a good christmas morning to you. we begin this morning with a number of developments in the co-vid crisis. starting with the breaking news from late last night. the cdc declaring all travelers from the united kingdom now must test negative before they can fly into the u.s. the new restrictions on air travel which go into effect monday come as concerns grow over a mutated version of the virus that is rapidly spread across the uk and appears to be highly infectious. the number of airlines have

previously mandated prestixs for united kingdom travelers. despite warnings from health and government officials to limit travel and avoid gatherings, many americans have jammed airports over this christmas holiday. the numb of confirmed co-vid cases in the u.s. is approaching about 330,000 people in this country who have died from the virus. and current models suggest that number will surpass 5 oh 0 00,000 by mid february, even if vaccine distribution is accelerated. we have reports now from msnbc's matt bradley in paris and shaquille brewster in chicago. matt, let's start with you. the late-breaking news here, what's the impact of the new regulations? what are people saying about this? >> well, so far what we're hearing is that this isn't entirely different from what was going on before. as you noted, a lot of major airlines were already requiring that 72-hour negative pcr test.

by 72 hours, i mean 72 hours before you fly. i think there's probably going to be, though, some disappointment and heart break for those who were hoping to travel in the next 72 hours. in britain the places where you get a pcr test are closed for christmas. that's going to make it complicated for those ready to fly the day after christmas or the day after the day after christmas. they'll find themselves kind of stuck. you can get pcr tests at heathrow airport. you have to book in advance. but still, this is a major hurdle, but when the united kingdom is going to have to start getting used to. right now we're seeing that from here in france. travelers going from france or coming from -- from the uk to france. need to have that negative pcr test as well. this is something that a lot of countries are going to do, and it's an improvement over simply blocking all traffic whatsoever. requiring this pcr test is at least going to open the taps just a little bit for holiday travel. >> matt, we know the pcr tests

take a little longer to get the result. people here can wait 24 hours or seven days. do you know right now what the testing situation is like over there? >> it's supposed an 42 hours for a pcr, and you can get a faster antigen test. it just tests for the antibodies for the proteins of the virus. this is a valid test. it takes about 30 minutes. it's not all that much -- it's not all that expensive. travelers who really want to travel quickly can get the antigen test been 72 hours and they're free to go. the pcr test has more thorough, more time consuming tests, but the antigen test is a good alternati alternative. >> the headline for the last few days have been dominated by the idea this variance that's considered more highly transmisable. is that what everybody is

talking about in the uk as well? >> reporter: i mean, what we're hearing is, again, i'm in paris, but in the uk this is really threatening. because, about 60% of all of the cases as of last week in london, the capital, were from this new variant. that's a very threatening new development. now, a lot of people are really stressing a lot of scientists that this is not an issue of vaccine -- the vaccine is still going to be just as effective. and it's not necessarily any more deadly than the original virus. it just spreads a lot faster. but the fact is that because it spreads faster, because it replicates faster, it could mutate faster. that's something a lot of scientists are looking at and one of the reasons we're seeing restrictions. if the virus continues to spread, it could develop resistance to the vaccine and become more deadly. that's a real concern. >> shaq, you've been tracking how frequently people are traveling over the holidays.

how busy have the airports been? >> yeah. we heard that people were still going to be engaging in the holiday gatherings. many people i've talked to over the past week said they're limiting or modifying them, but they wanted to travel to see their relatives. we got numbers from the tsa. on wednesday 1.2 million people crossed through tsa airport screening check points. that's a number that we have not seen since the start of this pandemic. about mid march. at the start of those safer at home and stay at home orders that the governors were issuing out at that point. so you definitely get a sense people are going out and going to travel, and that's why you have medical officials and medical experts pleading with people not to engage in those gatherings or if you do, to wear your mask, socially distance, and wash your hands. but we do know at this point that based on the tsa numbers, those travel numbers are still pretty elevated compared to what we've been seeing over the past

