Districts taking a much more cautious approach and even dr. Birx says that the science are coronavirus and children is unsettled. What i cant tell you for sure, despite the south korea study, is whether children under 10 in the United States dont spread the virus the same as children over 10. Think i thats still an open question that needs to be studies and we certainly know that children do get infected and its unclear how happenedly they spread the virus. This much is clues. The School Conversation gets easier if the case curve flattens so is dr. Birx right when she says numbers improving. The United States well over the 4 million case mark. Another 68,000 cases added on thursday. 920,000 plus in the past 14 days. In the twoweek time frame the United States has registered its four highest days from new cases and you can see the signals in the data alarming. A third consecutive day of 100 now lives lost. Still, we know death cases and numbers that will go down or stop going up so fast only when states get their act together. As dr. Birx suggests, when you look at this map, it is way more encouraging than days and weeks ago. Still, 18 states heading in the wrong direction. Thats the orange and the red but 26 States Holding steady and six states, the case count is going down. Importantly florida on the way down, a big driver in the summer surge. Texas holding steady, another pig driver in the summer surge and arizona going down, another big driver of the summer surge and california, the state with the most number of cases, holding steady. When you compare this to one month ago and look at all that red and orange, florida, texas, arizona and california among them we are in a better place today, at least today than we were a month ago. Lets look more closely at the new case trend. Just shoe of 19,000 new cases on memorial day and by july 4th 53,000 plus. Thats not the direction you want to go in. The question is does that glassning hole. Lets take a closer look. This is california in just the past few days. You do not want to be near or above 10,000 cases but if you look at the sevenday moving around. That line, what dr. Birx calls a plateau, can you keep it flat and drive it down especially when your life this summer has been this. Thats california throughout the summer surge. Can you hold the platt know. Now lets take a look at texas and start here, this the the summer surge in california, horrible. The question is this sevenday moving average, can you flatten it down . From texas, a different perspective, last week, high numbers, 10,000 cases and above some days but when you average it out is texas plateauing, maybe even starting to come down. Thats a great question and if youre florida and dealing with this. Remember that. Now lets look at florida. This has been a key driver in the summer surge. Almost straight up and now we do see some evidence, 10,000 cases yesterday. Dont want to be above 10,000 but florida recorded a day above 15,000 and the question is will this plateau hold, florida is dat nifng and maybe even dipping a little bit even though it had 10,000 new cases yesterday. This has been part of our summer surge conversation. Lets go to our rosa norz. The governor suggests things are improving. Are they . Reporter you know, he did. He said that cases were stabilizing, and just as you mentioned for the past few days weve been monitoring these numbers and they have been at or about 10,000. Well, today that streak broken. The new number of cases today, 12,444. This means that the state of florida has surpassed 400,000 cases. Miamidade county here where i am, used to akouptd for 24 of the total cases. Now its jumped 25 . With all that said yesterday Governor Ron Desantis claiming that the cases have stabilized. Take a listen. We clearly stabilized with the cases. The numbers positive are better this week than the previous week. If you take out south florida, the rest of the state is trending even better in that, although i do think south florida, you know, has definitely stabilized and miami has shown some signs of improvement as well so i actually think that the trend look, youve got to look at all of this. Theres a bunch of different data points, but were trending much better today, you know, than we were two weeks ago. You know, i asked an Infectious Disease expert dr. Eileen marty here in miamidade her take, and she says that its too early to make the call to say that these numbers have stabilized. She says look at the icus in Miamidade County right now they are operating at is 32 boston passically mean theres for patients than icu kids and she says look at the hospitalizations. According to the county those have increased by 27 in the past two weeks and icus by 37 and ventilators by 71 . The Positivity Rate, the 14day average is at 19. 5 and as we look statewide these numbers are not looking very good either. The 55 icu hospitals are at capacity meaning they do not have icu beds. Now, all of this is happening in the background as there is a discontinued battle over the reopening of schools unless state of florida with governor ran desantis pushing for the reopening of inperson instruction and now teachers are suing him to try to stop the reopening. Well, the u. S. Surgeon general said earlier this week that schools could reopen but so long as transmission rates went down, that the transmission rates had to go down. The u. S. Surgeon general was in niemi for a press event and caught up with him on the sidelines and asked him about this and shared with him that in florida the past two weeks the Positivity Rate has been between filene and 18 and i asked can florida open schools safely, and he says that it is possible, that it can be done in a month so long as everyone does their part, and, john. What that means is that everyone has to wear a mask. Everyone has to wash their hands. Everybody has to social distance in order to be able to curb the spread of covid19. He says its possible, but everybody has to do their part. John . Sounds like common sense advise, but i think the first thing you need to do is get that case count