cnewshour produns, llcby >> woodruff: good evening. i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight: in the wrong direction. authorities attempt a course correction in their pandemic response, as covid-to's daily deat tops 1,000 in the u.s. for the first time since may. then, rising tensions. the u.s. orders a chinese consulate in houston closed, alleging theft of data and intellectual property. plus, the hunt for a vaccine. as medical developers race against the clock, questions delivery of an eventual prevention. and, america addicted. the pandemic causes a dramatic rise in overdoses, as people

struggling with addiction lose icss to treatment. >> aon is a disease of isolation, and no one chooses to have addiction any more so than someone chooses to have diabetes or multiple sclerosis. >> woodruff: all that and more, on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding fhe pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ >> fidelity alth management. >> bnsf railway. >> consumer cellular. vi johnson & johnson. >> financial sces firm raymond james. >> supporting social entrepreneurs and their solutions to the world's most

pressing problems-- skollfoundation.org. >> the lemelson foundation. committed to improving livesio through inventn, in the u.s. and developing countries. on the web at lemelson.org. >> supported by the john dan catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more world.verdant and peacul more information at macfound.org >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: >> this program was mae possible by rporation for public broadcasting. andby contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you.th k you. >> woodruff: more deaths, more infections, and more restrictions. the spread of the coronavirus pandemic shows no sign o easing, and officials are

scrambling to respond. stephanisy begins our coverage. >> reporter: theummer surge of infectio is now fueling a surge in deaths-more than 1,000 over 24 hours, for the first time in weeks. as of today, california leads the nation in confirme infections, with state officials hoping they can cope >> i think we all look at our initial strategy of trying tbe prepared for a number of days with a high number of cases d ensuring that we have this surge capacity in our hospital system. >> reporter: in texas, more than 500 women at a feder medical prison in fort worth have tested prison outbreaks to date.gest elsewhere, washington, d.c., ohio and minnesota joined thest growing f governments issuing mandatory mask orders. and, the surge has forced more scnols that planned to re-o in the fall to opt for remote instruction instead. all of this as testing delays

and shortages in personal protective equipment are, again, growing acute. at a house hearing in washington today, the head of the federalnc emermanagement agency, pete gaynor, acknowledged shortcomings. >> the majority of p.p.e. is made oshore: china, malaysia, vietnam. this is a national security issue, p.p.e., and we've seen how critical that is to protecting lives and minimizing suffering, so we are on a path to increase u.s. production in the u.s. >> reporter: and, thrtment of health and human servicesea signed a ny-$2 billion contract today with pfizer and a german-led biotech firm for the first 100 miion doses of a potential virus vaccine by but, the vaccine hot completed clinical trials, much less been f.d.a.-approved. meanwhile in the "new york times," tom frieden, the former director of the centers for disease control and prevention,o warncritical data gaps in

an opinion piece. and, he said t government's lack of coordination is hampering efforts to stop the covid-19 spread. on the economic front, efforts continue to craft a lief package at the capitol. senate republicans remain divided on how much to spend-- and on what-- but th talk of a short-term extension of unemployment benefits. they are due to expire on july 31. for the pbs newshour, i'm stephanie sy. >> woodruff: with more than1, 0 deaths reported yesterday, many states are struggling to contain covid outbreaks. as we just heard, to slow the pandemic, former c.d.c. head dr. tom ieden says the country desperately needs to get a better handle on how the virusea is sng. and to do that, he says, we need a much better collection of data.. ieden joins me now. he ran the c.d.c. from 2009 to 2017, and is now president of resolve to save lives, a global

dr. frieden, thanko much for talking with us. before we talk about your plan, let me quickly ask you about the testing delays, which we are learning are an evenigger problem than we had realized a few months ago. what can be done about this? >> it's really important tocu on what matters. there's been too much focus on the nuer of tests and not enough focus on whether they're being done in the right way, on the right people, with the right actions taken when they come back. there e different types of tests out there. the biggest problem are in the large commercial labs. test that come back five, six, seven days, letenlone or 14 days are of very little use. so if weear there are 500,000 or 700,000 tests done, th's much less relevant than knowing what proportion of tests come back within 24 hoto 4s. we need to focus on what's important so we can improve our response. >> woodruff: dr. frieden, you

are calling in your proposal fod the states to a much better nob of reporting data, essential data o this coronavirus outbreak. what is it that not available now that is needed, that we need to know? >> judy. what was really surprising in this analysis is that it's not a state's fault. there isn't a national standard, and the two crucial things that we don't havees a to are what is our personal risk of getting infected with covid if we go out, and how well is ournt governnd society doing in our community to reduce that if we know those two things, we can focus and improve and get back -- or get to the new normal. >> woodruff: and what's it going to take to gethat information? is this easily gettable or not? >>ome of it is. indicators.ed 15 essential of those 15, nine are pretty easily achievable, not very

