. pres. trump: a lot of good things have come out about the hydroxy. you'd be surprised at how many people are taking it, especially the front line workers -- before you catch it. the frontline workers, many, many are taking it. i haven't to be taking it. -- i happen to be taking it. i am taking it, hydroxychloroquine. right now, yeah.

a couple weeks ago i started taking it. i have heard a lot of good stories. if it is not good, i will tell you right. i'm not going to get hurt by it. amy: multiple studies have concluded that hydroxychloroquine is not an effective treatment for covid-19 and can in fact have dangerous side effects, including a high risk of cardiac arrest. the fda issued a warning about self-medicating with the anti-malarial drug last month following trump's repeated remarks touting its effectiveness. on fox news host neil cavuto was theay, just worn viewers of dangers just after the president's remarks were broadcast. >> if you are in risky population here and you are taking this as a preventative treatment to ward off the virus were, worst-case scenario, dealing with the virus and you are in this vulnerable population, it will kikill you. amy: all this comes as thehe nanation continues to reel from the ravages of covovid-19. navajo nation has surpassed new york for the highest per-capita

coronavirus infection rate in the country with over 4000 recorded cases, navajo nation has over 2300 infections per 100,000 people. new york state has roughly 1800 cases per 100,000 people. an eighth worker from the jbs greeley meat-packing plant in colorado has died of covid-19. 60-year-old tin aye was a 60-year-old tin aye was aed in burmese refugee who arrived in the united states over 10 years ago via thailand. she had been hospitalized since march. over 300 workers at the jbs greeley plant have tested positive for the coronavirus. meanwhile, in washington state, workers at the tyson meat plant protested working conditions after three coronavirus deaths, and over 270 infections, were reported. in california, a 74-year-old immigrant died of suicide sunday at the mesa verde detention facility in bakersfield.

choung won ahn had been imprisoned at the for-profit immigration and customs enforcement jail since february and for months had been pleading to be released as he suffered from diabetes, hypertension, and several heart-related issues which made him extremely vulnerable to covid-19. but ice repeatedly denied his pleas for freedom as he feared contracting the virus inside the squalid crowded jail. mesa verde is run by thehe prive prison company the geo group. president trump is ramping up his attacks on the world health organization, threatening g mony to pull out of t the interernatl organization and permanentntly freeze u.s. funding. this came as the who's annual global meeting took place. the chinese president xi jinping pledged $2 billion to help international efforts to combat the virus, which the u.s. slammed d as an attempt to stave off criticism of china's handling of the pandemic. beijing is accusing the u.s. of shifting blame for its own

mishandling of the crisis. in a video message, president xi backed calls for an independent review into the who's response to the coronavirus and defended his own government's actions, saying it acted with transparency and openness. the director general of the who confirmed a review of the agency's response would take place as soon as possible. health and human services secretary alex azar took aim at both the who and china. attempt, atapparent least one made a mockery ofof te obligations with tremendous cost for the entire world. we saw the who failed at its corere mission of infoformatnn sharing anand transparency whenn member states do not act in good faith. this cannot ever happen again. amy: u.n. secretary general antonio guterres highlighted the -- defended the importance of the global health agency, calling it irreplaceable, in particularly for developing nations. he said "the global north cannot

, defeat covid-19 unless the global south defeats it at the same time."" biotech company moderna said early trials of ththeir cororonavirus vaccine show promising results as volunteers develoloped antibobodies againse virus. the coanany, wch i is velopipi the vacce e withhe n natnal stitutut of health, says it ll move on to larger sca trials and that a vaccincocould be made avlalable soooon january. on monday, s spokeersoson r e department of althth a man s svices sasaid tt moncef slaouiuiwho was pped to ad tru's conavirus ccine effortwould dist his $10 millllioof m modna stotock optis. inore medil news researchers recently reported over a third of patients hospitalized for covid-19 in one new york hospital system dedeveloped acute kidney injnju, with nearly 15% requiring dialysis. meanwhile, questions remain over whether infection bestows

