coronavirus. historian john cribb talks about the 157th anniversary of lincoln's gettysburg address. we will also take your calls. "washington journal" is next. ♪ host: good morning and welcome to "washington journal." it'se coronavirus pandemic worse, schools are reconsidering their plans to reopen or to stay open during the coronavirus spike. despite children being among the smallest number of deaths from covid-19, more than 100 child deaths have been recorded from this disease. some states are toughing it out and taking the risks, and planning to continue in person learning. what do you think? should we allow in person schooling amid the covid-19

spike? you're going to open up special lines this money. first we want to hear from teachers. if you are a teacher, want to hear from you at (202) 748-8000. arenistrators, we know you making the tough decisions on whether to open or close schools. .our number, (202) 748-8001 parents and students, you are the ones sending your children for school. parents and students, (202) 748-8002. if you don't fit any of those categories, we still want to .ear from you, (202) 748-8003 remember, you can always text us at (202) 748-8003 as well. we are always reading on social facebook.witter and once again, we are in the middle spike and coronavirus

schools are making tough decisions on whether they should bring children to school or restart virtual learning. in new york city they made the decision this week to in in person learning and send children home next week. here is new york city mayor bill de blasio addressing how his decision will affect new york city residents. here is a quick portion. be --re is going to obviously so many parents are saddened, are frustrated. so many kids want to be in school. so many educators want to be there to greet them. but now we put ourselves to the work of overcoming this challenge. we apply ourselves with everything we've got.

that is what new york city has done time and time again. i know our schools are going to come back. why do i know it? have come back from more than this. we were told we could not reopen in the summer. richard and i, we were told we were crazy to talk about reopening schools. we did it. we will do it again. if it takes tougher standards, we will live by those. this is how we deal with the immediate term. i want to turn people's attention to what comes after. --re are seven months ahead after this month there are seven months ahead in the school year. during that time we will get the vaccine, and we will distribute the vaccine, and we will make the city safer, and more kids will be able to come back. we are going to be able to do a lot more. today is a tough day, this is a temporary situation. our schools will be back, and our school year will get better.

this disease will be beaten in the course of this school year, i have absolute faith. host: that is new york city mayor l de blasio talking about shutting down the new york city school system. more than one million children will be learning virtually from this point on, until this it's under control. we want to know what you think. should children be going back to in person learning? you have to have teachers, administrators, staff. if someone gets sick, the children can bring it home to their families. go to our phone lines and see what people are thinking. wass start with derek, who calling from richmond, indiana. derek is a teacher. good morning. caller: good morning. host: what grades do you teach? caller: i teach french and i

teach high school. host: is your school doing in-person person or virtual learning right now? caller: at this moment we are doing a combination of in person and virtual. it is the same thing we have been doing since august, where students have the option of choosing a virtual option or it has been hybrid, meaning every other day. with off days doing online homework. host: first, how do you think that is working? second question, should it or should be all-virtual, for should be all in person. caller: it has been a challenge. i teach a high poverty area. mental and students' physical needs, especially on those days off, we are always wondering, are they doing ok? are they getting everything they need?

do they have that support person? despite these challenges, we have been successful. yes, cases arising in the county and state, but we do contact tracing. there has not been a lot of spread of my high school, for example. host: has there been any spread at your high school? has any of the teachers, staff, or students been confirmed with coronavirus? caller: yes, there has been spread, but relative to the community at large it has been minimal. host: hopefully you guys have not lost any students, parents, , correct?s caller: to my knowledge, no. people have been sick, but we have been very fortunate that all of those who have been sick have covered. host: what do you think they should do for post-thanksgiving?

thanksgiving is where everybody is concerned people will come back to school sick. do you think they should continue the hybrid form or should they go to all virtual after thanksgiving? caller: that is a great question. schools around me in the neighboring counties, have already announced that they will do 100% virtual post-thanksgiving. even post-christmas. my district has yet to make that announcement. i am definitely nervous, though. i am nervous, and personally i would lean towards doing 100% virtual after these two upcoming holidays. host: let's talk to melody. melody is a teacher from stone mountain, georgia. good morning. caller: good morning, how are you today? host: just fine, go ahead, melody. have -- we we do not

haven't been back since march. thank goodness for that. i do not agree that it should be a hybrid. it is very dangerous to the students, as well as the teachers. i teach third grade, and let me tell you, third-graders are very social and they are going to want to talk to their classmates. to me that is a recipe for disaster. host: what do you say to parents who say, well, i see that my child is not doing as well on the online learning as he or she and i havet school to go to work and i don't have daycare. school was where my child was while i was working. now i don't have anywhere to send my child? i can totally relate to the parents, however i would rather have the students alive

than in an icu. host: melody, what do you think would make it safe enough for children to go back to school? is that a vaccine? should children not come back to school until a vaccine not only has been issued has been proven safe? would make you comfortable to go back to in person learning in schools? caller: of course a vaccine would be wonderful, so if we have the vaccine and we allow time for to work and go through the whole community, that would work. we still need to get these numbers down. we have people still not believing there is a virus. we have people who will not social distance. we have people who will not even wear our mask, it has become so political. host: let's go to cindy who was calling from woodbridge, virginia. cindy is a teacher.

good morning. caller: good morning. i agree with the caller before teachers are really nervous. of course, you can't have schools without teachers. a private however, is school, and we chose to open full-time. we are an elementary school. we opened full-time in august and allowed anyone who needed to stay home or was worried about staying home, any student, to go virtual. our teachers all have a curriculum that teaches to the classroom, but includes some assignments online so that if there is any need to back-and-forth, if a student needs to quarantine, they can jump into the virtual setting. then it is pretty much on the parents to make sure those assignments are done, but those students then have sessions with

a tutor at our school that checks to see if they understand what is going on. i will say, for the elementary , theyts that are at home tune in via zoom, and some of the students have the set up in charts and with various things that look like the school, but for the most part kids are coming in from the dining room table, their couch in the basement, and the enrichment they are missing by reminderg visual prompts, some of the items in the classroom labeled with the and they have is, so many other things around them they are getting in a classroom on top of the socialization.

you know, we are doing the best we can with those virtual kids, but they are definitely missing stuff hour in person kids are getting. host: cindy, what do you think should happen after thanksgiving and christmas? that seems to be the biggest worry of the scientists and doctors, that there's going to be a bunch of new cases after the holidays because people are sick of not having to -- being quarantined and not seeing their friends and families. doctors are worried there will be a lot more people with coronavirus after these next two holidays. caller: we did a little survey. take it for what is -- it is worth, for the most part they are begging us to stay open. they have all kind of committed to the idea that they would rather minimize contact with outside people, and they worked

so hard to do that so we can stay open. we have had a really flexible that wepolicy so encourage kids to stay home for two weeks if they have contact with people outside of their bubble. we have been good about keeping our homeroom in their own bubbles, so that we don't -- some of the extra classes like art and music, we are not switching in the hallways, we are bringing the teachers to them. we are keeping them separated by homeroom at recess. the lunch in their classroom. the teachers are all equipped with masks and face shields, and we have the sanitizers, temperature checks. we do so much that i think our parents are grateful to have the kids at school and they can go to work, but it is an investment and unfortunately i think, nature of the political

did not jumpy, we ahead of it at the beginning. people didn't believe it was real, didn't think it was going to be a problem, so the investment in getting ppe to schools was getting -- was secondary to getting the economy going. with these safety protocols, our iachers feel nervous, but think the parents and teachers and kids all agree it is better to put all of these safety procedures in place then it is to be home. host: let's talk a little bit about the actual statistics of what is going on with coronavirus. you can see here from johns hopkins coronavirus website that right now we have more than 11 million confirmed cases of coronavirus inside the united 254,000and more than

deaths have been recorded because of the coronavirus. now, this is just the whole number, but when you start drilling down to the number of covid-19 deaths among school-age children, the numbers reduce a lot. according to the american academy of pediatrics, in 42 states and new york city we have had a total of 133 children. several states have different definitions of children, but generally we are talking people under 18. we have had 133 total child deaths from covid-19. .06%in perspective, that is of total deaths. but still, it is 133 deaths of children under 18 because of coronavirus.

abstractis is not an conversation. we have children who have died from coronavirus. that is the decision schools are going to have to resurrect right now, especially coming up on thanksgiving and christmas. let's go back to our phone lines. let's talk to michael, who was calling from new york. good morning. caller: good morning. to c-span. bring the brightness to the day every time i speak to them. he was the take i have. i'm not a teacher. i'm not an administrator. i am a citizen watching all of these numbers and figures on television from different networks, some of them reporting different numbers than the other. you don't know what to believe anymore. what i can tell you is this. this thing is so infectious that went to see a i

doctor and he put an analogy to it. it is like an anthill and ants going into the anthill to protect the queen. get one infected and, it can infect the whole colony. you've got to think of yourself, how my going to affect this if i do not stay home? i'm watching people in my local town, they are coming from georgia, florida, all over the country. license plates, i can see them. that is how the stuff is burning. nobody is stopping these things. we have to put a stop to how this stuff is spreading. our government has come short of doing this for us. ok? individuals,ns, has to step up to the plate ourselves and say, who i to go to thanksgiving dinner? do i want to participate in these public events? the answer is no. i have not had my contact in these public events.

i have stayed away from these things, these super-spreader events. going to schools, i think it is a proposition of a disaster. they need to go virtual on these teachings, for now. host: let's look at some statistics of what different states are doing when it comes to closing or doing in person teaching. this is from education week. as of november 18, nine states, d.c., and puerto rico have ordered for partial closers in effect. west virginia and kentucky have foreclosures scheduled to begin before thanksgiving. different states are doing different things around the country. as you can see, some states are considering making changes, coming directly after thanksgiving. before we go back to our phone lines, let's see what some of our social media followers are saying when it comes to schools

and coronavirus. here is one tweet that says, in our school of 1400 students, we have three staff out with covid-19. 10 others are teaching from quarantine. and 70 students are under quarantine because of exposure. stay districts nearby will closed the week after thanksgiving, not mine. says, schoolsthat are a petri dish of infections on a good day. this seems like a recipe for super-spreading. says, it onlythat takes one to affect -- in fact many. if you push this to the background, you lose. one more that says, for kids that go -- to go back to school, teachers must be vaccinated, students must be tested. anything less is an invitation for the virus to spread. one last text that says, school is going well. some covid, and only light symptoms.

