The president here in washington today holding a press conference next hour and says on twitter vaccines plus are coming soon but the scientists working on a vaccine are worried you will see the work as an Election Year rush and planning a joint promise that science alone will dictate this timeline. The president claims he is getting great reviews for the pandemic management. The numbers that matter most continue to numb us, nearly 6. 3 million cases, soon to be 189,000 american deaths. Labor day is critical in part because memorial day and the fourth of july drove the summer surge to the awful highs. The data tell us just how bad it was. 4. 6 million cases, 74 of the american total came in the summer. The south the epicenter. 43,000 plus summer surge deaths so where are we . Take a look. First the 50 state trend map and it is a mixed picture. 16 states trending up meaning reporting more new infections now compared to a week ago. 16 holding steady. 18 states trending down. Down includes texas and california but heading back up arizona and florida. So a very mixed picture with the case map. The death trend map is full of sadness. 15 states trending up at the moment meaning more deaths on a sevenday average right now than a week ago. 22 states trending down in that count. New cases, this is the big question in the community. Go back to memorial day here. Why did we have a spike . July fourth. Why did we go up more . As we come down now, are we at a plateau . If you see the last couple of weeks, looks like a plateau of 40,000 new infections a day, too high as the seasons change. Look at the total cases this way, memorial day 1. 67 million infections in the United States on memorial day. A depressing summer. Just shy of 6. 3 million as of sunday and count into the holiday. Because of the new infections, because the baseline is so high the model projects the death toll to more than double between now and the end of the year to 410,000 plus americans. You see the numbers on the screen. Below 200,000 and projects to more than double and possibly 3,000 deaths a day in december. July was 1,000 deaths a day. Now for critics saying this is a projection, theyll be way off, note for history the ihme projections so far have been conservative in that ihme projecting 180,000 by july 1st. The number higher. Projected by october 1st we would hit 180,000 and we hit that earlier by august 27th. Among the kritings is the doctor with the most influence on the president of the United States, scott atlas brought in the White House Coronavirus task force saying when you hear this number, dont believe it. I think the model is ridiculous in many ways. They predict if you wear masks and if you dont how many deaths will occur. Thats absurd. The taxi cab driver knows what a projection model is or starts telling me about hydroxychloroquine. Okay. When i say this is really off the rails. Lets discuss, bring in ali mokdad at university of washington and dr. Celine gounder. You work on that projection. Scott atlas said its absurd. I believe you consider it to be actual science. Yes, it is. Unfortunately, when somebody like scott says absurd it makes you wonder what he is talking about. We do this all the time. We have a prevalence of a risk fa factor and we can compute how much attributable deaths you will have from that risk factor and you can do a counter factual. If smoking down by 5 what will happen to lung cancer . This is basic epidemiology 101. I understand a taxi driver questioning me but not a scientist. One of the sad parts of the last seven months is sometime it is taxi drivers seem to have more facts than things we hear from people advising the president of the United States and a sad things of the past seven months. Dr. Gounder, you hear mr. Atlas now inside the white house, perhaps the most influential perhap on the president. The projection says more to double the death toll between now and the end of the year and he dr. Fauci in disagreement saying we have turned the corner. By the way, we are rounding the corner. We are rounding the corner on the virus. Im not sure what he means. Certain states are doing well in the sense that the case numbers are coming down. Our concern right now is that there are a number of states, particularly, for example, the dakotas, montana, michigan, minnesota and others who are starting to have an uptick. You got 12 states with a Positivity Rate tracking a week now back above 10 in double digits. You have got keep looking at the other states with cases trending up. Have we rounded the corner . We have a baseline of 40,000, new infections a day. The least reliable forecaster coming to this pandemic is the president. He said this will go away with the summer weather, it did not. Whether 400,000 deaths by the end of the year or 275 or 600 no model is perfect. What is clear, though, is that we have way too many transmissions occurring and that many of those are preventable so every death that occurs thats a preventable death is one death too many. Ali, i want you to listen here because a question people asked, the president said back in february i think would all disappear in the summer. It got more deadly and more infections and seeing the growth from memorial day to now it simply numbs you. The question is now as it gets cooler and people