immunity to covid-19. at least 13 sailors from the uss roosevelt have tested positive for covid-19 -- again. all of the sailors recovered from thehe disease and returnedo the ship a after a period ofof isolatioion. the uss roosevelt was the subject of national attention last month when its captain brett crozier was removed after pleading for help for infected sailors. at least one sailor from the ship has died from the cororovirus. in germany, at least 70 refugees at a shelter near the city of bonn have tested positive for covid-19. news of the outbreak at the facility, which houses nearly 500 pepeople, has triggered demands for bebetter protection and more testing for asylum seekers and refugees. germany has seen a recent spike in c coronavirus ceses as thee country graduaually comes out tf lockdown. there are now over confirmed 177,000 cases and a death toll of over 8000. in other news from europe, german chancellor angela merkel and french president emmanuel

macron have proposed setting up a union fund of 500 billion euros to aid in the region's economic recovery from the pandemic. the money would be dispersed as grants for european countries hardest hit by the coronavirus. in brazil, the mayor of sao paulo, the country's most populous city, warns hospitatals are near collapse and could bebe completely overwhelmed in the coming weeks. mayor bruno covas s said the sue in cases is due to people not adhering to social distancing rules. brazilian prpresident t jair bolsonaro has repeatedly dismissed the virus and opposed regional prevention and lockdown efforts. mayor covas told the bbc -- "it is hard to believe that some prefer the population to be subjected to russian roulette. indifference in the face of death is unseemly." this is sao paulo governor joao doria. economy isy of the not quarantined, it is the pandemic. tohave to beat the pandemic

rescue the economy, the national economy and also here in sao paulo. that is why we have to provide all of the necessary support for science, for edison, for help. amy: brazil recorded nearly 700 new coronavirus deaths monday. it surpassed britain to become the third country wiwith the mot infections in the world reporting over 255,000 confirmed cases. only russia and the u.s. have more reported cases. of the nearly 17,000 fatalities in brazil, at least 116 were nurses who died battling the coronavirus. house democrats say friday''s ouster of state department inspector general steve linick may have been tied to an investigation into last year's arms deal with saudi arabia. in may of 2019, mike pompeo and president trump issued an emergency declaration to fast-track over $8 b billion woh of weapons sales to saudi arabia and the united arab emirates, bypassing congressional approval.

the u.s.-backed, saudi and emirati-led war in yemen has caused a masassive humanititarin disaster with about 80% ofhehe yememeni populatioion now relian humamanitarian aidid amid widesd hunger.. an investigation into mike pompeo's misuse of a political appointee to run personal errands is also being considered as a possible motive for the firing. on monday, trump was asked why he fired linick. pres. trump: i don't know him at all. i never had even heard of him. bubut i was asked to by the stae department, by mike. amy: over 150 human rights and press freedom groups are calling on the united nations to help save four yemeni journalists who were sentenced to death last month on charges of spying and spreading false news. amnesty international has called the charges against the journalists, who have been in prison for the last five years, trumped-up. the sentence was handed down by the criminal court in the houthi-controlled capital sanaa but the committee to protect journalists say journalists in yemen face threats from all factions -- houthis, the saudi-led coalition, and various

militia. reuters reports s the trump administration is considering adding cuba baback to itits lisf state sponsors of terrorism. president obama removed cuba from the list in 2015 as the two countries restored diplomatic relations. last week the state department included cuba on a list t of countries not cooperating with u.s. counterterrorism efforts. meanwhile, cuba's foreign minister bruno rodriguez has accused the trump administration of promotingng terristst as agnst t cu. inin manrmrmed with anan ak-47 apl, a opepened fire o on the cubaembabassin w wasngton.n. la week, rodriguez criticicized ththe trp'admininiration's "complicit and suspiciou silencnce" after the attack. >> we hope the united states government at least attempt to match its rhetoric against terrorism and its policies i international terrorism with its responsibilities in the face of a terrorist attack that is taking place agagainst a

