for the same medications as the vet, but up to 30 percent less with fast free shipping. visit petmeds.com today. hello and welcome to our viewers joining us here in the united states and all around the world. you're watching "cnn newsroom" and i'm kim brunhuber. the number of daily coronavirus cases shoots up again. there were more than 77,000

infections in the last 24 hours, the highest on record. and numbers are spiking in other countries, too. brazil topped 2 million cases and india has just hit 1 million. plus, security officials accuse russian hackers of a cyber attack on vaccine research centers. we'll hear the kremlin's response. the u.s. set another regr regrettable record on thursday with 77,000 new cases of coronavirus in a single day. the sunbelt, california to florida, is getting the worst of it. many hospitals are already filling up. america's top health experts agree it's grim. >> we do have a serious situation now. in the southern states particularly exemplified by florida, california, arizona, texas have seen surges that are really quite disturbing.

surges, as you mentioned, that have gone up to over 60,000 cases a day. that obviously is something that we must address. >> numbers growing weeks after most of the country had begun to reopen. avoid another lockdown, masks are now required in more than 3 dozen states. georgia is an exception. governor brian kemp is suing atlanta's mayor over the city's mask mandate. the push back is hard to comprehend given that masks are simple, cheap and recommended by some experts but some americans don't see it that way. >> this is the exact opposite of what we need to be doing. we are supposed to be physically distancing, wearing masks and so all of our medical -- >> people expressing their displeasure in provo, utah. the white house leans on districts to resume classes in the autumn.

it's a hard sell as parents, students, teachers weigh the risk but the white house is adamant. >> when he says open, he means open in full, kids being able to attend each and every day at their school. the science should not stand in the way of this. >> texas was one of three u.s. states to post their highest one day death tolls on thursday. for more here's cnn's erica hill. >> reporter: a stark reality in texas. refrigerated trailers brought in as morgues reach capacity. >> i need everybody to help us and do their part because people's lives are at stake. not just the people getting sick now. we've got doctors, nurses. >> austin's convention center and this loredo hotel also being prepped for non-icu covid-19 patients. texas is one of 16 states reporting record hospitalizations. all but two of those are also seeing a rise in deaths. >> it doesn't have to be this

way. there are straightforward things. it requires leadership but there are straightforward things we can do. >> reporter: 39 states are now moving in the wrong direction. confirmed cases in the state of florida, more than 315,000 now outpace france and china combined. miami's hospitals are at 95% capacity. icu beds also pushed to the limit. >> the situation is dire. i don't want to sugar coat it. i don't want to downplay it in any way. >> reporter: as cases surge in georgia, governor brian kemp signing an order to ban local officials from mandating masks. >> i'm deeply frustrated today. we believe our local orders can stand so we're going to fight this. >> reporter: at least 39 states require face coverings in public. arkansas and colorado adding mandates today. target, cbs and pub blickensderfer the latest to require them for customers nationwide. >> the science at this point is

very clear. wearing a mask can help by five times. >> reporter: new analysis shows travel bans came too late especially for new york. the virus was already here. the northeast hit hard at the start has been holding steady over the past month. new cases in the midwest declining in mid june have now more than doubled. the west seeing a similar spike while the south has exploded. more than tripling its daily case count. >> unlike other countries, we never got covid-19 under control here. basically we gave up. >> reporter: here in new york city which is set to move into phase 4 of reopening on monday, governor andrew cuomo and mayor bill de blasio said that likely will not concern indoor activities. governor cuomo concerned about indoor spaces, bars, restaurants as the virus has spread. the governor announcing three strikes and you're closed rule.

he's cracking down on bars and restaurants not abiding by social distancing and reopening measures put in place. egregious violations could result in an immediate loss of their liquor license. in new york, i'm erica hill, cnn. let's hear from dr. darryl owe koornl. you wrote, listen to your public health officials. we must all act swiftly and with unity. clearly the action hasn't been swift and there's been no unity. how surprised are you by what you're seeing, how worried? >> well, thanks for having me, kim. i am surprised in the lack of unity that's been shown by our leadership across the country. you've got the governor of georgia who's mandating you can't have masks.