100 that in the u.s. is way less than flu deaths, suicide, -- suicide deaths. closing is harder on poor kids. it can work, it does take planning. from theto a video american federation of teachers during a recent video with president-elect joe biden. a member who is a school nurse from cleveland, ohio addressed the medical concerns amid the search of covid cases. here is what was said. >> when this first happened, the got together and our schools closed on march 20. we got together and we got all of our ppe out of schools and drove her to the hospitals, because they needed it. it was the right thing to do.

now, as we talk about reopening and going back, we don't have any ppe. our school buildings, our infrastructure will be in bad shape. we have no ventilation in some of those schools. remember,you have to whatever is going on in the community is going to be going on in the schools. areong as the numbers celebrated in the community, we cannot reopen. and we want to reopen. who iset's talk to eve, calling from ferndale, michigan. eve is a student. good morning. caller: morning. host: what grade are you, what type of student are you? student, am a graduate but what i have to talk about is what i think a lot of people don't understand outside of maybe their region.

i think what coronavirus has light on thisa humongous disparity between different school districts. especially where i live. i'm right next door to wayne county, michigan. i don't think people understand that detroit schools are underfunded. those kids actually have to go into the classroom, because we don't have the infrastructure, the home computers, the ipads. in some instances it is not even a choice. this is precisely why public schools need to be better-funded. losing generation we areeneration because not only underfunded, but i think people just feel like if everything is ok in their world, it is that way everywhere.

i'm telling you, i promise you as a person who has worked in both school districts, it is not even -- it is terrifying and we need to react in a way that is commensurate with the seriousness of this situation. host: let's go to henry, who is calling from atlanta, georgia. henry is a teacher. what grade do you teach? caller: 9-12. host: what is going on in your school? caller: we are all virtual, but ,here is pressure to open up open up some neighborhood districts. i have some points to make. number one is that when i hear about private schools being opened, i wonder if they are not open at the expense of the schools that are closed. they also have a lot more resources. they have a lot more rules that are easily adaptable to make

things a little safer. the other thing about america as a whole is that we got this backward. down, thenon lock schools would be able to open. if people stopped going to the mall, stopped going to -- flying or whatever -- the spread would go down and school would be able to be open. there is a pandemic going on. life cannot go as usual. i have four daughters. one of my daughters is living her best life, i think. she goes out and does everything. everybody else is on lockdown. i believe my daughter is able to go out, is going out at the expense of the other daughters who are staying home and doing the right thing. aswe would all get together a united states of america and put a mask on and stop pretending there is no pandemic, schools would be able to be open, period. host: do you think that private

schools should be forced to do the same as public schools when it comes to the coronavirus restrictions? caller: when you think about it, a private school in my neighborhood decided to have a halloween party. they spread the virus like crazy. i don't know if the law allows that to happen, but we all should be on the same boat. they should not be a school system for the haves, and a school system for the have-nots. host: so even though you are doing virtual learning, have you had any reports of any cases of coronavirus amongst your students, teachers, or administrators? i don't think about teachers and administrators, but students are getting the virus. we keep on talking about death rates. you showed a chart about .06%?

to die fromve coronavirus to be a victim. you could have lung damage. you could have brain fog. think about having a medical bill for $6,000 for a family because somebody got infected. sooner or later you're going to have to go bankrupt over that $6,000 medical bill, period. henry, what would make you feel safe to go back to in person learning? caller: what would make me safe would be to have community spread, to have the spread way down within limits where it is safe to go to school. i want to go to school. my students are not really learning, but then again when you think about it

[indiscernible] the effort should be made on reducing the pandemic, controlling it, getting rid of it so that we can get back to normal. the nfl should be closed down, period. the nba should be closed down. everybody should be on the same boat to set an example. host: let's go to cricket, who was calling from kentucky. good morning. caller: good morning. i think that i am for shutting it down. they shut it down in kentucky, the governor did. last night at 6:00 p.m., the , they shut it down. i am for it. host: so, cricket, what would you say to parents who say their children are not learning at the same rate they were for in

person learning? what do you say to parents who say, we don't know have anywhere to send our children and we have to go to work? well, we're just going to have to work together. we are going to have to do it and suck it up and go on. that is the only thing i can tell them to do. mitch mcconnell and all of them thinks -- don't care about us. they are not educated enough to understand it. don who wasgo to calling from north carolina. what grades do you teach? heidi -- i teach art in a public school.

host: are you teaching in person, virtual, or are you doing a hybrid version? all.r: we're doing and i am posting lessons online and teaching in person. right now our k-3 students are coming in every day. the ones that chose to come in, that is about 20% of our population. right now our fourth and fifth graders are on a hybrid model. that's going to change in the spring. our school board has decided to bring all elementary students back, except they do have the option to do the virtual academy. host: since you are teaching students in person for part of children at are the the social distancing, washing hands, and wearing masks?

have they caught on to how to do that or are they still acting as we all expect children to act, which is they sometimes do what they want? caller: [laughter] we are trying our best to enforce that, but they are children. one student the other day, he was not happy about his -- we made lanyards to wear on our masks, so they can put them on their neck. he could cook this together and he took his mask off and just cried right in my face because he could not his cops together. these are children. they are trying, we are trying, but it is natural for them to want to be with their friends and give hugs. it is difficult to push them away and tell them, i'm sorry, you need to social distance. it is very hard, and we are trying to be safe, but there is also limited ppe. they are already saying the

wipes we are using, there is not enough nationally. they are going to get a barrel of cleaner and put it in spray bottles for us. it is a challenge, and we love our students, but i can tell you i have learned so much as a teacher. i am 51 years old and i have learned how to do the presentations, the research to use all of the slides and present the material virtually, as best i can. there is loss, but there is also gain. i think teachers have learned so much, bringing us into the 21st century and using technology. host: do you feel safe teaching at school right now? withou going to feel safe students coming back after thanksgiving and christmas? especially considering what the scientists and doctors are saying about these two holidays

super-spreader holidays? caller: no, i do not feel safe. the more students they bring in, the more chance for spread. we already have students having to switch to virtual because someone in their family has gotten covid. we have teachers having to quarantine because of exposure. like it isnt i feel only a matter of time before i because no matter how many safety procedures we put in place children are children, and people are people, and unless we isolate and we are home and not getting out into the community, it is going to spread. host: we talked about the states that are considering closing or states that have already closed. talk about some of the states that are going to stay open or who are pushing to stay open.

this comes from education week. the governors of seven northeastern states released a statement in support of in-person learning thursday as schools confront climbing coronavirus rates in their community. the statement string the case for in-person schooling was issued by pennsylvania governor tom wolf, new york governor andrew cuomo, new jersey governor bill murphy, ned lamont, delaware governor john carney, gina raimondo, and charlie baker. the bipartisan coalition who have coordinated their states responses included this statement in the air press release calling on colleges and universities to take extra precautions to slow the spread of covid-19 as thanksgiving approaches. medical research, as well as data from northeastern states and from around the world make clear that in person learning is safe when the appropriate protections are in place.

even in communities with high transmission rates. in person learning is the best possible scenario for children, especially those with special needs and from low income families. there is evidence that the more time children spend outside of school increases the risk of mental health harm and effects their ability to truly learn. at a press briefing thursday, vice president mike pence and cdc director robert redfield cautioned states and local leaders against emotional responses like closing schools. president trump wanted me to make clear that our president does not support another national lockdown, and we do not support closing schools, pants -- pence said. let's talk to people about what should happen. let's talk to joseph, who was calling from riverhead, new york. good money. caller: good morning, brother.

i hope your family is doing well. my opinion, the whole thing is a gimmick. i don't want to get into it. if you have an iq over 120, should know it is a gimmick. host: let me stop you. what is a gimmick? be specific. what do you think is a amick? -- gimmick. caller: the whole way it is being handle. it is in the air. secondly, it is so heavy in this country. can somebody just sprayed in a room and keep moving and people in the room can catch it? who really knows? i will say one thing. first of all, i love my country, and so do you, i note that, my brother. know that,ize -- i my brother. -- we arelize is,

going to do this, we are going to do this, we are going to do this, and set them down in the white house with the cameras rolling? the whole thing is a gimmick, take my word for it. but, he exposed that the press lea one wayns. one way. as long as your name is written in the lamb's book of life, you don't got to worry about nothing. host: mark, good morning. , jesse, and morning to the world. we have three children learning virtually here in norfolk, virginia. big kudos to norfork public schools. i could not be more proud of our public school system, which has

seen issues over the last decade or so. they really got it right this time. while at the same time i understand the hardship for those that are not facilitated properly. thank god in our home, three children, fifth-grade,, ninth grade, 11th grade, they have their own individual workstations. we have a pretty robust internet , along with whatever the public school system provided. until we stop politicizing this scenario and really take this covert littlenity to think a deeper about all of the intradictions we live here america, as not going to get any better. for instance, i have heard callers talking about in person learning and that the parents want to get rid of their children.

well, if you think about it, what environment have you created at home if you have such a high need to get rid of your children? i get the part about work, i understand that they. but we are talking about the needs for socialization, and here comes the contradiction. he used to be once upon a time, two things were true. many houses had the option, and even if you are lower middle class, where one parent could be home. we have created this capitalistic monster to where greed is on steroids, so now both parents have to work. home,tion of one parent you can eliminate that stuff. then we talk about this need for socialization, and the contradiction is, how many of us know two or three of our neighbors who we communicate with on a weekly basis?

those things that used to be in place when we had true socialization would be the very things that could carry us across this line as we deal with this pandemic. also --this pandemic is has also pulled back the scabs of our country. we are not created equal, right? those who have, have access to certain things. then those who do not have access to little or no health care, little to no support systems to be able to learn virtually. athave those who are dying an disproportionate rate who do not have, and we have those who can get certain therapeutics and survive it just fine. but even those who have or catching it, because now they have the issue of not being able to do 100% of what they are used to doing, and they are having

mental crises and suicides. hopefully we will take this pandemic overall and be able to pull back and really start to think deeply about what do we really need to do moving forward and stop trying to politicize everything. who: let's talk to angie, was calling from pittsburg, california. angie is a parent as well. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for the opportunity. i am actually an grandparent, so i hope you still take my call. i crunched some numbers real quick. .04% for the deaths of kids, that was just all of the deaths. for the number of total cases and kids who have died, it is .00009%. host: keep in mind, those 133

deaths, that is only 42 of the 50 states. there are probably more than that 133, just in case you want to think about that for your calculation. caller: ok. still, it would be in the .000, you know? we have six-year-olds talking about heaven and, let be better than this? host: that is one of the things i was thinking about when preparing for this segment. .06%, butthing to say when you say at least 130 three children have died, that is a different number than .06%, isn't it? caller: how many do you think have died because they are home and out on the streets getting shot? host: i don't think that is exactly the same thing, considering coronavirus did not

exist last year. caller: i'm talking about this year. the shootings have skyrocketed. so, the fear is too big. it is like a bad flu. the fear is too big. host: angie, you are a grandparent. are your children going to school in person or virtual? it's -- caller: school has not opened up in the bay area. host: your children are going to school virtually? caller: yes. host: do you think they should be going to school in person? caller: i do. host: what about the risk not only to children, but the teachers? thatagain, we know children are among the safest groups, but we also know that the teachers are there as well. what about the safety for the teachers?

well, maybe if they are that fearful, they be this time they retire. i don't know what to say. the fear is too big for the problem. cdc director dr. robert redfield spoke at the white house thursday about what he saw as the importance of keeping schools open during the surge among coronavirus cases. here is what dr. redfield had to say. dr. redfield: we should be making data-driven decisions when we talk about what we are doing for institutions or commercial closures. spring cdc didst not recommend school closures. nor did we recommend their closures today. back in the spring there was limited data.

today there is extensive data that we have. we have gathered over the last two or three months. to confirm that k-12 schools can operate with face-to-face learning, and they can do it safely, and they can do it responsibly. the infections we have identified in schools, when they have been evaluated, were not acquired in schools. they were acquired in the community and households. fory our big threat transmission is not the public square. family gatherings, family gatherings where people become more comfortable, they remove their face mask and it is this silent epidemic that begins to transmit. inter-is not enter -- school transmission. the safest place children can be

is school. oft: let's go back to some our social media followers and see what they think about in person schooling during the coronavirus spikes. there is one text that says, children may not be in much danger, but it is foolish to risk the teachers' lives by forcing them into a supra-spreading situation. here is a tweet that says, experts say in person schooling is fine. teacher and student safety should be first priority. i think students and teachers are a greater risk because the pandemic is rampant. if there was a plan to get the pandemic under control, i would feel better about in person school. a text that says, parents, they are your kids. keep them at home. go to a pro-life church for financial help. do not listen to fools. another text that says, first the school must have adequate protection against the virus.

