wednesday night. thank you so very much for being here with us. on behalf of all of my colleagues at the networks of nbc news, good night from our temporary field headquarters. happy to have you with us. this is the front page of the "new york times" right now. "u.s. coronavirus death toll highest in the world, surpasses 100,000." a milestone that comes just months after the country's first known case was confirmed. the death toll, far higher than in any other nation, exceeds the number of u.s. military combat fatalities in every conflict since the korean war. front page of the "new york times" right now. this is the front page of "the washington post" right now. all columns across the top. "100,000 deaths. pandemic has exposed nation's vulnerabilities, and dangerous divide."

the stark milestone, 100,000 deaths, comes less than three months after the first american was reported to have died. the people most ravaged are those whose suffering often is unseen, the elderly, african-americans, and the working poor. the "washington post" front page tonight. this is the front page tonight at "usa today." quote, "100,000 deaths. 100,000 people have died from coronavirus in the united states. and it will continue to change our lives. the u.s. is the only country to record anywhere near 1 million cases of the coronavirus. the country now hits another somber milestone." here's the front page tonight over at the web site for our friends at cnn. "100,000 americans didn't have to die." "one tragedy of america's coronavirus milestone is that so many didn't have to die. another is that no one knows how many more will perish." again, this is the cnn front

page right now. also, this next one maybe isn't that important for you to see, but just so you're aware, this is what it is, in contrast, this is the front page for our friends at the fox news channel right now. it's as you can see a little bit different. "warning, drama ahead" is their main headline. all caps, bold, "warning, drama ahead. house democrats forge ahead on surveillance vote, trump threatens veto." in addition to that lead story, they've got more stuff there about nancy pelosi and her being terrible, they have a thing attacking congresswoman ilhan omar of minnesota, although it is possible that is just a pinned thing they keep on the front page of all times, they have multiple stories up on their front page of mark zuckerberg from facebook, they've got two different articles attacking two different cnn journalists up on their front page, this is all like their above the fold big headlines and if you scroll down and scroll down and scroll down, eventually you do get, they do,

ultimately get to, oh, yeah, 100,000 americans dead. they do get to it eventually. it comes around. it's interesting, though. increasingly, around the country, not in national news outlets like that, but around the country local news outlets and local officials too are only keeping one eye on that larger national picture you that see reflected in those acute ways in national media. you see local officials and local media keeping one eye on that larger national picture. but only one eye. because really, the other thing they've got to focus on is the fact that things are getting really rough locally at home. and this is something that is apparently not really a national news story yet. but if you look around, nationwide, you can start to see this story grow from the ground up. reuters reports today that over this past week 20 states have had rising case numbers of coronavirus.

and whether or not 20 states having rising case numbers sounds good or bad to you, it is definitely not good that the week before that there were only 13 states that had rising case numbers. so that number rising to 20 states with rising case numbers, week to week, that is not good. it means our epidemic is going in the wrong direction. the state with the worst weekly rise in cases last week was alabama. weekly increase of 28% in their cases. alabama, we have frankly been pretty worried about the hospital capacity in montgomery, the state's capital city. icu capacity has been filled in montgomery, alabama hospitals for days now. they are not able to take in additional icu patients into icu beds anymore. they are stashing what would otherwise be icu patients indefinitely in emergency rooms in montgomery-area hospitals. that is not ideal. the pressure of what's going wrong in alabama though is not just being felt in montgomery. we are now getting alarm bells

from the university of alabama at birmingham, their health center there, we're also getting alarm bells from places like tuscaloosa, where the local hospital has doubled its number of covid patients in just one week, and where the mayor of tuscaloosa is now urgently warning the residents of his city to please do what they can to slow this thing down. >> an alarming spike in the number of covid-19 cases in tuscaloosa county over the past weekend, the past week, rather. >> tuscaloosa mayor walt maddox taking to social media to alert the community to the area's largest single-day increase in new covid-19 cases. jumping nearly 10.5%. more than 50 new cases in tuscaloosa county on monday alone. >> i think we have entered a very dangerous stage of this fight against the coronavirus, because i think we're becoming more relaxed in what we're doing. >> and with such a sharp rise in cases here in tuscaloosa mayor maddox says he's concerned with the number of patients being brought into dch. >> in the past week we have had

