JUDY WOODRUFF: Good evening. I'm Judy Woodruff.
On the "NewsHour" tonight: a risky reopening.
Restrictions are eased in all 50 states, despite
falling short of CDC requirements amid a continually
rising death toll.
Then: the state of the State Department. Concerns
abound following the ouster of an inspector
general, and Secretary Pompeo offers denials
of wrongdoing.
Plus: an uncertain future. An inside look
at predictive modeling for COVID-19 and why
new infections from the disease are so difficult
to foresee.
DR. CHRISTOPHER MURRAY, Director of Health
Metrics, University Of Washington: It is a
reasonable strategy to try to look at models,
like the economists do, which build in how
individuals, local government, state government,
are going to respond to the problems as they
unfold.
JUDY WOODRUFF: All that and more on tonight's
"PBS NewsHour."
(BREAK)
JUDY WOODRUFF: The reopening of America is
now in full swing, from auto plants to theme
parks. It is happening at different rates
in different states, as the national death
toll reaches 93,000.
Stephanie Sy begins our coverage tonight.
STEPHANIE SY: A new phase in the fight to
breathe life into an economy ravaged by COVID-19.
As of today, all 50 states have taken varying
steps to reopen.
In Texas, where only minor restrictions remain
in place, children are back at day care, and
youth programs have opened, ahead of the summer
break.
WHITT MELTON, Co-Owner, Legendary Black Belt
Academy: It's been really good to bring back
normalcy for the kiddos. You know, we're really
excited to get everybody back, but we want
to -- we're really trying to make sure we
do it the right way and the safe way.
STEPHANIE SY: By contrast, in New York, it
is far from business as usual. Retail stores
are still closed to the public, only now beginning
to offer curbside services. And public parks,
like this one in Brooklyn, are getting creative
about how to distance New Yorkers eager to
bask in spring weather.
BRITTANY DEGIROLAMO, New York Resident: The
park basically just put down some circles
to help people just see what six feet apart
looks like, so it's easy for us to chill and
not be worried about that.
STEPHANIE SY: Starting tomorrow, the state
will also allow religious services with up
to 10 people to resume. In Orlando, Florida,
tourists roamed around stores and restaurants
inside Disney World, as the theme park began
welcoming patrons.
Visiting a nursing home with Vice President
Mike Pence today in Orlando, Republican Governor
Ron DeSantis defended his decision to open
faster than others, and he denied that an
expert was fired for refusing to manipulate
data to support his decision.
GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): We have succeeded.
And I think that people just don't want to
recognize it because it challenges their narrative,
it challenges their assumption, so they have
got to try to find a boogeyman.
Maybe it's that there are black helicopters
circling the Department of Health. If you
believe that, I got a bridge in Brooklyn I'd
like to sell you.
STEPHANIE SY: For weeks, states have taken
steps toward lifting lockdowns, with mixed
messages coming from federal authorities.
After much delay, the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention has quietly released
a 60-page document with guidance on testing
and reopening, but it generally steers clear
of language on mandatory rules. It includes
cleaning and social distancing recommendations
for bars and restaurants, suggests staggered
shifts and physical barriers to prevent contact
in the workplace, and calls for limited ridership
on public transportation, with required face
coverings for transit workers.
Schools in areas that meet certain metrics
for lower virus transmission are encouraged
to space desks at least six feet apart, conduct
daily temperature screenings, and serve lunch
in the classroom, if they reopen. Notably
left out of the CDC document, any mention
of how places of worship should resume activity
safely.
Overseas, another glimpse of what moves toward
normalcy might look like came from South Korea,
where high school students returned to class
for the first time today.
But, as more countries move to loosen restrictions,
in Geneva, the World Health Organization warned
the pandemic continues.
TEDROS ADHANOM GHEBREYESUS, WHO Director General:
In the last 24 hours, there have been 106,000
cases reported to WHO, the most in a single
day since the outbreak began.
STEPHANIE SY: The head of the WHO said, while
the virus may be slowing down in developed
nations, poorer countries are now seeing more
infections.
For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Stephanie Sy.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And another top story today:
the firing of the State Department inspector
general, Steve Linick, who had an active investigation
ongoing of the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo.
The secretary answered reporters' questions
today.
And our foreign affairs correspondent, Nick
Schifrin, joins me now.
So, Nick, what did Secretary Pompeo have to
say?
NICK SCHIFRIN: Pompeo denied everything the
reporters asked him related to Steve Linick,
and he actually joked that he should have
fired Steve Linick in the past.
Senior officials who are politically appointed
around Pompeo have told me that they consider
Linick a bit of a partisan hack, in their
words. And Pompeo today tried to turn the
tables, instead pointing the finger at the
top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee who is trying to investigate why
Pompeo fired Linick.
MIKE POMPEO, U.S. Secretary of State: This
is all coming through the office of Senator
Menendez.
I don't get my ethics guidance from a man
who was criminally prosecuted, case number
15-155, New Jersey Federal District Court.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Now, for the record, it is
not only Menendez who is investigating the
firing. It is also House Foreign Affairs Committee
Chairman Eliot Engel and other Democrats.
But Menendez did respond to Pompeo, Judy,
in a statement accusing him of firing Linick,
as Linick, as you said, was investigating
Pompeo, and said the secretary was -- quote
-- "using diversion tactics by attempting
to smear me."