effectively build, renovate for safety. appropriate clothing and accessories for control of the facilities and equipment for staff. another text says, they are making a political decision over a human decision, your children's lives. they chose short-term decision. says,st tweet that because we did all the wrong things under trump, we have to start all over again. so many wasted months, wasted for no reason at all. let's try science over faith this time. let's go back to our phone lines and start by talking to doug, who is calling from oklahoma. good morning. caller: good morning. tank's for taking my call. bus for 16chool years. i have been around a lot of kids all of my life, i've worked around a lot of kids all my life.

anyway, i think the schools should be closed down, period, right now. of thelly in this time spikes that are going on. dr. fauci, among others, warned us about several months back. it wasn't long ago, anyway. warned us about, this was coming. and did we do anything to prepare for it? i've never seen any hearings on senate,the house or that i have seen, let's put it that way. mentioned a while ago gimmick, and he person that thinks it

is not a gimmick does not have an iq of 120. i will say this, i take common of 120 any day of the week. that weno-brainer should protect our kids to the fullest. we can get this thing behind us contact the masking and and just continually tap this virus down to its lowest before we ever get to even think about scoot -- about starting school's backup. host: this is one thing i have had a conversation about, because my brother drives a school bus for a school system.

if there is one place where there has been no social distancing in the past, that is on a school bus. driver ishool bus busy driving the bus, and cannot enforce social distancing, because they have to drive the bus. they cannot also make sure children are not sitting too close together and have on masks. as a former school bus driver, what is the solution for those school buses? how do we get kids to do what they are supposed to do on a school bus, when, beyond the driver, the driver cannot control it because the driver has to drive? what is the solution there? ,aller: one solution on that there should be at least one bus.or on the school like you said, the bus driver drive safely.

that is his main objective, is turn getsafely, and in the kids home safe. anyway, i would suggest a monitor. on the school bus i had, we also had cameras. we had three. that is something else. , in thisoint in time spike the way it is going and the cases are going out of .ight, and also the deaths said .006, i think the number was 133 kids? you know, one of those kids was one of your grandkids, would you feel the same way?

go to amy, who was calling from flushing, new york. amy is a teacher. what do you teach in new york? caller: i teach kids with special needs. this year i am teaching grades 2, 3, and four. i was so unhappy when they shut the schools down past week. i was coming into school every day. i was doing some remote and some blended. our school was safe and working beautifully. it really made me sad when they made that decision. host: i know especially when it comes to students with learning disabilities and students who plans,dividual education they need in person learning not than the students were -- who don't have individual disabilities. what do you do when the coronavirus is rampant?

if you bring those students in, they might be spreading it as well. caller: first of all, over half of the children at our school went to remote learning. the children that were coming in, were coming in half the week. it would come in one day, stay home the next. we were able to enforce the social distancing. the school one quarter of what it usually is. it is interesting, because i feel like they keep naming the teacher unions, when our union is trying to make sure that everyone is safe and we work so hard. now we have to do three things. i have to plan my lessons, deliver my instruction, and spend a huge part of the day making sure that the children have access to devices, or logging in on time, the are ok. it becomes a 12 hour a day job, working with the families to make sure our kids can get access to some education.

who wast's go to karen, calling from paducah, kentucky. karen is also a teacher. good morning. caller: good morning. i think we should keep the schools open. my school has been open. we just got the word this week we are going to be closed. we have had absolutely no problems with covid. the one or two people who ended up having to isolate did not have covid. they had to isolate because of other areas of their lives where they got sick. numbers,ng at the cdc and for my age, which is between 50-69, i have a survival rate of 99.5%. this is not any worse than seasonal flow. overu look back to 2018, 68,000 people -- men, women, and children -- died from the

seasonal flow. host: what year was that? caller: 2018. over 200,000we are dead from coronavirus. that is almost three times. it seems three times as worse? caller: half of those numbers were last year, they were not this year. host: the coronavirus numbers for the seasonal flu numbers? which numbers are you talking about? is the the coronavirus seasonal flu, so you should have stopped counting. when 2020 came, it should have been a new count, because that is how they do the flu every year. host: i have to stop you. one thing they have been very clear about is, coronavirus is not the flu. that is two different diseases. caller: well, who is this day? the government,

scientists, doctors -- pretty much everybody. caller: i don't know. when you don't have the who website, the world health organization, they are listing your chances of survival with unquote pandemic. again, talk to dr. hodge who is not only a virologist, with the ceo of a biotech company that manufactures covid tests, and he says there is really unfounded -- and this is hysteria- public driven by media and politicians. it is outrageous. this is a hoax, and it is the largest one ever perpetrated on an unsuspecting public. host: really quickly, in

kentucky, the governor has announced they are going to close the schools down because of the coronavirus spikes. here is democratic governor andy beshear from wednesday talking about this. take thenow, if you number of students quarantined for the first time last week, assuming a two-week quarantine, i believe we will have close to 10,000 kentucky students k-12 at one point at the same time in quarantine. if what holds from last week through this week, about 2000 of our faculty. our teachers and administrators, rightfully, are very concerned as the virus continues to search through their areas. -- surge through their areas. if we are going to provide meaningful educational experiences at the beginning of the next semester, we have to take action now, and we have all

got to do it at the same time. steps have been taken in consultation and agreement with our commissioner of education and our chair of the board of education. monday,g this coming november 23, all public and private k-12 schools will cease in person instruction and move to remote learning. host: let's see if we can get a couple of calls in. let's start with dana, calling from los angeles. dana is also a teacher. good morning. caller: i teach golf. i was raised down there. we've got 16 million kids in california. sick steam million, and two that were overweight diabetic diet. it is completely overblown. gigantic, and you have two kids that died. i've got kids that are never,

ever in trouble. they are all getting in trouble now, because they've got to school to get into. sick, but i have seen more kids get sick from influenza every year, and i know when they are gone out of my class than i do from this covid. see everybody being scared to death over this so-called pandemic. they are closing down our state. we have gavin newsom. gavin newsom is acting like a nazi, and. man.zi, host: let's go to dave, was calling from bedford, new hampshire. good morning. caller: good morning, jesse. .es, i am a parent i have two high school, when disabled and one not. andink they went virtual

they are actually trying to fail our kids, because it is just not the same. an owner from the governor yesterday that he is shutting down the state for mask mandates. ok? bek mandates are going to for everybody, ok? now, i typed it out -- are you there? host: go ahead, we are running out of time. caller: this order for mask mandates, this order shall not apply to educators, students, 12-k.aff within the if this is true, why are my kids going one day? i mean, one hour a day, he is on the bus for 45 minutes, goes to school for one class, comes home, and then the rest is virtual. it doesn't make sense. dr. redfield just said it is ok

for kids, ok? you have 1200 kids in school, no masks, no nothing, and then all of a sudden, you want to have a turkey dinner, and you are allowed six people in your family? well, then, i'm not having a turkey dinner. we are having a turkey rally, so i am having as many people as i can at my house. host: we would like to thank all of our callers for that first segment. examinep next, we will the impact of the coronavirus in rural united states with pat schou, president of the national rural health association. later on, we will have a discussion on the lasting impact of lincoln's the gettysburg address with historian and author john cribb. we will be right back. ♪ american history tv, on

c-span3, exploring the people and events that tell the american story, every weekend. at 6:00 p.m.ay eastern on "the civil war," a .iscussion about addiction new deal politics and the realm of public opinion on issues such as court packing and executive power. and on sunday, american history tv will mark the 400th anniversary of the pilgrims' arrival in plymouth, massachusetts. at 5:00 p.m. eastern, a look at the virtual mayflower project, which uses virtual reality to re-create the ship at plymouth harbor. tour of a35 p.m., a living history museum in plymouth, massachusetts, also a look at the mayflower ii, a

full-scale reproduction of the original ship. watch american history tv today on c-span3. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we are back with pat schou, president of the national rural health association and executive director of the illinois critical access hospital network. pat, good morning. guest: good morning, jesse. thank you for inviting me. host: so we had a similar conversation earlier this year, where we were talking about how coronavirus was going to affect rural health care in america. now we are 11 months in. tell us how coronavirus is affecting rural health care in america. guest: well, we are living it every day in rural america, and how it has impacted us is that i can say in my, you know,

county, i live in north-central illinois, and when we talk, we d 20 people that had been exposed, and that we have had thousands. we sometimes have 80 to 100 in our county, which is a population of 35,000. but the impact has been really the schools have been open somewhat, and i heard your earlier callers, but the big rural healthin care, our hospitals, physicians, clinics in our areas are really slammed with patients, not only getting tested, but also needing health care. they have been affected by the virus. the other thing is if you have more patients and you have more staff exposed, we are really suffering from staffing fatigue and not having enough staff available, because we only have

limited resources, and if you reach out to larger areas, they are affected, too. they have limited resources. so the impact has been on our health care resources. not so much back when we started this, you know, we had time to get prepared, but now we are experiencing it with the increase, the more people that have it, the more people, obviously, the additional people that are exposed. host: now, before we get any further, you are the president of the national rural health association. tell us what the national rural health association does. guest: yes, i am serving as president through the end of this year. it is an elected position and represents about 2500 people across the country. it is a graduate organization, representing hospitals, noises, physicians, universities, researchers, community health clinics, rural health clinics, anybody that really is concerned about health care in their community, and it has been in existence since the early 1980's, and really it is a

strong voice on capitol hill. it is really how we effectuate and get information out about our communities, our rural communities, and health care. it is a wonderful organization, and i have been very blessed to represent it. ellen morgan is our chief executive officer, and if people would like to know more about it, it is that realhealthweb.o rg, and i am happy to share information if anybody would like to contact me later. host: also, you are the director of the illinois critical access hospital network. what is that? guest: yes, that is correct, it is a network, a nonprofit organization, 50,000 hospitals throughout the state of illinois. 25 beds or less. we have a little bit larger hospitals, rural hospitals that are part of our organizations, in a little bit larger areas, and what we do is we come together as an organization and

provide resources and share experiences and work together. in fact, almost on a monthly basis, our ceo's come together and talk about how the impact of covid is, and we learned to work together and share resources through that process. i can provide a number of services for hospitals and i.t., physician recruitment, community needs services, patient satisfaction, a variety of things, and most importantly, technical resources. we advocate with the hospital rha.ciation and with n host:host: now, we know that they coronavirus, when it came into the united states, it seems to start in urban areas. guest: correct. host: now it seems to have moved into rural areas, and we have a story that says that there have ruralore than 195 new covid infections that happened in just one week.

