New york tiles first reported today a leaked draft from the centers for Disease Control that suggest 3,000 deaths per day by the beginning of june. That is nearly twice the daily death rate were currently experiencing and forecast 200,000 new cases each day by the end of the month up from 25,000 cases a day currently. Now, that sounds very high and we should note here modelling the future course of the virus has been notoriously difficult. You never really know what to make of anything that comes out of the Trump Administration. Today the white house distanced itself from that document saying this is not a white house document nor has it been presented to the Coronavirus Task force or gone inter agency vetting. This is not done by the task force or data the task force analyzed and the numbers are unfinished, projections shown to the cdc as a work in progress. While the exact numbers and charts in the cdc document may differ from the final results, they show accurately how covid19 cases could spiral out of control. The main point this cdc draft communicates is what those of us who closely follow the data also see. The new york, new jersey, connecticut outbreaks, the worst in the country have accounted for a huge share of deaths and cases. Those states have peaked and are now on the decline. When you take those states out of the national picture, you can see National Cases in other places are growing, and they are growing in texas and tennessee and iowa and kansas and many other states that are reopening. In fact, the editor and publisher of the website Josh Marshall has been breaking out the graphs of u. S. Cases. You can see in this chart, the orange line represents new york, new jersey and connecticut and you can see the virus has already peaked and is declining, right . Its trending down. The yellow line is the rest of the country, not including those three states. That line is trending up. So the point is that the virus is continuing to spread outside of the first major epicenter and the sheer carnage of it remains shocking. Right now we are still staring down the barrel of 1800 or 1600 or 1700 death as day and this document from the cdc is consemiplaconsem contemplating it being worse. What is the trump strategy for that . The only response for strategy is centered around the president s reelection, something thats clear from the beginning of the outbreak. The post reporting that the virus wouldnt be that bad combined with grim calamity and provided trump justification to pivot to where he preferred to be rather than managing a Catastrophic Health crisis. So trump and his cronies and his soninlaw who has an Important Role here for some reason pushed to open it all up. They attempted to blame china for their policy failures while acting precisely like the Chinese Government did at the beginning of the outbreak. The fth president refusing to believe the worst of the worst while the virus was spiraling out of control. Trump removed to replace his hhs watch dog a woman that highlighted crucial hospital supply shortages and testing delays. God rid of h got rid of her because she told the truth in government response and here is where we are on this 3407b pandemic. The virus is not surprised. Cases are growing outside the original epicenter, it remains a threat. Its killing thousands of americans. It will kill tens of thousands more. At the current death rate were seeing a new 9 11 every two days and maybe one every single day in june if the worst course materializes. And because of that, the great economic reopening and awakening cannot happen in any sense. What we are headed towards are states that are not locked down enough to suppress the virus but are locked down enough to make sure that we get a new great depression. Here is dispatch from georgia, right, the one thats opening up. Reporters visited a few atlanta area l mas thmalls that opened. At lenox a hand full of cars were in the parking lot. The mall of georgia, most shops that were open were devoid of customers. Thats where we ended up. Because the president says the country is opening up, doesnt mean well have a Huge National economic boom because the Trump Administration hasnt dealt with the problem, which is the virus, which is what weve been saying for months. And so because they havent done that, they havent done enough to jump start the economy and people are rightly frustrated with staying at home. My god. Wuhan, china was locked down for ten weeks in the longest lockdown just about anywhere. Were starting week eight right now. You cant lock people down forever. Wherever they are. Whether italy, wuhan, china, california. So you either get your act together, marshall state resources and figure out a plan to suppress the virus and get people back out of their homes or you just say that a lot of people are going to die and uh. And shockingly that appears to be what President Trump has chosen to do the latter. Joining me now for more on what we need to do to open, the director of the Harvard UniversityGlobal Health institute and as harsh as that last part might sound, doctor, what do you think of that as the sort of what we have ended up wit with . Good evening, chris. Thanks for having me on. Its baffling. There is not some magic that we have to sort out about what we do here, right . We have to get testing and trisitri tracing and isolation in place. We have to keep things shut down until the number of cases are dropping consistently over a 14day period. These are not my ideas. This is the