easily, but most places can get that, at least modifies of that, in -- at least most of that in some way. some needs to d bee much better in terms of race, ethnicity, age, otherrm inion on cases of hospitalizations, cases and deaths over time. so i w thi can get some of that information fairly soon, but, really, the more timport information is about how well our response is going, whether tests are quick, whether patients are getting isolated promptly, ether contacts are being identified and quarantined before they develop the disease, these are the essentialeasures at we need to track and improve to be able to get our society and economy back. if we get this right, our kids the fall, we'll be able to goin back to work, our economy will recover, and we'll save tens of thousands of lives. but if we're flying blind and we don't know how badly we're doing, we' not going t improve it. >> woodruff: i want to quote a

doctor at vanderbilt quoted in a "new york times" story today about your proposal, william shatner, says he welcomes your proposal but says few states have thepe ise and money needed to generate this data, to analyze is data. he says it's a great ideal but it's not something many states can rea realistically do o affod to do. >> bill schaffner is one of my favorite infectious diseasee experts and just about always gets it right. i think he's correct, that states are looking at an enormous challenge. thdata feeds coming in are complex, they're not necessarily accurate there's problem wit duplicating patients. but the c.d.c. has sent out me than $10 billion to state and local health departments, and congress, this week, is debing the next supplemental appropriation. there's dinitely a need for improved data systems all over,

county, state and federal. if we don't have those, it willr beto get this information, but many states have some of mostinformation, and states can get most of it. >> woodruff: i think some people whoay be listening to this, dr. frieden, saying, wait a minute, is this just a matter puttingg questions, some information into a computer, it doesn't sound like it that difficult. what do you say to that? >> well, o of the challenges is how heterogeneous our healthcare and laboratory system is in this country. so one health department might be getting data irom hundreds or thousands of different unproviders, in dozens oreds of different formats at different time frames. we iny organization resolved to save lives have worked with one state to streamline that information, deduplicate it. it's a big job. it hard. doesn't mean it can't or shoulden be done. the other big part of thisio informis program information, and, there, it's not just about information, it's

about theob we're doing. contact tracing, reaching patients, telling them they're services, getting them isolated. that requires a large number of highly-trained people, disease investigators, interviewers, who have aon combinaof social work skills, medical knowledge, detective skillso find people d skills to support people with coved their contacts. >> woodruff: ake serson for the c.d.c. is saying that we're already doing this, we are already in touch with the states to do what 14 of the 15 measurements that you're calling for. so they're saying they're almost >> well, what we see in the data web sites is tha a single state in the country had most of these indicators up, and most states in the country only had about a fifth o them available on their web site. so we're a long way from where we need to go, but i do think

that, with pressure on states to put this information up and support to states from the federal governmt, from healthcare providers, from the community and demands thw we should kat's our risk and what's our response, we can see get us all on the same page.ca if we're all on the same page, we can erimprove ourrmance and begin to get the upper hand against covid >> woodruff: dr. tom frieden, former director of the c.d.c., now with resolve to save lives. thank you so much. >> thank you, judy. news, the u.s. ordered china to close its consulate in houston by friday-- the latest move insc anating campaign of pressure. the state departme a cited concerut espionage and intellectual property theft.

we will look further into thisor after the news summary. president trump announced today that he is sending hundreds more federal agen to chicago, kansas city and albuquerque, new mexico to fight violent crime. they will be drawnrom the f.b.i., the u.s. marshals, the bureau of alcohol, tobacco and firearms, and from the department of homeland security. local police will also receive millions of dollars in federal aid to hire more officers. in chicago, democratic mayor lori lightfoot angrily dismissed the president's announcement as a political stunt. she also appealed for public help, after 15 people were shot outside a funeral home on tuesday. officials say the shooter fired from a moving vehicle in a gang-related attack. the mayor called for an end to the bloodshed. >> this senseless violence, this cycle of retaliation,

picking up a gun-- many times in petty grievances. picking up a gun, that solves nothing, but causes so much lifelong pain. >> woodruff: separately, afe ral judge today heard arguments in portland, oregon ov the actions of federal agents, amid anti-racism protests. the state alleges that they have arrested people without probable cause and without idenfying themselves. the trump administration says that the agents are defending federal property against violence. the u.s. house of representatives voted today to remove a bust of supreme court chief juice roger taney, whoed authhe infamous "dred scott" decision. in that 1857 case, taney, ofla ma, upheld slavery and said blacks had no rights that whites had to respect. today, his bust sits o a room in the capitol where the court met for decades.

