follow the guidelines for all the phases, continue to practice good hygiene, wash your hands, avoid touching your face, disinfect frequently lfrequentl. people who feel sick should stay home when it comes to businesses, social distances, equipment, temperature checks and isolation. these are the guidelines for all of the phases, and they are good practices to implement. if you're in a community that's affected or even if you are not. we're all in this together. and the progress that we made, that you saw illustrated in those charts and places like new york and new jersey, connecticut and new orleans, was a result of the american people stepping forward, heeding the guidance of federal, state, and local authorities. and we encourage you to continue to do just that.

implement the guidelines for all phases. at home and at work and in your community. for those of the areas most affected, we just want to encourage you to listen to and respect the guidance of your state and local authorities. i recognize that this is different than two months ago both this our ability to respond and in the nature of those that are being infected and that younger americans have a particular responsibility to make sure that they're not carrying the coronavirus into settings where they would expose the most vulnerable. and lastly as i prepare to bring dr. birx to the podium, i would encourage every american to continue to pray. pray for all the families that have lost loved ones. pray for our health care workers on the front lines. and just continue to pray that by god's grace every single day.

we of us do our part to heal our land. with that, i'll introduce the coordinator of the white house effort on the coronavirus, dr. deborah birx. >> thank you, mr. vice president. thank you for that great introduction. just to remind everybody where we have come from in the last four months -- we have a great deal of understanding now about the differential disease. differential infections, no, we believe everyone is susceptible to infection. we know infection leads to a spectrum of disease, and we have much better details about who is vulnerable and why they are vulnerable. and as the vice president said, at one time we were diagnosing people in the icu after they came into the emergency room. and thanks to the millennials who have been heeding our guidance, they have been coming forward and getting testing. so whereas before we told them

to stay home, now we are telling them to be tested. this is a great change for us because it allows us now to find the asymptomatic and the mild diseases that we couldn't find before. as dr. redfield talked about yesterday from the serology tests, we have a great understanding of what was happening in march. and the number of asymptomatic and mild conditions that led to individuals to have antibodies but never come forward with significant disease. we now know who's at risk for significant disease, and we now know it's particularly the elderly individuals over 80, and individuals with co-morbidities. remember those co-morbidities span the entire age group. we do know that we have people in the younger age groups with significant type-one diabetes, and may also have individuals with significant obesity. we know that those are risk factors. so risk factors go with your

co-morbidity, not necessarily with your age. and so as we call on individuals to protect one another, by passing someone on the street you don't know what co-morbidities they have. and this is why we've been focused on trying to protect one another. we also know who's at risk for the highest mortality, and because of that we've been able to -- clinical care has dramatically improved, and i want to thank nih who's been working won assistantly to update the clinic -- been working constantly to update the clinical guidelines. people around the united states and around the world using those have the most updated information about how to actually improve disease courses of those individuals in the hospital. we, of course, have improved treatment in the hospital that we didn't have in march and april. with improved methods of oxygenation which is really quite important, improved treatment of acute respiratory distress, that's individuals on a ventilator. we know now they respond quite well to steroids. and then research that is ongoing and what we call acute

storm when often in that later stage when people are on ventilators, the seriously ill may need steroids and other items. that's being researched. and the work that's being done on clotting research by the nih. we also have new therapeutics out of the news both as compassionate use like convalescent plasma and now remdesivir that we just reallocated and ensured it was available to the states that are facing the increased hospitalization, as well as the monthly allocation that's we have been sending out. if we can go to the first slide, please, and start where the vice president left off. really this disease has tackled -- is tackle community by community. testing and working with community groups to not the spread in those communities. we've spent the time to really map this epidemic and new positives down to the level of communities to understand where spread is occurring so that we

can match our prevention interventions to those areas. next slide, please. as we discussed and it's difficult for you to see on this graphic because the top line is new york. we should remember where we were in that slope. that early slope that you can see in the case of the new york cases. that rapid acceleration. on the same slide, you can see california, that is the blue line, that is just passing the orange line. and also on the slide is texas in green, florida in orange, and arizona at the bottom. as dramatic as these slopes are, they are not equivalent to the original acceleration that we saw in new york. that doesn't mean that we aren't absolutely focused on working with the governors in those communities to stop the spread of the virus in those four states. next slide, please. this shows you through the entire country that we're tracking state by state, and

obviously this axis is vastly different than the one on the prior slide because that slide included all of the cases in new york city. but you can see on this slide that we've been tracking very closely north carolina, a team's been with north carolina working with the state and local public health authorities to really respond to the changes there, as well as the south carolina at the bottom. next slide. i'll judst go quickly so you ca see oklahoma's at the bottom of this slide. and next slide, you can see on this slide idaho and oregon. those are the ones in the light blue and the dark green where you see an inflection in their slopes. these inflection points and understanding when they occur and why they occur are critical for understanding how to prevent the spread. next slide. what the vice president talked about is we've created an alert system that brings together what we just talked about, rising cases with an understanding of

