you're watching msnbc. it's 2:00 on the east coast, 11 a.m. out west. the numbers keep rising, but there are signs of hopes as doctors and medical professionals continue to fight the coronavirus across america. so far, 19,000 people have died in the united states, the most of any country in the world. the number of cases nationwide has now reached half a million. to put that in perspective, nearly 330 million people live in the united states. the hardest hit state, new york, had its highest number of deaths this week. but the number of covid-19

patients in icus have dropped for the first time since the outbreak. the johns hopkins coronavirus resource center reports that so far over 29,000 americans have recovered from covid-19. dr. anthony fauci continues to push stay-at-home measures across the country to mitigate the spread as more states await a possible surge. >> but it's important to remember that this is not the time to feel that, since we have made such important advance in the sense of success of the mitigation, that we need to be pulling back at all. >> meantime, los angeles county extended its stay-at-home orders until may 15th. and there are now disparities on the overwhelming effects of coronavirus on communities of color. we have our nbc news correspondents on the ground across the country today. maura is in philadelphia and priscilla is in houston, texas. white house officials this week say they're monitoring

philadelphia, fearing it can be one of the next potential hot spots. what are officials there doing to mitigate a surge in cases? >> reporter: good afternoon. so philadelphia is about 100 miles south of new york city, which of course is the epicenter here in the united states of this pandemic. so officials in philadelphia have been acting early and often to prevent any spread. they've shut down businesses back in mid march and have been promoting the idea of social distancing. the latest numbers we just got about an hour ago, statewide there's more than 21,000 cases across the state and more than 6,000 here specifically in philadelphia. however, i do want to flag over the past week every day there's been an uptick about #00 cases. today we got an uptick of about 400. so officials see this as a positive sign. they note over the weekend some testing can come in more slowly. the mayor is promoting the idea of social distancing, warning

that those measures might be in effect through the summer, a sllee sha. >> so much interest in treatment. what is penn medicine working on? >> reporter: i'm here at penn hospital, one of the top hospitals in the country, one of the best here in philadelphia. they're doing a hydroxychloroquine trial. that's the drug you hear the president talking about. he said try it if you like. these doctors tell me it's not exactly ready, so they need to go through the scientific trial to make sure they have the appropriate processes, because even though the drug has been used in the past to treat malaria, rheumatoid arthritis and the penn doctors specifically here have been working on it for a trial for cancer treatments, they say it's not necessarily ready for covid-19 treatment just yet. they're looking at a sample size of about 400 people, patients who are at home and patients that are infected and are needing ventilators and hospitalization, as well as health care workers who are taking this as a preventive measure. these doctors say that even if

this drug becomes a treatment option, it does not replace the need for a vaccine. take a listen to what one of the researchers told me just yesterday. >> i don't think this will replace a vaccine. i think vaccination is a cornerstone of treating infectious diseases and viruses. but the other important point is that we need to develop multiple therapies against this. this is the hardest battle we've fought as a human race so far. at least in my generation. and so we should continue to develop other treatments besides hydroxychloroquine. >> the hardest battle we fought as a human race, really pinning down the severity of this now. and of course experts tell us that vaccines are still potentially months away, and so again these researchers are really focussing on preventive measures. also at penn hospital there is construction under the works for a new building to open early next year, but the construction

workers have expedited the construction and they're hoping to open about 120 rooms that could be available for coronavirus patients here in philadelphia, if that need becomes necessary. >> maura, thank you so much for your reporting. hope you stay safe. let's go now to texas, which currently has the 11th highest number of cases in the u.s. new numbers reveal that communities of color are being hit the hardest. particularly in houston. while black residents only make up nearly about 23% of the city's population, they account for over half of the city's coronavirus deaths. nbc news correspondents priscilla thompson joins us now. tell us what you're seeing on the gowned there. >> reporter: you mentioned the numbers. 9 of the 16 current deaths in houston related to the coronavirus have been black patients and that's something that we're seeing could be rising in other parts of the state as well. for example, in dallas county, 72% of the cases, covid cases

