900 coronavirus relatted deaths in georgia as the governor allows some businesses to reopen. experts say they're a month too early. 6%, the drop expected in carbon emissions because of coronavirus shutdowns. but what happens when the world gets back to work?

and 67% of voters support voting by mail for november's general election. could mail-in ballots be the new normal? "velshi" starts now. good morning. welcome back. i'm ali velshi. a grim milestone in the coronavirus pandemic. let's get trigt the facts as we know them at this hour. worldwide covid-19 death toll climbed above 200,000, a staggering number as some countries debate how to reopen and others fight to overcome the outbreak. here in the united states, confirmed cases reached at least 935,000 as states aggressively push to increase testing capacity but president trump's inability to stick to the facts on the science behind the pandemic may have led to white house officials weighing whether to scale back on the daily coronavirus briefings. this comes after ongoing criticism of trump's comments on thursday which he now says were

sarcastic. >> i would like you to speak to the medical doctors to see if there's any way to apply light and heat to cure. you know? if you can. maybe you can, maybe you can't. i'm not a doctor. i'm a person that has a good -- you know what. >> you're in -- >> have you ever heard of that? the heat and the light relative to certain viruses, yes. but relative to this virus. >> and that is where we start this morning at the white house with nbc's kelly o'donnell. kelly, that was a weird thing that happened on thursday but the president's body language is clear. because there's social distancing in that room that you are in from time to time you know he was looking at dr. birx and not -- on friday he tried to pass it off as a sarcastic i was talking to reporters but he

wasn't. >> reporter: and during that portion of that day's briefing, he had not yet begun the exchange with the reporters so it's not like it's part of that conversation. it was opening in the presentation which we have seen the president and others do before taking questions. this does fit a larger pattern where the president is perhaps the most famous spitballer. he likes to talk about issues of exchanges of a weekends ago of a possible quarantine enforceable in the tri-state new york area where the president appeared to be opining about this before thinking it through. dr. birx said after thursday's discussion of uv light and chemicals as a potential internal treatment that the president likes to work things out in a way that he is engaging with the scientific information. doing it verbally like that. that may be his process.

the problem is as president, of course, everything he says carries weight and then it will be interpreted aen this has subjected the president to ridicule and criticism about the dangers of -- and warnings of no one should be ingesting these chemicals. his question about is there a potential therapeutic was, in fact, a question. but it really caused a lot of problems for the president. ali? >> kelly, this conversation that you and your colleagues have been reporting on that, you know, what the president said about disinfectants shocked his own aides an wondering about the currency of him doing this every day, that can't be a new conversation, right? the white house aides must have realized this is fundamentally damaging to the president. the president has for sometime thought this was a great idea. there was musings of a radio show for a couple hours a day. is the disconnect bridgeable of those that think it's worst idea in the world and those next to the president who think, no, it is great to talk to the country

every day? >> reporter: your instinct is right. the advice is coming for a few weeks as there were fewer major headlines to deliver each day at the briefing an the president's time is one of the most precious commodities for the white house and the question is was he using it the best way. if there's not big headlines and he would take questions beyond the virus itself so there were aides and allies both inside the white house and out encouraging the president to make himself less exposed to the public to give it more value. at the same time the president saying the ratings were great, enjoyed talking to the country directly and that is a president's perceived strength to control the room, the bully pulpit of the presidency, replacing the rallies he can't hold right now but what seems to have happened is advice catchlicatching up to a symptom of the backlash,

the president then tweeting that what's the purpose of these briefings? completely reversing the own sentiment about the briefings saying he, of course, criticized the media for the hostile question which is are the nature of a back and forth between reporters and the president. and now we have no briefing on the schedule again today. the only taken two days off is easter weekend and there have been nearly 50 briefings from the task force over recent months. ali? >> kelly, thank you as always for your great reporting. nbc's kelly o'donnell at the white house. increased testing nationwide is the only way to measure and contain the coronavirus but the incomplete data's painting a grave picture of how this national crisis is exacerbating income, food and health inequalities in america, especially for black an high school panic people contracting the virus at high rates. here's congresswoman presley on this issue. >> history's already shown and

proved that any crisis, certainly public health crisis, disproportionately born by populations of color dealing with racism, we saw that with h1n1, african-americans represented a higher proportion of hospitalizations and fatalities and with the negligence -- of a trump administration we are behind which is a last place that you want to be in. >> joining me now, kimberly crenshaw, professor of law at ucla and colombia law school and coined the word intersectionality as a term to describe intersection areas of discrimination of people in when country and denise brooks-williams, ceo of henry ford north america and a member of the michigan coronavirus task force. good morning to both of you. kimberly, a thing you have said is that you can't see or name a problem you can't solve it.

