captioning sponsored by cbs >> dickerson: i'm john dickerson in washington. and this week on "face the nation," turning the page to another chapter in the covid saga as spring turns into summer. as we mark the unofficial start of summer, there are more signs of life nearing normal. america's mood is improving, too, as the traditions of memorial day weekend are back. the head of the c.d.c., best known these days for her pitches to americans to vaccinate took to the mounds in honor of massachusetts' covid restrictions being lifted. another familiar face beamed as he opened the stock market last week. celebrating the end of new york restrictions and

honoring frontline workers. president biden's message: pace yourselves, please. but there is sunlight at the end of the tunnel. >> biden: as more americans get vaccinated, the gays grow brighter and brighter. but we're not done yet. >> dickerson: new incentives to get americans vaccinated are helping. >> biden: who would have thundthunk it. but it is working. >> dickerson: while the country moves ahead, president biden has ordered an intelligence investigation into the origins of the corovi 'll ask dr. scott gottlieb why finding the source is so important. and a year after george floyd's death, we'll talk about efforts to reform police work with art acevedo, as the c.d.c. issues new guidelines for customer camps, we'll check i with the head of the ymca of the u.s., and

stephen kaufer will give us a look at another summer activity, vacationing. finally, a conversation about a groundbreaking new study that looks at the toll covid-19 has taken our mental health with paul gionfriddo. it is all ahead on "face the nation." ♪ >> dickerson: good morning, and welcome to "face the nation." this memorial day weekend, where we honor those americans lost in wars fought to protect our country. despite the sobering holiday, america's spirit is on the rise. our senior national correspondent mark strassmann begins our coverage today from atanta. >> the park is now closed. >> reporter: sure, maybe these partiers in washington state over did it overnight. but you can also see why:

america is breaking a year long case of cabin fever. >> i'm glad the masks are coming off. we're going to head up to the lake. >> reporter: millions more are hitting the road. 37 million of us will travel more than 60 miles from home, that's a 60% jump from memorial day 202. on this weekend last year, pandemic gloom darkened every phase of american life. the vaccine was still months away. masking had become a must for millions. as a crisis, covid was only worsening. new cases trended up in 29 states. and now in 41 states new cases are trending dowet spoiled again because air travel is soaring again. so far this weekend, the t.s.a. has processed more than 3.5 million passengers. last year, not even 600,000 fliers. >> it is really a kickoff to a return to travel for so many people across the

country. >> reporter: prices are often higher for gas, rental cars, hotel rooms, and vacion house rentals. and with help-wanted signs all over, service may be disappointing. what has improved and attitudes. >> seeing the smiling faces without those masks is a sight we've all be looking for. >> reporter: health officials warn covid is not on vaccine. take new jersey's beach promotion called "shots at the shore." shots of the vaccine, not tequila. >> we're going to make it responsible for beach-goers to simultaneously get some sun -- cue the sun, please -- ae time, their first shot. >> reporter: 11 states have met the country's overall goal: 70% of adults have had at least one shot. with schools letting out, the c.d.c. says summer camps where every is fully vaccinated can return to full capacity without

masking orifice or fis dismantlin o o or physical distancing. atlanta is opening their city pools for the first time in over a year. there is limited capacity, and outside the pools, you have to wear a mask. but it is one more sign that life is starting to feel normal again. john? >> dickerson: mark strassmann, thank you. globally, the number of new cases and deaths are also going down, with europe leading the way with the largest decline last week. but the world health organization warns that the pandemic is far from over. senior foreign correspondent elizabeth palmer has more from london. >> reporter: good morning. let's start with some good news: fewer people are now dying in the covid global hotspots, which include india and brazil. and more than 1.8 billion vaccine doses have been given worldwide. the funeral fires in india

are still burning 24/7, but the country's infection is declining. it reported the slowest rise last week in a month and a half. in brazil, as president bolsonaro was mobbed by supporters during a motorcycle convoy through rio, medical centers were battling with variants, including one that may be killing pregnant women at a higher rate, as well as their babies. did the virus come from animals? either in nature or in one of china's so-called wet markets or from wuhan's institute of viralogy, where research on bat virus mutations took place? the chinese have refused access to the lab or its

records, and called the idea that covid came from a leak there a political conspiracy.[speaking foreign language] >> the united states does not care about facts and truth at all, nor is it interested in serious scientific tracing. >> reporter: but an american intelligence report says three wuhan lab workers fell ill with covid-like symptoms back in november 2019, a month before the first confirmed case was reported. so the possibility of a lab leak is under renewed scrutiny, as is the fact that american tax money was actually paying for some of that bat virus research going on in wuhan. john? >> dickerson: liz palmer in london, thank you. we go now to forme.a. commissioner dr. scottins us from west connecticut. he has just finished work on a book that will be out this fall titled