didiplomatic mission in the cecr of wasashington, d.c. amy: in colombia, environmental activist jorge enrique oramas was killed saturday in the region of cali. the 70-year-old oramas was a proponent of organic agriculture. according to indepaz, a local organization tracking crimes against environmental and indigenous leaders, oramas is at activistehe100th killed in colombia so far this year. in britain, climate activists from extinction rebellion staged a protest in london's trafalgar square monday, lining up over 2000 pairs of children's shoes to draw attention to the ongoing threat of climate catastrophe. activists are demanding the government tackle the climate crisis and refuse to bail out extractive industries as part of the coronavirus recovery effort. a banner reading "covid today, climate tomorrow, act now" was unfurled at the protest. "one crisis doesn't stop because another starts," said extinction rebellion. back in ththe united states, new information has emerged around the killing of ahmaud arbery, the 25-year-old georgia man who

was chased down and shot to death by two white men in february while on a job. lee merritt, the arbery family attorney, said video shows ahmaud arbery was chased by gregory mcmichael and his son travis mcmichael in their car for over four minutes before they killed him. on monday, body camera video ememerged of glylynn county pope atattempting to o taser arberyrn 2017. ththe officer inin the video acknowledgeded a aery has done nothing wrong butsks to ininspechis car. second offfficer deploys h his tataser on him e even though h s not proveded in any way. meanwhile, texts that were uncovered over the weekendnd shw a glynn county police officer instructed the owner of the property arbery entered prior to his killing to notify gregory mcmichael if he noticed any trespassers on his property. surveillance video from the property shows multiple people entered the construction site, but only arbery was killed for

the alleged trespassising. in missouri, a death row prisononer is scheduled to be executed today, despite questions over the evidence used to convict him of a 1991 murder. on sunday, an apapals courtt vacated a stay in walter barton's execution. the american bar association argued the pandemic has placed severe limitations on barton's representation and ongoing investigations and called on republican governor mike parson to issue a reprieve. there have been no executions in the united states since march 5 as most states have postponed them amid the pandemic. the fbi says it found mobilele phone evidence linking al-qaeda to the deadly shooting at t the naval air station in pensacola, florida, last an audio r recordg december. appears to shohow the group claiming responsilitity r thee attacks according to fbi officials. the shooter, saudi air force officer mohammed alshamrani, killed three sailors and wounded eight others on the base. he had been part of a u.s. navy training program and was killed

by law enforcement during the attack.. and california has taken a major step towards eliminating juvenile prisons. governor gavin newsom unveiled last week a state budget to address economic deficits triggered by the coronavirus pandemic that proposes eliminating california's last three state-run juvenile prisons. the proposal also seeks to close two state prisons in the coming years and reduce the number of prisoner firefighter camps. the proposal must now be approved by the california state legislaturure. and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the quarantine report. i'm amy goodman here in new york city. the epicenter of the pandemic. mymy co-host juan gonzalez joing us from his home in new jersey which is number two in the coronavirus infecections and deaths in the united states. hi, juan. juan: welcome to all of our listeners and viewers from around the country and aroundd ththe world. amy: when we come back, we're going to speak with dr. ashish jha.

we will talk about a number of things, including trump's claims that he is taking hydroxychloroquine and the u.s. reopening even as covid-19 cases are on the rise in t the united states. and we will look globally at the pandemic. stay with us. ♪ [music break]

amy: : yo yo ma and angelique kidjo singing "blewu" together alone. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the quarantine report. i am amy goodman here in new york city, juan gononzalez is joining us from his home in new jersey. opsthe covid-19 atath toll 90,000 iththe united s stas, present trumclaimed nday

heas been king the anti-marial dr hydroxhloroqui, even tugh muiple stues show e drug can be dangerous and is not effective in treating covid-19. pres. trump: good things have come out about the hydroxy. a lot of good things have come out. you would be surprised at how many people are taking it, especially the frontline workers -- before you catch it. the frontline workers. many, many are taking it. i happened to be taking it. i happened to be taking it. it comeing hydroxychloroquine. right now, apple a couple of weeks ago i started taking it. i have heard a lot of good stories. if it is not good, i will tell you right. it.not going to get hurt by amy: the food and drug administration issued a warning about self-medicating what hydroxychloroqne last t month following trump's repeated remarks touting its effectiveness. president trump's announcement came as he ramped up attacks on the world health organization,

threatening monday to pull out of the international organization entirely and permanently freeze u.s. funding over its "failed response to the covid-19 outbreak." the u.s. has less than 5% of the world's popopulatition, but almt onthird ofononfirm covovid9 infeioions worldwide. the worldwideof deaths in n the unit states. all 50 states will at least partially reopen by memorial day weekend, even as infection rates in many states continue to rise. only 16 states are currently seeing downward trends in cases according to johns hopkins university. wellll, for more, we go to cambridge, massachusetts, where we're joined by dr. ashish jha, the director of harvard university''s glglobal health institute and a professor of global health. we welcome you, doctor, to democracy now!

