hello, everyone. i'm kate bolduan. thanks for joining us this hour. the united states has reached a place that was seen as unfathomable, impossible even, and if we ever got there, the losses would be incalculable. we are there. more than 250,000 americans killed by the coronavirus. a quarter of a million people that did not need to die. covid has now killed more americans than strokes, suici s suicides, car crashes typically do in a year combined. and a key member of the coronavirus task force is even warning that it will get worse. >> this will get worse. we have had 1 million cases documented over the past week. our rate of rise is higher than it even was in the summer. we have hospitalizations going

up 25% week over week. unfortunately mortality going up. we do anticipate this to continue at least for the next couple of weeks. >> even with that warning, dr. anthony fauci says, too many lives have been lost and too many americans are still in denial. >> you're hearing people even denying there's a problem as their hospitals are getting filled. things are going in the wrong direction in an arena of increased risk. mainly the cooler and colder weather. i mean, let's go, folks. what about that don't you understand? >> that is a great question. this is something that front line health care workers are facing every day, not only battling the virus but battling misinformation. we heard this from a nurse in south dakota earlier this week. >> their last dying words are, this can't be happening, it's not real.

>> but you cannot deny the reality, which is the numbers. forget the number of people infected, which is skyrocketing. we're talking about the number of people who have died. that is not a number you can make up or explain away and surely you should not deny that number is rising and smart people fear it is about to speed up. >> if we don't change what we're doing, we're going to be having a conversation before the end of the year about 300,000 people. >> yeah. the right reaction was there, that's a number that should hurt. in the next month, 50,000 more americans are expected to die of this virus, that is the reality we're facing right now. but it doesn't have to be the country's fate. with this reality state and local officials across the country are forced to implement more restrictions, new mask mandates, schools going back to online only learning and other key parts of the economy and every community having to be put

on pause once again. natasha chen is joining me now, this is a state that just passed 900,000 coronavirus cases, third in the country behind california and texas. the cdc just put out a new forecast of projected deaths. what did it say? >> reporter: this is a forecast that says by december 12th we could be seeing up to 298,000 deaths in the united states. as you mentioned, we've already crossed the quarter million mark so with december 12th being a little more than three weeks away we're talking about potentially another 40,000 people in america dying of covid-19 with thanksgiving happening between now and then and many of the people we've talked to today saying they're getting tested because they want to see their families. more than a quarter million people died from coronavirus since the pandemic began in the united states. on wednesday, over 1,800 americans lost their lives to the virus.

>> you're to read all the names of people who died in the united states from coronavirus, it would take about 10 days. that's the magnitude of the loss. >> reporter: there's growing concern in the northeast as new cases rise across the region. the country's largest school district closed down today after new york city saw an average of 3% test positivity over the last seven days. >> we set a very clear standard. and we need to stick to that standard. and i want to emphasize to parents, to educators, to staff, to kids, that we intend to come back and come back as quickly as possible. >> reporter: in pennsylvania case numbers are soaring. the state reported approximately 6,400 new cases on wednesday. growing concern there as over 2,900 patients are currently hospitalized with the virus. the highest number so far in the pandemic. and in new jersey governor phil murphy has implemented new restrictions on indoor dinings and outdoor gatherings. since then the state reported

more than 4,000 new cases each day for four of the past five days. in wisconsin the governor announced he's extending his state of emergency order and statewide mask mandate until january as icu beds in the state are running out. >> over the past week hospitals have reported nine of our icus at 100% capacity. there are zero icu beds available in one region of our state. >> reporter: along with wisconsin announcing new restrictions minnesota announces it's closing indoor dinings and gyms. and kentucky is moving the entire state to online learning. these states join nearly two dozen other cities and states that have increased restrictions over the past two weeks. some states still not taking moving even with the up tick in cases. even though some counties in florida do have mask man dates,

there's still no statewide regulations requiring face coverings. and in south dakota the governor doubling down on her refusal to mandate masks. >> some have said my refusal to mandate masks is the reason why the cases are rising in south dakota. that's not true. i'm not in favor of mandating mask wearing. i don't believe i have the authority to mandate that. >> reporter: and what you're seeing behind us here is a very long line of cars that are waiting to drive up and get tested here in orlando. there is rapid testing available here. we met some of the people in line earlier this morning, some who got here two hours early. they were talking about the fact that a couple of them work cleaning hospitals for a living. a couple of them said they might have been exposed to someone who tested positive. so there's a lot of concern here in a state that is in phase three with no capacity restrictions on businesses.