"uncontrolled spread: why covid-19 crushed us and how we can defeat the next pandemic." good morning, dr. gottlieb. >> doctor: good morning. >> dickerson: this week we have been talking a lot about the past. why is it there is a lot of conversation about how this pandemic started and why is that important? >> doctor: well, look, i think the challenge is that the side of the ledger that suggests this could have come out of a lab has continued to expand. and the side of the ledger that says it could have come out of nature really hasn't budged. we have done an exhaustive search for the so-called intermediate host, the animal that could have been a host to this virus, and we have not found such an animal. and we have disprove the food market initially implicated in the initial outbreak as the source of the outbreak. and china could provide evidence that would be

skuesculpt tory. they could have provided some of the original strains. they refused to do that. they could provide access to some of the early samples. they could have provide some of the sequence, and they have refused to do that. we know that that lab was poorly constructed, had poor controls, that was reported at the time it was first opened. we know that the lab was engaging in very high risk research, including infecting animals. and we know they were working with sars-like viruses, and now we have new evidence that some lab workers became infected at the time this virus is believed to have first been introduced. so that side of the ledger has expanded. in terms of your final question, why this is important, i think if we assess there is a possibility that this came out of a lab, it will

affct how we respond to this. we need to focus on how to get better controls on this high-risk research and the labs that conduct this research. incidentally, china was not conducting this research in a bsl lab. they were doing it in a lower security lab. >> dickerson: in terms of looking at this going forward, how we can defeat the next pandemic, your argument is it is important to know how this started in this case because there is this specific look, but there have also been other cases where security has been lapse and there have been leaks. so it is important to figure out what happened here to kind of lock the doors tight to keep it from happening again. >> doctor: that's right. this kinds of lab leaks happen all of the time. even here in the united states, we've had mishaps. in china, the last outbreaks of sars 1 have been from labs, including the last one, which was a

pretty extensive outbreak. and china wouldn't expose it came out of a lab. it was only exposed by journalists who traced that back to the lab. we need to get better inventory around these labs, make sure they're properly built. and we need to look at public health through the lens of national security. covid hurt the u.s. a lot more than it hurt a lot of other countries. looking at these kinds of risks through the lens of national security, including getting our intelligence services more engaged in this mission -- traditionally we've relied on international conventions and scientists working together, multi-lateral agreements, to try to assess the risk. sinink we need get place and use our tools of national security to help engage in that mission as well. >> dickerson: if there

were an answer to this question, would it help in any way with the way we're covering and responding to the coronavirus now? in other words, dealing with variants. is there a public health benefit to knowing this at this moment? >> doctor: not right now. what we know about the virus, we already know about the virus. there is nothing we're going to learn about the characteristics of the current origin by knowing where it came from. i think it helps -- we want to reduce the likelihoods, and that's what is very important. >> dickerson: what about in the past? there was a discussion of this in the response to the pandemic. people thought this might be one of the places it might have come from. if we had known for certain -- it is an open question if we ever could have known -- but if in the early days of the pandemic we had known it came from this lab, would that have changed in any way the response to the

pandemic? >> doctor: i'm not sure it would have affected how we responded to it. once they became epidemic in china and it escaped china, it was going to behave the way it behaved. i'm not sure there are things we would have learned or gleaned by knowing that it came out of a lab. we could ascertain t was pretty humanized by the time it started to spread in humans. this is more of a question going forward. and we may never determine with precision whether or not this came out of a lab. what we're likely to end up with is an assessment of probability. unless we get very lucky and find the intermediate host, where this is epidemic, and it could is first spilled over into humans, or we have a whistle-blower in china, or a regime change, which we're not going to have, i'm not sure we're going to find out with certainty this came out with a lab. we'll ultimately come up with an assessment or probability of whether this came out of a lab. it will take some more data to get a better assessment if this could

have come out of a lab. >> dickerson: is it your view that the chinese know the answer to this question? >> doctor: they would know the answer to the question because they would have blood samples from the workers in that lab. that's the evidence they haven't made public. if in fact the blood samples show a high prevalence of people in that lab have been exposed to this virus, that is a pretty proof it courseed coursed through that lab. there is no question when they had an outbreak of an illness in that lab, they would have done routine blood sampling in that lab. that is normal controls in a lab of that quality. they would have that information. >> dickerson: dr. ¿coómo scott gottlieb, thank you for being with us. and fashi "face the nation" will be back in a moment with miami police chief art acevedo. please stay with us.

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been an uptake in violent crime and major cities, breaking overnight in miami-dade. two people were killed and more than 20 wounded in a mass shooting at a concert at a banquet hall. art acevedo is the chief of miami police. good morning, chief. >> good morning. >> dickerson: i know this shooting was not in your jurisdiction, but can you tell us anything more about what happened last night? >> i can tell you that is the second shooting in the greater miami-dade area. we had our own shooting the night before where seven people were shot, and one dead. that's 30 shot, two dead in the greater miami-dade area. and it is just an indication of the problem we have with the scourge of gun violence in this country. we need to do much more at a federal level to stop. >> dickerson: you wrote "mass shootings continue to occur on a major basis, and the government talks about the militaryization