let's begin with this, i guess, bombshell, that trump dropped yesterday. the impact it has all over the country, not possibly just on his own health, when he said he started about a week and half ago, presumably after his valet, tested positive for covid-19. he said he is now takingg hydroxycychloroquine. this flies in the face of the latest studies. if you can tell us what they are anand what you t thought when yu first t heard this. >> thahank you for having me on. i was pretty surprised. if i was his perersonal physici, i would not have r recommended - ii would have actually recommended very stronglyly against t it. there is no evidence that i'm aware of that hydroxy or quinn is helpful in preventing getting coronavirus, cobit. if you have beeeen exposed. we knonow that he does have toxicities. almostst all mededicines do. whwhile hydroxychloroquine is

reasonably safe under closee medical supervision, still has real side effects. i think ththe risk and a b bit e is all wrong for the president. i personally don't think you should be taking this medicine. amy: there will be a rush on hydroxychloroquine if the president is taking it or request a doctor to give it. isn't it simply a message, like we see with his approach to climate change and the climate crisis, it is just this anti-science slap? >> we want our leaders to model good b bavior. part of that is that we do have a scientific apapproach to coronavivirus. we have one therapy that looks like it is going to work, remdisiver, though r right nowow that is really only y for sisick people in the hospital. when the president really goes where t the scicientific consensus is in starts d doing ththings on his own thatat are really against the scientitific

consensusus, i think it is harmful.l. whwhat happens is a lott o of pe dedecide, well, he mustst know something that others don't and will try to emulate that and that will end up being harmful for those people's healalth as well. , theser. jha contradictions along the one hahand, federal h health officis saying one thing to ththe genenl public, allowing individual states to develop their own policy, while on the other hand, the president, as the lone ranger, occasionally either contradicting the states or contradicting his own federal health officials, what this does to the ability of the country to develop a systemematiclan to confront t the coronavirus? >> yeah, this has been one of the biggest challenges in this outbreak. the e fedel leadership has realally been lacking. and at times, the e federal apapproach has been downright harmful. for ininstance, they came up wih a plan for how states can o open

safely, cacalled open up america again. itit was preretty good. there were partsts i disagreed with but it was generally i in e right direction. then t the president hasas beene last couple of weeks essentially undermining his own plan. that creates an incredible amount of confnfusion in states who don't know should they be liststening to his plan n or listenining to his tweets? there should not be any separation between the two. it is very confusing, and thahat has left a lot of states to try to sort this out on their own without any federal guidance. at times, contradictory federal guidance. juan: what about what the states are pursuing, about 48 states now are partially reopening this week. 50 will have partially reopened by memorial day. what is your sense, especially giveven the fact that severeralf these e dates are still seeeeing uptickcks in the number of c ca? >> i if we go bacack to that inl guidance that i mentioned, which

i thought was generally right. the main n principles wherere yu shouldld see declining cases for 14 days arare very, very low number o of cases come and have adequate testing and tracingng capacity.. very few statetes meet all o of those.e. my general feeling is i get that people are antsy to get back to work. obviously, for a lot of poor people, this has been an extraordinarily difficult hardship as hourly wage workers, others. what we really need is a very careful, very slow plan. some states i think are being responsible. other ststates were cacases are still rising and yet their opening up bars, that worries me immensely y about what is goingo happen in terms of a spike in cases and eventually, maybe having to shut down n again because there outbreak gets out of control. amy:y: dr. jha, can you talk abt the significance of testing? this critical issue president trump stood in the rose garden against a banner that said the

