my order is very strong at two weeks to give us the opportunity to be able to determine whether we take the next step, which would be me asking for a shutdown. and i'll be extremely just up front. and i'm going to do that good evening, rachel. good evening, chris, my friend, much appreciated. this is one of those records from history that looks different to us now through our pandemic eyes. but have a look. here it is. this is closing time at the polls in birmingham, alabama, in may of 1966 because we are all

now citizens of pandemic 2020, you see a photo of anybody crowded together like this anymore and it flips your stomach over a little bit, right? you're too close together. nobody's got a mask. it activates something in us now to see that. but there they are, a thousand people or more all crowded into that one alabama polling place, may 3rd, 1966 in birmingham. can't do that nowadays for any reason. but there's something important to know about this photo, both for then and for us now. again, that photo is 1966. the year before that photo was taken in alabama, the future congressman john lewis was very nearly killed while he was trying to lead a march for voting rights across the edmund pettus bridge at selma, alabama. john lewis and his fellow marchers, black and white, mostly black, were set upon by alabama state troopers and by a

minuted posse the local sheriff had rounded up against local white men. the violence that day against the marchers was horrifying. it turned out the country was watching as it happened, and that blood bath on the bridge in selma led directly to the passage and then the signing a few months later of the national voting rights act. president lyndon johnson signed that law in considerable part because of the horrific blood sacrifices of those peaceful marchers. president johnson signed that law to try to make good on the promise of universal voting rights of citizens of this country. and that law that johnson signed made a difference. he signed it in 1965. this was 1966. people all over alabama lined up in 1966 to vote. black americans who had never been allowed to vote before now lined up in this incredible scene, lined up to register and to vote in the first big southern election where they had federal protection for exercising their right to vote.

thanks to john lewis and his fellow protesters being beaten nearly to death by that sheriff and that posse on the bridge in 1965, thanks to the country recoiling in horror and president johnson getting that law through and signing it in spring of 1965, by the spring of 1966 there was a federal law protecting the rights of african-americans to vote in alabama and everywhere in this country. in alabama in that year in 1966 it was a big election for alabama. for one thing there was the top of the ticket. on the alabama ballot in the spring of 1966, running in the democratic primary for the governor of alabama was a political novice, a woman, named lurlene wallace. mrs. lurlene wallace was married to the white supremacist george wallace, the george wallace that swore segregation now, segregation tomorrow,

segregation forever, the george wallace who stood in the schoolhouse door to prevent african-americans from registering for class at the state university, george wallace. at that point, the incumbent governor was term limited out. he couldn't run for governor again in 1966. so, his wife ran in his stead to preserve his power in what would have basically been a puppet governorship where george wallace was still really in charge even though his wife was the one who held the office. so she stood for office in the alabama democratic primary in 1966 and everybody knew exactly what that meant. and the black voters of alabama turned out in that primary in 1966. look at this. you mean, between newly having a real right to vote and imminently facing an outcome they devoutly wish to avoid, you could see the drive and the motivation to get up and put on your sunday best and get out and vote that day in 1966.

they were trying to stop the racist wallace machine, and they had a way to try to do it. and they would be protected in exercising their right to do it, their right to act, to vote and to say no. well, now, of course, all these years later in 2020, we are living through our own time of lining up to vote. and of course it's different. but we learn from our past. what we've got this year is a time of monumental turnout. looks like enormous enthusiasm. patriotic sacrifice on a personal scale replicated by the millions and ultimately by the tens of millions. long lines this year in 2020. we will wait. rain? we will wait in the rain. heat? we will wait in the heat. deadly virus? we will put on a mask and stand six feet apart. while we are there, we will dance. we will send each other pizza. we will offer chairs and make sure the older folks get to the

front of the line if we can. regular american voters in small ways have been turned into heroes this year because voting has been turned into something that too often takes nearly heroic sacrifice. now, some of the fervor we're seeing out there at the polls this year is undoubtedly in favor of the incumbent president, just as some of it comes from the desperate desire to get him out of office. and some of it comes from real enthusiasm for the ticket that could replace him if he is voted out. and just like the americans in that long ago alabama polling place in that photo from 1966, though, we can't know what will result from all this effort. we have to do it anyway not knowing in advance what will happen. black voters, 1966 in alabama, top of the ticket. turns out they were not able to stop lurleen wallace. she won the democratic primary