all the way back in march here in hawaii we realized this is one of the best things we can do to combat this illness. we don't have adequate treatments. somebody gets really sick we have something that may sort of help but there is no cure. the cure is to prevent the transmission of this. so when we have states not allowing the best and most effective thing that we have to keep this from transmitting from person to person, it's disheartening. what i wrote back in march is sadly coming true. other countries have quite frankly far surpassed their ability to control this virus the way the united states has. >> now you're on the front lines there. are there any cases that have stayed with you that you still think about at night? >> yeah. the ones that always remind you

are a family member or the ones traveling away from their families. quite simply, when somebody does get sick, their family isn't allowed to be by their side. it's too high of a risk to their family and to allow them into the hospital. any of our sick cases, all of these really, really hard discussions about quite frankly life and death has to be had over the phone or face time. people can't have their hands held by their loved ones and it's absolutely tragic. it's heartbreaking to see anybody about through that. i just urge people, especially my generation, i'm 35, all the young people out there who think they're not invincible, you are, you're mortal. the more that you're out there not wearing masks and partying really and hanging out with all of your friends without properly socially distancing, the more that you're going to transmit this virus to the ones that you love. i really, really urge them to take this seriously.

>> that's a really important message because so many young people are getting infected now. you yourself are young. how do you actually get that message, that very eloquent message you just said there. how do you actually convince people who are young and feel invulnerable? >> repetition. you know, there is an info demic. opinions are flying rather than facts and scientific knowledge. i'm hopeful the more people see and hear the same thing that masks work, social distancing, physical distancing works. we shouldn't be hanging out in large numbers of people. some of it does and some of it isn't. just got to continue to try. >> i'm interested. long before this pandemic you consulted on the netflix docu

series, pandemic. it looks like many public officials weren't watching that. we've had plenty of experience dealing with this but we don't seem to have learned from that. why has this caught us so flat footed? >> that's a very, very complex question. my work on that series made it kind of surreal that the series was filmed all throughout 2019 and was released on netflix, the six-part series, middle of january, and at the time of the virus out of wuhan. it gave a head start in recognizing the signs when china was locking down and building their own hospitals that this is a very, very serious illness and it turns out it was. it's a lack of belief of expertise in our medical professionals. hey, look, you may hear your

physician or dr. anthony fauci recommend something, but because you have the freedom or belief to believe someone else, it's one of the great things about the country, but when it comes to science and the health of this virus, the more we ignore this, the more repercussions. i hope people turn around and listen. >> absolutely. thank you so much for coming on. dr. o'connell in honolulu, hawaii. appreciate it. well, on top of the pandemic, extreme heat is making matters worse in the state of arizona. cnn forecasts a high today in the state capitol of phoenix, 109 degrees fahrenheit, 43 degrees celsius. heatstroke and coronavirus can make a dangerous combination. >> it's gotten extremely hot in

arizona. people coming in with heat strokes and infections like they did always. on top of that you have the covid patients. people are waiting in line to get tested and are fainting while waiting to get a test and are coming to the e.r. because they're waiting for a test and fainted. you're getting the patients coming to the e.r. we're doing the best we can to take care of them. despite all of that, you know, we still have the highest positivity rate in the country. the percent of tests that come back positive are the highest in the country still which is very widespread in the community. i don't know when it's going to level off. >> then 134,000 cases according to johns hopkins university. maricopa county has the third highest cases of any county in the united states. when we come back, brazil's coronavirus numbers are rising quickly and many critics pin the blame squarely on the president.

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six months after the first reported death from kroif the death toll is approaching 600,000 people.

india marked its 1 millionth case. brazil has twice that number and counting. cnn's nic robertson reports. >> reporter: brazil's president announcing he tested positive again for covid-19 saying he's doing better but his country isn't. his anti-lockdown speeches helped thrust his latin american nation to second worst in the world after the united states surpassing 2 million cases thursday and 76,000 deaths. fellow brick nation india also in the worst throes of the pandemic. third in the global racibarskasiracibarskas i -- ranking of cases and they reentered lockdown conditions this week. on yet another continent, africa, south africa facing rising caseloads overwhelming

underresourced hospitals. some staff short of ppe refusing to show up fearing for their lives. developing nations are being the hardest hit. latin america and the caribbean the worst. 3.5 million infections. 150,000 deaths. peru, which this week reopened domestic flights, second to brazil. nearly 4,000 new cases thursday. in chile, some reason for hope. new vaccine trials could begin august. half a planet away in japan fears of a second wave. tokyo going onto the highest state of alert as hospitalizations rise. elsewhere in asia, hong kong facing a possible third wave, over 60 new cases thursday. the social distancing measures eased. australia's victoria state also

