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tv   CNN Newsroom  CNN  August 11, 2020 9:00am-10:00am PDT

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and gives you 24/7 peace of mind that if it's connected, it's protected. even that that pet-camera thingy. can your internet do that? xfinity xfi can because it's simple, easy, awesome. get advanced security free with the xfi gateway. download the xfi app today. hello, everybody. i'm john king in washington. thank you so much for sharing this day with us. potential world changing leap today in the coronavirus vaccine race. but we must greet it with giant skepticism. the russian president vladimir putin says his nation has produced a coronavirus vaccine, dubbed sputnik five and says it is safe. now the skepticism. we know russia is lying when it
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says it does not meddle in our elections so credibility is paramount here. russia has not released the science so other experts can study it, nor has it put the vaccine through phase three clinical trials. a top u.s. official today warning, do not rush it. >> the point is not to be first with the vaccine, the point is to have a vaccine that is safe and effective for the american people and the people of the world. we need transparent data and it has got to be phase three data that shows that a vaccine is safe and effective. >> and the numbers you see on the right of your screen, while they underscore the desire for a vaccine breakthrough, more than 20 million infections worldwide, more than one-quarter of those right here in the united states. six months in, the president still either doesn't understand the science or chooses to mislead you. he again today plugged a drug his own experts says does not work. and you can see it right here, the president shrugging off the
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some surge in cases, blaming it on more testing, not the lack of a coherent plan to corral the virus as so many other nations have done. as we look at the numbers this morning, testing is down in 24 states. monday's daily case number came in under 50,000. but the seven-day average of new infections is back up just slightly above 54,000. remember, the lowest the united states pushed down the seven-day average came back in mid-may. at around 18,000. it is clear now that was not low enough. reopening at a high baseline made the surge numbers even bigger. and we know the death count trails the rising case tally. for more than two weeks, the united states averaged more than 1,000 deaths per day and there are new warnings this morning about rising case and death numbers inside nursing homes. let's look more closely at the national trends. and this map better than it has been, better than it has been still room for improvement. seven states trending up that's the orange and the red. that means more cases now compared to a week ago. 23 states in the beige including texas and california holding
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steady. texas and california big part of the summer surge, holding steady at the moment. 20 states trending down, the states in green. they include florida and south carolina. also big players in the summer surge numbers. at the moment, the map looking somewhat better. again, this is a six-month lesson, even if this map improves, sometimes when you look at it in terms of deaths, it is bad, this map still has a lot of pain and sadness in it. 11 states trending up. 16 states holding steady, meaning about the same amount of death this week than last week. 23 states trending down, you see them in green, again, if this map gets better, you wait a week or two, and this map counting the deaths tends to get better, we'll watch as we go through the rest of august and beyond. the new case trend, we showed you a bit of this earlier, there is some evidence that the summer surge gets you up here, above 60,000 cases, there is some evidence in recent days of a plateau, even a dip a little bit. that is encouraging news, that's progress. we want to celebrate progress. but there is a bubut that comesh
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this, remember the new york state experience. new york peaked in early april, took two weeks, two months, two months from april to june to get down this hill. what do we know about the down on the hill? more than half of new york state's cases, more than half of new york state's deaths came on the way down the hill. somewhat encouraging a plateau, maybe a dip, there is a long way to go down this hill, a lot of cases to count and beyond. the top five states now, california, florida, texas, new york and georgia. these have been right here. florida, texas, and california, driving up the summer surge numbers. right now on a plateau. where are we watching? georgia is among them. illinois, south dakota and indiana. not case numbers like california, not case numbers like florida, back a month ago, but states starting to see in south dakota, indiana, illinois, and georgia, up a little bit. all of this as people debate, is it safe for my kid to go back to school, should we have high school football, should we have college football? the president of the united states saying when it comes to