anyway, and then she became governor so the wallace regime kept its grip on the neck of the state with that little trip inside the wallace marriage. but what those voters did in alabama mattered. for one thing, it ended up being national news when all those black voters who turned out in alabama in 1966, they advanced black candidates for the state legislature, even for county sheriffs. "the new york times" sent reporters 1,000 miles to go cover it. quote, mrs. iona morgan, 64 years old, wearing a hat and a bright red dress admitted with a giggle she had to work up her nerve to go in to vote. she said seemingly surprised, quote, it wasn't nothing bad. another voter, william bolden, 81 years old whose grandparents were slaves took a more positive view. it felt good to me, he said, drawing himself up to his full

5'3". it made me think i was sort of somebody. the next county over from lowndes county was dallas county, home to selma, where the local sheriff was on the ballot that year, the same sheriff who had charged the marchers on horse back, where john lewis remembered seeing his own death on that bridge, where the voting rights act was born. the sheriff who did that was on the ballot for re-election in 1966. what happened on that bridge was not an outlier in the tenure of that sheriff. even before he sent the horses into the crowd on that edmund pettus bridge, sheriff jim clark had been a menace to selma for years. when high school kids in selma demonstrated for black voting rights, sheriff jim clark ran them out of town. look at them. i mean, literally look at them running. he literally ran them out of town nay forced march that involved cattle prods. kids. two days later, sheriff clark

went to the hospital with chest pains and the kids who he had run out of town knelt outside the courthouse and prayed for him to recover. can you believe that photo? that's the kind of sides we had, right? that's the kind of people who were on two different sides of the fight that year. the one side hitting kids with electric cattle prods and the kids who were praying for the man who was torturing and prosecuting them. you can see sheriff jim clark there in the white helmet the following year. that's him there in the white helmet trying to personally intimidate a man who had come to register to vote under the voting rights act. why are you wearing your helmet, sir? is that your gun on your hip? in the months leading up to that 1966 election where sheriff clark was on the ballot, the sheriff sometimes used force, as you can see here, as he tried to stop new voters from registering, he was violent about black voters with no compunction.

sometimes he laughed and jeered at them personally as the black people he supposedly served in that county lined up to become his voting constituents. when they lined up by the hundreds on election day and waited their turn to vote, sheriff jim clark then did his best to stop the counting of their ballots. as sheriff he challenged the content of ballot boxes from six minority precincts. he said they were all fraudulent and those votes shouldn't be counted. this is how one lawyer from the u.s. justice department remembers that time. this was written in the american bar association years later. it quotes justice attorney john rosenburg. rosenburg recalls that counting the ballots took a long time and when six predominantly black wards hadn't finished by late evening, the county's democratic executive committee picked up their boxes and refused to count the ballots. we filed a civil rights action. to require them to include the

ballots. we weren't talking about who would win or lose. but the ballots in those boxes needed to be counted. that action that day in that election in alabama the year after the voting rights act was passed, the local sheriff who beat the hell out of people protesting for black voting rights took it to the next step on election day, tried to block black votes from being counted. that day, that election, that crucible was the first time the federal government intervened in an election like that under the votes rights act of 1965 to protect the votes of black americans. justice department lawyers entered into a civil rights action to make sure those ballots were counted, and it worked. they took it to court. the court ordered all the votes be counted, even the black ones. even though it was later in the evening than anyone expected. rosenberg remembers, quote, we were before judge daniel thomas which we were worried about because he'd been slow.

in desegregating schools. he was more conservative. but judge thomas ordered the ballots be counted and the result of that counting was that jim clark was out. sheriff jim clark was out. the voters had voted. the votes got counted, and the worst of the worst was out. he lost. the governor's race did not go their way that day, but the sheriff who very nearly killed john lewis, the sheriff who butchered his way through peaceful protests on that bridge in selma, who terrorized the people of his city and jeered at them and laughed in their faces and intimidated personally, tried to block them from voting, tried to block their votes from being counted if they could manage to vote, he failed. they voted, and they voted him out that day in 1966 decisively. as a side note you might be interested to hear that while john lewis went onto become a lion and a beacon of american democracy sheriff jim clark