president s own opening up america again plan. On principle, he had it right and hes chosen to abandon it less than two weeks before putting out the plan. Its pretty stunning to me. That point is a really important one. The president s own cdc, their own guidelines are now being violated at mass by these states at the urging and cheering of the president and again, his soninlaw that plays an Important Role for reasons yet determined and what do you think about the idea . The thing that really worried me a lot of things worry me but when you look at a place like texas or a place like mississippi where the cases are going up day after day, deaths are going up, the cdc says you need 14 days of declining cases, what its going to do to the outbreaks in those places if they start opening up as cases are going up. Yeah, so this is not a mystery. There is simple biology and simple math here, right . The simple biology and mat are the number of cases will start rising faster. The more you open up, the faster the increases. At some point, the hospitals will start getting overwhelmed, nurses and doctors will start getting really sick, and the Health Care System is going to start collapsing, and the idea and weve talked about this before, chris. The idea people will go out to restaurants and bars and visit disneyworld in that context is a fantasy. And so like i dont understand what the president is doing, but hes certainly not helping the economy and the good lord knows hes not helping save lives and keep the American People healthy throughout this process. You know, part of the logic here from the beginning is this decentralized approach i think that largely is driven by the president not wanting to sort of escape blame or responsibility for things but the jersey city mayor Steve Phillip had a great take on this as someone who has a small city hes trying to figure out what to do with, without federal mobilization, you just have bad choices as a local leader. He says we dont live in a perfect world. Were realistic about options. We have three bad choices. One, restore normalcy to protect the longterm health of the city, pretend people will stay inside indefinitely, three, rely on donald trump for clarity. If you dont have the testing and tracing and dont have federal mobilization in place, everyone is now left with basically a set of bad options. Yeah, and so we are going to muddle our way through this. Thats what is going to happen the next couple months well muddle, it will beeconomy. A lot of people will die. Im hopeful the summer will help us out with weather and temperature and what states are realizing is that they got to come up with their plan for the fall, the fed the asthe feds not going to show up and help. Lets build our own plan and that is going to be how we fight this pandemic 50 states at a time. Its a lot less effective than if we had federal leadership but thats where we are. You made a point about hospitalizations and one thing thats interesting to me when looking at the modelling, a lot of hospitalizations have been below what models predicted, even as fatality have been what a lot of models predicted. The virus is quite, quite fatal and quite dangerous in damaging and in new york city particularly, in new york we saw the Hospital System in a kind of wuhan or lombardy overwhelmed situation but there does seem to be a gap between what the sort of worst feared hospitalization rates and hospital overwhelmed and what has presented even as the fatalities have presented as bad if not worse than what peel thought. Where do you think we are in terms of our understanding of that . Yeah, so i think first of all, there is still a lot were learning about the disease but what we saw in new york and i think what were seeing now in dallas where the hospital beds are starting to fill up, in other places, as well, is that this is a pretty serious disease. So its possible that in some cities at some moments it will under perform in terms of what we were worried about, but i dont think that i can look out to the next three or six months and think the Health Care System will get through this just fine, especially if we start seeing large numbers of new cases developing as the economies open up. I do expect to see real stress on the Health Care System in many places across the country. Finally, i guess what the question of where is doing this right . I mean, weve pointed to south korea before. We pointed to singapore that has went into a second lockdown. Today italy has started to relax some of the most stringent lockdowns. Is there a model, germany, a place thats gone through a bad outbreak. South korea was able to avoid that. A model thats gone through a bad outbreak and doing this in the right way . Yeah, so, south korea did have a bad outbreak in the beginning but jumped on it. When i think about the best model for the u. S. Its probably germany. They had to shutdown. Theyve had modest social distancing. Theyve got good testing infrastructure in place. People love pointing to new zealand but its a small place. Its 5 Million People. Germany is a big complex country, 80 million folks. It a good model for what we could be and should be doing. Always great to talk to you even under these circumstances. Thank you for making time tonight. Thanks, chris. Joining me for more on the federal response is congresswoman Sheila Jackson lee part of texas whose state partially reopened even though they continue to see an increase in cases and congresswoman, lets start with your home