and local jurisdictions like orange county here, they can have local face mask ordinances but cannot restrict capacity at restaurants for example without telling the state what kind of economic impact that would have. kate? >> and that's a large part of the ball game, indoor dining, as much as we love to do it we know what the science says. joining me now is physician and scientist and director of the institute. good to see you again, doctor. thank you for being here. the number we were talking about at the top of the show, passing 250,000 deaths. dr. beszer thinks we could be talking 300,000 deaths and that's just in another month and the cdc's projection isn't far-off from that now. how do you describe this moment? >> well, first, kate, it's good to be with you again. this is a horrifying time. this is a crisis.

and we're not doing enough to take control. we've already seen europe go through this very pronouned second wave. they have achieved control, it's being much more aggressive. and what's also important to note is, this is the worst of times yet in the pandemic for the u.s. but we're not far away from getting the vaccines out there, having now approved antibodies, rapid tests at home for the first time being approved. so although the fatigue has set in, we're not doing enough to be the bridge to a more favorable outlook. >> i like the way you talk about it. the country just needs a bridge to get to that vaccine. just a bridge. it's like just hold on a bit longer. the positivity rate i know something you've been talking about, the numbers in some states are just bonkers, 50% positivity, 70% positivity. what does this say about where we're headed. why does this bother you so

much? >> to see wyoming over 70%, i've never seen anything like this in the entire world of positivity of tests. but throughout that, the dakotas and the neighboring states, seeing 50% plus. it shows we're not doing enough testing. we're not taking this seriously. it's like being numb and paralyzed when it should be the opposite, doing everything we can, full-court press. it's amazing to see in this country we can't get the tests going where we need them the most. >> you mentioned the dakotas. we heard from south dakota's governor, defending her position on not man dating masks or restricting her state more. she's saying those two things she could do is not the reason cases are so high in her state. what do you think of that? >> it's reprehensible. the reason you can say that is, for one, the dakotas are the top

two per capita in cases and deaths in the world. and, we know the things that would help like masks and she's in total denial, saying she won't do a mask mandate, and the little bit she has done to support masks is just inadequate. this is just reckless, and it's somewhat emblematic of several parts of the country, just not doing the things that we know would help. >> you mentioned that numbness. this one thing you would have been hitting on is this numbness that has set in. you know, the president has disappeared. 12 of the last 16 days he's had nothing on his schedule and he's not focussing on covid publically for sure. we have 80,000 people sick enough with covid that they need to be in the hospital. those are numbers people cannot make up. it doesn't have to be this way. but what does this numbness that we really all see in our lives,

what is this numbness we're all seeing in our lives towards this pandemic? >> it's not a simple matter, unfortunately, because some of it is fuelled by misinformation. some of it coming from our own president and administration. and some of it is just the fatigue factor that, you know -- they kind of sense of doom this is going to happen when it isn't at all the case. we know so many things that don't require a national lockdown that would turn this around. we've seen many successful countries that didn't have to use the most stringent measures and they got control. the lack of leadership here is stunning, really. >> what is your assessment of testing right now nationwide? we're seeing long lines waiting for testing in many states at this point, labs, the large labs saying they're projecting there's going to be big delays in getting results. how are we back to this place,

still, this many months in that the system is so stressed it can't handle testing capacity still. >> it's an important point. we are barely over 1 million tests a day when working with the rockefeller foundation and action plan we recommended at least 5 to 7 million tests a day. at least. so we've never gotten the testing right. and the turn around times are also unacceptable. still. so what -- the remedy for this is the home testing. every household should have a free supply, a significant number of home tests so they would know whether people are going out to work, to school, to travel, whatever, if they might be infectious. we haven't made that switch. it's our fda, unfortunately, that is finally starting to come around. but we can never get to the level of testing with the crude methods we're relying on right now. this has been going on, as you said, kate, for so many months.