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younger americans, he says much more safer. >> people don't realize it is a tiny percentage of people that get sick. and they're old, just attacks old people, especially old people with bad heart, diabetes, some kind of a physical problem, a weight problem. many people get it and they have, like, kids they get it, they have the sniffles. young kids, almost none have a serious problem with it. >> again, the big headline today, russia says it has hit on a coronavirus vaccine. but listen to a warning from the former commissioner of the fda. >> i wouldn't take it, certainly not outside the clinical trial right now. it appears that it only has been tested in several hundred patients at most. some reports in as few as 100 patients. a lot of the situations you might only get one shot at taking a vaccine within a season. so if you put a vaccine on the market, it is not efficacious, it is going to be hard to
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revaccinate the population. you want to make sure it works. and you also want to make sure it is safe. >> with us now to share the expertise and insights, dr. rochelle wolenski and dr. a dr. nathaniel beers. it would be great if we could be celebrating a vaccine, no matter where in the world it was developed. should we have, am i right to say be skeptical about what we're hearing out of russia? >> good afternoon, john. you know, i think certainly we're looking for that golden vaccine, aren't we? all of us are dying to have it. i don't think any of us have seen adequate data from phase one studies from this vaccine from russia, from phase two studies and sounds like the phase three studies have not been done. i think when we get a vaccine, we will be elated, but we will want to trust it, we will want to make sure it has been fully
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vetted through all the stages of vaccine safety and efficacy and i would be reluctant to move forward to trust it without seeing the data and certainly without seeing the data on a large scale. >> so, dr. beers, let me come to you, as this plays out, parents would love to have a vaccine. instead, they're dealing with 13,000 school districts across the country, having their back to school debate. you heard the president of the united states saying most kids get the sniffles, not a big deal. listen to a contrary view, this is dr. william hazeltine last night on "anderson cooper". >> there is every reason to suspect that this virus, even though it can kill you, behaves pretty much look a cold virus in terms of transmission. who drives colds? children drives colds. >> that such sounds much more ominous. the president says kids are healthy, they get the kecold, ty get the sniffles, no big deal.
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the doctor there says you put kids back in school, you spread the disease, sounds look a tom bomb th time bomb and they go home and spread it, so on and so forth. who's right? >> both components have some truth to them. what we do know is communities that try to open schools where they have not effectively controlled the spread of the virus will see escalation of cases and children will be part of the escalation of cases. and you'll note that the cdc put out a report that suggested that together with the aap and the children's hospital association noted that over 97,000 additional cases in children occurred over the last two weeks of july. and that suggests where we don't have good community spread, we do get spread this children. so certainly as the american academy of pediatrics has noted, in order to reopen schools, you have to first control community spread. and that is where other countries around the world have been able to successfully reopen schools and contain escalations
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of community spread, even when children were in school. >> and to that point, dr dr. walensky, where the united states is now, and if you look at the last several days, quote/unquote, some progress, but it is shoving a baseline down to 50,000 cases a day. we were at 18,000 cases back in may. florida, just today, reporting a record of 276 deaths. that beats by several the state's previous high. i gave new york as the example in the sense that if you're coming -- new york, as it was coming down the hill, still had more than half of its cases and more than half of its deaths. if we're starting down the second hill in the united states, at 50,000 cases, what does that tell us about the weeks and months ahead? >> yeah, i want to be very clear that we have nothing to celebrate because we're down to 50,000 cases per day. that's -- we have a huge amount of morbidity and mortality at
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our feet right now and in the weeks ahead. we have had a thousand deaths per day in this country for the last two weeks. so our death toll, i envision, you know, the 70,000 cases we had in the middle of june, we haven't seen all the deaths associated with that. so, yes, i do think we have some really sad, sad days ahead, from the numbers that we were just -- from the numbers that we're seeing now. and even at 18,000 cases per day as you noted in mid-may we were unable to really squelch this. so i really want to emphasize that we're now at a time in this country where this is as good as it is going to get. the weather is good, we can be outside and we're not in the middle of a flu epidemic. or a flu outbreak. so, you know, now is the time to buckle down, before all of our kids are back to school, before we all have to be inside in colder weather, before we have influenza at our feet as well, to really -- to really be able to clamp down on this and we're just not doing that.