and one of the things that we are now just basically being able to see and name is the degree to which people of color in this country are contracting the disease more, unable to stay home because they can't afford to, don't have the health coverage to deal with the underlying health problems that make it fatal and dying at a rate that's entirely disproportionate to their representation in the population. >> absolutely. and the reality is that this was as clear as could possibly be in the weeks leading up to the devastating impact of the virus but the problem that the virus has laid bare is the fact that we do not as a society have the capacity to understand and talk about why these disparities exist the way they do so it's a typical cycle. the first cycle was no conversation about the racial

disparity, whatsoever. it took weeks for the media to catch up with the fact that from the very beginning it was clear that those who were most at risk were those who had preexisting conditions, those who had jobs that didn't allow them to shelter in safety, those who didn't have access to the care that they needed. but then the problem became greater when it became obvious that african-americans, latinos were contracting and dying at a significantly higher rate than their white counterparts. then the conversation turned to, well, what is it about them that makes them more likely to contract the disease? what is it about them that makes them more likely to die of it? even people who express concern about it don't know how to talk about it outside of the context of attributing the responsibility to them, even the surgeon general went on a lecture to talk to black folks and folks how they need to

behave differently and shows us what happens over a decade of neglect in talking about the structural dimensions of racial inequality in american society. >> denise, i want to parse that because there are things about populations of color in this country that make them more susceptible but not the stuff the surgeon general was talking about, not necessarily bad eating habits or smoking but it was dense living conditions, no health care, less health care coverage, the inability to stay home because you don't have the -- you can't afford to do that or work in a low-wage job requiring you to be out there in a service profession not under a stay-at-home order and structural things to be fixed before we fix the idea that people of color getting and dying of the infection at a greater rate than the general population. >> i would agree. i think as kimberly said, a loft things that we knew before

coronavirus came out and those are implicit bias in the health care system, it is also the fact to your point that a lot of times african-americans are first responders. they have been heroes in this fight. but unfortunately, it's exposed them very early on to the virus because they did not have ppe in the beginning and grocery stores. they didn't have it on buses where you have bus drivers and you have people who are reliant on public transportation. i think you're also accurate that in large cities where you have dense living you also have a higher factor so i would concur there's absolutely no blame in this. it really is the fact that circumstances that were here prior to the virus were exacerbated by the virus. >> so, kimberly, while we are looking at a world in which we're dropping trillions of dollars into the system, whether it's markets or the fed or these bills that are passing, one would assume if a portion of your house is broken, and you need to rebuild you'd rebuild it

better. how do we rebuild this better? everything we are doing is hard and everything we are doing now is expensive and why not try to fix the underlying respecprobleh respect to people of color and the inequalities they face? >> it is such a wonderful question because the challenge that we have, frankly, is that for at least some part of this president's administration base it really turns on not addressing the fundamental questions that create the conditions for these disparities. it is not an accident that after being concerned or expressing some concern about this disparity our existing president hasn't done a thing to address it, partly because his base relies on this belief that them problems are not us problems. and to begin to assume that they are undermines their sense that he is their president. but let's broaden the frame. the reality is that these

preexisting conditions have undermined the life expectancy of african-americans for decades, in some areas where the virus is causing the greatest disparity, there was a preexisting life disparity of 20, 25 years. in louisiana, where 70% of the deaths are african-americans, one of the places where it's happening in such dramatic ways is in cancer alley, a place where environmental racism has undermined the life expectancy of african-americans. it is not that african-americans move to places where there's environmenta environmental degradation but it goes to where african-americans are because they're less politically powerful to protect themselves in the political process. what do we have to do? one is we have to have an eye out for all of the ways that the political process pushed black people so far to margins that they can't protect themselves.

