hello there i'm an electron you're watching in question broadcasting live from r.t. american national headquarters in washington d.c. we want to welcome our viewers from all around the world tonight here are the top stories at this hour straight ahead a full report on the current situation of the coronavirus epidemic from the sunshine state florida officials now telling residents to shelter in place we'll get you the latest on that plus the trucking industry is in overdrive working long hours to meet the demands a panic shopping due to the virus we're going to discuss that and finally jeanne editing can this be helpful and finding

a treatment for cope at 19 and maybe even preventing the virus or show you what's being done in the battle to find a cure all right let's boost your i hear. the state of florida a top tourist destination is getting hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic the city of miami and international destination has now ordered people to stay home as the cases of the disease continue to rise our correspondent john huggy brings us the latest numbers and how workers on the front lines are putting their own lives at risk. there were still some stores open last week starbucks was operating of course restaurants were still open and serving delivery and takeout well now that area's really shut down the number of coronavirus cases has gone from 214. last week to

now more than 1700 and growing as of today in the city of miami issued an emergency stay at home order that went into effect at 11 59 pm last night so basically that requires miami residents to stay home to stay in their homes to stay in their apartments unless they're doing something essential like going to get gas going to the grocery store or if like us journalists they're going to work residents are allowed to go outside to exercise i saw some of that today but according to this order they must follow the social distancing measures and guidelines which for the most part from what i saw people are in some cases you know joggers running together not exactly but with that people can't go to any of the parks the beaches are basically any locations that are closed by city and county order whether it's here in miami dade or going further north into florida as we've been reporting the beaches night clubs bars restaurants and businesses really have been shut down not

only here in miami but most of south florida broward and palm beach counties among us as the number of cases of corona virus continues to grow here in florida as a lot of concern about that florida governor rhonda santas has an issue any type of statewide shelter in place order something he has taken heat for as we talked about yesterday but instead he's really encouraged people to self isolate and at the very least follow the social distancing guidelines he has ordered basically at this point any want to riving from new york to florida though to go into a mandatory 14 day quarantine something countries like israel for instance require for any international travelers or any israelis returning to the country the problem here however is trying to enforce that rule there is no way really to enforce that in israel i believe they have a way to track that people and actually see if they're leaving their homes they also have of course a ton of police and military on the streets and forcing the rule. and here in

florida not exactly and with that there were made grave concern serious concern about coronavirus cases here in florida basically exploding as now new testing is being done and we're starting to get a better idea a better handle on the overall situation which is really what a group of 75 top doctors and nurses in my county wrote in an open letter to residents earlier this week basically pleading with people to stay at home and in an effort to try to stop the spread of the virus look that's easier said than done here in florida with many people wanting to enjoy the beautiful weather which is what we're experiencing right now particularly those who are younger and feeling like they are not as much risk as much risk for getting sick but that said they're not to me and so far 5 university of tampa students have tested positive i mentioned that yesterday for the coronavirus and one reportedly at florida international university which is here in miami. but all that said among the stories we continue to hear about and rightly so are the workers on the front lines

of this war so to speak and that is what i'm talking about i'm talking about grocery store workers i'm talking about the delivery drivers city and county essential employees the 1st responders police fire paramedics and of course the doctors and nurses who are putting their own lives at risk to help others but talk about the on some heroes in this battle they certainly are and speaking of the grocery workers i know i got to wrap up here publix the florida based supermarket chain is now installing plexiglas barriers between customers employees to try to stop the spread of this virus that's going to start this weekend will be done over the next 2 weeks well about 2 wow heidi live for us in miami with the new norm. as americans rush to the stores then what can only be described as panic buying retailers are struggling to keep their shelves stocked meantime truckers who deliver around 70 percent of all freight tonnage in america. working overtime to

meet the demand in the time of coronavirus now 10 and a half 1000000000 tons of goods are rushing by on the highways every year even with a severe trucker shortage in america now some states are even lifting driver restrictions for truckers so they can help keep our store stocked with toilet paper food and other life necessities but these drivers are being met with new struggles to their jobs because of coronavirus so joining us to explain is dave heller he is the vice president of government affairs at the truckload carriers association dave good to see you so 1st i got to say truckers are some of these unsung heroes during this virus outbreak so hats off to them can you tell us how these men or women are doing i mean given that so many restaurants and truck stops are being closed down due to the outbreak i mean these are some new roadblocks for them right i mean they can't stop and get food like they normally do. well no you're right it's a challenge in our industry is used to rising to the occasion if you will in

