Coronavirus

When somebody's, the president, the authority is total, he's not doing everything you can do
hitting against one, another, how frustrating it is amid. The escalating crisis between the
president and the states over. Has nothing to do with the president or federal policy or anything
inside story of how the outbreak began.

I mean, the United States, the reason Washington State found that first case, because we were
ready for it. Correspondent Miles O'Brien on the ground, with those who detected it. First, within
the first five days, we had 32 positives, we then knew that this was a much bigger outbreak than
you could have imagined and the tale of two.

Washington governor was a snake. Okay, we are not going to be distracted by any rhetoric that
the president or anyone else uses facts and signs. That's the only thing that's going to get us
through this now on frontline. Coronavirus pandemic.

It was one of the most vibrant cities in America. Our economy was strong, the port. That was
one of the leading ports in the country. We had one of the most vibrant restaurants scenes,
small businesses floor, machine. And we went from that to almost zero overnight.

I arrived in Seattle in mid-Barge. A city and state in the process of shutting down before, that
was the norm in the rest of the country. I've covered science stories for nearly 30 years but this
felt more like science fiction. The deadly disease, covid-19 was about to bring the country and
the world to its knees.

It's like watching a slow moving landslide move towards you. How did it evade our warning
systems our best science? A lot of people died because we weren't ready. Why was our
government so slow to act so unprepared. I haven't cried ever as much as I had in the last
week.

And what lies ahead?

And came to Seattle looking for answers. My first stop. How are you Providence Regional
Medical Center in nearby Everett? And have you traveled outside the US in the last 30 days? I
have. Okay, so we're gonna ask you to put on a mask okay, this is the hospital that treated the
first known case of covenant 19 in the country, there we go.

97.6 I bet Dr. George Diaz, an expert in infectious diseases. Who treated patient one. A 35 year
old local, man. Who'd flown into Seattle on January 15th. He was having cough. He had been
having fevers at home. He had been eating well, his, he generally felt poorly and he had been
complaining of diarrhea at home, but he's 35 years old and otherwise healthy, totally healthy
person, he began developing symptoms the day after he arrived.

He went to this walk-in clinic and described his symptoms and told them where he had been for
about six weeks. Wuhan China and preliminary investigation into mysterious pneumonia
outbreak in Wuhan China. Has that was a crucial detail. Is doing pneumonia. Viruses and
weeks. Wuhan had been the center of a growing storm scientist in.

Trying to determine if a new trickle down about cases of a strange. New pneumonia? No, the Or
as said, Seattle a city known for cutting, edge, medicine and technology, as well as ties to Asia
officials, told me they had been on alert, It clearly had the attention of our public health folks,
and they, in turn were starting to line up the other department starting with human services
about how we're going to respond when, and if it arrived on our shores At the clinic where the
man returning from Wuhan was seeking treatment, they took no chances At that point, the clinic
appropriately, isolated him the health district, contacts, the CDC, who advised testing and
fortunately that clinic had the appropriate year to be able to safely test the patients.

He was an advised to go home and quarantine The clinic said a nasal swab. They'd taken from
the man to the centers for disease control and prevention in Atlanta. And it was in 24 hours. We
had a call from the CDC saying it's a test was positive and then they wanted us to admit him for
observation.

The first covid-19 patient had been confirmed in the United States Around 10pm on January
20th, patient 1 was brought to the providence regional medical center. This is a photograph of
his arrival in case in what's called an isopod designed to keep it, patient quarantined patient.
Number one arrived here in this.

He did when we were going through the transportation plan with the, the ambulance company
they wanted to keep their staff safe. Completely contained, doesn't allow any possibility of
infection. So, our patient was placed in this, by EMS and brought to our hospital and unloaded
in his room. So, it took us about two hours sometimes CDC called for us to get all our staff
supplies in the facilities, on place, to be able to give the EMS books, a green light to come in.

He did that in two hours into our spring. One of the reasons they were so ready less than three
weeks earlier, Diaz, and his colleagues, had conducted an elaborate simulation. Pandemic
training. We were aware of what was going on in Wuhan at that point, but it was, it was part of
our routine structure.

Already to prepare really had a go-to plan when we had a game plan in place already, we had
everyone involved, including the local EMS. So those people that bring the patients from 28
point. B public health hospitals, another partners, we have the community to drill and so we had
a very variety of scenarios.