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, Nick, as Senator Menendez
mentions, Linick investigating Pompeo, what
do we know he was investigating? What do we
know about that?
NICK SCHIFRIN: So, congressional officials
tell me that Linick was investigating personal
matters related to Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo and his wife, Susan, whether they had
improperly used either political appointees
or even diplomatic security officials to basically
run errands for them.
And an official said that there's been an
undercurrent of those accusations the last
few years.
And I should say, Judy, I have spoke ton former
CIA officials while Pompeo was director of
CIA, and they said they heard some of the
same things.
Now, today, Pompeo said he didn't know whether
the investigation into the personal matters
existed, but, at the same time, denied the
underlying substance behind them.
MIKE POMPEO: I have no sense of what investigations
were taking place inside the inspector general's
office. Couldn't possibly have retaliated
for all the things.
I have seen the various stories that someone
was walking my dog to sell arms to my dry
cleaner. I mean, it's all just crazy.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Nick, there is another
question out there. And that is whether the
inspector general Linick was also looking
into U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Yes, Judy, this is about the
war in Yemen.
Some 100,000 people died in that war, and
it's being fought by a coalition led by Saudi
Arabia against an Iran-backed Houthi rebel
in Yemen. And those Saudis are armed by U.S.
weapons authorized by U.S. officials.
Now, those sales were at first blocked by
a Republican senator and then by Menendez.
But they restarted when the administration
declared an emergency, that they had to get
those arms sales.
And, last summer, Engel and other Democrats
called for an investigation into that emergency
by Steve Linick, the I.G. They pointed out,
why did you need to call an emergency if the
arms weren't actually going to get there for
two years?
And, today, we heard from Speaker of the House
Nancy Pelosi, who brought up that accusation.
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): They declared a
fake emergency in order to initiate the sales,
and then -- and that may have been part of
the investigation. That's what I'm very concerned
about.
NICK SCHIFRIN: We know that Linick was investigating
that declared emergency.
Pompeo declined to be interviewed as part
of that investigation, but he did answer written
questions about it. And one official says
that senior State Department officials have
been briefed about that investigation, Judy,
but we just don't know what the results were.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Nick, just one more piece
of context here.
We know that Steve Linick was the fourth inspector
general in the Trump administration to be
removed just in the last six weeks.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Yes, this is part of an argument
that President Trump has made against these
inspector generals.
He was asked about Steve Linick on Monday,
and he indicated he did not care what Linick
had been investigating, only that Linick was
appointed by Obama and that Pompeo wanted
him gone.
DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States:
I said, who appointed him? And they said,
President Obama. I said, look, I will terminate
him. I don't know what's going on other than
that, but you would have to ask Mike Pompeo.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Judy, the irony is that congressional
officials and officials inside the inspector
general community tell me that Linick entered
the I.G. world through a Republican, Senator
Richard Grassley, and that his first high-profile
investigation was into Hillary Clinton's e-mail
server.
They also tell me that Linick wasn't particularly
aggressive against the Trump administration,
nor, for that matter, were any of the inspector
general's that Trump has relieved in the last
few weeks.
Republican and Democratic officials are trying
to figure out whether they can create some
kind of for-cause removal in order to protect
an inspector general. But these officials
who I'm talking to Judy saying this is a five-alarm
fire inside the inspector general community.
Current inspector generals are scared, the
mood is negative. And the idea that inspector
generals are there to speak truth to power,
that's being eroded.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So important to report on this.
And I know the reporting will continue.
Nick Schifrin, thank you very much.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Thank you.
JUDY WOODRUFF: In the day's other news: A
tropical cyclone blasted India and Bangladesh,
killing at least 14 people and destroying
homes by the hundreds.
The storm surged out of the Bay of Bengal
into a densely populated region that's been
beset by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Pounding India's Eastern coastline, the strongest
cyclone in over a decade. Winds reached 100
miles per hour, knocking down trees and damaging
metal roofs.
Today in New Delhi, Indian officials said
they are working to restore roads.
SATYA PRADHAN, Indian National Disaster Response
Force (through translator): All teams are
on the ground. All teams are outside in the
cyclone area.
JUDY WOODRUFF: In neighboring Bangladesh,
riverbanks overflowed. Yesterday, local officials
began mass evacuations.
SNIGDHA CHAKRABORTY, Catholic Relief Services:
Initially, they were not willing to evacuate,
because they were weighing between the risk
of cyclone, at the same time also the invisible
risk of COVID-19.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Snigdha Chakraborty is the
Bangladesh country director for Catholic Relief
Services.
SNIGDHA CHAKRABORTY: They do not have income.
They do not have homes. They also lost their
crop in the field.
So, basically, it is a devastating situation
and painful situation that they will have
to live with now.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Nearly three million people
have been evacuated from their homes, and
are hunkering down in cramped evacuation centers,
where social distancing is impossible.
For thousands of Rohingya refugees in Southern
Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar, the only protection
they have are plastic sheets to cover their
homes. As heavy rain hit the refugee camp
today, residents worked to prevent flooding.
Nearly 10,000 people in Central Michigan have
been ordered out of their homes after flooding
breached two dams. A river and connected lakes
have topped record levels that were set in
1986, and they're still rising.
Today, debris, including a camper, floated
down the river, and only street signs were
above water in downtown Midland.
Governor Gretchen Whitmer said the flooding
is expected to peak tonight.
