jonas salk developed the polio vaccine. it's poignant considering what we are dealing with now. we have more on what we can learn more from then. >> reporter: if we're going to talk about history best to begin in the present and what strange times these are. it used to be we looked at masked men suspiciously. now with the threat of covid-19, it's the other way around. if it feels as if we've entered unfamiliar territory it is only unfamiliar to us in this generation. small pox alone killed 500 million people before it was eradicated in the first half of the 20th century the biggest killer infectious diseases. there was nothing we could do about them. >> we've been really fortunate to live in a time relatively free of the scariest pandemic diseases of human history. >> professor conas from uc berkeley is a medical historian. if the world seems scary now look back she says at polio. >> movie theaters closed. church services canceled. festivals canceled. kids kept home from school. swimming pools closed. it shut down american towns. >> reporter: this footage comes from a documentar

that are liable to get people killed, because he thinks he's a medical genius dude, you're not jonas salkbegan this whole outbreak by repeatedly ignoring dire warnings from public health officials and claiming it would go away like a miracle now, over 50,000 americans are dead and at least 26 million are out of work. and the president is still insisting there will be a miraculous ending. over the weekend he tweeted, "i never said that the coronavirus is a hoax. i said that the democrats and the way they lied about it are a hoax." also it did start with one person from china and then grew and will be a miracle end. no, it's not a miracle end if in the process people die or lose their jobs they wouldn't have called it the "miracle on ice" if the entire american hockey team had drowned in lake placid also this will end, not becausee collective efforts we're making as a society to slow the spread. you know, hard work and sacrifice. but trump can't recognize either of those trump is the kind of guy who if you slaved all day in the kitchen to make him a four-course meal, would finish it and say

jonas salk said you should be as free as the sun.he ended the polio terror, measles tear, and others. of the government could not step in because there is another particular aspect of the modern era, the neoliberal. 'su remember ronald reagan sunny smile and his little maxim about how government is the problem, not the solution. so the government can't enter. there were some efforts, nevertheless, to try to prepare for this. right now in new york and other places, the doctors and nurses agonizinged to make decisions about who to kill. not a nice decision to make. because they simply don't have equipment, and the main lack is to leaders. a huge shortage of ventilators. the obama administration did make an effort to try to prepare for this and this kind of dramatically reveals the kind of factors that are leading the cataststrophe. theyy contracted with a a small company that was producing -- i call i it a low-costst fit to later -- ventilator. the compmpany was boughtht out a larger one, , which makes fancy, expensive ventilators. pro

you are tempted to come back and say, well, imagine if we had treated jonas salk's research that wayand the dissemination of his lifesaving creation. >> oh, absolutely, brian. think of every discovery, including antiretrovirals for hiv and all the medications for cancer. it was only through a coordinated federal response in partnership with researchers, public health, and health care workers, that we were able to really tackle some of our world's most thorny diseases. and i truly -- i just -- i listen to these briefings, and as a physician, i just kind of shake my head, trying to understand what someone watching, just a member of the public, is exposis supposed to y from this. what do we do if we don't even have agreement that we need universal testing? >> senator, those around him have often talked about his craving of approval, whether it's from foreign leaders or domestic figures who rival him for time and attention, media time and attention. his preoccupation these days with andrew cuomo of new york, it was just this weekend he made the white house press room and his vice preside

this is different from jonas salk, university of pittsburgh doctor who came up with the polio vaccine. these are big companies and they're really on the case >> and pfizer, the "wall street journal" today spent a lot of time talking about pfizer's various efforts as well in terms of something to treat the disease in a significant way that they hope to at least get moving by the summer >> very hopeful. i saw that >> and a vaccine and all the efforts pfizer is making as well real quickly because we're moving so fast, the municipal liquidity facility does include municipalities, counties, cities as well. for a minute, i said otherwise one other thought, carl, when it comes to the ppe program, the banks have been asking for a lot more disclosure, perhaps than even the sba wants or needs, but the banks somehow seem to want to protect themselves. that's what i have been hearing. let's not forget this new main street lending program is also going to be using banks as well, which will obtain a 5% share of whatever -- of whatever they're loaning and then the remaining 95% will go to the fed's