couple months. >> even higher than thanksgiving, and we saw the surge after thanksgiving. you've been watching testing ramp up in the midwest to try to facilitate the travel, but testing isn't foolproof. a lot of people think i'll go to mom and dad's with a test, but that's just a snapshot in time. >> reporter: that's right. we saw this pattern ahead of thanksgiving. the week up to thanksgiving there was a rush on testing. people waiting in long lines to get the test. thinking it would clear them for the thanksgiving holiday, and then we saw the spike in the coronavirus and the spread right after thanksgiving. a spike that we were still seeing just in the past couple weeks. well, that is what medical experts are warning about this time around. we saw that same increase in testing ahead of the christmas holiday, but doctors, nurses, physicians are still warning people just because you got that negative test yesterday, even as recently as yesterday, that doesn't mean you're not contagious this time around or that you won't be contagious at dinner tonight.

be careful. that's why you continue hear the same refrains, wearing the masks, staying outdoors as much as possible. >> let's hope nobody is contagious at dinner tonight. that puts it into perspective. thank you both. i want to bring in a msnbc medical contributor and internal medicine physician. dr. roy, merry christmas. >> good to see you. we're both wearing our festive reds. >> exactly. i had to wear something for the occasion. dr. roy, when you see the pictures of the thousands of people, 1.2 million on wednesday, going through airports, what goes through your mind? >> yeah. no, it's really concerning. that was excellent reporting both by matt and shaq. their respective locations. this is concerning. and unfortunately, i expect to see a rise in cases in infections, and then resulting in hospitalizations. and sadly, deaths. you know, you were talking about the travel restrictions. effective this monday,

december 28th. there's going to be restriction -- the all travelers flying by plane from the united kingdom to the u.s. will need to show evidence of a negative test for covid-19 either electrically on their phone or a hard copy on paper in an effort to really reduce the transmission or the spread of the new variant of covid-19 or the novel coronavirus. this is another reason they're urging people to stay home. >> most health experts agree the co-vid mutation is already in the u.s. but do you think they were late in requiring the testing for entry. british airways put it in place on monday for at least travelers landing in jfk. is this an example of too much handling at the cdc? >> well, to be honest, the

reality is the other countries, there's over a dozen countries that suspended air travel from the uk to their respective countries. canada, germany, israel, colombia, iran. so i think the u.s. is doing the right thing. the cdc is doing the right thing by implementing the travel measures but you're right, given the amount of transattack travel from new york to the united states in the months leading up to now, i would be shocked if this variant does not already exist state-side. here's the good news. while we've seen evidence that there's an increase of up to 70% tran transmisability of the new variant. we know how to prevent it. wear a mask and even a festive one like i have. just that barrier of covering your mouth and your nose, and practicing the physical distancing, there you go, just practicing those mitigation measures that you and i have

been talking about for many, many months, it will reduce the rate of transmission of this variant, and as matt and shaq have pointed out, we have no evidence to show that this particular variant won't be susceptible to the vaccines. this new mrna technology can target various parts of the proteins. practice the measures and people will be safe. >> there's been talk of herd immunity. scientists initially thought we would need 60 to 70% to stop the spread. dr. fauci is raising the estimate to close to 90%. why did he increase that estimation? >> yeah. that's a great question. you're right that typically public health experts and epidemiologists have estimated at least 70% of the population would need to be vaccinated or exhibit antibody immunity to the

virus to prevent the others who cannot -- do not get vaccinated and yes, the recent recommendation of 90% is in anticipation of this higher transmisable version of the virus, the new variant. if that's the case, if we're dealing with a virus that can spread that much faster, we're anticipating that even more of the population will need to be protected. >> dr. roy, your expertise is always so valuable, but especially today on a holiday. thank you for answering the call. good to see you. >> you got it. merry christmas. we want to get to breaking news out of nashville, tennessee. a significant explosion has rocked part of the downtown area. police told reporters moments ago they responded to a suspicious vehicle rlly this morning and then at 6:30 a.m. there was a large explosion which they believe was an intentional act. at a press conference near the scene officials said at least

three people have been sent to the hospital. the fbi and atf are part of a large scale investigation underway. we're expecting updates shortly. the mayor is expected to speak about this as well. we'll monitor that. ahead, a final chaotic week of 2020 in the nation's capital. will the president sign the bill to give americans pandemic relief and keep the government open or is another veto coming. >> later co-vid and christmas experts warn we're on the brink of another post holiday pandemic surge. the latest from one of the hardest hit states. and a look at one of the most famous trees in the world on christmas morning. you're watching msnbc. g msnbc. so, we switched back to tide. g msnbc. one wash, stains are gone. daughter: slurping don't pay for water. pay for clean. it's got to be tide.