go inside, is that climate more conducive to the coronavirus . Listen to this take from dr. Scott gottlieb. If you look at where we are heading into labor day relative to where we were heading be memorial day we have equivalent amount if not more infection heading into labor day and heading into the fall and the winter to expect a respiratory pathogen like a coronavirus to start spreading more aggressively than in the summertime. Backdrop here is that people are exhausted so i think that peoples willingness to comply with the simple things that we know can reduce spread will start to fray. Walk through some of that. Because i was reading the Detailed Analysis of the projection the other day and you factor in the baseline, memorial day 18,000 new infections a day and now 40,000 plus more infections a day, moren next out there in the country and then the conduct of people, the other surveys on mask use especially the middle part of the country and lo and behold those are the states where you see high positivity and more cases. Very true. So unfortunately, john, what we see right now is when the cases go up, take, for example, arizona, people start wearing a mask and then when cases start coming down, people start relaxing and right now in the United States the trends are against us so mask wearing is 5 down from before. Moebt mobility is increasing in the United States and heading into winter where we know that following what we knee in pneumonia seasonality and will pick up in winter which is very true, what your guest said, and well see more cases coming into winter, unfortunately. Then, dr. Gounder, walk us through that. People on the beach this weekend and you want everyone to get outside, safer to be outside and some pictures this weekend are not so safe if uyou will. What are the seasonal factors and other factors that you think are so critical to think about at this cross roads moment of the challenge being can you shove it down below 40 and keep it down or go back up again . Right, john. We start with the high baseline and on top of that we have recently seen an increase in counties where colleges and universities are located so College Students are driving an increase in transmission. You layer on top of that the bump youll get from labor day activities just as we saw with memorial day and then the fourth of july. And then when people are indoors more as the weather cools, as theyre coming back from maybe a Summer Vacation outside the city or wherever they go, when you have students returning to school in many parts of the country, 30 to a classroom in some places that will drive trance mention in the community so as the fall comes many of us are really steeling ourselves for what were about to see in terms of the new surge. It is steeling is a good word for it. Appreciate it very much. I wish i could predict you would be wrong but you have been correct for seven months so appreciate the insights very much. Up next for us, new allegations the postmaster general reimbursed the former employees to make donations to republicans. Hope, it is the light in all of us that cannot be extinguished. It rages on to give us a glimmer of what we can do, and of who we can become. 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Weve been creating moments like these for 35 years, and were here to help you get started. Book your free virtual or inhome Design Consultation today. Monitoring patients in hospitals around the world so that doctors and nurses can make sure you feel safe. As new challenges have arisen, weve grown to bring that same safety and support to the place that you want to be most. Together. Masimo. Together in hospital. Together at home. New questions today for the postmaster general dejoy but lucky for you nothing to do with your mail. Employees of a North Carolina company where he was ceo say they were pressured to donate money to republicans and then reimbursed. David young, former hr director told washington post, quote, lewis was a National Fundraiser for the Republican Party and asked for money and then reciprocated with big bonuses and getting the bonuses lets just say they were bigger, exceeded expectations and covered the tax and everything else. A spokesperson for dejoy saying he believes he has always followed Campaign Fund raising laws and regulations and the North Carolina attorney general tweeting this. It is against the law to directly or indirectly reimburse someone for a political contribution. With me to discuss this and more, White House Reporter for washington post, congressional reporter for the washington post. Rachel, this was an issue when dejoy was questioned up on capitol hill. Maybe congressman cooper just didnt ask the question right. Listen to this exchange. Did you pay back several of your top executives for contributing to Trumps Campaign by bonusing or rewarding them . Thats an out ray you claim, sir, and i resent it. Im just asking a question. The answers no. The conduct alleged in the article talks 2010 to 2014 to republicans and before the Trump Campaign if true but so is the question is is there a nugget here of potential illegality with republicans and not so much the Trump Campaign . Yeah, look. This is really going to conti e contribute to the legal trouble of dejoy right now. Democrats have been