That once had the crisis under control and now under pressure. Americas top Infectious Disease expert dr anthony prepares to testify before congress on the countrys coronavirus response. Muslims around the world celebrate. With many under strict coronavirus restrictions. Over the sports including. Was. Returns with social justice high on its teams and officials meal in an anti racism protest. From the bron james later this hour. Welcome to the news hour we begin in hong kong where an ongoing political crisis is deepening the citys leader has invoked emergency laws to postpone septembers a legislative election by a full year terry cited coronavirus as the reason for the delay she also said it will be up to beijing to decide how to fill a vacuum in the citys legislature lets show caused by the delay it comes after beijing impose a Controversial National security law on hong kong a major blow to the citys pro democracy movement. The announcement i have to make today is the most difficult decision ive made in the past 7 months the legislative counsel general election is held every 4 years it is really a tough decision to delay it but we want to ensure fairness we want to ensure Public Safety and health. Lets get more now from give you a good pilot whos been following events for us in hong kong and we expected the announcement from the carrier to display these elections till september just tell us a little bit more about how shes justifying this decision. Thats why they had been building up to this for more than a week now almost warning the hong kong people that this is very likely to happen and along with that they have been talking about the increasing rates of corona virus infections hong kong has seen on a somewhat going through what theyre calling a 3rd wave so shes using that to say that it would be too risky to hold these elections but the opposition says the hunger has been very successful at containing its previous outbreaks and the elections are still a month away and this is likely just seen as cues to not go through that elections where the democratic camp could have had quite an impressive showing or were building up at least to quite a successful election now along with this there are many concerns about how they are the government has gone about this for and for one thing it has the can constitution gives no provisions to delay these elections for more than 2 weeks which means that there are no. There no there will be lots of administrative and legal issues that will go again go along with it delaying these elections so hong kongs government will have to defer to the Standing Committee to the government in beijing and they will have to intervene now and override hong kongs constitution so once again its seen as the Hong Kong Government not taking care of the issues within the territory and it said calling on beijing to now take care of the citys governance so there are many questions around why this decision was taken and what theyre doing to our why theyre justifying it in such a manner and why it seems once again beijing seems to be making the bigger overarching decisions in hong kongs affairs particularly in this instance where this is seen as the only democratic process in hong kong where people will have a chance to influence who will run the city indies alou on the basis of curry lums decision this really isnt going to go down well with opposition groups what are they saying about how theyre going to move forward and react to whats been such a. Thats right weve heard a lot already from opposition groups mainly due to the fact that about 12 of the democracy candidates and some of the very popular ones were disqualified just yesterday from running in these elections and in fact joshua while hong kongs one of hong kongs best known democracy democracy activists was on that list he was disqualified on the grounds that he had conferred or had encouraged foreign interference in hong kongs affairs amongst other things and not supported that National Security law he has reacted quite angrily and quite forcefully to those suggestions and to the disqualification and heres what he had to say beyond any doubt is the most scandalous Election Fraud ever in hong kong history they could this qualify us they could arrest us every was into jail they could even call of the election create a Puppet Parliament elsewhere just gather with beijing loyalists however blunt of this overturned a strong mandate for modest 600000 hong kong has passed the bailiffs the citys 1st ever primaries early this month i will voice is clear allowed to the world by over. Now this is. 6 a democracy campus time and time again said that the Hong Kong Government has been trying to sideline their movements starting from the protests that began last year which gave them traction and increase their popularity they say they were poised to take a large number of seats in these elections a majority of those seats would mean that they would have a greater influence in hong kongs governance which would be of course of concern to beijing but despite the fact that the Hong Kong Government has had the power and the ability to make these decisions almost unilaterally there are still tensions within the government in the latest development for that hong kongs director of Public Prosecutions within the Justice Department has just resigned saying that he has been sidelined in the implementation of the National Security law so the hogans government seems to be facing issues on all sides not just from the democracy camp from all