welcome back. americans struggling financially during the pandemic are in limbo right now. waiting to find out when or if they'll be getting a check from the government.

the co-vid relief bill combined with the spending bill to keep the government open has been sent to president trump in south florida for his signature despite his threat to veto the deal congress spent months negotiating. the president now says he wants more than the $600 direct payments included in the bill. speaker pelosi says the house will vote monday on legislation to increase payments to $2000. but even if that measure passes in the house, it likely won't have enough support to win approval from the republican-controlled senate. so with 2020 and this congressional term winding down, lawmakers face a daunting task heading into this final week of the year. keep the government open and protect millions of americans who literally could lose their homes with eviction protections set to expire. nbc news business and tech correspondent jo ling kent spoke to one family facing that reality. >> reporter: derek and brenda durham have made some tough

choices. >> we had to choose a roof over our head or transportation. >> reporter: derek was a quality control inspector until he was furloughed in march. >> i'm between a rock and a hard place. >> reporter: the couple lives in south carolina with their daughter relying on $216 a week in unemployment. they have fallen $6500 behind in rent. >> we're going to be on the street. >> reporter: until now the family has been protected by the pandemic related evictions that was set to expire right after the holidays. congress extended it by another month. for many americans, that may not be enough. nearly 5 million believe they are likely to be evicted over the next two months. tricounty family ministries provides with food, clothing and help with rent in north carolina. >> in the past when people could come to us for assistance with rent, normally they would be

$300 behind. today we have a single mom of three who is $4500 behind on rent, and there aren't enough resources in our community at this point to make a difference for her family. and it's a tragedy, buzz that's happening over and over. >> reporter: a devastating cycle in this unforgiving pandemic. >> everybody is trying to keep a roof over their head. everybody is trying to keep food on their tables. >> reporter: critics say the one month extension is a band-aid on a bigger problem, hitting communities of color especially hard as the pandemic rages well past january, many families are on the brink with their backs up against a wall. >> our thanks to joe le ling ke for that report. i'm with josh letterman, and also -- merry christmas. you thought we were going to give you the day off. i'm sorry. but thank you for being with us.

josh, we'll start with you. democrats, they're trying to give the president what he wants, what they want, bigger direct payments. that $900 billion bill was still sent to his desk in florida. will he sign it? is there any idea of whether he's going to hold out for the new deal? >> well, that's the $900 billion question, this christmas day. the last and only time that we heard from president trump on this was on tuesday night when he released this scathing video which redescribeed this co-vid relief package as insufficient by his standards, suggested he wouldn't sign it but certainly did not outright say that he planned to veto it. and since then, it's been kind of a mystery. the president since coming here to florida a couple days ago played golf yesterday just in the last few minutes he arrived again at his golf course in south florida. the president also sent out a written message this morning along with the first lady sending christmas greetings to americans across the country and around the world.

and that's about it. we don't have any update from him, and aides who are close to the president, they're still pointing to that twitter video as the best indication of where the president's head is on this at the moment. and that's the reason that both democrats and republicans are really hoping at this point that the president will relent on this threat and simply sign this bill. >> this delay on a deal is really beginning to take its toll. this is from your paper, in fact. "the washington post" has been inundated with messages and phone calls from people on the verge of losing their homes and cars and going hungry this holiday. who are stunned that president trump and congress cannot agree on another emergency aid package. several broke down crying in phone interviews. i mean, that's understandable, but still nonetheless, heart breaking to hear. do you get a sense that lawmakers understand what's at stake here, how dire this is for americans? >> i do think that they understand what is at stake, but unfortunately partisan politics has taken priority to the