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>> dr. walensky, dr. beers, thank you for your time and insight. we have a long way ahead, nothing to celebrate, couple of days of progress, a good thing, but there is a long way to go if, if we continue down. doctors, thank you so much, we'll continue the conversation. up next, very nasty and very dumb, those words from the president of the united states today, his new comment about the nba and players who decide to take a knee in protest. find pants that aren't sweats. find your friends. find your sense of wander. find the world is new, again. at chevy we'd like to take you there. now during the chevy open road sales event, get up to 15% of msrp cash back on select 2020 models. that's over fifty-seven hundred dollars cash back on this equinox. it's time to find new roads, again.
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trust aag for the best reverse mortgage solutions. call now so you can... retire better president trump today claiming despite ample evidence to the contrary, that his polls are up, his words, up like a rocket ship. and never mind joe biden, get this. >> george washington would have had a hard time beating me before the plague came in, before the china plague. and then, you know, like every other nation, like other countries, when you get hit, it affects you. and we went down a little bit. and then we went down a little bit more and now we're coming up at a level we haven't seen.
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>> that and a conversation with hue hewitt today. the president called into fox sports radio, peddling hydroxychloroquine despite studies making it clear it does not help with coronavirus. >> i took it for two weeks. a little outbreak around washington and i said, let me have something. i took it for two weeks. it was fine. it was great. if i would have said i don't believe in it, doesn't work it would bed hottest thing going right now. >> more trump in the briefing room, on the radio, that's the president's ansers answers to numbers which are not up look a rocket ship. joining me, kaitlan collins and tolu olorunnipa. this president for all the things you might criticize about, he does not lack confidence. >> he doesn't. and what he's seeing right now is that his poll numbers are down, something he acknowledged in that interview with hue hewitt with not that long to go
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before the election. the president's answer to that seems to be that he's going to flood the airwaves and do all of these interviews and try to put his presence out there in order to make his own case for his re-election. so what you hear a lot of these -- in these interviews is something that the president says normally, things he makes -- he says about covid, talking about cases being up because testing is up, something that even his own health experts have said is not the case, but also the way the president views this as he's acknowledging that his response to the pandemic has affected his poll numbers. now, he sees it differently and blaming china and he's saying that it is essentially not his fault. his aides tell a different story, though, behind closed doors, they'll concede that the president has not handled it the best, from a messaging standpoint, and that's why they believe they're trying to get the president to stay on message when he is talking about covid now because they realize how that affected him and the president argues a little bit differently as you can tell from the interviews. >> right. and the more trump motto from him, he thinks he alone as he
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said before can change these things, is very reminiscent of 2016, people around him thought he was losing, a lot of people around him thought he had to change his message and the president kept going and some of the days were outrageous, he kept going and he won, which in his mind he says i can do this. one thing he's trying to do now is he doesn't like to talk much about the coronavirus, likes to talk about other things. this has become a staple at his rallies, he can't go out and do big voter rallies, but he's talking about joe biden, trying to win back suburban voters and decided now to name a certain name. listen. >> they want to put low income housing in the suburbs. and i ended it. i signed three weeks ago, i signed a regulation, which will end it. and the suburbs will be the suburbs again. biden wants to re-establish that program, but make it much worse. and they recommended cory booker to be in charge. cory booker is going to head it
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up. he's going to be the one that tells you what to do and destroys your housing and your area. >> correct me if i'm wrong, but my first campaign was 1988, and lived through the willy horton ad, naming a black man seems pretty clear to me what the president is trying to do, senator cory booker, democrat of new jersey, am i wrong? >> it is pretty clear what the president is trying to do, first of all, no evidence that cory booker is going to be in charge of suburban housing, he's a nor from new jersey, the mayor of an urban city, the idea that he would even be sort of put forward really scratches your head unless you sort of see that the dog whistles that the president is pointing to talking about low income housing, talking through code words of suburban housewives having their housing threatned and their safety threatened by low income people coming in their communities is very clear he's looking at this through a racial lens, trying to scare some
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moderate white voters who may be on the fence about his campaign and may not like his rhetoric but he's trying to say, i'll the only thing protecting you from, you know, tons of people coming into your neighborhood and making it look not like it used to look. he said he's going to maybe the suburbs great again and sort of this throwback to the 1960s and 1970s, and the country just doesn't look like that anymore, the suburbs are very diverse, a lot of the white voters that the president is trying to appeal to are actually thrown off and push back by his very clear and thinly veiled racial rhetoric and it is not clear the strategy is going to work outside of some thin margin of winning over some voters who this appeals to. but pretty clear what he's trying to do and it is a throwback to some of those types of ugly campaigning that we saw back in the '80s. >> right. it is a throwback and it is, you know, be afraid of them is what the president is trying to say as you note. the country changed, the suburbs have changed. it is clear, kaitlan, again, a lot of people on the president say, sir, this is dangerous, the
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president likes the culture debate here. i'm a big fan of the nba. i'm a big fan of the first amendment. the president clearly not. listen. >> there was a nastiness about the nba the way it was done too so i think that they -- the nba is in trouble. i think it is in big trouble. bigger trouble than they understand. what i haven't noticed them sending things back at me, but i will say that, you know, i wouldn't be that surprised, some are very nasty, very, very nasty and frankly very dumb. >> the nba, of course, the majority of the athletes are black and a lot of them are taking a knee now and wearing things on their jersey in the bubble saying, you know, provocative things like black lives matter. what is the president's beef? >> he was also asked something that is an argument that, of course, everyone talked about, who is a better basketball player michael jordan, lebron james, the president answered michael jordan, and one of the reasons he gave is not because of his athletic talent but he didn't get involved in politics.