but, democratic leader steny hoyer, also of maryland, said it's time to promote the nation's true ideals. >> what dred scott said was that "black lives did not matter!" so when we assert that "yes, they do matter," it is out of conviction and conscience and appropriateness that in america, ave land of the free and the home of the that the land of the free include all of us! marshall, a maryland native and the first black supreme court justice, would replace the taney image. the bill also calls for removing statues of pro-slavery or confederate leaders. but, it is unclear if the senate will aor if president trump will sign it. the house also approved the great american outdoors act today.nd the rk legislation would pump nearly $2 billion a year into improving national parks,

fighting climate change and locating parks in inner cities. the bill aeady passed the senate, and now goes to the president. in israel, police broke up fresh protests overnight, aimed at ousting prime minister benjamin netanyahu. clusters of demonstrators clashed with police oue netanyahu's official residence. officers said they arrested 34 people, and broke up the gathering. the long-time prime minister is under growing criticism over his handing of t covid-19 pandemic and his trial on corruption charges. twitter says that it is banning accounts and content linked to a far-right conspiracy theory. q-anon alleges that president trump faces enemies in the so-called "deep state." he, in turn, has promote various q-anon posts. twitter sa it is acting to bar any posts that could cause harm to others. and on wall street today, the dow jones industrial average gained 165 points to close at

27,005. the nasdaq rose 25 points, and the s&p 500 added 18. the u.s. orders a ee newshour: consulate closed, alleging theft property. intellectual medical developers race againsta the clocquestions remain about delivery of an eventual prevention. drug overdoses increase dramaticallyas people struggling with addiction lose access to treatment. and, much more. >> woodruff: a global fight escalates again.da s move to close the chinese consulate in houston is the latest action by the trump ad.nistration against beiji

nick schifrin reports on what is at stake. >> schifrin: in the courtyard of china's houston consulate, inese staff in a hurry. they burned documents in drums last night, after theon administrardered the consulate closed, citing a espionage. chinese the >> we are setting out clear communist party is going to behave. and when they don't, we're going to take actions that protect the american people. >> schifrin: administration and inlligence officials tell pbs newshour, the chinese have used the houston consulate as a hub for espionage. just yesterday, the department of justice for the first time accused chinese hackers ofr working th personal gain and the communist party. >> china hasacow taken its alongside russia, iran and north korea, in that shameful club of nations that provide a safe hen for cyber criminals in exchange for those criminals being "on call" for the benefit of the state. >> schifrin: but senior

officials tell pbs newshour, today was also about diplomatic in january, out of of covid, the u.s. evacuated its wuhan consulate.en it has not re-, because of a dispute over whether u.s. employees have to quarantine ant take covid-19 upon arrival at chinese airports. longer term, u.s. officials say they want to rpruce their fot in china. in addition to the beijing embassy, the u.s. has five consulates on the chinese mainland, and the hong kong consulate. senior oicials say they've acpted the likely permanent closure of one consulate, and intend to move it elsewh asia. foreign ministry spokeswoman wang wenbin warned of that likely closure today. >> ( translated ): china strongly condemns the decision and urges the u.s. side toel immedirecall the wrong ilcision. otherwise, chinatake legitimate and necessary countermsures. >> schifrin: publicly, chineseem diplomatasize mutual respect and criticize u.s. policy as self-defeating. foren minister wang yi gave major speech on july 9. >> ( translated ): the current

based on ill-inforrategicis miscalculation, and is fraught with emotions and whims, and mccarthyist bigotry. its suspicion abt china, which is totally uncalled for, has reached a point of paranoia. >> schifrin: but the administration is clear, it will continue to target and penalize china until its behavior changes. laafter beijing passed legon that restricted hong kong's freedoms, prident trump signed a bill that allowed new sanctions. >> thank you.if >> sn: and then, a series of speeches. national security advisoron robert o'brienhe ideology of the chinese communist party, or c.c.p. to create a commun commonal is destiny for mankind and to remake the entire world, according to the c.c.p. >> schifrin: f.b.i. director christopher wray. >> if you are an american adult, it is more likely than not thatn has stolen your personal data. >> schifrin: and attorney general william barr. >> the ultimate ambition of with the united stit is toade

raid the united states. >> schifrin: u.s.-china relations are at their lowest point since relations began in 1979. take thease of hou. >> the eyes of texas were on deng xioping today. >> schifrin: in 1979, then- chinese leader deng xioping vited the city, and the johnson space center.n houss the first chinese consulate in the u.s. but while some china-watchers worry about the confrontation,mi the trump stration says it's overdue. >> for an awful long time, our policies simply reflected allowing china to engage in behavior that was radically reciprocal, enormously unfair to the american people, an frankly, put america's national security at risk. we ve beg to turn that around. >> schifrin: we explore now the effectivess of these recent moves, with susan thorton. she had a 28-year career as an american diplomat, fociaing on she's now a visiting lecturer at yale law school. and, gordon chang lid ndworked in mainland china hong kong for nearly two decades, where he practiced law.