GOV. GRETCHEN WHITMER (D-MI): If you're in
an impacted area, please evacuate. This is
going to be hard, but we are anticipating
several feet of water across this area.
And so, while we're in the midst of a global
pandemic, it's really important that, to the
best of our ability, we observe the best practices
to keep ourselves and our families safe.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Midland is home to Dow Chemical,
and the flooding is already encroaching on
the company's main plant site.
U.S. Marshals in Massachusetts have arrested
two men accused of helping former Nissan CEO
Carlos Ghosn flee Japan. They allegedly smuggled
Ghosn to Lebanon in a box last December. He
was facing financial misconduct charges, but
said that he could not expect a fair trial
in Japan.
Israel is under new pressure to abandon plans
for annexing parts of the West Bank. The top
U.N. envoy for the Middle East said today
that it would deal a devastating blow to any
hopes for peace. And Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas announced that all agreements
with Israel and the U.S. are void because
of the annexation threat.
Back in this country, the U.S. Supreme Court
barred the immediate release of secret grand
jury testimony from the Russia investigation.
House Democrats had sued for access to the
material. But the court denied that request
at least until early summer. That all but
guarantees the documents will not be released
before Election Day.
Former Vice President Joe Biden accused President
Trump and his lieutenants of abusing their
law enforcement powers. The Democratic presidential
nominee-in-waiting spoke via video link to
Columbia Law School graduates today.
Last night, he rejected Mr. Trump's claims
that he and former President Obama acted illegally
to push the Russia investigation.
JOSEPH BIDEN (D), Presidential Candidate:
This is his pattern: diversion, diversion,
diversion, diversion, diversion. Don't speak
to whatever the issues before us are.
My God. Obamagate, come on. This is so venal,
so petty. The greatest crime? I mean, my lord.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Meanwhile, the president condemned
plans for mail-in voting in Michigan and Nevada,
and he threatened to withhold federal funds
from the states. Later, he said he doubts
that that will be necessary.
The number of babies born in the U.S. has
fallen to a 35-year low. The Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention estimates 3.7 million
births last year. That is down 1 percent from
2018. The decline has been trending for more
than a decade.
And on Wall Street, stocks bounced back from
Tuesday's losses, led by the tech sector.
The Dow Jones industrial average gained 369
points to close near 24576. The Nasdaq rose
190 points -- that's 2 percent -- and the
S&P 500 added 48.
Still to come on the "NewsHour": the Trump
administration continues deportation of migrant
children, despite the pandemic; Brazil's former
president on the country's chaotic response
to the coronavirus; an inside look at predictive
modeling and why new infections from COVID-19
are so difficult to foresee; plus, much more.
The coronavirus is changing life as we know
it in the U.S., including the Trump administration's
immigration policy.
As John Yang reports, one big shift is in
the treatment of migrant children and teenagers.
JOHN YANG: Judy, The New York Times reports
that, in March and April, more than 900 migrant
children were deported by the Trump administration
shortly after they reached the U.S. border.
That's much sooner in the process than before
the pandemic.
It's part of a new, stepped-up border security
policy that the Department of Homeland Security
says is intended to prevent the spread of
the coronavirus.
Caitlin Dickerson covers immigration for The
New York Times, and she joins us now from
her home in New York.
Caitlin, thanks so much for being with us.
What's the difference between the way these
children are being treated now and the way
they were being treated before the pandemic?
CAITLIN DICKERSON, The New York Times: Sure.
So, historically, when a child or a teenager,
anybody under 18, arrived at the American
border without an adult guardian, they were
allowed into the country and taken through
a pretty lengthy process in which they were
assigned a social worker, they were sent to
a shelter that was specifically designed to
house children.
And that social worker helps determine whether
or not they have a legal case to remain in
the United States. If the child isn't -- or
doesn't qualify for one of those legal protections
that our country offers, then they are returned
to their home country, but only after a safety
plan has been put into place.
So, the American government makes contact
with family in the home country and makes
sure that the child has a safe place to go
back to, which, as you can imagine, is especially
important, when a child is returning to a
dangerous country.
Both of those things aren't happening now.
So, rather than being allowed into the country,
children are being returned right away. And
even those kids who were already in the United
States before this stepped-up border enforcement
began, when those kids are being deported
now, it's happening much more quickly and
without that safety planning ahead of time,
which means some kids have ended up back in
home country.
Their family doesn't know they're there until
they arrive, and the child may not have anywhere
to go.
JOHN YANG: You start your tale with a 10-year-old
boy, Gerson Rodriguez, who is about to set
across the Rio Grande with a stranger, not
his family.
Can you summarize what happened to him?
CAITLIN DICKERSON: Absolutely.
So, right, Gerson is 10. He had been in Mexico
with his mother since last October. They fled
Honduras because of his mother's partner,
who had been abusive to both of them, who
had withheld food from them and who had hit
them.
And so, like so many other families, they
went to Mexico. They applied for asylum in
the United States, but they were enrolled
in the Migrant Protection Protocols that the
Trump administration created. That's the program
that requires asylum seekers to wait on the
Mexican side of the border until their cases
are adjudicated.
And that didn't feel safe enough to Gerson's
mother. As you probably know, many of the
migrants who are waiting on the Mexican side
of the border have been subjected to kidnapping,
to extortion. It's very dangerous. They were
living outdoors in a tent camp.
And so his mother decided the safest thing
she felt to do was to send her 10-year-old
son across the border alone, so that he could
go and live with his uncle in Houston. But
that didn't happen.