u.s. leads the world in tesesti. whenen in fact, whenen president trump started to begin to hear about the pandemic, you know, the intelligence agencies, his own heads of agencies saying you have to move as early as january, even december -- what he keeps touting is he pushed this chinese travel ban. but if he thought it was that significant at that time to push the ban, this issue of immediately ramping up testing and getting ppe, personal protective e equipment, to peope all over this country -- first and foremost, health-care workers, of course -- so start off by talking about what happened with testing at the beginning stuff you're very critical of the cdc. but also what it means e even today, the fact that here in new york city, if you are not

symptomatic but t you want to gt a test -- we know that more than half of people who are infecting others are not symptomatic. you cannot get a test unless you have some special connection, even though president trump insists that is not trueue. >> so the teststing saga will go down as one of the big fiascoess thatat led t us being where we are t today. there's no question in my mind that this hass been one of the achilles heels of our entire response. in thea really begins later part of january when the world health organization offered up a test kit that was logistped by a german viro was available to countries around the world, including the u.s. united states decided not to use it. that is not totally unreasonable decision. the cdc has a lot of experience killing its own tests, so he did.

that i is reasonablele. e prproblewiwith that test, it failed. it got contaminateted and did nt work. weeks and weeks went by -- amamy: the world health organinization, which workeded,t was there. >> it was there. what should have happened is the moment the cdc realized test failed, should h have gotten bak and got the w joe tesesting whie it was fixing its own. instead, we wasted all of the rest of january, all of f februy intoto early march. we prevented private labs for making test and we did not really build one ourselves in the public sectotor. wewe found ourselvlves in marchh a large o outbreak and no real testing capacicity. t the main that was reasason we had to shut rr economy down is becacause we jut could not figure out who was infected and who was not in the best way to stop exponential growth at that point is s to hae everybody y shelter-in-place. that is a very costly way to down a barrelow

outbreak, but you have to do it if we dodon't have gooood ststi. jujuan: now we have various typs producedthat have been and some of them with disturbingly high percentages of false negatives. what abobout the quality control now that shoululd be thehe fedel government's responsibility in terms of deterermining what is e best test to usese? >> what is reaeally important fr your viewers and listeners to know, there are two types of tests and two b broad categorie. antibody testing and testing for the virus. tetesting for the virus s is may whatat we have been talklking at so far. an importantsting is but unrelalated issue. on testing for the virus, the primary approach we have, do haveve a false n negative rate. they vary from 10% to 30%. some of ththat is a qualility control issusue, but some is jut the reality of the virus we are trying to test for. it may be early in the disease. you may not have enough virus,

you may not get a good sample. that is why you need to be testing people more than once if they have what looks likee coronavirus but test negative. i really do think on the issue of that, the problem has been we have been too slow to develop new technologies. on antibody testing, it has been a mess in terms of quality control. that is where the quality control problems have been really rampant. on the virus testing, primarily just not doing enough of these tests. ththere are someme quality contl problems, but that to has not been the biggest concern on the virus test. you, theant to ask international level, there are great disparities between where covid-19 is spreading in countries around the world -- for instance, the startling situation ofof the island of hispananiola where in the dominican republic, there are more than 7600 confirmed cases

bubut right across thehe bordern the same islsland in haiti, only about 85. do you think there are any gegenetic issues in termrms of h populations are more disposed to being affected by covid-d-19? >> so, one way to think about this is we are early in this pandemicic. the way i have often describeded usinin a baseball analalogy is we're probably in the top of the ththird inning of a nine inning baseball game. meaning thahat we have a longngy to go a and in the early days, you're goioing to see a lot of variations in who has been afaffected, where the disease hs spreread. it willl be driven in large part by things lilike travel, where t virus firsrst showed up, 30 -- certain amount of yes and current arabic issues. i've not seen any data coming in a group of humans are more susceptible than others in terms of populations. august the, older people are more susceptible but our haitians more or less susceptible than dominicans or indianans are momore or l less

susceptible than chinese? i don't see any data out there that m makes mee think t that ia major factor. i think k social s structure, resources, travel -- all those other things are much bigger determinant of where we are seeing the outbreak so f far. six months from now, the picture may look very different. we have to remember we're still early. amy: what about africa? we don't see large numbers. is that because of lack of testing? to you shutut down its borders somalia and tanzania. is it because it is a a much younger popupulation or the e or issues youou just mentioned? loucks africa, the african continent has been interesestin. it is done betteter so far r thi was expecting, to be very frank. i still reremain worried because but sotill early days, far they have e ne better r thai was worried they might. the questions are, why? thatinly it is posossible

