we want to begin with the headlines at this hour. the coronavirus has killed nearly 160,000 americans with an nbc news analysis further finding at least one person has died from this virus every 80 seconds over the past seven days. just under 5 million americans have been sickened. that group now includes ohio republican governor mike dewine. his office says he tested positive earlier today, hours before he was to greet president trump when he arrived in cleveland. governor also says he has no symptoms and will quarantine for two weeks. testing in the u.s. fell nearly 4% over these past two weeks, when it should be ramping up. officials say it's because people are discouraged about waiting hours to get a test, only to wait days or weeks for the results which negates the

purpose of testing at all. as testing appears to slow down, the president's making a new claim about the timing of a vaccine in what looks to be an attempt to bolster his re-election chances. the president says the u.s. could have a vaccine by election day, just 89 days from now. >> we have a lot of vaccines under study. we look like we're going to be really good on vaccines and with therapeutics. >> what's the earliest we could see a vaccine? >> sooner than the end of the year. >> sooner than november 3rd? >> i think in some cases, yes, possible before. right around that time. >> nearly an hour after the president made those comments to geraldo rivera, that man, dr. anthony fauci, seemed to contradict him on the timing. >> we're trying very hard to get

a vaccine that might be available by the end of the year or the beginning of 2021. that's many months away. >> that will no doubt further endear fauci to trump. meanwhile the labor department says nearly 1.2 americans filed first time unemployment claims last week. this makes the 20th straight week that number has been over 1 million. the news comes the day before the july job's report will be released. two hours from now congressional leadership will meet again to try to reach a deal on a pandemic relief bill. speaker pelosi says she's optimist optimistic. >> i see a light at the end of the tunnel. we just don't know how long the tunnel is. we have to move quickly, more quickly because the light at the end of the tunnel may be a freight train of the virus

coming at us if we do not act to contain it. >> the president is signaling if congress doesn't act he'll sign some sort of executive order, he says, will include a payroll tax cut and extension of unemployment benefits. it's not at all clear whether he would have the authority to do such a thing on his own. what a note to bring in our friend and colleague nicolle wallace host of "deadline white house." nicolle, the good news seems to be a vaccine for everybody on election day. >> it took me all that time to pick my jaw off the desk here after listening to the president lying at such a pace that it's unclear that tony fauci even knew about what the president had said to whomever he was speaking to there. we've just reached a new phase in this where the president's behavior is more childish, more

bafoonish than ever before and the country's problems need grown ups. people are literally in their cars driving around looking for food banks. this is such a sad and sorry state of affairs. i guess it's good news that facebook has phenomenfinally hah trump's lies on covid and took some of them down. >> we talked last night about his increasing relevance to the conversation. he's holding out that it may have been a bomb in beirut. his assertion that children don't get this. i know we've spent a lot of times looking at states with big outbreaks like texas, florida

and oklahoma. we want to talk about mississippi. they may be coming on the verge of having the most infections per capita. correspondent allison barber is in jackson, mississippi. allison, what's the situation there? >> reporter: this hospital is the only hospital in the state of mississippi with level one trauma. they are the only hospital in this state that does transplants. right now they are full. their icu is overwhelmed with patients with covid-19, not only is there -- are their beds full, they don't have enough beds for the patients. they have had to turn away some patient transfers and air lift them to another state because they don't have the room for all

the patients they're needing to see. more and more people who get sick from covid-19, the more and more they're seeing of these problems at this hospital. here is dr. lou ann woodward. >> we are negative 14 icu beds. that means holding in the emergency department or in the recovery room. we've got icu patients that need a bed and there's not one available. we're in a deficit. we're constantly in a deficit of icu beds. when one opens up, there's a patient who right away needs that icu bed. that's been our steady state for the last month or six weeks. >> reporter: right over here are one of the tents set up. you can see some doctors talking to someone driving in. this is one of the areas they're screening patients coming into the hospital for covid-19. up on this building you'll see the metal on the windows there, all those windows with that

metal are icu rooms. they've converted them to negative pressure to safely treat covid-19 patients in those rooms. this hospital converting those rooms to negative pressure back in april. doctors and nurses here are exhausted. look at mississippi, this is a state that already started in a difficult position. they have the lowest amount of physicians per people in the state when you compare it to all the other states in the country. they have some of the highest rates of diabetes, heart disease, obesity. one doctor said when you add a pandemic on top of these issues, it's made everything so much worse. they've been dealing with this for weeks now and they think they're in the middle of the peak, not near the end. nicolle? >> allison, thank you so much for that. joining our conversation now

political report lexie mchammon and peter baker. lexie, i understand you sat in on some interesting focus groups last night. tell us about them. >> that's right, nicolle. thank you and brian for having me today. i sat in on a focus group with seven republican women who voted for president trump. four of those women said they'll vote for joe biden, three are undecided. they're all in pennsylvania. nicolle, the thing that was fascinating was hearing the personal stories from these women backing up why they're not supporting president trump. the coronavirus has changed a lot of things for this women. it's changed for a lot of people around the country. these women are talking about how their husband's businesses are going under.