a 100% increase with those with covid-19 being in the hospital system. we were at 63 this morning. we were at 32 this last week. >> as hospital capacity becomes more of a concern, maddux is taking the community to take social distancing seriously and wear a mask when around others. >> think more of just yourself. think about your family. think about your community. >> doctors at uab say they are becoming increasingly concerned about the rising number of covid-19 cases in alabama which they attribute largely to more people being out and about. >> this is a little bit concerning to us right now, in terms of the trend, because our icus are fairly full right now with our -- for our covid-19 cohorted patients, so we are putting patients with the same infection in the same unit so we had to open some of these beds up more mainly to help care for these patients more. so if this continues, we will have to think about opening up more units as we can. >> our icus are fairly full right now. you know, montgomery, alabama is worse off than birmingham, where

you just saw that doctor speaking from. montgomery tripled its case count since may 1st. montgomery's icu beds are full. we have been watching the state of alabama, worrying about montgomery. but now, we're seeing even in birmingham which is not the worst off in the state, they are saying their icus are pretty much full right now and they are having to plan for building out more capacity right now because the trends just keep getting worse. i mean that's what happens. that's ultimately the way you have to live and the way you have to cope, when your new daily case numbers look like this. this is from the alabama state department of health. their web site tonight. and it's not just an alabama story. i know the big national picture is, you know, bleak and it's this landmark moment and kind of hard to look away from, if you're not watching fox news, in which case it's very easy to look away from apparently, but i think if you really care about what's happening with this moment for our country, in this moment, in this moment, this moment in american history, at least for right now i think you

do have to look away from the national picture for a second, to get a real sense of where we are. because where things are going pear-shaped, where things are getting rough, right now you really do need to track it through the local news. and this is part of what's wrong in our media ecosystem. this is what happens when a national phenomenon in america moves off the coasts and out of our media capitals. the national media stops tracking it in exactly the same way. but if you look beyond national media coverage, if you just look at what's out there in the states, just look, it's there. >> since the state loosened health restrictions in parts of nebraska on may 4th number of covid-19 inpatients at their hospitals has been trending upward. at the same time the number of icu beds available has been decreasing. as of right now roughly 75% of these beds are full. >> omaha -- icu beds in omaha roughly at 75% capacity.

they're 75% full. the local methodist health system in omaha put up this statement. "all health care systems in omaha are seeing an increase of covid-19 patients in our hospitals. methodist is among those treating a high volume of covid-19 patients at this time." you know, in nebraska the governor there, pete ricketts, has defended from the very beginning him never issuing any kind of stay-at-home order for his state because he said his reasoning for not doing, that for nebraska not needing that, is he said there was plenty of hospital capacity in nebraska, which is sort of unnerving from the very beginning, right? plenty of hospital beds for everyone, so why not fill them up? well now in fact, nebraska hospital beds are filling up. omaha's icu beds are three quarters full and rising. now that that is happening, governor ricketts now says, "we're having conversations about what they're going to do with regard to staffing." he says he's waiting to see. "if those hospitals are going to go out and get additional staffing services to come in."

because of course they're filling up. and they need more staff now to handle the huge volume of coronavirus patients they are getting. because of the huge rise in cases in nebraska that is unabated. i mean what's going to happen though with the governor, wait to see if the hospitals will go out and get additional staff. presumably if they are able to get in more additional staff, then what's he going to do? see what else he can do to get more beds filled to keep those new doctors and nurses hopping? i mean if you're basing your public health policy in your state or lack thereof on the fact that you will be able to handle it because you've got tons of hospital capacity, what do you do next, when your hospital capacity starts to top out? what's plan b? what do you activate then? you can't go back in time. that's what nebraska is going through now because of what policies have been like in the state of nebraska.

