We still have no idea how Many Americans are Walking Around with this virus. The biggest message from the president today, the states should be handling this, as he put it, speaking on behalf of the federal government, were a back up. He says the states should have had more equipment and ppe already on hand. He said they should have been on the open markets just buying before the pandemic. And he repeated for good measure nobody had any even heard of Something Like this. Today he took a shot at saying out loud what he wants the truth to be going forward. Today he said the federal government acted early which is not true. They did not. Here we are widely considered to be months behind, and we just became the first nation on the planet to mark 1,000 deaths in one 24hour period. Today, the number of known cases around the globe went past 1 million. 243,000 of those here in the United States were, again, because of testing. We dont have reliable numbers. Over 5,800 souls have died. In the past 24 hours, 29,000 new cases and over1,000 new deaths. As for the economic toll, today we learned that last week 6. 6 million americans applied for unemployment benefits. Total of 9. 9 Million People are out of work right now. The number of people out of work is now a number greater than the individual populations of over 40 states. The white house today tried to reassure americans that relief checks are indeed on the way. This money does people no good if it shows up in four months, and we will deliver on that promise. So its a matter of weeks, not months. Quickly is a matter of weeks, not months. As were seeing images of americans waiting in lines of food banks. Jeff bezos gave 100 million to struggling food banks around the country. There is no question that for millions of our fellow citizens, two weeks is too long. And people without direct deposit will have to wait as long as are you ready for this five months to get their checks. Today at the white house, we also heard a warning from dr. Deborah birx who earlier this week revealed sobering data about the virus and its deadly potential. This afternoon, she sounded the alarm about the effort to contain this outbreak. I know youve seen the slope in the United States versus the slope in italy. And we have to change that slope. We have to change the logarithmic curve that were on. We see country after country having done that. What it means in the United States is not everyone is doing it. So, were only as strong as every community, every county, every state, every american following the guidelines. This is really a call to action. Not everyone is doing it because a ton of states out there still dont have stayathome measures. Amid the surge in cases, state and local officials are struggling to try to help hospitals dealing with those severe shortages of equipment and ppe. States are bidding against each other and competing with the feds out there on the open market. This morning the president posted this about state official who is say theyre not getting enough help from the government, quote, some have insatiable appetites and are never satisfied. The complainers should have been stocked up and ready long before this crisis hit. New york governor andrew cuomo, whose state has nearly 100,000 cases, the most in the nation, today made plain just how dire things are. If a person comes in and needs a ventilator and you dont have a ventilator, the person dies. Thats the blunt equation here. And right now we have a burn rate that would suggest we have about six days in the stock pile. Later this afternoon at the white house, trump pointed to his efforts to respond to the crisis while also seeming to blame governors for not being prepared. I directed secretary azar and acting secretary wolf to use any and all available authority under the defense production act to ensure domestic manufacturers have the supplies they need to produce ventilators for people with covid19. On top of the 3,000 beds were providing to the javits center, the department of defense is adding another 48 icu beds. Governor cuomo has asked that this facility go and its a big beautiful facility be converted to a covid hospital. We have two other facilities likewise asking for it. That would be in louisiana and also in dallas. And well be doing those. I think the federal government has not only acted early but acted quickly, professionally. What happens though when states are bidding against each other . They have to work that out. What they should do is they should have long before this pandemic arrived, they should have been on the open market just buying. There was no competition. You could have made a great price. The states have to stock up. Its like one of those things. They waited. They didnt want to spend the money because they thought this would never happen. Thats how that went down. And we mentioned this earlier. Rare sighting for the press corp. In the west wing, first time we saw trump Senior Adviser and soninlaw Jared Kushner at the daily briefing. Tonight the New York Times reports some Administration Officials say his work with the task force has added confusion to the response. Today he spoke about his assignment as laid out by his fatherinlaw. The president wanted to make sure we have the best people doing the best jobs and had the right people focused on the things that need to happen to deliver for the american people. The president also