facing a new wave of infections. had its worst daily rise, 317 cases. meanwhile, europe on the down side of its first wave facing rising unemployment. more than 600,000 lost jobs in the u.k. alone as experts forecast nearly 120,000 u.k. covid deaths this winter. local not national lockdowns becoming the norm. they submit to an independent inquiry. >> of course, mr. speaker, we will seek to learn the lessons of this pandemic. >> reporter: this as some leaders facing protests over their handling of covid-19. for several days serbs in belgrade took to the streets angry at their government's handling of lockdown. and in israel pm benjamin

netanyahu facing protests as a second covid-19 wave buffets his tiny nation. he promises massive government handouts as infection rates hit a new daily record. in spain thursday, the nation paused to remember their covid-19 losses. as much-needed tourister nations got drunk, ignored social distancing, forcing a resort to shut. nic robertson, cnn, london. india is the third nation to see more than 1 million cases behind the u.s. and brazil. that milestone came as india also hit a new daily record. cnn's got the details from new delhi. >> reporter: on march 24th india's prime minister announced the country's first lockdown to counter the spread of coronavirus. india had recorded over 500 covid-19 cases and ten deaths

till then. 3 1/2 months later according to johns hopkins university india has the third highest number of cases in the world. the doctor who wrote a book on the pandemic says india's 1.3 billion population is one of the many reasons for the rising numbers. india needs to impressively ramp up testing. >> the challenges in india, the penetration of testing services so there are theories but if there is one we could clearly identify, i would say it's testing. >> reporter: while india's capitol of new delhi has the highest number among cities across the country, the government claims the situation is slowly improving. dehli was expecting 200,000 cases by 15 july but we are in a much better situation than the mathematical projections were.

but a doctor on the front line at a top private hospital advises caution in the coming weeks. >> we cannot let our guard down until we start seeing community immunity going up. >> reporter: despite an extended lockdown in the western state, it remains the worst affected state in india. its capitol in the richest city mumbai, it has seen a dip in infections which according to experts says it could witness another surge after lockdown rules are relaxed. >> when we completely open up the lockdown and especially when the life line of mumbai is over, they will start. >> reporter: over 26,000 daily infections being reported since the 9th of july, some states and cities in india are reentering lockdown conditions. currently the movement of over 400 million people across the country has been restricted.

>> you will see cases going down in some areas, cases coming up in other areas and we will have to be vigilant. >> reporter: it took india four days to add roughly 100,000 cases to its covid-19 tally this week. a big challenge will now be to control new infections after areas under lockdown open up. cnn, new delhi. south africa has crossed the threshold of 300,000 confirmed coronavirus cases, the largest number of new infections are concentrated around johannesburg, the country's commercial center. however, the director of africa's centers for disease control says the rates of death remains under control. let's bring in david mckenzie in johannesburg and joins us live. it sounds as though south africa's situation continues to be a bad news/good news story, right? >> reporter: well, that's right.

it's a mixed picture. you have seen those surge in cases, particularly here in and around johannesburg. now well over 300,000 confirmed cases in south africa. the pressure will be building in the coming week say doctors but they do say that the death rate is substantially lower than many other countries across the world and they're hoping that will hold both here and across the continent where that situation is merited. >> you speak of the rest of the continent as you cast your eye across it, are there any other hot spots in africa that you're seeing that worry you? >> reporter: well, you know, around half of all of the confirmed cases according to the african cdc are here in south africa. that might be a virtue in part because of a lack of testing in large parts of the continent. the head of the african cdc says they need to ramp up testing significantly to get a handle on

how bad the infection rate is across the continent. i think nigeria in particular, africa's most popular nation is one to carefully watch. they are seeing rising cases and their testing isn't quite where it needs to be but, still, across much of the continent you haven't seen the death rates according to health officials that you've seen in countries like the u.k. into the u.s. that might be because of a younger population or because the pandemic hit this part of the world a bit later, but it could also be, and predictions are difficult in this pandemic, that the worst is yet to come but the key is really getting those tests ramped up significantly in many parts of the continent. kim? >> very difficult challenge. thank you so much, david mckenzie in johannesburg. appreciate it. hong kong is fighting the third wave of infections and one city warns the city hasn't

reached its peak. on thursday hong kong reported the highest number of new infections since the cases started to rise weeks ago. before that daily cases had been low for some time. many new infections have been reported and that includes taxi drivers and restaurant staff along with some customers. up next, accusations from the west countered by denials by the kremlin. russian-backed hackers stand accused of stealing information again, this time about potential coronavirus vaccines. as we move forward, let's continue to practice these healthy habits, brought to you by lysol. wash your hands often with soap and water and monitor your health. always use the inside of your elbow to cough or sneeze. be sure to cover your mouth and nose with a cloth face cover around others. and keep about 6 ft distance from them. and remember to clean and disinfect frequently touched surfaces daily. the best way forward is together. lysol. what it takes to protect. ♪