meeting the challenge and i'm going to do that thrives and be flexible in their meeting those challenges those restaurants that may be closed or restaurants that are now serving just a gowda or for delivery if you will there delivering them out to the trucks west the areas that may be closed we're facing those challenges head on and we're addressing the really case by case basis there are other segments of the nation that are actually catering to the city because they recognize. their drivers are doing for this country they were essential if they're showing that they're delivering the goods and services to our stores and restocking the shuttles for all of the panic buying that's in the nation. and dave the last time i talked to you there was there are about 3500000 truckers on the road even at that number america has a driver shortage so is this outbreak making that shortage worse or will this new demand and in with so many people being laid off of other kinds of jobs will that help move new people into your industry. well 3500000 drivers on the road today

represents about one in 16 u.s. jobs are involved in the trucking industry is the number one job in 29 states so in saying that you know we're relying on that 3.5 right now as it is what it will show is putting trucking in that light f. rankly says it's the front line it's an essential employed this country i mean hopefully it opened some doors i mean this is an industry that averages $53000.00 per year is an average salary so it shows it's a great career to be involved in a good opportunity but opportunity to represent your nation and restock those shows because it's just showing the very essential need that dr klein has of that job looks like i mean coronavirus or not looks like it's still in high demand so if people are looking for work i mean that's that's one way to go is that it certainly is and it's an opportunity as as we get through this issue that this country is facing right now with the current it's something that people would see to explore and getting more involved in and find it

a rewarding career for them as they get into this and look for something that they're going to do a full time or something they can do for a lifetime. and dave i've actually heard that some states are considering at least temporarily lifting some restrictions on the trucking industry such as you know how many hours a driver can be on the road in order to keep up with this new demand to keep store shelves full is that a wise thing to do i mean what other governmental accommodations need to be made right now during this crisis. well remember we're dealing with a situation that this nation has never faced before so insane that we have to take some so moves or make some changes to how we deliver freight to this country and it's not just the states this is a national issue in the department of transportation is reacting to the issues that they're presented you have for instance lifting the federal hours of service regulations will make freight can be extradited to the stores that need them to be areas that are that basically the stock shelves are empty so we're actually redirecting those trucks and putting them in the forefront so that oil

a paper cleaning supplies food you name is being put back on the show so men are consumed by them so yes this is a different time in the o.t. is reacting to this issue as they see fit which is a good thing because it's they're showing that we can adapt what this nation needs and how the drivers keeping their spirits up i mean it seems like a solitary kind of job to begin with even when the roads were packed with traffic but now the roads are pretty lonely there are no cars out there no restaurants are open i mean it's good for them to be able to buzz on by and get to their destination but what are they doing to keep themselves healthy gyms or clothes they can't stop off and shower like they used to i mean how are they keeping themselves saying on these long hauls. true and in many cases social distancing is not a problem with whatsoever in saying that you know this is a job where there used to. encountered in traffic outside of atlanta per se but now there's kind of flowing right through that because there's relatively little

traffic on the highways right now so they're doing things that the world has changed so they're involved in things like social media netflix if you go to your streaming. streaming television programs for her say so the world is different don't forget or remember each one of these drivers as friends and families that they're interacting with on a daily basis or they're looking forward to getting home to when they do i mean they're looking for to seeing and what about the in terms of of what is the industry talking about how to keep these guys and women i should say healthy away from where they're hotspots of infection like new york for example is certainly in and i think v.h.s. is outlined on a truck driver professional truck drivers an essential employee and in keeping them healthy is 1st and foremost without a doubt because obviously if something happens to those drivers those goods don't get delivered so we're keeping them at the forefront encouraging them to stay healthy keep in touch with with how their bodies feeling making sure they get the utmost recuperative rest when they're driving and that involves pulling into the

some of those rest areas and getting adequate arche so that they can rest and recuperate once they deliver those loads it was important to stay in tune about what they're seeing and experiencing on the road so that you know this is a reminder to thank a driver when you pass them by on the road dave heller from the truckload carriers association thank you so much for sharing that insight with us. thanks michelle i appreciate. the number of deaths from coronavirus in spain has officially surpassed the total in china as of today spain has had some 3434 deaths compared to china's 3281 fatalities just in the last 24 hours spain recorded more than 700 deaths making it the 2nd highest in the world trailing italy who now reported 6800 deaths so far. and then over in china the epicenter of the virus that city now reporting no new cases though china announced it will lift