instructed me to make sure that i break down every barrier needed to make sure that the teams can succeed. President was asked about what other measures the u. S. Might take in the future to keep the virus from spreading in the u. S. Like more extensive bans on people flying into this country. We have more bans than anybody. We have bans when bans werent fashionable at the beginning of this administration. Weve had bans long before people thought of bans. When i did china, it had never been done before. I was the first to do it. According to what i read in all the papers this had never been done. This is a terrible thing to do. Four weeks later they were all saying lucky we did it. Meanwhile House Speaker nancy pelosi announced new select committee with subpoena power to scrutinize the response to this pandemic and the administrations management of this new gigantic 2 trillion economic rescue package. Democratic congressman jim clyburn of South Carolina will be its chairman. This afternoon trump had this response to the speakers move. Its not any time for witch hunts. Its time to get this enemy defeated. Conducting these partisan investigations in the middle of a pandemic is a really big waste of vital resources, time, attention. And we want to fight for american lives, not waste time and build up my poll numbers because thats all theyre doing. Meantime, the navy captain who sounded the alarm about the spread of covid19 on board his carrier, the uss Theodore Roosevelt, has been relieved of his command. Well have a discussion on this story a bit later on in the broadcast. The pentagon also confirming tonight that as death tolls skyrocket, fema has requested 100,000 body bags. Its a very real problem in cities like new york that theyre being forced to confront. Behind me is the sight that some park avenue residents are waking up to this morning. Let me describe it to you. There is at the end a tented walkway that comes out of the back of len nix hill hospital and it goes to this refrigeration truck. That truck is a temporary morgue. Just a few minutes ago we were listening to the generator hum here just off of park avenue as it waits for the bodies of covid19 patients to come. With that, lets bring in our lead off Discussion Group on a thursday night. Sam stein, politics editor for the daily beast, dr. Venn gupta. He specializes in treating respiratory illnesses like covid19. Hes also an affiliate, assistant professor at the university of washingtons department of health metric sciences. Also with us shannon pettypiece, veteran journalist, senior White House Reporter for us at nbc news digital. Doctor, i would like to begin with you. Ive covered my fair share of hurricanes over the years. Were always driving in as others are driving out, and there comes a moment where the Emergency Operations director says to everybody if you didnt get out, there is now no more time for that. Stay in place, batten down. Is that where we are with this pandemic . Can any affected change now affect the outcome other than some kind of strictly enforced lastminute social distancing . Thanks, brian. National lockdown was needed two months ago. Certainly now it would be playing catch up. So, the answer to your question is absolutely. But you need to stop with the mixed messages, with the nonevidence based lack of definitive consistent messaging that we keep getting from the white house whether its now we need the general public to fashion their own masks to protect themselves when they shouldnt be going out and sheltering in place to maybe we should use hydroxychloroquine on patients with covid19 in the absence of evidence. The only thing that we know works to stop and mitigate this disaster is a national lockdown. Its worked here in seattle we think. Theres compelling evidence nationwide that fevers are actually declining from some of the technology that were seeing going live. So, lets double down on the evidence, what we know what works and stop doing things that we dont have any evidence to support. Im glad you raised the subject of masks. We had the president kind of riffing on masks for the last two days, telling us from his standpoint that maybe some scarves are better. And then just this evening the mayors of our two biggest cities, new york and l. A. , are telling people if you go outside, put something on your face. Yet silence, crickets, from the official part of the government that would lay out such a thing. And citizens have been asking for weeks should we wear these things or not . There is no compelling evidence one way or the other that putting a face mask fashioned at home is going to protect you. Some evidence suggests maybe it does. Other evidence out of china, it doesnt. No conclusive evidence. So, people want to make their own face mask at home, by all means, no ones going to stop you. But heres the concern. Is this going to be an off ramp from lets not consume precious ppe that youre highlighting which is a desperate need for Health Care Workers. What we dont want to mixed messaging causing people to purchase surgical masks, other ppe. We can restrict it to homemade masks, fantastic. Do i think that in practice is going to happen . Who knows . This is so confusing and the messages change every three days. We need consistency and we need evidencebased policies now in the national lockdown. Shannon pettypiece, youve heard the doctor. We see you in the daily briefings. Is