that have been hospitalized are african-american or latino. but the problem is that 35% of those cases in dallas county don't have any racial or demographic information compiled for them. and that's an issue that we're seeing statewide, where only about 1,800 of the cases where folks have been hospitalized have that racial demographic data out of the more than 11,000 cases that have presented here in texas. so it has made it very challenging for researchers to make sense of that data and begin to figure out what's going on with those racial and demographic numbers. and another concern that a researcher i spoke to raised is the idea of racism and that in releasing those numbers we begin to see something like what we saw happen to asian-americans when the virus began to spread here in the united states. take a listen to what he said about that. >> there was some concern that that would be replayed within

our communities, especially if they happen to be minority communities or marginalized groups within society, that they would be given the burden of blame to carry for this infectious disease. >> reporter: so one thing that folks at uc health has done is they have been able to use data about those sort of chronic illnesses in the community to map out areas and neighborhoods that they think are going to be hit hardest, so they've done that for houston and they've also done it for dallas and a number of the other large cities here in texas. >> those visuals are just astounding. priscilla, thank you so much for your great reporting. i want to bring in dr. aaron carol, a professor of pediatrics at indiana school of medicine and a regular contributor to "the new york times." doctor, i want you to take a listen of some sound from dr. anthony fauci this week.

take a listen. >> i believe we are going to see a downturn and it looks more like the 60,000 than the 100,000 to 200,000. but having said that, we better be careful that we don't say we're doing so well, we can pull back. we still have to put our foot on the accelerator when it comes to the mitigation and the physical separation. >> of course that is dr. fauci talking about the estimated death toll. when you listen to those numbers, does that mean that social distancing is working? >> yes, i think it absolutely does. i think it's what we've seen in pretty much every country that's used it, that it has helped to slow the rate of increase and keep the peak from getting too high. and that's the real point of social distancing. we want to flatten the curve and keep the health care system from getting overwhelmed. it, however, does mean that the peak comes in at times a bit later and we're going to need to engage in all of this social distancing still for some time to come. >> you know that people look at those numbers and there is an inst back up.

what is your advice? what is your counsel to those leaders who are looking at the numbers and trying to understand when they can begin to ease these restrictions? >> fight that instinct as hard as you can. it's important to know that we're just starting to see a slowdown of the increase. that doesn't mean a decrease. a decrease for at least two weeks is what we need to see before we can think about starting to reopen. on top of that, we're going to need to make sure that we have infrastructure in place so we don't have to do this again. that means massive levels of testing, coupled with isolation and the ability to figure out where hot spots are and jump on them and quarantine and isolate those people. because if we don't get really good at keeping the people who are infected contained, we'll be back here again and needing to shut down the entire country. it's unfortunately what's happening in singapore right now, where they're doing everything we need to be doing and more in order to stay open and they just failed.

they've just had to start a lockdown in their country that's likely to last at least a month. that's the cautionary tale. if we're not rigorous in setting up what we need to in order to prevent this from happening again, if we open up too early it's going to be the same once more. >> let's talk about some of those infrastructure pieces that you mentioned, testing. also a sustained reduction in cases for at least 14 days. which of those thienngs is hardt to implement? >> the sustained reduction is likely to happen because we're doing the things we need to do to see that happening. all of the social distancing is not only slowing the rate of increase. it keeps each person from infecting fewer than one more. so the number of cases will start to drop. we will see that. every other country that is doing this will see that. it will just take time. but as long as we do nothing more than we are doing, and just hold steady for long enough, we'll see the reduction. building up the contact tracing and isolation, the massive public health infrastructure,

the amount of testing we're going to need to do out there in the real world all over the country, that we're not prepared for. that we need to build for. it's going to cost money, resources, and unfortunately we're not spending enough time talking about that. >> doctor, part of what makes this virus so frustrating and confounding, is that while there are some symptoms that seem to be widely experienced, we also hear people who have been infected with this virus talking about things like burning skin, different types of issues. if you're not necessarily experiencing sort of the standard symptoms, how do you know when to get care? >> part of the problem is that we can't do testing on everyone who has symptoms, regardless of what we keep hearing in press conferences and elsewhere. we can't do it. so all of the different protocols that have been set up are looking for very specific symptoms. so people with other symptoms cannot get tested at the moment in most places. having said that, it's not a decision point of whether to go