hilatest book is "the grea u.s.-china tech war." welcome, both of you, to the t ewshour". susan thornton, begin with you. do you believe the closure of the chinese consulate in houston is in u.s. interes? >> i would just put this in context, to begin with, and notk that, yow, closure of a consulate outside of wartime isl an exceed rare move in diplomacy. so i guess, you know, this is the only unilateral closure of a u.s. consulate that i'm aware of, other than the russian-san francisco consulate in which was aery different circumstance and involved a lot of discussions with the russians ahead of time. i think, you know, many other countries share our concerns about china, the challenges that oses to international law and order and to our enomic competitiveness, but this kind of action gives the impression of recklessness, and it's notle really to me what it accomplishes. >> reporter: gordo chang,

recklessness and not clear what it accomplishes, do you believe the closure was in u.s. interests? >> i certainly believe this was the right thing to do. the state department talked abt protecting u.s. intellectual property, and the houston con alate is knos a hub for espionage. we have been talkin to china about hacking and all the rest of these things for about three decades, and, yet, we haven't go hen anywhere. the agreement with chinese leader xi jinping in september 2015 f countries not to hack each other for commercial purposes, wead the section 301 tariffs that were supposed to be a remedy for the theft of u.s. intellectual property, but china has continued to still u.s. i.p. in the hundreds of billions of dollars a year. yes, you could s this is unfortunate, closing the consulate, but we had to do something to try to get china to >> reporter: susan thornton, as we just laid out in the piece at aired right before we started, there have been a series of speeches by u.s.ni adration officials laying out some of the concerns, including the ones that gordonen

justoned. do you believe that kind of rhetoric is helpful toward achieving what the u.s. is trying to do with china? >> well, i think, from where i sit, the real problem is that we need a very nuanced and that you felt strategy to take on the very complicated challenge that china presents, and, right now, it seems like we have tough attitude and a lot of account for a strategy and don't have any clear accomplishments. i mean, our trade balance is worse than it was when we started this so-called china strategy, our position in the asia-pacific has deteriorated, and i think a lot of countries are looking at what we're doing and not sure that we have that kind of clear strategy thought through, and i think -- i'llju associate myself with the words of a pretty wise elder statesman i heardesterday who said that, in this competition,

if china comes out on top, it will be because things happened ne the u.s., not because of things that hapin china. >> reporter: gordon chang, respond to those arguments that susan thornton sees a tough attitude but no strategy and actually negative consequences to u.s. decisions. >> well, i know susan talked about a thoughtful and nuanced strategy, and that certainly sounds good to thear. the problem is we've had thoughtful and nuanced strategies f aor decades, while we've done this, china has not moved in the right directions. you know, we had hoped to integrate china into the international system, that it would enmesh itself and become nign, but, unfortunately, china has moved in very belligerent and provocative directions, and, so, we need to change strategy. now, this strategy is pretty young, and i can understand her comments that it doesn't seem like it's working, but i actually do believe it is.

in any event, i don't think we had any choice but to try something different because what decadeseen doing for just wasn't working. >> reporter: susan, if i could ask specifically about what thra trump adminion has done and done something different, as gordon chang just put it, new visa requirements on state-sponsored supporters, responsibleor the crackdown, extended bans on huawei, beginning to punish china over hong kong, actually a longer list, do you believe some of these decision have been the right ones? >> look, nick, i don't want to get into every single decision and the merits and demerits of it ande don't hav time, but what i would say is the u.s. sperves a specia in the world because of our values and our example, and in many of these measures, what we are doing insu pg reciprocity with china, is we're going down into the dch with china and

we're seeing who can go lower. i think at the end of the daye the chinill win that fight, and i don't think it's a fight worthy of the united states. we have always maintained the openness o our society as a positive attribute, we have been confident i our foreign policy and in our economic competitiveness, and i think we iould remain so, a think we strategy and not this kind off a andgoing into the ditch withn them. that's my view. >> gordon chang, when ask senior u.s. administration officials what their goal is, it chinese behavior, both short term and long term. do you think that's possie? >> it may be very difficult because china's brand of communism, i think, is not capable of reform. you know, we have tried to do that four or five decades and we have not achieved the results everybody was hoping for and we with regard to chi sameecide

