i'm byron pitts. what about our economy. tonight, in our nation's war against covid-19, a call to arms by some of the biggest companies on the planet. walmart, amazon, and other business behemoths announcing they need workers. but for the estimated 14 million jobs in jeopardy, those workers, their families, need help right now. >> hello. >> hey, man, this is byron pitts from "nightline." >> how are you doing? >> it's been just a few hours now since danny smiley got the news he'd been dreading. his job of 17 years gone. >> just found out today i was let go. no severance package, insurance benefits end at the end of the month. >> in the blink of an eye, the army veteran and father of two, an athletic trainer in kansas, now one of too many americans left staring down an uncertain road. >> and i don't know how i'm going to pay my bills. >> we just don't know. i think not knowing is what the problem is. >> people are going to end up losing their homes, and, you know, we don't know if we might end up being one of them. >> the repe

thank you for joining us, i'm byron pitts.the u.s., mandates of shelter in place, coast-to-coast. first responders in a mad dash to respond to covid-19. this as italy sees the largest jump in the death toll, 627 people dead in one day. we caution you, some of the images are disturbing. >> they are doing their best, but maybe is not enough. >> reporter: urgent warnings coming from italy's overwhelmed medical community, telling the rest of the world, prepare. this stream of italian army trucks removing the dead, haunting reality of the inundated morgues. >> there is no health system which can take care of all these patients. the hospitals are overloaded and full of patients, especially theithe icu. >> reporter: this doctor works in the icu department in the lombardy, italy reasonable where covid-19 has been soaring. >> in the richest area of italy, so we had 800 icu at the home, we have 1,000 ventilated patients. >> reporter: he says each patient requires two to three members of the hospital staff. >> all of their routine surgic

thank you for joining us, i'm byron pitts. tonight, federal financial aid is another step closer to reality. the senate, late tonight, passed a record, $2 trillion stimulus bill to soften the fallout from the covid-19 crisis. bottom line, it will provide checks to some taxpayers of up to $1200. the house still has to vote on the bill friday. all of this is as we're on the collision course to become the new epicenter of the pandemic. this as experts pay close attention to what worked and what failed in other countries. this week, the giants in south korea live streaming cautious first steps toward normalcy. empty seats lining the stadium. face masks a new part of the uniform. as deaths around the world from covid-19 surpass 20,000, all eyes are on south korea, which appears to stand apart from the rest of the world. last month, the country had seen 909 new cases in a single day, but today south korea is reporting only 100 new cases. this, as infections in western countries soar by the thousands. it's believed korea's two-fold a

i'm byron pitts. frankly put, the war against covid-19 is deepening here at home and much of the world. the number of confirmed cases like the number of deaths in the u.s. is increasing. tonight new york has replaced washington state as the epicenter in our country. also it's worth noting the army to confront this viral enemy is also growing. soldiers of all stripes with both courage and creativity. >> this is a crisis. we have to hold the fronts. >> reporter: dr. john bookvar has been a doctor for 20 years. he's a brain surgeon at one of new york city's most well-known hospitals. but now he's not working in the o.r. he's headed to the e.r. the front line in the war against covid-19. >> i'm a neurosurgeon, and frankly i haven't intubated a patient in many years. >> reporter: and that means relearning emergency medical care. >> we are soldiers fighting this invisible virus. and we enter the trenches every day when we go into the hospital, whether it's in our emergency rooms, whether it's in our intensi

jennifer ashton sat down with abc's byron pitts to answer more of your questions. >> you're hearing peopleo it the flu and my answer is it's not a competition. the seasonal influenza in this country kills 20,000 people right now is the latest cdc estimate every single year in the u.s. we can't compare it to opioid overdoses, we can't compare it to suicides or car accidents. this is serious. most people will recover on their own, that's a very, very important fact. but in terms of looking at these percentages, we still don't have a good grasp on that yet because the u.s. data hasn't been compiled or released yet. >> don't panic, but no one should take this lightly? >> i don't think in medicine and science we take anything that can result in death lightly, ever. is it the end of the world? no. is it nothing? no. and where it fits, somewhere in the middle, we don't know yet. we heard dr. tony fauci say this is 10 times as deadly as seasonal flu. if that's even close to true, we're looking at a major viral pathogen. so so much is unknown. this is not even three months old yet. and because we d