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the president said he wouldn't be watching if they were kneeling and saying things about black lives matter in the way he said that about the nfl and other sports. if you listen to the two interviews the president gave this morning, he makes a point of saying he's not going to be watching if these players are kneeling. he's trying to put this argument out there, one he's made many times, and he's trying to say it many more times before the election, because he thinks that is something that works for the voters. the question is, at the end of the day, is that something the voters care about or things like they're unemployment benefits and whether or not they're still getting those given that so many americans are unemployed because the pandemic and just a point of confusion to see what the president is focusing on what his aides are focusing on, this morning, the president was talking about the nfl and we just heard from one of his economic advisers, john, who was talking about that confusing executive order the president signed over the weekend, trying to extend unemployment benefits after they ran out because congress has not come to an
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agreement about what to do next, but part of that agreement said that states had to give $100 to people before the federal government would give them $300 and many states, republican governor run states said they would not be able to do that because they don't have the finances for it and now larry kudlow said they're tweaking that and backing off of that part of the executive order, saying that states can go ahead and contribute what they are so far and will still get that $300 from the federal government regardless. just showing you what a mess signing that executive order has kind of been and wasn't clearly that well thought out. >> haste makes waste, i've seen that somewhere in the past, i'm not sure where. appreciate the reporting and insights from both of you. thanks so much. coming up, joe biden's big vp reveal is expected any day now and the longer he waits, the more pressure he gets. hot! hot! no no no no no, there's no space there! maybe over here? oven mitts! oven mitts! everything's stuck in the drawers! i'm sorry! oh, jeez. hi. kelly clarkson.
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and xfinity is your home for the return of live sports. we're still waiting for joe biden's vice presidential pick, but here is another sign it could be coming very soon. cnn confirms the campaign has a staff assembled for the woman who will share the democratic ticket. now i've been through more than a few of these over the years and they can get a little silly at the end. like this, a tweet serving notice the pick is imminent. followed by a tongue in cheek tweet, congratulations to imminent. with me to share the insights, david axelrod, top campaign
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strategist for president obama in 2008 and 2012 and nia malika henderson. you've been in the room, the candidate has made his decision, and then you decide, okay, roll it out, immediately, wait a day, wait two, what is going on in joe biden's head now with the team closest to him? >> well, look, i think he has to make a decision imminently because we have a convention coming up in a few days and so, you know, he's at the end of the string here. and i suspect he's made that decision and they're poised to mobilize, but they made a promise to their supporters that they would let them know first in a text message that's what we did with biden back in 2012. so they have been a pretty good job of keeping whatever that decision is, secret, i think they have dispatched teams to a number of different locations, to give him some optionality. but i suspect that they will pull the curtain in the next 24
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to 48 hours. >> and they face a lot of pressure. you said biden 2012, you're trying to cheat a few years, that was 2008. we won't -- >> there wasn't a lot of mystery in 2012, yeah. >> so one of the questions is, you have the longer he waits, the more opportunity he has to weigh in. some of it is pressure, you can call it demands or requests. at the end of the day if joe biden can't get the white midwestern vote, we're all up the creek. the whole point of black folks voting for him is he's supposed to deliver the white people. if he can't deliver the white midwestern vote, what did he vote for you for? the pressure coming from the democratic base to pick a woman of color, and the longer he waits, the more incoming he gets. >> that's right. you had those comments from natasha brown there, 100 prominent black men yesterday say that joe biden should pick a