there anyone who is willing to admit that a national audience, just to the conversation we were just having, is getting inconsistent misleading information and often, again today, straight up misinformation from that podium . Well, i mean, you could see the inconsistency as dr. Gupta is talking about in this briefing today. It was 2 hours and 20 minutes of inconsistencies. And at times the people on the stage contradicting each other. Take the issue of face masks. You had the president when we asked him about this every day this week is there going to be a recommendation on face masks. The president recommending people wear a scarf and saying that in some ways the scarf could be better than a surgical mask because it is thicker. Maybe the doctor can address that. But i dont see doctors wears scarves in the operating room, so im going to think maybe a surgical mask is a bit better. But they dont want people going out and buying surgical masks so the president is talking about scarves. A moment later you had dr. Birx almost contradict that saying we dont want to give people a false sense of security. We dont want them to think because they have a mask or scarf on they can go out to a restaurant or hang out with their friends. So, just in a breath you have them contradicting each other. Jared kushner you had come up to the stage and talk about this dataoriented process they have for allocating resources yet at the same time talking about an anecdote from this week where instead of using data it was a call from one of the president s friends in new york that caused him to distribute a large bulk of n95 masks to new york City Hospital though a phone call from a president s friends gets you masks doesnt necessarily sound like this thorough datadriven approach he spent so much time talking about. Its very confusing and its confusing for us sitting in the room. Its confusing for me sitting there and ive sat through every one of these this week. So, i can empathize with everyone at home whos confused and not to mention scared at this point. Sam, lets talk about jared for a second. He said today this crisis has been revealing to him in terms of which elected officials are good managers. I for one am happy to have his sound judgment at work here and i know i speak for you, correct . Well, that comment was revealing in its own right. This is a spotlight put on everyone in a executive role and clearly to his point some are passing, some are failing. I dont know if hes selfaware he may have been talking about his own fatherinlaw in this instance. Look, in terms of Jared Kushners involvement, im not opposed to bringing in someone like him to help organize a crossgovernment response. But someone like that should have brought in probably a month ago. Remember ron klain was criticized because he didnt have the experience as an Infectious Disease doctor, but thats not what was needed in that moment. What was needed was someone who understood how government works. I think jared may know that. The problem jared is having is some of the things he said was nonsensical. For instance talking about the National Stock pile saying it wasnt really meant to go to the states in need. It was meant for the federal government. I cant contemplate when you would use the National Stock pile ventilators for some sort of broad federal but not state by state use. Hes playing catch up and this brings us to the larger point which i think is the underlying issue which has been the administrations response. One, theyre playing catch up and two theyre only thinking one day or one news cycle ahead. The stuff they should be doing a month ago theyre just getting around to and the results are cataclysmic. Doc, i have a rather ghoulish question i must ask you. Were asking experts like you for things like peak dates. We know theyre coming. Reference my first question. Are we looking at two will the peak date for known cases be different than the peak date for deaths in this country . I think thats such a good question. And what we do know is im going to cite the intel that we already have. That intel suggests that the peak dates are going to be spike in death by april 15th. Thats when the university of Washington Institute for health metrics. We know thats going to occur. Thats been corroborated by other evidence out of harvard. So, we have great intel. Theres great evidence. Theres great modeling, so we should be prepared for it to the extent we can. Unfortunately were playing catch up. So, why are we doing off ramps on ppe . It doesnt make any sense. We should be encouraging a national lockdown, saving ppe, not looking for ways in which maybe people are going to feel like they need to get their own surgical masks. The reckoning is going to come in a few weeks for all forecasting models we have out there. Doctor, thank you for bravely continuing in the dark. Doctor, shannon, sam, provided everybody can still hear me, thank you all for starting us off on thursday night. Coming up we have some of the best minds on both health care and the economy. First up the person joe biden told us he would choose to lead his Coronavirus Task force if he were president. And later, theyre the business of they are the business and employment backbone of our country. And right now theyre struggling to survive themselves. What has been done, what needs to be done to help this nations Small Businesses as the 11th hour