but again, it's not just nebraska. it's not just alabama. this today was the minnesota state health commissioner after the state announced that it had hit its all-time high in terms of icu beds in use r use in the twin cities area, in minneapolis and st. paul, i kruchlt beds cu 87% full. >> there are 598 people currently in the hospital. 260 of those in intensive care units, which is the highest daily total to date. we do see some more accelerating and concerning signs, like the rate of increase in icu capacity, even though we had planned for this. and have surge capacity available in the state. the fact that a couple of our hospitals have already gone into that surge space at this point in the curve is important to note and gives us reason to be really, really watching these data. >> minnesota state health

commissioner talking about minnesota hospitals now topping out in their icu capacity, and some of them having to start to use icu surge space. we're seeing something similar in arizona. in yuma, arizona they have filled up the yuma regional medical center with covid patients. they have now started transferring patients out to other hospitals that can take on the overflow. >> covid-19 is beginning to hit yuma regional medical center hard as more people are testing positive, more people are being admitted into the hospital. >> late friday, saturday we started to see a significant increase in the patients coming into the emergency room and we had to use the surge line to keep the capacity. >> the surge line is a 24-hour direct line to the arizona department of health services, the line was established at the beginning of the crisis for hospitals across the state to communicate when they're at capacity and need to transfer patients out.

>> they've now needed to activate the surge line, which is what you use when you are at capacity and you need to get patients out of your overfilled hospital into other hospitals. they've now hit that point in yuma, arizona, where they need to transfer patients out. i should mention, also, that in that same place, in yuma, arizona, just this past weekend, there was a pretty sizable demonstration that we're keeping an eye on at the state prison there, where dozens of prisoners in yuma have tested positive and where at least until recently even the staff at that prison, with a known sizable outbreak among the prisoners, even the staff there, the corrections officers, were responsible for seeking out testing on their own if they so desired. that yuma prison outbreak is of grave concern to prisoners inside that facility, and to their families, and to the people who work there, and to their families. but that yuma outbreak may also be of grave concern to arizona

more broadly now because the size of the epidemic in yuma is considerable. yuma hospitalizations have tripled in two weeks. the big spike in yuma numbers is contributing to the fact that arizona just had its highest daily e.r. visits. highest daily number of e.r. visits related to covid on saturday and the highest daily hospitalization number for covid patients as a state on sunday. anybody who is sort of taking comfort from the fact that large outbreaks seem to be happening still in nursing homes and prisons and meat packing plants and other big workplaces should not take comfort in the idea that those will be hermetically sealed outbreaks. if you have an outbreak in a prison or nursing home or meat processing plants in your town you have an outbreak in your town that is not going to stay within the walls of that facility. we've seen it everywhere. in arkansas, "the new york times" tracking of where the epidemic is worse now, cites the fayetteville, arkansas region as

the fastest-growing case count in the nation. arkansas as a whole has had six straight days of triple-digit increases in its case count. and the state health director in arkansas just quit. in sioux city, iowa they have just hit a new record for hospitalizations there as well. the state of iowa just confirmed outbreaks in sioux city, and in sioux center, both in purdue meatpacking plants. but local officials seem to think that a lot of the sioux city problem, where again their hospitals are now setting new records for covid patients in the hospital, local officials and local health officials seem to believe that they think a big problem in sioux city is from a 4,300-person meatpacking plant just over the state line in dakota city, nebraska. all 4,300 people in that facility, that tyson facility in dakota city, nebraska, all 4,300 employees there have been tested. but nobody knows what the

numbers are. nebraska officials won't say what the numbers are. iowa officials won't say what the number are. and the company won't say what the numbers are. and so we know there's a sizable outbreak there. we know there's been testing. and so the local health officials presumably, but at least the company knows how many people are infected at that plant but they won't say. so they're just letting the hospitals in sioux city fill up. they are now filling up. they're at their highest hospitalization rates in sioux city. there are two hospitals there and i guess they're just hoping nobody will ask where all of these cases are coming from. that plant in dakota city, still open. the highest per capita infection rate in the state of iowa right now is in buena vista county. population around 20,000. in buena vista county, iowa more than 3% of the entire population of the county is now confirmed to be infected. now, where are all of these infections coming from? infecting more than 3% of the whole county's population, out