test positivity. and so this really, this chart which is difficult for you to see, those states on that far side that have the highest tests positive that you can see at the higher level of the graph, those are the states that we have concerns about because of the rising number of cases and the rising tests positive. this explains the extent of community spread. in states that have increasing cases but falling test positives, it tells us that they're getting into the communities to find the asymptomatic cases. so these are the things we put together to understand the full picture. next slide, please. so this really puts on one slide the states that we have that we've been talking about across the south where we have our greatest concerns. the two top states with the largest increase in test positives are texas and arizona followed by florida, mississippi, south carolina,

alabama, georgia, louisiana, nevada, and utah. those last few states are under still 10%, but we're tracking them closely as we look at that individually. finally, next slide, you can see on this slide we are tracking -- this is when you hear about we have a certain 2% or 3% of the counties under specific alerts. so it doesn't matter the size of the county. we're tracking the increase and the rate of increase of new cases at the county level. we currently have about 130 counties out of the 3,100 in the united states in that category. next slide. the level shows the case positivity by the metros, and the number of tests that have been done. next slide. and then this shows you specifically the change over time of test positivity and the largest metros where we have concerns. and this is austin, phoenix,

houston, dallas, san antonio, tampa, orlando, miami, riverside, california, and atlanta at the bottom. and so this is how we continue to integrate data on cases, data on testing, and data on hospitalizations so that we can work with the states for a comprehensive, integrated response. next slide. i know many of you will be interested in seeing how high the test positivity rate became in april and -- march and april. so that top line is new york city metro. and you can see it reached over 50% on a series of days for almost two weeks. 50% of the tests were positive for covid-19. underneath that you see new jersey and minnesota and a whole series of individuals. detroit is the second -- the second large mountain. next slide. so quickly to show you how we look at this at the state level and work with the governors and the local health authorities.

so this is florida. we tracked testing, it's done, the number of test positives in the blue line, the total idea of cases, seen in the black bar, and what we call the syndromic presentations of early respiratory diseases and pneumon pneumonias. next slide. this then we look at the county level to look for changes in the slope in the number of new cases. the top county that has the largest increase in sloping cases is miami, miami-dade, followed by broward and palm beach. all the other counties are much lower in their daily case increases. this allows us to focus resources and testing along with the state and to the specific sites. next slide. that all comes together to keep -- create this graphic so that individuals can understand and we can understand precisely what the rate of growth is and where the rate of growth is

occurring by the shading of the boxes. now i'm going to quickly take you through texas because it's the same story. next slide. so this shows you the exact same graphics, now shown for texas, showing a continued rise in the daily tests performed. but also a rise in the test positivetivitie activity, the b line. throughout may after opening their test positivity continued to decline as the testing increased. it was in the last 2.5 weeks that we saw this inflection of rising test positivity along with rising testing. but it was the increase in test positivity that alerted us along with the increased cases that this was becoming an alert. you can see in the red boxes, everything is heat mapped. so at a glance, you can tell those two boxes that are in the middle that are red, that's the he map showing that this has rising cases and rising test

positivity. next slide. but even in texas -- next slide, please -- this gives a map of texas, it shows where the cases are and where they're rising the most rapidly. finally i'm going to go through arizona quickly along with california. next slide. same with arizona, rising number of testing performed but rising positivity, rising cases. next slide. arizona is unique in that they have one county that is primarily represented by the depth of the new cases, and there is in the phoenix area. next slide. then next slide. this is california. you can see california over the last week has had that increase in test positivity. you can see that dramatic increase at the end of that bar in the blue line. along with still increasing

testing that has been done, and we just want to thank all of the governors and work and laboratories that's allowed us along with high-speed chahs to increases in the orange lines. you could key in each of these cases, the owner lines have dramatically gone up over the last four weeks. next slide. and like new mexico, the primary infections right now in california at the highest level are in the l.a. area. because l.a. is a large metropolitan area -- next slide -- you really need this kind of more specific and local graphic to really show that it's also increasing in the central valley. and this gives us the ability to focus resources among agricultural workers, to improve testing and isolation for those who become positive. i just wanted to take you through how we've been looking at data, how we consolidate the data. and monday report it out to the