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more than 77,000 new cases of coronavirus were confirmed in the u.s. on thursday, the

highest one-day total so far. many hospitals are already filling up. some places currently are bringing in refrigerated trucks to use as temporary morgues. the alarm growing weeks after most of the country had begun to reopen. to avoid another lockdown masks are required in 3 dozen states. meanwhile, the trump white house continues to lean on school districts to resume classes in the coming weeks but additional cdc guidelines for schools that were expected this week are delayed and it's unclear when they will be released. the centers for disease control and prevention doesn't have any time left for new guidelines. they begin in late summer or early autumn, weeks away. many medical experts say there's no way many children can return to full-time school until this is under control.

sanjay gupta talked to former cdc director thomas frieden. >> i do wonder, how do you think this will play out if president trump has his way and school districts simply open and children go back to school regardless of what the situation is like in the area? and as you're thinking about that, i do want to show what happened in israel as well, this graph of what happened when schools started to reopen in israel. you see there may 17th and look at the trajectory in the days afterwards. what happens if we just open up schools, dr. frieden? >> well, i can tell you with 100% certainty that if you open schools in communities where you have a lot of covid spreading, you're going to have to slam them shut again. look at what happened in arizona, texas, georgia, south carolina, florida. you open too soon, it's one step forward and many steps backward.

we're now having this enormous reservoir of viral infections, hundreds of thousands of people, actually millions of americans today are walking around infectious with covid. we've got to cool it down, and we can do this. there are some things that all of us can do with the three ws. wear a mask correctly. mask up, america. wash your hands or use sanitizer and watch your distance. those inside crowded spaces, that's what covid likes. we're going to have to close bars and restaurants in most of the country or this is not going to stop. so there's something that all of us can do, and then government needs to do a better job testing. it's just impossible to have a useful program if it takes a week for a test to come back. >> the kremlin is denying hacking. they're trying to steal coronavirus research information

from around the world. they say their country has nothing to do with it. matthew chance is in moscow. matthew, take us through these extraordinary hacking attempts. what do we know about who did this and also how? >> reporter: well, you're right, kim, these allegations are extraordinary. they've been hacking in trying to find a coronavirus vaccine. organizations in united states, brittain, and canada. that's the allegation coming from the security services. a hacking group which has been called among other things cozy bear which is linked with the svr has been infiltrating software systems, vulnerable computer systems and use malware which it implanted to download files, possibly to upload files as well. obviously allegations like that are extremely serious, particularly at a time when everybody in the world virtually

is trying desperately to find an effective treatment for coronavirus. it's provoked an angry response from the russians. you mention what the kremlin has said. they said they have absolutely nothing to do. there's a categorical denial. always getting a denial when confronted with allegations of russian wrongdoing. what they say though is actually no coronavirus vaccine work was hampered as a result of the attacks. nevertheless, extremely sensitive that this is taking place at this extremely sensitive time. russia is of course one of the countries with the most to gain for getting a vaccine. it has one of the highest number of people with coronavirus infections in the world. more than 750,000 people have been reported as infected. the real figure is much higher than that. they plowed enormous resources into finding a vaccine. as far as vaccine nationalism going on, russians are very proud of the great advances they say in trying to formulate their

own vaccine and they are rejecting, again, out of hand these allegations of spying or information from other countries could have played a part of that. one senior russian official said these allegations of spying are simply an attempt to tarnish the russian vaccine which could, he said, be the first in the world. kim? >> very interesting. and not the last of it, i'm sure. thank you so much, matthew chance, in moscow. we could be a step closer to a coronavirus vaccine. imperial college london, one of the many research institutions on the hunt, is entering the second round of human trials. ni nina dos santos meets one of the participants. >> reporter: just teen is receiving an experimental vaccine against coronavirus. she'll get a second booster shot in two weeks' time and if all goes to plan, should be immune. she's one of around 300

volunteers who have been tested for coronavirus and deemed eligible to take part in this stage of human trials at imperial college london. just teen, how do you feel? >> i feel very good actually. it will definitely be something to tell the grandkids over supper one day. >> reporter: this is just what just teen received. it doesn't contain a full albeit weakened copy of covid-19, instead, just a tiny piece of genus material. the hope is once it finds its way into the muscle cells, her body will be encouraged to produce antibodies. the vaccine is based on a synthetic strand of self-represent pli kading code or rna. it is a technique never brought to market but one which could transform the way future vaccines are made. >> that allows the vaccine to be very scaleable and that's exactly what you need when you