She didn't realize that this Trump administration
policy had been implemented. And so she heard
nothing from her son for six days. When she
finally did hear from him, she learned that
he was back in Honduras, that he'd been deported
there, again, without anyone in his family
being informed.
JOHN YANG: And what's the Trump administration's
rationale for this new policy?
CAITLIN DICKERSON: So, this policy came down
through an executive order invoking the power
of the surgeon general to prevent people from
entering the United States because of the
threat of a very serious disease or illness.
In this case, we're talking, of course, about
the coronavirus pandemic. But important context
to note here is that this idea of using the
public health authority to shut down the border
is not something that originated as a novel
response to this unprecedented pandemic.
It's actually something that Stephen Miller,
who's President Trump's chief adviser on immigration,
had come up with years ago, shortly after
President Trump took office. He'd been looking
for a way to implement it. And, as my reporting
has shown, he got that opportunity with the
coronavirus pandemic.
JOHN YANG: And some House Democrats are saying
that this violates U.S. law with this new
policy.
What's the -- what's behind that argument?
CAITLIN DICKERSON: What they're talking about
is the Trafficking Victims Protection Act.
It's a decades-old law that's designed to
protect this very population that we're talking
about, kids who come to the United States
on their own.
And it's not hard to understand why special
protections have been put in place, when you
think about what it's like for someone as
young as Gerson, for example, a 10-year-old,
to be traversing international borders on
their own. They really are targets for exploitation
of any kind.
It doesn't always happen, but because of the
vulnerability that they face from people who
may want to kidnap them or may want to extort
their families for money and do a number of
things, this law was created to try to prevent
that from happening and to give them two opportunities,
actually, legally, they're entitled to, to
apply for asylum to try to win protection
in the United States, and basically to make
sure that there's no provision of the immigration
law that could offer them protection before
they're actually sent home.
And it's also, of course, designed to ensure
that, when the United States does send them
home, that they're not put in harm's way.
JOHN YANG: Caitlin Dickerson of The New York
Times, thanks so much.
CAITLIN DICKERSON: Thank you.
JUDY WOODRUFF: President Trump counts Brazil's
President Jair Bolsonaro as an ally and kindred
spirit.
But not even their closeness prevented Mr.
Trump from saying yesterday that he's considering
banning Brazilians from traveling to the U.S.
The coronavirus crisis in that country is
one of the world's most dire by several metrics.
Bolsonaro is also coming under attack by a
popular former Brazilian president, who is
reemerging on the political scene after being
released from prison.
Amna Nawaz spoke with Luiz Inacio Lula da
Silva late last week.
AMNA NAWAZ: In late 2019, former Brazilian
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, known
widely just as Lula, walked out of prison
after 580 days, and stepped right back onto
the political stage.
LUIZ INACIO LULA DA SILVA, Former Brazilian
President (through translator): Today, I'm
a guy that doesn't have a job, a president
without a pension, not even a television in
my apartment. My life is totally blocked.
The only thing I'm certain of is that I have
more courage to fight than before.
AMNA NAWAZ: His top targets? The current president
of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, and his allies,
whom Lula claims wrongfully convicted him
of corruption in 2017, a conviction he's now
appealing.
Today, the focus of Lula's criticism is Bolsonaro's
mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
LUIZ INACIO LULA DA SILVA (through translator):
We have an invisible enemy which we do not
know. We do not have the medication to cure
it.
And many leaders, such as the president of
Brazil and the president of the U.S., are
not treating it seriously, with the necessary
precautions to face the pandemic.
AMNA NAWAZ: To date, more than 18,000 Brazilians
have died of COVID-19, and the virus is running
rampant through vulnerable communities, the
sprawling, crowded urban areas known as favelas
and among indigenous communities in the Amazon
and other remote regions.
The death toll in Latin America's largest
country is now the sixth worst in the world.
The total number of infections ranks third
globally. But experts believe the government
is likely vastly underreporting the number
of cases, and fear what will follow.
Do you believe that Brazil will become the
next global epicenter for this pandemic?
LUIZ INACIO LULA DA SILVA (through translator):
I think Brazil runs the risk of becoming the
next epicenter of the pandemic.
The country alone has more people contaminated
and deaths than all of South America. The
problem we have in Brazil -- and this is my
present concern -- is that the pandemic is
beginning to reach the poorest places and
peripheries throughout the country.
AMNA NAWAZ: Like President Trump, President
Bolsonaro downplayed early concerns over the
virus. He clashed with health officials, firing
his first health minister, who criticized
his approach.
His second health minister stepped down after
just one month on the job. And he's peddled
misinformation, leading both Facebook and
Twitter to remove his posts saying the drug
hydroxychloroquine was -- quote -- "working
in all places."
Bolsonaro, who's so far been unable to make
good on his promise to fix a faltering economy,
has also pushed for Brazilian businesses to
reopen, mimicking President Trump's message.
JAIR BOLSONARO, Brazilian President (through
translator): People are dying. They are. I'm
sorry. I'm sorry. But more will die, much,
much more, if the economy continues to be
destroyed by those measures.
AMNA NAWAZ: And, just like Trump's supporters,
Bolsonaro's backers have taken to the streets,
in defiance of local social distancing orders.
LUIZ INACIO LULA DA SILVA (through translator):
President Bolsonaro likes to copy, to repeat
President Trump's actions. That is, President
Bolsonaro believes President Trump is a higher
being, so he simply copies everything Trump
says.