it's a model that has failed. and the testing we know the answer, it's just that we haven't been able to implement it. the only good thing, this week we saw the first rapid home test approved, and that's opening the door for many more, 30, 40 different rapid home tests that could go as low as $1, that you could get the answer within five minutes. that's what we need. >> we have learned collectively -- the collective we have learned a lot and so much progress being made from the test to the vaccine. it's the bridge you're talking about that everyone has to buy in and wrap their arms around each other one more time and get through it. doctor, thank you. >> thank you, kate. coming up for us, moments we from now we'll get the results from the georgia statewide audit on the election. plus the nurse whose emotional story brought joe biden to tears, she's our guest. what are you doing?

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minutes from now, georgia election officials are expected to announce results of a statewide election audit. they've been counting all of the presidential votes by hand for a week. and georgia has become really the center of the political universe as president trump has largely banked his baseless claim of a rigged election on this audit in that state. amara walker is joining me now from atlanta. what are you hearing about what's going to be announced and what's expected? >> reporter: the expectation is that the results of this audit are not going to change the overall results of the election. what we're expecting today, kate, is we will see the full

results of the audit sometime around noon. we'll basically be getting an excel spread sheet county by county tallies of what the results of the hand counts were versus the original count. so we'll be able to see if there are any discrepancies. we know out of the 159 counties here in georgia, 112, vast majority of them, have already reported that they have not seen virtually any discrepancies, what's been getting a lot of attention because president trump and his allies have been tweeting about, is the fact that more than 5,800 uncounted ballots were found during this audit process in four different counties and yes, it did end up benefitting president trump, adding to his column, 1,375 votes but at the end of the day it's not enough to overcome joe biden's margin of victory here which is about 13,000. let me explain what happened because state election officials

have been expressing and underscoring the fact this was all due to human error, nothing to do with the machines and this is not a sign of systematic fraud. the ballots were scanned to a memory card but the last step, uploading that card to the system was not done. hence they were not counted. the one outlier here, floyd county about 2,500 uncounted ballots, there was a box of ballots that they missed, it was sitting off to the side, nobody saw it. again state election officials saying that human error, isolated incidents we expect the results will reflect the overall outcome that joe biden won the state. kate? >> the republican secretary of state has been very outspoken in what you've been talking about, his confidence in the system, the vote and the outcome and the

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it is the largest school district in the country. 1.1 million students, 1800 schools and as of this morning, new york city public schools are closed down once again. students going back to remote learning after the city recorded a 3% positivity rate. here is how the mayor explained the decision. >> we have to fight back the second wave. our schools have been a safe, extraordinarily safe, we got to keep it that way. we can't just stand pat with a strategy that worked before when conditions are changing. we need to reset the equation. >> joining me right now, new york city councilman, mark lavene, the chair of the health committee.

thank you for coming on. this was not unexpected, he set the standard we knew that. but this is still a major blow and a well known er doctor in new york city put it this way. should parents drop their kids off at the bar, indoor restaurants or the gym, all of which are still open? how does this make sense? >> kate, these priorities are totally backwards. yes, new york city is in a second wave and cases are rising fast. we have to act. but schools should not have been the first thing that we closed. we should pause indoor dining, close gyms and salons, tell new yorkers to work at home again. none of that has been done. so families, teachers have gone through an incredibly traumatic 24 hours and we haven't taken the critical public health measures we need. and today in new york city, a kid cannot learn in the classroom but they can have a meal at indoor dining. >> it just doesn't make sense. the science doesn't tell us that