in rural iowa? you know by now, right? without me even having to say it. you know, and i know, even without us looking it up on a map. and local reporters know exactly what drives those kinds of epidemic spike numbers. everybody knows what's going on. but boy howdy, does the governor of wa wa of iowa, kim reynolds, not want to admit what it is. watch this from today. >> governor, is there an outbreak at a food production facility in storm lake given the excessive spike in cases in buena vista county? >> we have not confirmed that yet but again what i said earlier, kay, is with us, with our ability to track virus activity on a daily basis that really does kind of give us the information we need to know where we potentially see a hot spot or a potential spike and if we can that's when we move the testing into that area. so at this point they have not met the criteria. >> when do the residents of storm lake who don't work at the

facility get to know that there's an outbreak? >> well -- you want to talk about that? >> the department of public health will confirm an outbreak when we have identified at least 10% of the employees at a particular location. the ones we have identified, 10% of their employees have tested positive. that's the determination in terms of when it's time to announce that there's been an outbreak at a facility like that. >> we're not going to tell you. we're not even going to tell that community. we're going to wait to tell you, we're going to wait to tell the citizens of this county that is now the most infected county in the state and who knows where that's coming from, we're going to wait till it's really, really, really bad, till we've decided to move testing in there, until we've decided that it's more than 10% of their workplace. we're going to wait until then before we tell anybody anything about it. otherwise sure, everything's good, open up, liberate iowa, stop asking about these numbers.

buena vista county, iowa now with between 3% and 4% of its entire population infected and the government will not talk about whether or not the meatpacking plants in the county seat of buena vista county, iowa might be the source of the infection. because they've invented a magic thinking threshold under way they don't need to tell you, they wait until it gets real bad. it is an infectious disease. today, on the day we saw those developments in states where cases are rising and hospitalizations are reaching records and icu beds are hitting capacity, today on the day the united states passed 100,000 dead americans from this epidemic, today a man named larry kramer died. and he's not a household name except in some households. he is in mine. he was the co-founder of the gay men's health crisis which is one of the first and largest aids

service organizations ever. he was also -- and this is what he'll go down in history for. he was the founder of act up. which is called the aids coalition to unleash power. and what act up did, what they aimed to do, was unleash the power of the communities that were being killed hand over fist by the aids epidemic in its first years. and act up's tactics, in the mold of larry kramer, were impolite and pushy, and often carthartic, and ultimately very effective. there's really been nothing else like it in my lifetime. >> how would you define the objectives of act up? >> we want to end the aids epidemic. simple as that. >> plain and simple? >> plain and simple. >> by whatever means necessary? >> we tried being nice. i think we've had to resort to these tactics because nobody listens, quite frankly. we now have some 70 chapters around the world with over a quarter million members. so i think what's happening is

that the backlash is not against us, the backlash is against the system. more and more people are so furious that they perceive the government not doing anything. >> in this case, is the end so desirable that any means justifies it? >> well, we are a nonviolent organization. i don't think we're here to make friends. we're here to raise the issues. no matter what you do, x number of people are going to approve and x number of people aren't so you might as well get your message across the best way you can. >> you would allow you're not making friends. >> i would allow that aids is a very complicated issue and now we are at last beginning to make friends. and as i said, i think the groundswell of new chapters, of new members is very similar to what happened during the vietnam war, where people got so angry at the government that they were forced into this frustration. and i think that's very definitely what's happening now. it took ten years for the first 100,000 cases. the next 100,000 cases are all going to happen in the next 15 months.

>> it took ten years for the first 100,000 cases. the next 100,000 cases are going to happen in the next 15 months. in our case, with this epidemic, it took three months to get to 100,000 dead. in the last epidemic to kill tens of thousands of americans, in the aids epidemic, act up was about the people most affected by the virus speaking for themselves, rather than being ignored or spoken for or, worst of all, spoken about. it was also about unapologetic, uncompromising anger at a government response that was slow and stupid and callous and not driven by science, and ultimately fatal. to thousands of us. peaceful, yes. but angry, loud, at times profane, unafraid, confrontational protest. backed up by a willingness to do the real work of ending the epidemic. >> if you were not outrageous in

