earthbound mortals and carried them, too, if only for a while out of their own horizons. let there be light in the heavens said genesis. surging numbers, coronavirus cases reach staggering levels at dozens of u.s. states pump the brakes on their drive to reopen. >> new developments on whether president trump was told russian intelligence offered cash rewards to the taliban to kill american troops. also sports in the time of covid-19. the nba just announced its plan to play safely. will other leagues follow suit? we'll let you know what to expect. hello and welcome to "cnn newsroom." i'm michael holmes.

welcome, everyone. the experiment by many u.s. states in reopening amid the coronavirus may have backfired and now for millions of americans life may be going back on hold. new cases in more than half the country are starting to pileup. several states hit new highs this weekend. it's hard to find a patch of green on that map there where cases are actually going down. now, this deals a blow to people hoping to get back on with their lives as now some of these states are hitting the pause button on reopening or starting to close portions of of the economy again entirely. the u.s. accounts for about a quarter of the nearly 10 million cases worldwide and the almost 500,000 deaths. and the situation could be even worse than we know. the centers for disease control and prevention say that based on antibodies found in blood

samples the real number of people infected may be at least 6 and up to 24 times higher than what's been counted at the moment. now, florida is one of the states where cases continue to go up. the sunshine state hit another record on saturday, almost 10,000 positive results in a single day. now, compare the 7-day averages with italy, which as you might remember was an epicenter early on in the pandemic. italy way down now. florida, way up. and now the governor taking action. cnn's randy kaye with more from palm beach. >> reporter: here in florida yet another record day. a spike in cases. 9,585. that is the highest number of cases in a single day. the governor is saying that is because of increased testing. increased testing from about

4,000 tests a day to about 45,000 tests a day. we are seeing a high number of positivity rates mostly among young people, ages 33 to 75 years old and they do hang out in bars and the governor decided that is a reason to close all the state bars which he has done, but the governor has decided not to issue a mandatory order that everybody in the state of florida wear masks. so he's leaving it up to those local governments and municipalities saying he's going to trust people to make good decisions. but we see people out and about here in west palm beach not wearing their masks so it's unclear if everybody really is making good decisions. in miami-dade county they have decided to close the beaches because of the spike in cases coming up for the very popular, busy july fourth weekend. the mayor there saying he doesn't want to see a spike on top of a spike. randy kaye, cnn, west palm beach, florida. >> now, the mayor of miami says he believes the spike in cases from florida comes from people

gathering in large groups and refusing to wear masks. his city taking steps to stop more illness from spreading. >> the numbers that we've seen, for example, two days ago we hit the high-water mark of 1,500 cases. that's three times higher than what we had, you know, in late march, early april at 500 cases. the state of florida hit 9,600 cases which is seven times greater than their high-water mark of 1,300. so i think, you know, florida as a state, open bars. we never open bars in the city of miami, and the fact we're closing our beaches now and we're requiring masks and we're now considering stiffer penalties for businesses that don't comply with the rules are things we're hoping are going to help us reverse this horrible trend that we're seeing over the last couple of weeks. >> that was francis suarez, the mayor of miami, florida. and joining me now is dr.

jonathan rhiner, a codirector of the cardiac catherization laboratory at george washington university and cared for former vice president dick cheney. numbers soaring in many states. even the european union doesn't want americans traveling there despite the vice president speaking of, quote, remarkable progress. what needs to be done like yesterday? what would it take in a perfect world with actual leadership to bring this back under control? >> reaching out to the public and getting everyone in this country to wear a face mask when they go out into public, number one. testing many more patients than we're testing now. number three, probably in selective areas probably shutting some places down because the health care systems are really at the breaking point

in places like texas. so i think we have to have the political will to do all of that. we did that in the earlier part of this first wave in places like massachusetts and new jersey. we have to do it now. we've seen some rumbles of that in texas, and i hope that kind of strong leadership continues. >> with those case numbers soaring, the hospitalizations of course lag behind diagnosis and deaths lag behind hospitalizations. are you expecting an uptick in deaths at the moment? a lot of the new cases are young people but they are the carriers for the vulnerable, right? >> yeah, that's right. and it sort of depends on the case mix going forward. we've sort of plateaued with the death rate sort of fluctuating between 600 and 800 deaths per day. our daily case new infection rate has really skyrocketed to