get care if you're mildly ill. the care that's available really at this time is to support you if you get seriously ill, if you need oxygen, if you need help breathing, if you need to be in a hospital. it almost doesn't matter which symptoms take you to that point. it's getting to that point, which is the real change in whether you get care. so while people with other symptoms may be infected by coronavirus and not realize it, it doesn't change sort of how they should determine whether or not they go get care. >> i want to ask you one more question before i let you go. do you have a sense of where we are when it comes to antibody testing? >> we're getting there. i mean, i know that there are labs across the country that can do this. we have the technology. the bigger issue is ramping it up, making it as widespread as we need it to be. we're going to need antibody testing eventually because that's one of the ways we can do surveillance to figure out how much of each area perhaps has been exposed and immune. it will also help us to be more

thorough in diagnosing who has and hasn't been infected. it's easier and quicker and cheaper to do. it's where we need to go. it's just unfortunately not what we need right now to get over the immediate crisis of flattening the curve. but as i said before, we've got to be able to do more things than one at the same time. that is one of the things we're going to need to push for to build up the infrastructure to prevent this all from happening again. >> doctor, thank you so much for your time. straight ahead, health care was already one of the top issues in the 2020 campaign and that was before the coronavirus pandemic. we'll talk about how covid-19 has changed the debate over medicare for all. plus he's being credited for acting fast and shutting down his state. i'll talk with governor mike dewine to get ohio ready for its peak. ♪won't wait♪ ♪we're taking everything we wanted♪ ♪we can do it ♪all strength, no sweat

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with bernie sanders suspending his presidential campaign, how does joe biden court sanders supporters. in a letter to the former vice

president, millennial leaders write, quote, messaging around a return to normalcy does not and has not earned the support and trust of voters from our generation. and now, the coronavirus pandemic has exposed not only the failure of trump, but how decades of policy making has failed to create a robust social safety net for the vast majority of americans. let talk to two people who signed that letter. we have the executive director and co-founder of united we dream, and director of next-gen rising. i want to start with a return to normal see. that's the cornerstone of biden's campaign. why isn't that enough? >> it's not enough. look what's happening with this pandemic. it has only exposed even further the need for medicare for all, for example. and of thinking of immigrants, as the human beings that they are. and what you've seen, even in

the stimulus package now, is that they have been fully excluded, documented people from any level of support. so medicare for all, immigration, climate change, are issues that senator sanders championed. this is why united we dream action endorsed him. this is why he won the vast majority of voters within the latin-x and the youth community. so what we're saying right now is unless joe biden takes this serious, issues, and gets them, it will be really hard to mobilize the youth vote and the latino vote, which are needed to defeat trump. >> one day after sanders suspended his campaign, biden came out with two new policy proposals, lower the medicare eligibility age from 65 to 60, and forgive all student debt for low and middle income americans who went to public and historically black colleges and universities. is that enough? >> i think it's a step in the

right direction. but he has a lot more steps to take. look, the democratic nominee for president can't win without the enthusiastic support of young people. it's just not possible. and so for folks like us who are trying to get young people out to the polls in november, we need a willing partner and we're excited to see that vice president biden is willing to move on the issues and we laid out in this letter a whole host of ways that he could really make a difference. and we look forward to him continuing to march down the path to have a more progressive policy platform. >> christina, i want you to listen to what senator sanders said in a conversation he was having with my colleague, chris haze. take a listen. >> i think we can work together, but i think the trick here is for him to develop an agenda that will respond to the unprecedented crisis that we are in right now. i think with 17 million people

losing their jobs in the last three weeks -- and by the way, the number is much greater than that, people losing their health care, people want bold ideas. they want a government that is prepared to stand up for working people in a way we have not seen for a long time. >> christina, bold ideas from your vantage point at united we dream, what would a bold idea, a bold agenda look like? >> a bold agenda for us, as it was laid out in the letter that we did with folks like ben and many other youth organizations, is to say you've gotta make sure that the issues that galvanize our generation, and that quite frankly galvanized latino voters for bernie sanders, like having the most aggressive plan on immigration, like endorsing and embracing the green new deal, these are going to be the issues that are going to be needed in