Once through, By the time, patient one was hospitalized, local public health officials were going
into high gear The reason Washington State found that first case, as we were ready for it, the
ambulance service was ready. They knew the right personal protective equipment to where it
was one of those absolute coordination between the healthcare local health state, health in the
CDC.

It went perfectly. That's how we were able to find the first case in the country. It was a critical
early warning sign that the highly contagious coronavirus could be spreading in the US. But in
his first public comments, President, Trump dismissed any threat to the rest of the country.

Have you been briefed by the CDC of the words about a pandemic at this point? Oh, we're not
at all. And we're we have a totally under control. It's one person coming in from China and we
have it under control. It's gonna be just fine Safe travels back. Thank you.

In Seattle, doctors and scientists weren't so sure. They didn't have a way to test for coronavirus
on their own. And while the CDC had been able to test the sample from patient one, it didn't yet
have a test. It could deploy on a massive scale around the country. The ways who really know,
the burden of disease in your community is to be able to test.
So the testing piece was a huge piece of the puzzle that we didn't really fully. We were afraid to
dress. By early February with the virus, spreading around the globe. The world health
organization was recommending test kids that had been developed in Germany. But US officials
made a fateful decision to go their own way.

Did you look at a moment when the United States may have lost, right? It's ability to control
what's happening. It begins with the decision early on in 2020, by the CDC. Not to utilize the test
kits in the capabilities that were being shared by the world health organization and other
nations.

The CDC wouldn't talk to me on camera but told me they took the swiftest path and using
another nation's test would have caused worst delays Former CDC. Director, Tom Frieden said
the decision made sense. There's never been a time previously. When there was a need to use
a test from outside because the CDs system has not failed in the past.

The CDC began shipping its own test kits to public health, labs around the country. But in
Seattle and elsewhere, it was quickly obvious that something was wrong. One of the three
chemical probes was faulty generating inconclusive results. There was checks and balances
within the test and when we validated candidate detect the virus, and can it not overdetect it,
that balance was not correct, research and implementation.

Laboratories said, you know, this doesn't work. You've given us a bogus kit and we're not going
to use it. Fix it fast, we, you know, or give us the right to use our own kids. At the University of
Washington, I met verologist Alex, Greeninger who had been trying to do just that You got to
have the supply of testing, absolutely do.

We need to be able to detect where the virus is and then try and snuff it out. I mean, right?
Prevent its transmission That's the name of the game and the coming months, but he ran into a
bureaucratic brick wall, the food and drug administration. Had instituted emergency procedures
to make sure any new tests were accurate.

You can make your own test, but you have to send it to the FDA and get it reviewed and then,
authorized and I'll admit I'm I'm my first couple years here in this particular job. I had not been
through this process before the FDA application was 28 pages long and required him to run
tests that would take at least two weeks.

And that wasn't all one of the things is they needed. A document FedEx across the country
before they would could look at the document you couldn't electronically change could
electronically transmit it but they couldn't look at it until with FedEx and then they changed that
regulation. And so from a couple days after February, 4th all the way to February 26th, they
didn't have a test, they were completely blind too.

This had to be incredibly frustrating. It was frustrating. It was So we try to prioritize things in the
top FDA told me it did review managers application but it was incomplete. They also said they
were balancing. The need for tests with concerns about accuracy, major developments of global
health emergency as the coronavirus reaches its 20th country in Seattle and around the world.

The clock was ticking on a virus. It's now considered a global health emergency, and the US is
warning people not to travel to China WHO had declared a global emergency and the CDC was
beginning to screen passengers and US airports, including Seattle. We are coordinating with the
Chinese government and working closely together on the coronavirus outbreak in China
relentless, as an Trump was still not raising alarms, though.

He banned foreign travelers from China. My administration will take all necessary steps to
safeguard our citizens from this threat, but by that time flights from the outbreak zone had been
landing at US airports for weeks, The travel ban may have bought us some time, but in all
actuality, you know, people were leaving, Wuhan going to Beijing, traveling to Western Europe
and ultimately to the United States in late 2019 and early 2020.

Anyway, Chinese health officials said today, another 46 people have died from the coronavirus
in those critical first weeks after the arrival of the virus in the US administration officials and the
President himself continued to insist that the risk was small. I want to emphasize that this is a
serious health situation in China.