what is causing the spread from urban to rural, and what is the difference between catching it, if you are in an urban environment, versus catching it and having to deal with it in a rural environment? guest: well, i do not know if there is so much difference in catching it in either environment, but it started because that is really where it came into our country, is through the urban areas. there was a little bit in our rural areas early on, where we had truck drivers going to different areas that, you know, indianae in batesville, , they had an influx of coronavirus early on, because people were going in and out and sending beds back and forth to new york. but since the population, you tow, since it has rolled out the rural population, it has simply spread. the virus likes people. it likes to spread any time has opportunity, and, you know, people have been out and about more in the summer. you know, our farmers, people

with recreation, you know, and people back and forth. it has really become a source, and it has rolled out to us in rural illinois, and across the country, just a matter -- it does not matter if it is the indian tribe areas or southern parts of the state or northern parts of the state. it has really hit us all. there is no rhyme or reason to it. as researchers, we have no place to go after this. we are rural. have acertainly percentage of elderly population with chronic diseases, so, you know, we know it has impacted elderly more than it has the younger population. host: well, one of the things that you can see happen -- and i grow up in a rural area myself -- guest: that is great! host: rural areas, you have less

a access to hospitals and medical care than you do in urban areas. we have hospitals closing so far in 2020, 18 closed last year, and there have been 176 total closures of rural hospitals since 2005. ,o even before the coronavirus you have these medical care issues in rural areas. how has the coronavirus made it worse, or has it made it worse? and onees, it has come thing that happened over the last decade is, you know, we really grew into specialty care and clinics in our communities, and our clinics as well as hospitals, we were taking care of our patients that really were not quite as sick, so, you know, when there was some downsizing based on the volume of

population, and not ever really thinking we would have a pandemic. but, you know, since all these closures, we have less hospitals and resources, you know, 30, 40 years ago, you had a physician in every community. almost everyone in larger rule community of 80,000 to 10,000. right now with our hospital closures, it really worries us. we have worked with congress and trying to provide legislation, reopen the conical access program, keep some of the hospitals open and really provide that. you have less nursing staff, less phlebotomists, it is just a smaller community. and as i mentioned earlier, as we started our discussion, is that the larger facilities are full of patients, too, and they are taking those that are having

cardiac incidents and a lot of other specialty needs, and so they are, you know, full with that. so they really can't take the additional patients. our hospitals get full, so it has been a real struggle in trying to balance that. and we are finding some of the larger hospitals, particularly larger systems that have smaller hospitals, critical access or smaller, rural hospitals, they are wanting to send covid patients back to recover. you just don't recover overnight from covid. they either have respiratory or they have a g.i. and major weakness. totakes time to recover, rebuild your strength. it is really trying to find the balance. we may not have in our communities all the treatment. the department of public health and other areas are making it available as we need it. we don't have infectious weeases physicians, and so

have been able to rely on telemedicine and things like that to help with the support of that. but, you know, it is really trying to find that balance, and it is really stretching all of our resources. it is just that rural communities, we are more limited, because it is a natural occurrence that happens over the course of time. host: let's let our viewers join the conversation. we are going to open a special line for our conversation on coronavirus in rural areas. a rural area, we want to hear from you especially. we want you to call (202) 748-8000. ifal health care providers, you are providing health care in our nation's rural areas, your opinion is very important. we want to hear from you at (202) 748-8001. if you don't fit either one of those two categories, we still want to hear from you at (202) 748-8002. keep in mind, you can text us at (202) 748-8003, and we are

always reading on social media, on twitter @cspanwj, and on facebook at facebook.com/cspan. now, pat, one of the things we just finished talking about is the number of rural hospital closures. can you tell us why these facilities are closing, especially now in 2020, when we see the number of illnesses going up because of coronavirus? guest: shark. well, there really are a number of reasons, not one prominent reason, but the number one has to do with financial. you know, if you are a rural youunity, rural hospital, are not doing as many procedures, not as much revenue, whether a surgical or endoscopic procedure. the margins are much more fragile. a hospital might have a $20 million budget, and perhaps they only generate $100,000 that year, or they might lose $500,000.

and you also know with our hospitals and hospital communities, is that we have people that can't pay. we have higher deductibles, so we have a limited number of margin, you are getting a lot of financial assistance, it is taking away from revenues. also, sometimes it is simply, you know, a matter of people going elsewhere. you know, sometimes a hospital loses two or three of their providers commanded takes a while to get providers back, and it goes to another area. we have seen situations where our rural community's sent patients to specialty care, and they stayed with specialty care and don't come back to our communities. that where lot of you manage bad debt them as i mentioned, some people cannot pay their bills. so it is really health care resources, it is financed, it is community support, and sometimes, simply, it is management support. sometimes that happens.

people are not watching the clock very well, and sometimes, you know, don't notice that, you know, maybe we need to change directions at the hospital and add different services. so it is a variety of things, but when you have limited resources, that impacts you quicker. also what is alarming is we have --t a lot of our old units o.b. units. when i started working at critical access 50 years ago, 25 had o.b. services. now only six have o.b. services. as things shuffle around, some of our rural primary care, which is management and prevention and primary care, we

need to pull in and redevelop that. i wish we had more answers to that, and i think i will finally add without the reasons is that sometimes it is insurance. if you have insurance or medicare in program, other things, -- medicare advantage program from other things, you are required to go to certain facilities for care, so that affect people coming home and using the local facilities. host: let's go to our phone lines and start with talking to rich, who was calling from marion, ohio. rich, good morning. caller: yeah, good morning. it seems like there are a lot of things we should be doing and should do better. one is the possibility of the virus does not like to be above if we can heat the building to 90 degrees when no one is in them, we could eliminate a lot of the virus. also putting a uv light in the ventilation systems as well as more ventilation. it seems like just doing these

basing things -- basic things could reduce our loading. also more masks, keeping good masks and not reusing old masks or getting the germs flopped around by not doing it the right way. the other is handling our masks the right way. no one really thinks about taking it on-and-off the right way. all of this has to do with loading and trying to get a good play going on here when we can reduce the loading while we are getting the heavy weapons on. i will hang up and listen to your answers. host: go ahead, pat. guest: good morning, rich. thank you for your comments, and, you know, that is a challenge within our health care system is the ventilation. and, you know, some of our community hospitals do not have the negative flow pressure, so sometimes that makes it a little bit difficult for caring for patients. many of our buildings do not have that, and that is important , when you have a respiratory-borne type of an illness.

and mask wearing, we know the reservoir 95 masks are the best, but they are expensive, and they are hard to wear, and they are really designed more for health care people. we did not expect the pandemic, and mask wearing is important. it does not necessarily solve all of our problems, and i know there is a big debate about mask wearing, but it does help you think about protecting yourself and protecting others from it. so it is very important. and people need to take good care of their masks, and he raised a good point, you need to wash them, if they are disposable, you need to dispose them after they are used. and that is important, wash your hands, using sanitizer, and that really is important, especially where if somebody has been exposed to coronavirus in your family or in your work or whatever, and if you have those good measures, if you practice the social distancing, if you wear the mask, if you wash your hands and really follow those techniques and those guidelines, it really does help, and we know

of many cases that people have not gotten the virus because they have had such good control practices. , you know, so you are correct with ventilation, it is very important. i do not know how we can fix that overnight, but it is something we can look at and prepare ourselves with potentially our next pandemic is, how do we do it? our hospitals have had to units, manyable models have built them, so that does help keep that down and prevent the spread when people are ill. and using good practice techniques. i hope i answered your question and followed it as you wanted the information. host: let's go to david, who is calling from wrightsville, georgia. david, good morning. caller: good morning. how are you, sir? host: just fine. go ahead, david. caller: yes, i was a substitute teacher for about 16 years, and i noticed that people more or less, they wanted to send their

children to school to get rid of them. and now that we have got a problem, nobody wants to stay at home and see about their own child. what about the people in the schools? what about the health care workers? they are stressed out, and they are taking the viruses to their families and killing them, and then nobody cares. il they say is i want this, don't want the schools closed. shut the schools down, and then you can kind of control the thing. you can't control something you can't see, so why not do the things that you know best? down, like they did when they first started. they shot, partially come everything down, and then you , nothe hardheaded people

wearing masks, "i'm stuck at home, i can't get out." then they can't get out, and those who do get out want to get out and say that, "i'm a member of a certain party, political party," and then "i don't have to wear a mask, because certain people said i don't have to wear it." host: one of the things david had said there, i want to follow up with you, pat, is that how workersl health care dealing with stress and providing care? guest: that is a very good point, and david, thank you for your comment. you can take your voice one way or the other about keeping people shut down or open it up, and i am not going to debate that. but people are expressing what i call covid fatigue, not only may have had it, and then you have been home isolated, and you have had to take care of yourself, you may have had some symptoms or not, you had to go back to

work, and you are dealing with a more influx of patients, as i mentioned earlier, and it is very difficult to find extra staffing. let me give you an example, you know, nurses, and i am a nurse by background. normally nurses -- and i'm going to talk about in my community -- might make $30, $35 an hour. welcome if a hospital cannot find a nurse, they will sometimes contact an agency. because of the coronavirus and hardly having enough people go around because we have had to ask more staff if they are sick or at home taking care of kids if they are not a school are not isolated, $30, $35 an hour, some of these agencies are charging 150 dollars an hour for a nurse to come and take their of a patient. so it has really impacted us, you know, because the communities -- we have physicians being ill, we have technicians being ill, so it has really impacted the health-care workers, not only the fatigue of dealing with caring for them

all, the protective gear, when people come in and out of our hospitals or clinics, you know, they have to check their temperatures, we have to do all of that record-keeping. we are concerned about, you know, making sure we treat you safely, and the hospitals and communities and clinics have done a great job. i mean, they really have. they have checklists, they have huddles everyday, they are making sure they are doing the best they can to keep you safe. but it is an extra step in the process. you know, we have always had good infection control practices, but with the extra gear, it has become a little more challenging. and then, you know, you have to keep yourself healthy, and when they go home, if they have been exposed, many of them go home and they shower right away, their clothes are washed right away, if they have been in a particular part of the hospital, they know they have been exposed. it is a challenge and fatigue, and we expect the next 2, 3 months to be difficult, not only do try to find staff to cover

and provide care, clinics 24/7, nursing homes, whatever it might be, as well as taking care of themselves, and then there had their families to take care of. it is very important. that is one of the reasons i think, you know, we are trying to slow the virus down for a while to where we can get the vaccine and other things and control our situation. host: speaking of the vaccine come i am glad you brought that up. being closevaccines to approval, the question becomes -- how quickly will those vaccines get to rural areas? now, pro-public a road this early on this month, and i want to read this to you. "millions of doses within a few days night be fine for a few days, but it can rule out sending the vaccine to providers who do not treat that many people, even doctors offices and cities. it is especially challenging in smaller towns, rural areas, and

native communities on reservations that are likely to struggle to administer that many doses quickly or maintain them at ultra cold temperatures. so, pat, what are some of the concerns about getting the socine that we are hearing many talk about, getting those vaccines out to rural hospital's in rural areas? well, we are extremely excited about getting the vaccine in, and thanks to all of those people who have worked tirelessly over the last couple of months to get us to the point where we have a vaccine, and there are a number of different vaccines. my understanding is the first one that will come out will be the pfizer, there is a mor oderna. , you mentioned, have to be in a refrigerated unit, 60 t degrees below centigrade, celsius, might be 20

degrees, so you have to have the freezer, capability, cold storage for that. there has been a discussion come all the state department and public health will be charged with that responsibility of how they are going to strip you paid all of these states, you know, , soave pods, emergency pods we anticipate that there will be some kinds of large freezer units, and that it will be dispersed from there in smaller units. we understand that there are capabilities of putting it in smaller doses in boxes with dry ice that can be good for up to 15 days. they can then be shipped tomorrow rural community is, and we can put it in our vaccine for refrigerators and take it out, but it will be a challenge to mobilize and get everybody vaccinated. we almost take an inventory and our communities to make sure we get everybody covered. but as you know, you have been reading, they will do the health care workers, emergency people, so that they can continue to

immunize and do the high risk and move through the population. and so my concern is make sure we get our fair share and the same timely administration. my understanding is that it is going to go out proportionately, you know, to different areas, and they are going to do the best to spread it as evenly as we can. so that is one of my jobs, the involvement with the state and national organizations, is to help. local department come our hospitals are all being mobilized. they all have had special training in managing vaccines, so it will be quite a task, but, you know, there are some really remote areas, you know, particularly in the more frontier areas. that will be a challenge. you know, in illinois, we are a little more populated, but you get out west, and some of the more southern areas, texas and arizona, that will be a do believe that

will be up for a challenge, and we have been really working hard. vaccination policies and plans, they start from the state, and they roll into it. now, how that all plays out, that has a lot to do with it. but the vaccine, if it will be one or two doses -- one of the challenges with the two-dose thing is if you get it today, you have to get it within a period time of 21 to 27 days from host: this is randy, from williamsburg, virginia. good morning. caller: good morning. i would like to share what i have been doing for the last tournament -- 20 years, calling in to talk about my business virginia is for education. foot trailer with 30