would ultimately end up in a different way. he ended up serving 9 months in prison on a serious drug charge, conspiracy to smuggle thousands of pounds of south american drugs into alabama. for the whole rest of his life jim clark remained absolutely unrepentant about what he had done on the edmund pettus bridge that day and his yaling of the activist and the forced march of the school kids he hit with cattle prods and all of it, absolutely up until the day he died we died unrepentant. with all the newfound challenges of no longer having a federal voting rights law with any teeth of it, no longer having a justice department at the federal level that will help thank tuesday the hard line right wing ascendants in the courts in washington, as we head into this election one of the things we've got in our pocket

are these photos, right? these interviews. we've got this lived experience, this history to stand on and to learn from. in 1966 when "the new york times" sent reporters to cover those long, long, long lines of african-american voters turning out in alabama in that fraught election, in that terrifying time one elderly first time voter told "the times," quote, i'm going to vote just as far against jim clark as i can against anybody in this world. i've been wanting him out for a long time, a long time. the reporter put that part in all caps, put the word "long" in all caps. the paper found ms. mary reese in line along with another 100 people where she'd already been waiting for 2 1/2 hours by the time they talked to her. people began lining up at 7:30 in the morning before the polls opened. this year we're one week away from election day.

as it stands right now in most states in i think it's 29 states although check the courts, you have to have your ballot in by election day or they won't count it. so even if you put it in the mail well before election day and you get it postmarked well before election day in 29 states if that ballot isn't received by the close of the polls on election day, they're not going to count it. 29 states. in 28 of those 29 states right now it's on average taking more than six days for local first class mail to get delivered right now. well, that means it's done, right? do the math. seven days from now, it'll be six days from tomorrow if your vote isn't in the mail already. bottom line, it's pretty much too late now to submit your vote by mail. obama administration attorney general eric holder saying so quite bluntly this morning.

quote, it's too late to use the mails. it's too late to use the mails. given supreme court rulings i urge everyone to now vote in person. early vote or use drop boxes. protect your health but don't let the court meaning the supreme court and deliberately crippled postal service deprive you of your most precious civil right. the top election officials secretary of state in swing state michigan saying much the same thing today in detail for voters of her state. she put out this press statement today. jocelyn benson says it's too late to rely on u.s. postal service for absentee ballots. she says, quote, we're too close to election day and the right is too much to rely on the postal service to deliver absentee ballots on top. she says citizens who already have an absentee ballot should sign the back of the envelope and hand deliver it to their city our township's clerks office or drop box as soon as possible. voters who haven't yet received their ballot should go to their

clerks office in person to request it in person. fill it out, sign the envelope and submit it all in one trip. in michigan 3 million ballots were requested. 2 million of those 3 million have been returned so far. that means a million are still out there. if you're holding onto one of those million ballots in michigan now it's got to be sent back in person if you want to make it in time. in wisconsin nearly 1.8 million ballots were requested. most have been filled out and returned already, but more than 600,000 wisconsin ballots are still out there and haven't come back yet. if you are holding onto one of those ballots that hasn't yet been returned you need to bring it in person now if you want to make it in time. in pennsylvania half the ballots requested haven't yet been returned. if you're holding onto one of those ballots in pennsylvania that hasn't yet been brought back to the state, do not put it in the mail. they need to be brought by hand

now in person. if you're going to make it in time. north carolina, arizona, same again, half the ballots requested aren't back yet. if you want your ballot received and counted in time in north carolina, arizona, pennsylvania, all those hundreds of thousands of ballots need to come back now by hand in person. it's too late for the mail. in florida it's 2 million ballots that haven't come back yet. you've got a ballot in florida that you haven't sent back into the state yet, if you want it in on time those need to be brought in-person by hand if you want to make it in time now. we have been talking for months now about this election as the first big national vote by mail election because of the pandemic. but not anymore. that part of it is over. in part because they really did purposely monkey wrench the post office to make that simple and safe solution not work. in part because they realize that way too many people were

still voting, and so now they want to not count as many ballots as possible by any means necessary. we're seeing this flood of cases into the newly hard lined conservative supreme court. republicans fighting in state after state to get the united states supreme court to allow them to not count your ballots somehow. to limit the time you have to get your ballot in, to limit the places you can vote, to limit the number of places you can even just drop off your ballot. to add to the list of bogus picky reasons they can allege some imperfections in your vote to disqualify it, stop the counting, throw out as many ballots as they can. that's what the next week and beyond is going to be like. and so we stand in line. we take strength from our history. we will line up and do it. we will line up in places where they just want voting to take forever so those with the least time and resources to spare have to give up. we will line up in places where they are determined to slow the