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black woman, and if he doesn't, he will lose, pointed argument in the last days as joe biden has mulled a number of african-american women over the last many week, karen bass, val demings was on that list too and susan rice and kamala harris. we'll see what he does, i agree with david axelrod, that in the next 24 to 48 hours, the public should know who this pick will be. but joe biden, in saying he was going to pick a woman and that was back in march, the final debate between him and bernie sanders, certainly narrowed the field of people and possibilities that it could have been and over the last many weeks a lot of focus particularly on black women and because black women very much rallying to this idea that it is time for a black woman to get this role since they have been so crucial to the democratic party's fortunes, to joe biden's fortunes, particularly in some of those southern primaries, and
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that's what they want to see in this ticket, they wrote a big op-ed, a letter in the washington post, a couple of weeks ago and you see these cries coming to the very end to really pressure joe biden to pick an african-american woman to kind of represent where this party -- the democratic party is. >> and -- >> let me just say, i think he added somewhat to the pressure because it seems to me that the biden campaign probably leaked the fact he met with governor whitmer of michigan last week and they didn't leak any of the other meetings. none of those leaked. and she's been as buttoned down on this as anybody. they wanted to test the waters and see what the reaction would be if the news came that he had chosen governor whitmer. i don't know how he's processed the response, you know, that the general consensus now has been what the consensus has been from the beginning, kamala harris, senator from california, is the likely pick. but i think that was a very deliberate leak to test the
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waters. >> trial balloons, they do happen in politics, shocking, right? if you have a conversation for three years and 11 months between vice presidential picks, they don't matter, that that's not what voters pick on, the big picture in the race is more important, nia, as we came on the air, a new poll backing up what we have seen in recent weeks, ten-point lead for joe biden nationally, 51% to 41% over donald trump nationally. if you look at some of the battleground state polls, the map is tilting in their favor, some getting six points, eight points, that's in play for the president to catch up. but the bigger dynamics of the race, how much does that factor in. does that make you say the map is tilting in my favor, the polls are good, be safe or i got this comfortable lead, i got room to be bold. >> you know, i think safety probably in some ways -- i'm sure at some point they were kind of poll testing, some of these names floating out about
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possible vice presidents and this trial balloon, how that would go over with the base. i imagine they know this race is going to tighten up. that's how presidential politics works. the polls are good for them now, but when this thing gets down to the wire, you imagine that in those battleground states, it will be a battleground. that's why you call them battleground states. i imagine they were thinking about the first rule, first do no harm when you're picking this running mate, you want to turn off the voters that you need and you also want to energize the voters that you need to, african-american voters you need the suburban white women voters as well, disaffected republicans and so you want to pick somebody who amplifies all the sort of demographics you need in a way that joe biden already does too. he's doing well with seniors, he's doing well with white voters as well. you don't want to pick somebody who is going to alienate those voters that will be crucial to a win for joe biden come november.
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>> i think within -- >> go ahead, quickly. >> one thing that makes this difference is biden's age and the fact that you're not just picking a nominee for vice president, but potentially a presidential candidate for 2024. that has raised the sail yelien this decision. >> maybe by this time tomorrow, we'll talk about who it is, not who it might be. these thing have a way of breaking rather suddenly. it is primary day in a handful of states today, including in georgia, which features a matchup between a neurosurgeon and candidate who openly backs the bizarre theory qanon. if greene wins, she has a good chance of winning the general too, georgia's 14th congressional district is reliably republican. in minnesota, ilhan omar fighting to keep her safe, facing melton-meaux.