the younger population and even lack of robust testing, lack of substantial surveillance system may be missing a lot of cases. that is possible. there may y be some seasonality issues. there is reason to believe warmer, more humid temperatures lead to lower levels of trtrsmission.. atat might b be playing a factc. there is a variety o of theories out there. continentt the entire is being spared. i tell you i i am worried that s time goes on, we will see m more and morere outbreaks acrososs te afafrican continent. obviously, lots of variation but i worry a lot about that. i always hope i am wrong on that. we will see how that plays out. we are still early days. juan: i want t to ask about the vaccine situation. we saw the n news yesterdrday at motor and a's -- moderna's vaccine showing promise in the

stock market having a major rally as a result. what is your assessment of how long it will take to produce a vaccine? and then the issue off mass-p-producing it t in suffict numbers for the entirere planet? >> g great question. among publblic health people, i tend to be on the optimistic side. you should d know that because at i'm going to tell you, obviously, my view is a bit more optimistic that i think where most public health peoplple are. that s said, i'm m pretty optimc we are going to haveve vaccine. i am very o optimistic that that vaccine will come in 2021. it is very, very hard for me to see aa vaccine being safe, efeffective, and widely avavaile in 2 2020. i can't figugure out how that would d happen. i l love to be wrong, but i thik sometime 2021. i thinkk mid-2021 is my y best guess. let's talk about where w we aren vaccineses. over 100 different efforts to

build a vaccine. they are in clinical trials. if you are moving along very nicely. two ins modernitya, china that are potentially promising. there others in europe. there is a lot of activity. i have no idea which of these vaccines play out and have no idea which one will turn out to be safe or effective. any could be. it could be we have five or six that work. i don't know, but i am very confident that one of them well. one of the reasons i am so confnfident is we have bebeen ae induce we really can immunities. we know people who clear the virus get a pretty robusust immunity. scientifically believing w we wl have a vaccine in 2021i think is a pretty fair assumption. you have a vaccine, let't's say you do t the testingng, it, efeffective. how do w we make sure everybody getsts it? that is going to be a masassive

challenge. there is a huge set of production issues, a huge set of distribution issues, equity issues. i think it is incredibly important people in india get it, people in kenya, the united states, china get it. that is going to require a certain amount of global .oordination, global solidarity i worrrry a little bit about whe we are heading, certainly our political leadership, but other political leaders, too, in terms of that movement toward global solidarity. mododerna'ssna -- chief f executive e office > response in everybody that received the vaccinene and that imimmune respoponse generates se kindnd of antibodies that one would hope to generatee antibodies t that could neutrale the virus and that we can get to levels of a antibodies that aree those seen in people who have cov2, fected with sars,

or even exceed those levels. amy: this test that was done by moderna that everyone is holding up such hope, although you talk about it bunch of others, dr. jha, this was done on just eight people. it is in the first phase of the trial. it produced antibodies. then explain -- and safety. he did not kill them, the shot did not kill them. explain then what has to happen, how this ramps up. because president trump so quickly throws out things and it is hard to put them in a kind of scientific context to understand which we should take seriously. and then your most critical point, like jonas salk with the polio vaccine, how it is made, freeee for all? >> basically, what i would say to folks is, you're going to see a lot of sensasational headldlis in the u upcoming days, weekeksd

monthshs. we a are all hopining. i genenerally thihink it is importanant to listen to n p politians, especial when poticians reallyo off f d start saying thgs thaare not sciee-e-base in tms of whe the morna vaccine is, ain, eieighpeople, phasasne, early days, right? t encouraging ely days. the effect tsese eig people developed a leve of imne response thawe haveeen with people w clear t infecti, th fact there aibodies re neutralizing -- could utralize th virusus, that all is ve,, ry e encragingng now, therere is a t t betwn hehe and d having thahat vaccine be produced safelely and effecectiy for hundndreds of millllions or billions of people. there are many, many steps ong the way.. have to give it to a ch larger gro of folks. imagine if the vaccine kills one in 500 people, which would banan crededib bad ocome --'m