millions of americans that are facing a benefits and eviction cliff at the end of this year. unemployment expires saturday. as does the eviction fortore -- moratorium which this relief bill would extend, and our sources are telling us that those who are close to the president, senior advisers, it's less than 50% the president vetoes this, but the president is influenced by what he watches on television. he might be watching msnbc or cnn right now. seeing potentially positive coverage for the bigger stimulus checks that are $2000. even though steven mnuchin did not push for those checks. and it would add billions of dollars to the final price tag. there is unlikely as josh noted, to be support, 60 votes in the senate for this, though. so it does remain to be seen what this president decides to do, because there is no backup

plan right now. and there is no other plan to keep the government open if government funding does expire monday. >> there's confusion about where the president was during negotiations and whether mnuchin was speaking for him. missouri senator roy blunt was asked about this yesterday. let's listen. >> we assumed and i still assumed secretary mnuchin was talking to the president so you'd have to ask him. the character of those conversations, i wouldn't know. >> do republicans have any idea what the president is thinking? >> they don't seem to have any better idea than we do at the moment. and this is kind of the problem with the president and legislation that has to go through congress. on the rare occasions that the president does get personally involved, the goal posts are to move all over the place. in situations like this one, where he's hands off and lets people like steve mnuchin do the negotiating for him, republicans and democrats can't be assured that at the end of the day the president is going to sign whatever his own negotiators have put forward as what he

wants. it wasn't just mnuchin. just hours before the president poo pooed this co-vid relief package, his own spokesman was on television saying the president intended to sign it. that's why even if republicans and democrats were somehow to come up with some solution that met the criteria that the president in that twitter video laid out, nobody can be sure he'd sign that either. it's a messy situation where people are trying to decipher what the president's real intentions are, but what he actually seems willing to do seems to be guided oftentimes by political motivations and by where he's at with sort of other issues as opposed to the nuts and bolts of the legislation. >> mitch mcconnell sold this deal to his caucus only to have president trump reject it in favor of the president's proposal. how difficult of a position is mcconnell in right now? >> that is a very good question, and as you've seen, the president is attacking senate majority lead fresh all angles. that's what he spent his

christmas eve doing, attacking him for not supporting his push, his unsuccessful and unconstitutional, quite frankly push to overturn the decisive results of this election, and now it's the stimulus checks. but i think it's a sign of the president's waning influence and power that at the end of the day, there is a red line for how much senate republicans are willing to spend on this relief package. and you know, the president is coming to grips with, again, his sort of his own waning influence, and these side shows he's engaging in, pushing the bounds of our constitution and continuing to try to put together a rag tag group of conspiracy theorists in order to overturn the results of the election, that's not helping his cay when it comes to influencing his republican caucus in the senate. >> so josh, we keep talking about this looming government shutdown. if that does happen, what

exactly would that mean? what does that look like? >> so there's two issues here. we've got the government spending bill that was married to the co-vid relief package. and so if the government shuts down as a result of the president not signing the part of that that funds the government, you would see hundreds of thousands of federal workers sent home no longer able to do their jobs during the shutdown, and then many other federal workers who would be deemed essential workers who would still have to work, nonetheless, but would not be getting paid. as a result of not signing the co-vid relief, you'd have what was being laid out with an eviction moratorium set to run out within days. unemployment insurance that americans have been relying on during co-vid set to expire. the one thing that we can assure people on is it's likely that vaccine distribution, critical functions related to the covid-19 pandemic would likely continue. it's likely that the budget office of the white house would deem those to be essential

functions and they would continue despite the shutdown. >> josh and jackie, thank you both so much for being with us on christmas morning, no less. good to see both of you. we appreciate it. before we go to break, talk about holiday spending. democrats are shattering fundraising records in georgia with some pretty massive hauls. jon ossoff appears to be the best funded senate candidate in history raising nearly $107 million in the final stretch of his campaign. raphael warnock raised more than $100 million over the same period. david perdue and kelly loeffler raised more than $60 million. election day just 11 days away in the two races which, of course, will decide control of the senate. we've got more breaking news out of nashville. what police believe is an intentional car explosion in the city's downtown area. we'll bring that to you after the break. o you after the break.

