old, loved science fiction and star wars. his sister says his death has left a huge hole in the hearts of their family. she hopes to get a tattoo soon to honor him. may they rest in peace and their memories be a blessing. "erin burnett outfront" starts "erin burnett outfront" starts right now. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com >>thank you wolf. outfront next, the u.s. going in the wrong direction. cases are up. why is america failing? doctors treating patients intense in the sweltering heat with no relief in sight. it's a story you'll see only outfront. should joe biden demand trump release his taxes in exchange for participating in a presidential debate. major pete buttigieg is my guest. let's go outfront. good evening. i'm erin burnett. outfront tonight, going in the wrong direction. u.s. coronavirus death toll right now tonight is on the verge of topping 133,000 people

dead. and dr. anthony fauci tonight telling it like it is. >> as a country, when you compare us to other countries, i don't think you can say we're doing great. i mean, we're just not. >> we're just not. it is a far cry from what we are hearing from the president of the united states. >> done a great job whether it's ventilators or anything you want to look at, testing. we test so many people. then we have more cases. >> more on the testing point in just a moment because it's factually inaccurate, the point he's making. the truth is no matter how great trump says the united states is doing, the numbers don't lie. take a look at this. we'll show you the numbers. in four weeks in the united states of america we have gone from 2 million to 3 million coronavirus cases. we are in the highest seven day average of cases since the beginning of the pandemic. the crucial way to look at this is the rate of positive infections. that has also gone up. for every group of people you

test, what percent of people are positive, that's indication of how widely and quickly the virus is spreading. we are now at 8.2% positivity. it is doubled from 4.4% just one month ago. w.h.o. says you need to be south of 5. we have doubled to more than 8. as the number of cases rise, so too is the amount of time people are waiting to get tested. so, people still can't get the tests. remember these images? back in march, people waiting hours to get tested across this country? we are, again, now seeing long lines outside testing places. in some places, people are waiting four to five hours. and on the front lines once again, the same crisis that we saw when this hit the northeast, now a shortage of masks, gowns, face shields, and gloves. in houston, doctors in one hospital being told to re-use single use n95 masks for up to 15 days as they treat coronavirus patients. the nation's largest organization of registered

nurses found in late june that 85% of its members had been forced to reuse disposable n95 masks while treating coronavirus patients. i sound frustrated because i am. this is deja vu. we've been there before. this shouldn't happen again. these images mirror what we saw at the height of the pandemic in new york. patients being treated in tents because hospitals were overflowing. the white house is trying to say don't worry about those numbers going up. there's no there there. here's the argument. >> hospitalizations in the country are up 50% since mid-june. how can the president say that the country is in good shape right now? >> so, with hospitalizations, in a lot of these hospitals, i spoke with dr. brooks this morning, about 10% to 40% in the hospitals reaching high capacity are covid. so, a lot of hospitalizations aren't pertaining to covid. what i would note is -- >> most hospitalizations is not because of covid? >> a lot of is elective surgeries and other surgeries

that come up. >> so, elective surgeries. that is the line from the white house. that is not true. so, let's just take the numbers again. we'll show you texas which hit a record in deaths in a single day today. look at the spike in covid hospitalizations. covid. coronavirus. not elective surgery. less than 2,000 in early april, nearly 10,000 now. that is not elective surgery. hospitals are strained in many places, and states being hold they may need to shut down again. yet the president disagrees with dr. fauci when dr. fauci says the united states is knee deep in the crisis. i talked to the doctor who helped eradicate smallpox and he told me that fauci who is conservative did not go far enough with this one. >> we're not knee deep. we're hip deep and we'll soon be neck deep. >> the president just denies that. he wants you to think -- and you heard him at the beginning. i was going to get back to this -- that the whole reason we're seeing this increase in

cases is because we are testing more people. he keeps saying that. those of you who are tempted to believe him, let me explain why this is wrong. first of all he said today the reason we have so many cases is because our testing is much bigger and better. well, for the 100th time, this is false. it is not because of testing. here are the numbers. nationwide testing in the united states of america, up by 7% over the past week. cases over that time up by 24%. okay. he's wrong. how about states with the highest cases? let me show you. number of positive tests were just over 1,500. today they tested 12,000 people. number of positive tests, 3,500. in english, fewer tests, more cases. kaitlan collins is life outfront