governors. we hope over the next week to be able to really have this data available in realtime on the white house website so that everybody across the country can see where the cases are. in the end we really want a call to action. when we started talking about what can be done, we said the most important thing that would change the spread -- and i'm going to turn that over because i know tony's going to talk about it -- is really individual behavior. our respect for one another through social distancing, wearing a mask, and citizen schuring that we're protecting most vulnerable that may be in multigenerational households. i want to end by thanking again the millennials who have come forward. and i know during the protests we asked a lot of them to go forward and get testing, and we see those testing rates really improving? the under 40 age groups. that's important to accelerate testing in the under 40 age group because that's the group most likely to have asymptomatic

spread and be spreading the virus unbeknownst to them. i want to make it clear, no one is intentionally spreading the virus. they don't know that they're positive. they don't have symptoms and need to be tested in order to have that awareness. and so we really want to thank them again for coming forward and really enriching the amount of testing that's been done in the under 40-year-old age group. to our older population, you know if you have co-morbidities, you know if you're over 80, we ask you if in the hot spots, in the states that are having expansion in cases, to continue to shelter as much as you can. and use your grandchildren to go and do your shopping. >> thank you very much, dr. birx. thank you, mr. vice president. i want to extend just for a couple of minutes some of the comments in that were made both by the vice president and by dr. birx. it has to do with the situation that we find ourselves facing right now.

it's very clear from the maps that you saw that there are certain areas in the country, states, towns, cities, regions, that are doing very well, that have followed the guidelines and are opening up in a prudent way that's been effective. however, as you can see, we are facing a serious problem in certain areas. now when you look at the map, it's very interesting because you see some dark parts of the map and some light parts of the map. we have a very heterogenous country, but heterogenaity doesn't mean we aren't interconnected with each other. it goes on in one area of the country, could affect other areas of the country. let's look at the problem we're facing, the resurgresurgegens o cases. i don't think there's time to analyze and figure out the multifaceted elements that went into that. everything from maybe opening a little too early on some to opening at the right time, but

not actually following the steps in an orderly fashion, to actually trying to figure the steps in an orderly fashion, but the citizenry did not feel that they wanted to do that for a number of reasons, likely because everyone feels the common feeling of being pent-up for such a long period of time. we're not going to say blame, we're not going to analyze it. there is something important that i would like to get a message to the country in general. when you have an outbreak of an infectious disease, it's a dynamic process that is global, so remember, what happened in china affected us, what happened in europe affected us, what's happening here is affecting others. we can't get away from that. it's interconnected. therefore, if we are an interconnected society we've got to look at what our role is in trying to put an end to this. everybody wants to end it. everybody wants to get back to normal, and everybody wants the

economy to recover. i think we all are common in that. that's a given. so what can we do? what i think upon talking to people and reflecting on it, we have such an unusual situation because of all of the decades that i've been involved in chasing infectious diseases, i've never seen anything that is so protien in its ability to make people sick or not. there's no other disease that goes from 40% of the people having no symptoms to some having mild symptoms to some having severe, some requiring staying at home for weeks, some going to the hospital, some getting intensive care, some getting intubated, some getting ventilated, and some dying. so that depending on where you are in that spectrum, you have a different attitude to this particular thing. but anyone who gets infected or is at risk of getting infected to a greater or less degree is

part of the dynamic process of the outbreak. and i know because i can understand when i was at a stage in my life when i said, well, i'm invulnerable. so i'm going to take a risk. i think what we're missing in this is something that we've never faced before is a risk to you is not just isolated to you. if you get infected, you are part innocently or inadvertently of propagating the dynamic process of a pandemic because the chances are that if you get infected, that you're going to infect someone else. although you may feel well and because we know if you look at the numbers that you're probably here later on, the overwhelming majority now of people getting infected are young people. likely the people that you see in the clips and in the paper, who are out in crowds enjoying themselves, understandsably no blame there, understandsably,

but the thing that you really need to realize, that when you do that, you are part of a process. if you get infected, you will infect someone else who will infect someone else. we know that it happens because the reproduction element of the virus is not less than one. so people are infecting other people. and then ultimately you will infect someone who's vulnerable. that may be somebody's grandmother, grandfather, uncle who's on chemotherapy, aunt who's -- radiation or chemotherapy or a child who has leukemia. so there is what i call -- again, i just want to bring this out without making it seem that inbou anybody's at fault, you have an individual responsibility to yourself. but you have a societal responsibility because if we want to end this outbreak, really end it and then hopefully when a vaccine comes and puts the nail in the coffin, we've got to realize that we are part

of the process. when the vice president went back, pulling back a couple of months ago, when we showed about the guidelines to safely reopen the country, we've got to make sure we drop back a few yards and think about that, that this is part of a process that we can be either part of the solution or part of the problem. so i just want to make a plea with people when they understand the stress that they're under. as we try tackle not only those states but the light colored part of the country, even though they've done well, they may have gotten hit badly like new york and then came down, or they may not have got hit badly at all. they are vulnerable. if we don't extinguish the outbreak, sooner or later, even ones that are doing well are going to be vulnerable to the spread. so we need to take that into account because we are all in it