your approach and confrontation with the theatrical way larry was i don't think there would have been as much attention paid to the problem. but there are some who think, well, you know, larry goes a little bit too far. yeah, but he went a little bit too far with a purpose. there was a great method to larry's madness as some people said. he knew exactly what he was doing. >> you have said in american medicine there are two eras, before larry kramer and after larry kramer. >> right. >> what do you mean? >> i meant that he fundamentally changed the relationship between the constituency groups with diseases and he did it with hiv/aids, but it really has served subsequently as a model for so many other diseases. >> how do you feel about what he says about you, that you've helped change the face of american medicine? >> i'm a jewish boy who always thought the worst of himself. so i'm not used to taking praise.

i do feel really chills when i -- when i hear that. and tony's kind words give me great pleasure but they also give me more power to carry on the fight. >> that tony is the same dr. fauci from now, from then and from now. larry kramer died today at the age of 84. he was reportedly working on a new play about trying to survive this epidemic, too. trying to survive coronavirus, too. without some kind of action that improves our government's response, a lot of americans, thousands more americans, will not survive. we'll be right back. okay, where were we? yeah, i'm done after this meeting. we're just going over how people who switch to progressive can save hundreds. hey mara! - yeah jamie's the guy running it. - mara, you're not on mute. i once had to fake jury duty to get out of talking about his yogurt preferences. mara, you know you're not on mute, right?

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>> that was minneapolis earlier today. protesters in that city gathered at the intersection where a man named george floyd was pinned to the ground on monday by a police officer who was seen kneeling on his neck. mr. floyd could be heard saying "i can't breathe." he later died. now this afternoon, that intersection where mr. floyd died had transformed into a massive makeshift memorial for him. with flowers, and balloons, placed right near where the incident took place, there are signs there, like "black lives matter," and "justice for george floyd" and of course "i can't breathe." just 2 1/2 miles east the scene has been notably more tense in minneapolis. protesters facing off with police outside of the city police department third precinct house. according to the reporter from the local affiliate, police used tear gas and flash bang explosions after people in the crowd started throwing stuff at police officers on the scene.

i think we've got a live shot, yes, this is a live shot of these protesters, the protests, as they continue right now in minneapolis. the demonstrations i need to tell you do appear to have gotten larger over the course of tonight. these folks aren't going anywhere. all of this of course follows really dramatic scenes of unrest just last night, windows smashed at police headquarters in minneapolis, a line of officers in riot gear fired tear gas and ultimately rubber bullets into the protesting crowds. pictures like this one started to emerge of people dousing themselves with milk after being exposed to the tear gas. the protests that we saw yesterday and are watching unfold again tonight are of course a reaction to the horrifying death of george floyd, including importantly the video showing what happened in the final moments of his life. the incident was captured by a bystander's cell phone. in the video mr. floyd is seen handcuffed and pinned to the ground. he is not armed.

an officer is seen pressing his knee into mr. floyd's neck. i'm about to show you a very short portion of that tape. i will warn you that it is disturbing. here it is. >> i can't breathe! please. >> well get up and get in the car. >> i will. >> get up and get in the car. >> i can't move. >> george floyd repeated "i can't breathe" at least a dozen times. he later stopped moving. he was pronounced dead at the hospital. the officers seen in that video have all been fired from their jobs as police officers. today the mayor of minneapolis called for criminal charges for the officer who was seen kneeling on mr. floyd's neck. >> i've wrestled with more than anything else over the last 36 hours one fundamental question.

why is the man who killed george floyd not in jail? if you had done it or i had done it, we would be behind bars right now. and i cannot come up with a good answer to that question. and so i'm calling on hennepin county attorney mike freeman to act on the evidence before him. i'm calling on him to charge the arresting officer in this case. >> joining us now is brent williams, reporter who has been covering this story extensively for minnesota public radio. mr. williams, thank you very much for joining us this evening. i appreciate you taking the time. >> oh, you're welcome. >> first, let me just ask you if i explained this in a way that comports with your understanding, if i got anything wrong. let me also ask you if you can give us any updates on how the protests have been unfolding today and tonight. >> you didn't get anything wrong in there.