order to galvanize our generation and voters in our communities. on immigration in particular, alicia, we saw joe biden moving already, right before the nevada caucus, on committing to stopping deportations in the first 100 days. that's a great first step and not enough. what we need to see is a president and a candidate who is going to commit to not only stopping deportations in the first 100 days, but ending the collaboration between i.c.e. and local police and assigning someone who dhs who will be committed to holding this administration accountable and i.c.e. and icp accountable for the deaths and mass detention of immigrants under this administration. >> one of the things that stood out to me as i talked to sanders supporters, particularly young sanders supporters throughout the primary season was that they were really drawn to his i'd logical consistency, you could hear from voters that you could watch youtube videos from 30

years ago and he was saying the same things. that is not going to be the case for joe biden if he does make this pivot. so how do you create the space for biden to move on some of these issues? >> you know, joe biden has been very clear and he's talked to young people across the country, saying i want to be a transitional figure to help get your generation in place. and i think that means that he has to say i am willing to listen to young people, like christina, when they say these are the things we need and that he will elevate their voices and the voices of next-gen account activities across the country saying these are the sorts of ideas we need to put in place. i have listened to young people, i have learned and i have evolved. he's already taken some steps to do that. he's adopted some of benders' policies and elizabeth warren's policies and i think that's a step in the right direction. and he needs to acknowledge what i did 30 years ago is not what i believe now. i am a more progressive person now and thus i'm putting forward

this policy. and lastly, one of the best things he can do -- sorry. >> i'm wondering, what would one policy be that, for you, would be marquis? >> i think he could really change the way he's looking at criminal justice reform in this country. a big thing that he could do, as he says i support the legization of marijuana. it shows that he's evolved in an issue that shows, hey, i had a past stance, i've changed it based on what is the new normal. and he can do that with personnel, too. not putting into power the people who are in charge 20, 30 years ago, implementing these policies, but bringing on board now, younger, progressive folks to join his campaign, join his cabinet and help him governor earn in the future. >> christina and ben, thank you both so much. up next, ohio was one of the first red states to put tough social distancing standards in place. i'll talk to the state's

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ohio was one of the first states to face the coronavirus head-on. cleveland clinic was comparing and ready to scale up capacity with 1,000 hospital beds. the same day president trump held his first task force briefing, saying there were 15 cases across the country and it would soon be down to zero. a week later, before there was one confirmed case in the state, ohio's republican governor, mike dewine, canceled the fitness festival that had 60,000 people set to attend. that was days before sports leagues suspended their seasons. ohio was first to shut down all schools and now ohio has 6,250 cases. half the number seen with states with similarly-sized populations. governor dewine joins me now. thank you for joining us. at the latest update, ohio had 5,878 confirmed cases of coronavirus, 231 have died in

your state. what can you tell us about the state of affairs in your state today? >> well, you know, we mourn those who have died and we're happy we have not lost more. but ohioans have done what they needed to do. i've always told them that it's not the orders we put out, it's what they do. and they control really our destiny. so we have flattened this curve. we've got to keep doing this for a while. but we're certainly starting to make plans about how we come out of this how we move forward. >> and i do want to talk about that. but you took early action. you were canceling events before you had any confirmed cases. what informed your thinking at the time? >> well, i have a great health director, dr. amy acton and she was telling me about this problem in january and what was coming. and then, frankly, we had, as you say, the arnold classic was

coming up. it was a big event. i don't think anyone nationwide had canceled a big event. but when we look at this, we really thought it doesn't make any sense to go ahead. 60,000 spectators coming in a relatively small area, not just sporting events, but almost a trade show, so to speak, and from 80 different countries. so it made absolutely no sense and i think it was the right decision and the mayor of columbus, you know, he was with me every step of the way. and he held right in there and did the right thing as well. so i think it was the right decision. but it was a very tough decision then. now, when you look back on it, i guess it looks like a no-brainer, but it was really stuff then. >> when you look at what you've done so far, what do you believe has worked and what has not? >> well, i think, you know, we