over 40,000. so if there's a large proportion of new infections in younger people the mortality rate, you know, may stay where it is now. but as those young people infect older people the worry is that that death rate will go up, so it's a little hard to tell now. we'll have a better sense in about a week. it takes about a week after someone becomes infected until they get sick enough to be hospitalized and often about another week after that until you start seeing deaths, so it is a lagging indicator, and obviously everyone is concerned about the death rate starting to take off again. >> and what are your concerns? what is the risk of hospitals being overwhelmed again, and what is the state of readiness in terms of ppe, icu beds and so on? is that a big concern for you at the moment? >> it certainly is. so let's look at texas.

so houston, which is now the new epicenter of this pandemic in the united states, they have the largest medical center in the world. texas medical center which has about 60 hospitals. and when i checked yesterday it looked like about 98% of their icu beds were filled. now, we have the ability around the united states and we learned this over the last few months to create innovative spaces to treat patients in an icu setting that is not really an icu setting like turning ors into icus and recovery rooms into icus, but it's enormous strain on the hospital, strains the staff, places the staff at great risk. and, you know, hospitals can get to a breaking point. this was the whole point of flattening the curve. flattening the curve, spreading out the cases so that our medical system didn't get overwhelmed. we barely missed that in places

like new york and new jersey six weeks ago, and i'm worried about texas. the difference is that when new york was at its breaking point new york shutdown. new york was shutdown. texas has not shutdown. we did hear from the harris county executive a request for nonessential people to stay home, but it's not an order yet. but we have to see the political will to do that in places. >> i was just going to ask you about that. i mean leadership and, you know, national coordination you think is pretty important in times like these, and we have seen that coordination in countries that brought their cases down. i mean in the u.s. testing was lacking from the start. it still is. the shutdown was slow. the restart was fast in many places. there's been pretty much zero federal coordination of anything. you know, it's literally just scrolling through the president's twitter feed. it's on everything but this. are you worried about the lack

of a coordinated federal response? >> absolutely. so when we started talking about opening two months ago the federal government had a reasonable plan and it called for states to have 14 consecutive days of downward trend in new cases and declining positivity rates and increasing testing rates and hospital capacity. but look at texas. when texas opened, they only had two consecutive days. they barely had two consecutive days of a downward trend. so many of the places that opened weren't ready to open and certainly not ready to sort of move towards phase three. and we're paying the price for that now. the problem is that there is an essential conflict of interest between treating this pandemic the way it needs to be treated and running for re-election, and

the president is facing this now. in order for him to succeed in re-election he has to make this go away. he has to pretend that it doesn't exist, and that's why the vice president started his briefing yesterday by saying how everyone's hurt and the encouraging news. i don't know what he's talking about. he's not living in the same world i'm living in. but in order for them to succeed in re-election they really have to get the people of this country to believe that the pandemic is gone, that we're moving on, that it's business as usual. so until we have leadership that is willing to do the difficult things it's going to be very difficult to put this down. >> yeah, that's the funny thing about pandemics. it's hard to pretend they've gone away when hospitals are falling and people are dying. dr. jonathan reinor, as always a pleasure. thanks for your expertise, sir.

>> it's my pleasure, have a great night. new developments in the growing controversy over claims that russian intelligence offered cash to taliban militants as a reward for killing u.s. and u.k. troops in afghanistan. the u.s. director of national intelligence says he's confirmed that neither president trump nor vice president pence were briefed on the matter. that statement from john radcliffe contradicting what "the new york times" originally reported. our nick payton walsh is looking into the story. >> russian military officers made offers of cash rewards to taliban fighters in afghanistan if they would kill or attack u.s. or other coalition soldiers. now, it's not clear to this european intelligence official quite what the motivation behind this russian offer was, but they do believe that these cash incentives resulted in coalition casualties. they're not clear on the date of