makes sense. and even short of the comparison of what else is still open in the city, dr. richard besser, former acting head of the cdc, he spoke out this morning and he said he thinks the decision was the wrong way to go as it was -- as it was laid out. let me play for you his thinking. >> i think the city tied their hands when they were linked to that 3% community positivity rate, because they hit that. but they hit that and at the same time they've been able to maintain a safe environment in the schools. i was talking to a state health commissioner in another state and he was making the point that for a lot of children, being in the classroom where their mask wearing can be observed, social distancing can be monitored is really the safest place for them. >> so should the city be reconsidering this decision right now? >> i think we should be prioritizing reopening for

elementary school students and students with special needs because we know there's a costs to online learning. and, in fact, there are 60,000 kids in new york city that don't have a connected device. so i'm not sure how this is going to work for them. i guess they'll have paper handouts. we have got to figure this out. we can improve safety protocols further in our public schools, better testing for sure to make sure kids, teachers and staff are safe. let's move quickly on this while flattening the curve, which we must do. we all have to work harder on that and let's get our priorities right and move on to businesses where there's real risk. that's the action we need immediately. >> have you talked to the mayor? what's he not getting about this? what you're saying is science driven. >> i'm not sure. i think there's a concern about the economic impact on small businesses to close.

but the solution would be direct financial assistance. we need the senate to pass stimulus now in the lame duck which has direct aid to restaurants and gyms and other businesses. they've done it in europe, we should do it here. but in the meantime we have a public health impairive. we have to act, slow the second wave. that means not focussing on schools but focussing on the businesses where there are indoor social interactions where the risk is greatest. >> how bad is this going to get? new yorkers did an amazing job coming together in the springtime to get past the surge. how bad is it going to get? are you thinking the city is going to need to shutdown the way it did, turning off the valves like the governor talked about in the spring? cases have doubled in the last two weeks, kate, so this is moving very fast. our choice is to act in targeted ways now or much more broad shutdowns later. no one wants it to come to that. but i am confident that new york

can get beyond this. we did it once in the spring, we rallied, we have to rally again. it's going to be tough missing thanksgiving. but we have no other choice or we're going to be confronted with very, very difficult decisions on broad shutdowns in the near future. >> i have to be honest, so many families are already having to face tough decisions today because schools are shutdown so quickly while other things are still open and they have to figure out child care and so many kids don't have laptops. there's reporting, as you said, there isn't even access to internet for these public school students, which is the lifeline for remote learning. councilman, thank you for coming on. >> thank you, kate. president trump is still blocking access to the biden transition team but not everyone is stonewalling. new reporting on who's communicating with the incoming administration. that's ahead.

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white house. 12 of the last 16 days he has been out of the public eye when he could be talking about the surge of covid that is sweeping across the nation. could also be helping to coordinate a peaceful transition to the next administration. definitely not doing that. but we are learning some trump officials are starting to quietly reach out to the biden team on their own. let's bring in jessica dean and vivian for this. jessica, what are you hearing from the biden transition today? are they giving trump more time or getting more frustrated with this delay? >> reporter: well, kate, at the beginning of all of this, president-elect biden himself wanted to give them time but that was now what two weeks ago almost and we're hearing more from the president-elect himself and also members of his team saying out loud, putting pressure on the trump administration, on the general services administration administrator to validate this

and sign off on the formal transition process and allow them access to so much of the information they need for a seamless transition, generally, but with a pandemic raging across the country it's more important in these times they're getting access to the data for health and human services, now president-elect biden himself talked about this yesterday. take a listen. >> there's a whole lot of things that we just don't have available to us. so unless it's made available soon we're going to be behind by weeks or months being able to put together the whole initiative relating to the biggest promise we have with two drug companies coming along and finding 95% effectiveness, efficiency in the vaccines, which is enormous promise. i want to tell you that's the only slow down right now. >> reporter: so you can hear a