lack the tools, all the tools that we need, obviously. in a sense that we don't have a lot of testing, but i don't think anybody has a lot of testing. so what has worked is social distancing. the things that people can control, the things that we can control. people have done it by and large. there's always some exceptions, but people have really done this. and i think we did it early enough. it seemed really early when we did it. it seemed premature, i'm sure, to many people. but looking back, it was the right decision. we made the right decision i think at the right time. but the credit goes to the people of ohio. they've done it. they've hung in there. and, you know, it's not easy. >> among the actions that you've taken, a ban on nonessential surgeries in your state, including abortions. the american college of obstetricians and gien colyneco says several weeks or days may

increase risks or make it completely in accessible. what do you say to ohioans who are in a time-sensitive situation seeking that care? >> well, the truth is this matter is now in court, so the courts are controlling this. federal courts are controlling this. and we issued a simple order, which, you know, talked about elective surgeries. we do not have enough personal protection equipment. if you asked me what is the one thing that we really scrambled to get, it's the personal protection equipment. so this order was to preserve that. and i think one of the big lessons of this when we come out of this is we never want to be in a position again in this country where we don't produce personal protection equipment and other essential medical things here in this country. depending on getting them out of china or some other country is just pretty tough. we don't ever want to be in that position again. >> president trump is putting together a second task force, one that looks at reopening the

economy. take a listen. >> but it would be nice to be able to open with a big bang and open up our country, certainly most of our country, and i think we're going to do that soon. and hopefully we're going to be opening up. opening very, very soon, i hope. i want to get it open as soon as possible. this country was meant to be open and vibrant. >> governor, when will you know that it is time to reopen your state? >> well, we've been working on this today, actually. and, you know, i think one of the things that people need to understand is that we're not going to flip a switch and everything is going to get back to normal, until we get a vaccine, until we get a way to prevent this, things are not going to be totally normal. we're going to ease into it. we're going to try to set up a program where we do one step at a time and get us back. testing is an essential part of

that and we're increasing the ability to test now. the cleveland clinic that you referenced a moment ago, you know, they're up and running with tests. so is ohio state. so the university of cincinnati. so we're moving forward in the area of testing, but we're not quite there where we need to be at. but that's going to be an essential part of coming back. >> two weeks ago, ohio was number two in the nation for the most unemployment claims, 196,000. last week it got worse with 274,000 jobless claims in your state. obviously the federal government looking to take action. what can be done at the state level? >> well, i think the most important thing we can do quite candidly is to get it right as we go back in. and the thing i think that we need to recognize is it's not just the orders that i issue as governor or my health director issues. if people don't have confidence, if they don't think they're going to be safe, they're not going to go out, they're not

going to go out to a restaurant, so coming wup a plan, which we're working on now, which involves testing, which involves tracing, making sure that people have some confidence when they go out, frankly, that's more important than anything else we can do in regard to the economy and get people back working. >> you delayed your state's primary, and now people have 17 more days to vote in your mail-in only election. president trump has said mail-in voting is horrible and there's, quote, a tremendous potential for voter fraud. do you agree? >> well, we've had a lot of experience with this in ohio. you know, for a number of years we've voted for over 28, 30-day period of time. people can go in and vote in person. that's our normal tactic, normal thing we do. but the other thing is that people could vote absentee. so we have a good experience of voting absentee. people understand it. our election officials understand it very well. so it works in ohio and we don't

anticipate any real problems as we move forward on this election. >> governor dewine, last question. any lessons you've learned from this process that you would like to share with other state leaders? >> look, every state is different. i think every governor is trying to do what he or she can do, so i don't know that i have any particular lessons to share. i think the big long-term lessons for our country is we've got to invest more in public health and we've got to make sure we're making some of these things in the country. those are the two lessons i think we take away from this. >> all right, governor dewine, thank you. >> thank you. up next, health care workers from around the country are answering new york's calls for help. i'll talk to a nurse from utah about why she's made the cross-country trek and answered that call. ♪