i would just stress on how unusual the mayor's statement was. usually the mayors of minneapolis, when there's been a critical incident involving police officers and the death of a citizen, have urged for calm, they've asked for there to be investigations before there's any type of law enforcement action taken. but this was unusual because the mayor just came right out and said look, why isn't this guy arrested and booked? so as far as the protests tonight, i don't have any other updates besides from what i've been saying, i've been busy working on snoirz today. i was out at the protest site yesterday at the corner of 38th and chicago and did get a chance to speak with some folks there. i spoke to a man who said he was there the night of mr. floyd's death. he told me that it was remarkable to him that after mr. floyd repeatedly told the officers hey man, i can't

breathe, can you get up off of me, that the officers disregarded that and this man told me, he said -- he asked me, what does it take for an african-american to be taken as a human person who feels things? if i say ouch, that means that hurt, please don't do that again. and there were a couple of other people who were basically expressing those same sentiments through chants and shouts, throughout the site there last night. >> let me ask you about what you raised there about the unusual response of the mayor here. the mayor said explicitly, "i'm calling on hennepin county attorney mike freeman to act on the evidence before him and charge the arresting officer in this case." what do we expect will happen? what have we seen evolve thus far between the mayor making that profound statement, that unusual statement, and the d.a. and also the police department in minneapolis, which has been through lots of changes and lots of upheaval and seemingly new

police chiefs every time you turn around? >> right. well, so far the -- well, immediately after the incident, the hennepin county attorney's office basically released a statement saying, you know, hey, this is shocking but we are going to wait for the process to work its way through. the bureau of criminal apprehension is conducting an investigation, as well as the fbi. usually what happens in these instances is the investigating agency, which is usually the bca, will turn over their findings of their investigation to hennepin county to then conduct their own -- take a look at the charging information and decide if they're going to file charges against the police officer. now, mike freeman has drawn a lot of criticism from some members of the black community who feel like he's been extremely reluctant to bring charges against police officers who have been responsible for the deaths particularly of african-americans. and for the police department

also, there's another unusual development here, and that is, as you mentioned, the actions of the police chief, garrett arredondo. he fired the officers before the investigation was completed. that's unusual. usually these officers get sent on paid administrative leave for weeks, perhaps a month or two, while the investigation is going on. so something is different here. i haven't had a chance to really dig in as deep as i'd like to, to find out why the mayor and the police chief took the actions they took so quickly. >> brandt williams, reporter for minnesota public radio. thank you for helping us understand this. that's really clarifying. while we've been talking to you, we're watching some live images about what's happening out in the streets of minneapolis. obviously this is still a developing story. stay in touch with us about this obviously. we're going to keep eyes on this, as is the rest of the country. thanks for being here tonight.

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if we could begin on hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for covid, france today has banned its use. doctors there saying that the data does not provide evidence to support it. given that data, and other studies, should the u.s. do the same and ban hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for covid? >> i'm not so sure it should be banned but clearly the scientific data is really quite evident now about the lack of efficacy for it. and even the possibility that there could be, not could be, but there is, you know, the likelihood that under certain circumstances where may be adverse effects particularly with regard to cardiovascular and the arrhythmias that may be associated with it. there was a suspicion of that for a while but as data comes in it becomes more clear. so i'm not sure you would want to ban it but certainly the data are clear right now.

>> scientific data is really quite evident now about the lack of efficacy for the drug hydroxychloroquine against the coronavirus. you don't necessarily have to ban it, but it might be dangerous and it seems like it sure doesn't work. so says our country's top infectious disease official which shouldn't be huge news with huge political implications except for the fact that the president of the united states has been huckstering that drug to all of us including telling americans repeatedly that he's been taking it himself to prevent coronavirus infection even though there is nothing on earth that suggests it can protect from you coronavirus infection. that said, it's worth considering the possibility that the president just made the whole thing up when he asserted that he has been taking that drug. after announcing last week that he was taking it, this weekend he said he is not taking it anymore. he said he, quote, just finished taking it. okay.