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we'll bring you the results when we can. tune in, watch the live special coverage of the 2020 democratic national convention. we'll bring you the biggest moments, big speeches and some insight and what it all means for joe biden, the future of the democratic party and the general election ahead. our coverage starts monday night 8:00 eastern. up next, part of the coronavirus summer surge, now new covid-19 warning signs in texas. a lot of folks ask me why their dishwasher doesn't get everything clean. i tell them, it may be your detergent... that's why more dishwasher brands recommend cascade platinum... ...with the soaking, scrubbing and rinsing built right in. for sparkling-clean dishes, the first time. cascade platinum.
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we live with at&t and we are well past the honeocupado tom. at&t, what's this i hear about you advertising a 100% fiber network? only like a fraction of my customers can get that. that's it?!? you have such a glass half-empty attitude. the glass is more than half-empty! you need to relax tom. oh! tom, you need a little tom time. a little tt. stop living with at&t. xfinity delivers gig speeds to more homes than anyone. we're seeing new coronavirus warning signs in texas, the
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seve seven-day average hit the highest number since the middle of march. that's according to johns hopkins and the covid tracking project. at the moment, the number of new coronavirus infections in texas is leveling off. you see it there, trickling down a little bit. but texas is third among states in its case count and that high positivity rate is a danger sign of potential trouble ahead. ed lavandera joins me from dallas. you see the positivity rate and start thinking where are we going to be a week or two weeks from now. >> reporter: right, and rally what is interesting about the infection rate and how it is tracked over the last few weeks is just how volatile it has been. at the end of may, the positive infection rate here in this state was just over 4%. and the state was in the process of in full swing of reopening the economy here. and then a few weeks after -- a few weeks ago, up around 17% dipped back down to about 12% and now all of a sudden we're back up at 20%. all of this happening, this
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roller coaster ride happening as in the last few weeks we have seen a significant drop in the number of daily tests being reported by state health officials here in the state, about two weeks ago we were hovering around 70,000 tests being reported per day. that number dropped to around 45,000 per day. that would play a big part into why you're seeing such a high positive infection rate among these cases. we reached out to the state health officials to get a better understanding of why there is so much -- there is dramatically less testing going on, state health officials don't have the answer at this point, they tell us that they're during the process of investigating, surging for any anomalies in the reporting process, reaching out to other clinics and labs across the state to try to figure out what is going on there. but that could hold a big clue and key to understanding exactly how the virus is spreading here in this state, john, which obviously comes at a time when we are just a couple of weeks from most schools, public schools opening up here, and
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students heading off to college and that sort of thing. great deal of concern about where all of this is headed in this state. john? >> that positive -- the testing and the positivity rate one of the clues if you will if you're a coronavirus detective, ed lavandera, appreciate you being on top of it for us in dallas. we'll circle back as we learn more. with the coronavirus outlook is taking a turn for the better, new mexico seven-day average positivity rate is 2.4%. you can see right there, that's the lowest rate in the western continental united states. with me now is new mexico human services secretary dr. david grace. thank you for being with us today. my question, i guess, is why, if we went back a little bit, and we can put up your case count in new mexico, this shows you cases over the last month, and you've come down some, if we went back all the way to may, it would be even higher. back in may the conversations in new mexico were you had a problem with the native american reservations you had a lockdown in the city, why you to think
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tdo you think the state has been successful in pushing down the curve? >> i think our governor started off with a very data driven, science-driven approach, she figured out on day one that testing was the key to our strategy because if you test enough people you identify positive cases, you isolate them, you quarantine their contacts, you reduce spread. so we have been working on that diligently for months and months and months. i think with great results, there is two ways to improve test positivity rates, one is to reduce the number of cases, which is the numerator and the other is to increase the number of tests and the denominator. we are very involved in increasing testing, we doubled our testing output during the month of july and where our cases doubled as well. we had some advantages working for us in new mexico, 80% of our testing is done by in state labs, the navajo nation who you mentioned has been great about mobilizing testing there.
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our department of health is in all 30 counties in new mexico, they have 30 to 70 testing sites open every day. some days we do over 3,000 tests a day in their facilities. and lastly, on the increasing test site, our governor gets personally involved in supply chain shortages in testing. we have been through swab shortages, today we need to run tests, she gets a daily briefing and she's involved with manufacturers to get that done. >> and so help me, i want to look at this, put up on our screen the positivity you're talking about. it has been so critical. i learned so much the last six months about trying to figure out where the warning signs what do you do, what tells you the trouble ahead. if you look at july 22nd there, the positivity rate is 6%. there are a lot of states higher that's a warning sign. want to get it down to -- now you hear -- not even a month later, you're at less than half that, 2.7%. what is this?