But I want to emphasize that the risk to the American public currently is low, how concern to
you? Well, we pretty much shut it down. Coming in, from China, we've offered China now but we
can't have thousands of people coming in, who may have this problem, the Corona virus.

So we can see what happens, but we did shut it down. Yes, that attitude didn't sit well with
Washington's, senior democratic senator Patty Murray. She spoke to me from her home. I felt
like at the time I lived in two different worlds, I lived here in Washington state where people were
going.

Oh my gosh, we have a problem and in Washington where they'd say oh you guys worried too
much about the west coast a tail of two Washingtons. Yeah. We should have pulled out all the
stops and checked everything but it was more like, oh you guys quit worrying out there.

There was a lot to worry about in isolation at Providence Hospital. Patient one was deteriorating
to you began developing more shortness of breath. And because of that, we got an x-ray which
looks like he had a developing pneumonia. His auction levels in his blood were also decreasing
That worry Dr.

Diaz who've been following the dire medical reports out of Wuhan. It appeared based on their
data that once patients to begin developing pneumonia, that many of them end up in the ICU,
one of ventilator and die. Patient, one was slipping fast and there was no known treatment, Dr.
Diaz told me, he heard about an anti-viral drug called rendezvous ear that some experts thought
could potentially help.

It would be an experiment, he said, but the patient was willing, but that point I contacted the
FDA in Gilia, the manufacturer to see if they would approve it. So, the FDA gave us an approval
to try it on a compassion, use basis, knowing that it had not been approved yet.

And that, there were no trials available to base that decision not we infused it. The next day, he
was still having very high fevers and still was praying auction, the day that we gave it to him. By
the next day, his fever is resolved and they stayed gone. So much better.

If you felt like he had started, beating the virus. No one knew is the drug had an impact or if the
virus was taking its natural. Course, here's the thing. You, you have one data point here, one
person right in this world. Yeah, in the world, it is an anecdote.

And so we were happy that the patient got better. I know and was ultimately continue, get better
able to go home. So that part was fantastic for the patient. We knew that we needed to study
this in a formal cultural trial. Although patient one was well enough to be sent home for public
health officials in Washington State.

There were many more questions to answer They needed to find out who patient won might
have come in contact with after returning, from China and sent samples from them to the CDC
as well. So we find contacts. So, I'm not used them, at least 10 minutes of time talking face to
face with.

We identified 60 plus contacts, we swobbed them multiple times to see was their transmission
of this virus and we found absolutely no transfer of amongst those contacts at this first gay set.
Washington's governor Jinsley remembers this as a brief optimistic moment, I interviewed him
remotely from his office at the state capitol.

What we were thinking is we were very much on top of it, because we did very extensive
contact, tracing with the all of the contacts that the person had, who was the first patient and did
everything epidemiologically that you could ask a public health system to do. But soon more
signs of trouble began to appear across Lake Washington in the city of Kirkland at the lifecare,
skilled nursing and rehab center, Scott's son.

The check had brought his 86 year old father, there to recover from a bad fall. It is head hard
enough that he had some brain trauma and bleeding on the brain, any broke his right ankle and
the bed that opened up was at life care. And so on February 20th, we moved my dad to life care
and then we started seeing some of the staff wearing respiratory gear, wearing face masks
wearing gloves, it's like what's going on inside life?

Care residents had been getting sick with an unknown respiratory infection. The sickest were
brought to the nearby evergreen health medical center. Dr. Francis Rito is the medical director
of infection control here. Remember, this was flu season, and we'd already had a peek of
influence of B in December and now we were going through the peak of influenza A.

And so the unit was full of individuals with severe respiratory infections. In the meantime, in the
background, we're watching this. These events on fold with increasing alarm, not only in Wuhan
now spreading across the globe and wondering when our turn was coming. Until that point
federal guidelines for testing potential cases were very narrow patients.

Had to have been in a hotspot like China or in contact with someone infected, Then the rules
changed, Dr. Rito wasted. No time. He settled on two individuals and we tested them the
following morning. I had a regular day. Saw patients in clinic saw patients in the hospital was
sitting there as I usually do trying to complete my Loads and received a call at 7:40 pm and both
of the tests were positive.

What goes for your mind? My initial honest response was skepticism. I thought the odds of both
tests in two randomly selected, individuals being positive with no history of travel, no history of
exposure. To anybody was fairly astronomical. This was a huge shift, incident command was
activated and we made a quick decision to test nine.