bit of a growing sense of frustration among biden and his team. they want to get in there and start the process, kate, but unfortunately right now they're really left to do what they can around that system. so they're talking to governors, for example today, they're talking to drug companies making the vaccine. these are things they can do even without the formal transition process forging ahead. >> vivian you have reporting that current and former trump officials have quietly reached out to the biden transition team. what are you hearing. >> reporter: there's also frustration within the trump administration of the sort of stalling of this transition process. i spoke to a number of officials who particularly after president trump's top national security advisor robert o'brien acknowledged it's looking likely that biden will be the next president, of course, he didn't come out and say it because president trump has yet to. a lot of officials are saying,

let's help these people, get on with it, put country over politics. a lot of them have been doing so informally. it's important to stretch the limitations of the outreach because the general services administration has yet to recognize joe biden as the president-elect. until that can happen, they cannot provide -- they cannot give access to classified information to the biden team. so trump administration officials with their outreach are limited in terms of what they can say. but there is still so much they can talk about. they can talk about staffing and personnel issues, budgets, policies on a surface level to help them out because there's a continuation, and obviously this is important for government. so all of these things said, a lot of outreach now taking place with officials saying we want to be as helpful as we can, this is a matter of national security at the end of the day, and it's not about politics. kate? >> more people could remember that. appreciate it, guys. health care workers are

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i myself have hold the hand of dying patients who were crying out for their family that they can't see. i've taken care of co-workers, as they fight for their lives on a ventilator. and knowing that they got sick

because of the hospital or their government hasn't protected them. i'm sorry i'm so emotional. >> no. >> it's just -- >> you got me emotional. i observe the incredible mental strain on nurses. and icu units. >> that is mary turner, an icu nurse from minnesota. speaking with president-elect joe biden during a virtual round table with front line workers yesterday. you can see her and you can see her story and her words clearly impacted the president-elect. mary turner has been caring for covid patients on the night shift since this pandemic began and her work is not letting up. hospitalizations in minnesota continue to climb. now at their highest level yet. joining us right now is mary turner. thank you for spending time with me. i really appreciate it. i've watched your words and your story. i've watched it a few times and

it still hits me. what were you feeling in that moment, speaking with the president-elect? what was behind that emotion? >> you know, i actually thought about that, afterwards. and i'm going to say that not only have i been dealing with it on the front lines, but i'm also, of course, president of minnesota's nurses association. so i've been hearing through the whole pandemic from nurses all throughout their organization, their concerns, their worries, their fears. and it has seemed like -- seemed so desolate. and never ending. and when are we ever going to be able to get back to normal? when are we ever going to be able to hang up our n-95s and our shields. and also the frustration that i have had on a more global level with our federal government and their lack of response. their lack of caring.

and so, when president-elect biden was being so empathic and compassionate and listening, i all of a sudden had such a surge of emotion that i can only describe as hope. for the first time i felt like i was talking to someone who could really do something about the pandemic. and it felt so good. you know, i've been -- like i said before, pounding the pavement here on the metro level in minnesota, trying to get the word out to people. trying to get them to understand. and i've often felt like i'm not being heard. i felt heard yesterday. and the nurses felt heard yesterday. and that gives me hope and it should give all the nurses across the country hope. >> i can only imagine how hard it has been in these dark months to find hope in what you are

seeing in the hospital every day. but your words, your story, your true raw emotion has really meant a lot to many people. why do you think that is? >> you know what's coming out is the -- when i'm at work and when any nurse is at work, we cannot afford to have this kind of emotion. we cannot afford to have these kind of breakdowns. but we feel it. we feel it as we're holding that hand. we feel it as we're running a code. and when we're going without breaks and we're working with more patients than we're supposed to and we're feeling unsafe because we don't feel properly protected, we feel all the anxiety, anger, compassion, love, all of those emotions but