And Bolsonaro does not discuss the pandemic.
He discusses any topic. He offends the Supreme
Court, native indigenous peoples, blacks,
women, Congress, Senate, the opposition, governors,
mayors, but he does not take care of the pandemic.
AMNA NAWAZ: In recent weeks, though, Lula
has escalated his attacks, saying in one recent
interview that Brazilian society has the -- quote
-- "right to remove Bolsonaro."
You don't have votes in Congress to impeach
him. He's unlikely to step down. So, what
exactly are you calling for when you say that
society has the right to remove President
Bolsonaro.
LUIZ INACIO LULA DA SILVA (through translator):
I think it is very difficult for any president
to continue in office doing what Bolsonaro
is doing in Brazil.
He is not governing Brazil. He is constantly
producing fake news. He spends the nights
writing tweets. He does not wear a mask. I
think, and society expects, the House of Representatives
should start an impeachment procedure to discuss
whether this man has the necessary political
conditions to continue to governing this country.
AMNA NAWAZ: I just want to be clear about
this, President da Silva. You are calling
for the impeachment process against President
Bolsonaro to begin; you believe that should
start?
LUIZ INACIO LULA DA SILVA (through translator):
I think, if Bolsonaro continues to act irresponsibly,
as he has been doing, the people will not
accept him for three more years.
I am not in favor of removing a president
every year through an impeachment process.
I am in favor of a government that truly governs
the country, respecting democracy.
AMNA NAWAZ: Lula himself has faced some of
the same criticism.
Despite leaving office after two terms with
sky-high popularity, he was ensnared years
later in a massive corruption and bribery
scandal. Lula maintains he did nothing wrong.
LUIZ INACIO LULA DA SILVA (through translator):
For the past four years, I have been asking
them to prove any one of the charges held
against me. So far, nothing has been proven.
AMNA NAWAZ: And in another recent twist, the
judge who convicted Lula was later handpicked
as justice minister by Bolsonaro. And just
last month, he resigned, saying the president
pressured him to fire the police chief.
Even today, Lula remains popular among Brazilians,
and, when pressed, would neither confirm nor
deny he would run again when Bolsonaro's term
is up in 2022. But he is still making the
pitch directly to Brazilians, begging them
to once again believe in his Workers Party,
known as the P.T., by its Portuguese initials.
Why should they believe things would be any
better today, at this moment of crisis, under
the Workers' Party or under you, under anyone
else?
LUIZ INACIO LULA DA SILVA (through translator):
I will tell you something. First of all, people
should believe in the P.T., because it was
the party that brought the greatest social
inclusion in Brazil's history.
That is, in 13 years, we did what had not
been done in the last 100 years in the country.
We invested the most in employment, education,
health, electrical power, and social improvement
for the poor. That is why they should believe.
AMNA NAWAZ: A former leader reemerging to
fight once again amid political turmoil and
the uncertainty of a pandemic now setting
its sights on Brazil.
For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Amna Nawaz.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Even as more states are trying
to reopen their economy, a new "PBS NewsHour"/NPR/Marist
poll found that 77 percent of Americans worry
about a second wave of infections yet to come.
This comes as computer-based models suggest
that the U.S. will pass its own grim milestone
by June, 100,000-plus deaths. That higher
projection is arriving even sooner than some
of the models estimated just weeks ago.
But models are not crystal balls. The work
that goes into making them and their ultimate
purpose is more complicated than you might
be able to tell from the headlines.
Miles O'Brien explains in his latest report
for our series the Leading Edge.
MILES O'BRIEN: We live in a complicated world,
filled with more data than insight.
Finding a path to clarity is not easy, even
on a good day. And these are not good days.
So, how can we take a huge amount of data
and make it understandable, so we can see
the future?
BETZ HALLORAN, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research
Center: You can't believe every number that
comes out. But if we don't try to formulate
our thinking about a complex process, then
we will be running blind.
MILES O'BRIEN: Betz Halloran is an infectious
disease modeler. She writes mathematical formulas
that define the chaotic, exponential spread
of infection.
A biostatistician at Seattle's Fred Hutchinson
Cancer Research Center, she's part of the
team that curates the Global Epidemic and
Mobility Model, or GLEAM.
BETZ HALLORAN: The GLEAM model is a big mobility
model that can answer global questions.
MILES O'BRIEN: GLEAM begins with the first
infection in China and travels down the many
paths of exponential growth, constantly calculating
who is susceptible, exposed, infectious, and
recovered, S-E-I-R, or SEIR.
BETZ HALLORAN: You can structure it in many
different ways. But, usually, when we talk
about infectious disease modeling, that's
the basic sort of meat and potatoes of what's
going to be in a model.
MILES O'BRIEN: But the model does not stop
there. It factors in the entire global transportation
network, including airline schedules and capacity.
BETZ HALLORAN: So, the question we were asking
way back then was, where is it going to spread?
If it gets into the United States, where would
it go first?
And once it gets in, then we could use GLEAM
to look at the question of, how much is it
going to spread in the different places? Where
is it going to go first? And then we predicted
that pretty well.
MILES O'BRIEN: Halloran and her team did accurately
predict where COVID-19 would first surge in
the United States.
But, as the pandemic wore on, the limitations
of the models became more evident. After all,
no one really knows how the virus is transmitted,
who's likely to get sick and who won't, who's
likely to die, who might have immunity.