they're talking about pre-existing conditions they have and how they're afraid to leave their homes. they're talking about the mental health issues they're experiencing being stuck at home. becau they're talking about the daily toll it's taking on these lives. these women are talking about personal intimate things and ways their lives have been rocked by the coronavirus. they're not hearing anything from the president about. all they're hearing from him, they say, are lies. they don't really believe what he's saying about the coronavirus and they feel he doesn't care what's happening at large with the virus and what they're experiencing. when the president maintains this i alone can fix it mentality, it's hard to shred that echo whgo. >> peter baker, donald trump hands lying about things big and

small and he's been incapable of displaying any empathy as a public figure since the beginning of his public life. neither of those things have caught up with him. that's not been reflected in the polls until right now. his approval rating is down around 26% in the last poll i saw. there it is 31% trust him. if those are poling on his approval ratings, it boggles the mind he says things like this comment yesterday repeating that the virus is just going to go away. let's listen. >> reporter: on the coronavirus, this thing is going away, it will go away like things go away. >> it's going away. >> reporter: is that reality? >> it's going away like things go away.

absolutely. no question in my mind it will go away. hopefully sooner rather than later. >> peter, why does he keep saying that sfch? >> it's a great question. i don't know the answer. in history there were pandemics that worked their way through society and went away, but they did enormous damage. the 1918 epidemic to which this has been compared didn't end until 1920. saying it's going to go away is hardly solace for people dying and many others feeling sick. the problem with saying that is it makes it sound like he's indifferent to that suffering. we've had 160,000 deaths. we've had no national mourning. we've had no leadership from the president expressing the great depth and grief that he feels for the nation.

the losses aren't over. if we have 1,000 people die a day, at this pace it will be another 90,000 by election day. that's equivalent to all the so soldiers we lost in vietnam and korea combined. it's not going away. it's getting worse. >> peter, let's talk about lexie's reporting yesterday that the biden group has narrowed this down to rice and harris and how much political orthodoxy this puts on its ear. just in our lifetimes, lbj thought he needed a northern to run with. reagan thought he needed an easterner. kerry thought he needed a southerner. these times are different. both women are from, for lack of a better turn, locked blue areas that get a potential

presidential candidate biden no new territory. it's the times that have changed. >> that's right. neither one of them changes the picture of his ticket either. a lot of candidates take into effect geography or you appeal to a part of your party you don't appeal to. neither rise, nor kamala harris would be seen looking out to the left wing of the party. look what we learned from vice presidential candidates in recent times. the slogan is do no harm. they can hurt you. they don't necessarily help you. the choices you make, you need to make a choice for somebody who is not going to cause you issues or problems like sarah

palin did for john mccain in 2008. that's at the top of the list for the biden cam papaign. they want somebody who has to be a woman. he focused strongly on putting the first african-american woman on the ticket. that would be a historic claim to progress that he could make. he's not interested in doing anything that's going to cause issues with the campaign that right now is double digits ahead of the incumbent president. >> lexie, talk about your reporting along with our friend hans and how this process for the political veterans working in and around the biden campaign, decades of experience, may indeed feel different this time around for them. >> you know, i think peter's point is exactly right. the vp position is someone that does no harm on the ticket. that's true especially where joe

biden is going up against donald trump. there are a lot of liabilities that a running mate could bring in how trump could brand that person that the biden campaign is considering. they want to make sure that person is an asset, not a liability, that that person is able to bring something to the ticket, but can do the job if needed. we talk about the electoral map. biden's campaign is also focussed on investing in 15 different battle ground states including some like georgia and texas that are traditional republican strong holds, but show biden is competitive there already. susan rice and senator kamala harris might not bring something to the ticket in terms of where they come from in states, they bring something to the ticket in terms of ideology. they can't be built as socialists in the way the trump campaign wants to paint biden

and the ticket. susan rice brings foreign policy experience to the ticket. that's something biden can say i'll handle the coronavirus at home and susan rice can handle rebuilding our relationships on the global stage. that's something her allies talk about and people in the democratic circle talk about. >> two important by lines. our thanks to lexie and peter for starting off our live coverage on a thursday afternoon. when we come back the deeply personal decision in the middle of an economic catastrophe for so many hard-working american families. it's about sending their kids back to school or not. new polling shows that families across the country are not sure it's a safe idea. we have protesters in the streets, divided politics, a presidential election, we are