decisions that were made in the 1940s a 1950 sz, with regard to the soviet union, that ths a competition that unfortunately was a zero-sum game. it was china's existential challenge to the united states, and if we're goingo defend ourselves,t's not going into the ditch with china, it's actually trying to preserve our way of life, our freedom, our economy, and we are going to have to take measureshat will cost us. we cannot think we will engage in five decades of misguided policy and not end up costing ourselves as we try to extricate the united states and the internatiol system. >> reporter: gordon susan thornton, two sides of this debate. thank you very much to you both. >> woodruff: it might be the most pressing question in thewi world: whe we have a covid vaccine?

fris week has seen a number of headlines on thit, and today, the trump administration awarded a nearly $2 billionct conto pfizer and a german bioth firm to potentially deliver 100 million doses by year's end. there have also been early, but encouraging, results from other trials. miles o'brien is here to help sort through it all for our reporting on "the leading edge" of science. so, miles, hello to you. tell us, how soon is it thought that we might have a vaccine and how much vaccine are these companies that are developing them promising? >> judy, it's just unprecedented, when you think about it. here we are about six months since the chinese published the genetic code of the sarsv- c virus, the novel coronavirus, and, currently, there are about 140 vaccine ideas, not in human trials, and about two dozen in

the midst of human trials. now, yesterday on capitol hill, reprentatives of three of t big pharma companies testified fore congress and indicated they are prepared to beginass testing on humans to see if these vaccinesyare effective the end of the year, and can tell you no one would have predicted this six months ago. this quickly, though, miles, how do we know they're not cutting corners? >> well, they are cutting corners, but they say not on safety. what they're doing, judy, which is kind of clever rndky, is they're manufacturing vaccines that they are currently testing. the id is if they go through the trials and there effective and ey're protective and theyen get the g light, the pump will b primed, and if not, if they don't work, they'll just have tond incinerate take that risk. now, members of congress on that committee are concerned that there mighonbe pressur the f.d.a., political pressure, to

green light ay vaccine that not be protective enough sometime thisall, perhaps even before the election. the bar set by the f.d.a. is 50%. that means at least 50% of the people who are inoculated would have some defenses against this novel coronavirus. now here's a short excerpt from the committee chairman, frankem palone,ratic of new jersey, chairman of the house committee energy andmm ce along with mykaya dawogiho is with johnson an johnson. questioning macaya douoguih, head of clinical development and johnson: &fair >> i want you to kind of assume what unfortunately shouldn't happen, which is, you know, that the f.d. is approving the drug even though it's only 10% or 20% effective. will you tell us that you feel an obligation to tell us that and give us that information? we would design our tri actually to target the efficacy that's outlined in our targetod t profile. the study would fail if it hit 10%. we would make those results available, but we would not feei comfortable br forward a product that did not-- that was

not found to be efficacious according to what we put forth >> the one advantage in all of this, judy, is the nature of science. it is the open enterprise and transparency is what it's all about, and if there was an attempt to make any of this secret, it's hard to overstate the cry from researchers. if people will confidently take these vaccines, you need transparen so they understandhe what's in and what the side effects might be. >> woodruff: so, miles, what these peer-reviewed journals, and is there reason for mism? >> in a word, yes. there were three papers that dropped early this week, two of them peer-reviewed in the british journal, the lancet from the oxford astrazeneca team, and preliminary results from the pfizer bion tech team. no airstrike -- dvthing seriouse

and a pretty solid immune response with antibodies, which th go after the virus itself, and t-cells which are in our blood system, and they areed desio go after the cells that have been infected with the virus and kill them. so all these vaccines are in a position to go t what they call phase three trials, meaning large numbers of people to see if they're protectiv enough. we're talking about studies of 30,000 people or so,nd that will determine if the vaccine is good enough to be released to the public. >> woodruff: and, myles, when we talk out dosages people would receive, we're talking about two doses of a vacci per person. is that right? >> yeah. so far, those three contenders 're talking about and the ones at the later stages all, it appears, would require twodo s, which, of course, complicates things. we are talking about, after a,

potentially the entire planet times two, that' a huge supply least.ssue, to say the this brings us to an important point, we don't know w long the antibies effect, the t e cellsect, the immune response will last. there's no short cut on the efficacy studies. the editor of an influential blog called in the pipeline. chemist derek lowe is a veteran new-drug investigator, and theth of a highly respected blog on this subject called "in the pipeline." >> there is nothing in those papers, and there is no way there coulbe anything, because that is one of the major unsolved questions in vaccine work and in immunology in neral, is, how long immu memory last and why it lasts longer in some cases? we are just going to have toan wait it oukeep an eye on it and say, "okay, we are now recommending our booster at the two-ar level," or whatever, "we may have another vaccine by then we like better."