these casualties, the nature of the casualties, the nationality indeed or the location, but these are startling direct allegations initially first reported by "the new york times," citing u.s. officials. i should point out thataliban have denied any involvement with this at all saying they don't need foreigners to conduct -- the white house has responded to "the new york times" report on this which claimed that president donald trump and vice president mike pence were, in fact, briefed on these intelligence reports about russian intelligence offering rewards to taliban to attack u.s. troops. the white house denies that that briefing, in fact, occurred. so some dispute there. but certainly the allegations by "the new york times" and by the intelligence official i spoke to are not directly denied at this stage by the white house. the european intelligence official i spoke to said he

regarded this move as, quote, callus and was bewildered by their motivation. a little more detail from this official who said the precise part of the russian intelligence is a unit called 29155. now, they were accused by european intelligence officials of being behind the attacks on the scrippa father and daughter in a british town in early 2018, and they've also been accused of other prominent attacks around europe. quite why would russia would want to be behind something like this is unclear. are they trying to expedite the u.s. withdrawal from afghanistan? well, president trump who initially wanted to win that war made it very clear he wanted a peace deal if he could with the taliban and get out. in fact, there's been advance planning to withdraw even more troops from afghanistan by the united states. so a lot of questions as to why russia would do this if indeed these repeated allegations by

intelligence officials are true, and also precisely where this leaves u.s. policy in afghanistan. also, too, why the president and vice president wouldn't have been briefed as the white house says they weren't, if they received intelligence reports of this nature. startling revelations about the u.s. continued presence in afghanistan and russia's meddling therein. nick paten walsh, cnn, london. one person is dead and one injured. officials say law enforcement performed lifesaving measures on one of the victims but he later died. a short time later police received word of a second shooting victim at the nearby hall of justice. he was transported to a nearby hospital with nonlife threatening injuries. still ahead on cnn, eu countries haven't decided yet on whether to keep u.s. travelers

from coming in. covid-19 infections mostly to blame, but there's another reason why most americans are likely to be left out. plus more outrage over police violence in the u.s. thousands in colorado protesting the death of yet another young black man. this one nearly a year after it happened. we'll discuss. when we started our business we were paying an arm and a leg for postage. i remember setting up shipstation. one or two clicks and everything was up and running. i was printing out labels and saving money. shipstation saves us so much time. it makes it really easy and seamless. pick an order, print everything you need, slap the label onto the box, and it's ready to go. our costs for shipping were cut in half. just like that. shipstation. the #1 choice of online sellers. go to shipstation.com/tv and get 2 months free.

welcome back. eu member states haven't decided yet on which international travelers to let in once the bloc reopens. making it onto the safe country list by july 1st all boils down to covid-19 infection rates and when it comes to the u.s., well, this is what brussels is looking at right now. cases going way up on the bottom line there. eu numbers of cases. joining me live from london, that graphic really telling as well shows the difference the eu set to meet on monday. what is expected? >> reporter: they're expected to finalize that list of criteria, finalize the list of banned countries. and the bloc rather set to reopen on july 1st, so they only

have a matter of days to make these decisions. the expectation is there will be one more meeting in brussels and after that the ambassadors will go to their respective countries to finalize these decision. on the list of banned is of course russia, the united states. it really gives you an idea how much the tables have turned on this, and this decision will be made on the science and data and numbers eu diplomats have been emphasizing this is not a political decision, it is a health decision. and look, this has been a hard-won battle for the eu to get grip over the coronavirus. tens of thousands of people have lost their lives across these countries. for months people have been under lock down, unable to see their friends, their family, unable to live normal lives so quite simply put the eu is not willing to put all of these sacrifices at risk, not willing to put the possibility of a second spike of the virus on the table. they have to be cautious,

michael, and that's why they're making these decisions. >> and obviously for the u.s. i mean the reality is the reality, but, you know, optically it's embarrassing for the u.s. and the president. is there any possibility, any discussion of an exception for the u.s.? >> reporter: well, michael, to answer it simply no. there will be no exceptions to these rules once they are finalized. there are different ways in which you can cut the by, essentially. they could look at banning certain geographic areas in the united states but either way you look at this this does not look good for president trump and his administration. it's not going to go over well to be told essentially we are better than you. you're looking at coronavirus rates in the united states six to seven times higher than the rates of infection here in the european union. so that will be a very humbling message to receive, it has massive economic consequences.