watching civics in action. we just don't always call it that. today we'll look at a movement to get civics back into our heads. get young people in the civics game as our next leaders because we need them. one of those leaders will join us when we continue. little things can become your big moment. that's why there's otezla. otezla is not an injection or a cream. it's a pill that treats differently. for psoriasis, 75% clearer skin is achievable, with reduced redness, thickness, and scaliness of plaques. for psoriatic arthritis, otezla is proven to reduce joint swelling, tenderness, and pain. and the otezla prescribing information has no requirement for routine lab monitoring. don't use if you're allergic to otezla. it may cause severe diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting. otezla is associated with an increased risk of depression. tell your doctor if you have a history of depression or suicidal thoughts or if these feelings develop. some people taking otezla reported weight loss.

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the debate over whether to send children back to school is a deeply personal one. they're your children after all. no one knows them or loves them as you do. as schools work out their plans, new poling finds broad rejection of president trump's call to open schools as he puts it 100%. "washington post" poll finds that 44% of parents prefer a mix of online and in person classes, that hybrid solution.

39% all online instruction. only 16% of those parents surveyed prefer a full return to in-person classes. the president also repeatedly made the false claim that children are almost immune to the virus. according to the cdc, children make up roughly 7% of all cases of coronavirus in our country. in the state of tennessee as the state's governor pushes to re-open schools coronavirus infections jumped 33% in ten days among children ages 5-18. >> we welcome back dr. michael anderson. dr. anderson, we focussed last time on the risk to children. i think there's more data now that children do indeed get the infection, do indeed spread it quite efficiently. are you alarmed by the rates of spread you're seeing at the

georgia camp and at the schools that have opened in tennessee and indiana and other places that have opened schools? most all have outbreaks and quarantines and are sending kids and teachers home. >> i don't know if i'm alarmed. every week there's a new bit of data. you're right, nicolle, last week we were talking about the study from chicago that show younger kids have the virus. we were talking about the camp in georgia that had to close because of widespread outbreaks. this "washington post" poll is interesting to me because we've heard from the experts, the pediatricians, public health. we've heard teachers want to be safe returning to school. they want to teach, but they want to be safe. now we're hearing from families that are scared. they're nervous if we go back too quickly, we'll see like in tennessee that the infection

will run rampant. i'm not concerned, but it's more evidence we're getting more data each and every week and we have to make decisions at a local level whether it's safe to open a school. as we talked about last time, if a number of kids become positive, how does the school itself and that school district react so we can squelch that spread. >> i go back to the cdc that put out this georgia camp story. there were 370 kids, 270 got sick. if you spread that infection rate over the adult population, they get sick and they do die. what are we asking our teachers to do. no company, look at the fortune 500 companies, not one has required 100% in-person working for anyone outside of critical food supplies or manufacturing. yet we're going to require or face federal cuts 100% in-person

teaching and learning? >> i think that georgia camp case says a couple things. how quickly you go from zero to a lot of cases. in that georgia case they did not require face masks. face masks have become political. they can't be. face masks help prevent the spread of this. the kids were not required in that camp to have face masks. what the cdc has said, you've got to have some semblance of local control of the virus before you go full on in-person. if you can't say you have that with good face mask covering, good social distancing, the number of cases going down, you're right we're asking the teachers to do something we're not asking other segments of society to do. local control and really once again i don't mean to say it over and over, we got to get

away from the politics of face masks and realize we're in this together. we have to use masks. they're a really important tool. >> doctor, let's talk socio economics. no one wants to engage in spreader shaming of little kids. the fact is they can be spreaders especially in i am pofr risched areas and there is the basis of community spread, correct? >> you're right, brian. you saw in that poll that parents from more affluent school districts seem to be more okay in in-person classrooms. the folks that came from socio economic challenged areas were not as big as fans. there's so many public health layers to the public health

discrepancies we're seeing down to the basics of, if we have this hybrid, which i'm hoping we get more of, then you have to have good wifi. you have to have access to high tech stuff. there is unfortunately a big divide. we've seen it in the outcomes from covid as well in adults. once again the layers of public health issues that we've got to deal with are not really cut and dry. they're deep and it's going to take a long time to address. >> doctor, thank you for coming on and regularly taking our questions. we appreciate it. our thanks to dr. michael anderson of the ucsf children's hospital. when nicolle and i return, when former supreme court san andreas d justice sandra day o'connor

preached for a return to civics, she couldn't have been more right. when we come back, civics in 2020, the urgent effort to get young people in the game for the long game. a lot of healthy foods are very acidic and aren't necessarily great for your teeth. the acid can actually wear away at the enamel which over time can cause sensitivity and a lot of people start to see their teeth turn yellow. i like to recommend pronamel to my patients to help them protect their teeth and keep the enamel strong.