tonight. dr. fauci painting a very different picture than the president and the president, what he says simply does not align with the facts. >> the president not only is trying to portray this optimistic portrait of what is going on, he wants to tell things that aren't actually happening, like how he is with the testing numbers and saying if we tested half the people, we would have half the cases but also on so many other things. that's why you see the president often be at odds with dr. fauci who is not only focusing on just the optimistic stuff. he's giving people this realistic slew of what's going on in this country. the president is how is the president breaking with one medical expert but also several others as well, erin, including the cdc director, robert redfield, who we are still having all this confusion about what the guidance is going to be on reopening schools. and we are just weeks away from some teachers actually going back to school. you saw dr. red field this morning saying they're not going to be changing that cdc guidance after there was confusion

yesterday about whether or not they were. he says they are only going to issue additional information. so, the question of how that squares with the president complaining about the cdc guidance as it was, explained by the white house today by saying they don't have the subscribe to everything that's in the guidance, these schools, because it's just that, guidance. but erin, the problem with that is the president saying you have to reopen. they're telling the schools it's up to you how to reopen and how to socially distance your children and students, but we're going to tell you when to reopen. and they say that has to be now and they want everyone back in the classrooms, not just a staggered schedule or some limited classrooms like we've seen suggested. >> kaitlan, thank you very much. i want to go to dr. sanjay gupta, our correspondent, and dr. asheesh jha. for the 100th time the president says the increase in testing.

cases are going up more quickly than tests and in fact in some of the hotspots, testing has gone down as cases have gone up. >> and hospitalizations have gone up as well, right? so, even if you say, look the testing is -- if you buy into that narrative which is absolutely not true for all the reasons you mentioned you're also seeing increase in hospitalizations. if you look at the trend map here, i think this is instructive, see sort of what's happening since the beginning of this pandemic here in the united states, you'll see that the numbers sort of, they came to their lowest point, i think right around june 1st. and at that point we had some 17,000 people who became infected on that day. and then really since then for the last, what, six weeks now, 5 1/2 weeks, the numbers have been going up and they've obviously surpassed the highest point from before. so, things are clearly going in the wrong direction. and this idea that, hey, it's because we're testing more, not acknowledging the problem as a result, i'm worried we're not going to be able to fix it.

how do we fix a problem that we're not even acknowledging? >> the president does far from acknowledging it. first they're trying to say there's no hospital issue because people are going back for elective surgeries which completely ignores the point that covid hospitalizations have been surging for covid, not for elective surgeries. and yet, you know, time and time again we hear the president giving a different reality. here's just a few examples. >> we understand the disease. we've learned. the virus is abating. and the crisis is being handled. we're putting out the fires. we did it right. we saved millions of lives by what we did. >> so, what do you say dr. jha when the president of the united states says the numbers are only going up today because of testing? >> yeah, so, you know, it's sort of like we're in the middle of a hurricane and our political leaders are saying it's sunny and warm outside and there's no

rain. it's sort of hard to know where to begin. let's just do a few fact check. we have not done more testing than anybody else in the world. china's done much for testing than us. on per capita basis, russia has done more tests than we have. this is just silliness. this is not about testing. every doctor, every public health person understands that what we have is large outbreaks of this disease happening in large part of our country. hospitalizations are going up. and in those states, deaths are going up. people are dying of this disease. there are more people dying of this disease now than there were two weeks ago and four weeks ago in the hot spot states. this is incontrovertible. the debate and discussion we need to be having is what do we do about it? how do we protect lives? how do we open up our economy and not the stuff of are we doing more testing than anybody else. we're just not. >> those are the facts. in all this you have schools. schools have become the new

lightning point. they have become that. you can't have an economy open without schools. so, we all know that. dr. redfield says today that he wants the schools to open which fits with what trump said. however, he said he's not going to revise the guidelines which mike pence came out and said were too tough and needed to be revised. president trump said he didn't like them, they're tough and expensive and i'll be meeting with them, like a threat. i know you're going to be talking with dr. redfield in a few minutes on the town hall. do you think the cdc will be able to walk this line, stand up to the president, not back off regulations, but get the schools open? >> i don't know. from a scientific perspective i think the answer would be yes. obviously erin, as i think you're alluding to, there's a lot of other factors at play here. i put my parent hat on here even more than doctor/journalist hat on. you want your kids to go back to the safest possible environment, right? i know it's harder for some