together, and the only way we're going to end it is by ending it together. thank you. >> well, first, thank you all for joining us here at hhs to update the american people. i want to begin by thanking everyone around the country working to defeat this virus. all of the health care providers on the front lines, those working to reopen our economy safely, the american people who have sacrificed so much in this fight, and the incredible members of our hhs team who have been working tirelessly to protect the health and well-being of all americans. before covering today's topic, i want to mention a major milestone for global health yesterday. the end of the second largest ebola outbreak in history in the congo. we congratulate the congolese government and all of the health care workers and community members involved. some of whom i had the chance to meet and thank in the drc last fall. under president trump, the

united states was proud to play a bigger role in this major public health victory than any other single nation. now thanks to the president and the vice president's leadership and the hard work of our team, america has never been readier to combat covid-19. we built up our readiness under the strategy we developed to address surges, save lives, and in time defeat the virus. we're in a much stronger position to support states, hospitals, and individuals as they fight back. there are six parts to the strategy -- surveillance, testing, containment, health care capacity, therapeutics, and vaccines. first, we've been strengthening surveillance so that we can be aware of and respond to surges. that means, for instance, being able to track more cases among younger americans that we never would have caught earlier in the pandemic. second, we have the world's greatest testing capabilities, enabling us to confirm the presence of the virus when it crops up. and we're confident that capacity will continue to rise

in the coming months. third, states are building the capacity to track and contain outbreaks of the virus. with federal help, many states have substantially expanded their own capabilities and were deploying knowledgeable, experienced cdc and hhs public health teams to the areas now seeing increases with a focus on community testing and community-based interventions. fourth, we're helping health care systems secure capacity and supplies. we've dramatically expanded american manufacturing of ppe and the fda has authorized now technologies to sterilize equipment for reuse. we've spoke weekend hospitals and states that are building up their own ppe reserves. many of then getting up to 60 or 90 days of supplies. through the strategic national stockpile, we have far more visibility into the supply needs across the country. including centralized coordination capabilities that we lacked just a few short months ago. visiting health care providers

around the country, i've seen how they're adapting to bring patients back while taking appropriate precautions. america's hospitals are ready to get back to business while maintaining the readiness for covid-19. the fifth and sixth elements of strategy are thanks to the president's operation warp speed. we now have promising therapeutics that are benefiting tens of thousands of american patients, and all likelihood have already saved thousands of lives. we've identified two very promising pharmaceutical treatments, remdesivir and have allocated more than 120,000 courses of remdesivir to all of the 50 states. we've added dexamethasone, a low-cost steroid to our treatment guidelines, and we believe it's reasonable to assume that other cortico-steroids which may be more accessible in some places would have similar effects. another promising therapeutic,

convales convalescence plasma, has been used in over 3,000 sites across the country. there is no certain see with science but with trials under way it's a safe bet that more good news is on the way and on the way soon. we've announced large investments to support three different vaccine candidates all the way through to manufacturing. these candidates are now in human clinical trials, some with the potential to start delivering safe and effective doses before the end of the year, and will be adding support for several more candidates. we're expanding manufacturing capacity and already making the vials, needles, ander is inches that we made -- syringes that we may need. our capabilities have grown exponentially in the time allowed by the patriotic sacrifices of the american people. we have a much better grasp of the viruses, dr. birx said, and much more data with which to model it. with that data, as you've heard, we can focus on local trends. we have very concerning hot spots. and we can track when other hot

spots emerge as we expect they may. we're focused on the states and the counties within those states, just 3% of counties that represent hot spots. it's important for the american people to be aware of this rare variability across the country. americans need to understand local trends because we want to help people make the right decisions for themselves. making decisions for yourself has to be based on three ax des of risk. you want to assess where you are, who you are, and whom you live with, and what activity you're thinking about doing. there are gradations of risk within each of these axes. going to an outdoor restaurant in montana is a great deal different from a crowded indoor bar in houston. when you interact with fewer people in an activity, when you interact with them for a shorter period of time, your risk is reduced. and individuals can balance these kind of factors. what i've laid out today is remarkable progress by the

president's administration and a particular credit to the team here at hhs. we've got a lot of work ahead of us. but americans can be confident that we have a rock-solid foundation to help us get safely back to work, back to school, back to worship, and back to health care while we tackle surges of the virus where they occur. thanks to president trump's leadership, we've got the capabilities, the knowledge, and the strategy to protect americans' lives and their livelihoods at the same time. and every american should feel proud of that. thank you. >> thank you, mr. vice president. i wanted to add some comments. once again i want to stress and thank all americans to embrace the importance of social distancing recommendations to slow the spread of covid. as i've said before, we're not

