building a better bay area for a safe and secure future. this is abc 7 news. >> hi there, welcome to the daily program called getting answers. today we have the stanford computer scientist who created a mod they'll can predict how the virus spreads in cities, including san francisco. we will talk about the new lawsuits being filed by the trump campaign with a leading bay area attorney who is part of lawyers for biden. we also have a guest that will talk to us about peaceful transitions. first a look at hot topics from midday live talking about the biden transition.

now, as we say this just getting word alameda county announcing they are pausing further reopenings saying they will likely move into the restrictive red tier very, very soon. yesterday every state in the country reported an increase in cases and we have the most hospitalizations than at any point in the pandemic. one advisor for president-elect joe biden floated the idea of a national lock down including shutting down businesses and paying people for lost wages. you recall yesterday i brought up the option because i thought that given the number somebody would suggest it very, very soon. israel had two shutdowns. many european countries. we have never had a national shut down. i am not sure that is legal because the power seems to reside with the states. what do you think? >> i think it is complicated. what does it mean to do a shut down? i am upon not sure how that is defined. do we go back to having shops

closed in addition to outdoor dining closing? i don't know how far back that we would be going with the shut down. that would need to be defined. i would want to know when would it happen. before the biden administration, that is never going to happen. as soon as the biden takes hold? maybe but as you just said i am not sure that is even enforceable. the other thing i don't know that it makes sense and dr. fauci pretty much said so this morning on good morning america. a place like san francisco with a 1.5% covid positivity rate. >> all right. again, we will have more on covid-19, including the stanford computer scientist two has a model that can predict how it spreads and where it tends to spread coming up later in the show. right now to the former utah governor, a republican that planned the transition for senator mitt romney in 2012

a few republicans congratulated biden publicly. romney and former president george w. bush. do you acknowledge the election results in the biden victory? >> i think it is quite apparent that former vice president biden is the president-elect. but i will say that there is no reason we can't begin a transition to a new administration and go through the process of validating the elections at the same time. >> the president-elect is moving ahead with the transition process. do you wish more republicans would speak out publicly about it and offer congratulations? >> the most important thing is that the biden team is moving

things forward to establish an effective and peaceful transition of power. there will be a lot of politics at play. that is the right thing to do. if in fact it doesn't or he does not the biden team needs to move forward and transition to be ready. >> all right. it seems like the biden transition team is doing just that even though they haven't released the funding or office space. no intel briefings yet. but people are worried that because the normal steps in the transition process are not happening yet that there could be security concerns for the u.s. like foreign players taking advantage of that are you

worried about that? >> transitions have special vulnerability and need to be carefully planned. i was a cabinet member when president bush transitioned into president obama. there are two types of employees, political or professional employees. in every department there are professional government career. es who know what to do and who are overseeing the process and bridging the transition. i am not worried about the security or an event particularly. i am worried that the biden transition could be i think one of the best in history because they are very well prepared. it would be better if there were cooperation and this should be a moment we look out for the country. >> we are starting to hear of

some cooperation that may be coming. hopefully the other things you are talking about as well will be happening. talk about what you have seen so far from the biden team that you like in terms of saying hey, this is how i planned it for romney. this is how we would have done it or can ensure a smooth transition. >> the first time that the law was used, it was the presidential transition act in 2012. i organized that process. i have been part of an organization called the center for presidential transition. we have been meeting with all of the campaigns for eight months now to help them understand should they become their party's nominee what they need to do and when they did become their party's nominee how to organize

a transition. transitions were done out of sight and to a large degree ignored after 2010 the government began to make resources available like office space, technology, access to government agencies. the biden campaign received some of those. once the gsa certifies them as the next winner it does not mean the election is over but the federal government can give them more. >> gsa administrator is a trumpp appointee and refused to sign off on that. do you think there is a possibility of making that person not a politically

appointed position so there will not be a hold up if the incumbent loses? there were refinements made in 2016. ted kaufman was a part of that effort as well. transitions are better planned now than in the past. we will transition. we will transition effectively. biden started four or five months ago planning this. that is different. >> right. >> it would clearly be better if there were cooperation between the two sides. >> i know you were for and romney as well. we know he announced his covid task force and has met with them and laid out priorities. in addition to that his website is full on with the

administration's priorities, covid, climate change. transition has four jobs. one, to put a team on the field and to implement the policies that the candidate running for president made to the american people. writing drafts of laws and executive orders. all of that has been going on for some time behind the scenes. the third thing, working with congress to be able to begin to create beach heads of support. and the care and the keeping of the president-elect between now and the inauguration.

you take something like national security. it would be helpful. it is a valuable thing but not an essential thing. the biden team is well prepared. i feel confident they will work their way through this. >> their slogan was ready from day one. i want to ask you if you see your former boss, romney taking a position in the biden administration. do you think that is possible? all right governor,

unfortunately we lost your audio. i wanted to hear that response badly. we thank you for your time. just know i appreciate your conversation and the expertise very much. ...this one's for you. you inspired us to make your humira experience even better... with humira citrate-free. it has the same effectiveness you know and trust, but we removed the citrate buffers, there's less liquid, and a thinner needle... with less pain immediately following injection.

ask your doctor about humira citrate-free. and you can use your co-pay card to pay as little as $5 a month. humira can lower your ability to fight infections. serious and sometimes fatal infections,... ...including tuberculosis, and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened,... ...as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems,... ...serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where certain fungal infections are common... and if you've had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections,... or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don't start humira if you have an infection. ask your doctor about humira citrate-free. the same humira you trust with less pain immediately following injection. if you can't afford your medicine, abbvie may be able to help.