state of texas before we sort of move to national politics. Are you concerned with the pace of both what the governor has laid out for reopening and also for the fact that cases are still growing in your state . Good evening, chris. Thank you for having me. My opening shot at all this is that weve been told that were in a war, and you dont put up the white flag before you have finished the journey and won the war. I think that has been really the methodology of the united states. Weve come together. Weve unified. We did that after 9 11. It was a war on terror and we came together and reunited and didnt stop until we came to a victory point, and so my concern, of course, is that were not at that point. Were not at that point. Were 50 states. Were not at that point with some states and the day that the order was issued was the day that we had the largest number of cases in texas. Right now in my own community combined with the city and the county, there are about 7,000 cases and over 100 deaths. Were not where we need to be and this kind of approach is not effective. Infections are still occurring. People are still sick. When i say that, sick enough to be in hospitals, and testing is not where it needs to be. The way you stop this in terms of our current knowledge is massive testing, testing in vulnerable communities, recognizing that latinos and after condition americans a a condition African Americans are most vulnerable. Were not there. We put up the white flag and i also believe that most americans will take lives over the economy. The white house has essentially, they released guidelines states are violating urging and cheering from the president himself, the Congress Passed kind of an interim bill with aid for hospitals, as well as more money for the payroll protection program. What do you see as your role in the House Democratic caucus in governing the country right now as the president particularly has essentially thrown up his hands and said go do your thing, well see what happens . The country is looking for chief comforter in place. Chief leader in place. A Problem Solver and thats what the Democratic Caucus has been. We have been the conscience of this congress as it relates to covid19. Every response needed to save peoples lives and their economic condition has been put forward by democrats from the ppe to the loans to the massive testing, 25 million to the continued support for hospitals to the Congressional Black Caucus talking about Contact Tracing and data collection. We could not get a sum of data to know totally how many African Americans died, latinos and other americans died to know where the hot spots are or what we should do to assist in bringing down those numbers. So the Democratic Caucus in the moneys that weve ex pended, we have given a lifeline to the disbursement. We try to step in in education, health care, in the economy aspect or the economic aspect of families. Child care. Weve tried to step in and be a comforter and been successful telling people theyre not alone and tried to battle on this war game and tried to win it. Were trying to win. Were not trying to leave americans emptyhanded and fighting this by themselves, and thats what were fighting against when we fight republicans in congress who dont want to pass legislation now that will help out states in terms of providing for revenue loss. Thats a big issue. What do they want . Firefighters in that work or teachers not to work . Were fighting this because were the chief comforters in place. All right. Congresswoman Sheila Jackson lee. Democrat from the great state of texas. Thank you for making time this evening. Thank you, congresswoman. Thank you for having me. Coming up, can Small Businesses survive this moment . Their loss could do to the landscape of the American Economy after this. To the landscape of the American Economy after isth some work cant stop. Because our communities need you. Which is why were working to keep you working. And ready to dig in. To help you keep your properties and towns maintained. Your farm running. And construction moving. 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There are no term contracts, no activation fees, and no credit check on the first two lines. Get a 50 prepaid card when you switch. Its the most reliable wireless network. And it could save you hundreds. Xfinity mobile. All right. So remember, the idea behind fighting the virus by shelters in place and shutting down a huge portion of the economy, it was what we had left as an available alternative and that we had to do it despite the destruction and the government would be here to keep business afloat until we came out on the other side was the theory. Its not playing out that way. Millions of Small Businesses for millions of them, the system is failing. In the atlantic today, the bridge to the post pandemic world is collapsing. Quote, the great Small Business die off is here and it will change the landscape of american commerce with Slower Growth and less invasion in the future. Im joined by annie lowry, staff writer who focuses on economic policy. Lets start, annie, on where things stand right now in terms of Small Businesses in america. What is not working . Actually happ what actually happened in this moment . So depending on what kind of Small Business we are talking about, they are largely shut down. So we are showing we have data showing that Something Like 30, 40 in some cases 50 of Small Businesses had catastrophic declines in revenue and their income and in some cases even higher than that and that they by in large have not been able to receive federal funding or at least many of them yet. So the government thus far has made two large rounds of ppp loans, about 1. 