of course millions of u.s. travelers come to the eu every year. but at the end of the day the eu focus here is to make sure there isn't a second spike of the virus. and there's a res prusciprocity well. remember the u.s. had banned eu travelers. >> yeah, the facts are sobering. thank you. thousands of people in aurora, colorado, are demanding justice for elijah mcclain, the young black man who died after being put in a choke hold by police nearly a year ago. crowds of protesters marched up a highway on saturday shutting down traffic. the aurora police department tweeting that the protests were peaceful, no injuries, no arrests reported. this week colorado's governor announced an investigation into mcclain's death.

last august the 23-year-old was stopped by three white police officers as he walked home from a convenience store. according to the police report an officer placed him in a chokehold and wrestled him to the ground. later paramedics administered a sedative. mcclain suffered a heart attack and died three days later. legislators in mississippi could be on the verge of removing the confederate symbol from the state flag. a resolution to begin that process passed both the mississippi statehouse and senate on saturday. it's only a first step, though. the measure paves the way for a bill to be proposed and pass that allows for a change to the state flag officially. if it passes the governor has said he will sign it. and the great, great-grandson of confederate president jefferson davis, bertram hayes davis spoke to cnn on saturday saying he supports the move. >> it does not represent the

entire population of mississippi. it is historic and heritage related. there are a lot of people who look at that way, and god bless them for that heritage, so put it in a museum and honor it there or put it in your house, but the flag of mississippi should represent the entire population, and i am thrilled we're finally going to make that change. >> mississippi lawmakers have been weighing the removal of the emblem and amid recent protests for racial justice. now, the long running animated sitcom the simpsons is also making changes. producers say the show will no longer use white actors to voice non-white characters. it follows january's announcement that the actor hank azaria would no longer voice the indian-american character. other white actors have also said they would stop voicing

characters of color. coming up here on "cnn newsroom," workers at one of america's most popular tourist sites rally for safer conditions when they reopen. we'll tell you what they want for disneyland. also the trump campaign changes some plans because of the coronavirus pandemic, but is anything substantial really changing? stay with us for those stories and more after the break.

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♪ welcome back to "cnn newsroom," everyone. i'm michael holmes.

california, one of those states that is seeing a surge in the coronavirus, and that is putting a strain on the hospitals. the governor warning that if that continues he could roll back some of the reopening measures. one of the states' main tourist sites, disneyland was supposed to reopen next month. that is now on hold. cnn's paul vercammen tells us workers want big changes when the doors do open back up. >> reporter: in anaheim about a hundred cars circling disneyland. they represented some 3,000 unionized hotel workers who wanted disneyland to put in very strict safe guards when it does reopen. here's one of the union leaders. >> they need a comprehensive plan. it begins with testing which they're saying no to, but they've got to tell us the details. we asked them what happens if a cook gets sick, had you going to test and protect the other folks in the department? they don't know. how are you going to handle the

increased cleaning? they don't know. and beyond that we asked them you need to do comprehensive testing. they're not willing to do it. >> disneyland has said they forged deals with other unions and we talked with one union who says it's okay with disney's plans to reopen under certain measures. disneyland's chief medical officer outlined what they plan to do. among them increase use of disinfectant and cleaning, having both guests as well as workers wear masks. taking temperature tests from the guests they come in, and checking the temperatures of those workers when they leave for those shifts. what remains to be seen is when will disneyland reopen. it's an important economic barometer in california. 21 million visitors a year, some 31,000 employees at disneyland, and that doesn't even count the thousands and thousands of other people who somehow get paid by their business interactions with

disney. reporting from california, i'm paul vercammen. now back to you. the u.s. vice president has defended holding trump campaign rallies during the coronavirus spike, but now the campaign has postponed events. mike pence had scheduled in florida and arizona next week. cnn's jeremy diamond has more on coronavirus policy and politics at the white house. >> reporter: well, as coronavirus cases are surging nationwide president trump in repeat days has continued to down-play the severity of the crisis and insists falsely that testing, an increase in testing is the reason why we are seeing these spikes in several states around the country. of course the truth of the matter is that while testing is increasing the percentage of positive cases is also rising, which shows this is not just about testing. but while the president has down-played the severity of this crisis publicly, we know the president has actually been concerned privately about his potential exposure.