--tionary bicycles in edit in its pretty high been extremely disappointed with the school divisions throughout the state of virginia because i have gone from the coast to the mountains, and i have been involved in school divisions and they do not talk about the health of their student body. zero. that is one of the mandated courses in schools, but no one is talking about how many are meeting the minimum fitness challenge from kindergarten through 10th grade. i have been disappointed with the police departments and schools, how they connect the dots from school to the neighborhoods. that is my expertise. many schoolchildren in elementary school, i have to go after hours and go right over to the neighborhood and provide on momblock programming where

whoever is there watching the children can feel safe that there is this big rig sitting at the corner that is familiar to the children and coaches, myself, and can really improve community health. are rural health care providers doing to deal with exercise in community health like they caller was talking about? or after the outbreak, i will take them in two parts. haveural communities, many implemented walking tracks and things like that and have park districts. i have seen a number of fitness anytime programs, a number of

hospitals have exercise programs . it is a challenge to keep people motivated. our local indices do a lot, offering health fitness classes and so forth. that theen locally resurgence of physical education , of course, sports locally, and i think there is an effort to do it. we could certainly do more. but surprisingly was really helpful, i have often said your rural communities there should not be a problem with good eating because you have farming communities. we are not all in farming communities. we have areas where there is andr kinds of businesses natural resources and so forth. notur communities, we do have a grocery store every corner. you may notowns,

have fresh food and vegetables. that is a concern that we have, what we call food deserts, and we have to work hard at that. there is poverty in the rural communities, many times kids go home hungry. we have a number of communities that put together bags so on the weekends people send food home. this is very important, during the outbreak here that we have had, it has been difficult because the schools have not been open. the exercise places, some of that metro centers and ymcas have been limited. there is no reason why people cannot exercise at home, with the ability of the internet and television. the caller from virginia, he makes a good point that we really have to stay healthy. that is one of the things, when

you get sick, if you are healthy, that helps you to respond. your immune system is up and you can respond well. before and after, we have you think about prevention and exercise. it is a good point. i wish we had more resources. i like to see what community groups like the rotary or the women's clubs, that they really go out and develop the park districts and things like that to encourage input fitness at the top priority. aboutwe have not talked the availability of personal protective equipment for rural health care providers. during a recent video conference with president-elect joe biden, a nurse from minnesota talked about the need for personal protective equipment for medical workers.

this viruscts of have been devastating. i have held the hand of dying patients who were crying out for their families that they cannot see. i've taken care of coworkers as they fight for their lives on ventilators, and knowing they hospitalbecause of the or their government has not protected them. throughout the pandemic we have n95s so manynd times. sometimes they fall right off our faces. we still reuse them. and i know hospitals that are using them 8-10 times a shift.

we cannot save face when we are using these kinds of standards. nurses are getting sick. icu nursesgo nine were out with covid. recently we had 12 emergency room nurses out with covid. we need to protect our front-line workers so we can take care of you. remember there is no second line of defense. it is us. ppes ine there enough rural health care facilities? guest: no. struggle also, taking care of covid patients, and i appreciate is comments and it remarkable what people have done, but to your question, is there enough? there is never enough.

part of the problem is getting from the suppliers. , it is difficult the n95,uipment, having to reuse them over and over, there are some procedures that you can use to re-sterilize them. they do reach a point where they are not effective. it becomes a difficult situation. we have struggled to get surgical gowns. hospitals have had to purchase cks to makelastic sakc their own. some used the plastic and gear to cover them. we have done a lot of things to protect the staff so they do not get sick. surgical gowns, people made

them. it has been difficult. we are concerned about gloves. member -- many of the gloves are made in malaysia, what if there are problems getting them? distribution, getting them from suppliers, and sometimes the rural communities were last in line. i do not know of anyone who has been harmed because we did not have enough equipment, but they have in doing the best we can fit i cannot speak to the larger facilities, but i can to those 50 hospitals that i work with daily. there has not been harm to anybody, but that is why hospitals have daily huddles, inventory tracking. we have reached out to fema and the white house task force has sent equipment to hospitals likely when they could not get

it from suppliers. we have done the best we can, but it will continue to be a challenge particularly as we move forward in the next three months as we work through this search. the other thing is, testing, try to have enough testing, toolkits in the hospitals and getting enough of the reagents to do it. it has been a supplier market. twocost of a mask went from dollars up to $15. it has become a challenge, the cost of the equipment, and are we going to be able to sustain it over the next 2-3 months. that is one of the reasons why many hospitals experience fatigue. know if it is because

of not enough gear or something the spread of the virus, but locally i cannot say that i have the same encounter that the nurse in minnesota does, but i know it is happening. we have very -- we are very concerned about it. a lot of it has to do with supplier distribution. can dogovernment something to ensure that happens, that is wonderful. i guess i will get a plug to the truck drivers and people that do their best to get the equipment to us. we are concerned about the next 2-3 months. host: this is chuck that is calling from nebraska. good morning. caller: good morning. scottsdale in february or march when all of this started, as i recall. from what i remember, everybody was saying that they knew where it was coming from but i thought

it was coming from the china area. i do not really hear anymore where it is coming from. had they changed for the virus theoming from -- where virus is coming from? caller: we do know that it , and it isur country a virus that changes forms often. we are seeing three different ways that it happens. be asymptomatic. my husband had it, and i took care of him. he had gi symptoms. i took care of him and i tested negative and then i tested positive. i had no symptoms. some people have no symptoms,

and some have a loss of sense of smell. i have had staff that had no systems -- symptoms. the gi.ple have see thatcommon that we originally started here was the respiratory, where you see people all of a sudden there respiratory system is compromised. major organs are compromised and they go into failure. in that, butxpert we see different strains, and we are not sure how each one is transmitted. we do know that is the problem. i don't know if you can tie anyone to one area where it originated, but that is typical of a virus. it sometimes is a challenge to diagnose it, to know whether it is coronavirus. i think we have had enough

experience that we know a little bit more about it, but there is still so many unknowns about it. i don't know if i answered your west and. i cannot give the original source of it, but i know it mutates and it -- the virus loves to spread it we have to do the best we can to stop the spread and take care of ourselves. and andy more caller, from california. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for your information. s will continue as long as you have the mentality of those people like the woman from kentucky who thinks this is a haute -- hoax or just another flu. i would urge her to spend some time in her major hospital areas

to watch the refrigeration trucks lining up to deal with the dead bodies and for the gentleman in california, who overweight the two diabetic children who died out me million going to school, thank god the virus isn't so dramatic on that younger people, but they are carriers to those who are vulnerable. let's get a grasp as to the importance of these factors. thank goodness for the man in georgia who brought a little enlightenment to everyone. we don't know a lot about the virus. we know we are a very mobile

society and we have to take it seriously. i urge everyone to wear a mask and be careful. we all want to be with our families, but the rural community areas, we have to it control of this between of the vaccine is coming out soon. we hope that we can get people vaccinated and get this under control. it will be like other diseases, we got polio and measles -- i grew up at the time where you did not have a vaccine for measles, chickenpox, all those things like that, and now we do. we want to be able to get a hold of coronavirus because it affects so many people differently. we have lost lives. many people have not been affected. that is wonderful, but we have to use common sense. we have to take good care of ourselves.

we have wonderful things to live for, a good health care system that we want to protect. we want to protect people, and we really want to have a wonderful 2021. we are looking forward to it and we hope that we make strides and take good care and we are responsible citizens of our country. hank pat would like to t schou for coming on with us this morning and talking to us about rural health care and the pandemic. hopefully the next time we talk we will have all this in the background and we can see how we survived. guest: i hope so. i will take you up on that. positive-ness. host: coming up, back to the original question, should there amid theson schooling

coronavirus spikes? you see the numbers on the screen. we will be right back. ♪ from 1975 up to 1979, this regime ruled cambodia and killed over one million citizens in killing fields. about night, a discussion the documentary "ghost mountain." this is a story about a humanitarian crisis that happens regime infall of the 1979. things spiraled, and my father dystopia thatin a is really a story that i think is important and that everyone

should hear. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span q&a. ♪ >> >> monday a live conversation with former president barack obama reflecting on his life and political career. the former president, live monday at 11:30 a.m. eastern on c-span2. host: we return to the original question about returning to pandemic.ing the usa today has a story about what is going on with that right now.

the dominoes are beginning to fall at american schools after months of operating and a, they are shifting back to remote grapplesas the nation with soaring infections. monday millions more will be connected to the teachers only by whatever internet or phone connection they can secure. schools are closing in many cases because of too many teachers that are quarantined or infected with covid-19, others responding to high rates of transmission in the community. the governor announced a statewide closure of schools to thatt monday, a move followed michigan, and new york city schools, the largest district in the country, moving back to all remote learning. schoolchildrenf are attending only virtual classes, a figure that has risen from 36.9% sunday.

what do you think about this? what do you think about the coronavirus causing schools to reconsider the opening or closing of those schools? forill open a special line this conversation. teachers, we went to hear from you at (202)748-8000. administrators, we want to hear from you at (202)748-8001. parents, we went to hear from (202)748-8002. everyone else, you can call (202)748-8003. conference with president-elect joe biden, a member of the federation of teachers, ace coolness -- nurse nurse in ohio

address this. >> are schools closed on march 20, and we got all of our people -- are ppe out of the schools and we go but to the hospitals because they needed it. it was the right thing to do. reopening talk about and going back, we do not have any ppe. our school buildings will be in bad shape. we have no ventilation in some of the schools. you have to remember whatever is going on in the community is going to be going on in the schools. as long as the numbers are celebrated -- accelerate in the community, we cannot reopen. we want to reopen. host: some urge schools to reopen. here is a statement from the 'serican enterprise institute

fredd hess. especially during this latest spike, the fact remains that teachers and the rest of us are riding buses and playing ball and visiting barbershops, even as public schools state close. clerks toct shop show up and do their job, it is hardly outlandish that parents ask legislators to make every possible effort to do so. what do you think? -- wherearol from --from new york. caller: good morning. i am a registered nurse. .e get no benefits three quarters of us have no

medical care at all, and the teachers are sitting here complaining. i can understand if a teacher has a medical condition that means they should not be in the middle of a situation, but most of the teachers are young, perfectly healthy, and there is no reason they shouldn't be up there teaching. the nurses are expected to nurse. mask, put on gloves, and go out there and do your job. we make $50,000, and in new york, the teachers are making 150,000 a year. their medical and if it's are to die for and their pension benefits are to die for, and most of us nurses especially home care nurses who work from new york state medicaid have

nothing, no holidays, no vacation, no benefits. it might be nice if the teachers would give as much as the nurses do. i am sorry, but i have had it. host: this is patrick from maryland. patrick is a parent. for taking myyou call. this is essentially the biggest , that we are to blame for it. united states american citizen, we are the blame for the whole thing. we live in a litigious society and we do not look at each other in terms of what we need to do to handle this, and the reason is because unfortunately the thernment set it up where democrats feel this way and the republicans feel that way. you are talking about far-left

and far-right. i wish people would just speak english and just look at the issue. the issue is that the coronavirus is killing people. you are expecting the teachers to be able to be on the frontline of this where they are in an enclosed environment with 300 kids in these teachers also have parents they are taking care of. there is no uniform decision as to handle need to do the coronavirus. i apologize for being long-winded, but unfortunately america is looking at it from to an automobile mechanic versus a doctor that is telling you what we need to do to solve the problem. host: this is barbara from

maryland. barbara is also a parent. good morning. caller: good morning. i think the kids should not be in school. i have grandchildren. . they areery smart online. i want them to be in school, but wantt them to live, and i to live. i do not want them in school getting the virus and bringing it to me, and my other children. i think they need to keep the schools closed, keep the online learning until this clears up. from this is shelley minnesota. good morning. caller: good morning. covid.grandmother with i have 12 grandchildren.