within and this is just adding to hong kongs political turmoil and uncertainty that many people here are facing now so theyll give you the politics thank you. I mean person of the International Committee of the Democratic Party she says the government is acting in the interests of pro beijing Political Parties and whole goal. The government had appointed for medical doctors and professors as experts and yesterday one of the experts said they have not met with the administration for 3 weeks so if they make such an important decision on medical and health were asked how come the medical and Health Experts have not been consulted the Political Parties associated with a jane there people have been saying for quite a number of weeks that they dont think the election should be held because they held frey that it will loose because in november last year we had a District Council election which is a local election and they lost it was a landslide complete landslide by the 10 democrats so theyre afraid it will happen again in september we are inviting beijing to interfere again because we are unable to have to solve the problems that the government has created and so if the extension for one year where is the parliament with the Legislative Council in the coming 13 months will they only meet when they are summoned or would they actually can act as legislated at the top Infectious Disease expert in the us has just begun testifying before a congress subcommittee not on c. Span shes a parents comes after president Donald Trumps administration and this we refuse to let him appear hes expected to tell the panel that hes still unclear as to how long the pandemic will last lets join mike hanna in washington d. C. Hes following events for so what can we expect dr chee to say at the hearing mike. Well there are 3 representatives of appearing before the house subcommittee that is the director of the centers for Disease Control the assistant secretary in the Health Department and of course doctor himself now what they will be doing is explaining what they see as the need for a nationwide campaign to come to pandemic now this subcommittee was initially set up to actually supervise the relief Coronavirus Relief bills that had been passed but it has spread far wide at this particular stage it is now specifically looking for a way to create a National Program to combat the pandemic because at this point there is no National Program in place every single state is lit to its own devices in terms of how to combat it theres been problems of supply chains of testing the tiriel theres been issues in terms of getting back to streets olds now the c. B. C. In particular is likely to come under very intense questioning as to why this is happening and why it happened in the 1st place but the debate as well is going to center on a highly contentious issue and at the moment schools are due to open in a couple of weeks time many schools are deeply concerned about opening prematurely they want to engage in Distance Learning but the trumpet ministration is insistent that not only must schools open on time but they must open for 5 days a week the c. D. C. Initially did not go all the way in on that particular recommendation but now it has said one of the questions thats going to be put to the c. D. C. Director is where they he caved to political pressure to change the guidelines and once again i must just mention why these guidelines are so important a report from the state department in washington d. C. Well actually in. The junior area in foggy bottom there is a report there that a number of state Department Employees have asphalt state department not to open. Thats the Trump Administration wants to do to an 80 percent capacity it says the state department has not met c. D. C. Guidelines for opening and that is 14 days without an increase in infection so certainly you are seeing here that even c. D. C. Guidelines are better established are sometimes over trodden by the crumpet ministration and this is going to be one of the questions that will be explored by this Congressional Committee and of course these 3 very senior medical officials certainly will have the our eyes and the ears of their counterparts you might see across 50 states and the politicians that go with them those that want to open up the United States those that need to close them down how important will it be that one how important will it be that what they say here resonates across the United States it will be very important indeed this is the 1st time youve had these 3 together publicly for a month they last gave evidence to a Senate Committee but the trumpet ministration has dragged its feet in terms of allowing them to go before the House Committee that is now happening as you can see the Committee Proceedings are about to get underway but certainly its very important for the public to hear directly from Health Professionals exactly what the situation is to date the public feed has come from the white house in very daily briefings which have recently been resumed but there has been a great demand for the public to hear directly from the 3 people who are leading the fight against a pandemic exactly what is being done and exactly what should be done in the weeks ahead like thank you or dip into the Committee Hearing and hear what doctors actually has to say. For members appear in person time is visible in the room record in front of you for those who may be remote. We have a timer there should be visible on your screen when you are in the act to speak