the lockdown after a significant decrease in the number of infections some are locked up measures will also be lifted for other cities across who may profits. right take a look at this as demand for air travel takes airlines around the world are grounding entire fleets what you're looking at there are hundreds of commercial planes parked at a remote desert facility in victor real california that's just outside of los angeles airlines in the nation across the continue to struggle obviously with the average flights just over 20 percent full that figure is expected to drop even lower to the teens 5 this weekend. and in the midst of this world crisis the hope is sometimes found in the most unexpected places a stone mason working in the basement of the washington national cathedral here in d.c. discovered some mysterious boxes turns out they were containing 5000 respirator masks

masks were reportedly purchased about 10 years ago during the bird flu outbreak the cathedral's reverend says this shows how god truly works in mysterious ways. through. coming out of this cathedral even though the building is king. built a lot of a lot of individual. the mass are brand new having never been opened or used the reverend says they are donating the masks to hospitals across d.c. so that's pretty good stuff and the world health organization officials there say at least 20 co-wrote a virus vaccines are in the works so that's good stuff too with the race to find a cure now on a global scale details coming up right after this stay tuned. is

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these scientific community is working around the clock on prevention and treatments in the face of 19 us company sin bio beta is partnering with leap by bayer to bring awareness on the private efforts to develop and tracks and thetic biology solutions impacting both preventative measures and future treatments of this virus so currently there are 66 programs working on 3 different approaches 7 companies on repurpose saying of the existing drugs we have as the 1st line of defense then 16

organizations working on antibodies that can be manufactured and used on patients to produce infection. and 43 entity is currently developing a vaccine these technologies followed a timeline for a good many factual practices and this could get potentially go on until 2021 so to discuss these therapies and initiatives we spoke to john cumbrous the c.e.o. and founder of sin bio beta a little bit earlier here's what he had to say. and one of the most initiatives that came out after ebola was something by dark out of the department of defense a pandemic preparedness program and that aligned with companies and universities for this exact thing and they ran a competition to try to develop. antibodies against such things as sars over the last 11 weeks so they did this as a demo last year and they actually did it in real time this year with scientists at

vanderbilt university who took blood from patients in seattle who recovered and searched their blood to find the b. cells that produce these antibodies that would attack the virus wow so they're already moving forward with that with with the blood from the recovered patients that is absolutely fascinating and now private efforts they are focusing on breakthrough technologies can you 1st tell us exactly what synthetic biology is and how it might accelerate the process to developing these antibodies and treatments against. it so that it biology is a movement to make biology easier to engineer you're sitting these rapid advances in the ability to read d.n.a. to write d.n.a. and d.n.a. and that's enabling all of these new applications in terms of designing building and testing cells that particular functions and that could be anything from the food that we eat to the materials that we wear to consumer goods to some of the

most pressing issues around how we can fight off infection and improve health care by making. drugs and actually living medicines that can fight off some of these viruses and since you're working on this sort of technology how does it accelerate the process of developing antibodies and things of that nature. so antibodies are the 2nd line of defense if you look at the info graphic that we've published this morning with leaps 5 it outlines the 3 lines of defense that people are currently taking and the timeline that it's going to get there the 1st as you showed in your report just now is using drugs that have already been approved to re applying them to this virus the 2nd is creating and people and antibodies you and i make them all the time against the common cold against infections that get into have bodies the trouble with this novel coronavirus is that we have not seen it before and have bodies do not have those antibodies to be able to fight it off so

there are a number of ways that we can get to these antibodies and we showed that on the info graphic the 1st way is that we can take the blood from patients who already had covered 19 and they've recovered that means that their bodies that the cells of producing these antibodies that are gonna neutralize that is kill the whole or not let into your body that saz kovi to virus which causes convict 19 the 2nd way is by taking mice and giving those mice a human immune system after you give those genetically engineered mice a human immune system you can inject the mice with a virus and all with all with a small amount of the virus and the mouse starts to produce those antibodies against the against the government 19 virus and the 3rd way is to take existing antibodies that have been developed against previous versions of the virus so saas one that we had this is now sars 2 that we're having coded 19 as

a disease that's caused by this virus and they. our enzymes and bodies that we've already created against the 1st virus and there are companies out there out there like distributed io that's now evolving those existing antibodies and treating them against the new virus wow and dr converse gene editing and crisper technology has in the past they've proven effective for example in a case 2015 where young girl was cured of leukemia for example can gene editing be applied here to this current outbreak. absolutely so there are 2 nish a device that i know of where they using crisper and geno getting in some way against this current outbreak the 1st is an amazing company and an amazing technology mammoth i a sciences here in the bay area and they're using crisp as a diagnostics tool and i have