we talked about this in terms of disaster white supremacy and racism and the attack on voter rights happening now. but secondly, acknowledge that much of the disparity is attributable to the care that black people can't get and it is not just because they don't access but when they go to the doctor they're not believed and complained of conditions, they're not getting the tests. when they complain of pain they don't get pain medication. there's a range of things, this isn't new. we just haven't had the will until now to do anything about it. so the question now is, when facing a common crisis, it will be addressed in a way of common humanity and that truly is left to be determined in this white house at least. >> denise, does it have to be that way, though? does it have to be that way? again, we are at a moment in our history in which all of the

excuses for not fixing things really broken is that they're hard and expensive? this is hard to do but we have to do things now. can we get to a point where african-americans live as long as the rest of the population? african-americans die at the same rate as the rest of the population? because those imper call facts are there facing us. >> yes. i would say that what i will echo of what kimberly said is the issues have been there and known and true they have not been addressed. what i'm proud of is that our governor in the state of michigan along with our lieutenant governor made a courageous decision to put a task force in place that's focused on the racial disparities that we have seen with the coronavirus and that is labeled as african-americans dying at a disproportionate rate, 40% in the state of michigan and we represent about 13.5% of the state. and so, i think it absolutely

does not have to be the case that we do not step out and do what we need to do. many of the institutions, i work with henry ford health system as we said in the againi, and we have had research scientists, physicians have been focused on this issue of racial and ethnic disparities. we collect data to understand who we are treating an see were there inequities in the care delivered. i would say coronavirus is shining a light on the issue in such a way that we will say all lives matter and we are going to figure out how we can take the data and information that we are seeing with this pandemic and figure out how to i think change the health care system in the broadest sense. >> amen. i hope that's true. i really, really hope that's true. what you say. thanks to both of you for being with me. kimberly crenshaw and denise brooks-williams. thank you. we all want to get back to

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they want to get -- they call cabin fever. you have heard the term? they've got cabin fever. they want to get back. they want their life back. their life was taken away from

them. >> president trump is right. americans would like to get back to some form of narmal sy and right that the economic toll of the pandemic is devastating. 26 million americans out of work because of it so far and only april. we are about to exceed the number of people laid off in an entire year every year since the great depression. for the last couple of weeks anti-stay at home protesters defied orders calling on political leaders to lift them and supported by trump that tweeted that particular states needed to be liberated from corona restrictions and invoked the second amendment for liberating virginia which was just weird. the protests make for good images and received coverage possibly leading people to think they're larger than they actually are. several polls out this week indicate that americans overwhelmingly support staying at home at their own economic peril over returning to work before it's safe to do. so we need our leaders to send a

single, clear message not the lurching between politics of preventing death and financial destruction. the right of the protesters to air the grievances is protected by the first amendment. the right to exchange and endanger the lives by their -- by gathering the rest of us in groups is less clear and not encouraged by a president whose own administration's policies recommend staying at home in places with high rates of infection. trump makes the point that the cure can't be worse than the disease and he's largely right up until you lose a loved one because we were as careless how to prevent the spread of the disease. scientist who is continue to get sho sho shortshrift -- cities and states doesn't get a vaccine. it doesn't get an antibody test and doesn't save any lives of

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all right. this past week was the 50th anniversary of earth day and could not come at a more critical time. the world meteorological organization says carbon dioxide levels up 26% but the world and wmo says emissions had dropped 6% this year due to the pandemic and that is the biggest yearly drop since world war ii. it's great news except that it will go back up once we go back to normal. a documentary of michael moore

opens up with a simple question, how long do humans have? listen. >> how long does a human race have? >> oh. >> um -- >> oh wow. >> i don't exactly know but might be soon. >> i have no clue. i hop i give me at least 50 more years. >> i think there's infinite amount of time. >> infinite. it's infinite, yeah. >> i give us a million, a million years. >> being kind, i would say probably about ten years. >> ten, 12 years. >> thousands of years. >> 47 years 3 months 5 days. it is approximate. >> we are like cockroaches on the planet. no matter how much damage we do enough of us will survive. >> all right. with me now michael moore film producer and host of the podcast rumble, with michael moore is jeff gibbs, director, writer and producer of "planet of the humans." gentlemen, thank you for joining us. what's the point of it, michael? you know, it is one thing to