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is it mask wearing, is it pur pushing social distancing, getting people to listen and act, some magic way of getting that to happen in less than a month? >> i think we're talking about the number of cases, we have very comprehensive and early implemented executive orders, we still have the strictest stay at home order in the nation, early closure of schools, no nursing facility, visitation within a week of our first case, we were one of the first states to mandate mask use after the scientific evidence proved its effectiveness. we have effective contact tracing, we're reaching over 80% of our cases and contacts which is almost double other states, you hear about 40% to 50% and if you bring up the last graphic, testing capacity, we are now breaking down test positivity rates and case counts by county. and diverting testing resources into the counties with the highest case counts in order to
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test as many people as we can, identify new cases, isolate those people, contacts and reduce spread. lastly, contrary to our neighbors on either side, a more conservative approach to reopening, which did result in a spike, we were able to get that under control and bring the case counts back down. that's basically it. more tests, decrease cases, that gives us the lowest test positivity rate in the west. >> science and common sense and leadership, dr. grace, appreciate your time today. best of luck, i hope you can keep it down and push it down even more. we'll keep in touch as we go through the next weeks and months. thank you, sir. college football leaders meet about the fate of fall football. (vo) businesses are always making choices. here's a choice you don't have to make. the largest 5g network... award-winning customer satisfaction... or insanely great value. now, with t-mobile for business, there's no compromise.
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the fate of the college football season because of coronavirus still undecided at this hour. let's get straight to cnn's andy philips. the deliberations are ongoing. what are we going to know? >> well, if you're in the south or the southeast, s.e.c., acc country, you know, they're moving forward as scheduled. like football season is on, teams are practicing right now. but it is not the same everywhere. big ten presidents are meeting discussing the fate of the college football season, pac-12 le leaders expected to meet today as well. few things on the table pushing the season back to late
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september, or postponing the football season to the spring, but as, you know, this was developing yesterday, certainly seemed like the big ten was moving towards postponing the fall football season. but as that was happening, you had players, big time coaches, other conference commissioners, even president trump coming out and saying, no, we want football this fall and the players were led by clemson quarterback trevor lawrence, he said they want universal health and safety protocols across college football and want to play this fall because he thinks that's where players will be the safest. >> we feel safe here. we feel safer here than anywhere else, honestly. you go outside of these walls and go get food, go do anything, you're at just as much if not more risk. >> we cancel football, the virus isn't going to go away. it is my belief these guys are safer here than without us. and not only are they safer here, minimally it is better for them.
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>> looks like the big ten was ready to postpone the football season. you had head coaches like michigan's head coach jim harbaugh, ohio state's ryan day come out and say, look, we think we can play football safely this fall. you also had nebraska head coach scott frost come out an say, look, if the big ten decides not to play football this fall, we'll play anyway and find games elsewhere, incredible statement from him. so big decisions looming from the big ten and pac-12, john. and if they decide to play, and the s.e.c., acc and big 12 decide to move on it could change the landscape of college football forever. >> i know you'll stay on top of it, the coronavirus disruption is literally everywhere. check back when we know more. fascinating to watch. up next, the michael flynn case, the justice department wants it dismissed but back on the docket today. ♪ come on in, we're open. ♪
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to investigators and was awaiting sentencing, very important case, we'll continue to track it for you. thank you for joining us today. see you back here tomorrow. could be vp choice day. we like those. busy news day average. brianna keilar picks up the coverage right now. have a good day. hi there. i'm brianna keilar, welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world. the data says it all, children are not immune to the coronavirus. the new report shows a 90% increase in children testing positive for coronavirus over the last month. florida alone saw a 137% jump. children are not the only population experiencing a sharp rise. right now the coronavirus is spreading at an alarming rate inside of nursing homes and assisted living facilities. thousands of families across the country are in mourning. the average daily death toll is remaining around 1,000 people, florida setting