and with that we have also seen the protective measures around the president, measures to protect him from getting the virus have actually stepped up. in particular every venue that the president enters is now being inspected for potential areas of contagion by security and medical teams. the bathroom he may use during one of those events when he's traveling scrubbed and sanitized thoroughly. and every individual around the president who comes into contact with him is also being tested. that despite the fact had the white house has actually scaled back some of its other preventive measures that don't necessarily deal directly with the president. for example, when i walked into the white house i normally got a temperature check. that is no longer happening. while all of that is happening we also know the vice president who has himself made that same claim about testing and really tried to paint a much rosier picture of the situation in the united states than actually exists he is also scaling back some of his plans to travel and

specifically some of his plans to campaign in-person. the vice president was scheduled to travel to florida and to arizona for campaign events. the vice president will still be going to those states we're told to get an in-person briefing on the situation there, but he's canceling campaign events that were scheduled to take place in both of those battleground states. so certainly some changes are happening, but, again, p protective measures around the president tightening but his rhetoric hasn't changed. jeremy diamond, cnn the white house. >> ron brownstein, cnn political analyst and senior editor at the atlantic. good to see you, sir. you tweeted in recent days regarding the coronavirus and the political impact it could have. what is president trump going to say when the virus keeps spreading through the sun belt states, states he must win to get re-elected.

he's in trouble in arizona and florida already. where's this headed? >> look, today -- just today four key sun belt states with republican governors following trump's cues who opened early, who have refused to change course as case loads have mounted and who conspicuously have blocked democratic local officials from in any way regulating or slowing the pace of the reopening, those four states, florida, georgia, texas and arizona today alone reported more than 20,000 cases. and in all of those states the caseload is concentrated most intently on the big metropolitan centers. and that's important. the urban and suburban areas of the sun belt have not moved toward the democrats nearly as much as the equivalent places in other parts of the country until trump's election. and i look, you know, at maricopa county, arizona, as kind of the classic example. it was the largest county in america that trump won in 2016.

and no democrat has won at the presidential level since 1948. but in all of the polling that has been done this spring trump is now trailing there by as much as double digits. and today maricopa passed 42,000 cases. the hospital beds are being filled, and i think -- you know, i don't make a lot of unequivocal predictions but i can say to you if donald trump loses maricopa county, there's almost no chance he'd be president and all the political and public health trajectories in that county are moving in the wrong direction for him. >> yeah, a lot of those most affected by this virus are blue collar people, elderly people, and they're the ones that are the core of his constituency as, again, you've been tweeting about today. i did want to ask you about the administration. going to the supreme court to have obamacare essentially abolished, i mean what is the potential for that to be a major

political blunder in the middle of a pandemic. you've got 23 million people who could lose insurance, everyone could lose coverage of pre-existing conditions, and the truly astonishing thing is republicans have no firm replacement, nothing on the table, they never have really. >> i think there's two issues about this extraordinary. one is that he's forcing back by this choice in the middle of papandemic when people are enormously concerned about their health situation, he's forcing this debate back into the center of kind of the political conversation. it is an issue on which the democrats consistently have had a 15-20, sometimes 25-point advantage over him in polling on who do you trust to handle health care, and he has now guaranteed with this filing this is going to be front and center for the rest of the year. now, the other problem he's got is what aiokind of alluded to when we were talking about the coronavirus, to the extent republicans have an alternative vision to obamacare it is that

obamacare requires too much sharing of risk between the young and the healthy and the old and the sick. and their answer to bringing down health care costs is to basically unravel that and to lower cost, premium cost on people younger and healthier at the price of making it more expensive and more difficult for people older and sicker to get coverage. the problem, conundrum they face is it's they're own voters, older working age whites before they qualify for medicare, people basically 25 to 64 who are the big losers and i do believe in 2018 this was a big part of the erosion we saw for the president and his party among those blue collar white women who were so critical to him winning in 2016. and again, if this is front and center it is probably the most powerful wedge that democrats have to try and win back some of those culturally conservative voters who like trump's