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back to the breaking news we mentioned a few moments ago. as authorities are investigating a vehicle explosion in nashville, tennessee this morning, which police believe to be an intentional act causing major damage you see on your screen. at least three people were sent

to the hospital. you can see here, though, a mangled mess there, in the downtown area, we know that officials have cordoned off the area. they're not allowing traffic through the downtown area. we just got an update from the city's mayor who described the damage as significant. but thankfully, localized. we expect more information to be made available shortly. as we continue to see the new images coming into our news room, i mean, look at that right there. you can see a big plume of smoke. it's unclear what's in the middle. it's clearly the result of a severe explosion. i want to bring in an msnbc news terrorism analyst and former fbi analyst, clint wauts. is there anything you're seeing in some of the pictures that tells you what's going on here? >> this is extensive damage from a vehicle born explosive device,

it looks like. if we piece the facts together, there's a lot of damage here. this blast was heard miles and miles away. even tv news rooms that are a good mile south of downtown shook their building. there's a lot of explosives involved here. we know it was in a vehicle. and we know that a first metropolitan police officer responded to a suspicious vehicle in the middle of second at commerce. this is the end of the tourist loop for all the people who come to nashville. i live in nashville. all the people who come to nashville, that's kind of the walk. you know? they walk broadway and then up second past the spaghetti factory restaurant and some of these taverns you see, and then there's a hooters at the corner and then they turn back. it's kind of the end of the tourist loop at downtown, and the rv was in the middle of the street at 6:20 christmas

morning. there's no people out, obviously. we had a light snow last night. just a flurry on the ground. it was cold, probably in the twenties. a patrolman went up to the vehicle and believes he needs to call the bomb squad. the largest car bomb ever found in the u.s. was here in nashville many years ago. but we've had a lot of bombings historically, but not recently. the officers are trained and have a top bomb squad, and he saw something that made him have to call the bomb squad. now, that could be a sign that says this is a bomb. it could be wires going into a package or he could see some explosive materials or bundles wired up. he could have seen a clock. those are possibilities. but whatever the officer saw, he

knew he had to call the bomb squad. they backed off. there was witness reports interviewed in the local media of gunfire prior to the explosion. we don't know if there was some shooting or there was a fire and some of it burned in the gunfire, but there's damages, broad and extensive. it's more than broken windows in the immediate area. there's structural building damage. of course, this rv is completely devastated by the fire as the fire department had to back off that in case there was another explosive device or ammunition in there, and there's no report of any occupant of this vehicle reporting to the police that something had happened. it could be an attack. it could be a suicide event. it could be a lot of things that are here, but atf has two

squads, about 20 agents. they have a national response team. the fbi is there, metropolitan police. they have all the people to work it. it's going to be an extensive bomb scene, and we don't know what's going on here. it could be some kind of crazy accident. it could be intentionally set device. it could be a suicide with a set device. t just a lot of questions are up in the air. >> i want to bring in former fbi official clint watts to the conversation as well. let's say you are assigned to this. you show up on the scene. what are the first things you do? >> i think they're going to try to figure out what kind of persons or associations are related to the vehicle, number one. they want to identify did the vehicle belong the somebody and

can that person be identified. from there, try to find all available connections. if you look back at some of the bombings through history, jim was talking about, it comes down to things like license plates, video cameras in the area, look agent how the vehicle arrived there. other local police reports. is this from someone who happened to be in the area. it could have just been somebody wanting to create a massive demonstration on christmas morning, or is this tied to a broader network and a motive that isn't clear at this point? we don't have a lot of details, but this is a tense time. i just think both looking around the country and even looking internationally, we've seen an up tick in extremist violence and waves in the u.s. we've seen the fbi just over the last two or three months do many preemptive arrests. i think the next stage is if they can identify everybody involved in the vehicle, contacting that network, trying to figure out if it has any

motive tied to a broader network. is this a lone act or part of a broader network, could there be other bombings, other cases that they need to quickly run down that could be connected to the incident? we don't know that yet. those are the questions the fbi as a federal law enforcement and atf are going to want to run down very quickly to make sure it's not part of a broader network or broader campaign. and i think that's the real critical point as they arrive here this morning. >> and clint, how do you keep yourself as a responding fbi agent safe? how do you keep your team safe knowing hazmat teams have been called out. you don't know what's going on with this device, and not to mention you don't know if there are others around? >> yeah. i think in this case it sounds like the local police might have done an excellent job. it was the first responder that tipped this off. they were already going into motion. some of the reports i'm reading

