of on social media by the president of the united states. our thanks to our friends for joining us on a monday afternoon. elise, maria kumar and robert costa. when we come back -- hospitals in houston bracing for the very worst of this outbreak as medical workers warn they're short not only beds but the staff they need to treat the people in them. that story and more, next. when you shop with wayfair, you spend less

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you're not witnessing it and the devastation that covid is causing with your own eyes like we are in the hospitals. but behind each one of those numbers is a name, a face, a life. a story cut short. >> so that's one of the warriors we have come to know in the year 2020. a registered nurse in l.a. reminding does choices we make as individuals day in and day out can quite literally save another person's life and now that the holiday weekend has come and gone, the country is bracing for another spike in coronavirus cases. here are the facts as we know them -- we're coming up on 3 million known cases of covid-19

across our country. over 131,000 americans have lost their lives to the virus. six days into the month of july, it's off to a devastating start. already this month the u.s. has seen a staggering quarter of a million new cases. we lead the world in coronavirus sadly. experts say there's little indication the numbers will get better any time soon. and as cases continue to skyrocket after -- across the state of florida, the mayor of miami-dade shutting down the bustling social scenes even as bars there remain closed the mayor's cracking down on gatherings at short-term rentals, party halls, venues in an effort to curve large gatherings. in new york, after videos of large gatherings over the holiday weekend, governor cuomo had this warning for new yorkers earlier today --

>> the last thing we need is to see this virus spike again. we get complacent. we get a little arrogant. that is a real threat. and it's a threat that i'm concerned about. >> let's turn to one of our reports reporters on the ground, priscilla thompson with us. the houston region grappling with record-breaking hospitalizations. i want to share with our audience the front page of the houston paper, i believe this was the sunday paper the question, how did we get here? the headline here, abbott's plan unravels the state into a hot spot. >> reporter: brian, you know, just last night, the state reported more than 8,000 people

are currently hospitalized for covid-19. that's a new record here and the cdc is saying that by the time this virus peaks here around mid-july, those hospitalizations could be up to nearly 2,000 people per day and that's a huge concern in a place like houston where the positivity rate here for those it'sing positive for the virus is at 25%. 1 in 4 people who are tested are testing positive which is obviously putting a huge strain on hospitals for those folks who are getting so sick that they're having to go to the hospital and, you know, it's interesting a trend that we're seeing here, is that these patients are no longer just the older people who are being impacted by this virus but hospital edadministrators s they're seeing a lot of younger people coming in so they're able to manage the volume by, you know, because the hospital stays

aren't quite as long but they're still really placing the emphasis on people and preventive measures. you know that houston chronicle article, how did we get here, it looks a few weeks ago when the white house was praising texas for how the state was reopening and now we're seeing that those numbers are going up and that's in part because they never actually went down when the state was first reopened and so, you know, this fourth of july weekend was a big concern for folks and we saw some pretty drastic measures put in place, bars were closed, a few days ago in order to ensure that those weren't going to be crowded. there was that mandatory mask order that the governor put in place for a majority of places here in texas, and doctors and officials are really hoping that has an impact here and helps to

contain the spread. >> priscilla thompson, thank you. when we come back after yet another break -- at a time when racial injustice is a front-burner issue in this country we're seeing striking new evidence evidence of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic is having in communities of color in our country. apps are used everywhere...

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issues of racial injustice, new federal data is giving us the clearest picture yet of the deep racial disparities of the coronavirus pandemic. new york times analyzed cdc data from over 900 counties across the country, again our federal government didn't lay this out, it took a newspaper to do so, the analysis found that black and latino people are three times as likely to become infected as their white neighbors. on the map you can see that this is a national trend. it's in both former and current coronavirus hot spots. communities of colors continue to be hit the hardest. while these numbers give us a better sense of the scale of these inequalities we should note the data does not provide the full picture of this crisis. as "the new york times" point out and we quote, not only is race and ethnicity information attention if this is new to them. on rare occasion when our government talks about the death

toll from coronavirus in the black nunty, they never fail to mention the comorbidities. am i alone in sensing a bit of victim-shaming? >> you're not alone. we're wolooking at not only cov, it's had tragic consequences but what it has done is highlight the map of inequality in the united states. and so in addition to healthcare access, in addition to food deserts, into the dynamics that we know that go into these comorbidities, one ofprofound t york city where i live, you know the streets are like a ghost town in march, downtown, if you went to wall street, if you went to times square, if you went to

grand central, those places were empty. many communities in the bronx, if you went to harlem, certain place places, those places were populated. they had to go to work, in order to get there they had to ride the subway, take the bus. they came home to apartment buildings more likely to be heavily populated. fewer people around, fewer people you can catch the disease from. these are people in communities that wasn't an option. all of the dynamics that we know, the health dynamics, all these things combined they're really feeding off of each other to create that map of inequality