6 million loans went out in the first round. Up to 2 million loans but most Small Businesses have not been able to access this help and left them with nothing while these shutdowns have continued. So that just to me i want to just stop and pause on that question for a second. I mean, the policy idea behind ppp i think is perfectly sound. It being used in other places and the biggest problem with it now is just scale. Like there are many, many, many, more Small Businesses than there are available loan dollars and therefore, the mat is very straightforward. A lot of people are left out and now they are basically dying is the story. Yeah. Absolutely. So this is an enormous program that got set up very, very quickly by the treasury and congress and is being run through the Small Business administration. Its relying on existing banking infrastructure to get this money out and despite how big it is, right, were talking near more than half a trillion dollars at this point the shutdown is so enormous and so many businesses are affected that it still isnt big enough so right now we have, you know, 680 billion or so appropriated for this but the estimates are under dati indica businesses will need a trillion dollars and the longer the shutdown goes on the more businesses need this money and the more money they will need since we have obligated to them to use 75 of it on payroll, which means that a lot of them have other expenses that will continue that they wont be able to use this money to cover, and so again, as this goes on longer and longer, the gap is bigger and bigger and were finding it that its smaller businesses, weaker businesses, newer businesses and probably disproportionately minority owned businesses that are not going to make it to the other side. So what does that mean . I think the disaster scenario that people think about is the idea the government would be there to support people through this essentially like medically induced coma for the economy and revived and businesses would wake up and be there. If they dont make it, like what you have this shock to the system, this temporary disruption that then becomes a permanent striucture feature fo the economy. What does that mean for the other side . I think that there are at least three things that we are worried about that are happening as this Small Business die off is taking place. The first, this is going to make the recession much worse because businesses will close and lay off those workers and those workers will have less money to spent in the local communities, which will make their local recessions worse and one way youll get that snowballing effect there will be less and less spending in the economy. So we wont have a sharp bounce bag. Well have a long recession and slow recovery, which is what we saw in the Great Recession. Thats the first thing. The second, it will tilt the landscape of american towards large businesses, those with more Financial Resources and away from Small Businesses so thats not going to be good. A lot of ways that will mean places will lose character and ingenuity and businesses we love the most. So youre going to have more Big Box Stores and less mom and poptype grocery things and the third thing, we know that will have a pretty mprofund effect i suppressing wages and invasion and less job creation in the future. This has profound Macro Economic effects and not going to be good for the whole of the economy as we look five or ten years down the road. Something really distauping about the fact weve seen trends towards consolation and concentration toward the American Economy. Weve seen a decline in new business starts and we have this accelerating as you know in the piece. You could end up with a real sort of rain of massive dominant entities. Amazon coming to mind as people use that for a lot of retail needs they cant get in person. That can really change the landscape of what our economy is on the other side of this. Absolutely. And big businesses when we are getting to the other side and the economy is starting to heal, they are going to be accessing cheap cash from the Financial Markets thanks to the fed and thanks to other Central Banks around the world and theyre going to be in a pretty dominant position to consolidate with one another and move into the spaces more aggressively. This is what we saw happen after the Great Recession and there is suggestion this will happen on an even grander scale this time. So some Small Businesses are going to make it through and the ones that have accessed ppp money are going to face the question of whether its enough and so but broadly were looking at a circumstance in which the entire landscape of american commerce is going to tilt towards the big, the wealthy, those businesses that were already doing well. And that doesnt mean great things for american entrepreneurship. All right. Annie lowry, great piece. Thank you for making some time tonight. Coming up, covid19 continues to ravaged Nursing Homes but that can be prevented. Next ill talk to the owner of an assisted living facility thats gone to extraordinary lengths to protect the lives of his residents and his staff and his story is after this. Dents a his story is after this. Keep be. And ask your doctor about biktarvy. Biktarvy is a complete, onepill, onceaday treatment