in the news about local businesses had an evacuation plan, were executing it. it's remarkable and probably why we're not seeing reports of injuries. the critical response teams and atf and fbi probably work together a lot in the nashville area. they work with state and local law enforcement to run this down. i think you can see evidence of that just based on what's going on in the streets. we are fortunate in the fact that there weren't a lot of people out there, it sounds like, this early in the morning. this was detected early. it seems like in a day. there's less confusion probably around what each of the roles are and you don't have much of a public presence at the moment. >> special agent, you went into great detail about this area. you said it's the end of a tourist loop, kind of around the old spaghetti factory. it is somebody who has worked and lived there and investigated cases before related to bombs, you mentioned the largest car

bomb discovered. do these images maybe bring up emotions for you? we're talking on christmas morning here, and there are three people who instead of celebrating at home with their immediate families are in the hospital. >> that's right. nil is lucky and america is lucky this morning, because this was set off at 6:20 a.m. on christmas morning in virtually a business, tourist district. there are apartments in some of the buildings that you see the damage in above some of the retail, there's apartments, but basically at 6:20, there's no one out there. there's a metropolitan police officer who responded. there's very few people. what is that telling us? somebody wants to set off a bomb when there's not a lot of people? to me there's things i'd be considering as a commander if i was the commander of this case,

would be was that the person's intent that they did not want to harm a lot of people because certainly, if they had the capability, they could have done that, or is this a person who just doesn't quite understand christmas and thinks christmas morning is the time when people are gathering? is this a person that just wanted to attack nashville, the district attorney's office is a building on the left, you can almost see it. it's not right in front of it, but it's a few steps away, walking distance. if somebody sent out a message, revenning to the city. is it a spectacular suicide? is it a person going somewhere else and somehow their vehicle stopped and was suspicious metropolitan nashville police were called and went there? and so their attack was interrupted? we don't quite know. but this really looks like a pretty large vehicle-born ied.

improvised explosive device, intentionally set as the spokesman for metro pd said. the national response team for atf is on the way. they're the government's premier bomb blast criminal investigators. they did the world trade center, oklahoma city bombing. of course, with their colleagues from the fbi. but they are the top team. they bring the chemists with them, the laboratory specialists, special agents. they bring bomb dogs and equipment. they've done many, many large scenes with many deaths like oklahoma, malls, a hotel in puerto rico where 96 died in the 90s. they're capable. they're going to set this town and the tbi will be involved.

they'll have all the bomb community involved. they'll get to the bottom of it. and i'd say by today they'll know who owns the van, and one of the main questions i would have is where's the operator of the van? is he still in the van? is he blown up? we don't know that answer yet. the patrol officer that responded will have a lot of answers for them. and then who is the operator of this vehicle? >> jim j clint, thank you both. both of you hopefully will be able to stay with us as we continue to follow this and you stay with us, please, while we're watching this story throughout the morning. we're going to bring you updates as we have them. still ahead, coping with co-vid on christmas, how hospitals are trying to deal with the overwhelming surge, particularly in one hard-hit state. first, we want to keep an eye on a holiday storm pounding the east coast. new england facing the brunt of the nasty weather. it was a pretty rough ride for drivers in delaware this morning. forced to navigate flooded roads. the storm also knocked out power

for some people. further northwest in cleveland, they were dreaming of a white christmas and got it. parts of ohio saw nearly 10 inches of snow. we'll be right back. ight back. new always discreet boutique black. i feel protected all day, in a fit so discreet, you'd never know they're for bladder leaks. always discreet boutique are you managing ...using fingersticks? with the new freestyle libre 2 system, a continuous glucose monitor, you can check your glucose with a painless, one-second scan. and now with optional alarms, you can choose to be notified if you go too high or too low. and for those who qualify, the freestyle libre 2 system is now covered by medicare. ask your doctor for a prescription. you can do it without fingersticks. learn more at freestyle libre 2 dot u.s. ♪ of the financial system. le have been shut out [music playing throughout] my grandfather founded industrial bank in 1934