Additional people that night eight of those nine were positive. Wow, right, I was stunning
actually, isn't it? It was, and within the first five days, we had 32 positives. Many were from life
care, but crucially, some had no connection to the nursing home. We then knew that this was a
much bigger outbreak than you could have imagined.
And these 41 life care residents and two visitors, would eventually die with more than a hundred
others linked to the home testing positive, including Scott's, son, the check's, father Chuck, he
has never shown symptoms. So how worried are you? That symptoms might appear
extraordinarily because we don't know. This is new, it's uncharted waters.

The sudden text story. Hit home from me, my 84 year old. Father is in assisted living in Florida.
Hello there, you tilt down a little bit outside. One tilt down, tilt down on a more down. There you
go. That's good. How you feeling? Fine, how are you? No coronavirus so far but he's pretty
much an isolation.

No visitors allowed. It's the same and life care, but the subjects have found a way around that
my sister's here, and we'll go up and we'll say hi through the window. We've got to bring
whiteboard today, so we can actually write notes for them because they're double pain.
Windows to seal the noise.

Yeah. Can you hear us? Okay, well, not your finish there. Yeah, keep getting better. Keep
listening to the nursing staff. They're looking out for. He has to get the love from the family, to
get better with out it. He will become not just physically but mentally. Yeah. It's the worst thing
you can do to an older person, right?

Yeah, the worst thing you can do. Scott himself. Also got the virus, unlike his dad. He got sick. I
was hospitalized through the emergency room with the full-blown list of symptoms.
Extraordinary difficulty breathing light-headed dizziness you name the symptom I had it. What
was it like being in isolations sick with this disease?

Were you scared? Hell yes. I was scared. It's an unknown. I was hooked up to an IV and they
started and albuterol nebulizer which they had to give two full rounds of it. But after those two
full rounds, I was breathing normally. And after six hours, they had all my symptoms under
control within 12 hours.

They moved me to a full isolation unit. In 10 hours later, they released me with zero symptoms.
But the number of coronavirus cases at home in abroad, continue to climb the financial markets
wrought and more aggressive steps to fight this time in early march. Covenant, 19 cases were
multiplying here and around the country breaking news.

Washington is a state of emergency had put Washington under a state of emergency. State has
declared a state of the first governor to do so governor to clearing a state of emergency. But like
many here, he was increasingly concerned that President Trump was continuing to downplay
the threat. It's gonna all work out.

Everybody has to be calm. It's all going to work out and former presidential candidate tweeted,
that the administration should stick to science and tell the truth. It would ignite and escalating
war of words. During a visit to the CDC Trump fired back because that governor is a snake.
Okay, let me just tell you.

We have a lot of problems with the governor and the governor of Washington. That's, we have
many of you problems. I said no matter how nice you are. He's no good. That's the way I feel.
And that point, I did you get the sense that you as governor and the state of Washington were
sort of on their own and the the federal cavalry was not coming.
Yes. But but we didn't never depend on that leadership coming out of the White House so it's
not something that we were surprised by. We always knew that we would have to lead the
charge given the president's reluctance to to really exercise leadership on this. And we sort of
knew that he had an intent that of downplaying.

What was an emerging problem? That, you know, could only be explained by someone who had
their eye on the, on the Dow Jones rather than eye on the epidemiological curves. Seattle's
mayor, Jenny Durkin, shared those sentiments. We are not going to be distracted by any
rhetoric that the president or anyone else uses.

We've got to act, we got to act to protect the people and I think those actions are what matters
facts and science got to rely on them. That's the only thing that's going to get us through this
and fortunately, we've got a really vibrant health and science community here in the state of
Washington in Seattle.

And we listen to them, She and other political leaders. Here had some hard decisions to make
after hearing grim predictions. We have researchers here telling us that within six weeks, we
would have over 70,000 positive cases and hundreds of deaths. If we didn't act. And so we had
a choice to make the choice was know that you're going to have enormous pain in shutting
down parts of your economy or have those same impacts later, and overrun your health system.

As we move forward, it will be increasingly necessary and important that we are unified in our
efforts, Seattle was starting at a trajectory that the rest of the country would soon follow, there is
no magic silver bullet at the moment medically. But there is a very successful effort that we can
take to slow the spread of this disease and that's to reduce the social interactions that are not
necessary in our lives.