even still the president has kept hyping this drug for some reason. recently citing what he called, quote, incredible studies out of france. whatever incredible studies those might be out of france, now france has banned the use of hydroxychloroquine as a coronavirus treatment. and that's right on the heels of the world health organization dropping that drug out of its large-scale treatment studies because of safety concerns. science-wise, there have been a couple sort of jarring developments today. good ones and bad ones. mostly bad ones. obviously the u.s. has passed this stunning numerical threshold, over 100,000 american deaths from coronavirus as of today and counting. which just knocks the wind out of you and will put this day in american history books forever. we also got pretty hard data today, from a new study in one of america's top medical journals, the journal of the american medical association which suggested that stay-at-home orders enacted by

lots of states have worked, stay-at-home orders have saved thousands of american lives by vastly reducing the number of hospitalizations that would have happened had there not been a stay-at-home order, based on how hospitalizations were growing before those orders went into effect. so we got that data too from jama, that those types of restrictions, those stay-at-home orders have been effective, they have been effective at keeping thousands of people alive in this country, and that data comes right as we start abandoning those restrictions all over the country. even in states where case numbers are through the roof and still rising. so those measures we are stopping, here's the hard data about how well they work. and at the same time, we're learning that something we are doing more of, something we hoped might help, might not help. the cdc has now issued new guidance on coronavirus antibody testing.

more and more americans have been taking coronavirus antibody tests to try to determine if they already had the coronavirus and therefore might be immune to it. the cdc now says that based on current data, if you test positive for coronavirus antibodies, that doesn't necessarily mean you have any immunity to the coronavirus. in fact, the cdc says the tests are still so unreliable, that even if you test positive for antibodies, not only does that not necessarily mean you're immune from getting it again, it doesn't necessarily mean that you have the virus at all. because in technical terms, basically, cdc is saying that the tests are kind of garbage. so they don't even necessarily tell you if you've really got antibodies and knowing you've got antibodies doesn't really tell you anything useful about why you might be immune. so why are we doing the antibody testing? and why did the fda approve all of those garbage tests without making them jump through any hoops to prove they were efficacious? it's been a whip saw of information today, right? the political narrative from the

white house is take hydroxychloroqui hydroxychloroquine, also get an antibody test, but the science is saying neither of those things work. whipsaw day requiring expert advice from scientists. i'll try to make sense of some of this, especially the antibody testing thing which is sort of unmooring. we have just the expert to talk to us about it next. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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for spending a perfectly reasonable amount of time on the couch with tacos from grubhub? grubhub's gonna reward you for that with a $5 off perk. (doorbell rings) - [crowd] grubhub! (fireworks exploding) as we cross the grim threshold of 100,000 coronavirus deaths in the united states, 1.7 million americans infected, today the science got a little fuzzier for lots of americans when the cdc said the antibody testing that's supposed to show whether you have the virus mostly doesn't appear to work and the nation's top infectious disease expert said the president's favored snake oil miracle cure also by the way doesn't appear to work. we might not be able to change our politics at the moment, but we can try to better understand the science, especially on a

landmark day today. joining frut science side is dr. a me. sh adalja a senior scholar at the johns hopkins center for health security. it's really nice for you to be with us tonight. thank you for making the time. >> sure, thanks for having me. >> let me ask you about the antibody testing news from cdc. we had been worried about antibody testing because the fda allowed lots of so-called antibody tests to go to market without them having to prove their efficacy to the fda before they started being basically pushed on the american people. now is the cdc just warning us that hey, there's a lot of garbage tests out there or are they telling us that antibody testing per se is problematic, that we're using it for things we shouldn't be using it and we shouldn't see any certainty in those results? >> a little bit of both. what happened is many tests were released on the market in about maybe about a dozen of them actually had good specificity. because remember, this is the

seventh human coronavirus we discovered. four of them were out there all the time causing common colds. you could get a positive test and it might not mean you have the coronavirus. we've gotten better figuring out what test has good specificity and those are the ones we recommend to be used. the other part is do we know what that antibody means? we believe there is some level of immunity that's confirmed once you're infected and you're immune for some period of time. but we haven't done the natural history studies to know how much antibody you need to be protected and how long the antibody lasts. we can't operationalize the tests to tell people it's safe to do this or safe to do that. we're trying to understand what that level would be but we're not quite there yet. so we can't use them in those decision-making -- at that decision-making level yet. >> given what you just described and those dynamics at work both about interpreting what an antibody test means, how reliable that test result is and what its implications are for your future life and your potential susceptibility to