schools than others. i think anybody who's followed the story for the last couple of months knows six feet away, masks, have plenty of hand hygiene stations, make sure kids don't congregate in certain areas. those things all make sense. they should make sense to anybody who's followed this along, why those would be considered too strict or too stringent, i don't know. i think one of the questions really here still is kids obviously, it's pretty clear, don't get as sick from this disease, covid. i think an unanswered question still is just what is the transmisbility. how likely are they to transmit the virus still? keep in mind, my kids and i'm sure your kids as well, have pretty much been home since march, right? older people have gone out, older kids, college kids, they've gone out more. younger kids have largely stayed at home. i don't think we have enough data around the transmisbility. got to be cautious going back to school. i would like my kids to go back to school but without the basic

public health safety measures in place, nobody would want to do that. >> as you point out that's going to be a political issue which shouldn't be but it is because everything is now. and dr. jha, i want to replay again that exchange. peter alexander asked the question about coronavirus hospitalizations and how they're up 50% since mid-june. i want to play again how the press secretary answered the question. >> hospitalizations in the country are up 50% since mid-june. how can the president say that the country is in good shape right now? >> so, with hospitalizations in a lot of these hospitals, i spoke with dr. birx this morning, about 10% to 40% in the hospitals reaching capacity are covid. a lot of hospitalizations aren't pertaining to covid. what i would also note -- >> the bulk of hospitalizations is not covid? >> a lot of it is elective surgeries and other surgeries that have opened up. >> of course the reality again, dr. jha is that covid hospitalizations have surged.

the point about elective surgeries is separate. it's not what he asked. so what do you say to this? >> yeah, it's -- the bottom line here is people are -- more people are getting sick from covid. more people are getting hospitalized from covid. more people are dying from covid. and elective surgery has nothing to do with that. and places are starting to cancel elective surgeries again because they're running out of room. you know, look, we should have robust debates about how best to manage this disease, what are the strategies we should use to bring these things under control and get our economy going. we shouldn't have robust debates about facts where everybody knows what the data are. this kind of questioning the basic premise of why people are getting hospitalized with covid, people with covid are not getting hospitalized for elective surgery. that's just a distraction and i would like for us as a country to confront this. >> i agree. it's frustrating to come out here. it's ridiculously easy to do these fact checks.

but the reality is people aren't always sitting at home doing fact checks. and we sit here and have to have these conversations again and again. thank you both. make sure you watch sanjay coming up. dr. redfield will be with him in the town hall in 45 minutes. next president trump heading to florida which just recorded its highest single day death toll from the coronavirus. he is not going there to do anything about coronavirus. it's a fund-raiser. we'll tell you about i. plus what ground rules should joe biden lay down about debates? right? should there be any? former mayor pete buttigieg, he's outfront. a story you'll see only here tonight, coronavirus patients in california now being treated in tents in the desert and the temperatures are north of 100 degrees. >> crazy that you are a physician working in a tent in america? >> yeah. it's incredible, isn't it? >> yeah. ...so are we. prudential helps 25 million people with their financial needs. with over 90 years' of investment experience, our thousands of financial professionals can help.

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tonight florida recording its highest single day death toll from coronavirus. 48 hospital icus in the state are now completely full. it comes as president trump will visit the epicenter of that state tomorrow. but he is not going to the emergency to discuss coronavirus. he is actually going to talk about drug trafficking and raise funds for his re-election. martin savidge is outfront. >> three states set new grim records for number of deaths in a 24-hour period due to coronavirus. california, 149.

texas, 105. and florida with 120. also in florida, the department of health reporting today an additional 8,935 new cases as well as their highest positivity rate for coronavirus testing in weeks. >> i know we've had different blips and now we're in a higher . >> the almost daily record setting surging in florida triggering long lines of people waiting to be tested and causing officials to question the state's aggressive plan to re-open schools. >> at a time when, quite frankly, restaurants have been emptied out, shuttered, it is counterintuitive to mandate students to return to school at full capacity. >> despite such concerns, disney world opened today for pass holders. the president plans to visit florida himself tomorrow, not to talk corona concerns, but instead traveling to doral to