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that's why febreze works differently. plus, it eliminates odors with a water-based formula and no dyes. for freshness you'll enjoy. welcome back. we continue to keep an eye on this situation in nashville where a vehicle explosion has rocked parts of the downtown area on christmas morning. the mayor answering questions right now. let's listen. >> unfortunately secondary effects from the blast. i've not been right up on the site itself, but it's the street's a mess. it will take a while to clean up. >> reporter: any talk about funds from the city? >> good question. good question. you know, i do think it is something that insurance does cover pretty well. so -- but again, we need everybody back in business, and again, we're going to have a great 2021. we've had all this practice working together this year. and dealing with hard problems.

we're going to put that practice to good use. all right. thank you all. appreciate it. i'm going to go and take some biscuits. >> the mayor right before concluding his talk with reporters there. he said it was clear it was done when nobody was around. there was a bomb believed to be in one of those vehicles that was in downtown nashville. we spoke to atf former special agent jim kavanaugh the last couple minutes. he said it looks like it was an ied, and obviously caused some extensive damage. the mayor also saying it was done when no one was around. it's 6:30 in the morning downtown nashville. they got a little bit of snow yesterday. it was quiet. three people sent to the hospital. the mayor saying it could have been much worse. the mayor encouraging everybody to stay home with their families and be safe. but clearly an investigation

underway. we'll continue to follow that story and bring you updates. >> coronavirus meanwhile is ravaging california with death toll there spiking by more than 100% in the last two weeks. hospitals are bracing for weeks. hospitals are bracing for another swell in new cases from holiday gatherings this week and that's on top of the surge from thanksgiving. louisiana county has been hit the hardest. 148 deaths from covid were reported there thursday which topped the previous all-time high set on wednesday. megan fitzgerald joins us now from los angeles. merry christmas to you. another serious subject we're talking about here. health officials are making a last-minute plea and it's about indoor church services? >> that's exactly right. health officials begging the public not to gather but certainly not to gather inside for religious services this holiday. because cases are just exploding

here. los angeles county seeing a crisis situation like they've never experienced before where cases are exploding. seven-day average of more than 13,000 new infections a day. hospitals just overwhelmed and what that means is, they're running out of beds. they're trying to make space for icu patients in areas of the hospital that aren't designed to care for icu patients. we see tents being put up in parking lot to care for patients and we've also mentioned the fact that there's a gift shop in hospital that is now treating icu patients. and doctors and nurses are stretched thin. and they will be very candid in saying that the level and quality of care they're able to provide is subsiding because they can't seem to keep up with the massive flood of patients that are entering the system. take a listen to what one nurse had to say. >> this morning was a rough morning. three code blues, three

intubations all before noon. we have to really decide who gets the more critical bed. kind of have to say, who is going to need it more? should we save it for this person? california is the new york that was back in april. we're there. we're new york. >> reporter: and health officials are saying that by next week, they believe some 1400 new patients will go into the hospital system a day. they just say this is just not sustainable. lindsay? >> gift shop converted to treat patients. what a stark warning. thank you. as hospitals in california make space for covid patients they may be forced to put off critical care to non-covid patients. a neurosurgeon tells "the los angeles times" that a case like a large brain tumor would likely be operated on immediately, but surgeon for a smaller less dangerous one might have to be delayed. joining me now, an er physician

in los angeles. doctor, good morning to you. and thank you for joining us on a day when you should hopefully be with your immediate family the rest of the day. you're in contact with more than 35 er departments and 10 icus in california. give us a sense of what they're telling you. >> so everybody is at max capacity. we've been working as hard as we can, administrators and medical directors throughout the state to prepare for the continuing increasing numbers. and so as you've just heard, we're using every nook and cranny in every facility to take care of patients. but as the volume continues to grow, resources are limited. so my key message today is that every individual needs to do everything they can to avoid contracting the virus right now. this is not a time to need medical care. >> and you also say nearly half of the hospitals you've spoken to in california have completely closed their pediatrics ward to