infection or reinfection, do you expect that anti-body testing will in the future become a more valuable part of our response, that we will have better tests, that we will have tests that tell us more reliably whether or not we really have antibodies and that will give us information we can use in terms of determining whether we have any increased or decreased susceptibility to the virus? >> i do think we will get there. it's going to take some time. this is a new virus. we haven't followed people that have been infected out long enough to see what their antibodies mean for them, what other parts of the immune system are important as well, what other level antibodies are necessary to confer protection and how they decline over time. we will get there, but i don't think that we can operationalize the use of antibody testing for public policy decisions at this point. they do give us an idea if you're using a good test if someone's been infected and that may be important from an epidemiological standpoint to understand where a given region is on an epidemic curve, but you can't operationalize it and say this is safe for you, this is not safe for you. we have a general idea, we don't

have ironclad information -- studies. >> dr. adalja, i have to tell you, your sound kicked out a little bit. if you have a backup phone or something that you have nearby, hopefully if you come back but just in case it gets glitchy for a second i'd ask you to find your backup. there we are. let me just ask you -- it's sort of a difficult question about cdc. i am used to thinking of cdc as the gold standard both for us and sort of around the world. i'm a little bit weirded out about this new guidance coming from cdc about antibody testing. after this debacle last week when people outside cdc noticed that they were combining apples and oranges, they were combining virus tests and antibody tests in their testing numbers in a way that made their cdc data basically garbage in terms of trying to understand testing prevalence in this country. should we worry whether or not cdc is being rigorous about

stuff like this right now? >> i do think the idea of combining antibody tests with pcr tests which test for acute infection and using those numbers iintd numbers interchangeably is the wrong way to go about this. i can't quite understand why that was happening. in our mind, most of us in the field are separating them for good reason. one tells you one type of information, the other tells you something else and you can't use that type of information to make decisions if it's combined together and it can give you a misleading picture of the outbreak on both sides. it can skew it worse or less worse than it is. that's not the way you want to do it. you want to have both data available but you want to delineate what you're putting into those numbers so we have the correct numerators and denominators as we make decisions based on that. it is something that not only the cdc but many states are doing as well. it was a practice that hopefully we're going to see an end to. >> yeah. and it's unsettling that 1.7 million cases and 100,000 american deaths into this. those kinds of errors are still

being made even at the -- even at a level they really should not be made. dr. amesh adalja from johns hopkins university center for health security. thank you very much for your time again tonight, doctor. it's really good to have you here. >> thanks. all right. we'll be right back. stay with us. can it help keep me asleep? absolutely, it senses your movements and automatically adjusts to keep you both comfortable. it's the final days to save $1,000 on the sleep number 360 special edition smart bed, now only $1,799. ends sunday. when you think of a bank, you think of people in a place.

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and a team of experts - here for you 24/7. we've always believed in the power of working together. that's why, when every connection counts... you can count on us. this was new york governor andrew cuomo at the white house today, him going into a meeting with president trump to talk about doing some big building projects, some big infrastructure building projects

as economic stimulus to try to jumpstart the economy. he told reporters that meeting with the president today at the white house went well. we'll get to ask him about it directly tomorrow when governor cuomo will be our guest live here on the now it's time for "the last word" with lawrence o'donnell. good evening, lawrence. >> good evening, rachel. of course, governor cuomo wore a mask as he was entering the white house today. something donald trump refuses to do. senator chuck schumer from new york and democratic leader of the senate is going to join us in this hour. he will no doubt echo -- >> very nice. >> -- some of andrew cuomo's public complaints about the federal government's response to the coronavirus pandemic but also, he really wants to make the point, rachel and i really want to give him the time to talk about exactly what mitch mcconnell is doing to the federal judiciary and what he has been able to do to the federal judiciary with