talk about drug trafficking. meanwhile, hospitals in hotspots like florida, texas, and arizona, officials say are in danger of being overwhelmed with personal protective equipment again in short supply. 10,000 people are hospitalized in texas with the state's republican governor calling it a massive spike. >> when you look at the number of people who have been hospi l hospitalized over just the past couple of weeks, you can see there may be more fatalities coming. >> arizona is reporting a record high spike in coronavirus emergency room admissions on top of a shortage of icu beds. all three republican led states opened early despite the advice of medical experts to go slow. but it's not the only way politics is encouraging covid spread. this weekend, president trump plans to hold a rally in new hampshire, triggering fears that the state could end up like oklahoma where health experpetrators are reporting a recent jump in coronavirus cases following the president's rally

in tulsa last month where supporters ignored advice to wear masks and socially distance. >> getting back to florida, governor desantis seemed to back off from the hard charged demand that brick and mortar schools reopen. he said online schooling should be an option. he also seemed to support the idea of the rnc in jacksonville having their meeting at an outdoor venue, perhaps something like the jacksonville stadium. so, there you have that, erin. >> all right, marty. thank you very much. and i want to bring in dr. ilene marty, an adviser to miami-dade county, mayor carlos jiminez. i'm glad to have you back. obviously not under these circumstances though. you have the single highest death toll in the state of florida that you've had so far. doctor, in miami-dade where the president is coming, icu up 84 kt approximate, ventilator use up 116%. but the president is coming for

a fund-raiser to talk about drug trafficking. what do you say to that? >> i say that the president and his entourage better social distance and wear masks because our testing rate today showed a 33.5% positivity. that means 1 out of every 3 people who came for testing was positive. and over the last two weeks, we are averaging 24.29% positive. so, i hope that they're very, very careful. >> i mean, you also have the reality that a presidential visit of course requires a lot of resources, extensive medical preparation, coordination with local officials. you always have a primary hospital designated in case of emergency, capabilities evaluated by the president's team in advance in case of emergency which obviously is going to tax a very, very exhausted health care system in miami-dade. does this worry you at all just

from the resources going in? >> there's so much going on in our community right now, and it's so dangerous. and one of the other things that i'm worried about in addition to what you've spoken about is people coming to either support or protest the president because we really don't need additional people getting close together in situations where they're likely to get infected. our hospital systems are very, very stressed right now. our doctors and our nurses are exhausted. several admissions that i was involved with today, people are extremely ill. so, we really need to get the message to the community to use the tools we have at hand to protect ourselves. >> disney reopened today, general public starts saturday amidst this. this is a big asset for disney.

they're a very serious company. they evaluated the risks. do you have any concern about this? do you think they're seeing anything that's allowing them to move forward with this plan? >> here's the situation. we are a lot worse today than we were before the previous lockdown. our situation is quite serious throughout florida. one difference and one advantage that disney has today from then is that they've had time to evaluate and change their entire system so that it can be a little bit safer for people going in. i hope -- i haven't had an opportunity to review the details of their plans, but i do hope that it involves also personal responsibility for every single person who comes to disney world and that disney is providing them with the tools to help those people stay safe while they're in the park. >> dr. marty, i really appreciate your time. >> thank you. pleasure. and next, biden going after trump on leadership.

>> trump is simply giving up. he's waved the white flag. >> biden backer pete buttigieg is outfront. and a dire situation unfolding in one southern california hospital. patients right now being treated in tents, temperatures are over 100 degrees, and we're going to go there next. nlimited right. start with america's most awarded network. give people more plans to mix and match at a price built for everyone. with $700 off our best phones when you switch. because everyone deserves the best. this is unlimited built right. (bbut it's even nicer knowing atthat if this happens...ice it is to save on your auto policy. ...or this.... ...or even this... ...we've seen and covered it. so, get a quote today. ♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪

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tonight, the white house declaring victory as the supreme court rules president trump has to give his tax returns to the manhattan d.a. you say wait, how is that a victory. but not to congress. that's what they're trying to spin as a victory. kayleigh mcenany making this familiar promise. >> his taxes are under audit and when they're no longer under audit, he will release them. >> wow, years and years and years. important to note, an audit, by the way, has nothing to do with whether you can release your tax returns. the white house calling this ruling a william ban for the pr. the president saying this is, quote, all a political prosecution, political witch hunt. outfront now, former democratic presidential candidate and