down and if we thought we had a plateau the 12,000plus tells us were still in for the long haul in florida. Appreciate the live reporting from miami. With us to share her expertise and insight is dr. Leanna wen. I hate asking the question this way and weve lived through months of this where we know Trump Administration officials have been overly optimistic. Is dr. Birx right, do you see early evidence athlete of a plateau in the states driving the summer surge, or is it too soon to say such a thing . It is far too soon to say that were out of the woods because were really not. I actually am looking at same data. I think that were on wrong part of the incline right now. Were seeing at least 12 states as i see it have escalating spread where we dont even know where the peak is going to be, and then i see other states that are just at the brink, that have barely stabilized, but were still applying these policy half measures that in some cases are a little bit too little too late. I mean, were closing in some of these states that are facing crisis, were Still Closing only bars but not restaurants. Were not even having universal maskwearing mandates so maybe were able to stabilize to some extent but were still facing overwhelming hospitals and icus and escalating infections. One of the worries, and i hope im flat out wrong here is you have the cdc coming into schools reopenings and dr. Birx leaning into a plateau and i certainly hope we get there. In a movement well talk about that, but my worry is were 102 days from the elections and are the president s political needs competing if you will with an honest scientific assessment because a president in the Briefing Room yesterday and this is overly optimistic. Youll also see a lot of the country has has no problem whatsoever. Most of the country actually. The country is in very good shape over than if you look south and west, some problems. That will all work out and it goes away and goes away quickly. We know it doesnt go away quickly. Were having this conversation going on six months now. It doesnt if away quickly. What should the administration be saying right now, even if they do see some early evidence that perhaps arizona would be one exam. You might be seeing a plateau in some of these states that have had a horrible summer. What should the message be . They should be saying that were having a fouralarm fire in this country right now, that if youre goal is actually going to be reopening our schools come the fall which i agree is the goal we should all be striving for, but if thats our goal we need to be doing everything we can which would include implementing some stayathome orders in these states that are the hardest hit. We need to be doing the hard things right now. We know that we can do it because the new york region did, because other countries have. We know that by implementing these measures we are able to keep the infections at bay and that its not inevitable that were going to see so many more tens of thousands of deaths coming our way but we need to take those steps and cant be painting there overly rosy optimistic picture. Just look at testing john. Its crazy and really absurd that were asking people to wait two weeks before test results come back. Imagine if youre the parent of young children, you cant see your kids for two weeks and you have to selfisolate for that period of time. What happens if schools are open and were asking teachers and students to selfquarantine for 14 days because one person has tested positive. Is that even possible, and so were nowhere near having our control over the over the situation and i wish the president would be honest with the American People about it. Well, let me close then with this in the serbs that you mentioned the new york experience and i want to put up the new york experience, the graphic of the new york experience on the screen but a even if, even if as you say and im with you its its premature to say these states have plateau. Lets hope next week our conversation is florida, california, arizona, texas all going down, but even if, look at the New York Peak and then look how long it took. Look through the month of april and the month of may to get back down. Even if, doctor, when they have plateaued if they get to that point soon, its a long way down the hill and we learned in new york thats still a lot of cases. Death is a lagging indicator. Thats still a lot of death, and thats going to happen even if they start to come down that little as they have to decide do we reopen school . That is right. We as a country have to decide are we okay with a plateau, where our plateau at best in the u. S. , still at 17,000 new cases, still at hundreds of deaths per day. If thats the best that we can do as a country, is that really acceptable to us . Are we okay with sending our children back to school in that environment and endangering potentially their families and staff and teachers . I mean, can we do better . And i think the answer is yes, but we have to put in the hard work to get that. Thats universal maskwearing, physical distancing, washing our hands, us all doing our parts right now. Dr. Wen, grateful for your time and insights. As always well continue to cover conversation. Thank you. Coming up, despite pushback from some dates the cdc releases new guidelines making the case to get kids back to school. About your financial plan. G so are we. Prudential helps 1 in 7 americans with their financial needs. Thats over 25 million people. With over 90 years of investment experience, our thousands of Financial Professionals can help with secure video chat or on the phone. We make it easy for you with online tools, esignatures, and nomedicalexam life insurance. Plan for better days. Go to prudential. Com or talk to an advisor. Well the names have all changed since you hung around but those dreams have remained and theyve turned around whod have thought theyd lead ya back here where we need ya welcome back, america. It sure is good to see you. Well, you see here. Theres a photo of you and theres a photo of your mommy and then theres