just getting under way this thursday night. Tting under way s thursday night nowadays you do more from home than ever before. The xfinity my account app puts you in control with Digital Tools to give you the help you need when you need it. Get fast and easy answers with personalized help 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Change your wifi password to a phrase thats easy to remember. Even troubleshoot your services on your own. Were working to make things a little easier for everyone. Download the xfinity my account app today. Like rock, reggaeton, alland techno. Get ready for the drop. Wait for it. Wait for it. Come on man hit me wait for it. Just do it already one more time yeah. Ron klain, the white house Ebola Response coordinator during the Obama Administration, was joe bidens choice when i asked him a few days back who he would want to lead the coronavirus response. So who better to talk to about what were witnessing right now . Ron klain, veteran of the white house, is these days informally advising the biden campaign. Hes also the cohost of a new podcast about the coronavirus called epidemic. Ron, on the off notion that you would be named tonight, right now, special master in charge of this and i mentioned at the top its quite confusing to name just one person whos in charge of this effort what would you insist be done right now . Well, thanks, brian. And, look, i think the most important thing is for one person to be put in charge. I mean were on our fourth coronavirus coordinator in the past five weeks in the trump administration. First secretary azar, then Vice President pence, then dr. Debbie birx, and it appears today now Jared Kushners in charge. So you cant run Something Like this with a constant change of leadership at the top. And, you know, i think its less about who it is and more than just saying this person is going to be in charge. Theyre going to drive the train. Once someones in charge, the thing they need to focus first and foremost on is fixing the supply chain. We cannot have 50 states competing against one another for masks, for face shields, for ventilators. We need someone in charge at the white house working with the manufacturers. We need the president to use his authority under the defense production act with a very simple mandate. Make what we need. Send it to where its needed. And thats not happening right now. As a result, were seeing these horrible shortages. Were seeing all these sights of doctors wearing trash bags. We had our first death of an er doctor yesterday, brian. Sadly its going to be the first of many more if we dont get these doctors and nurses protected. That should be priority number one of someone at the white house. Yeah, i fear youre right about that. I want to play for you a moment from todays briefing. Well talk about it on the other side. Just today georgias governor finally issued a stayathome order saying that individuals could have been infecting people before they even felt bad, but we didnt know that until the last 24 hours. Is that ignorance, gross incompetence . Hes a good governor, brian kemp. Hes a good governor, and he has to make his own decision on that. So, ron, that raises a host of questions. Number one, how does the governor of the state of georgia not know about asymptomatic victims of this virus . Number two, no National Standard to stay indoors. All of these states that have yet to do are outliers. The virus doesnt respect state lines. Number three, no National Standard on things like masks. Yeah. All three true. Lets start with number one, brian. Whats especially shocking about what Governor Kemp said yesterday when he said this was that he made this statement about not knowing about asymptomatic transmission. 6. 5 miles from the headquarters of the centers for disease control, the worlds leading epidemic experts. So the idea that the governor of georgia didnt know that the people in atlanta cdc had concluded this in january about asymptomatic transmission is quite a real stunning statement and inexcusable. Now, look, youre right. What we really need is clear and crisper messaging from cdc and some empowered messaging from cdc on things like should everyone in the country be staying at home . Answer, yes, we all should be except for essential workers who are doing the essential tasks. And should we have a National Standard on face masks and other things like that . Obviously there are huge gaps here, and this unevenness is leading to uncertainty. In the public like dr. Gupta discussed in your first segment. More importantly its leading to real uncertainty about what state and local government should do. That lack of clarity is a real problem in a response where what the president s basically said is, governors, youre in charge. And they need direction on what they should be doing when theyre put in charge. Ron klain, thank you for always answering the bell when we call, and please look forward to many more as were going to need to talk to you throughout this thing. Our thanks to ron klain for joining us against tonight. Coming up, for the millions of newly unemployed americans, relief checks may still be weeks away. But those Small Business loans said to be available tomorrow, getting one may be challenging. Some advice from two former Obama Administration economists when we come right back. Own cou. I see a way to bring pride back to communities. Thats why i made