All those questions won't be answered until
there is widespread testing. So, in the meantime,
the models muddle on, with sometimes dizzyingly
confusing results.
One of them, from Britain's Imperial College,
predicted two million COVID-19 deaths in the
United States. But that assumed no human response,
no social distancing.
BETZ HALLORAN: All models are wrong, but some
models are helpful, and I think it's important
to remember that.
MILES O'BRIEN: Nearby, at the University of
Washington's Institute for Health Metrics
and Evaluation, they built a much simpler
model that started with a specific question
in mind: Did the health care system have the
capacity to treat a surge of COVID-19 patients?
Chris Murray is the director. He and his team
wrote a model that, unlike many others at
the time, factored in the human response to
the pandemic.
DR. CHRISTOPHER MURRAY, Director of Health
Metrics, University Of Washington: If you
ignore the behavioral response, you're going
to massively overshoot.
And so I think it is a reasonable strategy
to try to look at models, like the economists
do, which build in how individuals, local
government, state government, are going to
respond to the problems as they unfold.
DR. DEBORAH BIRX, White House Coronavirus
Response Coordinator: So I'm sure you're interested
in seeing all the states.
MILES O'BRIEN: Producing speedy state-by-state
results, with consistently lower projections,
the University of Washington model was frequently
cited by the White House in daily coronavirus
briefings.
DR. DEBORAH BIRX: And I think, if you ask
Chris Murray, he would say...
MILES O'BRIEN: But the model initially assumed
there would be widespread adoption of social
distancing restrictions in the U.S.
Once it became clear that wasn't happening,
the modeling team went back to the drawing
board, releasing a new version on May 4. It
now uses mobility data gleaned from cell phone
usage to better understand how well people
are complying with the expert advice.
As a result, that model's projection for the
total U.S. death toll by August 4 from COVID-19
instantly went from about 72,000 to 134,000.
DR. CHRISTOPHER MURRAY: It's sensible to try
to look at a wide array of models and try
to look at how -- do they tell you the same
story? Are they converging?
It's very confusing, I think, for many decision-makers
to navigate through some of the models.
MAN: We're going to start off with this weekend.
MILES O'BRIEN: Weather forecasters are some
of the most adept at navigating the inherent
uncertainties of modeling.
MAN: Going to have some travel problems if...
MILES O'BRIEN: After all, it's been 70 years
since they first ran a model through a computer
to create a forecast. It's been steady improvement
ever since. It's now possible to reliably
forecast seven days in advance with 80 percent
accuracy.
But, with a novel virus, there are so many
unknowns. And weather models do not have to
account for human behavior.
Marshall Shepherd is director of the Atmospheric
Sciences Program at the University of Georgia.
MARSHALL SHEPHERD, Atmospheric Sciences Program
Director, University of Georgia: It's very
important, when consuming these coronavirus
models and weather models, to consume the
uncertainty that we know is inherent.
But we have a way to get around that in weather
called ensemble modeling.
MILES O'BRIEN: Ensemble modeling, meaning
combining the predictions of many different
models, it's a crucial tool that has greatly
improved forecasting the weather and, in the
past three years, seasonal influenza as well.
Nick Reich is an associate professor of biostatistics
at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.
Working with the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention, he leads a team that builds
ensemble models to improve predictions of
the spread of the flu.
NICK REICH, University of Massachusetts-Amherst:
I don't think any one model should be viewed
as gospel truth.
When you just use one model, you end up with
a too strong reliance on one particular set
of assumptions and one particular viewpoint.
And this is why it's really critical to consider
multiple models together.
MILES O'BRIEN: The influenza models are informed
by up to 20 years of experience with the viruses
and the accuracy of the models.
Reich and his team have now built a COVID-19
ensemble model. But it, of course, does not
have the benefits of a long backstory.
NICK REICH: We do have hundreds of years of
theory about how to build mathematical models
of infectious disease, but have they ever
been tested in real time in this way, with
all of the data sources that are available
to us? No.
We're building this car as it's careening
down the highway, and we're learning about
these models as we go.
MILES O'BRIEN: Infectious disease modelers
are scrambling to figure out where we are
headed, depending on the decisions we make.
If we take the time to better understand what
the models can and cannot do, maybe we will
do the same as we search for the path back
to normalcy.
For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Miles O'Brien.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Throughout this entire crisis,
questions continue to be raised about why
the U.S. government was not better prepared
for such a challenge.
As William Brangham tells us, those questions
include how the Trump administration views
the role of government and civil service broadly.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: That's right, Judy.
Most people would agree that the scale and
speed of this pandemic would have taxed the
resources and abilities of any administration
and of any president. But the Trump administration's
response has certainly come under some intense
scrutiny.
Let's turn now to two writers who have looked
at this response closely.
Yuval Levin is the director of social, cultural
and constitutional studies at the American
Enterprise Institute. He's the author of "A
Time to Build: From Family and Community to
Congress and the Campus, How Recommitting
to Our Institutions Can Revive the American
Dream."
And George Packer's recent articles in "The
Atlantic" look at the Trump administration's
response to this crisis. He is also author
of a recent book on the diplomat Richard Holbrooke
and, before that, author of "The Unwinding:
An Inner History of the New America," among
other books.
Gentlemen, thank you both very much for being
here.
George Packer, to you first.