not saying it doe by the y. you're not going to ckck thaup in sma segment you ed to styt and a rge amount opeople to discover. we have do that andhen we reallyave to makaksure tho neutrazingntibodieto protect pele. are goi to haveo o thin -bou how do test thnn not in a boratory, t are we gogog to expe peopop to live viru are going to give it to alth carworkers who are on e f frontne and t look to see e ifny getetnfected?here a lot of work aad. becae iwe don't bud d a ccine e at isafe and effeivive bucertainl saf peop are n n going twant to take it. that i reay an credibly importt part othis movg foard. thenf course ere's is a ramp-up how youhen produ billionsf doses of the vaccine a wayhahat agn, people are going to feel confint,ealthy people a goioingo fefeel confididt giving ito their kids, ging i it to themselves, to their parents.

those are going to b be really important issues. i think we can get there, but it will be work. amy: verery q quickly, or talkio us from harvard, when of many schools in this country that has more chance of surviving than a number of other schools if they don't reopen. can you talk about the decisions -- you have places like northeastern's and we are open starting in the fall, places like notre dame that are saying, we're going to open early and in and by thanksgiving. also university of alabama, because we expect there to be a surge in december so we want the kids out by thanksgiving and then they won't come back for a while. can you talk about the decision -- not onlnly collegeges, of co, high schools, elementary schools , what must t go into this and what you think should d happen? >> as you might imagine, this is not just a c conversation i'm hahaving with puicic health peoe and educationn officials, but also a at home with the kids abt what is going to happen in the

fafall. the way i i think about ththis s what was likely to happen, and a lot of variations, somome schoos will open and some will stay online. what should drive the dedecision-making? when, how mumuch commumunity trtransmission is happening. if youour thinking about hararvd univerersity, how much community transmission is happening in eastern massachusetts? if a lot of people are getting sick, itit will be h hard for harvard oror any universrsity in eastern massachusetetts to o op. second is around availability of testing. i think yoyou have to have a strategy whehere you're going up to buiuild test kits and stafffd facuculty on n an ongoing basis. third, you have to do social didistancing. there will be no large classes. there shshould be no lalarge classes. if you're g going to do sporting events, certainly not with any kind of spectators and you have to t think about which you can justify and how you do that. there are a lot of changes that need to haenen. i like t t idea of startrting early and trying to end early. i believe most of us believe

there will be a a surge of cases in the fall. all of these printable stay to happen in the primary and secondary, rethinking things like cafeteria, sports. if we do all of that, i b beliee there's a very, very good chance that we can open up schools, we can get kids back to school in the fall. it may notot look like a normal fall, but if we can get through this fall anand we have a vaccie early in 2021, we can get through h this pandemic.c. amy: dr. ashish jha, inc. you fofor being with us professor of , global health and the director of harvard university's global health institute. when we come back, can localal journalism survive the pandemic? journalistsousands of have lost their jobs, been furloughed, received pay cuts as new rooms continue to shrink and shudder. stay with us. ♪ [music break]

amy: this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the quarantine report. i am amy goodman with juan gonzalez end today's show as we looking at the future e of journalism in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. at a time when many journalists are risking their lives to cover one of the most significant stories in their lifetime, media companies are slashing jobs and salaries. over the past week hundreds of journalists at vice, quartz, the economist, buzzfeed, and conde nast have been laid off. in april, "the new york times" estimamated 36,000 employees of news media companies had been laid off, furloughed, or had their pay reduced since the arrival of the pandemic. 36,000, and that was a month ago. the crisis is not new. the size of america's newsrooms have been shrinking for years.

