the head of county's, lina hidalgo, echoed that. >> since we last spoke, what we feared to happen is coming to pass. at the end of may, covid patients were 15% of patients in the icu. today we are at 48%, and the number keeps rising. we're crossing or approaching hospital surge capacity day after day as a matter of course. what this means is reports of people having to wait for an icu bed when they need it, icu beds becoming more and more scarce, having to import doctors and nurses to keep up with the demand. hospitals continue to rise. if it wasn't clear before, it's obvious now that having so much still open from restaurants to all size indoor events to water parks is not going to turn this thing around, which is why i continue to call for an enforceable stay-home order. >> joining us now is judge lina hidalgo, head of harris county's governing body. thank you for being with us tonight. it is fascinating to watch this unfold and sad to watch this unfold in harris county. you have within your county boundaries the largest hospital complex in america, one of the largest and best in t

. >> joining us now is judge lina hidalgo, head of the governing body. judge hidalgo, thank you for being with us. it is fascinate to go watch this unfold and sad. you have boundaries, the largest hospital complex in america, one of the largest and best in the entire world. your icus are diverting people to other hospitals. >> we have the largest medical center here in houston and what we are learning the hard way is that this strategy of seeing how far we can stretch our hospital beds and trying to fill them up while also not making aggressive public policy is not a good strategy. it is wrong morally. it is not adequate public health policy. it is not adequate economic policy. and it's simply not working. those beds are continuing to fill, and the halfway measures we've had so far are simply not cutting it. today that's the saddest part, you could go to a water park, to a restaurant. yes, some things are happening. but until we take strong action, we're not going to see the curve turn around. we're not going to see the curve flatten or come down. >> jud

so, lina hidalgo, who is the 29-year-old first-term county judge of harris county, she represents more people in that county than the entire state of colorado. she has taken one of the most aggressive, ambitious positions on trying to contain the spread of covid. clay jenkins up in north texas in dallas county, county judge wolf in san antonio, all of them have done as much as they can under current state law. and i think that has pressured governor abbott, who, as you know, is getting the stuffed knocked out of him from the right, from dan patrick, to finally do the right thing, or at least take the first step on the path to doing the right thing. what are some next steps? we could have a vote by mail program in texas, which, right now, is only allowed if you're 65 years or older or have a physical disability that prevents you from being at the polling site. no reason. my wife and i just voted in person right now in el paso in a runoff election. no reason we should be voting in person in the deadliest pandemic to hit this state and country in the last 102 years, and then give local ju

joining me now is judge lina hidalgo from harris county, home to houston the epicenter of the outbreak in texas. good morning. i know you are at home because you were exposed to covid. and last week, your county moved to the highest possible threat level signifying a severe level for covid-19. give us an update this morning. and what you're doing about it. >> good morning. since before memorial day really, we've been seeing a nonlinear increase in our hospitalizations, at this point our hospitals here in harris county, houston, and 33 other cities, they're crossing their surge capacities. their operational beds are taken up. what we're seeing is that wishful thinking is neither good economic policy nor good public health policy. we had initially this increase itto issue a stay-at-home order and we did quickly. but since then the state reopened, now we know too early, too much, took away my authority to enforce these orders. and now, all i can say, recommend, ask that the community stay home, of course isn't as effective and is not appropriate at the level of crisis we're facing right n

harris county judge lina hidalgo is urging houstonians to stay home. she's asking the governor to make that an order, as well. do we have any idea what the status of that request is? >> so far, the governor has not budged to local officials, asking to be able to put in more restrictions, including stay-at-home orders, in texas those largest cities continue to be hard hit. remember, it was the governor that took control of the reopening of texas in early may. and when he did that, local officials no longer had the authority to have restrictions of their own. now, the story we did on sunday focused on how the reopening of texas unraveled in the eight weeks from the beginning of may to the beginning of july and a big part of that, some of the other correspondents talked about testing. texas did not meet its testing goals until the end of may. and part of that, in talking to health experts, we realized that that left state leaders blind to the invisible spread of the virus here, and really complicated things going forward. we focused in particular on a cru

. >> woodruff: mayor carlos gimenez and juge lina hidalgo, thank you very much. >> woodruff: the shocks caused from china imposing a new national security law earlier this week that restr freedom of speech in hong kong continued today. nick schifrin spoke today with one of the leaders of the >> schifrin: long before the national security law, the chinese communist party targeted hong kong residents it considered anti-beijing. that included back in 2016 the youngest resident ever elected to the legislative council-- then-23-year-o nathan law. >> autonomy, democracy and rule of law have always been our core values. >> schifrin: last summer, he an oto-democracy activists visited washington to push chinese communist officials. and, he sat down with me for an interview with fellow st denise ho. romised to my constituen that i will not obey a regime that brutally kills its people. i will keep my pron my thmpaign, that i will serv people instead of the regime. >> schifrin: this weby video link, he ctinued to push congress to ac >> schifrin: but after hong kong police, empowered by tt new secu

. >> all right, judge lina hidalgo, thank you for joining us. appreciate your time as always. >> thank you. >>> and next, re-election realities. we have new nbc reporting on how the president is course correcting his campaign given the coronavirus pandemic. and how tomorrow's rally in new hampshire is being viewed as a make or break moment after tulsa for the president. you're watching msnbc. tulsa for the president. you're watching msnbc. alright let's roll. c'mon pizza's here. whoa! is that shaq? this is my new pizza the shaq-a-roni and it's bigger than pizza because for every shaq-a-roni sold, $1 is donated to the papa john's foundation for building community. my hands are everything to me. but i was diagnosed with dupuytren's contracture. and it got to the point where things i took for granted got tougher to do. thought surgery was my only option. turns out i was wrong. so when a hand specialist told me about nonsurgical treatments, it was a total game changer. like you, my hands have a lot more to do. learn more at factsonhand.com today. -a

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. >> reporter: we spoke to harris county judge lina hidalgo in houston. >> do you have any dialogue witht this? >> we're constantly in touch with his office, and my plea to the state has been i need the authority to issue an enforceable stay-home order. that's the only way we'll stop ping-ponging between open and closed. >> ask for more and more but they do nothing. >> reporter: greg abbott accused some local officials are refusing to enforce his executive orders, including a statewide mask mandate issued last week. abbott resisted that move for months whereas hidalgo first ordered a mask requirement for harris county in april. now officials from houston to austin fear their hospitals could hit capacity in about two weeks. in the rio grand valley, hospitals are already overwhelmed. from her hospital bed, pattie peterson has this message for skeptics. >> everyone is like, this is blown out of proportion until you are the person who has no contact with anyone and you're helpless. >> patty is very sick. but she's hopeful she'll be back with those little girls soon. this morning we're outsid