but there is nother way now than to just wait and see. it's frustrating, but that's tht state of the >> the same goes for safety, too, judy. on that.no way to do a shore cut there could be some long-term effects of these vaccines. it's highly unlikely, butsa researcher given the global pandemic and the emergency surrounding it, this is probably worth the risk.oo >>uff: so it does sound promising, but, miles, what is known about how much this is going to cost and who's going to pay for it all? >> well, the tpayers are funding a lot of money right now. all of us are funneling into this warp-speed program to fund some of this. but the question is how will t dosages be paid fort a the other end. at the congressional hearing yesterday, executives from pfizer, moderna and mer said they would, in fact, be seeking a profit on these vaccines but astrazeneca and johnson &

johnson said they would deliver thef vaccines, successful, to the government at cost, presumably distributed for free but the key is how do you >> woodruff: wow, somethingy. that everybody is interested miles o'brien, following the vaccine story. miles, thank you. >> you're welcome, judy. >> woodruff: dg overdoses killed nearly 72,000 americans last year. record high, according t preliminary data released last week by the centers for disease control and prevention. it n appears that 2020 is on track to be en worse, as the tion has seen a startling rise in overdoses the last few. mont william brangham examines what could be behind these latest numbers.

ngham: in early april, like so many americans, -year- old sara wittner was struggling with the new realities of life during the pandemic. so, she called up her dad, leon. >> when the pandemic started, she asked if she could come live with us, because she wanted that family support. she knew that the worst thing for her too during this pandemic was to sit at home alone. >> brangham: i spoke with leon, and sara's sister, grace, via skype near their home in broomfield, colorado. they told me that sara had struggled with addiction for eit years. it started when she was prescribed opioids after she had surgery on her ear in 2012. but, prior to the pandemic, she'd seemingly turned a corner. she was working at a lal health association, and was planning her wedding in the fall.as >> it as worried about sara now than i was about her in the past. sara completed multiple says treatmenprograms in recent years, including 30 days of in-patient treatment in january.

she was also regularly attending narcotics anonymous meetings. >> in addition, she would just be able to call a friend and go get coffee and have that one-onn one connec and that was extremely helpful to her. i think, really helped herbined, sobriety. and then that was completely gone when th>>pandemic hit rangham: sara was also told there would be a delay in her medically-assisted treatment.ki she was monthly shots of vivitrol, a drug that helps block people's cravir opioids. >> she normally had a 30-day appointment to he the vivitrol shot, which is the time that it really is effective for. and because of the pandemic, they pushed all the appointments out, and her appointment ended of being at 45 days instea 30.o >> brangham:rmally, she would get a shot every month, pretty regularly, every 30-day window. but then the pandemic stops that normal process? >> yeah. it added 15 days onto that

process, and that days were a tough 15 days for her. >> brangham: that delay, her dad says, led to sara relapsing.pr and on 16-- one day before her next vivitrol shot-- sara was found by her sister grace, her bedroom, a syringe in her hand. sara died. her dad believes it was an overdose of fentanyl, the powerful synthetic opioid. could. hd on as long as she she passed ay on thursday morning. and the re unfortunate piece for us is, her doctor's appointment for the shot was friday. so, it was like she was going to make it to that last "one last i time andl be fine, and then i'll get to the doctor and i'll be okay." >> brangham: tragically, sara wittner's story is becoming more common across the u.s. while overdoses were already on the rise before the start of the covid-19 pandemic, the public health crisis is only making matters worse.

drug-related deaths have risen a rage by 13% so far this year, according to data collected from both local and state governments. and the american medal association recently reported that 39 states have seen a spike in opioid-related overdoses. in some places-- likcook county, illinois, which includes chicago-- opioid overdose deaths have doubled since last year. in nearby dupage county, they are up by about a third, according to coroner richard jorgensen. >> when i loed through these deaths, overwhelmingly, these were people that lived alone. they were having financial difficulties, maritalic dities, previous problems with addiction, or mental health problems. so, these are the very needy of our society. and what do they need? they need community. >> addiction is a disease isolation, and no one chooses to have addiction any more so than someone chooses to havetes or multiple sclerosis