messaging on many other issues. >> he spent 1/2 years saying he's going to have the best health care and protect pre-existing conditions and here he is getting rid of all that of that. a lot of republicans meanwhile have sort of made noises they want more conciliatory positions but then on friday he signs that executive order trying to protect confederate statues. how worried is the gop about the path the president is taking with election a few months out? >> i think they are nervous now, but, boy, they really have no pause to be questioning him after they essentially have been showing him rope month after month after month. i mean, the president has faced no real constraint on any front from republicans but particularly on issues of race. i mean, i think it is unlikely that the president would have been using the kind of inflammatory racially divisive language that we heard in tulsa, you know, when he talked about

kung flu, and bad hombres and attacking democratic women of color in the house. if he had faced consistent push back from the party in 3 1/2 years. but with very, very few exceptions they have been unwilling to call him out. they are speaking to the portion of the american electorate that is most uneasy about the way the country is changing demographically. as we've seen in the protests this spring there's now a pretty clear majority of americans including a majority of white americans who are more -- have a greater consensus than in the past there is structural racism in society and there are things that needs to change. the president today released a new ad. he's trying to run as if it's 1968. and i think there are republicans justifiably worried and he's trying to channel richard nixon almost 62 years later. we're going to take a quick

break. when we come back empty stadiums, plunging revenue. i'll talk to one of the nation's top sports reporters about the devastating effect coronavirus is having on your favorite team. ♪ this isn't a show.

or a movie. there are no magic potions. ♪ or fairy tale endings. ♪ and the good guys don't always win that easy. no, this isn't a movie. but there are heroes. ♪ knights in shining armor. masked crusaders fighting every day. and their bravery, courage and sacrifice are making the most heroic story we know... the one that's being written right now. ♪

here's what we want everyone to do. count all the hugs you haven't given. all the hands you haven't held. all the dinners you didn't share with friends. the trips you haven't taken. keep track of them. each one means one less person vulnerable, one less person exposed, and one step closer to a healthier community. so for now, keep your distance. but don't lose count. we'll have some catching up to do.

it might not be easy to get major league baseball back up and running. a number of texas rangers employees, for example, say they fear for their health and feel pressured to return to the office. some of the teams employees -- it's not clear who -- have tested positive for coronavirus. the club says it will adhere to medical protocols including temperature checks and face masks. joining me now is christine brennen, cnn sports analyst and columnist with usa today, and she's twice been named one of the top ten sports columnists in the u.s. by the associated press sports editors. just had to throw that in there. number one to all of us here at

cnn. now, listen, the return of sports was always going to be, you know, polarizing in regards to safety. i mean, the should they or shouldn't they. what do you think is going to be the impact of what has been a pretty high volume of positive tests throughout many different sports? how's that going to impact things? >> i think it's going to impact things a lot, michael, because there's so much uncertainty now especially as the united states is seeing this incredible spike again in cases. especially in the south where, for example, a lot of the baseball players have been. especially in florida where the nba is going to setup its quote-unquote bubble in a place that is -- the cases are skyrocketing. we have seen so much uncertainty. these leagues want -- sports gives us, you know, kind of black and white -- gives us

decisions, gives us an answer. that's what we look for in sports. these leagues, it's all up in the air. it's the opposite of that. we can say they're going to start flaying. they've got schedules. we know there's going to be some great nba games, you know, starting out when they play and then they have the playoffs over a three-month period, but we have to caution. if -- if that happens i think there is a chance right now for the nba, for major league baseball, for the womens soccer league, for the wnba, you name it -- i think there's a chance that it could become overwhelming and that either individual teams might have to step aside as we saw with the womens soccer league, with the orlando team, or maybe even a league would have to shutdown again. >> yeah, the thing you mentioned the bubble with the nba? how do you truly keep a bubble? they're going to be down at the campus in orlando, no fans and all of that, but you can't keep