mail so we can't vote safely from home even in the pandemic. we will line up in places where they're determined even if we cast our ballots there will be challenges and tricks and rope courses that our ballots have to run through while they try to justify not counting them. the united states supreme court under its previous conservative majority took the heart out of the voting rights act years ago. and now the work of protecting the vote and protecting voters lives and protecting voters' ability to get this done, it lies as much with nonprofits and political parties and legal volunteers and citizen determination as it ever did under the justice department in years going back to 1965. under this court, under this attorney general, under this president hers not going to be any justice department attorneys riding in with the weight of the federal government on hand to protect citizens' rights to vote. it's not going to happen. we'll have to patch it together ourselves.

and, know importantly we will not know what will happen at the end of the day. you never do. there are no guarantees. and right now in this election, again, we're one week out tonight, and the attention of course is on top of the ticket. the whole world's attention is at the top of the ticket in our country. but watch down ballot, too, where a fire hose of determined voters can do almost anything despite almost any odds. watch the house, watch the senate, watch the governorships, watch the state legislators. watch county sheriffs. think of jim clark when you do so. so much is up for grabs when you do so, this time, this week, in the next seven days. if you find yourself standing in a line that ought to be a national embarrassment. if you're waiting to put your ballot in the county's one lonely drop box because they closed all the rest of them, know you're pulling a thread through a lot of history.

you're doing something we've all been taught how to do by some of the bravest most persevering americans who ever lived. you stand in the lines. you may not be able to do everything. not everything may go your way, but you do what you can do, and you won't believe what you can do. the associated press sent their reporters and their photographers to cover that patient, brave, determined steadfast surge of black voters in 1966 alabama. here's the final words of the ap caption under that photo that ran nationwide in 1966. it says, quote, all in line got to vote. the lines may take forever, i know -- stay in line. beautiful. but support the leg!

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just yesterday he said that putin, of russia, xi of china, and kim jong-un of north korea want him to win. we know! we know! because you've been giving them whatever they want for the last four years. of course they want you to win. that's not a good thing. you shouldn't brag about the fact that some of our greatest adversaries think they would be better off with you in office. of course they do! what does that say about you? >> former president barack obama in orlando, florida, today on what "the new york times" is referring to as the former president's, quote, new gig, gleefully needling trump. with t minus one week until the election is over, biden himself heads to florida on thursday. that will be followed by a

doub doubleheader on friday. he'll be in iowa and wisconsin on friday. biden will be on to michigan on saturday. senator kamala harris' itinerary shows democratic confidence as well. she'll make a stop in arizona tomorrow followed by multiple campaign stops in the great state of texas on friday, a state where republicans haven't lost a single statewide office since 1994. but harris will be stumping all day in texas on friday. democratic ticket is hitting territory that conventional wisdom says shouldn't be on their schedule with one week to go. today alone, biden held not one, but two rallies in the great state of georgia. georgia. going on offense in a great state that hasn't backed a democrat for president since 1992. joining us now is stacey abrams, founder of fair fight which fights for voter suppression.

she's a former georgia governor candidate and leader of democrats in the state legislature. thank you so much for making time to be here tonight. >> thank you such an extraordinary opening laying out what's so important in this election and getting your ballots in. that was really exceptional. >> oh, thank you. i've got to say i had a little trouble with it because looking at those photos makes me cry. so, trying to explain what i'm trying to say, describe what i'm trying to say keeps getting interrupted because every time i look at those visuals, it makes my heart burst. but that's part of what i wanted to talk to you about. i feel like we've got some new dynamics this year and some real calls to learn from our history in part because even though this is a pandemic, this is supposedly the vote by mail election, we're seeing huge early voter numbers. you've been among the people who's been suggesting that right now if you don't have your ballot in already, you better get it in in person even if it is going to be long lines because it may be at this point too late to do it any other way. maybe too late to do it by mail. it's got to feel a lot of -- i

imagine giving that kind of advice has to have a lot of crosscurrent feelings for you. >> i think the most important piece is reminding people that the end goal is to be heard. and while voting by mail was the safest, most accessible option, what we have to remember is once you have that ballot, the mission is to get it in. and mail would be best. if people could go to their very safe mailboxes and drop it off. in lieu thereof, we live in 2020, getting it in the hands of those who will count it is what matters most. going to your county election office. bringing it with you and getting it cancelled if you need to vote in person. making it the focus like the men and women in the lines you talked about, it's about interesting seen and being heard and not letting anyone distract you from that mission. >> stacey, are you seeing differences in georgia specifically in terms of who's been able to get their ballot back? obviously, a lot of people are going to vote on election day.