used for hiv in certain adults. Its not a cure, but with one small pill, biktarvy fights hiv to help you get to and stay undetectable. Thats when the amount of virus is so low it cannot be measured by a lab test. Research shows people who take hiv treatment every day and get to and stay undetectable can no longer transmit hiv through sex. Serious side effects can occur, including kidney problems and kidney failure. Rare, lifethreatening side effects include a buildup of lactic acid and liver problems. Do not take biktarvy if you take dofetilide or rifampin. Tell your doctor about all the medicines and supplements you take, if you are pregnant or breastfeeding, or if you have kidney or liver problems, including hepatitis. If you have hepatitis b, do not stop taking biktarvy without talking to your doctor. Common side effects were diarrhea, nausea, and headache. If youre living with hiv, keep loving who you are. And ask your doctor if biktarvy is right for you. If youre living with hiv, keep loving who you are. At bayheart and discovering more akidney disease,between so george can keep discovering new adventures. At bayer, this is why we science. Tide cleaners is offeringe Free Laundry Services you. To the family of frontline responders. Visit hope. Tidecleaners. Com to learn more. With hepatitis c. I. Best for my family. My. In only 8 weeks with mavyret. I was cured. I faced reminders of my hep c every day. I worried about my hep c. But in only 8 weeks with mavyret. I was cured. Mavyret is the only 8week cure for all types of hep c. Before starting mavyret your doctor will test. If youve had hepatitis b which may flare up and cause serious liver problems during and after treatment. Tell your doctor if youve had hepatitis b, a liver or kidney transplant,. Other liver problems, hiv1, or other medical conditions,. And all medicines you take. Dont take mavyret with atazanavir. Or rifampin, or if youve had certain liver problems. If youve had or have serious liver problems other than hep c, theres a rare chance they may worsen. Signs of serious liver problems may include yellowing of the skin, abdominal pain or swelling, confusion, and unexplained bleeding or bruising. Tell your doctor if you develop symptoms of liver disease. Common side effects include headache and tiredness. With hep c behind me, i feel free. Fearless. Because i am cured. Talk to your doctor about mavyret. Listen to the statistic, People Living in longterm care facilities make up 6 of the population. Right now they account for 28 of the nations coronavirus deaths. The disease is just rav vehicai Nursing Homes around the country. It doesnt have to be like this. We can protect the populations. One assisted living facility comenovative solution how to do it. The owner and director of shady oaks, an assisted living facility in bristol, connecticut. He wrote a New York Times of ed saying the coronavirus is killing too many nursing home residents detailing what his facility is doing to help fix this problem. Tyson, i wanted to start with your story how you came to be running this facility. I know you went to college. You did three tours in iraq if im not mistaken, how did you end up overseeing this facility . My parents got into senior care back in 1969, and they build shady oaks in about 1976. We were the second assisted living in all of connecticut. Both my grand mothers lived here and my mom might soon need our care. And so you took and yeah, as i got through college, you know, i went to yale. I studied international relations. I always had a strong sense of service. I love and admire my parents and i think what they did is wonderful here and my sense of service brought me to the marines. I served five deployments overseas. Three tours in iraq as an infantry officer. I felt compelled research what went wrong. I got lucky. I got into harvard and i finished a phd there in 2014. Right about that time, thats when my Parents Health began to decline. So i picked it up and bought it and moved next door and ive been here for about four years now. I never thought it would be back on the front line. You are back on the front lines, youre running this facility amidst this pandemic. Tell us generally what you have chosen to do to attempt to protect the staff and the residents in your facility. So, we have been watching the news out of wuhan in january. In february, the alarm really went up for me in seeing it spread to italy, south korea and the middle east. That was when we knew, you know, this is this might becomie i our way. Coming our way. In kirkland, i followed that closely. It was crushing. My heart goes out to the family and staff that went through that. That was all alarms like that we got ready to go. Y started buying equipment, buying the protective equipment. We shut down. What we did is isolate. I tried to do it myself deciding who could come in and who couldnt come in and while ive been reading articles, there is this thing people are talking about and i got frustrated and felt like i just wasnt going to work. In iraq, if we had those odds, getting through a check point with a weapon we would be upset. I was upset here, the same thing. I was up late, late nights that early march. I would wake up with sweats in the middle of the night and my brain was trying to come up with something. I had the idea of hey, we all need to move in. And at that point, it was a little bit ahead of where most people were and it wasnt easy. I moved out of the house next door, km which is where ive be living and i