defenseless. these are, in fact, very powerful weapons, and it's our collective responsibility to recommit ourselves to put them into routine practice. again, to stay six feet apart from each other as much as possible, to wear face coverings when we're in public, and to practice vigorous hand hygiene. and to commit to do so, as we've heard today, to do our part to protect the vulnerable. i also want to appeal to the millennials and those that are under 40. it's really important that this group really commit themselves to these practices to protect those at risk. and it's not just the elderly that are at risk. many of us may have friends and colleagues that are younger that may not advertise their underlying co-morbidities. as the case would be with, say,

type-one diabetes or an underlying immune deficiency. so again, again, asking this team, millennials and younger people in this country to come and commit themselves. i agree with ambassador birx, we're very thankful that the group is now coming forward to get test ed but i want to put into practice the importance of our social distancing. the one thing that i wanted to stress, though, is that there are differences in what we're experiencing today than what we all experienced in march and april and may. and one of the things i want us to focus on is not the cases per se, but the consequences, the impact of those cases. it wasn't long ago, probably within two months ago, it's hard to believe -- many people realize that 27% of all deaths that occurred in the united

states actually died of a pneumonia. there was a pneumonia, could have been influenza, could have been covid. one in four of all the deaths in the united states just two months ago was caused by pneumonia. i'm happy to say today the deaths due to pneumonia in this nation is back to baseline, about 7%. so big difference. a lot of those pneumonias that were dying were actually covid-infected individuals that were the elderly, the nursing homes, and individuals with co-morbidities. we are seeing despite these increased cases, we have seen the progressive decline in deaths of the last, say, two-week average, deaths in the united states now is around 650. and as you heard the vice president, it wasn't long ago that, sadly, we were losing 25,000 individuals a day. so i think it's critical that we continue to focus on that, the

consequences. and as part of that, why it's important that we continue also to look forward to how we deal with and contain and control the covid infection, but as we also change the consequences of the impact it's had on education in this country, or as an economy and business. so again, as i close, i want to just re-emphasize how important for now, for individuals to really think seriously as tony said about the responsibility to others that we have. because in infection pathogen really does have the capacity to cause quite serious illness in individuals at high risk. and embrace our nation's recommendations that the vice president put up again, that we have for all phases of reopening in america. again, i want to thank the younger groups for stepping forward and getting tested.

clearly what we're seeing now is this age group is much more likely to be asymptomatic. and again, to make that commitment to do their part, to protect those of us that whether we're young or old have a core morbidity and will be more vulnerable to serious ill frane from this virus. thank you very much. >> thank you, dr. redfield. questions? >> mr. vice president? >> yes, please. >> all the experts here with the task force are stressing the importance of social distancing and also the threat of crowds. yet your campaign has held two massive rallies. no masks, no distancing. can you tell me -- even dr. fauci talked about not gathering in large crowds. can you tell me why you continue to do this? why the campaign continues to hold these rallies? >> well, the freedom of speech, the right to peaceably assemble is enshrined in the constitution

of the united states. and we have an election coming up this fall. and president trump and i believe that taking proper steps as we created screening at recent events and -- giving people the very best counsel that we have. we still want to give people the freedom to participate in the political process. and we respect that. i was pleased to see that now the better part of a week since we were in oklahoma, i think their positivity rate is actually declining as of today. and that's great testament to the fact that people are using common sense. they're being responsible. they know and understand what's happening in the community in which they live. and our emphasis today is really to say that we think it's most helpful if the american people understand that what we're seeing across the south today is

really outbreaks. they're outbreaks that are in specific counties. in some cases they're outbreaks that are in specific communities. and we've surged cdc personnel, hhs personnel -- i didn't mention before, but three weeks ago when we were seeing similar activity in north carolina and alabama, we sent personnel into those states, and we've actually seen declining numbers beginning in both of those states. the important thing is that not one size fits all. the overall guidance to every american to practice good hygiene, to practice the measures that we've recommended at home and at work stand. but our focus today is to make sure that in those areas of the country where we're seeing a significant not only increase in cases but an increase in positivity level, that the american people know just how important it is to listen to what their state and local health officials are directing