of the police on the right. gun violence is a public health epidemic our nation needs to address." how do youth that health epidemic, as you call it, should be addressed? >> first and foremost, they need to come out of their own corners, the left and the right, and come to the middle. we need to have universal background checks. we need to make burglarizing these licensed gun stores a federal crime with mandatory sentencing. and we need the federal government and both sides to address this issue. because without legislation and certainty as it relates to holding these criminals accountable, we're never going to get through the summer without more death and destruction. not to mention that our criminal court system is absolutely at a stand still. they're not moving cases. thousands of felons are running around and cases languishing three to five years before even going to court. >> dickerson: is that backlog of cases, as a

result of the pandemic, is that related to the gun violence or is that just an adjacent issue you're concerned about? >> i think that backlog started before the pandemic. for example, in harris county, where i came from in houston, there are 60,000 felons running around facing charges, almost 2,000 murderers running around, and our criminal justice system is at a stand still. it is time for the president and governors to get our court systems up and running. ican assure you there weren't 30 police shootings in the metro area. it starts with the federal commission, getting our criminal justice system back on line, and having real consequences for these felons that are carrying these firearms that are not afraid of death, but they're afraid of state prison. and we need to deliver some safety to the american people. >> dickerson: you mentioned you were the chief in houston, in

texas. in texas, legislators approved a bill that allows people to carry a handgun without a background check. the governor is about to sign that into law. as the police try to do their job, will that help or hurt the police do their job? >> there is something that god gave us, and that is common sense. common sense tells us that is ridiculous, police chiefs and police and labor came together and made it real clear we do not support constitutional carry here in texas or anywhere in this country. again, it is a slogan that appears that we support the blue. it is only supporting the blue in word. you're either with law enforcement or you stand with the fringe that believe that everybody should have a firearm regardle character, their capabilities or their mental capacity.

>> dickerson: so what does that mean on the police end, thon that manner? >> that means that we will not be able to even question someone as to their intent. we won't be able to take any action until that person draws that firearm, walks into that theater, and decides to shoot. we are better than this. americans are better than this. i think it is time for the common sense to rule the day instead of the rhetoric and theo the out of touch left and right. and sadly the rest of us are stuck here in the middle. >> dickerson: you are the president of the major city's police association. that association reported some numbers on crime this year so far. 22% increase in homicides, 8.5% increase in aggravated assaults. why are those numbers up? a multiple of reasons. number one, we have been

dealing with covid. number two, our american court system has been pretty much shut down. there haven't been jury trials in large numbers in a long time across our country. and, number three, we entered an era where politicians have forgotten how violent our cities used to be. in harris county, you have commissioner rodney ellis that believes no one should be held preconviction. go tack to the people in harris county who are being shot, children are being buried, because we're not holding people pre-trial. and the last thing is: we have not been taking these criminals to court, putting them to trials, when it is taking three to five years to put people to a trial, and they're running free. and the results are what we're seeing: a tremendous increase in gun violence in this countr w starteaki up ag and manding ouelake

action, we'll more bloodshed. >> dickerson: a year ago george floyd was killed, and you said, it makes me worry about the good police officers, and it makes me worried about the extended community. a year later, what is your state of worry in the country, and what's your view on police reforms that you've seen so far? >> what's significant? it is significant because the george floyd act, it seems that both sides are at a standstill. the inner city chiefs have put together some very thoughtful positions on this, and we're hoping that the members of congress will take heed and use it as guiding prieprinciples and documents. i think my worry is as we continue to talk about defunding the police, instead of making the police better and investing in good policing, on the right we're talking about more guns for everybodyd is going to be a long

summer. >> dickerson: chief. we've run out of time. thank you for your time. stay safe, and we'll be back with a lot more "face the nation." stay with us.

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♪ >> dickerson: we pause today to take note of the importance of memorial day. and to honor the men and women in the military who have died to keep america safe. president biden is expected to travel to arlington cemetery tomorrow to lay a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier. he spoke on friday. >> biden: every one of these lives lost is a tragedy, an empty seat at the dinner table, a missing voice on the holidays. every one of them left behind a whole community, not just one, a whole community. we can never repay that debt. but i promise you this, to all of the gold-star families across the country: we will never, ever, ever forget.

each year memorial day offers us a chance to reflect on the enormity of the sacrifices that generation after generations of americans have made, and the sphat we bear, the citizens bear, in return. >> dickerson: we thank all who served or serve in the armed forces and honor those who sacrificed, and those who sacrificed, and the families they left behind. back in a moment. to live longer. mean a e opdivo plus yervoy is for adults newly diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer that has spread, tests positive for pd-l1 and does not have an abnormal egfr or alk gene. opdivo plus yervoy is the only fda-approved combination of two immunotherapies opdivo plus yervoy equals... a chance for more starry nights. more sparkly days. more big notes.

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♪ ♪ >> dickerson: welcome back to "face the nation." as some parents prepare to send their kids off to camp this summer, the c.d.c. revised its covid guidelines for children, particularly those who have been vaccinated. one of the largest providers of day and overnight camps is the ymca of the u.s.a. and joining us now from philadelphia its is president and c.e.o. kevin washington. good morning, mr. washington. >> good morning. glad to be here this morning. >> dickerson: we're glad to have you. last year summer camps were significantly curtailed as a resofthe paemic. now the c.d.c. has come out with this guide lans. wha