when we need to be focused. so when we are away from that and have the chance, i'm so grateful to have the chance. all i can say is all of that emotion just kind of pours out of me. it was such an epiphany for me yesterday to realize what's been going on. i have been accused of you always cry on the media, et cetera, but i think that's what's going on, because i'm so desperate for people to take this seriously and i can use my emotion to try to get through to people because it's all bottled up. nurses would tell you the same thing across the country, it is all bottled up inside us. at work, we can't afford to be emotional. we have to be focused, professional, constantly be doing our job. >> and that gets at something

that i think, i wonder if you think is part of it, too, just the sheer exhaustion that nurses and doctors, all health care professionals and front line workers are experiencing this many months into this battle. and still facing new surges. can you describe just the physical and mental toll that ten months of dealing with this is having, and you're facing another surge coming. >> right. so on our floor, like i said, the first covid icu unit, we have been dealing with it since end of february. at the beginning, we probably had anxieties that the rest of the, whoever didn't have to deal with it back then, and here's why. we had to first learn about covid. every week it was something new

that was being thrown at us. first it was respiratory, then the circulatory system, then the heart, the kidneys, then the neurological system, and we were trying treatments, what didn't work, and did work and didn't work. and now we've got it down. i have to be proud to say, i work with a very expert team of people at north memorial who we know what we're doing and we have very good success rate with getting people better and out of there. so what i ask my co-workers this past weekend when i worked, said how are we feeling about this. they're like we're just feeling tired. we would love to just not have to wear n95s and go in without full barrier. in the nursing world, it is oh, my goodness, do i have to float? that's the big thing, no one wants to float. now it is a joy because people from our unit might be able to

walk into a patient room without getting fully garbed up. other nurses hearing this wouldn't appreciate what i just said. so we're tired. but there's no time for even that. we know the worst is yet to come. >> do you feel that joe biden heard you? >> oh, definitely. definitely. he is such a compassionate man. you can only go by seeing him on tv, et cetera, but to actually be that close to him in a virtual sense and talking to him, he just radiates such empathy and compassion. it is unmistakable. i truly do hope that he fulfills his promises that he has made and i believe he will. >> mary, thank you for your strength and for using your

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for the first time in more than a month, the number of americans filing first time jobless benefits is increasing. new research finds by end of next month, as many as 12 million americans could lose unemployment benefits under the cares act.

all f that putting more pressure on charities. what are you hearing, vanessa? >> reporter: hi, kate. we are seeing a lot of people here that are in line to get their thanksgiving meals. organize organizers budgeted for 1200 meals, think that food will run out long before the day is over. you look at the line, it ex-tends all the way down this city block, wraps about four times around on various city blocks. people here are waiting for thanksgiving meals. the organizer told us there's been a 75% increase in the amount of people that need food, and this is one of them. i want to introduce you, she's in line, got her thanksgiving meal. have you ever been to a food pantry? >> yeah, but it was ten years ago. i found out about this one by my

neighbor and really appreciated that he told me because right now, i'm like really going through a lot with this food stamps, i have to pay my rent with my kids' disability checks, and it hasn't been easy at all. >> what have the last eight months been like for you with covid? have you been able to get enough food for your family? >> at one point, yeah. started giving me extra food stamps, but then they stopped. so i put it on myself now to try to go ahead and go to pantries and now besides this, i'm going to have to have every chance i get. >> next six months, one word to describe how you think the next six months will be like for you? >> i think it is going to be hard. very hard.

i been fighting to get food stamps. it's not easy. i have two kids with disabilities and i need to feed them. >> and that's why you're here today. >> yes. >> thank you. this is just one story, kate, of many stories of americans waiting in line in brooklyn, also around the country. kate? >> thank you for highlighting it, vanessa. thank you so much. thank you all so much for joining us. kate bolduan. dana bash picks up coverage now. hello to viewers in the united states and around the world. i am dana bash in washington with big developments this hour. georgia will soon finish its statewide audit of the 2020 election. that means the secretary of state there will certify the official results showing joe biden's victory in a state that hasn't gone for a democrat for president in nearly three decades. the president promises his lawyers, the current president, that is, will try to claim