i love my grandchildren. even though they will get behind in school, i went to see them walk down that graduation i'll -- aisle even if it is late. -- replaceust rip our teachers. they're not like a cookie jar, you cannot just grab another one. it takes years of college. we need to get smart about this and we need to save the children. grandmas and grandpas. we need to stop this nonsense. please stay safe. from this is oliver virginia. he is a parent. caller: i want to say thank you

to c-span for giving the public a voice on some of the things going on in this country. say we got toto remember that the president lied to the american people about .his virus with children we have to remember that. he lied to us. i am so glad that the schools are closing until we get full control of this. would die ifs, i they caught this aziz in school and i had a say so and whether they were there or not. we have a president that does not care about it. until americans realize the problems are coming from the oval office, we will never get this thing under control.

here it is, trying to block joe biden from attacking the problem. people, please take up. the country is in country. this man does not mean us any good. from this is jennifer maryland. good morning. caller: good morning. frederick, andin i am teaching face to face at this time to help children with needs that cannot get the support they need at home. i do not see the point. we might as well go in. the problem we are dealing with is not being able to face the mandates of the students because now we are short of teachers. we are running into those problems, so it is the mandates. we are already seeing each other in the grocery stores. we might as well be in school. from houston,jean

texas. caller: i am calling from houston, texas, and i am a teacher. i would love to be face to face, but i have to be online because my husband is covering from cancer. if i was to ring anything from home, even a cold, he would be suscepted to it, to your point about people going to the barbershops, they have .ppointments so they we have so many students that are online or that are struggling also that is coming from homes where parents are infected with the disease as well. these students are trying to learn. we have an influx of students that are not passing online.

therefore, i would love to be face-to-face, but unfortunately because of medical issues in my age, i am unable to teach face-to-face. but parents have to take the responsibility as well. tell me idents that have to get off the phone because i have to go and do chores at home, or i have to babysit. we all have to take some kind of responsibility and understand that there are more underlying issues to this than just -- i wish i did make as much money as the person in long island. i would love to be face-to-face but unfortunately i can't. host: an arkansas teacher wrote "education week" about concerns teachers have about returning to school. a quick paragraph from that to you -- every teacher i know could get seriously sick today, tomorrow or next week just by showing up to work.

statistically, most of them will not die, but they might lose their sense of taste and smell for a while, like michael is a friend did. that is scary enough. but here is a really terrifying know novery teacher i matter their age, immune system, or level of physical fitness, could die for no reason they have the power to prevent. remote learning has one huge advantage over face-to-face instruction during a deadly pandemic -- it will not kill you. let's go and look at some of what our social media followers are saying about returning or going to in-person learning during the coronavirus spike. send theook post says, well to school and the six-day home.- and the sick stay another says, teachers make a lot of money? is not what the caller said?

in north dakota teachers are not even considered essential workers and remake a turbo salary. close schools and keep our teachers safe. we have a national teacher shortage in this is an important, essential orole. another facebook post says kids are at greater risk from dying from the regular flu then than from covid. another post says, these kids spread it from teachers to family members. unless the vaccine is widely distributed, we can't keep spreading the virus. go virtual. another text says, another democrat hoax being pushed by the corrupt, lying, and it democrat mainstream media. don't be full by the mainstream anymore.ry -- they have been lying to you the entire time. a virus that has in 99.7% recovery rate. one more facebook post -- my

grandchildren are in school five days a week. you can choose at-home or school. they all chose school. on the school reporting of cases is extremely low. yesterday it was zero for students and teachers. if a child has it, students plus contacts stay home for two weeks. let's go back to the phone lines and see what you think about in-person schooling during covid spikes. we start with billy, calling from washington, d.c. billy, good morning. caller: how are you doing, this morning? host: just fine. go ahead. caller: i am tired of these people trying to force teachers to go back to school. if we had a president that would at all thesejob news conferences in april trying -- trying toe knit this in the bud, we would have done a good job.

but ask you this. tell me one good thing donald trump did it his last four years. tell me one. host: let's go to jerry calling from texas. jerry is a teacher. good morning. caller: good morning. i will tell you a lot more than one. there is a list of achievements for donald trump. these people are deranged. they are so full of hate for man. i am not a big donald trump fan in a lot of ways either, but i rationale has been distorted because of this hate. hate is a very blinding animal. i have heard a lo couple of people come on today. people need to check themselves so they can think a little more rationally. host: what grades do you teach and are you in-person or virtual? caller: i do in-state and virtual. that is our job.

. 15 weeks now. we just finished 15 weeks of it. there is not enough said about is.poor virtual learning i don't want to be extreme, but it is terrible. it's terrible. the kids are at home. they are in the refrigerator they are in the other room,, wrestling with their dog, fighting with their little sisters and brothers. there is no learning there, people. host: are you dealing with elementary school students, middle school, or high school? caller: sir, i work at a high school with 4000 enrollment. very large. and we have got all 4 grades in the class in school now. 65% on campus and 35% off. we have well over 2000 kids on campus everyday and we take precautions. we are following all the guidelines. two gets sick once

in a while. they are bringing it in from the outside, folks. it is not breaking out in the schools. it is part of the data that we have collected that dr. redfield has referred to. i guess you guys played that clip earlier -- nobody is referring to that. i hear your callers, the emotional callers. nobody is giving deference to the cdc and the medical opinion. we need to follow the data, quote unquote. host: has there been any infections among the teachers, staff and administrators at your school? caller: yes. i know several teachers in this area, not just our school, that have tested positive. not one hospitalization that i know of, and certainly zero deaths. once in a while a teacher will get it. but we are protected.

we wear facemasks. we were shields as well on our face and we are required to do that. again, the data tells us, that protects as considerably as long as we keep our hands clean. they are providing plenty of hand sanitizer. i wipe down our student desks every hour. we got it down to 62nd. every kid wipes his desk down with disinfectant and then goes to the next class. some schools keep the kids in the same class each day, and the teachers move. smaller schools can do that, but we can't. but we are taking precautions and it is working. once in a while -- i don't like to see these emails and these calls where -- two kids tested positive today. one teacher tested positive. and bothers me too, folks. i am thinking of those grandparents and i understand it. i am looking at both sides, but i think we do need to follow the

data. host: let's talk to cindy: from connecticut. cindy is a parent. good morning. caller: good morning. i am the parent and my daughter is a teacher. she teaches in north philadelphia. from the beginning of the school year, her school has smartly chose to be full virtual. and i am very happy for that. what i think is that with this being a dangerous pandemic, what we should do is spend the funds that we have been spending on trying to keep the schools safe, with all the cleaning and all the plexiglas and the arrangements that we make, we should have invested in having these children have their virtual connections updated so that during a dangerous situation such as this we could keep, them home and keep them safe until it was safe to go back. what we focus on is. the children that are going to

school and the teachers and the rate being low. instead, we should be focusing on the children who have died, and the parents will have died, and the teachers will have died. that is what we should focus on. no life is worth this when we have the opportunity to have the children learning remotely. that is what we should be spending our funds on. we have a vaccine that will be coming. until it is safe, we should not be sending our children and teachers to school. host: let's talk to michelle: from san diego, california. michelle, good morning. also a teacher. caller: good morning. how are you. everybody is touching on different subjects they feel very strongly about and i hear it in their voices. background. we lost three family members in may within weeks of each other. real. i work for the school district and every meeting we have had to talk about how we can safely reopen, discussed every little detail we can follow, but we

also touched on one thing --kids will not always follow directions. they will take off their masks, they will try to touch things they are not supposed to. frankly, i don't want to get it. require ourntly, we children to prove they have vaccinations for diseases we already have cures for. to be able to go to school. now they want to send our children back with this disease that does not have a cure yet? i don't think that is fair. absolutely not, we should not be going back to school before we are ready. host: which age group are you teaching, elementary, high school or middle school? caller: elementary. host: when dealing with elementary children, how well are they paying attention to the social distancing, to the masks, how much can we expect from them when it comes to social distancing and masks?

caller: everything that you are supposed to -- [laughter] sorry about that. you can on the expect so much. you can set up every guideline, but kids will be kids. kids will be kids. you can try your hardest. we can cut our classroom sizes down to 50% and only have 50% of the kids show up monday, tuesday, no school on wednesday and then have the other half show up on thursday and friday to reduce the numbers, but they will still do what they want to regardless of how many times we tell them. we could separate them and say, here is hand sanitizer. we took away shared things like pencils, everything anybody could trade or touch. that environment is not exactly healthy for the mentality either. it is awful. you want to sit in class or do you want to stay home and learn virtually until it is safe?

at least at home they have their family members and they can walk around the house. they have a little bit more freedom. host: let's talk to liz calling from new jersey. liz is also a teacher. good morning. caller: yes. i taught for close to 40 years and i have been a long-term sub since i retired. had the general idea by november-- in new jersey we have a teacher convention in the second week of november, and i was saying to my friends that by then i suspected any problems with this in terms of school -- return to school would start showing up. we are in november and they are showing up. so i think most people in my state are doing the hybrid so there isn't much in-person teaching for the students, most

of it is remote. some are all remote. an even smaller percentage of all three are the groups that go in-person for school. parents are making those decisions based on the safety of their children. being aso know very-recently retired teacher, i have friends who are still in the system who are slightly younger than me, and they intended to normally work another 3-5 years and then retire. many of them, either because their spouse or children at home have compromised immune systems, or they themselves have some issues, there has been a spike in teacher retirements in new jersey. so we are losing teachers that way.

we are bleeding out teachers. i think what we need to do is focus on trying to make the environment as clean and as sanitized as possible. but the expensive thing and the thing that we haven't handled this whole 11 months, we haven't .ad enough testing testing costs money, it takes time. tracers. there is some testing going on with the school but it is not an every other day test routine. silent children can be we haves, and i think gone the community spread down, so that it was safe to come -- contemplate having schools open.

we went through this whole year first new jersey and new york having massive problems, now it has ricocheted to the northwest and we have divided ourselves up over whether we should or shouldn't mask. host: we would like to thank all of our collars for that segment. coming up, it is the 157th anniversary of the gettysburg address. author and historian john cribb says lycan's famous speech is more significant than ever. find out why, with john cribb, when washington journal continues. we will be right back. ♪ >> book tv on c-span2 has top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. at 1:00p is weekend p.m. eastern, from the recent virtual brooklyn book festival,

authors on the suffrage movement. purnell and brian clarence taylor on the history of civil rights in new york. at 7:25 p.m. eastern, adam higginbotham on the untold story of the world's greatest nuclear disaster. on sunday at 1 p.m. eastern, more from the broken book discuss theauthors past and future of technology. authors on the potential effects of the coronavirus on society. and at 9 p.m. eastern on after political scientist and author deborah stone talks about her book on how we use numbers to decide what matters. she is interviewed by a data scientist and author. watch book tv on c-span2 this weekend.