former south bend mayor, pete buttigieg. good to see you, mayor buttigieg. the supreme court ruling -- this is how they see the victory. it cements the fact that voters won't see trump's tax returns before the election. the white house is spinning that as a victory. are they right because of the reality that voters won't see them. >> only the trump white house could view keeping information away from the american people as a victory. remember, we're only here because he is the first president in my entire lifetime not to just put out his tax returns. candidates are expected to do this. i did mine, not that there's much to see there. but it was a basic step you take in the name of transparency. we're also here, let's not forget, partly because the president was caught directing hush money payments to an adult film actress. so, nothing about this reflects well on the president, least of all the fact that they went all the way to the supreme court

trying to say you couldn't get records from him because he's the president. that argument was more or less laughed out of the supreme court, and it goes back to the lower court. nothing about this is a victory, and everything about this reminds us why we so urgently need a new and different president in joe biden come november. >> so, i thought tom freedman's column was interesting. i'm sure you saw it yesterday, when he had a solution to get trump's tax return. his argument was -- let me quote the column -- biden should declare he will take part in a debate only if trump releases his tax returns for 2016 through 2018. debates always have ground rules. why can't telling the truth and equal transparency on taxes be conditioned for this one? >> what do you say to this? is this something that joe biden should seriously consider, say i won't debate unless you release the tax returns, and if you don't so be it, no debates?

>> i guess it's up to the vice president. but to my way of thinking, there ought to be debate and the tax returns ought to be released. again, this is supposed to be tabling. this president, part of what's exhausting for all of us, whether you're a democrat or not, what's exhausting for all of us is living with all of this drama, all of this chaos and it doesn't have to be this way. it's one of the reasons why i think even in conservative states and certainly in swing states more and more americans are turning their back on the trump administration saying they want change. now of course it's our job make sure that all of us supporting vice president biden stick together, continue getting that message out, take nothing for granted and keep pushing across the next four months. >> obviously the economy is going to be central here. when it comes to economy and jobs, for anyone who thought this would be temporary and people would be rehired, that was wrong. and today joe biden unveiled his economic agenda, his plan to deal with it. here's apart of what he said

mayor pete. >> this is our part to imagine and build a new american economy for our families and for our communities, an economy where every american, every american has a chance to get a fair return for the work they put in. >> all right. so, that's what he said. obviously the context here, mayor buttigieg, is 50 million americans have filed more unemployment since the pandemic really hit in the middle of march. these are stunning numbers, right? now you have major companies who haven't done layoffs who are saying that they will. bed bath&beyond is closing 200 stores. united airline says 45% of their work force could go. and i'm just cherry picking, right? you and i both know it. >> yeah. >> is vice president biden thinking big enough to tackle what could be a very great depression? >> yes. his plan understands that not only do we need to build, as he

calls it build back better because there's no going back to the economy we had before. and we don't have to accept the same weaknesses that the economy used to have. we can build something that's going to be enduring for a generation. but that means being serious about putting workers first. when the president talks about the economy, he's usually talking about the best, the bulk of the tax cuts he pushed through. that's the world he comes from. the world joe biden comes from is scranton, pennsylvania, a place not terribly different than south bend, indiana. even before this pandemic hit, manufacturing was in a recession in this country. now the economy is in shambles and it's just not going to do to have this president pretend it's not even a problem. it's going to take real serious action like the steps that joe biden put forward today that are about investing the in american products, investing in american workers, investing in american innovation. we can be and ought to be the most competitive economy in the world. but it's not going to happen

unless we make those investments. e he sees that and his presidency will deliver that as we go on this long and difficult road coming out of the pandemic. >> mayor pete buttigieg, i appreciate your time. >> same here. next a story you'll see only on outfront. a hospital along the u.s./mexico border, cases are surging and it's 100 degrees. >> you can see in my face i'm frustrated. plus doctors learning things they never knew about the virus now, things like blood clotting and how that affects your body. i'm going to talk to a pathology about these mysteries of coronavirus from those who have not survived. p...feel...cool. because the tempur-breeze° transfers heat away from your body. so you feel cool... night after night. during the tempur-pedic summer of sleep, save $500 on all tempur-breeze mattresses. my hands are everything to me.