You have written that the seeds of the administration's
response were in some ways predictable, given
the way the administration viewed the role
of the government preceding this crisis.
Can you explain that a little bit more?
GEORGE PACKER, "The Atlantic": I think Trump
spent the first three years of his administration
almost in combat with his own government,
his own bureaucracy, rooting out people he
perceived as disloyal, placing cronies and
sycophants in key political jobs, and creating
an atmosphere of fear and of chill among the
career civil service, so that, by the time
the pandemic came, there was a kind of passivity
and even absenteeism in big, important areas
of the federal government that Trump had seen
as serving no purpose, beyond his own personal
political interests.
And so once he needed a bureaucracy to do
things in order to keep the country safe,
to protect us, it wasn't there. Either people
-- jobs were unfilled or people were, in a
sense, hiding under their desks because they
knew that, if they said something Trump didn't
like, he would come after them. And that's
been happening throughout the pandemic.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Yuval Levin, the same question
to you.
You have written also that there has been
certainly a denigration of expertise and a
somewhat chaotic decision-making process within
the White House.
Do you think that that has also affected the
pandemic response?
YUVAL LEVIN, American Enterprise Institute:
I do.
I agree with what George has said. And I think
the way that he's it in his recent pieces
in "The Atlantic" has been quite right.
But I would focus particularly on the White
House staff and the team around the president,
which expresses the president's own attitude
about the relationship he should have to the
rest of the government.
The White House staff is there to enable the
president to receive information in the form
of decisions to be made and to process it,
to listen to expertise, to make decisions.
And the fact is, that process has never existed
in this White House. There has never been
a functional structure of decision-making.
That's a problem at any time, but it becomes
an enormous problem at a moment of crisis,
when you have to have a reliable chain of
command, you have to have a reliable process
for making decisions, you have to have distinctions
between what's said in public and what is
said in private, and how the president thinks
about his task of communicating to the public
in a reassuring way.
None of that, none, is happening in an effective
way in this administration. And what you're
finding is a president whose understanding
of the job has not been formed by any experience
at any level in government.
For the first time in our history, we have
a president who has not served either as a
senior military officer or as a senior public
official before becoming president. Instead,
he comes into the job as a performer, and
he sees himself in the job as a public performer
putting on a show.
And the fact, is in a crisis, the president
has to be an inside player, where he has to
be making decisions and operating the arms
of the government from within. This president
just has no conception of how that is supposed
to work, no trust in the rest of the system.
And in a time of pressure and crisis, it shows.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: George, you and Yuval are
making this same point, but devil's advocate
here.
We have seen other crises affect other administrations
where they have been caught flat-footed. We
saw it in Katrina, after 9/11, even in the
initial stages of the housing crisis.
Isn't some flat-footedness, isn't some initial
chaos and confusion to be expected, especially
when this virus really does, in some ways,
trump the severity of those other crises?
GEORGE PACKER: Yes, that's true.
And in other countries that we look to as
examples of well-functioning democracies in
Europe and in Asia, even the ones that seem
to have done well, Germany, South Korea, they
have made mistakes. Others, Spain and Italy,
have seen results that have been as bad as
or worse than ours.
I think the difference is what you Yuval was
just describing, which is that these are the
kind of unavoidable blunders of big, unwieldy
governments faced with something that very
few governments plan for, anticipate and are
ready for. And very few politicians have the
courage and foresight to get out ahead of
facts and listen to their scientists and their
experts, and do things the public may not
like even before the public knows they're
doing them.
What we see in this case, in Trump's case,
is a White House that has continually undermined
its own administration's response at every
step of the way. It's as if, at every moment,
when the question was, what is the best way
to get out ahead of this and minimize suffering
and death, Trump has done the opposite.
And that's -- I don't know if that's true
in any other country in the world, and that's
a direct result of his idea of what it means
to be president, which I think, in his case,
is -- that means to use power to serve his
own interests, not to lead the country, not
to solve the country's problems, certainly
not to bring the country together, instead,
to divide us in his own interests.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Yuval, picking up on George's
point here, it has been brought up several
times that, if the president really does see
this as primarily a political issue to solve,
not a public health one, one could argue that
the president should have used all the levers
at his power in the federal government to
ramp up testing, to deal with the shortages
of protective supplies.
Why do you think that the president seemingly
was reluctant to use the levers of government,
if one could argue those might have saved
lives and those might have then strengthened
his electoral chances in November?
YUVAL LEVIN: Yes, I think reluctance ends
up just not being quite the right term here.
I think the president has turned out to be
incapable of using the levers of power in
an effective way. There's no question, as
you suggest, and as George says, that this
is a crisis that would have overwhelmed any
government and that has overwhelmed many governments.
The question is, how do you learn from mistakes
in your response? How do you mobilize over
time? That our government wasn't prepared
for this in advance is not an indictment.
But that we have not learned from mistakes
over two and three months, that we are still
basically in the same place we were in terms
of our capacity to establish a process for
decision-making that helps us improve over
time is the fault of the senior executives
in the Trump administration.
There's no way around it. Our country has
done some things very well. I think the health
system handled this OK. The American public
has been willing to make tremendous sacrifices.
Many governors have stepped up. Some federal
officials have stepped up.
But the president has a distinct role here,
a coordinating and reassuring role, that he
has simply failed to perform. And I don't
think that that's a decision he's made.
I think that's just an incapacity that's been
revealed and which, of course, was evident
in some respects before, but becomes especially
problematic in a moment of crisis like this.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: All right, really interesting
conversation.