look at the 6% reduction in co2 emissions but it is not practical, right? we are going to go back to driving vehicles and running factories and i think the point is we're going to have to figure out how to live seminormal lives without being as destructive to the earth as we are. >> my hope and guess is that people like that idea and what will happen. but we have to get busy very quickly here. we released this film this week. it was going to be released in the fall with the regular theatrical distribution and really wanted to get it out there now for free on youtube so that we can start this discussion. we are in dangerous, dangerous shape here and this pandemic should act as a warning from mother nature that we have -- our behavior is not appreciated. and the fact that we have treated the species on this planet, species that oftentimes

give us these viruses, it's a failure of us, all of us who call ourselves environmentalists, we have spent decades on this and we are worse off, we are not better off. we are -- the planet is in worse shape and we have to do something different. we have to get off the road we have been on. we have to -- we need a new environmental movement. we need young people to essentially take over. it is their future. we need to listen to them. we have too many -- too many people who -- too many corporations, frankly, too much of wall street that is -- has been trying to take over the green energy movement because they see profit in it. they try to bamboozle the public with it and they try to buy off certain people, organizations within the movement. we have spent almost a decade researching and documenting this. it's a shocking film to watch but it's an important film to

watch because i think a lot of people watching the show right now know that we have not succeeded. the climate change battle is being lost and i refuse to accept that. >> you know, jeff, i almost think the bigger lesson about the climate is not the skies are cleaner right now and see the jellyfish in the canals of venice but that we are realizing from coronavirus that our behavior will make it better or worse. if only we could understand that globally on a climate basis, that this is entirely up to us but to michael's point of a new generation feels like a new generation has taken this on which has made the earth days so much more popular, which has made this much more of a priority than it was five or even ten years ago. >> yep. ali, thank you for having me on and having us on. i began to make this movie because i was worried to hit the points that we are hitting now

and with climate change, but with other things, too, like the virus emerged from us abusing the environment. and i've always felt like things are bigger than climate change. we have taken 90% of the fish from the ocean, deforested 70%, cut down 70% of the forests on the planet an young people now are using the word extinction. i think we should all be quite, you know, quite concerned but this moment that we are in now teaches us that we can stop, we can slow down. we can change. we changed in the day, in a week to save ourselves. and i don't know how we're going to get there but we need to look at ourselves as a species coming to dominate an entire planet and perhaps to think of things like measures growth not through how we consume and consume nature but happier and sustain nature so i think young people are really asking these questions and i think many young people realize that growth itself, i

cannot -- economic growth on a planet is suicide and that we have to find a different model for growth, happiness and prosperity and i think there's enough to share for everyone. we can have a different model of how we live together at the same time we take care of the planet. >> michael, as is always when you appear on tv with me, there is some criticism and since the movie was released on youtube earlier this week it faced criticism calling it out of date and ignoring the data of ten years, paying lip service to the fossil fuel industry and attacking well regarded activists, scientists and policy leaders in the space. what's your response to that? >> yeah. most of that's true. somebody has to stand up and tell the american public the truth. this is what i have done for a long time and oftentimes they're painful truths. in my last documentary, i had to

show president obama drinking the water. fake drinking the water in flint. telling people it was okay to drink the water there when it wasn't. it killed me to have to do that but i will not not tell people what's going on simply because people that i like and i love president obama, people that are doing good work on many other levels, when our side is not doing it the right way or the way we have tried for so many decades hasn't worked and that we're being defeated we have to -- we have to ask ourselves, we have to be self critical to say when's going on here? you know, i understand. listen. i was on your show in 2016 and i said, look, folks, we have to get busy here because trump is going to win michigan, wisconsin and pennsylvania. i say the uncomfortable truths. you know? you and i often talk about health care. here's an uncomfortable truth that nobody is talking about. why is it that money management

funds, hedge funds, people with lots of money are buying you were medical practices? do you realize this? doctors, practices, buying up doctors' practices because they're trying to find more ways to make a profit off us being sick. how -- how sick is that? that wall street types are buying up medical practices so that they can make money off the work that doctors -- >> let many ask you one thing, though. one thing that we have talked about is it is easy in the movement -- let me just ask you this. it is easy in the environmental movement to get distracted by the ways we should be thinking but in the end most people who have studied this as you and jeff have come to the conclusion that without actually fundamentally changing the consumption of fossil fuels don't change. we can use paper straws all we want, give up beef but if you don't change fossil fuels we will not meet our goals in terms