in terms of people who have requested ballots from the state and have them and haven't brought them back yet. are you seeing demographic distances or age differences in terms of whose ballots are still out there outstanding that need to be brought in now? >> well, we know there are about 750,000 outstanding ballots. we know that for example, the county of gwinnett needed larger ballots because of language requirements, that there was a bit of a delay. but overall, what we've seen has been very promising. we have seen young people returning ballots at rates we've never seen before. we've seen black voters returning those ballots at rates we've not expected. and right now we are doing exceptionally well in mail-in balloting. but we know that 750,000 votes a huge number. so, we're hoping that people will hear us and understand that at this point do not put it in the mail. georgia is in that failings of states that require your ballot be received by 7:00 p.m. on november 3rd. that means take it to a drop box. all but 31 counties have them.

in the 31 counties without dropboxes, you can take it to the elections office, but make sure certain you get it in. >> one of the other dynamics that to me has emotional heft right now for this year's election is that unlike previous years where most of the vote has come in on election day, this year it does seem like most of the vote is going to be cast ahead of election day. voters of all kinds and all places collectively will vote more in advance of election day than on the day of. one of the things that does is it creates a lot of energy out there and a lot of potential resources out there of people who have already done their personal part, people ahead of election day, they have already got their ballot cast and they're sure it's going to be counts and they still want to help. they still want to do more. they are anxious about the election outcomes and they want to contribute. what are you telling people that feel that way right now that have more than they want to do than just casting their ballot because we've got it in. >> number one, reach out to

everyone you know who has a ballot to make sure they go to iwillvote.com to make sure they know how to vote. number two, go to fairfight2020.com and sign up to be a volunteer. we need people not only to serve as poll observers throughout the process but we're going to have to chase a lot of these ballots, folks who do everything they're supposed to but make one mistake. in a number of states they have the ability to fix mistakes. it's called curing your ballot. we need people to sign up to be part of chasing those ballots and making sure every vote that gets cast gets counted. the last thing is, make sure you have conversations. i know everyone is talking about the election, but be having conversations about how to vote, answering questions and getting past the haranguing or the lecturing to the invitation. if you have challenges you want to see fixed, and rachel you said this perfectly, we've got to go all the way down to the

bottom of the ballot. the closer we are to the bottom of the ballot, the closer we are at home. we need to have conversations not just about the changes at the national level but the changes at home. and every voice has to be a part of that change. >> stacey abrams, the founder of fair fight and fair count. thank you so much for being with us. i know there's going to be very little sleep for you over the next week, but i have a feeling we'll be back in touch with you over the next few days. thank you so much. >> looking forward to it. take care. we've got a lot more news to get to tonight. a night both a week before the election and smack dab in the middle of what appears to be the newest and largest covid wave sweeping across the country. there is a scientific development on the covid side that is clear as a bell and very applicable to all of our lives that you should know about. and we're going to talk with the scientists who developed that and explained it coming up next. stay with us. it's time for sleep number's veterans day sale

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here's the front page of the greenville news out of greenville, south carolina today. see the headline there. virus down right scarey for clemson residents. you see the subheading there too, cases make residents want to draw an invisible line between themselves and students as cases tick up in the college town at clemson, south carolina. that article about how fearful those residents are of catching coronavirus, that sits on the front page alongside this other story, quote, pence visit to thank graham, vice president pence coming to greenville despite covid positive staffers. just days after a whole bunch, five, of his closest staff members and advisers tested positive for covid, vice president pence is refusing to quarantine himself despite admitting he was in close contact with those covid patients. the vice president has nevertheless decided he will make a campaign stop in greenville, south carolina, today, foisting himself and his possible infection on a community freaking out about

covid, all to boost lindsey graham over jaime harrison. and maybe hopefully not starting a new local outbreak while he's doing so, thanks from the community. speaking of holding rallies in a pandemic, here's the "chippewa herald," quote, doctors again ask to cancel rallies. plea comes after deadliest week in case surge. wisconsin recorded 64 coronavirus deaths today, its worst day so far. doctors pleading with the presidential campaign to cancel their rallies. over in omaha, nebraska, "the omaha world herald" reports nebraska is still near top of pandemic's third wave. west and upper midwest feel brunt. helena, montana, this is the front page of the independent record. virus levels rise in waste water.

