nahid bhadelia. your county health authority, dr. mark ascot said on tuesday it would cost the austin school district $48 million for safe school opening. what does that look like and what is the plan right now? >> the plan is being studied right now. everybody wants to go back to school. we understand that, but the infectivity level is so high in our city that on the first day of school we would have so many people showing up already infected, both students and teachers. so we're trying to lower the infectivity level overall in our city. there are some plans to be able to open up some schools with low numbers of students that have special and unique needs to be able to be in school. but i would imagine that we're going to be able to tie the increased attendance in schools to how well we do lowering infectivity throughout the city. you know, there's cities around theaustin included now, that shows when cities are scared, they can do the behaviors to drop down the number. we haven't seen enough cities and places able to sustain that d

nahid bhadelia, an infectious diseases physician, medical director of the special pathogens unit up at the b.u. school of medicine in boston. she worked along with the w.h.o. during the west african ebola epidemic and for good reason is one of our medical contributors. good evening and welcome to you all. doc, i'd like to begin with you. where do you view us as a nation tonight in the arc of this coronavirus, and what is the public health effect of hearing the president say, wrongly, that 99% of cases are harmless? >> [ inaudible ]. >> i thought -- >> sorry about that. yeah, we've been hearing -- >> there we go. you were muted. >> look at that. six months into the pandemic, i still haven't managed that. what we have accomplished, though, is that what we're hearing is the death rates are very low, and that's true. you know, let's focus on the fact that those are pretty low, and we've done some good advances in the last few months. we have figured out a medication that can decrease the duration of hospitalization, one that can decrease mortality rates. we've figured out how to take bette

nahid bhadelia.hat's your reaction to what governor hutchinson said and the nature of the face coverings at these rallies? >> andrea, thanks for having me. we've done this natural experiment a couple of times now. we know that when we go back to living, we're not living in a pandemic, we end up with more cases, and those end up with more hospitalizations, which lead to more deaths. texas, arizona, and north carolina are pointing upward. how do we move forward? when we overwhelm the system with too many cases, we by necessity start having shortages and the inability to respond in cases that are hard hit which are seeing delays in testing. you are seeing the inability to get enough personal protective equipment and our system is not responsive enough and not only that, but then we're leading to a fallout on everybody else's health when health care workers get overwhelmed and it basically affects everybody else's health. how do we move forward? we need this national strategy and we need to drive the cas

nahid bhadelia.ok at this fourth of july video from former vice president joe biden. >> our country was founded on an idea. we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. we never lived up to it. jefferson himself didn't. he held slaves. women were excluded. but once proposed, it was an idea that couldn't be constrained. it survived the ravages of the civil war, the dogs of bull connor, the assassination of martin luther king and more than 200 years of systemic racism. just weeks ago, the murder of george floyd. through it all, these words have gnawed at our conscience and pulled us towards justice. american history's no fairytale. it's been a constant push and pull between the two parts of our character, the idea that all men and women, all people are created equal, and the racism that has torn us apart. we have a chance now to give the marginalized, the demonized, the isolated, the oppressed a full share of the american dream. we have a chance to rip the roots of systemic