>> brangham:r. caleb alexander is a professor of epidemiology bloomberg school of publicins health. he says another effect of the pandemic has been a massiveti disr to the illegal drug market. >> if you think about the ways that the pandemic has ground the economy to a halt, that's occurred in the illicit drug markets as well. so, for example, it's decreased the transport of drugs across borders, but it's also disrupted local drug markets and introduced much greater uncertainty regarding what substances are what, and-- and how individuals that do have opioid addiction can find those. and thiss one of the reasons that the increased mortality rates that many states have reported due to fentanyl are so concerning. >> brangham: alexander says, in normal times, a disruptionn the illegal drug market would likely help funnel more people

into treatment. but for many facing substance abuse disorders, access to treatment has also been disrupted byhe pandemic. >> because of social distancing, you can't have as many people.ti in an int facility where you may have had two or three people to a room, now you only group situations, also the having much smaller groups. >> brangham: chuck ingoglia is the president of the national council for behavioral health, which represents more than 3,000 treatment organizations around the country. ingoglia says fewer patients has meant far less revenue this year, and more than 40% of the organizations heepresents could be out of money in six months. >> and at a time when more people will be experiencingxi depression, any and/or substance use disords. that's the last thing we need to do, is to lose facilities. >> brangham: president trump has often cited bothhe rise in suicides and drug o e as a reasonen up the economy quickly. >> we have to get our country back.u

ow, people are dying the other way, too. when you look at wt happens with drugs, it goes up. when you look at suicides--me , look, people are losing their jobs. >> brangham: but of the roughly $3 trillion in relief funds that congress has given out since the beginning of the pandemic, only a fraction of 1% has been designed for mental health and substance abuse treatment. back in march, the federal government relaxed some of the barriers around the prescription and dispensing of the most commonly-used medications to treat opioid addiction. for example, that's allowed methadone clinicto prescribe up to four weeks of the medication at a time, rather than requiringaily visits. but for those on the frontlines of the addiction crisis, the toll gets worse every day. >> i probably personally know of 11 people who overdosed in the last three months. >> brangham: jen cutting is in recovery from heroin and meth,

and now works as a certified peer recovery coach in upstate new york.sh says both the pandemic, and vernment's response to i has upended life for many of the people she cares for. >> it's a cluster, to be quite frank. and, you know, you go and youwh take peoplare already closed off and operate in a very, very sll circle, and then tell them they can't even have that circle. and on top of it, here's $1,200 bucks and, see you later. >> brangham: this is the unemployment or the government check people are getting. >> you know, the stimulus was a benefit. the unemployment and the stimulus all came at one time.wh you have peoplare struggling with their sobriety. you gave them a boatload of cash ird told them to stay in t home and don't do anything. so imagine if the entire country was on a diet, that couldn't eat chocolate. were putting chocolate out oney the street. leon and grace witay colorado,

they've been shocked at how many with similar tragiies.t to them >> the numbers of people that have lost a loved either, that overdose or suicide during this pandemic, is staering. >> brangham: are you convinced that, if it were not for this pandemic, that sara would still be alive today? >> had she of just gotten r shot at 30 days, she would still be planning r wedding with grace right now. it's no one's faul we haveg. to find a way to fix that, because it's a terriblloss of an amazing person. >>rangham: the wittner's s they plan to hold a funeral for sara this saturday in broomfield, colorado.r e pbs newshour, i'm william brangham.

>> woodruff: on tuesday, president trump signed a memoth aims to bar undocumented immigrants from being included determines how many members of congress are allocated for each state. lisa desjardins exploreshat it means. >> desjardins: the 2020 ceus is a once-in-a-decade feat, a oncount of the u.s. popula that will affect policy and power for years. issues, from the pandemic, tod political debate over things like the president's memo about .how it should be conduct to help us understand this, i'm joined by npr's hansi g. thank you so much, and let me start off with the president's move. help us understand it. can the president, in fact, block the census from counting undocumented snirgts. >> well, i think the thing to take look at is the constitution. let's take a look at the actual text of the constitution. constitution, the actual text

says "representatives shall be apportioned among the several states accordingo their spective numbers, counting the whole number of perso in each state." and it's the whole number of persons because the 14th amendment was enacted after the civil war, t afterding of the counting slave persons. more than 200 years, the con has included both citizens and noncitizens regardless of immigration status in the population counts that determine how seats are divided up in congress. so president trump would be going up against more than two centuries of precedent and, also, another part of the constitution that says it isno congressthe president, who has the final authority about the count. >> reporter: you know, we at "newshour", myself and a lot of our politics team, love talking because it's so important. can you just remindolks what's e,at stake hhy does the census matter so much? >> it matters because when you're talking about the census, you are really talking about