20 fold increase seen in east helena. helena levels double. that waste water statistic is useful because it usually tells you how much more prevalent the virus is in your community than you can tell from the case count. it can tell you when you're about to see the numbers go up in term of cases even before individual testing reveals exactly who's got it. this is the front page of dallas morning news today, a call for help, el paso county in crisis stage. with hospitals full, officials urge residents to stay home 14 days. right after that, hospitals watch, wait and worry. numbers begin scary relentless march up, leaving almost no region of u.s. safe from surge. "st. louis postdispatch," an expanding pandemic. there is no safe place. aberdeen, south dakota, "the american news," covid-19 active cases and hospitalizations hit record highs. it's the same story different state, "register herald" in west virginia, front page today,

record hospitalizations, covid cases spike across the country and in west virginia. front page of the "washington post" today right next to barrett confirmed to supreme court is this stark warning, hospitals nationwide see flood of patients. covid surge sparks fresh fears that facilities will have to ration care. the post counts 41 states plus puerto rico have more cases. than they did end of last month. according to the data set, we have record high hospitalizations in alaska, arkansas, idaho, indiana, iowa, kentucky, minnesota, nebraska, new mexico, north dakota, ohio, oklahoma, south dakota, utah, west virginia, wisconsin, wyoming. did we leave any place out? president says it's all because of testing. testing doesn't put you in the hospital. no matter what metric you are using, none of it is good. as i mentioned a moment ago, there is one bright spot in the news today, some clarity, some

clear provable clarity that frankly ought to create its own political environment on what we can do provably to get out of this mess. that story's next.

covid-19 is still in our communities, and it is still spreading. the evidence could not be clearer. wearing a mask is not only safe, but it is necessary to avoid another shutdown. therefore i'm announcing that beginning 12:01 a.m. july 3rd every kansan in a public space must wear a mask. >> governor laura kelly of the great state of kansas speaking this summer announcing a statewide mask mandate in kansas as cases began to take off in her state. one problem though in kansas, the month before the republican controlled legislature in kansas

had held an all night marathon session specifically to neuter the democratic governor's powers, to strip her of the emergency powers that she was using to try to fight covid in her state. so, governor kelly could issue whatever mandate she wanted, but thanks to republicans in the legislature stripping her powers, her public health orders didn't mean anything statewide. any and every kansas county had the option to opt out of her orders if they wanted to. and boy did they. there's 105 counties in kansas. after governor kelly issued her mask mandate, more than 80 of the 105 counties in the state opted out of it. a couple dozen counties in blue there, those are the ones that didn't opt out. in the end it was 20 counties that enforced the mandate. that has been the situation in kansas since july. 20 counties with a mask mandate and the rest of the state without one. and among all the other things that that meant and all the

things that means, it's an environment that scientists call a natural experiment. here's a chart of average daily coronavirus cases overtime in kansas. this was just released by professor donna ginter at the university of kansas. look at this closely for a second. what they've done is marked the date the governor issued the mask mandate, july 3rd, and two weeks later, july 17th. that's the point you would start to see the effects of a policy change like a mask mandate. that's basically when the mandate goes into effect. the blue line here, that's covid cases in the counties that actually did implement the mask mandate. that's the 20 counties. you can see that two weeks after the mandate goes into effect, cases start dropping, come back up over time, go back down. overall it basically stays flat in the 20 counties with the mask mandate. now look at the red line.

the red line, they started off much lower when the mask mandate went into effect, but those are the counties that opted out of it. see the difference? two weeks after the mandate was issued, the cases started climbing in those counties, and then in mid to late august, the case numbers just took off and never looked back. look at how the fate of those two sets of counties has diverged. mask mandate counties in blue. those stayed basically flat. no-mask mandate counties, those are red, they take off inexorably. through mid-october, the new case rate in the no-mandate counties, in the red counties, was double the rate of new cases in the counties with the mask mandate. double. in other words, this is as simple as science gets. masks work. you can see it in this natural experiment in kansas. mask mandates work. i mean, science is really that clear, right?