have a pandemic and you are talking about not just vaccinating millions but billions of people. >> reporter: this is a bit of a gamble, isn't it? this is very, very high science? >> that's true to say that. that makes it very exciting. >> reporter: as far as the onset of whether this will work are 250 miles south of the capitol. >> this is a 5 liter run. this could potentially contain up to 5 million doses in there. >> reporter: how long will it take in this production facility when everything is up and running? >> what we're working on will take two weeks to make the product and encapsulate it. >> before they can do that, these scientists in darlington are figuring out how to go from the experimental phase to a product that can be mass manufactured. >> imagine stirring it with a tease spoon and stirring a bucket with a teaspoon, you

wouldn't get the same effect. >> reporter: how long? >> an 18-month program. for this we're looking at 4 to 6 months to get to scale. >> reporter: the vaccine will still have to be tested on thousands more in locations where the virus is still circulating. this is among 23 vaccines in clinical trials worldwide and one of several using rna. but with billions of people to protect in this pandemic, developing a vaccine in such small doses could make a big impact soon. nina dos santos, cnn, london. the trump administration is increasing its antichina rhetoric with an eye towards the november election. tensions are already high between the rival powers with issues of coronavirus, hong kong, disputed south china sea, and now china's responding to reports the u.s. is considering a travel ban on members of

china's communist party. kristie lu stout joins me from hong kong. the possible ban on chinese communist party figures, what do we know? >> reporter: it is an incredible revolution that was first reported by "the new york times" saying that the trump administration is playing a sweeping travel ban on the 90 million plus members of the chinese communist party and their family. i should reach out cnn has reached out to the trump white house, state department and we have yet to receive comment but the chinese foreign ministry of affairs who called this pathetic. if this ban were to go through, who would be affected? it would affect the party elite in china as well as rank and file members. it would also affect business people, including a number of high profile business people including the tech titan bay. he is the founder of huawei.

it would affect the editor in chief of bitedance. it would affect jack ma. jack ma is the billionaire founder of alibaba. he is one of the most well known capitalists and he is a communist party member. this ban would affect academics, scientists, doctors. the whistle blowing covid-19 doctor who later died of the disease, he was a member of the chinese communist party. kim? >> so many fault lines between the u.s. and china. is this likely to further exacerbate the growing riff between the two countries or is it sort of being waived away internally as the u.s. domestic election politics? >> reporter: it's not being waived away. min be nis stri foreign affairs in china held another press conference today condemning the reports of this planned travel ban and fault lines is the right

word. there are many fault lines who have locked horns on the economy, human rights, assertions of sovereignty in the south china sea, the fate and future of taiwan, the tech war, the trade war, the w.h.o., its relationship with china. the list goes on. if the trump administration were to go through with this planned travel ban it would arguably be its toughest action yet in china and commentators say china would most certainly retaliate. >> we'll follow this developing story. thank you so much, kristie lu stout from hong kong. appreciate it. as the pandemic wears on, small companies in the u.s. struggling to stay in business. coming up, we'll hear from one owner who's gone from success to shutdown.

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job security is pretty well

a thing of the past as covid cases grow. another 1.3 million more americans filed for first-time unemployment benefits last week. that's down 10,000 claims from the previous week. continued claims which count workers who file claims for at least two straight weeks stood at 17.3 million. insecurity is also devastating small businesses. cnn's phil mattingly introduces us to a woman who's still optimistic even though she had to close her popular store selling southern biscuits. >> we sold out every day. >> reporter: when asha left her corporate job to launch mason dixon biscuit co, she couldn't believe how much of a hit it would be. >> we had lines down to the costcos 2 miles long. it was as if that opening day lasted a month and a half. >> reporter: a first generation american who grew up in public housing, the comfort food pop-up was the ultimate success story

and the accolades. permanent brick and mortar location and most importantly customer loyalty followed in spades. >> really important for us at the time to be part of a neighborhood and community and not just be in downtown. >> reporter: then came the pandemic. >> the first week or two it was basically no traffic. i think we were making $100 a day so like it went to nothing. >> reporter: the business never returned above 50% of its past sales leading to this gut wrenching decision. >> we couldn't sustain a business anymore. we had to shut it down. >> reporter: writing the letter now taped in the window of the restaurant, letter who owner of a thriving business could ever put together. >> it was the last thing i wanted to do. >> what do you say to your team members? what do you say to their families? what do you say to customers that feel like they've been there for you the whole time? >> reporter: small businesses are a central driver of u.s.