bought five trailers. Now i sleep in my office. I gave my house to my aids, and trailers go to the nurses and our cook and this is what we do. This is what we did. On march 22nd, 17 Staff Members and i committed to living here for up to two months. Its actually now been stretched. Were looking to do until june 1st. The whole idea is by not commuting, we wouldnt be bringing covid back into our home. We wouldnt be bringing it in through asymptomatic or presymptomatic transition and we went from families to visitors to health care people, all kinds of people coming in and out of our home down to 48 Staff Members who are commuting then down to zero. Zero people coming in and out of our home. And the result is we have a safe place to live and work right now and this idea, i didnt know for sure it would work, but it succeeded. We feel safe. So what ive been trying to do is share the idea. I dont know exactly how it would apply in every home. Every home has to figure it out for themselves. The one thing i do know is we need government, charitable assistance so senior homes will be able to afford to offer the right incentives for staff to do this. Its really hardship work. If our staff is working 60 to 80 hours a week and it cant be with their families during a time of crisis and if we make it to june 1st, which im thinking we will, it will be ten weeks away. As marines we sign up knowing thats what were going to do but its another thing ask Health Care Workers to do it and theyve done it. Theyve done it. Theyre really heroes. They deserve all the praise for their heroic work they are doing to keep our home safe. Chris, im grateful for the opportunity to share this idea. I hope people give this serious consideration. I dont want to be called a hero. I want us to be called a pilot project. I want us to be called look at what they did, can we see about doing it over here or over there . New york, new jersey, connecticut, weaver been hit pretty hard. The rest of the country might be hit hard soon. We need to share the ideas of what worked in in our states so all americans can benefit and all residents and all caregivers have an opportunity to buckle up. And i should note, tyson, you are paying a tremendous amount of hazard pay to that staff that is working so hard and living on site and part of the point you make in the op ed is that in order to afford this, this model would need federal assistance but its something we should be looking to do as a society, not just individual pilot program. Thank you for sharing your story tonight, tyson. Its an incredible story and inspiring and i hope you, your staff and residents keep safe. Chris, thank you. All right. Still ahead. The fringe theory where the coronavirus originated and why the Trump Administration likes it so much, whether its true or not. What we do and dont know after this. Not. What we do and dont know after this so you can run your organization smoothly is our commitment. With locallyowned Fastsigns Centers operating as essential businesses, were in this together. Little things. Can become your big moment. Thats why theres otezla. Otezla is not a cream. Its a pill that treats plaque psoriasis differently. With otezla, 75 clearer skin is achievable. Dont use if youre allergic to otezla. It may cause severe diarrhea, nausea or vomiting. Otezla is associated with an increased risk of depression. Tell your doctor if you have a history of depression or suicidal thoughts or if these feelings develop. Some people taking otezla reported weight loss. Your doctor should monitor your weight and may stop treatment. Upper respiratory tract infection and headache may occur. Tell your doctor about your medicines, and if youre pregnant or planning to be. Otezla. Show more of you. While most of the world is being asked to stay inside, there are people out there giving it their all. So, to everyone who is helping keep us safe against covid19 day in and day out, all of us at amgen say. Thank you. But if you look to the land, its a whole different story. From farms to backyards, wheels are turning. Seeds are being planted. Animals are getting fed. And grass is growing. And families are giving their all to the soil because no matter how uncertain things get, the land never stops. So to all those linked to the land, we say thank you. Were here for you because we all run together. Tide cleaners is offeringe Free Laundry Services you. To the family of frontline responders. Visit hope. Tidecleaners. Com to learn more. My agerelated macular degenso today i made a plan with my doctor, which includes preservision. Because he said a multi vitamin alone may not be enough. And its my vision, my morning walk, my sunday drive, my grandsons beautiful face. Only preservision areds2 contains the exact nutrient formula recommended by the National Eye Institute to help reduce the risk of moderate to advanced amd progression. Its how i see my life. Because its my vision. Preservision. Theyre going to be paying for this for a long time. They will, but with accident forgiveness allstate wont raise your rates just because of an accident, even if its your fault. Cut sonny. Was that good . Line the desert never lies. Isnt that what i said . No you were talking about allstate and insurance. I just. When i. Lets try again. Everybody back to one. Accident forgiveness from allstate. Click or call for a quote today. At least two separate things are true about the Chinese Government and the coronavirus. One is that the Chinese Government really did fail in the