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as new york remains the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, new york city mayor bill de blasio has been sounding alarms saying the city needs 45,000 more medical care workers by the end of april to help overrun hospitals and staff. staff that he says are going through hell. >> we still have to make sure that our hospitals can hold the line. i mean, this is, you know, our health care workers have been through hell. it has been war-like conditions. when you talk to the doctors and nurses who have been through this, they've never seen anything like it. we're not out of the woods at all in terms of protecting our

hospitals, making sure they can safer every life that can be saved. that's still the number one issue every day. >> i would like to bring in lynn huitt, an emergency room nurse from utah who answered the call for help and is volunteering in a hospital in the bronx. thanks so much for being with us at this time. you have done this before, you volunteered after 9/11, after hurricane sandy. why did you decide to join once again? >> i volunteered because i have worked 9/11, i was there that day in the emergency room and i went to haiti afterwards because i felt the need that the staffing and nursing, we all needed to be there. for this particular -- i don't know how you can say, an event or crisis, i definitely knew that new york was going to be hit hard when i started to hear in the beginning of march, i wanted to come back. i had been here for 20 years working as a nurse and then i had left the state and moved to southern utah with my husband,

and i knew my crew, my buds, my nursing friends who are all going to have a really rough time. so i felt the need to come. >> i am sure that they appreciate it, that you wanted to come. governor cuomo had something to say about this this week. take a listen. >> 9/11 was so devastating, so tragic, and then, in many ways, we lose so many more new yorkers to this silent killer. there was no explosion. but it was a silent explosion that just ripples through society. >> you have offered care in the wake of both of these crises. tell us what you're seeing every day at the hospital. >> oh, sadness. you know, there's one thing to be said when you go to a real emergency room and you're sick, so much of the time you are dealing with the families as

well, not only just the patient, and you're giving acute care. but the families are there. and what saddens me more than anything is that these patients that are dying or passing on, there's no family there for them. and i think that i'm a little emotional because i've been in nursing for over 30 years and it's probably the first time i've ever seen that we haven't been able to comfort the patient as much as we can because it's just no time. there's so many more patients. it's sad. it's really sad. >> i cannot imagine and we are relying on those of you who are offering the care to give us a window into what that looks like. so i thank you for sharing that with us. can you give us a sense of what morale is like in the hospital given that this is what nurses and doctors are facing? >> you know what, there's one thing, i think with any large group, whether it be military, whether it be the fire department during 9/11, whether

it be us now with nurses and doctors and everybody is -- it's the most incredible group of people you can be around. they're so motivated. our job is just to get there and do the job. we don't think about eating, we take care of the patients and all of a sudden if we have a minute break, we go and have something to eat. but we're there for the long haul and nurses, they're my buds. they've been my life for a long time as a career, but i wouldn't want to stand with anybody else but the people that i work with. they're strong, they're really strong. >> there are a lot of people like you who want to volunteer, who want to be a part of this effort. "the new york times" reported that as of wednesday there were over 90,000 medical care workers who volunteered to help new york, but the process was a little slow in order to vet all of these folks. can you give us a sense of what the process was like for you? >> so i'm a flight nurse and an emergency room nurse for a long time. so when i started to apply,

there's a lot of onboarding things that you have to go through. physicals and your certifications and your license, and it takes time. i do think in a situation like this, and it's just a suggestion, that it could be a countrywide system where we're all in the system and that we can be quickly deployed in terms of nursing ability to get somewhere much quicker. it is a delay. there is a couple of weeks worth of processing. and i think in a crisis like what happened in new york and what's happening all around the country, it needs to be quicker. 100% it needs to be quicker. i have so many of my friends saying can you help me get here quicker, which agency did you go through, which hospital, how did you do it, every day. for the last couple of weeks that i've been here. and it's a process. i get it. but it should be a lot easier. >> lynne, we are all greatful

for you, for your willingness to help and your service. thank you for taking the time to talk to us. >> thank you. it is hard right now, so let's take a deep breath. up next we're going to talk about it and hopefully leave you feeling a little better about things than when we started. uot. do it. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ embracing. and ensuring for others, especially now. this is why medicare from blue cross blue shield continues to improve what we can do for you. putting over 80 years of healthcare expertise into action. and making coverage even more accessible when it's needed most. here for you now, and always. this is the benefit of blue. puberty means personal space.