with them they are mode and you have the time or the end for a member see baby a parent remotely if you other remind us the house rules require that we see you so please have your cameras turned on at all times not just when you are speaking minister or not reckon us should remain needed to minimize background noise and feed that. Will recognize members verbal a minister attend the right to seek recognition very early in regular order members will be recognized in sinjar day. In the order for questions if you are remote and want to be recognized outside of regular order you may identify that in several ways you may use the chat function to send the request you may send an email to the majority staff or you may your mike to seek recognition obviously we do not want people talking over each other so my preference is that members use a chat function or email to facilitate a form of verbal recognition committed staff will ensure that i am made aware of the requests and i will recognize you as members of the committee are likely aware we expect votes to be called in the middle of this hearing. Other respect for members. And because of the Long Duration of each vote doing this Public Health emergency. The chairman of the Committee Just doing some housekeeping there for those members who are attending this meeting a remotely as well as those that may be actually in the hall listening to or will be listening to those 3 senior medical professionals lets go back to my kind of correspondent whos also following events for us mike over the past few days leading up to certainly this Committee Hearing weve been hearing more from the president as well hes not willing to wear a mask hes still promoting hydroxy chloroquine as a potential cure or. The death toll continues to rise across the country. Well indeed all those issues quite correct turn on the issue of. Dr anthony found she has once again publicly repudiated the president in the last 24 hours insisting that every single test that has been conducted indicates that it is not of any use in the fight against the virus however President Trump continues to insist that iraq secure a quint is an answer but many Health Professionals are arguing that a lot of time is wasted. Arguing about a subject that the evidence is in and finished and energy should be directed to actually finding a big effect as ways to combat the pandemic on the issue of mass president did an about turn about 10 days ago in which he started wearing a mask very occasionally and also encouraged its use in confined spaces and yet we saw him just this week in texas meeting constituents meeting fellow members of the former members of his cabinet all of whom were not Wearing Masks so were in very close proximity at one stage he was standing with former Energy Secretary rick perry and was actually had his hand on his on his elbow handing him over some documents so president president is sending out very mixed signals to the public as a whole on the one hand he is saying yes where march in public in confined spaces where you are a threat to all others but in these behavior he does not do so so this is an issue and this is once again why the meeting today the hearing today is so important for the public to hear directly from the Health Professionals rather than get some version filtered through the sometimes exceedingly rhone years information given by President Trump of course president bush you say was in texas law of california and florida are the 3 real hot spots at the moment for corona virus in section the issue of testing and how quickly the public can get their results back along with track and trace the becoming really hot topics are they on the in the medical seals and also politically. Well they have been from the very beginning of this pandemic Health Professionals throughout this entire period have been arguing that the testing protocols are not quickly enough in place that it is taking too long for tests to get back to laboratories that there is no Contract Tracing in place in many areas and less you have Contact Tracing for example you cannot check the spread of the virus you cannot combat it now all of these issues have been discussed repeatedly week after week president trying continues to insist that the u. S. Leads the world in testing this is utterly false at present the u. S. Is testing around 700000 people a day most experts say that in order to deal with this pandemic or take to screen the very minimum that should be tested is well over 2000000 so there you have that issue but also you can test questions today to these 3 professionals about the beginning of the pandemics where you had a vaccine issued by the c. D. C. Well testing kits issued by the c. D. C. That simply did not work you had a delay in supply chain of swabs very many other issues so this is worthless committee is doing now is finding out what happened at the beginning what happened at the middle and what can be done now to rectify those many faults that have plagued get ministrations response lets go back to the Committee Hearing the mike we can listen to mr clement making his opening remarks. Mark is simple to hear from our nations top public Health Experts on what steps we need to take to stop the unnecessary deaths of more americans to improve our response we need to. Correct the fruit use especially those of our own draw on. Regrettably there are 6 months after this rouse claimed its 1st American Life the federal government has still not yet developed and implemented in a National Strategy to pr