economic activity. more than 30 million representing 50% of all u.s. jobs, but as the crisis has continued unabated, thousands of brick and mortar small businesses have taken the route of mason dixie biscuit co and closed their doors. nearly 60,000 businesses closing their doors for good according to data from yelp. some showing the number at north of 100,000. even more are on the precipice. 23% saying they can only survive for no more than 6 months in current conditions. even some who received crucial paycheck protection loans are simply closing their doors altogether. in a sign of the very resiliency that shows what small businesses, frozen biscuit business once driven by customer loyalty to the restaurant itself has taken off. >> never in a million years could we have planned that it was going to be as crazy as it was. the demand surge was 200% month

over month. >> reporter: she's not closing the door to giving another restaurant a shot. >> there isn't a bone in my body that doesn't want to try this again. >> reporter: but as small businesses fight for survival, it strikes a chord for many facing this that they are clinging to each day. >> i can't say that you should feel like it's failure. it's closure on a chapter but it forces you to think what's the next step? what's the next move? coming up, concerns about national security are being raised after some of twitter's most influential users were hacked. these folks, they don't have time to go to the post office

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for the same medications as the vet, but up to 30 percent less with fast free shipping. visit petmeds.com today. real madrid have captured the spanish league title with a 2-1 win in la league play. real madrid legend wins his second title with the club as manager to go along with the title he won as a player back in 2003. real madrid ended a two-year hold on the spanish crowd by their arch rivals barcelona.

the coronavirus halted play from march 10th to june 11th. when it rusheturned, it was witt fans. the fbi is investigating a huge cyber attack on the twitter accounts of a who's who of politicians and business leaders that scammed people out of money through bitcoin. cnn's brian todd explains how it could impact national security, the economy and the u.s. presidential election. >> reporter: joe biden has assured his supporters he'll never ask them to send him bitcoin cryptocurrency. that comes after his verified account were compromised by hackers in a devastating attack. they got to president obama, kim kardashian west, kanye west, companies like apple and uber and they did it, twitter says, by doing what's called social engineering. >> what actually seemed to

happen was that a twitter employee was hacked. that twitter employee had access to the master controls that could control or take over a lot of these accounts. >> reporter: after that infiltration, a fake tweet from bill gates said i am doubling all payments sent to my bitcoin address for the next 30 minutes. you send $1,000, i send you back $2,000. the other accounts had almost identical inducements. the fbi is leading an investigation. two u.s. intelligence officials tell cnn it's too early to tell if it was by a lone wolf hacker or someone working for a nation state. some are calling this nightmare rich. president trump's twitter account does not appear to have been targeted in this hack, but the president makes many of his announcements and dictates policy sometimes over twitter. what if. >> you could imagine how deeply damaging it could be if you saw a tweet from a compromised account, whether it's the

president or somebody else in a senior position saying, you know, that we have launched some sort of attack on north korea. north korea might not know whether or not that is true. >> reporter: experts say america's enemies could send the financial markets into a spiral by seizing a verified twitter account and putting out false information, and the fact that biden's account is compromised in the midst of election season is very concerning because a fake tweet the hackers could have sent from his account. >> it certainly seems like they may have been able technically speaking to make him say things he never would say that could, indeed, be quite damaging to him. >> reporter: and analysts say hackers could grab twitter accounts, spark dangerous confusion on election day itself. >> you say have a lot of accounts that suddenly started tweeting allegations that there had been fraud or that people couldn't trust the outcome, you

could also emergency people having significant doubts then created about the outcome of the election even if there was none of that kind of activity that had happened. >> reporter: and there's concern about how this hack might have prevented legitimate, important information from getting out. right after the discovery of the hack, twitter had to temporarily shut down much of its network of verified accounts including the account of the national weather service which could not issue warnings on twitter about possible tornadoes hitting the midwest. brian todd, cnn, washington. thank you very much for spending your time with us here at cnn. i'm kim brunhuber. please stick around. "early start" is next.

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for the ninth time in a month, the u.s. sets a new coronavirus case record and an unpublished report from the white house task force shows they know stricter measures are needed. welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world. this is "early start." i'm christine romans. >> i'm laura jarrett. it's friday, july 17th. 5 a.m. here in new york. dr. anthony fauci told us two weeks ago that we could soon reach 100,000 coronavirus cases a day. it