questioning whether hes been going into the post office and making the changes to try to slow mailin voting to swing the election for the president. Who he obviously gives a lot of money to and supports but this blo blockbuster story, you have people on the record saying that a couple years ago he engaged in this Illegal Campaign finance scheme or at least alleging this pressuring him to give to republicans to help gop candidates and reimbursed them and what it will do on capitol hill is hearing from democrats to add to the suspension around dejoy and not just if he did it back then allegedly what is he doing for election day for trump and then this issue of denying this under oath in a hearing reminder that lying to congress, you know, is a felony and get in trouble for that, too. I think theres obviously this growing scandal, cloud around dejoy and a reminderer, what, 50 days out from election day and supposed to be the official overseeing to make sure that the mailin ballots are counted and right now he has the controversy around him. He has all this controversy, katherine, and it is just more and should be used to this, candidate trump 20152016 and President Trump 2020. Scrutiny. They do the sunday shows and theyre asked about this report first in the atlantic and then the gist confirmed by many, Many Organizations including cnn and fox news that the president talked about disparaged american war dead as losers, suckers. Listen to this. Have you ever heard the president disparage u. S. Service members or veterans . Well, absolutely not. And i would be offended, too, if i thought it was true. I think this president has enormous respect for the military and for the generals and ive been at the tank at the pentagon with him. Ive been at 9 11 at the pentagon with him. This president respects and supports the u. S. Military. Theres a couple of layers to this. Just another controversy and this one, this character question, about the president. This is just reprehencible if these things said by any president of the quite and then flips the coin is that the democrats see an opening here, katherine, but they also are mindful they thought the character questions to undermine candidate trump in 2016 and didnt work then. Thats right, john. I was at the event in iowa when President Trump said these things about the late john mccain. You remember. He talked about him not being a war hero, he didnt like people who were captured, which is, of course, a problem for the Trump Organization now is theres certain things that the president said on the record openly. Certainly hes also praised the military, appeared and given somber events and now mounting a very aggressive pushback to this. You saw scores of people pushing back on this report because its a critical moment for his campaign. He is trying to close the gap with the former im sorry. I need to interrupt you on this. The democratic nominee joe biden meeting with labor leaders in la lancaster, pennsylvania. Lets listen. Collectively we have about 135,000 construction man and women in the commonwealth. We are building Major Projects like the cracker plant out in Beaver County and donald trump didnt start. That was started under the Obama Administration and i saw a press release that he put on that they mandated everybody show up for the event that he was at out there and then he stood up there and said that he created that whole entity out there which isnt true but ill go away from that for a minute but, you know, we have had the opportunity to meet several times through the years. And you have my highest respect and our Union Members are better off because of you and what youve done in your career as a senator and as Vice President. We couldnt ask for a better friend to become president of the United States. Its just it saddens us, it saddens me personally with some of the stuff going on in our country, starting from the white house. And we need the ship righted again and i really believe that youre the man that can do it and you have my 100 support. Well, thank you. Ive been union from time i was a kid. In my house you didnt grow up if you we knew who built the country. We figured it out early on. My uncle used to sid me and say, joe, youre belt buckle from shoe sole. So may i introduce everyone here . Please. Bob is from Schuylkill County area with the ironworkers. Hes a retired veteran from vietnam war and would you like to say a few words . Glad to see you. Last time i saw you this close was down in york, p. A. The first time you and president obama was running. Is that right . I was on the fence line. In an auditorium crowd. I was going to get your autd graph. Pen and paper. The secret service, you cant have that pen and that was the end of the autd graph. Im bob faust with the ironworkers local 404 out of harrisburg, p. A. Retired from there in 2003. And we you know, i started as an apprentice iron worker. Twoyear aparen hisshprenticesh and they have an Excellent Program and we cant do away with that. And for the 35 years i was working as an ironworker, im 74 now. Takes me a while to get around not like i used to. But because of that, because of the decent wage we made, the living wage, i had four daughters and a son and two of the daughters i put through college and the third one i put through nurs