of climate change. do you agree with that? >> not only the consumption of fossil fuels but all kinds of consumption. we overconsume. especially in the first world. we are wrecking this planet. we are a small percentage of the planet and yet we overconsume on so many levels. so i think that there's -- you can't just focus on one thing. there are so many things that we need to address. they don't get addressed. >> but we do have to -- but, michael, we have to be hyper focused on fossil fuels, right? if all the other things happen and we believe the industry's idea that for $40 a ton of carbon tax we'll be okay, it won't happen. right? the fact is if we don't do fossil fuels the rest doesn't matter. >> yes. and you have to finish the sentence. you have to -- jeff, go ahead and finish the sentence for ali because it's not -- it is that

absolutely but we also show in this film how we're wrecking the planet just through the process of how you build solar panels and wind turbines and all this and we delude ourselves into thinking it is all okay because look at that windmill farm, so pretty. that isn't cutting it. have we done it 40 years ago in when jimmy carter put solar panels on the roof of the white house? we have lost that time. we are way beyond the carbon in the atmosphere. we're at 410 now. the limit that scientists and environmental activists told us that if we go past 350 we're doomed. we are at 410. we have to -- we have to -- have to address this right now and the way we've been addressing it, we have not won this battle. we're not winning the battle. and jeff should -- he is the director of the film. he should really tell you about this because it's really -- he's

done an amazing, brilliant film and over 2 million people watched it since tuesday on youtube so it's -- there's a lot of discussion and there should be a discussion. >> thank you for joining me this morning. michael moore, host of podcast rumble with michael moore. jeff gibbs is as michael said the director, writer and producer of "planet of the humans." the cdc is warning a second wave of the virus could hit in the fall just in time for elections. next, why mail-in voting might be vital in flattening the curve. ain't stoppin' believe m♪ ♪go straight till the morning look like we♪ ♪won't wait,♪ ♪we're taking everything we wanted♪ ♪we can do it ♪all strength, no sweat open. remember having that feeling for the first time?

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really going to encourage everyone who can vote by mail to do that. we can't put off an election because of a pandemic. but we can take the appropriate steps to keep people safe so that they can exercise their right. >> what the cdc's director

warning of a second wave in the fall there's mounlting pressure to limit interaction including in-person voting in november. nearly three weeks ago wisconsin held the primary election in a stay-at-home order and republicans forced democratic voters to make a choice. exercise your right or don't vote. more than 400,000 people voted. this is wisconsin republican lawmaker robin voss telling voters it was safe to vote in person while wearing this. health officials confirmed with 30% of the data in, 19 people who voted or worked in the polls have tested positive for the virus. this should be a lesson f. we want to guarantee safe and fair elections we have to switch to mail-in ballots. the latest nbc news/"wall street journal" poll found 6% 7% of voters support it. why is that something that most republican lawmakers won't

support? some republicans including trump claim that there's an increased risk of voter fraud by using a mail-in system. >> mail ballots, now mail ballots, they cheat. okay? people cheat. mail ballots are dangerous. they're cheaters. they collect them, they're fraudulent in many cases. >> but with 57.2 million americans voting by mail in 2016, the commit tee of voter fraud could not produce any evidence to support what he said. joining me is wendy wiser, also the executive director of the advancement project at national office, judith brown. thank you both for joining us this morning. wendy, people cheat. people cheat. people cheat. that's a mantra of president trump since getting into office and doesn't matter what you propose. that's his answer that our democracy and our voting is fraught with dead people voting, people voting twice, people

voting in multiple states. with respect to mail-in voting is there some greater susceptibility to cheating in it? >> look. americans need to know that mail-in voting is secure. this is simply an effort to sow doubt together legislate may ma sy of a farm of voting deeply embedded in the american election voting. 1 in 4 americans cast ballots by mail in the last two federal elections and ek hausive investigations found like in-person voting it is more likely an american is struck by lightning than commit mail voting fraud and that's because election officials have multiple security tools in place to ensure the security of mail ballots and protect the integrity of the election and voters can also take steps to ensure the safety of ballots.