early parts of the outbreak quite catastrophically. Often professor suggested may have been what happened in the soviet union where the truth does not get up the chain to the leaders because of the fear of passing along bad news and refusal to believe the worst. Quote, hubei authorities may have lied to the public and up wrd to t ward to the central government. The Trump Administration clearly in the most obvious way wants to turn this crisis into a kind of rhetorical hammer they can weld against china in order to obscure their own Chinese Governmentlike failings by blaming someone else. Now, something you probably have heard from certain corner of the right is this theory that the coronavirus quote escaped from the lap. It looks like there is evidence that this virus escaped from the lap. This notion that this escape from a lap actually i think is supported by the vast majority of the science that we see out there. Circumstantial evidence is surfacing in the Intelligence Community that the coronavirus, covid19, the sars cov 2 virus did escape from the wuhan lab. A lot of people on the right love that phrase, escape from the lap because it sounds like something from a marvel movie or comic book. A man made virus china was weapon newsiizing that got out control. It was seemed to be implied this weekend and immediately had to be walked back. Do you believe it was man made or genetically modified . The best experts so far seem to think it was man made. I have no reason to disbelieve that at this point. Your office of the dni says the consensus, the Scientific Consensus was not man made or gwinneg genetical lally modified. Thats right. Agree with that. I saw the summery that you saw. I have no reason to doubt that is accurate. Now im going to chalk that up to a connection failure but did seem like the secretary of state said thats man made, and then saying thats correct, its not man made. To be clear, when they say escaped from the lab, it doesnt mean a man made bio weapon that got out. Scientists and Intelligence Community agree this coronavirus was not man made. That is not a possibility. It came from a natural source, it didnt come from a lab. People have looked at the genes. The transmission was likely from animal to human. Even dr. Anthony fauci said there is no evidence it was made in a lab. We dont know how it made its way to humans but thats not part of the escape from the lab theory. What they are talking about is chinese scientists, Public Health officials, virologist hard at work to prepare their country and the world for the possibility of a novel coronavirus, studying one maybe that came from bats or another animal and in the process of studying it somehow tragically contracted the virus unbeknownst to them and spreading it. I should tell you right now there is no evidence of this. Certainly no concrete evidence. If it were true that this wuhan vir viralology lab was studying this it would be tragic for the Chinese Government because one of the early more plausible theories to emerge was that the wild life wet market in wuhan made a species jump from animal to human and here is the thing, wildlife wet markets are where exotictive live animals are stored in close quarters and slaughtered on site and wouldnt be the first time this happened. It has been implicated in the sars outbreak and Public Health authorities in china have been for a long time railing against wildlife wet markets as essentially global bio hazards but the Chinese Government refused to shut them down permanently and thats the theory that makes the Chinese Government look worse. The theory that it came out of a wet market makes it look like the Chinese Government skewedcr up and they kept those markets open. And unleashed a Global Pandemic. And if thats true, i think thats the far more insidious version while the escape from a lab theory is a scientist hard at work trying to save the world from a Global Pandemic and tragically managing to release it . Its kind of benign but tragic story. But here is the thing, none of the facts matter here because they like that phrase escape from the lab so much in china so the Trump Administration is so desperately grasping at straws to find someone to blame they dont seem to understand what they themselves are saying. They just want a convenient scapegoat. Convenient scapegoat. Nice. Way more unique fixtures and tiles. Pairing. Nice. Way more top brands in sinks and faucets. Way more ways to rule your renovation. Nice on any budget, with free shipping. Wayfair. Way more than furniture. Working on the front lines, and heres one small way that you can help them in return. Complete your 2020 census today. 2020 census data helps communities plan funding for hospitals, clinics, and Emergency Services across the country. An accurate count helps Public Health officials know who is at risk, and First Responders identify the resources they need to protect our communities. Complete your census at 2020census. Gov and help shape our future. 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How do you explain in the Worlds Largest population has recorded somewhere just over 500 deaths . Why do some people get so, so much sicker than others . And exactly how contagious is the virus . Like how does it spread . In what conditions . The most recent piece for the atlantic, ed young write, the confusion partly arises from the pandemics scale and pace. Worldwide, at least 3. 