>> listen to c-span's podcast. we talk about the history of presidential transitions with the director of the white house transition project. weekly" where"the you get your podcasts. >> "washington journal" continues. john we are back with cribb, historian and author of the historical novel "old abe." he is your to talk to us about the 157th anniversary and the lasting significance of president lincoln's gettysburg address. good morning. guest: good morning. thanks for having me. host: you wrote earlier this today the gettysburg address is more important for our nation than ever. tell us why. guest: because the gettysburg address speaks to a problem that

has been around as long as human beings or at least society has been around and that is the problem of our people going to rule themselves or are they going to be ruled by others? people who would otherwise take their freedom away. lincoln knew that problem never goes away, it doesn't. he said it is an age-old problem . that is really what he in the end was speaking to in the gettysburg address. day, -- today as in his day, there are forces around the world who want to take freedom away from people here and abroad. we always have to be on our guard against them. lincoln knew that. if you look at the gettysburg address am a he talks about rededicating ourselves to the principles that will keep us free. that is why the speech continues to be so important today.

host: thursday was the 157th anniversary of the gettysburg address. i think what surprises many people about the gettysburg address is that it is so short. probably took him less than two minutes to actually deliver it. long.about 272 words for our consideration today, that would be just a politician clearing his throat. [laughter] that would not be the whole speech. right.exactly host: what was lincoln tried to tell america through the gettysburg address? guest: you are right, it was so short. long.rds and 10 sentences it was so short that he wrapped had known people he had started. the fellow in charge of taking his picture for the address was still getting his camera set up, because he thought he had all the world, and all of a sudden lincoln was done.

it was a very short speech. almost an invocation. went to gettysburg to tell the northern people why they had to go on fighting this horrible, god-awful war that had seen so much death and bloodshed and seemed to be dragging on and on. he wanted to speak to them and give them a higher purpose for continuing the war. in the end, he was speaking to both north and south, to all americans, but lincoln in that great speech, he starts off talking about four score and seven years ago. that is 87 years, a very old-fashioned and the local way of saying 87 years. he gave the speech in 1863. abstract 87 years -- subtract 87 years.

that takes you to the declaration of independence. he was taken audience back to 1776. as he put it, the nation conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. that is pretty much straight out of the declaration of independence, right? he wanted to take his audience back to those founding principles and remind them that in many ways, that is what that war was about, rededicating ourselves to those founding principles. host: you said that he was aiming this discussion at his citizens in the north. all, why was he actually there in the first place, and who was there to hear him? guest: he went to gettysburg to take part in the dedication ceremony of the new cemetery there. that summer in early july of 1863, the nation had seen the most cataclysmic battle it had

ever known. about 50,000 casualties, may 8000 people dead. after the battle, the burial crews with the armies would quickly bury the bodies in shallow graves the best they could and if they could identify them, they would put a board with the name and the whatever information they had scratched on them and they left. there was no federal authority to come in or state authority to come in and take care of that. gettysburg was left with this horrible scene on their hands, thousands and thousands of bodies on the hillsides around their town, and shallow graves. it is not a long-term situation at all. so they decided in conjunction with the state of pennsylvania and other states to establish a cemetery and move these bodies into a hallowed ground where

they could rest permit me. now, best where they could rest where they could rest permanently. some of the bodies were taken home. they were still being buried when the invocation took place. first thing blenkinsop and he got to get as berg was stacks of coffins on the railroad tracks that were being shipped home. he was invited to come in and give a few appropriate remarks at this dedication ceremony. so he knows when he goes up there, it will be a brief address, he is not the main speaker of the day. he is not going to speak for long, he knows, but he goes because he knows it is an wasrtant invocation and he to use it to send a message to the nation. he wants to tell the people of the north why they need to keep war,ing on in this awful but he also had a broader message for the whole nation,

and that is a reminder that self-rule, the democracy is at stake in this war, and if this war, if the country breaks apart in this war, the hopes of freedom and democracy might well be snuffed out. host: if you haven't been to the to see the cemeteries and the money meant in gettysburg, i promise you, it is worth the trip, especially if you can social distance and wear your mask, you can still see it. if you want to learn more about the monuments of gettysburg, watch american history tv's american artifacts tour of the battlefield with historians. c-span.org.lable at if you want to check out some more and learn more about those monuments in gettysburg. we know that the speech that president lincoln gave, he was

not the main speaker, he was only there for a few moments to talk about -- only on stage for a few moments. what was the immediate reaction to the words he said? guest: i think the immediate reaction within the first few seconds after he finished may well have been silence, just because people didn't expect him to wrap up that quickly. his friend, and fellow attorney back from his illinois days, served as kind of his chief actingrd in washington as master of ceremonies. he said when he finished, and it can turn to him and whispered, the speech went sour. a good plow will turn over the land and scour the land and a poor plow won't.

hist is possible that bodyguard was right about that, that lincoln thought it didn't work because of the silence. but very quickly people began to cheer and applaud. some accounts say that three giant cheers went up in a thunderous wave of applause. i think people listened to it and were moved by it. the press reaction, of course, in some ways was partisan. the press was extremely partisan back then. there were republican in newspapers and democratic newspapers. the democratic newspapers didn't like it. cheekicago times said the of every american should tingle with shame at a flat, silly, dishwatery -- of the president. republican newspapers were apt to praise it.

the springfield republican in massachusetts for example called speech.fect gem of a after the initial partisan reaction, i think quickly people realized this was a great speech in.praise began to pour it didn't take long for the speech to be anthologized and people began to even learn it. well-received.al host: let me remind our viewers they can take part in our conversation. we will open up regional lines for the last part of the show. the means if you're in eastern and central time zones, we want to hear from you at 202-748-8000. if you are in the mountain and pacific time zones, we want to hear from you at 202-748-8001. remember, you can always text us 202-748-8003 and we are always reading on social media, on twitter at @cspanwj, and on

facebook at facebook.com/cspan. john, do we know if lincoln himself realized how important this speech was and how it will go down in history before his death? guest: i think he certainly knew that it was an important speech. he meant it to be important. it was after he gave it, the most requested speech. madetually -- copies were in a couple were auctioned off to raise money for the war effort. he meant it to be an important speech. he began working on it before he went to gettysburg. he told an aide he had half of it written out before he got on the train to go to gettysburg, but he had been thinking for quite a while on how he could crystallize his thoughts, his message.

he finished writing his speech the night he got to gettysburg. he stayed in the house of a fellow named david wills, one of the people responsible for the establishment of the cemetery. the next morning he got up and ade a few changes, road out clean copies before joining the procession to go to the dedication ceremony. but he wanted it to be an important speech. host: let's go to our phone lines and let some of our viewers join the conversation. we start with dutch calling from pennsylvania. how far away are you from gettysburg? caller: hi, how are you? conversation.ble this is just a really refreshing conversation. at wharton,course pennsylvania, that took us to gettysburg and it really enlightened my eyes as to how

executive commander-in-chiefs all the way down to generals would work, and it spurred a lot of interest because i work in the criminal justice system, so deeply. i happened to be in winchester, virginia, and i read th a book that was about several women who were in their homes where the transition occurred between rebel to union, over and over in the same house, across the street with neighbors. no one knew who was on which side. sound familiar? gettysburg, went to that really struck a match. here,en i have people what i want to share is a few things. first of all, gettysburg is fascinating. just the decisiveness and the

holding back and the explosions going on around your head where you are spending, you don't know ,hat is left, right or center and the just fantastic, almost miraculous situations that occurred were just breathtaking. to see on those stones, the actual tree that they hid behind to save their own lives, that is amazing. host: go ahead and respond. guest: it is an amazing place to visit, i wish every american can go there. it is worth visiting vote for the battlefield and for the spot where lincoln gave that great address. one thing i can recommend if you go, there is a great organization called the gettysburg -- that has been

around for over 100 years. they specialize in getting people to wars of the battlefield -- getting people battlefield. you can call and get in touch with them through the park service. they will even drive your car for you so you don't have to drive. a lot of them are retired school teachers and historians and they really know that battlefield. you can call them up with any aspect of the speech or battle you want to know about and they will tailor the tour for you. that is a great way to see the battlefield. and all the park rangers are great. it is such a huge battlefield, almost overwhelming, but it is gorgeous. nobody should go without going to the cemetery where lincoln gave that address, because when you stand and look out over those gravestones and over those fields, is a very, very moving experience. host: i can tell you that when i

took my family to gettysburg, we did the driving tour and it included back then the cd that tells you about all the history of certain spots in the battlefield and the cemetery. -- leads you eventually to the cemetery where you get to listen to an actor reading the gettysburg address. i can vouch that this is an absolutely wonderful tour. and you can do a driving tour which means you can keep yourself and your family safe. we used to be able to do a driving tour where you could keep your families safe while you are seeing this great american institution. one of our social media followers has a question for you. they want to know what influence that frederick douglas or others had on the gettysburg address. guest: well, they had a profound influence in that the gettysburg is part of the pivot

from the civil war, starting out mainly as a war to save the union, to hold the country together. that is lincoln's express purpose at the onset of the war anyway. in 1862.changes really the preliminary emancipation proclamation after the battle of antietam in maryland in september of 1862, and then signs the official emancipation proclamation on january 1, 1863. of course, the emancipation proclamation, he declares southern slaves free. war changes the war from a just to save the union to a war to both save the union, and free the slaves. abolitionists like frederick

douglas had an awful lot to do without. lincoln and frederick douglas had a very interesting relationship. they respected each other a great deal. came to see lincoln at the white house once and chide him a little bit because raisess was trying to black troops for the union, a very important part of the war effort. he came to lincoln to see him at the white house in a very historic meeting. here is an african-american coming to meet one-on-one with the president in the white house. he said, mr. president, i will be honest with you, i will not be able to do this much longer if things don't change. i am trying to ask these men to risk the lives but they are still being discriminated against -- they are not being soldiers,e white

not receiving the same promotions as the white soldiers. lincoln talked with him. douglass was right. lincoln basically urged patience. he said, these things take time. time douglass left the meeting, i think he was satisfied. i suspect one of the most meaningful moments in lincoln's presidency was after he gave his second inaugural address at the end of the war. douglass was in the crowd listening to him, and afterwards, that evening there was a reception in the white house and lots of people came. frederick douglass showed up. first there were people who tried to keep him out of the white house because he was black. somebody told lincoln douglass was here and make an immediate beside, show him in. in a very loud voice as douglass enter the room, he said, here comes my friend douglass. he wanted everybody to hear that. he asked douglass, what did you

think of my speech? he said, mr. president, you don't want to know. lincoln said, no. he said, mr. president, that was a sacred effort. i think that probably pleased lincoln just about as much as anything could have pleased him at that point. in answer to your question, abolitionists like douglass certainly had a big influence on lincoln, and therefore, on the gettysburg address. host: our next caller is calling from brooklyn, new york. good morning. caller: good morning and thank you so much for taking my call and thank you so much, sir, for speaking on the subject. can you hear me all right? guest: i. caller: can, thank you. caller: ok. i am about to turn 87 years old on january 1. october, i think i was nine years old, in the fourth