You the county executive in the governor were early out of the box on and taking these actions.
Pretty proactive. Did you feel at the time a little nervous about all that? I think it was all of us, felt
a great deal of sense of obligation and concern because we were the first to go Mayor.

Durkin. Actually had a pandemic response plan on the shelf which she and her cabinet had
updated in early February, We pulled out the pandemic planning and knew that one of the first
things we had to do to separate people from another was, have them tell a commute, those that
could.

So our largest employers, acted immediately That included Seattle icon, Microsoft, with a
workforce of more than 50,000, one of the largest private sector employers in the region. So, we
had a call on Sunday afternoon, March 1st. We had the business leaders from the Microsoft,
President, Brad Smith spoke to me, from his homes.

We went from Monday telling people they should work from home. If they were more
comfortable, Tuesday, telling people, you know, feel free to work. We might be better to
Wednesday work from home in less than essential. You come to work. The decision. You made
was a big one. Did you hesitate?

No, he was interesting. Once we decided at Microsoft that we went be decisive and base our
decisions on public health advice. Then we knew what to do. It's the hardest decision I've ever
had to make because all of our instincts are to grow the whole economy, for your city to make a
stronger community for everyone.
And what we're saying is we got a stop that kind of community, and we have to stop doing work.
Almost overnight the vibrant city shut down. Businesses closed storefronts boarded up, empty
restaurants, the famous pipe place market nearly deserted. At a local soccer field. Usually filled
with kids and families preparations for a surge of covenant patients.

We knew already that one of the biggest challenges would be having the hospital system
overwhelmed. By a way of cases we were trying to figure out how we could get testing. We're
trying to figure out whether we would receive a material help in the form of field hospitals, or or
large facilities and camps for people who were on housed.

And there wasn't a lot of concrete offers of help coming from the federal government. So we
were left with the reality that we're going to have to take on a lot of this ourselves more than 140
people lost our lives. Yesterday, bringing the death toll to over 590 in this country.

That is not doing everything. You can do as coronavirus was sweeping the country throughout
barge, I can't tell you how frustrating it is. So was the frustration among governors scrambling
for resources, they needed to respond or bidding against one another. It's really not a great
system. Of the states are, are taking action to try to find these things on our own President was
now feuding with multiple governors, 400 ventilators.

I need 30,000 ventilators. And like he done with the virus in the beginning, I don't believe you
need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators, just disputed. There was a scarcity of crucial medical
equipment like masks and ventilators. Many of the states are stocked up. Some of them don't
admit it, but they have, we have sent so many things to them and including ventilators, you don't
need the feuding doctors and nurses have struggled to get the personal protective equipment,
PPE, they need.

Good morning, and welcome everyone in Seattle. That's been the top issue for Dr. Amy
Compton Phillips, the chief clinical officer of the Providence Hospital network last year across all
of Providence, we used 250,000 masks in the first three months of this at Everett, they've used
250,000 masks. We cannot have our own caregivers going down from covid, while they're trying
to take care of the community because, you know, the supply chain is just not keeping up with
our needs.

Amy, I have to say, if I can't assure them, that they're safe, then I don't think the rest of this is
worth anything. Inside providences emergency department tensions around PPE. Have been
high. Dr. Ryan K is the department's medical director. It's exhausting to constantly. Think about
the sequence that you put things on and take things off in where you're sanitizing during that
sequence, every nurse every tech, every physician I've talked to has said, I've been working for
years and I've never been so exhausted And it leaves people just on edge all the time.

We have enough N95 mass. That's people should not have to be able to not have to bring in
their own masks. Okay. Is it a recommendation still would and 95 for five patients are we've
been using these old ship. Now we're using them with a face shield for as long as you need to
use them, you just store them in a paper bag until they become moist or soiled.

Okay, so forever. Well, not forever. Reusing masks and storing them in paper bags. Wasn't the
only DIY work around. I saw I caught up with Dr. Compton Phillips at the otherwise, vacant
providence headquarters inside a large meeting room. She and a handful of her. Team were
spread out a safe distance cranking out face shields.
Our caregivers would normally have protective goggles on and a surgical mask underneath this.
And then this goes in front and basically protects against droplets, they had rated a half dozen
craft stores to scrounge up supplies where 288 now, we're gonna get to a thousand by
tomorrow, we're retooling our resources.