project backboard and a site with godaddy. How will you make your mark . Make the world you want. I believe we just put up the federal register with the new guidelines for lenders. Ive been assured that the banks will be in the process starting tomorrow. Theres a big problem with secretary mnuchins assertion about the Small BusinessLending Program launching tomorrow. None of the participating banks interviewed by cnbc were sure theyd be ready for it. The biggest one, Jpmorgan Chase told its customers that it quote, most likely will not be able to start accepting applications on friday. For more, we welcome to the broadcast karen mills. She served as the head of the Small Business administration during president obamas first term. She is these days senior fellow at the Harvard Business school. And back with us tonight, austan goolsbee, former chairman of the council of economic advisers for president obama, a professor of economics at a Small Institution in the middle of the country called the university of chicago. Austan, its great to see you again. Thank you for coming back. We learned today from the Associated Press half of u. S. Workers have either lost jobs or income because of this. But this question has us at a crux. Was this too big to be administered . Well, you know it certainly seems like its too big. Sorry. Austan first. This is always hard on satellites with long delays. Austan, and then well get to karen. Okay. I mean the first thing is this number of the unemployment claims this morning, just pause for a second. It was stunning. It was unbelievably awful. It is by a factor of ten the biggest job loss in the history of the United States before the coronavirus. So the pressure is on. We have to get money out the door. We have to get money to the Small Businesses to prevent them from liquidating and turning this temporary shock into something more permanent. And by all the accounts, we could be in for weeks of red tape and fingerpointing where the banks say the treasury didnt give them what they needed, the treasury says it was the sbas fault and the sba says the treasury is bigfooting them out of the problem. Karen, this is where you come in. Im guessing youre going to say it is as important to get this sba money out so that people remain employees of something as it is the direct aid to employees. Well, this is a really big day for Small Business owners because as you just noted, half the people who work in this country own or work for a Small Business. So that is one of the things that is behind these really big unemployment numbers that were talking about. And now weve got this huge fire hydrant of money sitting at, you know, sba and treasury, and the question is whether its actually hooked up to any hose that can get it out to the Small Business owners. Ive been talking to the banks all day like you have, and they arent quite ready because the guidance only came out a couple of hours ago. So they are going to try their very best. They have a lot of Small Business customers. But Small Business customers only have a few weeks of cash. So the next four or five days, they are pivotal. If we can start getting cash flowing into their hands, then they can pay their people and take them back on the payroll, and they can survive. And what austan and i know from 2009 when we faced not even this big a crisis in Small Business but a pretty big one, if you lose your Small Businesses, its very hard to restart them. So weve got to get liquidity into their hands. The program is good. Its designed to, you know, have fewer barriers. But the mechanism is not built for this, and i think, you know, we could have a very bumpy ride. If we have too bumpy a ride, its going to cost us millions of Small Businesses. Theyre just not going to be there for the recovery. Austan, to your point, what has happened to us is extraordinary. The greatest economy in the world has gone into a kind of power save mode. A dual question from you. Is there floor yet to come . Is there more that could be idled as we ride this out, and when does the damage begin to be permanent . Both of those are critically important. Look, i think realistically theres still another shoe to drop. With this 6. 6 Million People filing for unemployment insurance, thats an underestimate because, a, more businesses have shut down, and, b, in many of the states, so many people filed for unemployment that they couldnt process them all. So next week is likely to be another unbelievable week. So this couldnt be more important. Now, i will give the Administration Credit where credit is due. I think on the 1,200 payments to adults, the treasury is out doing the best work that they possibly can to get the money out the door as quickly as possible. And they should be applauded for that. But this Small Business component, what karen just told you, is 100 true. If you cant get the money to the Small Businesses, the 360some billion that we passed to save Small Business, if you cant get that out the door in a timely manner, theyre going to have to shut the doors and liquidate. And if they do that, you are well on your way to turning this into a depression, not just a deep recession. Oh, man. Well, i asked the question after all. Hey, karen, unless people have fabulous wealth, a lot of the people watching tonight are scared. You know the Small Business community so well. Can you reassure the folks watching that their