a picture of me. But before our story it goes way, way, way back with your great, great, great grandparents. See this handsome man, his name is william. William fell in love with rose and they had a kid. His name was charles and charles met martha. Isnt she pretty . Yeah. I but what i do count on. Ts anis boost high protein. Rs, and now, theres boost mobility. With key nutrients to help support. Joints, muscles, and bones. Try boost mobility, with added collagen. The cdc is urging schools to open this fall this guidelines could keep stools and students safe. Critical for our public held. Thats what director dr. Redfield says. Many Big School Districts didnt wait for federal guidelines. Carney among a district to open for online older and chicago will do both, some online and some in person and other areas like new york have yet to decide. Lets bring in our bianna golodryga. This is complicated and for many parents confusing. Reporter its crunch time because some schools are set to open just a few weeks from now. You talk about cities that have changed their plans. They planned to open next month and now they have delayed that to at least october and they will be online as well. The cdc issuing the second round of guidelines is a the record now surpasses 4 million cases of coronavirus in the United States. One of the reasons we all agree. Kids need to be back in school and in a Perfect World thats where they should be if they can be healthy and heres the reason why the cdc says they recommend kids return to school. School closures have disrupted normal ways of life for children and parents and have had negative Health Consequences our our youth. The cdc is prepared to work with kthrough schools to help and protect the most vulnerable. Some of the guidelines they are offering for schools and mitigation, cleaning and disinfect frequently. Repurposing unused or underutilized space to encourage social distancing. We dont even hear much about the six feet of separation and talk about integrating strategies and extra curricular activities, curtailing sports and other events we typically see during school time and they will advise the School Districts to work with state and local leaders at contact tracing. All of this, of course, seems to be very vague especially if this is a 2. 0 goad line that they are reissuing weeks away from school reopening. Lots to consider. The health of teachers and custodial staff. Many of them are over the age of 50 and thats putting them at a higher risk as well and one thing that stood out to me, and were talking about the age of children t. Varies k12. The help of shows most children are health he and can survive coronavirus if they dont have have many side effects at all, but you do see some discrepancy in what weve seen over younger children to older ages. Adolescents 1017 may be more likely to be infected with sars cov2 but adolescents dont be at a higher risk of developing severe illness. We dont know what this means in terms ectors and whether they can transmit the disease and the final thing would i like to point out is the cdc knows what happened in countries like denmark and singapore and china and taiwan that there have been lower infection rates, but mind you, john, none of those countries opened their schools where the infection rate was so high in the community. Most of them also are near as diverse or as complicated as you go through our 50 states. Thank you so much for very important insight. Lets continue the conversation. 6. 6 of reported cases are in children under the age of 18 but it does add this. The more individuals a person interacts with and the longer the interaction, the higher the risk of covid19 spread. Lets discuss with annette anderson, the Deputy Director for john hopkins for safe and healthy schools. Every anchor of this program is looking for advice and trying to sort through the conflicting advice. Cdc recommendations now that are late abeinna very well put it. This is crunch time for parents. Do you see this document as helpful . Is it too little too late or does it matter because atlanta has to make a very different decision from omaha that has to make a very different decision from el paso and so on . I dont think that it makes a difference, john. I think quite honestly parents are still very concerned that any level of transmission above zero is sun separable so parents are voting with their feet about this t. Parents are trying very diligently to get the information about whether their Community Spread has decreased to a safe level, but quite honestly right now until we can figure out how to get those covid case numbers in communities lower low enough or to sero, i think many parents are going to continue to vote with their feet on this. Parents are concerned. To your point about parents voting with their feet. This is a poll from the associated press. Open as usual. 8 of americans. Open with minor adjustments, 14 of parents say that. Open with major adjustments, 46 and not open at all 31 , so i look at the concern right there. You are looking at 77 in the end if youre going to open. Make sure you have major adjustments or dont open at all. Parents, the other flip side of that is some parents have to go back to work. Some parents were not thrilled with the Remote Learning experience. Yeah. Are you convinced that School Districts learned lessons from that and if you have Remote Learning this time, it will be better . I think that School Districts are pivoting very quickly to try to have plans in place for fall. I think that districts are starting to issue plans that have a phase one, phase two much hike many of the municipal governments, have but i think that as as parents continue to voice concerns and say that they are not ready to put their children back at risk in physical school buildings, districts are trying to respond to that. I think this is a national movement. Youre hearing from patients all over the country right now that parents want their children to be safe, and so what youre also hearing is that parents are just concerned because we all have had a first