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tonight, california reporting the most covid deaths the in a single day since the pandemic began. we take you inside a california hospital bordering mexico which is exploding beyond its walls with new cases. kyung lah takes us inside for an exclusive look. >> can't even get out of bed. >> when folks say, hey, it's a war zone, a war zone of what?

a war zone of us trying to combat the covid-19. >> reporter: the front line in this battlefield -- >> just craziness still. >> anybody else sick at home? >> reporter: southern california's regional medical center. >> this is intense. >> reporter: ceo adolf edward is a former officer and iraq war vet. >> i have seen this deployed with me when we were in iraq. >> reporter: now he's built them on american soil to handle a crush of covid cases his hospital no longer has room for. air conditioned tents in the triple digit desert heat to handle patient after patient. el centro is in imperial county. it sits at the u.s.-mexico border. this rural community is 85% latino. one in four live in poverty. per capita, it has three times as many covid cases as los angeles, and the death rate is the highest in california.

>> is it crazy to you that you are a physician working in a tent in america? >> yeah, it's incredible, isn't it? yeah, we'll make it through. >> reporter: inside the hospital -- >> it is exhausting. >> reporter: -- we visit the sickest patients in the icu. every single patient in this 12-bed icu has covid. 11 of them survive with ventilators. >> can you explain what you're wearing? >> well, it's a device that helps keep everything kind of closed so we're not exposed to anything. >> reporter: it's what nurse amber marez needs to wear to stay safe while helping her 40-year-old patient. how sick is he? >> he's really sick and he's really young so we're trying to do everything we can before intubating him.

>> what does that suggest to you as a nurse that the age is dropping? >> i think a lot of people aren't hon forhadding the stay-at-home. a lot of people aren't doing the social distancing. >> reporter: that's what the el centro fire department sees on the street. the battalion chief says in this town of 50,000 people, every single hour it is this. >> there's a possible covid patient on scene. so, at this point, our percent neal a nell are gearing up for the covid patient. >> reporter: in a full hazmat suit, he revoifs a patient. >> you have to take a shower and put on a different uniform for the rest of the day. >> you're dripping. >> yes, ma'am. everybody's really tired. you can see it in my face. we're frustrated. >> reporter: that patient captain whitlock saved arrives at the emergency room. >> we've hit capacity. we've transferred out two or

three times the normal amount of patient wers sending out. i think in the last two months we sent out something like 500 patients. >> some to nearby san diego, others as far away as northern california. this helicopter is here to pick up another patient. >> they're here for him. >> reporter: e.r. doctors and nurses intubate under this blue drape to limit particle exposure. stabilized, the patient heads out. >> why is it happening so badly here in imperial county? >> there are a lot of u.s. nationals that live in mention cali. they have a really bad outbreak there. there's a lot of people that cross the border here for work that live in next cali. >> some 20,000 day workers enter legally every morning to provide the labor. no work, no money for food, says

65-year-old farm worker. four of his fellow farm workers have died of covid, he says. >> we cannot win a war on covid in the emergency room. look at the big picture. we feed had to fight the war on covid where it's breeding, and that's our neighborhoods. >> reporter: in this binational county, covid is not the disease. it's the symptom. >> they experienced social determinants of health like putting food on the table, like having to work in dangerous conditions, like not having the mask. we are the poster of those inequities. and the reason we are not able to control covid. >> reporter: the hospital here is bracing for what's yet to come. this empty tent is the future covid ward. >> is this tent a sign that this pandemic is here to stay? >> yes, so, i keep telling folks, look, now it's a pandemic. eventually it's going to be an endem ichl endemic. is this how we want to take care of our communities? the answer is no.

>> will it be enough. when you see the situation, the heat, the exhaustion, the sweat on their faces, how long can they keep doing this? >> that's a matter of resources. and regarding the tent, the tent that's over here, it is already not enough. that's why the hospital ceo wrote a letter to california senators feinstein and harris asking for resources. this is something that he needs. here's his list for federal funding. 28 icu nurses, 14 respiratory therapists, and 20 ventilators just by next week in order to cope with the crisis that's happening right now. so, one other thing, erin, this community says do not look away from rural communities. do not look away from communities of color or lower income communities because you have to take care of covid everywhere or it will continue to spread. >> yep, kyung, thank you very much. incredible detail in that piece. next, cells that are often

found in bones and lungs now discovered in the heart of people suffering from coronavirus. how do they know this? because they are studying people who have died to find out all of these things that we still don't understand about the virus. plus the hospital that was at the heart of the coronavirus outbreak in italy. tonight, wow, a different scene. we'll show you. usaa insurance payments over the next twelve months so they can keep more cash in your pockets for when it matters most find out more at usaa.com for when it matters most from grills to play setsutdoor and more one of a kind finds.