power and money. this is the powernd money of the people living in the united states. this is how the count determines how it distributes an estimated 1.5 trillion, with a t, a year in federal tax dollars from medicare, medicaid, other public services, how that gets divvied up to local communities, it determines how the congressional seats and elecral college votes each state gets and determines how revoting districts are redrawn once every ten years after the census is coued. so this has impacts on the balance of power from local government all the way up to federal government. >> reporter: there's another political storm around the census as well. the president has appnted a new deputy director for policy and an assistanto that person. some in a statistics community say they're not qualified. can you talk about that appointment and why it is controversial? >> the trump administration,

they made two brand-new appointments, two top-level positions that never existed before the census bureau. a locel scirofessor, he's being appointed at a time when there already is a deputyth director a census bureau and it's unclear to me and the public what does nathaniel, this director of policy, what he does at the censubureau and his seen your advisor does. both of them haveonualifica that don't seem to match with what the census bureau does. it's ala feder statistical agency focused on methodolog statistic, economics. both of these appointees don't see much of the background bas on their resumes. >> reporter: and then the public health crisis. this is a map of t americans who have responded themselves to the census, the darker states have the higher response rate. on average, just over 60% of americans have responded, but, hansi, by my account, that leaves over 100 million people at least that the census still

has to contact. where is the agency now on completing the census on time? >> the census bureau has a big job to do, about four out of ten homes have not been counted yet, and it has given itself until october 31 to try to complete this count. it's ting to send out doorrs knoco do in-person interviews with households because, at this point o the census, historically, these are households that are less likely fill out a form on their own and person-the-personconvincing interaction, and that is a big challenge at a time when we're all trying t keep social distance. there are a lot of public health country under lockdown and they would be undern lockd when door knocking is supposed to rule out nationwide on august 11. >> hansi lo wang on the census. thank you for all your work on this. >> you're very welcome.

>> woodruff: four years ag the chester children's chorus, a group based near philadelphia, pennsylvania, recorded an original song, called "i stillca t breathe." it was their response to the deaths of trayvon martin, eric garner and others. the chorus members have since grown to be teenagers and young adults. now, as black lives matterts protontinue across the country in the wake of george floyd's death, these young people see their song as tragical still relevant. their story comes as part of our ongoing arts and culture series, "canvas." ♪ can you hear me?n' i still cabreathe ♪ >> when we performed "i still can't breathe," i was around 10d 11 years when i hear the song now, there's a huge sense of déjà vu.

>> four years ago, i was a kidg. singing th now i'm an adult, a grown man, and the same things are happening. >> it's literal. it's also a repeat of the words, of eric garner's last words before his life was taken from him. and it's also a metaphor for the black experience in america. ♪ why are you afraid of me? >> the song is talking to those people who are constantly denying that there is a thing ch as racism. >> there is a sense of hope because there are young kids singing it, but there' a sense of helplessness also, because there are young kids singing it. young, black children realizeoi at's on, and some adults don't know what's going on, or refuse to believe what's going on. ♪ my love

love is just like yours ♪ >> i don't want people coming away thinking "what a beautil song that is." why should we be hearing black men begging through a choke, "i can't breathe" why should they be pleading? ♪ why are you afraid of me? >> what's different is that the pandemic has given many white americans the time and the emotional space to think about something more important than going shopping, or going to a movie, or going out to a restaurant. so all of the distractions have been taken ay from us. >> this new generation that is coming up, we have the power to change things. we have very large voices, and people are just now starting to listen.

>> woodruff: and we need to listen. on the newshour online right , w, we have answers to your covid-19 questiocluding how to clean your mask. our essential f.a.q. is on our website, www.pbs.org/newshour. and that is the wshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. join us online, and again here tomorrow evening. r all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you, please stay safe, and we'le you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> consumer cellular. >> when the world gets complicated, a lot goes through your mind. a dedicated advisotailoragement, advice and recommendations to your life. that's fidelity wealth management.

>> johnson & johnson. >> financial services firm raymond james. >> the ford foundation. working with visionaries on the frontlines of social change worldwid >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and individuals. >> this program was made possible by the corporation fort public broadg. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, c

captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> you' hello, everyone, and welcome

to "amanpour & co." here's what's coming up. we did it. europe is strong. europe is >>ited. some rar good news, europe strikes an unprecedented covidl recovery d one day after uk has important progress on a vaccine. we discuss the breakthrough with public healthvi expert shridar. continue ines portland and coronavirus surges across the united states, key republicans beg to jump ship. longtime trump critic maryland governor larry hogan joins me. and -- >> if it were t the governor of this state, i would not be doing this interview to talk about covid-19. >> georgia'sep