a column on full dot com and you can find an in-depth interview that i did with trevor the c.e.o. of mammoth and you can see how they're using a molecular scissors which is what crisp air is to the viral genome in a specific place it's very specific and you can design these tests for any particular d.n.a. sequence so you can design a very specific test and 2 weeks ago it was actually went through and showed the u.c.s.f. medical center with dr charles chu they actually implemented the test and they could cut down the testing time by 4 hours using this new crisp of base diagnostics approach a 2nd way that people are using this is just in a study that came out last week from stanford university stanley she has also designed a crisper that can kind of very specifically the sars coby to viral genome and very specifically it can remove up to 90 percent of the viral of the virus that is in human cells so some amazing advances that we're seeing in crisper technology being

applied to this while hats off to you dr john cumbers of 7 bio beta thank you for doing this. work and we'll be keeping an eye on it and see how this can help all of mankind hopefully thank you dr converse. all right let's head over to regina ham over at sports h.q. regina one canadian athlete is showing that he is going to define his odds to achieve his dreams what are those dreams who is this guy he's a really interesting guy and you know athletes like him face many challenges during their careers but for him he does not let his disability hold him back from making waves in the sports world. this man is doing some pretty incredible things right here his name is canadian athlete what he belfort the 23 year old a multi-disciplinary athlete who is wheelchair bound due to cerebral palsy but belfort surprises all the odds he plays basketball and trees with canadian players in the hopes of one day becoming a paralympian for his country he performs pullups on the rings which is pretty incredible you're going to see that here in a minute this is just utterly amazing he started playing basketball though when he

was 10 years old and now a leaven years later he's hoping to one day represent canada at the olympics. compete of a team come back at the canada games and train a team and he has some strong thoughts on what it means to be a disabled athlete take a listen most people have or misguidance or some people have is. not the sort of frogs are all. but we're also. hard to do what you do but is that for. most people. a way to have a sort of beauty which we don't leave because with it whatever you do i could probably do it too just takes more time. or so. now live sports are mostly postponed but that gives us a chance to take a trip down memory lane to see what happened on this day and sports 172 u.c.l.a. bruins defeated florida state 8176 to win the title finishing the season with

a 30 no record 2616 year old american figure skater can be minor hold an upset. and at the world championships in calgary canada she made a whopping 7 triple jumps to the u.s. teammate sasha cohen who placed 3rd 2000 nato tennessee women's bastille coach pat summitt and her 100 and suitably torn it with a 7852 rat of purdue putting them in the regional semifinal some as one of the all time winningest coaches in women's basketball and is regarded as a pioneer of the game. and apartment sounds like a pretty good place to run if you can't do it outside that's what chinese sports and that is why joe did well in isolation she woke up one morning at 5 am and decided to run 10 kilometers which is 6 point one miles all inside her small apartment residents of that are not allowed to gather outside as part of chinese restrictions regarding the coronavirus yang said she keeps up her exercise with bridges and planks to be active zuba certified instructor said it took about one out of hours to complete the 10 kilometer run she hopes that once restrictions are

lifted she can start training one day for a marathon and manila going back to this day in sports i have one more fun factor you on this day march 25th in 1982 ways gretzky was the 1st n.h.l. are to score 200 points in the season which we know wayne because we have a hometown guy over he was trying to beat his all time record so you know it's interesting that could i mean i'm kind of torn because i live here now but i grew up in l.a. and we were all about gretzky in the eighty's so kind of torn i am a flyers fan so i root for only because i like him as a person i just don't like it we'll. leave it right there all right thank you so much for jim that is it for us right now make sure you keep up with everything in question at all times by downloading our brand new free app it's called portable t.v. you can watch us 247 it's a pretty good looking up go check out you can follow me on twitter at military and from member to question more i will see you back here tomorrow starting to look like.

my. the world is driven by shaped by one person. or dares thinks. we dare to ask. trade and investment to become magic spells to come get you cannot make development

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is boom bust the one business show you can't afford to miss there monteith aopa in washington coming up markets rally for a 2nd straight day while countries around the globe plan more lockdowns more spending we'll talk to economics professor richard wolffe about the latest stimulus plan on capitol hill and if it will be enough to save the u.s. remember thresh an or even worse than there is a global rush to get more coben 1000 test.