welcome back as covid cases surge across the country and mayors issue new stay at home orders. more than ever we need to understand how the coronavirus

is spread. joining us now is the computer scientist that led the study. thank you so much for joining us. >> thank you for having me. we created a computer model that models mobility around the largest cities in the united states. because of the coronavirus mainly spreads through human contact we can accurately model and predict how the virus will spread. >> what kind of data did you look at? >> we studied the first wave. 10 largest u.s. metropolitan areas that combined have the

population of 100 million people. >> yeah. then we model how people from different neighborhoods visit the different points of interests like a restaurant, grocery store, pharmacy, gym and so on. >> so what did the data show you as to where and to when people are getting infected? >> on top of this data we we the model and then we can predict which people from each

neighborhood are infected well. one of the confusions is if if f would not stay at home or may. in a single month a third of the population would be infected. stay at home orders are really effective in stopping the spread. there are these super spreader locations responsible for 80% of all infections. >> and tell me, you know, what is it about those locations. talk to us about the density and the square footage. >> in our model and in our data

we captured both with how many people are in a given place at the same time as well as the square footage or the area and how long they stay there. there are places that are congregated densely and close together. sounds like rolling back capacity makes a lot of sense. >> exactly. what we find out is that one of the recommendations that we made is that reopening the economy is not an all or nothing type of a decision. you can basically reduce capacity by mandating a fraction of maximum occupancy and we find

out that it is an effective way to stop the spread of the virus. for example we find out what if you were to reopen points of interest 20% maximum capacity these points of interest would still have 60% of the customers coming and you would prevent 80% of all infections and seems like a very good tradeoff. thank you so much for your time. >> thank you very much for having me. >> all right. coming up next we will talk about this flurry of legal challenges for president trump and if they will change anything. we

>> we are back as more leaders worldwide acknowledge joe biden

as president-elect, donald trump continues his legal fights and unproven claims of voter fraud. now joining me to talk about the legal side of things, good to see you again, joe. >> it is an honor to be here. >> it is absolutely yours. i know you are busy. >> here is where we are. he filed over 350 lawsuits lawss the past month. we are now down to three states. pennsylvania, michigan and arizona. my roll is a go chair here on the west coast. our states were zone, nevada,nea

montana to a small extent. we seemed to have limited the lawsuits in nevada and are battling some in arizona. the real battle is in pennsylvania where a judge ruled a couple of hours ago that the secretary of state couldn't count certain notes. >> wasn't that about voters needing to the real battle is coming in arizona and michigan.

did they allow people to observe the counting of the votes. we are going here through this terrible period of coronavirus where you can't have people over your shoulders. they have to stand back six or ten feet and that became a lawsuit, many, many lawsuits. the whole thing is absurd, where it is all going. it is all trying to buy time so that they can get into the assembly house, the equivalent of it in pennsylvania, get the republicans to put out electors in the middle of december that will vote against biden. that is where it is all going. they want to make it where the results can't be

can they say since we can't decide what's what we are go to choose our own making sure they are republican ones. can they do that? >> i don't think they can. the biden campaign has fabulous lawyers working on it in d.c. and in the east. my job was on the west coast alone. we are on conference calls every day. we don't believe they can do that. we don't believe the republican legislature in pennsylvania will step down to that level. i don't think so. this election is over. they are trying to get a case up to the supreme court because of their insane feeling if they get up to the supreme court they will have a shot at gore v.

bush. >> in 200016 didn't they have a rule that kept electors to reflect the will of their state. that is the law as we understand it. however there is no given any one state there is no specific law that says that. there is a supreme court case that said that as to one state. now look, they are doing anything they can. the lawsuits they filed that i have seen and that i have read are ridiculous. courts have commented on it. one judge in michigan, i don't want to say that he laughed out loud but he virtually threw the people out of court saying that it was the worst thing he ever read. they don't care. all they are trying to do is to buy time and create havoc. let's stop all of the nonsense. they want to get to the supreme

court. >> it suspeis interesting the wn social media that is tossed around is fraud. but a trump campaign lawyer in court said this is not a fraud case or alleging fraud or saying anyone is trying to steal the election. he thinks there were good faith errors. it is interesting the message in a court of law and in public. >> you mean the tweets or twitters that use the word fraud in every other tweet and twitter the man puts out it was fraud in the election. you are absolutely right. any competent lawyer would never use the word fraud. they are now trying to say, and i might add that in some of the original cases filed in michigan and wisconsin the word fraud was used in the pleading. as a matter of fact you had one

situation where a declaration was signed under penalty of perjury and the person recanted saying it was

it's made for this guy a veteran who honorably served and it's made for her she's serving now we made it for all branches and all ranks whether they served one tour or made a career of it. we also made usaa for military spouses and their kids usaa is easy to work with and can save you money on auto, home and renters insurance. become a member today. get an insurance quote at usaa.com/quote usaa. what you're made of we're made for

>> we are back and thank you so much for joining us on this interactive show. we talked with the former utah governor who said transitions are a time where there is a lot of vulnerability but vice president and now president-elect biden has been planning for months and his team is well prepared and also said it is apparent biden is president-elect. which is something his former boss romney echoedas well. we talked with a team member

from stanford and you heard from the attorney talking about the legal challenges right tonight, the coronavirus, alarming new numbers just coming in as we come on the air. and the lines in new york city for testing. growing concern from coast to coast tonight. the testing here in new york and new restrictions amid fears of a new wave hitting the city. in parts of new jersey, nearly 1 in 5 testing positive, as the number of cases of the virus explodes across the u.s. well more than 100,000 new cases every day in america. and no signs of it slowing down. from ohio to wisconsin to california, now becoming the second state to hit 1 million cases. hundreds of people waiting in their cars to be tested at dodgers stadium. don't, we also have news on the pfizer vaccine and the vaccine in the works from moderna. and right here, our first look tonight at a treatment while america waits for these