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's either. across the country, the death toll from covid-19 has been climbing. the number of confirmed cases go up. it's hard to avoid thought that behind every new figure is a human being who is suffering, while we try to stay safe in this time, you may notice a ching in how you and your loved ones and feeling and how emotions are harder to eidentif. here is discuss is rebecca schaefer. rebecca, i am so excited to talk to you about this. because i feel like it is something we can't talk about enough. there is of course the health crisis that is going on in the country and with i comes a

mental health crisis. people who have lost someone, who have experienced grief, it's easy to identify and there is a subtle, lingering feeling for so many of us. we are in a larger social context in this moment. how do you even an identify or begin to identify what it is you're feeling. >> yeah, first of all, thank you so much for having me on. i really appreciate it. we are all experiencing a collecti collective trauma right now. all of the sudden, life looks so much different than it did one day to the next last month. we are still reeling from it. what the reeling feeling is, what a lot of people are identifying with, and a lot of people don't have a death loss, the feeling is grief. feeling of wondering, you know, am i going to be okay? is everything going to be okay

in the end? is anything going to look normal gep? how are my loved ones going to be with potentially someone missing from that dynamic? how are my kids going to be? am i going to be normal? it's normal for people who are dealinging with brief. we are e seeing now n past, i don't think we really as an owe sighty had a good language to talk b about grief in ways that pull everybody who is suffering from it out of their isolation, the reality is, now we do. we all can identify what grief feels like, what anticipatory grief feels like, what the future holds and the anxiety not knowing the answer. the feeling of all of us feeling like we're suffering a the same time. and the feeling of actual grief from death loss, and so many of us, sadly, are going through right now.

so many are dieing from this vicious virus. this is a feeling that everybody is feeling every second from every day right now. and i think it's worth honoring. >> you talked about a shared language, rebecca, and i feel so many of us are at a loss for words to try to describe what it is we're feeling. how do we find a way to communicate around this communal grief? >> i think good news is that it's not going to be that hard to broach the topic with people these days. all of us are feeling i. my mom was killed in a car accident more than a decade ago and my dad died of a heart attack a few years after that, and i was reeling in isolation. i feel like i was really hard to talk about grief and loss and death and confusion and fear of the future. most of the people around me could not identify with it.

but the fact of the matter is, every single the person in world right now with probably identify with feelings. i think if there is any good thing to come out of this, as a society, we are going to come out of it moving forward. we are all going to be more open moving forward, to here stories, and people's experiences and helping them threw it. we ourselves really need the help. we need to pull each other in rate now. more than ever. and the way to do that is if we are willing to share our personal stories, our personal experiences in ways that are vulnerable, and raw and very real. and i think you see that, all over social media. all over the twitter feed you're reading a the 3:00 p.m. when you're freaking out because you're dealing with grief. all the other people are too. all it takes is reaching tout somebody b to start a conversation. i think you're going to be surprised who comes back to you.

>> more empathy is something we can all use. i have about 30 seconds. what can we learn at modern loss. >> at modern loss, we have been publishing narrowly focused pieces about the long arc of grief and loss for nearly seven years. we publish personal essays, a multitude of resources, legal, financial, theiraputic. >> thank you very much for the work do you and for your time today. that wraps it up for this house. my cold leak joshua johnson picks up the coverage at the top of the hour. i will be back at the 4:00 p.m. eastern. i will talk about what it was like to give birth in the middle of a pandemic. here about her experience coming

up here on msnbc. ... won't be a new thing. and it won't be their first experience with social distancing. overcoming challenges is what defines the military community. usaa has been standing with them, for nearly a hundred years. and we'll be here to serve for a hundred more.

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