Yuval Levin, George Packer, thank you both
very much for being here.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Truck drivers are on the front
lines of the pandemic, facing lower pay these
days and higher risks, as they deliver much-needed
food and supplies.
Tonight's Brief But Spectacular features Kansas
city-based husband and wife truckers Chante
and Ron Drew.
After Ron began experiencing symptoms of COVID-19
last month, producer Steve Goldbloom conducted
a series of interviews with the couple over
the course of several weeks.
CHANTE DREW, Truck Driver: Ron and I are a
married couple. We drive a team freight across
the country. We haul a lot of groceries, a
lot of produce, a lot of meats, things like
that.
RON DREW, Truck Driver: Truck drivers, we
have always been kind of like -- we don't
get a lot of respect. We're kind of looked
down upon.
But people saw how crazy things got when their
toilet paper ran out. Can you imagine if you
go to the grocery store and there's no food
in there? I don't know why they're not making
more of an effort to get personal equipment
for drivers.
You need us to run, so you can have food.
We have got two beds. The bottom bed, we leave
as a table, so we have some place to sit and
eat.
CHANTE DREW: When I'm driving, he's sleeping,
and when he's sleeping, I'm driving.
RON DREW: I first started experiencing symptoms
when I was in Phoenix last week, mostly like
body aches, hurting in my knees, hurt in my
elbows.
My fever would just spike. And I just start
just aching and aching.
CHANTE DREW: Hot, cold chills.
RON DREW: Hot, cold chills.
But I trooped it out, got her done.
CHANTE DREW: And then we just went today to
get his test, finally.
RON DREW: You had to crack your window down,
and then they just squeegee your sinuses.
CHANTE DREW: I figured, since -- if Ron's
positive, obviously, I will be positive as
well. So, we figure, save the testing for
somebody else. We have both got it, probably.
RON DREW: Hopefully, we will know by Wednesday
at the latest.
I feel horrible. Since Saturday, I have not
been able to get really out of bed for anything.
I have dropped about 30 pounds. I have never
experienced anything like this, where you
just -- you sleep constantly.
CHANTE DREW: We got Ron's COVID test back,
and it was positive. I opted at first not
to get tested. I figured I'm probably positive.
But then, after talking to the nurse, she
said, it's probably a good idea to go ahead
and get tested. I'm not showing too many symptoms,
other than just being extremely fatigued.
I'm pretty sure that I will test positive.
We have been in contact with the company that
we are leasing a truck from, and they have
suspended our truck payments for as long as
needed.
We're probably going to go lay down right
now and just rest and recover and hope and
pray that nobody else has to go through this.
I was tested for COVID. I tested negative.
Our doctor and the health department both
told us to go ahead and assume that I had
it, since I had all the same symptoms as Ron.
The doctor told me that they're getting a
lot of false negatives, just with the way
that a lot of the people are doing the swab
testing. But we have been slowly recovering.
RON DREW: One morning you wake up, you feel
great. You go outside, just do a couple things,
and next thing you know, you're winded, you're
in bed, you're sleeping again for 12 hours
straight during the day.
Almost 20 -- 22 days, we have been off work.
We got turned on to a resource called St.
Christopher's Fund, which is for truck drivers.
And they ended up making our rent payment
for the month.
CHANTE DREW: That was huge.
RON DREW: Which helped a ton.
Luckily for us, the company we drive for,
they got freight right now.
CHANTE DREW: I'm glad our first trip is going
out to Seattle. It's always fun going out
that way.
RON DREW: I just wanted to get back out and
get moving.
CHANTE DREW: Get the wind in your hair, and
get the dogs back out at the rest areas, and
do what we do best.
(LAUGHTER)
RON DREW: This thing is no joke. Like, your
lung capacity doesn't come back up right away.
You still can't taste or smell for God knows
how long this is going to be.
I still get pain in my knees that I didn't
have before. Just don't brush it off and thinking,
oh, 99 percent of us are going to get well.
Well, you're not going to get 100 percent
well.
CHANTE DREW: My advice would be to have compassion
for each other, and quit trying to hurry the
process of getting back out there and getting
back to work, because it'll happen. It's just
you have got to listen to the experts.
Before the pandemic, I think a lot of people
didn't realize where their food came from.
We have heard friends that have seen signs
that people are saying, we love truck drivers.
Truck drivers have never asked for hazard
pay. You know, in fact, our rates have gone
down since the pandemic started. So, we're
making less overall than when this first started.
And we just want to still be able to do our
jobs. And I just hope that people don't forget
about it as time goes on.
My name is Chante Drew.
RON DREW: My name is Ron Drew.
CHANTE DREW: And this is our Brief But Spectacular
take on living through COVID-19.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And here at the "NewsHour,"
we love truck drivers.
And thank you, Chante and Ron. We're so glad
you're better.
And you can find all of our Brief But Spectacular
segments online at PBS.org/NewsHour/Brief.
And online, a new "PBS NewsHour"/NPR/Marist
poll out today finds that shows sharp partisan
divides over how long it will take for daily
life to return to a sense of normal.
You can read more on our Web site, PBS.org/NewsHour.
And that is the "NewsHour" for tonight. I'm
Judy Woodruff.
Join us online and again here tomorrow evening.
For all of us at
the "PBS NewsHour," thank you, please stay
safe, and we'll see you soon.