Going into work against covet, I feel like Rosie. The Riveter 490, On the one hand, this is really
because it's kind of heartwarming. But it's also really sad Just preaching. Yeah, I can't, I can't
decide which way to go in this. What are your thoughts? I would rather offer our caregivers
something than nothing and at the moment, you know, if the choice is not having PPE or having
PPE we're gonna offer home a PPE.

So

That's what motivated Jeff. Cause is small family, business builds, and so, is furniture for
aviation and retail customers. He decided to pitch in and start making masks. It's not a shortage
of the raw materials at least that would be well, you know, not yet. There will be, yeah, there will
be.

Yeah. So I think we have enough to make two million masks but take you to do. Well, depends
on how fast we want to go. How fast do you want to go? Let's solve the problem. My
assumption is that will be ramping up for several weeks and then drop off a cliff.

Nobody will need me in the healthcare business anymore, and then survival becomes a
question from my company. So that's probably the next scary thing, which is thus scary than
what. Our health care friends are going through right now. That's the bigger issue for me. We
knew in January what we would need.

We knew we would need gloves and masks and respirators, and ventilators, two and a half
months later were dependent on sewing circles to supply, our front line heroes with what they
need. It may be a nice American story. I find it pathetic. Washington State officials like others in
the country say.

This wasn't avoidable crisis. Because we've lacked the federal leadership we needed is been
mayor versus mayor city versus cities, state versus state, trying to get access to the limited
resources to protect our community's, whether it's ventilators or master, our health care
workers, all of that has become this hunger games process, where everyone's trying to figure
out a way to outbid each other Washington state had a line on mass that we're coming into the
country.

And at the port in California, suddenly multiple states were bidding on them, that shouldn't be
the way that it happens. We're searching the world for every potential warehouse, that of any of
this personal protective equipment that has been a constant struggle, and we are bidding
against each other and I'm sure that the suppliers are having to feel day bidding the price up.

While states are bidding against one, another would be much more efficient economically and
otherwise if the federal government was playing a more vigorous role in that regard. The
tensions between states and the federal government had been escalating, another five million
Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week. And that would not just over the response
to the outbreak downtown in relatively short order.

There's a lot of But now over what, it will take to get the country up and running again. More
jobs, lost in a matter of two weeks than in the entire 18 months of the rain, Our team of experts.
Now agrees that we can begin the next front in our war.

Which we are calling opening up America. Again, the president has been pushing governors to
reopen soon, even as soon as May 1st, he has to get opened. And it will get open and it'll get
open safely and hopefully quickly. But some of them have been pushing back. We cannot be
guided by emotion.

We need to be guided by where the facts on the ground science and public health. Take us.
What's best for the people of Illinois, their safety and health, and listening to the scientists in the
doctors. Because if you do it wrong, it can backfire. And many like enslave say, it will come
down to one thing mass testing.

This is the number one challenge for the United States right now is we need a huge ramp up of
our testing capacity. Even greater than was needed early in the outbreak. To increase testing
Ensley says, Trump needs to order US industry to help. Using the defense production act, which
the president has only just begun to do.

We need the president to help ignite a national mobilization of the manufacturing base of the
United States. That is absolutely imperative, so that we can restart our economy. The President
Trump has also thrown this back on the states. The governors are responsible. They have to
take charge. They have to do a great job.

There are limits to what a state can do though. As I saw at Washington's health department
laboratory, they could only complete about 300 tests a day and that requires a mad scramble.
The raw materials for test kits are hard to come by. We have a lot of testing lab capability but we
don't have the equipment to swab, everybody's nose.

I think the current status and Washington state is limited by the supplies to actually run the test.
They also don't have enough PPE for the health care workers administering, the tests, if we
don't have enough gallons masks to treat patients, How are we going to prioritize again, on a
glove and a mask to swap somebody?

Because that is the requirement. The state health department isn't alone and struggling to meet
the demand. We can't have that level across contamination in After getting approval for his test
from the FDA. Alex Gleninger has dramatically ramped up testing at the University of
Washington, School of Medicine. Virology lab offer in patients, health care workers is to life
populations.

But mostly in patients, people who need support of care. We got to get that fast turnaround time,
that reduces the use of perspective. Yes, this day, they completed about three thousand tests to
get three thousand, four thousand, five thousand specimens a day. You know it takes takes a lot
of focus just like in the state.