them to do. >> mr. vice president -- >> please. >> reporter: i was curious, it seems like the wearing of masks has kind of become a political statement or i guess the decision not to wear masks. are you concerned about that? and is there a message that you would like to send to people about the importance of wearing masks? >> well, we think that the first principle is that people ought to listen to their state and local authorities. i have to tell you, president trump and i couldn't be more grateful for the partnership we forged with governors around the country. i spoke to the governor of florida, of arizona, of texas, just within the last 12 hours. i told them that from this podium we would remind their citizens to heed the guidance and the direction of state and local officials. in some cases, there's statewide guidance with regard to facial coverings and with regard to events and gatherings. in other cases, there's specific

county-wide or citywide directives, and we just believe that what's most important here is that people listen to the leadership in their state, the leadership in their local community, and adheret -- admeh to that guidance. we'll continue to reinforce the message. please. >> reporter: two questions actually. you mentioned the importance of listening to state and local authorities. what is the correlation between the spike in cases that we're seeing in states like texas and florida and the way those states handled their reopening? was it too much too soon? and secondly, i wanted to ask dr. fauci, you said in an interview that, quote, something is not working. what isn't working, and did you all in your meeting today come up with a plan to fix whatever it is that isn't working? >> well, let me respond first, and then i'll let dr. fauci address it, as well.

and dr. birx may, as well. i think there will be a temptation for people to look at the sunbelt states that have been reopening and putting people back to work. and suggested that the reopening has to do with what we're seeing in last week or so. frankly in the case of each of those states, they reopened in some cases almost two months ago. and their test cases, their new cases from testing was slow and steady, their positivity rate was low. what we're observing today -- and i've heard this from florida, from texas and some other states along the sunbelt -- is that we're seeing more and more young people under the age of 35 who are testing positive. in many cases they have no

symptoms. but they're coming forward and confirming that they have contracted the coronavirus. we're working with the states, you speak about our plan, we've got cdc personnel embedded in every state in the union. we're surging more cdc personnel as requested to each of these states to help them unpack what the data is suggesting. i know the governor of texas announced some new measures this morning which we fully support. but what we're going to continue to do is give our state leadership the very best information, the very best counsel that we have. and if there's one message that comes through today, i hope it is saying to younger americans in these states and in these counties in particular that they are a big part of the numbers that we are seeing in new cases, and while there may not be a

significant threat of a serious health outcome to them, i know of no young person -- and i got three 20-somethings in my immediate family -- no young person would ever want to inadvertently expose a mom, a dad, a grandmother, grandfather, or someone who's vulnerable to a serious result. and so alerting them that there's been spread among that age group, urging them to take countermeasures and heed what their governors and local officials are directing will be our continued strategy. dr. fauci, did you want to respond? >> so what i meant by "what is not working" -- and this is not anybody's fault or any institution's fault -- is that what we're dealing with now is community spread in the context of a substantial proportion of the people who are getting infected do not know they're infected, they're not symptomatic, they're asymptomatic individuals. the classic paradigm of

identification, isolation, and contact tracing, to actually contain that is very difficult to make that work under those circumstances. you superimpose upon that the fact that even with identification, isolation, and contacts tracing, often the dots are not connected. if you get on the phone and talk to people who are in some of these communities, you find a lot is done by phone. when it's done by phone, maybe half of the people don't want to talk to one who they think is a government representative. if you live in a communities that is mostly brown or black, you're in a different situation that maybe 70% don't want to talk to you. you can identify a contact, but you don't isolate them because you don't have the facility to isolate them. that is what's not working. so what we're going to do and we are doing, and you're going to be hearing about this -- you know, flooding the area of a community to get a feel for what's out there, particularly among the amitchesymptomaticasy.

it's a paradigm shift because we're dealing with young people, people who are going to be asymptomatic, and people getting infected in a community setting, not an outbreak setting where you know who to identify isolating contact tracing. that's what i meant. >> dr. fauci? dr. fauci? i'm sorry. dr. fauci and dr. birx -- >> can i just -- i want to finish -- expand his thought for just a second. about three months ago we talked about how important it was to have community at the center. i think when you talk about what's going to be different and part of the reason why the president and vice president have asked me to go out to texas, new mexico, and arizona is to not only meet with the state and local health officials but to meet with the community groups so that the community groups can help us support community-specific messaging. public health messaging -- when you keep saying the sail thing over and over again -- saying

the same thing over and over again and people get tone deaf to it, it's because it's not tailored to their circumstances and they don't see that message resonating in their lives. we've had to do this across the world. i've done this over and over again for hiv, tb, and malaria. at the center of this has to be the community, and the community will help us identify who needs to be tested, to help us identify which households have the most vulnerability in them, and how we can really go into those communities and support that response at a very low and ground level. when we started this, we were very much facility based. and we know facilities carry us a long way. but if we want to change the transmission rates in these metros, in specific communities and specific parts of those metros, we've got to walk side by side with our community leaders and our community groups that know how to translate our scientific dogma and information down to a level where people will understand it here and act