that "the new york times" pointed out. >> i have to say the last public issue i saw move as fast up the chain in terms of public polling prior to black lives matter was gay marriage. there's a real -- the phrase, this is a movement not a moment happens to be very true. but let me ask you this, is there a kind of public education, public policy silver lining that this tremendous overindexing morbidity is happening at a time when the public is tuned in, public attitudes are changing and we've got all kinds of folks still in the streets of all kinds of cities and towns across our country. >> oh, absolutely. and, you know, not to self-quote, i wrote something for the new yorker, i said, race in the united states to the extent it represents anything coherent is really shorthand for

a set of life probabilities. and that's what we're seeing laid out in front of us, we tend sometimes we think of the covid crisis with the recession, with the death of george floyd and breonna taylor and other people, we think of those three distinct news events but they're really interconnected. what we're looking at is the probabilities of how people's lives are impacted by any other dynamic. and this is something that people in public health have known for a long time. historians, scholars of public policy have known for a long time. but that information hasn't filtered out very well to the general public. now people are looking to see what exactly is going on. it becomes. >> how does a big city like new york get the balance right

between those who have died at the hands of police and a police department right now feeling like they are under siege and in some cases choosing to do what is just called for in job description and by the way, we're in the middle of a crime wave. >> right. well, i mean, here's the thing -- we've heard these kinds of threats made from police departments that's how they should be termed. one of the things that's weird about, they argued with people on the other side by saying we're going to give you the very things you've been asking for, people really want less law enforcement as it pertains to things that aren't as essential, like when we saw the enforcement of the mask ordnance. 40 people arrested, 35 of those

are black or latino, so clearly that was not representative of the numbers of people not wearing masks in new york city. so for police to not do those sort of things is exactly what people in the community are asking for. and i don't think the balance is necessarily the operative term here because we have gone so far to the other side but we're simply the police departments act with the accountabilitywitht has the legal sanction to actually kill citizens. which no other part of new york city's civil service employment could actually say that. >> by the way, giuliani, as two guys who have spent a fair amount of theirs lives in and around the business of journalism, you and i can both name four or five serial self-quoters. you are not now nor have you ever been a self-quoter. this is a -- this is a safe

space for that kind of thing. thank you very much. always a pleasure to have you on. you l giuliani cobb. up next, the decision by the supreme court today and the impact it could have on november's election. impact it could have on november's election. dear fellow business leaders and technologists, i see all the amazing things you have been doing. you are transforming business models, and virtualizing workforces overnight. because so much of that relies on financing, we have committed two billion dollars

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court issued a ruling that could great impact november's presidential election and we're about to be told by an expert how that could be. the supreme court unanimously ruled that the 538 electoral college members, those who actually cast the votes that decide the presidential election must vote as directed by the laws of their states. with us for more on this decision and what it could, indeed, mean for november are veteran justice correspondent, pete williams. pete, not to be confused with

the 1974 linda ronstadt hit, faithless love, this is about faithless elector. what should we know about them and how could the rubber meet the road in our election in november? >> well, what this means is this takes out a whole level of uncertainty that could have added even more drama to this fall's election. because here's the deal, when you go to the polls in november, you're voting for a slate of electors you've never heard of. they meet in december and cast the actual vote for president. as you noted. that's the actual vote that's counted in congress in january, that determines how the president is really elected. the question is, they're appointed by the states, but they told the supreme court, yes, we understand the states can ask us to pledge loyalty, when they choose us, but when we get to the electoral college meeting place in december, then we become agents of the federal government and the states can't tell us what to do, and today, the supreme court said, no, no,

that's not right. in a unanimous decision, although they disagree that members of the court on where this authority comes from, but they basically say, the power to appoint includes the power to set conditions and one of those conditions is electors have to follow the laws of their states. and in fact, 32 states require electors to vote, just as their states do. so whoever won the majority vote in that state, that's who the electors have to vote for. as they say on the radio, except in maine and nebraska, where the electors follow the congressional election returns, largely. so it really takes an element of unpredictability and drama out of the election. because, brian, you can easily imagine, as you noted, an even number of electors, if it was really close, one or two switching sides, could decide the election. >> absolutely. pete williams, thank you for that. pete's in our washington newsroom, where we will be returning to talk to him about the remaining cases this week, i'm quite sure.

thank all of you for being with us this hour. i'll be back with you 11:00 eastern time, for the monday edition of "the 11th hour." katy tur picks up our coverage at the top of the hour. y tur pic at the top of the hour and with new deals every day you can explore endless options at every price point. get your outdoor oasis delivered fast so you can get the good times going. ♪ wayfair. you've got just what i need. ♪

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virus cases continue to soar over the holiday weekend, at least 18 states hit records in new cases. hospitalizations or both. the white house, meanwhile, is digging in with the presidentle all cases are totally