employers want to remain their employers because they want to remain in business and come back from this and make money, and so hopefully interests will converge . You know, Small Businesses think of their employees as family, and i talked to a Small Business owner. They had people working for them for, you know, 30, 40 years, and they had to put them on unemployment. So if we can get this money deployed quickly, then eight weeks of it will go to be loans that are forgiven. Theyll be grants if you bring your employees back. One of the things i really urge treasury to do now is get that money out not just through banks, but lets use some of the fintechs, some of the Technology Companies that have come on the scene. Im thinking square and stripe and quickbooks. They know where Small Businesses are. They talk to them. Some of them have 10 million Small Businesses that they can verify their payments, and we are not using them at the moment because were just using the banks. And i think we need to use every channel at our disposal. And the other thing is some of the most vulnerable Small Businesses are the ones that square, for instance, takes care of. They, on average, only borrow about 6,000. Well, the banks dont service them. So we need to use all of our channels. And if we do, you know, Small Business owners are resilient. But this is as tough as it gets. So they can hang on for a while, but im told that come may 1st, that is a day of reckoning. Theyve paid their april 1st bills and they have a few weeks of cash left. If we can get money to them, that might be good. But april if we dont by may 1, you know, we could really start losing a lot of businesses, and as austan says, its really hard to get them back. Its been sobering though great to have both of your voices tonight. If you would, wed like to have you both back on perhaps when the next tranche of government money comes out. To karen mills, to austan goolsbee, thank you so much for joining us. And coming up, the story out of the u. S. Navy that got so much attention. Former captain of an Aircraft Carrier demoted for something he did. At no time did the c. O. Relay the various levels of alarm that i along with the rest of the world learned from his letter when it was published by the c. O. s hometown newspaper two days later. The navy is defending its decision to punish a navy captain over a memo detailing his concerns about the spread of covid19 on board the Aircraft Carrier he commanded. In his letter, captain Brett Crozier wrote, quote, if required, the uss Theodore Roosevelt would embark all assigned sailors, set sail, and be ready to fight and beat any adversary that dares challenge the u. S. Or our allies. However, we are not at war, and therefore cannot allow a single sailor to perish as a result of this pandemic unnecessarily. Weve been able to reach by telephone tonight retired fourstar u. S. Army general barry mccaffrey, a decorated combat veteran of vietnam and a former battlefield commander in the persian gulf. He has moved entire armies around the world in his time. General, lets put it this way. Being carrier captain with just 11 carriers in the navy is one of the most awesome jobs in all of the armed forces. 5,000 souls who report to you beneath five acres of deck. A couple air squadrons on board that could knock off a small country or two. And yet the only firing i have witnessed in all of this Pandemic Response is this guy, the captain of this carrier. Well, it was a terrible decision. There are two aspects of this, brian. One is relieving the captain when he was speaking truth to power. Its going to turn out there were several hundred sailors testing positive for this virus. Had he not pulled into guam, had he not tried to disperse the crew, it would have gone possibly to the entire crew. Maybe 10 , 20 trying to hospitalize them aboard a carrier, which is obviously not doable. And heres the guy in command, you know, Brett Crozier, fa18 hornet pilot, masters degree, 28 years in the navy. Naval academy. Hes the one that has the situation in his eyesight. So the fact that the acting secretary of the navy fired him was sheerly the embarrassment of it leaking to a newspaper. The second piece of it, brian, it seems to me is this Navy Commander was saying, you people arent moving fast enough. Im in guam. I want these sailors off the ship. And for whatever reason, they werent doing it. It clearly was not a matter of national security. The chinese know where our carriers are home ported. You can get commercial overhead satellite photography. So this is a bad day for the navy and a terrible signal to the fleet. Lets talk about your branch of the military and establish that no one joins the military for the luxury digs you get. But also establish that on board an abrams tank, on board a bradley fighting vehicle, in most barracks, the confines are tight. This virus loves that environment to grow and prosper. Do you think the armed forces are taking every precaution tonight because we cant do much without them around the world. We need them healthy. Well, i think its decentralized, so a lot of them are doing it the right way. The navy and probably air force are under more strategic pressure than the army and the marine corps. The navy has got these carriers, and by the way there are nuclear boomer submarines at sea right now. And if those sailors werent quarantined for 14 days, they may have this virus