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♪ yeah, it's time for grilled cheese. ♪ ♪ after we make grilled cheese, ♪ ♪ then we're eating grilled cheese. ♪ ♪ because it's time. ♪ yeah. ♪ time for grilled cheese. wow. jim could you ipop the hood for us?? there she is. -turbocharged, right? yes it is. jim, could you uh kick the tires? oh yes. can you change the color inside the car?

oh sure. how about blue? that's more cyan but. jump in the back seat, jim. act like my kids. how much longer? -exactly how they sound. it's got massaging seats too, right? oh yeahhhhh. -oh yeahhhhh. visit the mercedes-benz summer event or shop online at participating dealers. get 0% apr financing up to 36 months on select new and certified pre-owned models. tonight, dr. anthony fauci calling the virus a perfect storm and a nightmare, because of how easily it spreads. but there's still so much we don't know about the virus. some are trying to learn more about studying those who didn't survive. outfront now, the autopsy director at nyu department of pathology. doctor, i appreciate your time. every time we learn more about this, the broadway star, we hear about an amputation and all sorts of things that happened. and we say how can this happen

from one virus. you have seen something in the patients that you have looked at, that you have called remarkable. and i understand it's a special cells that help with blood clotting and you're finding them in places you would never find them, including the heart. these cells that could cause illness. please tell me what you're seeing. >> sure, thank you. i think one of the important things we recognized with covid very early on, clinically as well as in the autopsies, is that there definitely is a propensity for clotting. the clinicians at the bedside recognize clotting in lines and in various large vessels. what we saw in autopsy was an extension of that. the clots was not only in the large vessels but the smaller vessels. this was dramatic, because although we might have just expected it in the lungs, we found it in almost every or kwan that we looked at in our autopsy study.

>> and i am amazed, because i know you call that remarkable. how unusual is that and what are the implications of such a thing, that you would see this sort of clotting in every single organ all over the body? >> sure. so i think one of the issues is that in prior pandemics such as h1n1 or sars 1, there wasn't that many autopsy studies done. they did find some degree of clotting in the lungs, but there wasn't a delineation of other organs it may have affected. so one of the opportunities, if there is one, to count in this virus is that we have had a chance to look at many, many organs through my study, as well as other studies, and really investigate what is the extent of some of this disease process. so for example, as you mentioned, the mega carrier sites for the bone mario cells don't normally circulate outside

of the bone marrow and the lungs. and we found them in the heart, the kidneys, the liver and other organs. but notably in the heart, mega carrier sites produce plate lets, which are involved in blood clotting. so what will happen in the future, i think, is trying to recognize what is the association between these cells and how it influences sort of that small vessel clotting in covid. >> certainly this leads towards, you know, obviously potential treatments and understanding exactly what's happening. because if you don't know that, you can't treat. i know you also said one of the things that surprised you the most is something that you did not find. what was that? >> correct. so i think one of the things that was thought early in the disease, because it provokes an inflammatory reaction, is that this inflammatory reaction involved the heart.

and in my study as well as other studies and subsequent autopsies i've done recently, we have not found miocarditis in the heart. so that helps us understand some of the other processes that are happening in covid. >> well, i appreciate your time, dr. rapkiewicz. thanks so much. >> thank you. next, the surgeon general once warned the united states doesn't want to be like italy. wow, what we wouldn't do now to be just a little more like italy. 49... 50!

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tonight, a fwlglimmer of ho. the main hospital in italy has had its first day of zero covid patients. you remember some of these scenes in april, as italy extended its lockdown days after the nation recorded its jump in deaths. oxygen tanks lined up, patients video calling family members. back then, the surgeon general was warning there's every chance we could be italy. if only. 137 days after their first covid patient, the icu staff celebrating their unit is covid free. italy's curve as of right now is

flat, that's on the bottom. ours is green. we could only hope we would be a little more like italy. thank you for joining us. our global town hall, coronavirus facts and fears, dr. redfield, sanjay and anderson starts right now. ♪ welcome. i'm anderson cooper in new york. >> i'm dr. sanjay gupta. this is our 16th cnn global town hal, coronavirus, facts and heres. >> it comes as the virus makes it clear not only has it left us, it's growing faster than ever before. which reminded us that it, not us, is in control. and until and unless we get our act together as a nation. >> people laughed about are we concerned about the second wave? i keep telling people, what are you talking about a second wave? we are knee deep in the first wave. we have never gotten out of it. >> dr. ant