make room for covid-19 patients. where do those kids go? >> they'll be shared with other hospitals, meaning they'll transfer to a hospital that does have a pediatrics ward open. but it's emblematic of how we're using every space we can to maximum utility. if you watch the icu bed numbers, you'll see that as the available icu beds are shrinking, the total number of icu beds is climbing rapidly because we're building makeshift icus in other areas of the hospitals. that pushes those patients to regular floors and patients that need to go to the regular floor in the hospital, really there's no room at the end. the standard of care is changing and patients that would have been admitted or as you just referred to, operated on for something in another time, will need to sort of manage at home

and we're just simply running out of space to take care of the most critical patients. if we don't have those resources to take care of critical patients, they will die and the mortality rate that we've seen thus far, which has remained low due to the excellent care, will certain certainly climb. >> i'm going to have to stop you there. thank you so much for your time today. we believe there's an update going on on what's happening in nashville. let's listen in. >> vehicle, an rv, that was parked in front of the at&t building at 166 2nd avenue north. the officers had cause to ask for the hazardous devices unit to respond. as the hazardous devices unit was responding to the downtown area, the rv exploded at 6:30 in the morning. we believe this to have been an intentional act. significant damage has been done

to the infrastructure there on 2nd avenue north. the fbi, the atf and the metro police department are conducting a full-scale investigation. resources from our federal partners are coming in from outside of the nashville easy to assist in this. and we will be conducting this investigation for the next number of days. there will be another news briefing at noon here at this same spot. i anticipate chief drake and the fbi will be participating in that news briefing again at noon. atf, fbi, et cetera, are all at the scene. our hazardous devices unit is with them as well. as you know, the downtown area, the immediate downtown area has been sealed off by law enforcement as we conduct this investigation. a number of our police dogs -- a

number of our police dogs have been called and are now searching the area. these are explosive detection dogs to make sure that there are no secondary devices. we have no indication that there are secondary devices. however, out of an abundance of caution, we have a number of dogs that are conducting sweeps of that media downtown area at present. we're also going to be conducting searches of downtown buildings to make sure that there is no one in need of help in those. i will say that central precinct officers conducted a door-to-door, apartment-to-apartment, if you will, check of units on second avenue this morning just before the explosion occurred and got persons to safety. there was actually a man walking his dog on second avenue that an

officer stopped and directed in another way just before the rv exploded. the explosion knocked one of our officers to the ground. thankfully, no officers were significantly hurt. i think one officer sustained some -- what we hope is temporary hearing loss, but no other officers have been injured. obviously, there were a number of officers on second avenue working this call when the explosion occurred and they have been interviewed by our federal partners and the investigation is progressing. i'll take just a couple of questions and, again, we will brief again at noon. >> reporter: what did they see to make them call the bomb squad in? >> when the officers got to second avenue north on the shots fired call, this rv was parked there and there were circumstances about the rv that

caused the officers to request the bomb squad. >> reporter: i saw an officer leaving at broadway and second at 6:45 this morning with two to three what appeared to be teenagers in the backseat. do you know about this and was this just taking them softwamew or was -- >> the officers would have been looking for any witnesses, anybody who may have been around in that area who may have seen something. the central precinct is just a couple of blocks away. i know some persons were taken to the central precinct for questioning. we'll flesh that out more as the day goes on. >> reporter: do you know if anyone was in that vehicle and if there may be any other type of -- any other potential bomb situation down here, explosion? is it just isolated to that one -- >> so we do not know whether anyone was inside that vehicle. there was a significant explosion.

we don't know whether anyone was physically inside it. are you asking me was there another explosion this morning? >> reporter: do you believe there may be another vehicle where there may have been another explosion or just that one vehicle at this time? >> we're not aware of any other attempted explosion, no. >> reporter: do you know where this vehicle -- >> that's all part of our investigation. as you all know, there are cameras throughout the downtown area. we're trying to look at footage and see exactly what the cameras might tell us. [ inaudible question ] >> i don't know that. if there could have been something and maybe some windows breaking, shattering. i don't know of any other explosions. [ inaudible question ] >> there are several buildings that have experienced damage on seco