according to the columbia journalism review, nearly 3400 journalists lost their jobs in 2019. another estimate put the toll at nearly 8000. the pew research center recently reported u.s. newspapers have shed about half of their newsroom staff since 2008. we a are joined now byby two gu. gregory moore is the former editor of "the denver post," which won four pulitzer prizes under his tenure. he is past chair of the pulitzer prize board. former b board member of nationl association of black journalists. his recent article on pulitzer.org is titled "how will the covid-19 crisis affect local news businesses?" and we are joined by angely mercado. she is a freelance writer and researcher based in new york. has written for "the new york times," "vice," and "the nation," among many more. in her new piece for cnbc, she writes "i got laid off o on friy , the 13th -- and had to move back home. my new side hustle is writing obituaries for $200." gregory moore and angely mercado, welcome to democracy now!

greg, let's begin with you. lay out the scope of the problem . we are talking about tens of thousands of media workers all over this country at a time when those in power have to be held most accountablele, newsrooms se shrinking andd being shuttered. >> this is been going on for a decadede. it just soso happens that this trend sort of runs s smack d dab into the biggest n news story oa generationon, certainly sinince 9/11. so y you have this incrediblble thirst and hunger from a forusused a and dmayed public accurate, , quality information and precisely the same moment where advdverting has fallelen

whenever freelancing, and that is no longer available. freelancers used to subsidize income to be a little more stable. it is not available fo anymore. it is scary time looking for work and trying to work on projects. there are freelancers who maybe don't have health insurance in the middle of a global health crisis. there are a lot of moving factors that none of us could have prepared for because of the pandemic. amy: you were laid off on friday the 13th. you went on to do freelance work. you now talk about writing obituaries for $200 at the samee

timeme your own cousin died of covid-19? >> yeah, a cousin on my mother that unfortunately passed away due to covid-19. it is very difficult to talk to people when you have also left her loved ones for another project and then to know that i can't go and support that relative and immediate family. i can't really take time off to think about what is going on. i did not feel like i could take that time off for myself i know there are a lot of freelancers who works prancing the same things, losing friends, themselves might be sick. there isn't much for freelancers. we don't have time to mourn people we have lost. we are feeling emotionally tax right now. gregn: i want to go back to moore.

what you says is a veteran journalist from editor, has been the impact on the american public on trump's continued asacks on the mass media enemies of the peoplple? thahat it t has erodeded someme c confidence in the medi. i also think it is the site of a lot of conontempt. just recently, some of the therters who were coverg open e economy protetestyou kno, they were gegetting yelled at td screamed a at and threatetened. i'm m just hoping it does not escalate i into the kind of violence that we saw in marylyld with "the capital gazette," but i think it has incitedd a kind f contemempt and angerer toward te media, butut i also o don't thit has deterredd journalists frorom

doing their job and keeping their eye on a ball, but they do itit undnder much more threateng condnditions.. amy: and the issue of didiversi. whwhen you lose e local newsross all ovover the country, , greg? >> that is thehe first t thing t goeses. diversity. a lot of timeses those people td to be the e last ones hihired ie first t ones to be laid o off. one e of the thingngs you begino see is the w whitening of ththe media. in particular, i'm concerned about some of ththe new digitatl starartups. when you go o and look at many f these digitall startups,s, veryw people off color are a parart of that s system. i thinkkhat is thehe number one thing is as we look t to the future of media in n this count, whatever that isis going t become, is to get a a recommitmt everyononeuldld be for and we need pepeople of cololort all levelels to be able e to participate e and tell the stots that neeeed to b be told the r t

way. right now that is suffering. amy: greg moore, thank you so much for being with us, word when journalist and past pulitzer prize board chairir. former editor of "the denver post," which won four pulitzer prizes under his tenure. and angely mercado is a freelance writer and researcher based in new york. recently laid off. that does it for our show. birthdayppy 11th week to my nephew. as his dad scott said, the kind of friends you don't have to stay away from. we hope to make this world safer for you, miles, and for everyone. and a very left field congratulations to anna and scott. happy birthday simin farkhondeh and eli putnam! democracy now! is working with as few people onsite as possible. the majority of ouour amazing tm is working from home. 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!]

in tokyo, every ingredient has its own story. ♪ ♪ hello and great to have you with us. from our studio in tokyo, this is nhk "newsline." we start here in japan where the country's government is considering lifting the state of emergency over the coronavirus outbreak for osaka and surrounding areas on thursday. officials are closely watching the situation in tokyo to decide whether to end the emergency in