grade. we had assembly every wednesday. what we had then was brotherhood week in the month of october. and our class, my teacher thought i was a difficult child, and she asked me to recite the gettysburg address. i took it home and they showed it to my mother and i said, i have to read this tomorrow in assembly. she knew that i had a good memory and she said, you are not going to read it, you are going to memorize it. all that night i had to memorize that speech. the next day i got up and recited it. for the last 15 years i recite it every day just to work on -- preserve this memory. my question is, what you are discussing, in the second paragraph -- and what i am very concerned with today having survived all these wars is that, in the second paragraph, he says, now we are engaged -- this

is from my memory -- now we are engaged in a great civil war testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. i see where we are today and i keep asking myself, have we failed the test? that is my question. guest: thank you for the question. and congratulations, first of all, on turning 87 on january 1? 1.t: she said january guest: you were born on the first day of the emancipation proclamation. that is wonderful -- the birthday. i hope schoolchildren are still memorizing the gettysburg address. i had to memorize it in the fourth grade, i hope they are still doing that across the country. that is a great question. let me talk for just a second about why he said they are engaged in that test of whether

democracy can survive, can long endure. lincoln knew that, when he give that speech, that the country was still very young, less than 100 years old. lincoln also knew that for the vast majority of history, most human beings had lived without much freedom. they had lived under the rule of kings and tyrants, or they had lived as slaves, or as serfs, in bondage of some kind. most people didn't have much freedom. he knew that when the united states was born in 1776, which was his favorite founding document, the one he goes back to in the gettysburg address that was such a radical idea that a country would be founded on these propositions, that all men are created equal and all have the right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. people around the world had been

waiting for centuries for a country like about to come along -- like that to come along. the eyes on the world were on the nation. it was still a very unproven idea. it was being tested very hard in that civil war. lincoln knew that other movements or freedom around the world had not fared as well, like the revolutions, for example of 1848 in europe, and the french revolution, in a lot of ways went the wrong way. so lincoln knew that in some severehis was a test of the whole idea of democracy, that if this civil war, if the country ended up -- a lot of people thought it fit broke up it would go down the road of europe, this continent would end up looking like europe, a bunch of smaller countries and republics in name

only -- but it looked to the world that this grand experiment in self-rule and democracy was blowing itself up in this civil war. in the eyes of the world, they were on it. the hopes for freedom around the world, lincoln felt were at stake. at the is why he says end of the speech, he said -- they have to keep fighting so the government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not harris from the earth. notice he doesn't say from the country. he says from the earth. in his view, that is what is at stake for people around the world, the idea of self-rule and freedom. to get back to your question, lincoln is saying that the american people had to rededicate themselves to the

principles in the declaration of independence that we are all created equal, we all had the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. we had to dedicate ourselves to the principal if we were in fact to be able to prove to the world that a nation so conceived could long endure. his message still resounds down to us today. it is always an open-ended question. that is why your question is such a great one. every generation needs to dedicate themselves to those principles. it would help if every generation memorized the gettysburg address to remind them of that because if we don't remain dedicated to those is the bulls, then -- to those principles, than in lakeview, the government for the people, .y the people, will not survive

host: linda is calling from akron, ohio. good morning. caller: good morning, mr. cribb. of abraham fan lincoln historically. he is my favorite president. his conviction, his bravery. you that iestion for don't know if anyone could answer, but it seems to me that you would be a prime candidate to do so. if lincoln had not in assassinated -- if he had not been assassinated, what do you think he would have accomplished in his second term? that itaid, i know might be fortune-telling a bit, but i am eager to hear what you , ink the possibilities are will hang up and listen.

thank you so much. this has been a wonderful program with you on today. i really, really have enjoyed it. guest: thank you so much, and that is a wonderful question too. it is fun to think about. of course, we really don't know the answer and we can't know, but i can tell you my guess. lived, we can hope, let's put it this way, we can hope that he would've helped guide the country to a smoother reconciliation. that perhaps -- or construction was a very tough time -- reconstruction was a very tough time, in many ways it was harder on the south than the war it self was. wanted the really country to come back together in the worst kind of way, he really

did. he was all about the union. he loved the union. he loved the idea of this country and he always thought of this as one country. he never gave in to the idea that the south had actually succeeded. he used -- that the south had actually seceded. he didn't want to give in to the fact that they had seceded. he called them my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, which is an understatement if ever there was one. [laughter] he started out his first inaugural address, toward the end of that address, he reminded americans, we are not enemies. he said, we are friends, we must not be enemies. their passion may have strained, it must not break the bonds of affection between americans.

he spoke of the mystic court of memory stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave across the land to hearts. he spoke of the day when they would touch the better angels of our nature and bring us together again. in his second inaugural address, which is like the gettysburg address, truly a magnificent speech, he closes with those famous words -- he wants americans to treat each other with malice toward none and with charity for all. by charity, he met the old-fashioned, biblical sense of the word, brotherly love and goodwill toward each other. so lincoln was always about unity. towards the end of the war, the terms offered by unisys us grant to generally -- offered by theys s grant to general -- ulysses s grantby

lee.neral one of the generals said, how do we treat these people? lincoln said, let them off easy. wanted -- his idea was for a true reconciliation of north and south after the war. i would like to think if he had been around, maybe he could have helped that happen. as i said, faster and smoother than it did, but who knows? host: one of our social media followers wants to point out the things he sees in the address does the most beautiful and successful thread that runs through the gettysburg address is the equal amount of respect and dignity he gives to soldiers from both sides of the war. it's not every person who looks at their enemies with such respect. i think it goes to what you are

saying, he did not consider the south on enemy. they were his disaffected countrymen of the north. guest: that's right. right.ewer is he was trying to treat those with respect. when i said he was speaking to the northern people, i meant, in one respect he was, he was trying to tell them why they needed to fight on, what he really was speaking to all americans when he was talking look tow we all need to those founding principles that hold us together as one people and as one nation. host: thickly before we get back to calls, i want to talk to you a bit about your novel. abe." why did you decide to make this a historical novel rather than history book?

guest: i am a very passionate amateur historian, like a lot of americans are. not professional by training. i was a literature major. in some ways doing a novel was natural to me. the reason i wrote this book as a book of fiction, basically it is a story of the last five years of lincoln's life. so it starts with his nomination for the presidency in 1860. we are at his side every chapter and every page as he goes through the presidency and the civil war. i put a lot of research to try to make it historically accurate. just about everything happened in this novel. i don't leave a lot out. the characters walking around the pages were real people. his family. lysses grant. i wanted to bring lincoln to life for people and make him a

walking, talking, breathing fellow and not just of the image you see on the penny or the five dollar bill. that was the main purpose of the novel, was to bring him alive. i hope that people will read it and they will feel like they know this flesh and blood man. and i also hope that it helps them understand and remember just what an extraordinary service he performed for this nation. lincoln really was a giant hero in that epic struggle to save our country, defend our founding principles, and, of course, free millions of enslaved americans. i tell people that i think you will understand the american story better if you understand lincoln's story because in so many ways he stands centerstage in that magnificent story. the best way to tell the story is to say once upon a time and bring it to life through fiction and that is what i am try to do here. host: let's see if we can get

through some of our callers before we run out of time. we start with tom: from el paso, texas. cribb, thank you very much for this wonderful talk and all the information you are giving us. one thing i wanted to ask you is, what else did president , how did he look at the declaration of independence and what else did he feel about it? one thing is the declaration of independence, our rights are derived by our creator in that document, and i am wondering if there is additional insight you can give on what he thought about the founding fathers and what they laid on the line during the independence. guest: i think he had profound respect for them. ." called them "iron men

he was just one generation away from the founding fathers. the declaration of independence was his favorite founding document. that pretty much tells you what you need to know. that is the document he looked said, i have ats single political thought or sentiment that does not spring from the declaration of independence. who iset's go to lou, actually calling from gettysburg , pennsylvania. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. i have been in gettysburg over 40 years. i worked for the tour company for a few years. i noticed how many people would go to see the gettysburg address, not so much the battlefield. in particular, asian families and all their children had memorized the gettysburg address.

i was wondering, my question was, president lincoln's international effect today and in the past. thank you for taking my call. guest: he had a tremendous international effect. today, it is one the most recognized american names in the world. briefly, leo tolstoy, the great told an novelist great story at the turn of the 20th century to a reporter who went to see him and talked to him about lincoln, and tolstoy went on and on about what a giant lincoln was, the greatest of all americans. he said every american should know lincoln. i think we ought to take tolstoy's advice on that. host: let's go to wes calling

from north south carolina. good morning. caller: i read gore vidal's novel about lincoln years ago. at the end he said he -- there was a speaker before lincoln who spoke for one hour and then lincoln's speech came off as a dud and it was only years later that it came into the popularity that it is. is that the truth? or was it really accepted at the time as a great speech? guest: it is true that the speaker was edward everett, one of the most renowned orders of his day. he spoke for two hours before lincoln -- one of the most o of the day. rators -- he spoke for two hours before lincoln. one of the most renowned orators of the day.

there's a comment that talks about, lincoln said to him that speech will not scour. lamon, was the one responsible for people later on thinking that the speech was a newspapers, i said, people like henry long wordsworth longfellow, really prominent people soon after the speech were writing glowing things about it saying what a great speech at was. host: one of the things we know that lincoln thought about back then was he was worried about the future of the government of the people, by the people, for the people. pew, as ofng to the 2017, 96 of 177 countries with populations of at least 500,000 were democracies of some kind, and only 13% were not. do you think lincoln would be

less worried or more worried about the future of democratic governments today? guest: i think he would be astounded at the progress we have made in many ways. he and frederick douglass together, in many ways they could come back today, would be delighted with all the progress we have made in civil rights and other freedoms. as they looked out around the world, the march of democracy has been amazing. but i think they would also caution us again that every generation has to rededicate themselves to those founding principles. lincoln uses words like dedication and resolve in the gettysburg address, because he wants americans to realize that each generation has to take that test, and if we want to keep freedom alive both here and around the world. lou is calling from somerset, kentucky. good morning. caller: good morning.

i love the fact that our great general dwight d eisenhower and retired president chose to spend his last years overlooking this great battlefield. i feel like he did it in love for abraham lincoln and in memory of lincoln and all that he did to save our country. thank you. guest: thank you. yes, the eisenhower farm is a wonderful place to visit. if you go to gettysburg and you have time, go to eisenhower farm. it's been several years. my wife and i toured it several years ago. you get to see how he lived in retirement. it is wonderful. they used to sit together with the tv trays. sit and watch the evening news with each other over their dinners on tv trays every night. that.t to see all of

you are right, it is a fantastic place to visit. host: we would like to thank john cribb, historian and author of the historical novel "old abe ," for coming and discussing the 157th anniversary of the gettysburg address. john, thank you for being with us this morning. guest: thank you, jesse. i appreciate you having me. host: we would like to thank our guests, viewers and social media followers for sticking with us through c-span's "washington journal" this morning. be here tomorrow morning for another edition. wash your hands and have a great saturday, everyone. ♪ [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy, visit ncicap.org] ♪ >> from 1975 to 1979, the khmer

rouge regime under its leader pol pot rolled cambodia and killed millions of its was at we focused on story that no one has heard about. it was that he went to terry crisis -- it was the humanitarian crisis that occurred in 1979. father among others -- it is a story that is important and everyone should hear. atfilm maker sunday night 8:00 eastern on c-span q&a. ♪ today, a live conversation

with former president barack obama and his newly published memoir. he is interviewed by michelle norris and elizabeth alexander. easternay at 11:30 a.m. on book tv on c-span two. >> earlier this week, mark zuckerberg and jack dorsey testified on the 2020 presidential election and how their companies are combating misinformation. this first portion is one hour and 25 minutes.