on it. i know when they hear it and understand it they will act on it. so that's how -- when you ask what's going to be different, that has already started, and it's already going to be different. >> let me add to that, that's exactly what we did with hiv 30 years ago. we got the community involved in helping us to outreach. and i think that's very important to underscore what dr. birx said. that's exactly what's being planned to do to get people who know the community, who live in the community, who the community trusts. >> how about right here? >> reporter: mr. vice president, do you expect the death rate to go up in the next three or four weeks like we're seeing the rate of infection going up now? >> well, our hope and our prayers is it's not the case. we've seen as you noted, we've seen a precipitous decline in fatalities. again, i -- one is too many. we grieve the loss of every

american life. but the fact that two months ago we had lost 2,500 americans in a single day and two days this week, we lost less than 300 americans is a testament to our health care workers, to all of the medicines that secretary azar just described being -- being available in all 50 states, it's a testament to the efforts of the american people. and we hope as we continue to engage that we'll continue to see those numbers decline. the other reason we're encouraged is because at this point when we look at our losses, roughly 2.5% of all of our losses took place in people under the age of 25. younger americans. in each case, at least 90% of the cases, they were people with

pre-existing conditions, underlying conditions, and contributed to the sad outcome. so as we see that in florida and in texas they've reported to us that half or even more than half of the new cases that are showing up every day are people under the age of 35 or younger americans, in most cases asymptomatic. our hope is is that those younger healthy americans like most have already will continue to go through the coronavirus, will recover. but our message today as we've spent so much energy in the last four months protecting the most vulnerable. we've deployed testing resources, we've supported states' efforts. states across the country in the last month have answered our call to test all the residents of their nursing homes, to set up a plan to test all of the staff on a regular basis. we need to protect the most

vulnerable. we want a message going out to younger americans, particularly those along the sunbelt, in these counties where we see new cases on the rise, positivity on the rise, to know that we need them to do their part to make sure and protect the most vulnerable so that we can -- so that we don't see those losses rise. it's in the hands of the american people. particularly young people in this country. >> last question -- >> right there. >> reporter: thank you, a question for. you and for the doctors on childcare. on the campaign it really does sounds like you're saying do as we say, not as we do. you're telling people to listen to local officials, but in tulsa you defied local health officials. to have an event that didn't result in a spike, dozens of secret service agents are testing, and in arizona, one of the hardest hit states, you packed a church with young people not wearing masks. how can you say that the

campaign is not part of the problem that dr. fauci laid out? >> well, i want to remind again that the freedom of speech and the right to peacefully assemble is enshrined in the constitution of the united states. even in a health crisis the american people don't forgood night our constitutional rights. and working with state officials as we did in oklahoma, as we did in arizona, we're creating settings where people can choose to participate in the political process. and we'll continue to do that. i think it's -- i think it's really important that we recognize how important -- how important freedom and personal responsibility are to this entire equation, and that allowing younger americans -- allowing younger americans to understand, particularly in the counties that are most impacted,

the unique challenges that we're facing in their age group we think is important. but look, it's -- it's so important that, as we've issued guidance to reopen america, and as all 50 states are opening up the country, people are going back to work. american, every-day life is being restores, one step, one day at a time. i think it's important we remind ourselves this is not a choice between the health of the american people and a strong economy. there are profound health implications to the lockdowns, through which we just passed. i heard a statistic not long ago at a task force briefing that,

in one jurisdiction, there had been a 50% increase in the number of people presenting at emergency rooms having attempted suicide. i mean there are profound mental health issues, profound economic issues. people needing to be back to work. and so, our objective today is to make sure the american people know in 34 states the cases are largely stable and there's no combination of rising cases and rising positivity rates. that's a tribute the american people. and in the 16 states we're focussed on today, we simply want to equip, particularly young people, with the knowledge that the part they can play in stemming the rising tide of new cases, not because the coronavirus represent as significant threat to them. in most cases t doesn't. but because we don't -- no younger american would ever want

to spread the coronavirus to anyone with a serious outcome. but i'm grateful for the time today. we hope this has been helpful. and we'll be back with more information as time goes on. thank you. >> i'm brianna and you have been watching a briefing from the coronavirus task force. this is the first we've seen in nearly two months. the vice president spent a lot of time emphasizing how much wursz the pandemic could have been without them. but it can't be ignored this briefing is just one day after the u.s. set a new record. nearly 40,000 new confirmed cases reported in a single day, even as the vice president said that testing is generating new cases. of course, testing does not generate new cases, testing reveals cases. i want to bring in our experts and correspondents, we need a lot of them too, discuss and break down exactly what happened here.