>> judith, one of the things that president trump said very recently generally speaking about expanding voting rights or the goal i guess should be in a democracy to get 100% of people to vote and we don't have that in the united states for various reasons, some people don't vote and some find it difficult to vote because of the impediments in their way. president trump said very obviously the other day that if we let voting become easier to do republicans will never get elected again. what do you think he meant by that? >> well, he's showing his hand. basically his pushback on the idea of having vote by mail is that he's worried that the republicans will lose. instead what he is doing is spreading misinformation campaign as usual talking about voter fraud but that's not what it is about but he is worried that they will lose the election. you know? they have a playbook, the gop has a playbook. make it harder to vote for

americans because they know that they might actually lose these elections so, you know, no one should have to put their health at risk in order to vote. for black folks, we know that we have lost -- for the right to vote and we shouldn't have to do that again. >> wendy, this -- it's a real issue here because right now sitting in april we're kind of hoping that by november this is going to be something that we're looking at in the rear-view mirror but quite possible, scientists tell us it right not be and not sure when they lift the orders, whether people go to shopping malls or movie theaters or casinos or places like that and voting where everybody touches the same machine and stands in a line next to each other is a place that people could psychologically think is hazardous to their health come november. but i would imagine that in april we have to be having this discussion, not just the three of us but at a high level to say how do we preserve this election

come november? we can't afford an election where the 20% of people come out to vote because they're the only ones that feel safe about it. >> absolutely. and we -- there are steps we need to be taking now to actually run a credible and safe and fair election in november. we are actually running out of time to put in place the infrastructure we need to be able to handle the sheer volume of mail ballots that are going to be requested and cast by americans this november. and to make sure that there are also -- this is also critical -- safe and healthy polling sites for those americans who cannot vote by mail or who experience a problem with their mail ballots. and in much of the country, we are not set up, the infrastructure is not there to be able to accomplish this without significant meltdowns like we saw in wisconsin and keep in mind that was only about

half the turnout or even less than we're expecting this november and the problems are going to be magnified so what we really need is an infusion of resources for state and local election officials. they actually know what needs to be done in order to ramp up and to change their infrastructure to run the election that we need to run this november. they just don't have the resources to do so. they need about $4 billion to be able to get the equipment, the infrastructure, the procedures in place to even be able to just print the ballots and put postage on the application envelopes. they don't have the resources right now. and this is something that the federal government needs to step up and put in the next stimulus package. it is only a small fraction, .2% of the 2 trillion that was in the last stimulus.

and it is a small investment that is needed to protect the health of our democracy and the american people. otherwise, we can see significant meltdowns this november. >> yeah. this is not actually a money problem. of all the things we have to solve these days getting people to vote by mail is not one that we have to think about as money being an impediment. thanks to both of you. wendy director of the democracy program at the brandon center for justice. judith is executive director of the advancement project national office. contact tracing is finding people that interacted with an infected individual to prevent the spread of a disease. here's what bill gates told me about it on friday. >> i think good old interviewing people about their contacts like, you know, cdc did or like, you know, we have done for many of these epidemics outside the united states, the european

countries are staffing up an taking that seriously, i think that's most likely to be the u.s. solution. you know? again, here, the federal government is not showing up for that and so you have mike bloomberg bloomberg in new york, stepping up, to help build the staff and train them and get that going and, you know, a bunch of local efforts trying to pull it together. >> moments ago, the white house coronavirus response coordinator dr. deborah birx reacted to bill gates. >> we sent out to states every single platform where it was located, over 5,000 platforms across the states, and showing geographically and by zip code where they're located. that's allowing us to work closely with the states, to unlock that full potential and to prioritize first states that have had outbreaks, but also states that need to do active surveillance, what we talked about asymptomatic surveillance to really find cases before people have symptoms.