1 Million People have been infected in less than four months. Beyond the vast scope and the sui gen res nature, there are other reasons the pandemic continues to be so befuddling. He joins me now. I like this piece, because youre sort of grappling with the uncertainty which is something we grapple with as well, i get people constantly asking me a question, even over text messages, can you get it this way . Or what about this . And the answer so often is, we dont really know. Theres some data that indicates yes, others that indicates no, but why has there been so befuddling . Partly, its just that it is so new. This virus was never encountered before by humans until a few months ago so struggling to make sense of something that we have never seen before and that is already causing such massive upheaval, that it has spread the entire world and shaken up our entire lives and that makes it very difficult to understand what is going on. Plus, its really the only story that anyone is talking about right now, and even though the science itself is not actually changing that quickly, it feels like it is, because were talking about every incremental New Discovery as if it is was some massive game changer and we ourselves are constantly seeking out new information. That point about the sort of, the coverage of the science, i think is a really key one, and i think there is a little bit of a tension of journalism and the technique of learning about the world, and science. Science is the sort of competitive process, a collaborative and competitive, people are trying to go out and find information, but it takes a long time for replication and falsification, and the pictures slowly emerges, in a kind of, you know, deliberate means, where as we as journalists are like, new study says, that, you know, you can get it off of a ups box, its like well, right, there is one study that does that, so its very hard to kind of figure out the gap between what we do as journalists and reporting on a study that says x, which it did, and what like the science actually says. Absolutely. I think we get this idea from press reports that science is a steady stream of very definitive discoveries. Each of which is very certain and which radically changes the bigger picture. Where as in fact, i described in my piece, it is just this very uncertain, unsteady and erratic march towards gradually less uncertainty. And thats what were seeing right now. Were seeing studies slowly refining our view of this virus and the disease it causes, but because were getting this stuttering nap shop of wh, snapf what is happening, it looks like a jarring process where people cant make up their minds and in fact, many of the experts we have spoken to would argue that the picture is slowly changing, only quite slowly, and so theres something about our consumption of the news and the rapid pace at which news is progressing that creates this very unsettling picture of the scientific process, that isnt true to what is actually being seen on the ground, by researchers. Part of what has been a kind of intellectual puzzle for for example and people who follow this closely and has been for me is this question that was in the New York Times today about the randomness, or why some places seem to be doing better than others. We have a, theres policy reasons, theres age demographic reasons, but even in places where the abysmal Record Keeping and broken Health Systems and turning away thousands of people at a time and a number of places not seeing it at least not yet, we dont know the answers yet and we want there to be some neat clear thing that we know that is specifically telling you why it is happening in countries but it seems like a fair amount that sun answer that is unanswered about that. There is a lot unanswered. The virus itself seems consistent around the world but the disease it causes, covid19, will vary, depending on the people whom the virus infect, the societies those people live in, so you would expect a huge amount of variation, and when you have a pandemic this widespread, and this fast, you also expect a lot of just randomness, so a lot of the reasons why some places are badly hit, and others are not, might just be due to random factors that we cant measure and that we dont really appreciate. And like you say, this goes against our desire for easy narratives. So i right in my piece that the virus would really want easy narratives but this pandemic offers none. And it is just so vague that it bee fuddles our desire for really clean answer and those answers may come, the research is providing them, but in our day to day quest for those answers, we lead ourselves into dark corners and open ourselves up for misinformation to seep in. I would say that maybe we should slow down in our consumption of what is going on out there. Right. Ed yong, who wrote a great piece and put on a very very smart tie in quarantine tonight, which i appreciate. Thank you, ed. Thank you. That is all in for this evening. The Rachel Maddow show starts right now. Good evening, rachel. Good evening, chris. I want to thank you, my friend, for the segment that you did tonight, about the escape from the lab hypothesis. And how it makes no sense either factually or politically. The point you are making about how politically, its insane to be making up that particular story, is something that has been driving me nuts and you are the first person who actually articulated it, thank you. Well, thank you very much. It is a, such a tantalizing phrase, they cant help themselves because escape from a lab, it has dystopian feel to it becaus