everyone out of the bubble, and we've already seen so many positive tests. what is the financial impact? i mean you talk about the nfl, multibillion dollar league. they're currently going to play at least with some fans. what do you think it's going to look like? what should we expect for let's say, pro football? >> for pro football they're talking about, of course they've got a couple more months before games would really start. they've got a chance to watch other leagues go through some of this, and of course they weren't interrupted back in march as the nba and nhl and major league baseball with spring training were interrupted. but they're talking to having 6 to 8 rows, michael, that would be empty, the first rows in every stadium. and then they put up a tarp and then sponsors would be able to put their logos there. because bottom line right now for all sports it's basically a tv show. and for most fans that's what it is anyway. you turn on the tv, you watch

your favorite college team, your pro team, whatever it might be, a major league baseball game. it's a television show. and so everything that the leagues can do to double down on that and obviously try to recoup some of the money and sponsors love the idea in an nfl stadium having their name and logo whatever right there front and center, and of course that's also social distancing because you can't have fans that close to the players. but the nfl wants to have fans. the nfl is also not going to be in a bubble. dr. anthony fauci said last week he thought the nfl should try to be in a bubble. i'm not exactly sure what that would look like. the nfl you mentioned to me it's kind of the ultimate irony because the nfl and social distancing are polar opposites. football is the antithesis of social distancing. and even sean mcveigh said that last week. we're going to social distance and have football? how's that going to work? >> even if you did social

distance with some fans, what are you going to do about the beer line and hot dog line? it seems on an economic level -- very quickly, we're out of time, are some of these sports going to be crippled or do you think they'll come back? >> i hope womens sports are going to be okay, but if they can't play this year, if by chance they have to shutdown again i think it's going toby devastating. i don't think they'll go away entirely but we could see all kinds of changes especially in sale restructure and what cities pay to have teams with new arenas and things like that. and every way about our lives in sports and about our love of sports may change. >> yeah, sad times all around. christine brennen, fabulous to see you. thanks so much. >> michael, thank you very much. >> we're going to take a quick break. when we come back here on "cnn newsroom," getting creative and fighting coronavirus at the same time, masks getting more

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it's ok to just stay quiet. it's ok to feel like you just wanna become someone else. it's ok to weep for hours in the middle of the day. it's ok to talk to your cats like they understand what you're saying. it's ok. it's ok. it's ok.

well, we know by now that health experts say wearing a mask is critical for stopping the spread of the coronavirus, and we've seen people get pretty creative, there are some pretty fashionable masks out there, but now innovators are taking them to the next level. they figure if you have to wear one, it should come with benefits. thought your mask was just there to protect you from the coronavirus? well, not anymore. some creative minds have been working to make the mask do far more than just that. like this smart mask in japan that can translate from japanese into eight different languages. this innovative idea is the brainchild of japanese startup, doughnut robotics. >> it's hard to hear what customers at the cash register of supermarkets and convenience

stores are saying because there are partitions to avoid droplets. by wearing these masks it can translate the conversations on smartphones or delivering the sound of tvoices. >> so how does it work? the c mask fits over a regular mask and links to a tablet or phone application to translate speech. it will boost the mask wearer's voice. it should be available by september in japan. in the indonesian capital of jakarta, some creative designers have come up with a way to identify the face behind the mask. at this print shop, nicolas and his employees are printing customers' faces on reusable masks, giving people an opportunity to look like themselves, some go as far as printing smiling faces on their

masks. >> translator: thanks to the face mask, we no longer look like we are sick. >> here in the jordanian capital, ah man, they are using eggplants. a single peel could take up to two weeks to be turned into a mask. the whole idea was to put a positive spin on mask wearing. he's working with jordanian designers and a princess who are using their skills to add what they call "character" to the masks. >> so it's basically going to be something like this. >> so mask wearing might be here to stay, at least for a while longer, but some innovators seem determined to make it worth our while. >> i'm michael holmes, thanks for your company this past hour, i'll have more "cnn newsroom" after a quick break.

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if you were sexually abused by a priest, scout leader, coach or teacher contact us confidentially today. it's time. on our current trajectory, our hospitals are going to be overwhelmed by mid july. >> race against time. local governments across the u.s. scrambling to stop a sharp increase in coronavirus cases. states hit the hardest are the same ones that donald trump desperately needs to remain president. what does this mean for the election? also, >> come on, hustle up. >> an update on claims