Lab Glendora says it is difficult to get the raw materials, he needs. One of the hardest things to
find the single use, plastic tips that contain the chemicals and the specimens. Some automated
pipettiers, use four tips, attest and other issues. Three. And so, just getting the tips in to your
facility.

So we can run that many tests. This is what we're looking for. Basically a, we tweeted at Roche
and the world to get these things in. Yeah. Like you would tweet like Delta lost your back or
something like that. Right? I mean, we have two people who's entire job right now is to manage
our FedEx shipments.

Basically, we blow up our hallway and it goes down to a single file. And then it takes over the
next six to eight hours. We're able to actually move those boxes into our local warehouse to be
bought other space here in the building. It's just replychain has been really the number one
thing we do.

Despite the problems, they're still managing to return results the same day in many cases. This
is crucial to keep up with a fast moving virus and help health care workers on the front lines.
Reduce their need for personal protective equipment. When you send a test for covid-19, you
have to treat the person as if they are infected until we give you results as they are.

And during that time you have to use all the personal protective equipment. So the speed at
which we get those test results, back allows us to conserve our personal protective equipment.
It really touches so many things. So, what do you envision the coming months? I think,
personally, right now, this will be with us for some time a long time.

There's no magic bullet just yet, Is testing marathon could go on for at least a year. That's how
long experts say it. Could take to develop vaccines. In the meantime, researchers are racing to
finish clinical trials of several therapeutic drugs, including that promising? Anti-viral rev desire.
The one that seemed to work so well, on patient one trial.

Yeah, if he's on trial, he started on the 15th, doctor, Diaz is now leading one of the trials with
patients at Providence Hospital. Yesterday, These are still anecdotes because we haven't seen
the full study being completed, but we're certainly very optimistic. We want to get these
questions answers as fast as possible And there may be another way to help people fight off the
coronavirus.

Using the blood of covid survivors themselves like secure on the men. Cover. Now for people
like Elizabeth Schneider, she was getting ready to become the first person in Seattle, to donate
her plasma to researchers trying to see what natural resistance. She might have developed and
whether she can share it.

Scientists don't know how long we have that immunity for this particular virus, but signs so far,
look like, you know, we we will have a community survivors blood as therapy. It's not a new
idea, doctors used it in 1918 in the midst of the Spanish flu, pandemic. I do feel a little warmer
sense of security, you know, going out and doing my day-to-day tasks because I've already had
this, she was among the first documented covid-19 cases in the US, a microbiologist who works
for a biotech company.

She came down with flu symptoms on February 25th, three days. After attending a party. On
Facebook. She learned, many of her friends who were there were also sick 15 and all she told
me she and seven others, ultimately tested positive for covid-19. Which brought her to this
moment on this morning to the blood bank in downtown Seattle.

I am here for Are plasma donation, The coronavirus antibodies in her plasma may be away for
others to fend off the virus. It's called convolescent plasma therapy. Our goal is the $840
milliliters today. I'm hoping that some of my plasma ends up in another patient, who is suffering
from covalentine and this could potentially save their life.
There are now signs that covet cases may be plateauing in some places. Like here, I've had
some success flattening, the curve that is taken place, but also spreading to new areas at the
country Washington State recently returned more than 400 ventilators. It received from the
national stockpile so they could be used where their needed more Ensley today.

Announced that 400 ventilators would be leaving the state of Washington and going back and
recent days. President Trump's fueled with governors has become an all-out war. Like liberate
Minnesota Michigan and Virginia encouraging protests against social distancing restrictions,
even in Washington state or today in Olympia demanding that the governor act now.

So these are more testing delivery is the latest people expressing their views. I see where they
are and I see the way they're working and they seem to be very responsible people. To me, the
governor of Washington State says the president may be inciting violence in his own tweets.

Governor Ensley said Trump was unhinged off the rails. And fomenting domestic rebellion.

When I talked to Governor Ensley, he told me, it's no time to be rushing to reopen, all leaders of
the biggest challenge to make sure people understand that as a son comes up. And the
daffodils come out. We've got a double our efforts because if you relax too soon, the, the curve
just can rebound and start right back up again.

And the most dangerous element in my state today is, is the virus of complacency because we
have to be just as diligent for the next several weeks. As we were the last several weeks, I
wanted to know what pandemic modeler. Chris Murray thought of all this. He runs the institute
for health, metrics and evaluation at the University of Washington to give you ask Chris models
are often cited by President, Trump's coronavirus taskforce.