dr. sanjay gupta is here, our chief medical correspondent. and a dean and of tropical medicine at baylor medicine. there's a lot of politics at the hathat happened here. prrls but let's break down the science and the medicine on this. what were the takeaways from you on this briefing, that americans watching this should be able to use and operationalize what they have heard. >> well, first of all, and despite what you heard, we are in the middle of a public health disaster. i know people are going to hear different things. and let me just start with that, and it wasn't an inevitable health disaster, to be clear. one of the first things said is all 50 states are opening safely and responsibly. that's simply not true. i don't think there's a single state that followed the opening criteria that the task force themselves actually laid out. they say that we have greatly

expanded testing. we're still at 10% of the testing we should be doing at this point in this pandemic. they say we've had 45 days to stop the spread. we haven't stopped the spread. you see what's happened here. we've had our highest number of infections since this pandemic began. the highest just happened over the last 24 hours there. you know, this is a problem. we can spin it in different watz. but the reality not only are things bad, they're as bad as they've been with regard to daily new infections. i think the question is this is an unmitigated problem right now. i think what dr. fauci was trying to say and says in an artful way. is, is it becoming a containable process? and we're not going to be able to contain this to isolate too,

contract trace and do all the things we should have been doing in the beginning. i think they may be trying to put a happy and brave face on things there butted we're in the middle of a real problem. over and over it was stressed. young people need to not be going out and behaving for so long. and we heard the vice president stress that as well. my question there is of course, i think anecdotally there's an issue of the politicization of masks. you have salot of people not young, who will not be wearing masks. and it seems, from the vice president, that was ignored. so, talk to us about kind of the population that was really stressed upon needs to get it together, and then talk to us about actually the reality of

the populations who need to maybe be doing more, sanjay. >> it was interesting because there were specific questions that were expected about these rallies. and what were the recommendations or guidance for these rallies? how can you say one thing from the department of health and human services and have these rallies? this is a freedom of expression, freedom of speech. despite the fact the ordinances in the communities said people should be wearing masks and doing all they can to mitigate the spread. with regard to young people specifically, there's no question and we've known this for some time, this is not science to say people have spread this virus, even if they're not showing symptoms. young people are far less likely to develop symptoms. but they can still spread this virus and we're clearly seeing that now. they can spread it. and one of the point dr. burks

made, who is at risk, really? we know older people are at risk but people with cormorbidties. diabetes, cardio vascular disease. when you look at those and apply it to the population of the united states, despite your age, you're starting to look at a large segment of the country that would be considered vulner able in some ways. i think dr. fauci struck a different tone, basically saying, look, i don't care if your state is beige or green or looks stable or improving, everyone is still vulnerable at this point. we really got to all behave like we have the virus and implement the basic public health issues. >> public women are more vulnerable. they're much more likely to be hospitalized than women their age who are not pregnant. so, that's also an issue there.

i wonder, doctor hotez, if i can bring you into this. he seemed to be stressing, the vice president, that reopening has not caused the uptick in cases. he said in some cases you look at the states down south and they reopened two months ago. we know there's been a phased reopening. if you look at the exact date when this started in, say, texas or florida. yes, maybe almost two months ago but these are phased reopenings and as we see people lag behind what is reopening and getting more comfortable with the idea of perhaps participating in that reopening, you have -- i wonder what you think about it? because i see young people, more likely to go to bars and restaurants, which are an issue-when it comes to the spread, and yet he seems to be saying young people are to blame, but the reopening of bars and restaurants are not.

what did you make of that? >> there's a lot to unpack here. first of all i would say this helped remind me why i stopped watching the white house coronavirus task force briefings. they are disorganized and uninformative. and you really learn nothing. what we know is we're seeing a massive resurgence in our m metropolitan areas across the southwestern parted of the united states. here in houston and dallas and phoenix, and into los angeles. the vice president said the good news is there's no increase in positivity rate. that's false. we're seeing a steep increase in positivity rate. and the number -- and we will soon see an increase in deaths as well. and that was also obscured. we know the death rate -- the deaths will follow. the big resurgence in the number of cases. they still clung to this

discredited idea that a lot of the increase is due to increase in testing. i'm looking at some of my notes here. there is no predictive models, there was no coherent overview. on what the nature of this crisis is and what the basis is baur beyond the reopening. and the terrible part, for me, is there were no ideas presented. they have no idea what to do. there is no concrete federal plan for helping the metro areas. there was not a single suggestion made. they're now sending some officers from the cdc to analyze the data. really? i mean, we've had this resurgence for two weeks and now they're sending in cdc officers to look at the data. this is a tragedy. and what's more, it's not presented as a tragedy. frr it's pres