>> joining me now, jake ward, nbc news technology correspondent and shoshana zubof at the harvard business school and author of "the age of surveillance capitalism: the fight for the human future at the new front terre ier of powe" there are contact tracing can be anything, it can be good detective work, where you ask people questions and people take good notes or they use software to try and determine where they have been, but what we're talking about right now is a technological version of it, apple and google talked about something where they can use technology in your phones to immediately map whether you've been in contact with somebody who ends up proving positive for coronavirus. >> that's right, ali. the traditional model of contact tracing has been extremely effective, but it is also controversial. first, you have to consider that it is going to take so many more people to do contact tracing now

than it ever has in the past. the estimates we have looked at are that some california counties expect contact tracing investigator to be able to get to the contacts of about ten people a month. and even at the fastest clip we're seeing maybe a rate of perhaps two people a day at most. that was in wuhan. so, you know, when we look at the pace and the scale that is going to be required to do it here in this country, that then invites this question of whether some sort of technological solution needs to come in place. apple and google have debuted the beginnings of what they say will eventually be a voluntary app, you'll be able to sign up for that will allow you to share your test results and reveal your proximity to other people, via bluetooth. i have to say, my inbox is full of companies that are coming to me and saying, hey, we have the ability to do this, we can create technology that does contact tracing, because all the constituent parts are there in any company out there that has been into, you know, following your locations, following your behavior, doing analytics on it,

in fact, i had a conversation just recently with a company called clear view ai, you'll remember that before the coronavirus hit, clear view ai was controversial because they had 2200 law enforcement clients they were doing facial recognition. you put any form of video or still through this company, and they can find your face on the web and identify you by name. let me show you a little bit of the conversation i had with the ceo of clear view, just this week. >> we think that a lot of retail spaces and gyms already have cameras that are there. there is the expectation that you are in a public area, so there is no necessarily expectation of privacy. the camera is there in case crime happens and they can be repurposed to help track anyone else who has had the virus. >> i'm a huge admirer of professor zubov so i wonder what

she's going to say about these sorts of companies coming out to help us at this time. >> i have to say, professor what you said to one of my producers is always that matters. will covid 19 become covid-1984 and the warning you have that we discussed with roger macnamee, unless you believe this is going to save the world from whatever you think covid-19 is going to do, is the trade-off worth it is the discussion we have to have. your thoughts? >> well, first of all, ali, thank you for having me. it is a pleasure to be here with you finally. look, even your first premise is this going to save the world from covid-19, that is a faulty premise. a lot of people refer to the bluetooth-phased tracing application developed in singapore called tracing together. but what hasn't made it through

to most folks is the fact that the lead developer of that tracing application, phone-based tracing application, here's what he said and this is what he wanted the world to know. if you ask me whether any bluetooth contact tracing system deployed or under development anywhere in the world is ready to replace manual contact tracing, the answer is a definitive no. not now. not with the benefit of artificial intelligence, not ever. so essentially what they did in singapore was they worked with human contact tracers, with the proper professionals from the public health administrations and civil service within that country, and they learned how to develop something that could augment the work of these

professionals, these humans. and the singapore developer whose name is jason bay warns that without humans, in the loop, without running contact tracing with humans, it cannot possibly be effective. contact tracing is a long art, and science, that has been developed in the 20th century, in public health administrations, which means in the public sector, under the governance of laws, under the governance of professional norms and importantly of democratic institutions. when folks go out to contact trace, they're using science, for example, if you -- if you passed somebody on street and they're worried about measles, then immediately that is a risk. but if you passed someone on the

street and they're worried about coronavirus, that's probably not a risk. there are other criteria. so there is science involved. but the other thing is that there is art involved. because you're going to tell somebody, hey, you may have been exposed to a dangerous disease. you may be at risk. this is an interpersonal art. it involves care, support, allowing people to, you know, get comfortable with that, helping them figure out the resources they need, and moving on through there. you cannot do this without human beings, and guess what, i think we know that there is a pretty high unemployment rate right now. we have a lot of folk available to be mobilized to do this right. >> we have a lot more to discuss here, thank you to both of you for giving us just the tip of the iceberg on an important conversation and great to finally have you on show. i hope we make a habit of it.

jake ward, nbc news technology correspondent, professor shoshana zubov, author of "the age of surveillance capitalism." that's it for me. thanks for watching. coming up on "am joy," house sw speaker nancy pelosi. joy," houe sw speaker nancy pelosi ♪ thousands of women with metastatic breast cancer, which is breast cancer that has spread to other parts of the body, are living in the moment and taking ibrance. ibrance with an aromatase inhibitor is for postmenopausal women or for men with hr+/her2- metastatic breast cancer, as the first hormonal based therapy. ibrance plus letrozole significantly delayed disease progression versus letrozole, and shrank tumors in over half of patients.

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