So really, when you think about Chris, there's no scenario going forward that you could
envision, that it doesn't demand. It's not if not testing for everyone. Is the issue will be, you
know, the capacity to test, right? How many tests are practically feasible come June state by
state? And it may not be anywhere near enough to be able to do full-scale mass testings.

So then if you take measures off, may first, and there's a pretty quick rebound. So by mid-July,
we'd be right back to where we are now really exactly the the rate of death and hospitalization
that we dealing with three months. Yeah. So we're not going to want to take off measures may
want to put it that way.

And the second way of won't be like the first way that the president is in heating scientific
warnings. Once again, is causing alarm among those who've been dealing with the outbreak
since the beginning, I am pessimistic about the next few months. I think it's going to be really
hard and we need to ramp up ramp up hurry we need a leader at the top.

Who's willing to go well beyond where he is right now and saying here's what we need to do in
terms of testing and giving people the information they need to get the economy. Going long
term, I'm optimistic but it's a long ways between here and there.

I went back one last time to where the outbreak took hold here, Evergreen Hospital, where
those patients from the nursing home were treated in February. It is a napped window into
where Seattle and the country are right now. I matter woman who is recovering from covenant,
19. Roseanne Eskenazi.
All right I want to like, give you a kiss and stuff, but I can't. Now at 63 with an immune system
disease, her chances of living to see her husband Moria again, were not good, you know, when
they put her on the ventilator, I never thought I'd sear again.

And and I and I wasn't reading about people that were surviving this and, you know, coming out
of this. So I was, you know, it was over. I don't even know how many weeks it was, but I don't
remember a lot when when we brought her, you know, when the day came that she had, like,
she looked horrible or temperature was horrible.

Well, it was like 105 and she was, like, cough and we had the ambulance come they sent two
ambulances. This was the beginning of the covenant. You know, you didn't really fully
appreciate how bad it was. Did you because you were kind of out of it? Yeah, I was out of it.

I saw, I saw my parents my dead parents. When I was here, I don't know whether I was saying, I
don't know whether it was a dream or hallucination. My Is we're here and they were sitting
across from me and they all said, you know, you're gonna be okay.

Everything's gonna be okay. You're gonna be okay. And you know, if something happens, you
know, your children will be fine, you know, everything's gonna be great, you have all this family
and stuff, so don't worry. So and it have really helped me, not worry. Oh there it says over that
way.

Yeah, sorry. Roseanne was on her way home.

But there were others, still coming in needing urgent attention.

I met critical care and pulmonary physician. Michael, Bundesman was focused on one particular
patient. This is a person who has multi-organ failure in ultimately apartment chemical ventilation
and now needs a dialysis, can you replace the third shock? Three days earlier he'd been awake
alert joking with his doctors patients come in.

We look okay on one day and some of our okay to be discharged from the emergency room
come back. A few days later much sick that degree of unpredictability, I think was very
unsettling for everybody. Dr. Bundesman says, the pace has slacken some says, the darkest
days we could feel a curve flattened a few days ago, probably even last week that's allowed us
to be able to see patients and take care of them in a pace.

That's a little bit more used to what our ICU can handle volume wise, and it's certainly made a
big difference. What do you see ahead? We are now I think at a stage where I think that we can
keep this pace, so they have going and that's a good thing because how many people are still
susceptible to this interaction?

It's going to be a long time. I think some of the things that worry us are what happens when
there's a next large outbreak and a still nursing facility. Next time, I susceptible population gets
hit within a tight community. I don't know when that's gonna happen. I think that until there is
some degree of hurt immunity.

There are many people out there, have to be planning this out very carefully and cautiously
when people can start returning to work, who can sort of turning the work and and what time
friend because As that happens, the cases are going to start to pick up again to And so we have
to be there and be able to support them as best as possible without stretching the capacity of
our health care system, tough decisions for those people have to make them

There, have now, been more than three quarters of a million confirmed. A covid cases in the US
more than 40,000 deaths. What began as a public health crisis here. With patient, one has
become a national crisis over response over science and politics and decisions with devastating
consequences.

It's still a tail of two Washingtons. The story that I found when I arrived But it's also a tale of
Washington and the states. And how the country will emerge from the crisis.

For more on this, another frontline programs visit our website at PBS.org/fromline.

Front lines, coronavirus. Pandemic is available on Amazon Prime video.