that is a blessing to us that we have such clarity on what we can do to keep our case numbers at least flat, if not coming down. it also shows as blessed as we are by the science, we are cursed in terms of our political leadership, right? with a president who in the face even of evidence like that, still wants to be like, i've heard mixed messages about masks. i don't know. maybe they give you covid. no, actually, this is one thing where it is actually super, super, super, super clear. leadership that doesn't get it and that is the other side of this, and that's another issue, but the science could not be clearer. how do we make the most of that? joining us now is one of the people who conducted this new study. donna ginther is professor of economics and the director of the institute for policy and social research at the university of kansas. professor ginther, it's an honor to have you with us tonight. thank you so much for sharing some time with us. >> well, thank you for having me, rachel. if you want another job, you should start teaching economics. >> i did very poor -- i did very poorly in economics in college. i don't -- i didn't want -- i

wouldn't go there. but, actually, let me ask you if when i was summarizing your findings, is there anything i got wrong or put the wrong emphasis on or something i should have pointed out that i missed? >> couldn't have done it better. you got the whole point. cases were flat in counties that had a mask mandate and they exceeded -- rate of growth exceeded in the counties without. so -- >> were you -- >> the mandate. >> were you surprised to arrive at such clear-cut findings. i mean, i am not a scientist, but looking at this, the result sort of does leap off the page. i imagine you and your colleagues had some expectations as to what you'd find, but did you expect it to be this blunt? >> we looked at it really early on and didn't really see any effect, so six weeks later we did the analysis, you know, a week or so ago, and as you said, it just leapt off the page. we didn't have to do any, you know, sophisticated statistical model at all. we just ran the regressions and

get those estimates that case rates had fallen. >> you're at the university of kansas. you're the director of the institute for policy and social research. this is kansas-specific study of a kansas natural experiment that was created by a sort of peculiarity of the kansas policymaking process in the time of this pandemic. i have to ask if your research and your findings here are proving influential in kansas. if this has led to any sort of discussion about reconsidering whether there ought to be a statewide mandate or whether some of those counties that opted out might want to thing their minds. >> the governor and the legislative leaders met today, and they decided to be more proactive about encouraging local governments to use masks. they stopped short of a mandate, but they are speaking with one voice about the importance of

masks in the state. so i remain hopeful that we can move in the right direction. >> one of the variables that i was interested in in your study is that while there were 20 states that you described as plainly implementing the mask mandate and those ended up being the states represented by the blue line on that graph. >> and county -- >> there were a small number of states that decided to go along with the mandate, but you considered them effectively to not have effectively implemented that. can you describe that a little bit? those in between -- those in-between counties. >> there's three different types of counties. there's one where the city set a mask mandate but the county didn't. partial compliance. counties that took the mask mandate very late in the game so, you know, they haven't had enough time to have the mandate take effect. and then were the counties that didn't enforce. if they didn't enforce then the

mask mandate wasn't effective. the partial -- if we put the partial compliance counties in, the case rates don't fall by 50%, they fall by about 30%. so what we did with the 50% number is we wanted to compare always mask-wearing to never mask-wearing, as opposed to the partial compliers. so even with partial compliance, you still see a very large effect. >> that is -- that's important because i think sometimes people think that if they can't do it perfectly, they shouldn't try. we've seen arguments from some governors in other states, for example, who have said, i don't think people will -- i don't think everybody will go along with it even if i do put in place a mandate. even with partial compliance, you see a benefit. it's just incredibly, incredibly valuable research, professor ginther. thank you and your colleagues at the university of kansas for doing it and thanks for helping us understand it tonight. long may you wave. i hope people understand this and take it to heart. >> well, thank you for having me. >> all right. we'll be right back. stay with us.

the election ends one week from tonight. are you pacing yourself?

by which i mean are you doing everything you could conceivably do to wake up a week from tomorrow knowing that you did everything you could possibly do? all right. that's going to do it for me on tv tonight. i will see you again tomorrow. "way too early with kasie hunt" with kasie hunt is up next. over the last 32 years, the dodgers have knocked on the door for this a few times. this year, they kicked it in. the los angeles dodgers win the world series, after a season marked by coronavirus to the very end. on the heels of their nba title, the question is can los angeles call 2020 a win? the only ones. and with election day just six days away, the president predicting a, quote, great red wave. claims he's leading almost everywhere. the question is, what