aboard 90day Patrol Missions for our Nuclear Deterrent force or down in air force icbm silos up in the northern part of the country. So were going to have to take it more seriously. Were going to have to respond to protect our most precious asset, our people. The navy has got to think through this because im sure now its aboard many of the ships at sea unless they were quarantined before they deployed, which this ship wasnt. So its a problem. Theyve got to face up to it rationally and allow the Commanding Officers to make decisions on what theyre seeing in their own command. Retired general barry mccaffrey, always a pleasure. Thank you for getting back to us tonight. We appreciate it. And coming up for us, some of the personal stories from the nurses and doctors on the front lines of this war. I cant believe we have to say this, but its true. No matter what you hear in the daily blizzard of numbers from the president and Vice President in that Briefing Room about all theyre doing and all the equipment theyre shipping, frontline doctors and nurses have been working under brutal conditions. The risks of both burnout and illness are running hot. Nbc news correspondent Stephanie Gosk has our report on them tonight. Reporter mt. Sinai emergency room in new york city. Dr. Matthew bye begins his shift. You can see all the rooms are filled. Usually these halls are very neat and empty. Now you can see theres patients everywhere because of this. It makes it very hard to work. Reporter concerned for his familys safety, bye no longer lives at home. He doesnt know for how long. This is too much. Reporter sheena tannis, a Critical Care nurse in brooklyn, chronicles her grueling day. Its 11 15 and im still in the room with the patient doing the dialysis and managing drips, managing the ventilator. Its not easy. Reporter the Health Care Workers in coronavirus hot spots are exhausted. Hundreds are sick themselves. And while there are concerns about protective gear and lifesaving equipment, another shortage looms. The staff themselves. We were shortstaffed today. Every single manager, every manager from our unit came in, and they chipped in, and they did everything they could. Reporter tens of thousands are volunteering, answering a call to help in new york, like 32yearold nurse jessica fink from new mexico, who just started working at a new york icu. I have specifically pulmonary Critical Care experience. So, you know, if anybody should be helping, it should definitely be me. Reporter for the nurses and doctors who get sick, a desire to get back on the job with possible immunity. Youll feel like youre invincible because you can deal with this crisis without anybody having to worry. No matter what happens, this hospital, this profession, were in a league of our own. Reporter but also human. At the end of the day, there is little left to give. Its 12 19, and i just parked my car coming home from the shift. My face is breaking out from the mask. I look like ive aged 20 years in two weeks. This is too much. I dont know how much longer i could do this. Reporter Health Experts say the height of the pandemic is yet to hit. The call for reinforcements may get louder. Stephanie gosk, nbc news, new york. The kind of story we hope the white house is able to watch. Coming up, some much needed good news to end our broadcast when we come back. A few last things before we go tonight. And this told us a lot. The folks and google say web searches for good news, any good news, are at an alltime high since they started keeping records of such things 16 long years ago in 2004. And with that in mind, we offer you this. [ cheers and applause ] thats pretty great. In the city of new york, firefighters with the fdny saluting medical professionals at the citys various hospitals. They call new york city firefighters the bravest and for good reason. Yet clearly they feel the need to salute the deprave ri on display every day among doctors and nurses and pas and orderlies and Food Service Workers and management and other staff. By the way, the fdny between fires and ems is now down 17 of its workforce. Finally, we have all by now heard the stories of the anguish of the final moments. Among its other horrors, this virus robs its victims of their loved ones. For hospital patients especially, covid19 means dying alone. Desperate loved ones are pleading with Hospital Personnel when they know the end is near to put a phone up to the patients ear or let them see the patient via facetime or zoom. Too many doctors and nurses have been forced to generously use their own devices, often on their last bit of electrical charge. Well, a new gofundme account formed by a woman in california meant to raise money to buy tablets for this very purpose as long as were dealing with this, for when electronics are the only way remaining to say goodbye. And so that is our broadcast on this thursday night. On behalf of all of our colleagues at the networks of nbc news, good night from our temporary field headquarters. Good morning from new york. Im chris hayes. There is a strange sort of time lapse playing out throughout the country. Places that have been hit first and hardest by the coronavirus are further along the curve of growth. Those places are fairy big dense metropolises and they are in bad shape. Every single state is headed there. Here are the latest numbers. We now have more thnew york wit cases and new jersey and